Let's Let God Do the Counting

A friend said to me once that he wasn’t content with having hosted revival. He wanted to leave something behind. He didn’t want to be like George Whitefield in the revival of the 1700’s. Whitefield did not leave an organization behind although he was a prominent preacher in that awakening.  According to my friend, Whitefield’s failure to build an organization caused him to lose the fruit of the revival. This leader wanted to be like John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist denomination.  It seemed important to this leader that he package the essence of the revival so that it could be spread in a tangible form.
 The meeting started before I had time to tell him that if he were alive today, Wesley wouldn’t be able to recognize the organization he founded. The larger part of the organization now repudiates Wesley’s values. And even the more conservative parts of that organization that now bears his name have hardened to the point that the organization could not embrace what God has done in subsequent generations.
An organization doesn’t usually get hungry for God. In fact, a new wave often threatens it. Have you ever noticed how each new wave of revival in church history does not usually begin with a denomination that already exists?  If it does start in a congregation that is part of a larger group, it’s not long before conflict ensues and the new wave gets booted because the old group is not flexible enough to change. God always goes to the bottom of the “food chain” when He’s looking for someone to use. For this reason, God always seems to go outside the religious system of the day just like He did when Jesus was born. He starts fresh. That is why I don’t believe that the Holy Spirit pours Himself out so that we can start a new denomination. I believe He wants us to hold the blessing with an open hand, because it is not ours anyway. In a Kingdom where the least is really the greatest, do I really want something with my name or label on it? In fact, I wonder if anything with a man on top and a human label on it is what He is after. It is destined to only be a replacement for His much larger Kingdom and inhibits its members from perceiving the much larger whole.
 Assuming that a revival needs to be packaged and that God has selected us to do it has at least two problems. The first problem emerges when human beings try to condense the entirety of the Spirit’s work  to a few values as though these were new values and weren’t already the values of God’s Kingdom. When we try to condense and label anything God has done, the lid goes on. Nothing else can happen that we haven’t already seen. He wants us to remain open and teachable so that our revelation of Jesus can grow.  I believe that the fruit of any revival is defined in the whole of what the Holy Spirit has done to every person affected by it. My husband, Bill, believes that when a revival’s leaders define it any other way, they take the first step in quenching it.
The second of many more problems is the assumption that the fruit of a revival is tangible. The truth is that it is intangible. During the Welsh revival, thousands of ordinary and extraordinary people came to Moriah Chapel in Loughor, Wales to hear the preaching of Evan Roberts. One account I read described the drawing of the Holy Spirit to that place to be so strong that fishermen at sea were compelled to come to the meetings when they had no intention or desire to do so. If the Holy Spirit was up to that kind of supernatural activity, how can anyone be sure that the Welsh Revival’s fruit was lost because no one started a “club” out of what was left? That revival’s fruit is the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven which is forever in the spirits of believers who are now in heaven and who were swept into God’s Kingdom because of it. The fruit was also alive in the Azusa Street revival whose leaders experienced the impact of the Welsh Revival simply by hearing of it. The fruit of it also lives in the generations of people that followed whose lives were transformed by their ancestors who came to Jesus in that revival and who then affected their own generations, often with only one person at a time.
To say that the fruit of anything God has done was lost begs the question: lost to whom? If you mean that the numbers of people who were touched by the Holy Spirit in it are no longer collected in a crowd that you can count, it only means that the fruit is lost to your human eye—not our Heavenly Father’s. The Lord reminded me one day, “You will never have an instrument that will enable you to evaluate your own success or that of anyone else.” I don’t think I am capable of accurately judging the fruit of either Wesley or Whitefield. My eyes can’t see as well as His, and I doubt that I can count that high!
No doubt, there were individuals in every move of God who lost the fruit of revival in their own lives just like the seeds which fell upon bad ground in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. There is nothing we can do about that. They were held accountable in eternity. However, I personally met a man who was mentored by leaders in the Welsh revival. This man had been an alcoholic before the Lord led him to the feet of these men and women who had experienced the power of the Holy Spirit during the Welsh Revival. He was not only saved, but he was transformed into a Christian leader who founded a congregation in Scotland. There are thousands like him if not millions.
So I wonder if God really sees George Whitefield as any less a good steward than Wesley because he failed to use his God-given influence to start an organization. What if he has greater reward in heaven because he let his lifework dissolve into the Kingdom of God? I wonder who has the greater faith, the one who remains faithful to God even though he cannot see his own fruit or the one who demands to see it now.  What if George Whitefield was really trusting Jesus to gather the genuine fruit into His barn and did not trust himself to do the counting.
Over 30 years ago someone told me, “Denominations are what’s left when the Spirit of God has come and gone.” They were speaking of the practice of taking hold of a revival and building a “club” out of its remains. In these clubs, there is always a hierarchy, visible or invisible. (A Methodist bishop once told me, “The Baptists have their bishops, too. You just don’t know who they are!”) It masquerades as a form of the unity of the Spirit, but it is far from a community of peers and goes the way of every organization of men into apostasy and form, devoid of the Holy Spirit’s true nature.
 No one admits this in the excitement of the planning days. It’s too easy to hide our own motives from ourselves behind the façade of “we need to do this because…” and fall into self-deception about the true reasons we are building this organization; but regardless of one’s own spin, God sees, and He knows. God has the last word. Not one of us will be getting by with anything that will not pass through the judgment. One of the first things to burn will be our own kingdoms, the “clubs” of men who wanted something other than His Kingdom. All that will be left among the smoldering ruins will be the true containers of revival, the hearts of men.
And by the way, trying to divorce yourself from anyone in Jesus’ body by saying, “I am of Christ,” is just as bad. It’s only the Lord Himself who can protect you from yourself. You still must acknowledge that you need them whether or not they ever again see that they need you. Leave the door open.
I believe that we are not entitled to form an organization other than the one that Jesus established, His church. I don’t think God expects you to identify with a subgroup for “safety.” I do believe in having real relationships with other Christians; but unless you have a sincere relationship with someone, signing on the dotted line won’t improve it. It will hinder it. Real relationships are what they are and no more. You cannot improve them by signing over your loyalty and your tithe. If they demand you do that before they will acknowledge that you are worth their fellowship, are they really your friends? And would you sincerely want to give them your allegiance or follow their leadership? Before you have to learn your lesson the hard way, maybe it’s time to ask, why am I really doing this?
I believe that if there is a “front row” in heaven, it will not be occupied with those who wanted to capture the Holy Spirit. It will not likely be filled with the folks who looked to that which was seen; but instead, it will likely be filled with the ordinary folks who looked to the unseen things of eternity and who let God do the counting.