There is a growing underground consent among many full Gospel Pastors that the ultimate end of an extended “revival” is church splits and long term damage. A secret fear has arisen in the hearts of pastors about the effects of hosting an extended outbreak of the Holy Spirit. They have become afraid that the outbreak will cause people to leave their church and thus damage their financial bottom line and also their sense of success.
Many look at what happened at several large churches that went into extended revivals.
In Pasadena with Pastor Che Ahn, his church experience an extended revival and by the end had lost over ½ of his 6000 member congregation.
At Pensacola nearly 1/3 rd of the congregation left because of the revival.
At the I-55 revival, half the staff quit in one day. Many who had been in the church for decades left in protest. The church was financial hit for an extended season.
Are these signs that something was wrong with the revival? Many now look at Brownsville and say, “what has happened? If this was truly a revival why hasn't it continued? Where are the crowds now?”
Many who publicly declare they want a move of God secretly FEAR a move of God in their own church. They fear it for one main reason. The fear LOSS.
They fear the loss of people, reputation, money, influence, control, and most importantly, the crowds that give to us the sense of success. This fear of loss is a secret strategy of the enemy to shut down the one thing that will give this nation a chance to turn to God: REVIVAL.
This fear has been able to rise because of a lack of revelation knowledge about these end-time outbreaks of the Holy Spirit. We must come to understand what the scripture says about these end-times and what outbreaks of the Holy Spirit will and will not produce.
There are several base attitudes about outbreaks of the Holy Spirit that will prove to be false. We must expose these lies if we are going to see God's real end-time plan.
#1) True out breaks of the Holy Spirit will cause your church to grow numerically.
Not necessarily. We always focus in history on the times of major ingathering as a true move of God. Revival or Out breaks of the Holy Spirit are NOT church growth methods. There are times throughout history that God's Spirit was manifested in an incredible supernatural way and people went farther away from God.
Exo. 20:18 -21 "Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near…"
#2) When it is really God, people wont become confused of afraid.
This scripture we just read talks about trembling. The people became afraid because of the intensity of the manifestation of God's presence. The more powerful the move of God the MORE fear may be present.
Confusion does not originate with God. However when someone believes a lie and then is confronted with the truth of God's power and presence, that conflict between the two, when the person doesn't humble themselves before God, is what produces the confusion.
I was preaching a service many years ago. It was a hard word on “love not the world.” At the end I started to pray for people and the power of God fell in the AG church. After 15 minutes or so a young lady ran out of the meeting in tears terrified. The intensity of the manifestation of the presence of God scared her.
The Pastor went to see what was wrong. Although he had never seen so many people saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit in a single meeting, he concluded that it couldn't have been a move of God because one “Christian” young lady got afraid and confused.
This reaction is common. Many don't have a clue as to what will happen when the Glory of God comes. It is never nice and gentle and sweet.
Isa 6:2, 5 I "saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple…. Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”
Rev 1:17 "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead …."
Mat 14:26 "And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear."
John 6:54-56, 66 " Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. " For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him…. From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more . "
When Jesus comes and reveals himself in power or through revelation people don't always get the warm fuzzies. Often they are afraid and leave Him.
The end-time revivals and outbreaks of the Holy Spirit will see more of this kind of reaction as the Glory of God becomes manifested in ever increasing ways.
The reason people leave churches over revival is not because of the manifestations themselves, it's because they were never as surrendered to God as they thought they were.
When the power and presence of God comes it exposes us. When people are exposed some run to God to be covered by the blood while others run from Him. This is and always has been the common reactions. Why then do we fear it when it happens?
The main reason many Pastors fear a true outbreak of the Holy Spirit is they are afraid of losing people which means losing MONEY!! Have you noticed that often it is the wealthy and powerful who are the first ones to leave? The big tithers. The fear of losing key wealthy influential people has caused more pastors in our time to stand in the way of a move of God than any single other thing.
The driving spirit behind much of modern church ministry today is fear; fear that is empowered by deep insecurity and inferiority. As a result much of today's ministry is so focused on crowd sizes, church buildings, public recognition, and money, that the true pursuit of God's presence has been shelved.
If we would be honest most pastors would rather have 1000 good kind faithful tithing members in their church than only 100 radical God pursuing revivalist members. They would justify it by saying with the 1000 members we can give more money to missions and do more good work. The fact is most of the time that is an excuse to hide their deep need to feel successful. As a result they make sure they tailor their services to the people and not to the presence of God.
They spend their time raising an anemic, half baked, wishy washy, weak church, who will at the first sign of a real manifestation of God, run for the hills. They fill their churches with “Christian” wanabees: People who claim to be Christians and yet live mainly for themselves.
The bible talks about a great falling away in the end-times. I believe this will happen not because of too little of Jesus revealed but because so much of Jesus will be revealed. The end-times will see an incredible harvest as the Glory of God is made manifest. It will also see multitudes who are in the church now leave the church because they never really wanted God as He is, they wanted their form of religion that they were comfortable with.
True revival will destroy MAN's church so that God's church may arise.