Definition of AMBIGUOUS

1a : doubtful or uncertain especially from obscurity or indistinctness b : inexplicable

2: capable of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways

— am•big•u•ous•ly adverb
— am•big•u•ous•ness noun

I’m sure you are wondering what I have to say about the word ambiguous or how in the world it pertains to the image above and let me assure you I will address both throughout this blog. However let me forewarn you that this like most of my posts might get a little lengthy, so you might want to wait until you have the time to read through my thoughts and look through the window that is my brain and the way I process things.

Let me begin by telling you a true story that happened just a few weeks ago.

As many of you know, our church has adopted the Khmer people, by adopted I mean that we have committed to pray and find effective ways to impact the largest people group that live in the nation of Cambodia Today. As a people group they are 98% unreached, meaning that 98% have never heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Four years ago I and two others went to explore ways in which we could do just such a task. One of those who went with us was a Cambodian named Chiv who has sense become one of our associate pastors. While we were there he was reunite with his family that he hadn’t seen in thirty years since he escaped the Khmer Rouge regime and ended up in the U.S. While being reunited he was able to lead his family to the Lord. The last thing they asked as we left was when we would come back and tell their village about the real God. So one year later we sent a team back and while there they preached the simple gospel and almost all of the village of O-Khmom gave their lives to the Lord. Six months later we sent another team to encourage these new converts and check up on a process of discipleship we had left in place with four Christians we were supporting to go and follow up with every convert. While there our team heard that a neighboring village had heard of the way that O-Khmom had been sharing everything and how they were being blessed and wanted our team to go share about this God that had brought so much change to their neighbors lives so that is exactly what we did and most of them converted as well. Since that time more are being added to their numbers consistently.

A few weeks ago, one of the women from O-Khmom was out in the fields harvesting when she was overcome with a sense of fear so she left the two gentlemen she was working with and went a little ways away and knelt to pray that God would deliver her from this fear. While she was praying the truck that they were throwing their harvest into drove over a land mine that had been left from the 70s when the Khmer Rouge was retreating and had been unearthed since then by the rains. Even though this field had been cleaned of mines this one had been buried to deep and had just now come to the surface. As the mine exploded under the truck destroying the vehicle miraculously the lives of the two gentlemen were spared by God and both of them were left with minor injuries and the woman who had been praying thanked God. As the governmental officials from the demining department came to report on the matter as they have too for every incident the woman told them the story as it happened so they wrote it as such and the report went all the way to the capital and was filed as a “mine that had gone off but none were injured as they had been protected by God!”

What a story! In fact God has been challenging me as of late with what HE has been doing in Cambodia through our churches going through the book “Radical” by David Platt and many other things as of late.

Revival is something I think we would all say that we desire as Christians. But what is it that marks revival. What is it that we tend to look for as signs that revival is happening? For the past year many of the students in our ministry here and some of my former students have been praying and fasting that God would begin a revival on their school and university campuses. In many ways I have encouraged them to be doing this for the past several years. I am happy to say that many of them are beginning to see God move on their campuses and with that move of God have come various questions that have been directed my way. I have tried my best to field those questions and in many ways they have caused me to question. What are the real markers or indicators of a genuine God breathed revival? Not one of those weeks we as churches like to plan and cal a revival, no I mean a genuine God breathed spontaneous revival that is contagious and spreads. And after such a revival breaks out what should our focus be then? What are we to do following an out pouring of God’s Spirit?

Well I think a good place to start is the first outpouring of the Spirit in Acts chapter two. Here we see the disciples closed up in the upper room and the Holy Spirit came upon them, there was a wind, tongues of fire and they rested on each one of them. They were filled with the Spirit and each of them began speaking in tongues as the Spirit was giving to each of them. We see Peter quote the prophecy that was given in Joel chapter two that alludes to prophecies, visions, dreams, signs and wonders. Finally we see that the Lord added to their numbers.

For most of us and in modern church history these are the things we look for as markers that a great revival has broken out! That God has moved! And I must confess that in many ways I have believed and sought the same when looking for revival.

However, I must confess that the older I get in my faith and the longer I serve in ministry, that I think we as the church are missing the boat when it comes to defining and seeking revival from the Lord.

Let’s look again at Acts chapter two. What are the real focuses of this chapter that we should be looking at.

First, the disciples were in the upper room. Does revival necessitate us separating and spending countless hours together with other believers in order to see a move of God? Is that the point we should draw from this? I’m not sure that it is. I’m not saying that retreating and spending time seeking God is a bad thing, but is it necessary to see a move of God? What we should really draw from this is that the Disciples were being obedient to God’s command. They were there because God had told them to go and wait. Time and seclusion seem to have no real bearing here rather obedience is the real key that can easily be missed. Note Acts chapter eight where God calls Phillip to go and it is because of Phillip’s obedience that the Ethiopian gets saved. Some might not see this as a revival but think about it. Here is a man from Ethiopia that has a portion of scripture which is miraculous in and of itself seeing as how the printing press had not been invented and the Jews were so cautious with their caring for the propagation and care of the scrolls. He is from Africa not Egypt, rather Ethiopia, not a neighboring country with Egypt but farther south. Yet here he is and God brings the two of them together and this man gets saved and goes home to share the gospel with an unreached nation. I would say there is a revival in this story wouldn’t you?

Secondly we see the Spirit move upon the disciples through a wind and fire and giving them a gift of tongues. Now there are varying theologies on when the Holy Spirit comes upon Christians today as to whether we receive the Holy Spirit when we get saved and the Disciples did at a later time because Christ had to ascend before he sent the Holy Spirit. But for me this isn’t the focus of this part of Scripture. What we should be asking is not when and how but why? The focus here is not the wind the fire the tongues it is that every man “heard in their own language the Mighty deeds of God and they continued in amazement.” (v. 7-12)

Third, Peter quotes the prophecy of Joel about visions, dreams signs and wonders. Is the point we should take from this that if we are full of the spirit that we should all prophecy, dream dreams, and have visions? Well if we make that general of an assumption that a move of God is always evidenced by such things then we must also say that revivals should be accompanied by blood, fire, vapors of smoke the sun going dark and the moon turning to blood shouldn’t we? I would suggest that here too we need to look deeper. Peter deeper intent here is to point out to the Judean and Jerusalem Jews that God fulfills His word. In many ways this could be seen as a reproach that these men who should know the word don’t know it well enough to see its fulfillment. Indeed as we find out later much of Joel’s prophecy is yet to be fulfilled as most of it is referring to the end times and matches up with the prophecies of Revelation. This is rather a call to know Gods word and apply it to life. True revival is the living out of God’s word more than it is the mysterious and flamboyant manifestations as mentioned earlier when talking about the tongues of fire.

Finally, we see that God was adding to their numbers daily. This is what most of us attribute to revival and a genuine move of God. Numbers! This is probably the easiest in my opinion for us to miss the point, probably because it is a very subtle thing but of utmost importance. God wasn’t adding to their number daily! He was adding to their number daily THOSE WHO WERE BEING SAVED! Many a church has had huge growth numbers and it has been said of them that they have experienced a revival. But the key point here isn’t the numbers, it is that people were being saved. Pula would go on to define this as people were being made into “new creations” people were dyeing to themselves and being remade into the image of Christ! Just as there were always multitudes following Christ when He was healing and manifesting Gods power in miraculous ways only to abandon Him when He was crucified. Many a church or supposed revival movement has gained momentum and people have come from far and wide when signs and wonders were being manifest but as soon as the miraculous or supernatural is gone the wean away.

A true indicator of God breathed revival is that it is followed by Spiritual Awakening. In fact most people confuse revival with the later. True revival isn’t about the manifestations of the Spirit, it is about man having a “re-birth” In other words it is about the Christian coming to the end of himself, remembering that he is in desperate need of God’s grace and that his sanctification comes in, through and by God alone. True revival is about repentance, submission to obedience. Biblically based living and acknowledging God’s Holiness and absolute power and glory not because of Him manifesting Himself through gifts or for what HE has done but for Who He is in His essence! Holy! Omnipotent God! He is who He says HE is! He is Who He says He was! He will do what He says He will do!

When believers are reminded of these things then it leads us to revival. It leads us to coming to the end of ourselves. Not to a place where we take the Holy Spirit and His gifts as God giving Himself to us to wield at our whims. No, true revival is us giving ourselves to God to wield as HE chooses regardless of the outcome.

We Christians, as humans, if we are not careful have the tendency to take this God and try to make His purposes fulfill our own. We say things like it is Gods desire to empower you! God longs to impart His gifts to You! And if we are not careful the focus becomes YOU! But these statements are simply not true. Real revival is not God coming to you and empowering you to do a good work for His kingdom at all! HE does not impart the Spiritual gifts to us so we can be empowered to do the work for God. Real revival is us coming to a place where we remember that God called us to die to ourselves. That each and every day we are to take up our cross, to die to ourselves all over again, and that it is not us that live rather that we be a vessel through which Christ lives in us. Notice who the signs and wonders were intended for in Acts two. It wasn’t for the Jews who had already received revelation and choose to reject it. It was for the lost. We should not need manifestations of the Spirit to draw nearer to God, to be more empowered for God, as Paul says the mysteries of the gospel have already been made clear to us. True revival isn’t about us at all. It is us coming to the end of ourselves so that God can do what HE wants in and through us so that He can manifest Himself to the lost and dying world around us.

Already in the first century church we see Paul having to address this in the church in Corinth as they had become enamored with the gifts of the Spirit rather than the why He was imparting them. We see this in I Corinthians 12-14 Notice what he follows up his discussions about the gifts of the Spirit with in chapter 15. Here we see Paul remind the believers in Corinth of the importance of the resurrection. That is, He points to the gospel and reminds them what it is all about.

In Jesus’ own words in John 15:26 he tells us “the Spirit of Truth…will bear witness of Me.” He then goes on to say that we “will bear witness” of Him as well.

In revival we are reminded of Who He is and who we are not! We are reminded to die to ourselves! Spiritual awakening follows true revival as the Spirit makes Christ known in and through us! Thus the attention in revival and spiritual awakening, in the impartation of the Spirit and use of the gifts is always to point to Christ not to draw attention to the Spirit or the gift.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this discourse, the photo at the beginning of this post causes me to think of revival in that these fish had just come up out of a river in Cambodia that we were about to take a boat down to get some footage. All these fish are dead and are being laid out become a sun dried fish jerky. It is in the fish’s death that life and sustenance are brought to those who are nourished by eating them. In the same way when we die to ourselves God takes us and uses us to bring life to those who are in need of a savior around us. This photo also reminds me of the story of the fish and loaves of bread. Just a few fish and loaves of bread were used by God to feed thousands. The key there isn’t that there were thousands it is that all who were hungry were fed. In the same way revival and spiritual awakening doesn’t require numbers to be a move of God it doesn’t require manifestations that blow our minds. True revival and Spiritual awakening are about us dying so that others may live the same way Christ did for us. In revival God uses us to bring life to others and point them to Christ. I have seen this first hand in Cambodia. Nothing fancy, nothing special about our church or the way in which we have done ministry. In fact we really haven’t done anything at all! Just a simple presentation of the gospel to Chiv’s sister, no grand manifestations or need of demonstrative gifts, and yet three years later hundreds have come to be saved! There is nothing ambiguous about what God is doing there. No doctrinal conundrums, just people coming to recognize Who God is and surrendering to Him as their Lord and God is adding to their number THOSE WHO ARE BEING SAVED!