REVIVE YOUR TROUBLED CHURCH, O GOD! PART !

By Pastor Carl Jackson
Arizona Prayer Network Coordinator
Flame of Fire Arizona Ambassador

I visited with Dr. J. Oswald Sanders in Phoenix during the late 80’s. He has since gone to be with the Lord. He was the author of 36 books at the time, and an educator and missionary. He served in China for many years and maintained contacts with believers in that nation for a long time. He told me that before the Chinese communist revolution in the mid-70’s there were one million Christians in China. They, of course, had to go underground at that time and suffered many trials, including executions for their faith!

Approximately 10 years after the communist revolution, when I spoke to Dr. Sanders, the number of Christians in China had grown to 52 million believers! All of this with only a minimal number of Bibles, no public meetings, and churches were banned. They had no Sunday Schools or other Christian education programs, only secret meetings held in homes or wherever else they might gather. If two or more people talked about God on a street corner or anywhere else, they were arrested by authorities and persecuted by the larger populace. There were no radio or television programs, no internet services available to share prayer requests or personal experiences. Magazines and all other Christian publications were unlawful. There was not much going for them that you and I take for granted in this country. In the midst of all their deprivation, their numbers continued to swell. Today, in China, we are told there are over 100 million believers, even though they live under the threat of being arrested, suffering public persecution, and in many cases, execution, for violating laws written to destroy their faith in God.

In the USA, a nation formed ‘under God’, one-third of the population claim to be Christians. Look at all the denominations, associations and movements that have founded churches, but along the way ‘lost their way’ and have not returned! They are now ‘false prophets’ teaching ‘false doctrines’ by diminishing the work and ministry of Jesus, while still ‘calling themselves’ Christians! This is clearly a miscarriage of truth! Only 56% of evangelicals, a movement that came out of dead legalism and was ‘alive unto God’, actually believe now that Jesus is the only way to God! Forty-four percent of evangelicals admit they do not put their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord! Mix that in with the doubt, unbelief, and errant doctrines of many of the mainline denominations in America, and our cry must be: ‘Revive Your People, Your Church, O God, in the midst of great trouble’ (Hab. 3:2). The misguided church needs a ‘Holy Spirit, fire driven, ‘revelation revolution’ of Who Jesus is. We must know ‘what He came to do’! Saints, pray for a ‘fresh ignition of Holy Spirit fire’ to return to the professing, but non-confessing church. Thankfully, ‘God, you are that consuming fire’ (Deut. 4:24)! Come Holy Spirit, do it once again. Bring to us a fresh revelation of your Divine plan for man!

In America, we must take a chapter out of the ‘church book in China’ where believers do not capitulate with detractors and tormentors! They are clearly focused, living in danger every day, but continue to maintain established priorities of faith, believing fully in the authority of Scripture that clearly teaches: ‘Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life’, and that ‘no one -- comes to the Father, but through Jesus’ (Jn. 14:6). Revive us, O God, in the midst of our self-centeredness, which is clearly rebellion against Your holy and righteous demands. Have mercy, for our sake, and bring us back to You! -- CJ!