Many years ago Cathy and I were
in a wonderful Christmas Eve service at a local church. As we were sitting there, suddenly the Lord
spoke directly to me: “John, these people
are celebrating my birth, and here I am getting ready to come back soon.”
I knew immediately what he meant,
and so I expect do you. He has already
been born as a human being. That
happened more than 2000 years ago.
Wonderful as that was and is, what is important now is that he is coming
back soon. The really important issue
for people living now is whether they know him and are prepared for that
return!
This past Easter season, or
Resurrection Sunday as many like to say, I thought the same thing. The crucifixion and the resurrection and
ascension have all happened, and many years ago. Thank God for that! Thank Jesus for his going through with all
that! Still, that is the past. Now we are at the point of his return. How many of your friends and neighbors and
people you interact with daily know that?
How many are ready for that return?
I know the answer to those
questions. Not many. Not nearly enough.
You know, all this reminds me of
many times and periods in ministry. I
have seen over and over that God operates in seasons. At the peak of one of his seasons, things go
really well, but when that season has ended the same things, the same
approaches used that worked well in the past just don’t work as well. I have also seen how he generally likes to do
new things, how he likes to answer prayer and do things in ways we do not
expect.
In our ministry I can see several
seasons, such as years of primarily focusing on healing services and conducting
Holy Spirit led services and leading people into the presence of God, and years
of teaching and preaching the fullness of Jesus and all he did, and years of
recording and producing CDs and producing and broadcasting television programs,
and years of writing and sending out our various publications. Yes, sometimes there has been overlap of
these, but really they have been pretty distinct seasons.
If you are following God’s call
and seeking to do all he leads you to as and when he leads, you will see there
are seasons. God has specific times for
you to do something. You may be living
and working in fulfillment of what you understand he wants you to do, and then
almost suddenly, or maybe slowly and quietly, what you are doing will gradually
fade away and he will begin to move you in a new direction.
Many of you who have known us for
several years know of my burning desire early on to teach and preach and lead
people into the presence of the Holy Spirit and for them to experience divine
healing. So many people just did not
know about any of that. And then
gradually we moved into focusing on the fullness of Jesus and all he did and
all we are in him, still of course ministering in the spirit and healing as led
to do so. About ten or so years ago one
time specifically Jesus spoke to me right in the middle of a service while I
was up teaching and preaching: “John,
tell people who I am and that I am coming soon.” So while we continued doing what we were
doing, I began to shift more and more into teaching about the Lord’s imminent
return. As he revealed more and more to
me on that subject and as I realized all the Biblical prophecies of events to
happen before that return that had now happened, I focused more and more on the
return. Then about two and a half years
ago God gave me very specific guidance containing several points. The one I want to mention here is his point
that now the return is my message. In
other words, that is what I should be teaching and writing about! Thus my increased focus on all aspects of the
return recently. He gave Cathy an
amazing scripture while we were praying about this guidance - 1 Peter 4:7. I want you to look that up. Amazing.
The Lord was also very strong about my not being distracted from what he
wanted me to focus on – all that he told me then.
So at times when I see people
crying out that we all need to have a type of program that we or others had decades ago, I appreciate their heart and
their desire that more and more come to know the Lord and realize where we are
in time. But I do not necessarily think
we need to replicate what was done way in the past.
My experience is that God likes to do things in new ways. He operates in new seasons. Symbolically, he uses new wineskins, not the
old tired and worn wineskins that will burst and fall apart and not work.
For a real end-time revival, or
awakening, before the Lord returns, I think we all must be open to the fact
that the Lord will likely move in ways we have not seen. It is clear from the actions of various
pastors and serious believers in past years who try to hold meetings that will
lead to a revival, who hold all night prayer meetings over and over in
preparation, that we and they just can’t on our own make the end-time revival
happen.
God has to do it. It has to be God’s timing! We several years ago had a series of amazing
meetings that still warm my heart and bring a smile to my face, meetings in
which the Holy Spirit showed up in great power and in obvious
demonstration. People encountered God
who had never done so in their lives.
Most people have never seen God operate right in front of them, right in
their presence. But they did in those
meetings. People were healed, people
encountered the Holy Spirit, people met God.
Wonderful. Amazingly none of
these meetings led to all those present going home and dragging everyone they
knew to our subsequent meetings.
For example in one overwhelming
meeting in a traditional denominational church the Holy Spirit touched everyone
in the service. I expect none or at best
only one or two of the church members had never seen anything like that
before. But God chose that night to
reveal himself to all. One elderly man
said to me later that he had been in that church fifty-seven years, and after
that night he knew all that had been a waste.
What he meant of course was that he met God that night for the first
time. But do you know, the church never
invited us back to do another program there.
And even though there were real repercussions from that meeting – for
example one woman sent one of our CDs to relatives far away who then used it to
hold teaching classes in their church – there was no large revival in that
area. The people who were impacted
somehow did not act in a way that would lead to a large revival in the region.
Here’s my thought. You know why
that did not happen? Because it was not
God’s time for it to happen. Just that
simple. I have seen serious born
again, spirit filled ministers of God eagerly set up programs to preach to a
community which they hope will lead to a large revival. I have seen people like this set up ongoing
programs to teach truths of Jesus that most just do not know. And in all this I only see in general the
same local believers attend who always typically come out to events like
that. There may be a few new ones reached. But not many, not the hoped for revival. Just not God’s time.
So my advice for anyone seriously
contemplating setting up such a thing: have you heard from God on this? Is this the time? Is it now?
Is it your idea or God’s?
We are about at Jesus’ return,
and I have no doubt there will be an end time revival. So the time does have to be soon. But’s let’s all be alert and sensitive and
wise to take the steps God wants – not our steps but the ones he guides us
in.
Keep Your Eyes on Jesus!
(APRIL,
2016)
Copyright © 2016 by John
Newlin
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