28.07.2003
In the midst of frustrations concerning the absence of dramatic spiritual breakthrough in Perth, I believe God drew my attention to what I have recorded below.
Despite growing widespread desire and supplication for revival across the city the evil has been allowed to throw up a wall in front of the progress of the kingdom of God. Substantial measurable growth in the influence of the Word and Spirit across our city is not visible.
In meditating on the picture of a wall my attention was drawn to a scene from the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. An enormous army is besieging an apparently impregnable fortress called Helms Deep. The leader of the attacking forces, the evil sorcerer Sauraman, knows that the fortress will never fall without a breach in the walls. In due course the wall is breached by a suicide bomber, water rushes through the gaping hole and the army begins to pour through the breach with the defenders in retreat. The breach in the wall is the key to victory.
In the Old Testament God is identified as Baal Perizim, which means “Lord of the Breach” or “Lord of the Breakthrough” (2 Samuel 5:20). In this case the overwhelming victory that God grants to David over the Philistines is likened to waters bursting through a dam. The passage highlights the depth of this victory, as David is able to carry off the idols of the Philistine army (2 Samuel 5:21). In the thought world of the day this meant that the spiritual power behind the enemy’s attacks was permanently broken.
In applying these prophetic, popular and Old Testament images to the life of the church we must suppose that the wall represents the activities of the principalities and powers against which we struggle (Ephesians 6:12). These beings work in the minds of men and women (2 Corinthians 10:3 – 5). Unless the nature of their activities is somehow exposed, they will continue to be successful in frustrating the purposes of God. In asking the Lord where their grip lay, I was reminded of something he started to show me early last year.
Many solid walls of an old fashioned variety are composed of irregularly shaped stones. What binds these stones together into a unity is NOT the complementarity of their shapes, but the mortar between them. Sensing this I researched the Greek behind Colossians 3:14: “And above all these things put on love, which binds everything together in perfect unity.” The word for “bind” here was commonly used for the mortar between bricks. God was confirming to me that the key to strong functional unity was not Christians thinking or acting the same, but love. It is love and not sameness or natural complementarity that holds everything together in a perfect way.
The next thing in this sequence of illumination for me was that 1 John 4:18 sprung into my mind: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out all fear, because fear has to do with punishment.” If love holds God and his people together in a powerful unity, then it must be fear (the opposite of love according to this verse) that keeps them apart. The people of God across this city will never come together in a true unity of the heart to fulfil the purposes of God unless the fear within them is driven out by the love of God (1 John 4:17). When this happens we will have the spiritual breakthrough so many are seeking.
According to 1 John 4:18 what people fear (and the context is the church) is punishment. Not an ordinary temporal punishment but the punishment “on the day of judgement.” (1 John 4:17). Except this very deep fear is done away with we will not see long lasting spiritual transformation in our city and nation.
In praying about how must this happen I believe the Lord started to speak to me about the need for a compelling ministry of the Word across the city. By “compelling” I mean the sort of ministry that leaves the hearer with no choice but to respond (2 Corinthians 5:14). It seizes the conscience and grips the heart so that one cannot remain neutral, passive or an observer.
Then I sensed that God was saying that which compels is that which has an air of finality. There is one thing all men and women know is final, that conveys the finality of all the affairs and activities of this life – it is death (Hebrews 2:15; 9:27).
Jesus is the final Word about this world because he is the one human being who has willingly endured the one thing all men and women know speaks of the finality of this life, death, and has passed into the world of the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is his supreme authority, it is this which makes him such a compelling person. The ability to give health, peace, prosperity and successful relationships NOW are not what makes his Word compelling, it is the death of an old world and the resurrection of a new creation in him.
The early apostles taught that this present world was passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31; 2 Peter 3:10). The love of God that poured out of their lives like a river (Romans 5:5) showed that the wall of fear in their own hearts had been broken through. The power of the resurrection that manifested itself in them (Acts 4:33; Romans 15:19) proved that there was one death that was not final, there was one death that had overcome the punishment of God’s judgement that all people fear (1 John 4:17-18), this was the death of Jesus.
By passing through death with Jesus (Galatians 2:20), that is, by dying to their personal aspirations and desires (Galatians 5:24), these ministers of the gospel entered into the power and presence of the glorified Christ living within them (Colossians 1:27). Even though the power of the world to come lived in them as Christians (Hebrews 6:4) it was only released as they let go of this – worldly attachments.
As in the early church, God is going to raise up a generation of ministers of the Word whose lives and character will grasp the conscience of their hearers. These are people who have truly died with Christ to the things of this world (Galatians 2:20). These will be men and women of all ages who have been so immersed in the sufferings of Christ (Colossians 1:24; Philippians 3:10) that they live a life – style that transparently reveals that this life and its issues – security, finance, popularity, significance etc. are not final. Only Jesus Christ is final (Colossians 1:16c; Revelation 22:13).
As this generation of ministers proclaims Christ without fear or favour, the church, like the Philistines, will lose its idols. The materialism and hedonism that grips the hearts of so many Christians as a (false) anaesthetic to their fear of death and divine punishment will be dissolved. What results will be a pure and deep work of God that shall endure the test of time.
One thing remains to be said. If it is fair to say that the vast majority of Christian witness is not compelling, then we must conclude that we have not sufficiently “put to death the misdeeds of the body” (Romans 7:13). We, and particularly salaried Christian ministers, cannot image the breakthrough that that has come for humanity in Christ until we experience this breakthrough in our own lives. For this we must cast ourselves on the mercy of God.