Times of Refreshing: Summary and Application
Series 1: “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”
Topic 2: The Shaking of All Things
Key Text: Hebrews 12:25-29
1. God is Shaking the World
- Visible reveals invisible and natural reveals spiritual (Rom 1:20; 1 Cor 15:46). Therefore events in the world mirror God’s Word to humanity.
- Shaking by earthquake in scripture (Isa 24:18-20; Nah 1:3ff; Matt 2:7-8; Rev 11:13), is part of God’s holy war against idolatry. It leaves idolaters exposed and without a foundation (2 Pet 3:10; Rev 6:16-17).
- This judgement is often God’s response to the prayers of his people (Ex 2:23 > 3:19-20; 7-12; Rev 5:8; 6:9-11 > 8:4 etc.).
Application Questions
Do we consciously live as if all things are under the control of God? For example, how do you respond to a serious“accident”?
Why is it so difficult to receive the teaching that God sends disaster (Amos 3:7)?
2. God is Shaking Society
- A soul tsunami of social chaos (divorce, abortion, homelessness, fractured families, substance abuse, sexual immorality, domestic violence, youth suicide, psychiatric illness etc.) has hit Australian society because of our wickedness (Gal 6:7).
- “Jensen’s touched on… a raw Australian nerve, the unwillingness to recognise God as a personal judge.” (George Pell)
- Prophets understand the shakings of God because they have been shaken by God (Isa 6; Ezek 24:15ff; Matt 26:75).
Application Questions
What is it about Australian history that might make us especially resistant to the theme of God’s judgement?
Share how you can identify with the prophets experience of being shaken by God.
3. God is Shaking the Church
- The Old Testament contains repeated cycles of godliness, rebellion, repentance and restoration (Judges 2:11-19; 3:12-15; 4:1ff; 6:1ff; Isa 63:9-11etc.).
- The New Testament church is also judged for its materialism and idolatry (1 Cor 11:27- 34; Rev 2:5, 14, 16, 22- 23).
- The most fearsome shaking of all is when God stops speaking (Amos 8:11-12; Ps 74:9; Jer 37:17; Lam 2:9; Ezek 7:26).
- Historically, great surges of church growth e.g China post cultural revolution, tend to follow great suffering (Isa 26:8, 10).
Application Questions
Is it possible that God is judging the congregation you belong to?
Are you praying earnestly at the individual and corporate level for God to speak? (You could stop and pray for this now.)
4. God Shook Jesus on the Cross
- The greatest shaking of all is endured by Jesus on the cross (Mark 15:34).
- This consists in not having God speak to him.
- Yet his cry released resurrection power for the dead (Matt 27:51-52).
Application Questions
“God never asks anything of his people that he does not first experience himself.” Is this principle an integrated part of your spirituality?
5. God Wants to Shake Us
- Jesus promises the Father will act quickly on our behalf (Luke 18:7).
- The natural and spiritual crises of our time are directed towards a global revival.
- We are faced with a popular Christianity obsessed with the external.
Application Questions
Can we embrace the connection between shaking and transformation and pray that God will do whatever it takes to bring about spiritual renewal?
Times of Refreshing:
Series 1: “The Kingdom of Heaven and the Church on Earth.”
Topic 2: The Shaking of All Things
Key Text: Hebrews 12:25-29
Introduction
The key point of the study last week (“The Restoration of all Things”) was that Jesus is working to restore the glory of God throughout the universe by releasing a powerful refreshing of the Spirit on a faithful and repentant remnant. However, there cannot be a renewal until the old things that stand in the way of God’s Spirit are removed. This is the theme of tonight, the “Shaking of all Things”
This world is always being shaken. Most of the church may have missed the prophetic meaning in 9/11 and the Bali nightclub bombing, but the Asian Tsunami (of December 26th 2004) is still vivid in our memories. What is the God saying in these terrible things.
Scripture teaches that the “natural” comes before the “spiritual” (1 Cor 15:46) and the “visible” reveals the “invisible” (Rom 1:20). Nature’s shaking is meant to mirror the shaking of the church from its slumbers, but this is never automatic. God’s word through history’s disasters demands a response in a way that is directed by scripture. But for 2 reasons most of the church is not grasping what God is saying.
Firstly, the shaking on earth is a “warning” “from heaven” (Heb 12:25). If we are out of touch with our Lord in heaven (1 Cor 2:16; Col 2:19) we will not understand what he is saying to the earth. Secondly, “the kingdom” we are “receiving” “that cannot be shaken” (Heb 12:28) is not “of this world” (John 18:36). Since most Australian Christians live as if we belong to this world (John 15:19; 17:14) we will not want to believe God is shaking it.
The Meaning of Shaking in Scripture
Throughout scripture earthquakes in particular herald the coming of the Lord to judge the whole earth. They are not merely “natural occurrences” (biblical religion knows no such category) but are a form of the Word of God.
Isaiah prophesies: “For the windows of heaven are opened and the foundations of the earth tremble. The earth is utterly broken, the earth is torn asunder, the earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunkard, it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavily upon it, and it falls, and it will not rise again.” (Isa 24:18-20).
“The LORD is slow to anger but great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet… He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, The mountains quake before him., and the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, and the world and all who live in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger?” (Nah 1:3ff.).
Jesus taught, “For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and their will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” (Matt 24:7-8)
John says in Revelation, “at that moment there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to God.” (Rev 11:13 cf. 6:12-17)
According to this spiritual imagery God is waging a holy war against humanity’s foundational sin of idolatry. Creation itself must be shaken because the world has become an idol refuge polluted by sin. When all earthly securities are ripped away idol worshippers are exposed as spiritually naked. “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the element swill be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.” (2 Pet 3:10).
They will say to “to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Rev 6:16-17). But when creation itself is stripped bare there will be nowhere to hide.
That God sends “natural catastrophes and disasters” may sound hard or heartless, but in scripture such planet shaking is often his response from heaven to the prayers of his people on earth. “The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of their slavery their cry for help rose up to God.” Then God appears to Moses and says, “I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians.” (Ex 2:23; 3:8). He accomplishes this is by the plagues that shatter Egyptian civilisation (Ex 3:19-20; 7-12).
As Joshua cries out to God the sun and moon stop still so the Amorites are completely defeated (Josh 5: 12-14). When the Israelites “cried out to the LORD for help” under the persecution of the Canaanites “the stars fought (for them) from heaven and the onrushing torrent” carried away their enemies (Judges 4:3; 5:20-21).
In the book of Revelation, it is after “the prayers of the saints” rise up to God that disasters of different sorts— war, famine, plague, earthquake, fall on the earth (Rev 5:8; 6:9- 11; 8:4). Essentially, judgement breaks out on earth because the church prays, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Paul understands the whole Christian life to be lived under the shadow of the End of the world.
26 I think that, in view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are. 27 [Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a virgin marries, she does not sin. Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that. 29] I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.” (1 Cor 7:29-31)
Sadly, this attitude is the exact opposite to what someone has said about the church: “How much of our lives consists in nothing but attempts to look away from the End!” (Paul Tillich)
Shaking in Society
I want to read something from one of my written prophecies:
“As I was walking along a local street praying about the tsunami disaster recently, I saw in an instant, as it were, the street in front of me piled up with the debris of bodies scattered everywhere. There was something in what I saw however that told me the Spirit of God was no showing me a picture of Asia but of Australia.
The chaos I beheld was not physical but psychological and relational. It represented the relational death of divorce, abortion, homelessness, fractured families, substance abuse, sexual immorality, domestic violence, youth suicide, psychiatric illness and all the other mayhem of Australian social life. It was as if a “soul tsunami” had hit our nation and left in its wake tremendous emotional and interpersonal chaos. Holding everything together was not love (certainly not the love of God) but a physical net of material prosperity, government welfare and a privileged standard of living made possible by technological advancement.”
“God is not mocked, whatever someone sows that also they shall reap” (Gal 6:7). Our society is reaping a terrible retribution because it has turned its back on a holy and righteous Father. In the western world we are not “getting the message” because we do not want to accept that God judges and we have so many devices to smother their impact.
Australians in particular have a major issue with judgement. Cardinal Pell is totally correct when he says, “Part of the furore over Philip Jensen’s remarks (that earthquakes are part of God’s warning that judgement is coming) was because he had touched on … a raw Australian nerve, the unwillingness to recognise God as a personal judge.”
Prophets understand the shakings of God because they had his intense shaking in their own lives. Isaiah’s vision in the temple (Isaiah 6); Ezekiel after God took his wife (Ezek 24:15ff.), Peter who wept bitterly over his betrayal of Christ (Matt 26:75) and every believer who has been strongly disciplined by the Lord have had the eyes of their heart opened (Eph 1:18) to see the white hot heat of the divine holiness burning in the heart of the crises around them.
When the church is like the world God must directly shake the church.
Shaking in the Church
There are repeated cycles in the history of the life of Israel and the church— oppression, crying out, deliverance, comfort/prosperity, idolatry, oppression by enemies sent by God , crying out, deliverance… (cf. Judges 2:11-19; 3:12-15; 4:1ff; 6:1ff etc.). The Old Testament puts this terrible cycle very poignantly: “In all their distress he too was distressed and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he became their enemy and fought against them. Then they remembered the days of old…” (Isa 63:9-11).
Jesus warns his compromising (majority) churches, “I will remove your lamp-stand from its place, unless you repent” (Rev 2:5). God is shutting down churches all over Australia? Not culture / post-modernism / liberalism / materialism etc. but God.
“I am throwing her on a (sick)bed and those who commit adultery with her into great distress unless they repent of their doing; and I will strike her children dead.” (Rev 2:22-23). Much of the church today has lost of supernatural protection of the Holy Spirit because he is so deeply grieved (Ephesians 4:30). The amount of sickness and premature death amongst Christians is normal (# average) (1 Cor 11:27-34)?
“food sacrificed to idols and to practice fornication”…“Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon will make war against you with the sword of my mouth” (Rev 2:14, 16). What does the sword of Jesus’ mouth refer to (Rev 1:16; 19:21; Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12)? Do we see this happening? Do we see God speaking to his church with such force and power through the proclamation of his Word that life and death depends on it?
What do you think is the most fearsome way that God can use to shake his people? In Amos there is an intensifying series of disasters including earthquake and celestial disturbances, but the ultimate crisis is this: “The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.” (Amos 8: 11-12; Ps 74:9; Jer 37:17; Lam 2:9; Ezek 7:26). When God stops speaking his personal presence is lost, it is as if God had abandoned his people. Shockingly this is very much the case today in so much of the church.
This inability to hear God— or he simply stops speaking— always occurs when his people feel prosperous and secure (Deut 32:15). We are in such a time, we are in a period equivalent to the late Middle Ages (prior to the Protestant Reformation) for everywhere you look in the church there is confusion and spiritual blindness.
For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19 I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.’ (cf. Rev 3:17-19).
The church is being shaken? If it wasn’t, I doubt if you would be here. (listen to me clearly.) All the signs of the wrath of God against idolatry recorded in Romans 1— immorality, homosexuality, gossip, slander, rebellion against parents… (Rom 1:24-31) are common in the church of the living God today? It looks as if the state of the church is no better than the world, it looks as if God is angry with his people (n.b.1 John 4:17);. The vast mass of Christians by their lack of prayer and discipleship are living as if God is an angry and distant Father? (Deal with why this is so next week.)
A historically unique event is occurring in our time: thousands of devout believers (not “backsliders”) across the western world have stopped attending formal “church meetings” altogether. Whatever they sense, God has shaken them out of the institutional church to be salt and light in the world (Matt 5:13-16). He has broken their need for a relationship with institutionalized religion and is trying to teach them to integrate their faith with all aspects of of Monday to Friday life— not just Sunday religion.
Why does our loving heavenly Father act with such severe mercy in the world (Rom 11:22)? I will give you a hint – the greatest surges of church growth in the Roman Empire followed two periods of plague that each killed one third of the population. The church exploded in China only after the rise of communism. The revival in Argentina began after the defeat of the nation in the Falklands War. Because of the tsunami Christians in Sri Lanka have obtained unprecedented access to the east coast of that nation where previously they were most severely persecuted by Buddhists and Moslems.
Scriptures states boldly: “Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the human heart is fully set to do evil.” (Ecc 8:11).
“In the paths of your judgements, O LORD, we wait for you…For when your judgements are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” (Isa 26:8, 10)
The Great Shaking of the Cross
All of this is true, but the human conscience can never receive it until believes God never asks anything of his people that he does not first experience himself. This brings us to the one true shaking of history— the cross.
Once I was talking to a friend who started to tell me about some of the side effects of his cancer treatment— how many times he had to wash out his underpants at work because he had lost control of his body. I told him of how the victims of crucifixion entered into uncontrollable convulsions and lost control of all their bodily functions. This was one of the natural shakings of the cross.
But the deepest terror of the cross is spiritual. It is the absolute shaking of the core of Jesus being he does not hear the Word of God. (Mark 15:34). His experience of his very identity as the Word of God is lost, and he seems to be to himself, merely “flesh” (cf. John 1:1,14). When God himself in the midst of an overwhelming torrent of pain is traumatised by the famine of the hearing of his own Word of love.
Yet while the cry of Jesus was still reverberating through the halls of heaven “The earth shook and the rocks were split” the dry bones in the valley of Jerusalem’s burial yard came to life with resurrection power (Matt 27:510 -52). This is how it must be— the only way to the power of the resurrection is the crisis of the cross.
Conclusion
Do we believe the word of Jesus? “And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones, who cry to him day and night?” Will he delay long in helping them? (Luke 18:7)
In some mysterious inscrutable way (Rom 11:33-36) and heavenly way (e.g. how Rev 6 follows Rev 5), the horrors of 9/11, the Bali bombing, the Asian tsunami and world crises are answers to the prayers of the saints for a global spiritual revival. (Resurrection always needs crucifixion.)
Jesus is shaking the church by inside and outside forces to free us from the perils of prosperity, popularity, pride and presumption. God longs for his church to enjoy the heavenly things and come to that place where the earthly things could break our hearts no longer have power over us (“pierced themselves with many pains” (1 Tim 6:10).
Much of popular Christianity today has an obsession with image, excellence and a glossy exterior. Our focus on the material and our blind resistance to the message of judgement shows that underneath everything a terrible fear of death is reigning in our midst.
John Piper says:
“This is mercy with all the tragedy that there is in all the calamities of the world, its the loud, stark voice of a holy God saying ‘Get ready there is a shaking coming that will leave no house standing, no building standing, no place to stand but the throne. That’s the meaning – it’s warnings. And there will be an increasing number of calamities so that there is growing a sense of unsettledness in the world and people grasp and some hang onto money and some cling to power and some go after the bottle and some go after sex and some go after vacations and only a few have their love not grow cold because lawlessness is multiplied. Those will be the ones who hear the voice of the Lord in the shaking of our world in these last days.”
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/a-kingdom-that-cannot-be-shaken
“Tragedy and catastrophe are hinges on the door of his glory.” (Chad Taylor 12.01.2005) This is the only way that God can create a certain sort of man or woman, men and women of substance, men and women like his Son (Heb 2:10; 5:9).
Do you hear the voice of the Lord in the shaking of your times, your globe, your nation, your city, your family and your life? Let us cry out to God that this shaking become a convulsion and this trauma turns our whole nation to God?