CHRISTIANS` FORUM
In the revival News
Hab 3:2 O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
BY Larry Thompson
First Baptist Church
Revival will not come to the church until the leadership is revived. Leaders lead and the greatest example of spiritual leadership is when leaders lead with their whole heart! We have said that the 18 month “Whole-Heart” journey that we will begin next week is not just about raising money for us to complete the Community Life Center and to repair our building from hurricane damage. I am standing here today to tell you again that this journey is NOT ABOUT MONEY. It is about something far more important. It is about the life our ministry; it is about our commitment, our steadfastness, our perseverance, our endurance, our spiritual influence, and our faithfulness. This is the great need of our church at this moment in our history; it is not buildings and it is not money. A place for a body of believers to meet is essential. But believers can meet in a home, a hut, or out in the open air, and have more impact in changing their city for Christ than those who meet in magnificent buildings. It is not about the buildings…it is about the believer and their personal response to their Saviour.
Money is essential to carry on the mission of the church; for the gospel of Christ must be carried not only to South Florida but also to the whole world. Therefore, the church is responsible not only to take the gospel to its own community and to meet the needs of its neighbours but also to take that message into the entire world.
Yet as necessary as a meeting place for worship and the financial resources are, these two factors are not the major needs of our church. The primary need is the revival and the resource of God’s people; people who are wholeheartedly committed, dedicated, loyal, devoted, steadfast, persevering, enduring, and who are strong witnesses for Christ. This is the greatest need of our church.
Biblical Background: After King Ahaz brought ruin upon Judah through war and the closing of the Lord’s temple; the nation of Judah was in desperate need. Its economy was wrecked and its military was decimated. There was no courageous, godly leadership to restore the nation, especially so long as King Ahaz lived and continued his ungodly reign. But God knew the catastrophic devastation that had swept over the nation, and even while Ahaz was still ruling, the Lord was preparing his son Hezekiah to take the throne and to restore the nation. Although King Hezekiah was raised in one of the most ungodly environments imaginable, he came to know the Lord in a very personal way, committing his life, wholeheartedly, to the Lord. You may ask, “How was this young man who was raised by one of the most ungodly leaders
WELCOME TO FORUM OF CHRISTIANS
ELIJAH,THE PROPHET OF GOD
In this section, ”Forum of the Christians” we have slated to put the interview, either conducted by us or by other people. As long the message of the interview will be of help for many believers. Also Church revivals and activities will be accepted in this page. If you want other christians in the feld of evangelism, contact us to send to you our questioniare, which you shall answer and send back to us for publication.
If you have already done some either in interview form or report form, you can also send it to us. What we need mostly from your experience is how God supported you in your missionary journey 2 your effective revival,3 finance and outcome.
We have a form of guide to contact us in the download page.click here.-- ,,--
ELIJAH: Jas 5:17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
Jas 5:18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
ELIJAH: 2Ki_2:9 And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.
2Ki_2:11 And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
2Ki_2:13 He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan;
'REVIVAL IN AFRICA
REVIVAL!!! REVIVAL!!!
Preambles of the revival
The history of the God's people through the age has been characterized by a particular phenomenon because of his continuous recurrence. That phenomenon is called revival or awakening. From Israel bondage in Egypt, through the days of king Asa and Hezekiah, from revolutionary drivers of Josiah to the reformist works of Hagai, Zechariah and Zerubbabel, even to the reformation effort of Ezra and Nehemiah. We see evidence, flash points of revival among God's people.
The new Testament was not different either, peter on the day od Pentecost addressing the mammoth crowd of people from different nations or this apostle being rescued from the prison by the angel with the command to go and speak all the words of this life. In this era, neither do we forget the epochal works of John Wesley, George white field, Jonathan Edward, David Brainerd, Charles Finney and many others like that whose singular and collective labours in revival kept the fire of evangelism burning, shaped the history of church and kept Christianity in purest forms. We can then say that the history of the Church and even Christianity is the history of Revival.
Charles G. Finney said a wonderful exponent of revival, I quote: "Almost all true Christianity in the world has been produced by revival"
Christianity owes its life, its vital organs and being to revivals.it was born in the mist of revival. This is also to say that a revival marks the coming of life, God's
life into a body, person, church, community or nation resulting in a new beginning of obedience to God and moral reformation.
It is the renewed of the first love of Christians resulting in the awakening and conversion of the sinners to God, as one writer said " revival is divine intervention in the normal course of spiritual things ,It is God revealing Himself to man in awesome holiness and irresistible power .It is just a manifest working of God that human personalities are overshadowed and human programs abandoned.
It is the LORD………working in extraordinary power on saint and sinner….."
It is obvious from the above that , the most important need of the church today is revival.
More than thirty years ago Charles Clarke observed "We are living in the day of accelerating moral decline, when Christian standards are being cynically swept aside. Our so called permissive society is rapidly becoming a licentious society in which secular man is doing what is right in his own eyes. The result is that many serious social evils are growing to alarming proportions and crime is increasing in every land"
Today the situation has never changed, if anything, it is worst . 30 years ago churches were not as many and as full as of today. Nothing appears to be prosperous today as the cause of religion. The forces of religion are making such dramatic gains today especially in the physical and material dimension than probably in the time of Constantine. But what do we have to show for this gain, spiritually speaking? Is our society better today because of the church? Instead, increasing lawless and moral breakdown. Many still believe that revival is going on: indeed some move about revival is on today, but if the fruit of this(kind of revival)presently going on in the vast segment of the churches are anything to reckon with, then we can judge that it is a counterfeit revival indeed. Because in a true revival, its fruit honours God and bless humanity.
The kind of revival which we tagged "God visited Africa" in our magazine was seeing as instances of heaven sent out poring, one of those rare moments in history when God rent the heavens and came down among men, the particular point in time when heaven hits earth. This revival marks a watershed in the annals of the church, not only in Nigeria but also in the entire West African sub-region.
NOTE: It was not that, there had not been revival before 1930, but the scale and magnitude, the spontaneity and incredibleness of that singular events, marked it out as one unique in a class by itself. Many people of the world commented on the scene as " God Himself had decided to intervene in the affairs of men in other to remove all evil practices and diseases" Even to a teenager, it was obvious this is GOD.
More to be added to revival later