MXp

***

Preface
by Lars Widerberg

Dear Friends, Readers and Intercessors, The first version of this article was written a day ago, as a word into the Swedish and Scandinavian situation. Ours is a dilemma which centers on the unwillingness to consider the necessity of revival, mainly because it is a demanding issue.
Pastors react as wild beasts, with contempt, pride and rejection when confronted by the need of considering the fact that 100 years have passed since this region was touched, seriously touched by the hand of the Lord. 100 years!
Sheep are bleating in despair, pastures have dried because of the outright unwillingness by the leadership of our churches to get down on their knees to find and establish a point of change.
Please, pray with us for a new beginning!
Please, use the following text and others as a point of beginning reflecting and praying into your own situation wherever you are living.
Every blessing as you begin to read and pray.

REVIVAL, A SUBJECT AVOIDED AND REJECTED
 
How to take up a controversial issue, how to open up a sensitive subject without causing conflict and much mental strife? How to provide an environment, a moment of consideration for a cause which has been forcibly dismissed and removed from the agenda? How to handle an item which causes a sense of condemnation and which, according to the many, ought to render the daring messenger a large sign to wear which says “Judgmental” and “Pompous”.
 
The necessity of a spiritual awakening is such an item. The word, used in a Christian context, disqualifies and condemns present conditions in favour of something else. This word threatens the present order and the tranquillity produced by hard labour in private as well as by common efforts. The concept of revival points to something which many really would like to experience but which cannot be reached and apprehended without costly and taxing labour. An opposing force, a counteractive process is constantly at work to disrupt the work needed to reach into the purposes of God; this enemy is an enemy within, called instant gratification. Much has been said and written regarding this subject, one method after the other have been presented and tried without bearing fruit – interest and hope have to a great extent been lost in this whirlpool of activity.
 
An awakening has its roots in sacrifice; routines and complacency are constantly challenged by its existence. Revival includes change; what seems to guarantee our security and identity is often marked for destruction. This little word tells us that we, in our modern brightness and alertness, are still asleep, deprived of sensitivity concerning those things and values which nobody can properly describe, those heavenly values. Who wants to hear about such things?
Who dares to challenge an ear which is deliberately shut? Who wants to be dismissed as one who does not align, who is not approved and applauded as one supporting general tendencies and the contemporary outlook.
God speaks sharply about the necessity of an awakening and the refiner’s fire is kindled for us all to pass through. His purpose is preparation for the partaking of His holiness, a sanctification without which no one will be able to see the Lord. Hebrews 12:10, 14. God speaks to us about these things. . .
 
We will, perhaps, find the beginning of times of refreshing within the framework of speaking openly and freely about the purposes of God and about His ways and workings. We will, perhaps, be able to reach a point of reviving and restoration when men put an end to their self-defence and their endless repetition of an “I’m O.K. You’re O.K.”, or an “I’m doing the best I can, who are you to judge?” “We are happy with what is. Peace and affluence. Revival is more of the same kind.”
The challenge of the Lord lies within His own frame of mind. “Let the same disposition be in you which was in Christ Jesus.” Phil 2:5. “The mind of the Spirit is life and peace.” Rom 8:6. Who is sufficient for these things?
The Spirit must be allowed the right to implant the fullness of Christ into our lives, to write the Law of Life in each and every Christian and then to formulate a common testimony in the Christian fellowship at large as a word from beyond, as a word about heavenly realities – realities which disturbs the many, but which has become the way itself to a small company of sojourners.
 
Sojourners of the heavenly kind are the meekest and most non-confrontative men on Earth, but they generate a strange aversion among many. How can it be that the Gospel of Peace stirs such a radical gainsaying and opposition? How can it be that the little flock, the priestly nation of the Lord which has been set aside to minister peace and reconciliation is rejected as the source of contention and unrest, as the very reason for disunity and strife? Why do we avoid and reject the goal of the work of the Lord formulated in revivals, namely sanctification unto the fullness of Christ in service and glory? Why do we call those men judgmental, who have been made ready to show us the way to the most thoroughgoing and glorious salvation? Why are we addicted to mediocrity? We desperately need a deep and ongoing salvation to be able to stand the pressure of this dreadful hour.
 
Controversy is immediately stirred by words and proposals regarding a returning to Zion to build an altar. Conflict occurs at the very moment of mentioning such things to those who have settled in the modern Babylon and who have adjusted their way of living to the main traits of the prevalent culture, also having brought the best of this culture into the workshop of the Church to create a Christian twist to it to be able to present it as a Christian ideal. The Lord has a couple of pointed words to throw in regarding Babylon in the end time. His words do no loose its sharp edge or its radical perspective. His words are like a double-edged sword which divides the soulish realm from the spiritual. Nobody will be able to produce a mixture of the two without encountering the Lord’s dividing activity and His Judgment.
 
To bring forth this edgy subject, to begin talking about the need of an awakening is like talking about seeing with a man born blind. Most of us continue to sit as if satisfied with darkness and gloom. Describing the necessity of repentance and a radical turning around to the one who is not willing to gather an understanding of the depth of the fall of man and his sin creates controversy, smear and ridicule also among church-people. “They heal the brokenness of my people superficially.” To talk vividly about a returning to the City of the Lord of which the audience have heard but vague legends causes nothing but a yawn if disinterest from the ones who have settled and made themselves comfortable in modern life. A revival is a challenge. A revival dares to confront.
 
The Lord has a sword in His mouth. His cause lies untouched. His temple lies in ruins. The people of the Lord are heavily marked by words of dark colours; desolation, despair, despondency, destitution – yet laughing their way ahead. A tragic picture. The people of the Lord are positioned in this setting to the same degree as the cause of the Lord lies untouched. Let us come together for the sake of reasoning, talking and praying about this state of affairs. Let us come together to talk about the content and the disclosure of a common life and living which carries His mark. Let us pray for a common frame of mind which keeps doors open when the cause of the Lord is on the agenda.
 
There is an absolute need for altars to be built in homes and in churches. These altars talks first of all about the need of listening ears and hearts. Are we competent to hear the Lord speaking? Are we open and able to hear friends, and at times enemies, speak about their needs, both spiritual and material? Are we able and daring enough to listen to men whose words seem to do nothing but attack our point of view and our integrity? Are pastors and preachers among us willing to consider the bleating of hungry sheep without looking to the side to care for their pride as professionals? To say, “I am not sufficient for this” costs a man all he has built to cover himself, but paying the real cost prepares for real gain.
 
To stand up to speak up for revival and its necessity is to place an altar amidst all those things we consider valuable, perhaps reducing it all to rubbish and vanity. To speak up for revival causes controversy. Talking about the need of an awakening is to place a stumbling stone in every mans way; you may be treated as an offender, as one who violates good men’s conscience. Oh, dear. . . Perhaps the voice of the Lord is with such an offender. . .
 
The message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved. 1 Cor 1:18. The cross declares man’s radical failure, the total unacceptability in any of his accomplishments as means to the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The cross announces at the same time the way to reconciliation and fullness. The promptings of the voice of revival brings us all to this cross, the cross of Christ, to His crucifixion and ours. The cross proclaims the necessity of radical alteration and change and explains by its very existence that the apprehending and attaining to the life of God is not possible through any other means but through death and resurrection. An awakening is in itself the revelation of this fact. An awakening brings an insight into the necessity of the cross as a daily experience, of the refiners fire made ready to do its penetrating work once more, of yet another taxing event in the furnace, of the law of the grain of wheat as the law of life and the only way of overcoming.
 
To belittle, to minimize the issue of sin and salvation is to contradict the work of the cross of Christ. To look at the necessity of an awakening as something which does not fit into the modern concept of “doing church” is to take us through a never-ending detour. To preach and to expect spirituality of a kind which will find approval in Heaven without considering the conditions set up by Heaven is outright deception.
Please, consider a praying for, a looking for a hearing and obeying which opens for the cause of the Lord.
Let us corporately, in solemn togetherness listen to the voice which calls for thoughtfulness and repentance.

A listening of this kind will be the beginning of the awakening and the reviving.
“Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isa 57:15.
Let us, because of this, pray with ears and hearts which have been dedicated to listening.
 
Lars Widerberg
 
--  --  --  --  --
 

A REVIVAL MANIFESTO
HAB3:1
Our standpoint and the way ahead
 
“The revival which by necessity lies ahead, which is prepared and made ready for God’s Zion, for the assembly of the hungry, for the company of the committed, for the solemn gathering of peacemakers, this revival will produce a call to the people of God to represent fullness, the attaining to the measure and stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, the growing up in all aspects unto Him. The revival which by necessity lies ahead will present the possibility for a renewal of minds and hearts, a putting on of the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Its keyword ought to be correspondence, a sacrificial identification with the fundamental purposes of God, a state of being and a mode of operation in which – only in which – the glory of God may be expected to be seen and experienced.”
 
A seven pages document produced by Lars Widerberg
 
Available on request.
Tell us if you want to receive this item as text in
an ordinary e-mail or as a MS WORD file via e-mail.
Intercessors.Network@Comhem.se
 
 

Intercessors engage in this prayer operation in more than 5000 prayer groups and churches in 120 nations.
The networking factor increases and multiplies the number to a degree beyond estimation.
 
Please, take part as watchmen reporting events in need of prayer cover – send articles found on the web and elsewhere or your own writings.
 
The articles sent to the Network may be freely circulated via e-mail; display on web sites not allowed.
 
Encourage your friends to partake in intercession and tell them about the possibility of linking up to Intercessors Network.

*******************************
 
PRIORITY NUMBER ONE:
PRAY FOR MEN IN AUTHORITY, 1 TIM 2:1-4
 
Lars Widerberg
Intercessors Network
Storskiftesgatan 87
S-58334 Linkoping, Sweden