Go Out Quickly
Go Out Quickly
"Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city...Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." (Lk 14.21-24)
"Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe...Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." (Joel 3.13-14)
"The harvest is the end of the age." (Mt 13.39)
During the night of 21/2/11, I dreamt that I was in a house full of the so-called "dregs of society", who were nevertheless diligently labouring to put all that was wrong with their lives, right. As they were doing this, from time-to-time, the whole building shuddered under repeated blows from an external, hostile and very powerful force.
What I was "seeing" is the Church in the Last Days. As The Day nears, the "gates/governors of hell" will hurl themselves against and upon the Church with increasing fury and frustration, but "will not overcome" what is truly built upon the Rock that will not roll. (Mt 7.24, 16.17-18, 1 Co 10.4, 1 Pe 2 6-7)
Meanwhile, God's great work of salvation will go on uninterrupted...intensifying in power and widening in scope.
I anticipate history's final Great Awakening...the centrepiece of which will be the salvation of "all Israel". (Ro 11.26)
As in the 18th C's First Great Awakening, this last revival will eclipse and engulf the Church. In it the Church (its dogmas, culture and structures) must learn to really and truly serve the purposes of God, or risk being swept aside and out of the way by this final, tidal wave of saving grace.
In the "Cambuslang Revival" (in the 1740s on the outskirts of Glasgow) the Presbyterian kirk (church) there was literally besieged by multitudes, unfathomably drawn by God beneath the sound of the Gospel. Observers reported that the preacher's words "came with a dint (like blows)" on the ears of the hearers, who felt their hearts "turn hot and overboil in tears".
Those present testified that they "had occasion to converse with many who had been awakened...some who had been very wicked and scandalous, but now wonderfully chang'd...very rude and boisterous before, they now had the mildness of the Lamb about them."
Crowds (the lowest estimate!) of "upwards of thirty thousand" were gathered. The full significance of this can only really be grasped when we recall that the population of nearby Glasgow at that time was "estimated by the magistrates" to be 17,034.
The (later famous) Presbyterian preacher, John Erskine, wrote of the "Cambuslang Revival", "It is to be hoped that this Work will not only go through our Land in the Length of it and the Breadth of it, but spread from Kingdom to Kingdom, till all the Kingdoms of the Earth shall become the Kingdom of God and of His Christ."
This is the spiritual paradigm which we must now embrace for this approaching season when the Church (as we have hitherto known it) is going to be either eclipsed or collapsed. As the Lord Jesus predicts with absolute accuracy, "The harvest is the end (consummation) of the age, and the harvesters are angels." (Mt 13.39)
Here is envisioned an ordained period when God Himself overshadows, not merely this or that church building or meeting house, but whole towns and regions whose citizens are suddenly and mysteriously awakened to the realities of God, sin and salvation. It will be a time when those determined to become Christians will outstrip the Church's capacity to cope, and our very best work of gathering, discipling and pastor-ing will have to be augmented by the holy angels themselves..."ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation." (Heb 1.14)
This should not be a notion which seems peculiar or exaggerated to us. It is a plain promise of God, which has in a measure already been experienced in days gone by...such as the First Great Awakening. Very great crowds regularly assembled in towns for no visible or obvious reason in England during the 1700s. No one knew why, until the Anglican revivalist, John Wesley rose his horse in and preached the Gospel to the multitude, drawn together days before he ever even decided to head in their particular direction.
In 1738, Wesley wrote of his new found vocation "field preaching", "I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields...I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church. What marvel the devil does not like field preaching. Neither do I. I love a commodious room, a soft cushion, a handsome pulpit. But where is my zeal, if I do not trample all these underfoot in order to save one more soul?"
200 years later, in Scotland, during the "Lewis Awakening", the revivalist Duncan Campbell testified, "Only God can make a community God-conscious."
The report of this later outpouring of grace and salvation, which was sent to the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, advised its ministers, "The presence of God was in homes, meadows, even public roads. A supreme feature of this God-sent revival was an awareness of the fear of God. Seventy-five percent were gloriously saved before meetings."
Ministers in that district quickly learnt to sleep fully clothed and sitting upright in their chairs. They expected to be woken during the night by whole families made anxious by the presence of God, and seeking peace through putting their trust in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. Farmers collapsed into freshly-turned dirt furrows, struck down by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, even as they trudged behind their plough horses.
This is how it is going to be before the 2nd Coming...and more so! The last, Last Days will be typified by a great falling away from God (2 Th 2.3)...but a much greater gathering to Him through Jesus. It's time to get ready!
"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." (Ro 5.20)
"Make a road for the Lord through the wilderness; make him a straight, smooth road through the desert. Fill the valleys; level the hills; straighten the crooked paths and smooth off the rough spots on the road. The glory of the Lord will be seen by all mankind together." (Isa 40.3-4)
