Is it OK to Use "Church" and "Revolution" in the Same Sentence?

BRIEF UPDATE: We've been very tied up recently...Our most recent KingdomScribes Newsletter explained all (and if you didn't get it, click here to read it.)

Anyway -- we're off to visit the Apostolik Kirk churches in Denmark and a conference in Norway. Pray for us!

Meanwhile, on to our most recent blog!

In the '60s, various church people cried out, "God is dead!" People meant that "church" had become utterly meaningless to a normal person's daily life -- just as if "God" had "died". Lot of people still feel that way today.

In a way, this is kind of funny.

In the Bible, there's an Old Testament story about a troublesome prophet named "Elijah". He bucked the religious system of his day. The true ruler in Israel then was Queen Jezebel, and she worshipped Ba'el, a local fertility god.

Elijah challenged the prophets of Ba'el (450 of them) to a contest on top of a nearby mountain, Mt. Carmel. Sort of a "mano a mano" thing -- with one against hundreds.

Here's the contest: Each team had to build an altar and place wood and a sacrificial animal on top, offering it to their god. The winner would be the team whose god accepted the sacrifice by lighting the sacrifice on fire.

That's it. No cigarette lighters, no matches. No help at all -- just let their god of choice demonstrate his or her reality by setting the sacrifice on fire.

So the prophets of Ba'el went first. They built the altar, laid the wood, placed the animal sacrifice -- then began to dance and cry out for hours. Then they threw in a little of their own blood sacrifice as in their religious frenzy, they took knives and lancets, sliced their own bodies and let their blood flow freely as they danced in their trance.

Elijah, off to one side, wasn't very nice. He kept yelling things. He kept yelling things like, "Yell louder! Maybe your god's busy talking to someone! Maybe he's going to the bathroom! Maybe He's on vacation or taking a nap!"

(Don't believe me? Look it up... 1 Kings 18.27!)

Ba'el's prophets never quit until the time of the evening sacrifice. It's not as if Elijah didn't give them plenty of opportunity. Yet their god never lighted their sacrifice.

Then Elijah built his altar. Piling 12 stones together loosely, he laid the wood on top, slaughtered a steer for the sacrifice...

Then he went one further than the prophets of Ba'el. He dug a trench around the altar, calling for people from the crowd to pour four barrels of water all over the altar, soaking the wood, the sacrifice and running into the trench around the altar.

Then he told them to pour another four barrels of water on the altar, and then a third round of water. The altar was thoroughly soaked with water.

Then Elijah the prophet came near, and said, "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that You are the only God in Israel, and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things because You told me to. Hear me, Oh Lord, hear me, so that this people will know that You are the Lord God, and that because of this sign, You have won back their hearts."

Verse 38 says, "Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the burnt sacrifice and the wood, and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water in the trench. And when all the people saw, they fell on their faces. And they said, 'Jehovah, He is the God! Jehovah, He is the God!'" And they then slaughtered all of Ba'el's prophets!

Let's make the connection now, between the first paragraph of this article and this Old Testament story.

Michele and I, we pastor a congregation locally. I do most of the teaching. My "handbook" for teaching is the Bible. If the Bible "says it", I say it too.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it. I preach what the Book says, not what makes me comfortable.

And the Book says that Jesus said that wherever any Believer of Jesus Christ "walks", "miraculous signs will accompany them (Mark 16.16): "They will use the power and authority of My Name to force demons out of people. They will speak 'languages' that are of a new kind and unprecedented...They will place their hands on the sick and cure them."

Paul, the Apostle, reproved the Believers at Corinth once. He said (in 1Cor 4.20): "The Kingdom of God is not just words, but power ."

Can I admit something to you? I'd be scared stiff if a modern "Elijah" walked up to me and said, "Is your god dead? You call on the name of your god, and I'll call on the name of my God -- and we'll see whose 'god' is real! That one, the One Who sends the fire -- He is God."

I'd be afraid to face "Elijah's" mockery as he says to me, "Can your god heal the sick? Raise the dead? Break demonic bondages? Maybe your god has gone to the bathroom or is still asleep!"

But, for Heaven's sake, why do I admit that there's something wrong with the "religion" I preach?

Number 1: I want to stir up a "holy dissatisfaction" with anything less than a church which is turning the world upside down through demonstrations of power and love.

Number 2: I'm not willing to play religion anymore. When we've prayed for people's healings, there have been very, very few miracles. Yet, according to the Bible, I can say that that's not what we should expect.

Besides, no one who doesn't believe in Jesus Christ now is going to believe by more religious prattle. But when the God of Elijah's "fire" heals the sick, frees the demonically oppressed and displays His true Power in the lives of people in this community and others, then everyone -- Believers or not -- will know that Heaven has sent the Eternal Human Being, Jesus Christ, into the world to bring us Life, and Life more abundantly.

Emil & Michele Swift
www.KingdomScribes.net

P.S. By the way -- if I don't think I have the "truth, the whole truth"...why do I keep the doors of our "church" open?

It's simple: When someone says casually to me, "Oh, where's your church? I think I'll drop in some Sunday morning," I usually say, "You're more than welcome -- but when you come in, don't expect to find yourself 'in church'. We're not so much a "church" anymore as we are a Rallying Point for God's Coming Revolution." es