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The War for the Soul of the Church
God knows how to write well. He knows what He wants to communicate to every city, region, and nation on Earth. The question before us does not concern His ability to think or write clearly, but whether His people believe in Him and are paying attention.
Also, I fear that too many of us simply do not like His strategy. Any author will tell you that a writing project involves much commitment and many hidden hours. It is no different with the Lord’s present work. He is actively at work in the lives of multitudes, but operating primarily in a hidden way. Our tendency is to question the wisdom of His approach. Would it not be better if He arose in such manifest power that the world would be dumbfounded and the foolishness of the enemy’s ways exposed? And then He could simply return in glory and get this whole church-age-thing over with.
The truth is, many of us are praying for the Lord to do just this: to arise again in our generation in such a way that many will not be able to ignore Him. Indeed, that would be wonderful. Is it not marvelous when many are saved, healed, and delivered in the midst of increased manifestations of God’s presence? But if we have learned anything from Church history, it is that the Lord has more in mind than the excitement of Holy Spirit visitation. Rather, He has a strategy whereby such times of revival are a means to an end. In other words, He is headed somewhere.
Times of glorious visitation have many times been marred with incidents of moral failure among God’s people, church division, and pride in church leaders, followed by seasons of decreased manifestations of God’s presence. In such times, some become discouraged and wander away from the burning hope they carried in their hearts only a short time before.
Think of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after Christ’s crucifixion (Luke 24). All their burning hope concerning the Lord Jesus seemed to have just evaporated. His own apostles had deserted Him in the midst of an unjust trial, and then He had been crucified between thieves. Surely His life and ministry had been in vain. The recent season of visitation had undoubtedly just ended in failure. But in fact, they were walking with unseeing eyes next to God’s living finale to all that had just happened!
How sad it would have been if the Lord had not interrupted the discouraging thoughts of those two disciples by revealing God’s strategy to them. What specifically was Christ’s message? He opened to them what the Scriptures had to say about himself. Suddenly, their hearts were burning again within them. What followed this most blessed Bible study was a fresh revelation of Christ as He sat down with them to break bread together.
The visitation of God as revealed in His Son two thousand years ago was not an end but a means. The disciples considered the cross and the death of their dreams when Jesus died, and all they could see was the seeming disintegration of God’s work. But He had something in view much greater than what they perceived.
Similarly, the people of God over the last two thousand years have experienced even in times of Holy Spirit visitation, divisions accompanied by many losing a clear perception of Christ. In fact, men’s names became exalted; their methods of evangelism and church planting etc. got promoted; and for too many, success in the eyes of others became paramount.
As a result, when we look around today at the present condition of Christianity, we feel in some ways like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. “What’s the point of another visitation? I’ve been through that before; I’ve got the t-shirt. Given enough time, people will just mess up the next one.”
But what we fail to see is that often we are walking next to God’s living finale to the recent shakings. Remember, visitation is a means to an end. Our problem is that the end that God had in mind is pretty much never what we were expecting. Or at least it had major differences.
So take a look around. What do you see? Don’t focus simply on what falls short of the glory of God. Set your eyes upon Christ. You may discover that He is right next to you in brothers and sisters who have had deep inner etchings of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts. For example, when brethren close to them split from each other, they didn’t simply pick sides but cried out to God to heal His people. Then when they themselves were treated unkindly, they responded with mercy instead of reacting with anger. In some measure, they embraced the cross. And in so doing, God enabled them to see beyond the suffering to His purpose in allowing it. Maybe we can even say that they saw to some degree what the two disciples on the road to Emmaus saw.
In other words, they gained insight into the person of the risen Christ. That is why when we heard them share God’s word, we marveled because we saw the Lord Jesus a little more clearly. And then our hearts burned within us, because we knew we were touching the whole meaning of life. The question we all must face is whether or not Christ is coming into greater clarity in our hearts and minds. He is the letter that God is writing into His people; He is God’s word to the nations.
Let’s take the writing analogy a little further. Have you ever looked forward to a new book coming out by a favorite author? You just wanted to see what he or she had to say next. Well all of creation is waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.[8] What the Author of Heaven and Earth is presently writing into our hearts is in fact what the nations so desperately need to read. While many proclaim the irrelevance of the Church, yet the unfolding drama of history’s consummation is already taking shape on people’s hearts in a way more glorious than simply words on paper (i.e., the Bible).[9] Eternity’s conclusion to what ails the Earth will be found not only in Christ’s return from Heaven, but also as He is revealed leading up to that great event upon the stationery of His people’s hearts.
But what He has to say to the Earth is more than what the Church is presently saying. It seems that His writing project is not yet over. To be clear, we are experiencing our heavenly Author at work writing into us the great finale of the ages. If the great climax of history is the return of Christ, then how does that event connect to His present work in the hearts of His people? They are inseparable. You simply cannot separate the appearance of Christ for His people from the increasing appearance of Christ in His people. The one leads directly into the other. On the day He comes for His people He will also be glorified in His people.
when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.
In other words, the abiding and increasing glory arising in the Church will culminate on the final day as it draws Him from His hidden role of intercession to His visible role as triumphant King. To put it another way, we are growing up as a body into Him who is our head (Ephesians 4:15). We are maturing into the day of Christ’s appearing. The corporate maturity that His life within His Church will produce will be unmistakable as to who authored it and without doubt as to its authenticity. And it will cause such celebration in Heaven that the joy there will explode into history with epoch shattering power.
These two inexorable initiatives of God shall collide with such force that time as we know it will end, and we shall behold Him face to face. Indeed, Christ is the grand finale toward which all of history is hurtling.
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