======================================================================== A REVIVAL REPORT CARD by Edgar Reich ======================================================================== Summary: Brother Edgar delivers a powerful sermon titled 'A Revival Report Card,' urging believers to assess their spiritual condition and commitment to Christ. Drawing parallels to Snow White's story, he highlights the need for revival and awakening in the church. Through a series of questions and comparisons with early disciples, he challenges listeners to examine their love for Jesus, willingness to bear the cross, forsake all, walk in the Spirit, share their faith, and live obediently. Emphasizing repentance and returning to God's ways, he encourages a deeper commitment to Christ and a revival of spiritual fervor. Duration: 29:45 Topics: "Spiritual Assessment", "Commitment to Christ" Scripture References: Luke 14:25, Revelation 3:20, Acts 2:42, Galatians 5:22, 1 John 4:19, Matthew 28:19, James 1:22, Ephesians 2:8, Colossians 3:1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Brother Edgar delivers a powerful sermon titled 'A Revival Report Card,' urging believers to assess their spiritual condition and commitment to Christ. Drawing parallels to Snow White's story, he highlights the need for revival and awakening in the church. Through a series of questions and comparisons with early disciples, he challenges listeners to examine their love for Jesus, willingness to bear the cross, forsake all, walk in the Spirit, share their faith, and live obediently. Emphasizing repentance and returning to God's ways, he encourages a deeper commitment to Christ and a revival of spiritual fervor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thank you for joining me for a little while. My name is Brother Edgar, and I am called for Revival by the Will of God, and the message today is called a Revival Report Card. I've had the privilege of traveling and seeing many different churches, and it's been an honor and a joy to meet many, many committed Christians, and even as I reflect on your strength, I am honored to have met you and to benefit from all of your love. Many of you have good words, many of you do acts of kindness, many of you have great patience and perform many services, and many of you cannot bear those who preach false doctrines. You will speak up, and then those of you that say they're Christians but found to be liars are exposed by you, and many of you work hard for the Lord Jesus and do not get weary. Some of you have very great faith and you hold fast onto Jesus' name, and you don't deny that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So it is a joy to know you, but if I may, I've also noticed certain things that could be changed, and when I look at the church in North America, I might compare it to a children's story, a children's story of Snow White. You consider yourself to be Snow White, but many of you are not alive. You are in a state of deadness. You have a beautiful white dress, you are in a glass casket, you are like Snow White, but you have eaten from a poisonous fruit, and so you need to be revived. You need to be awakened, and to a great extent, I also need to be revived, and I need to be awakened. And so let us look at the Bible and understand what Christ requires from us of those that truly want to follow him, and there are four conditions in Luke chapter 14, verses 25 to 33. And in Luke chapter 14, verses 25 to 33, Jesus said, you cannot follow me as my disciple or as my follower if these four conditions aren't present. And so in verse 25, it says that a great multitude went with him, that is Jesus, and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Now beloved, this is a comparative statement because Jesus took care of his mother from the cross. He saw his mother standing nearby with the apostle John and said to her, mom, this is now the one who will take care of you. And he said to John, this is mom, take care of her. And so he loved his mother, but this is a comparative statement to indicate that the love for the Lord Jesus Christ in comparison to your love for your family, in comparison to the love of your children, must be so far apart that it almost looks like hate. May I ask you, how much do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? How much is your first love? And then he went on to say in Luke chapter 14, verse 25 to 33, and we're now reading from verse 27. And whoever, I have to back up to verse 26, because there he said, yes, and you must also turn over your life to him, for you cannot be his disciple unless you love Jesus more than your life. And now verse 27, and whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And beloved, the cross is explained all throughout the scriptures. And the cross, certainly in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ, meant a very specific thing. It meant death to the self. It meant a death on the cross. It meant a physical death on the cross. It meant a physical death to everything that you desire to be replaced with what God desires, to follow him and to do the things that he had given in his word. And then he said to us in verse 28, for which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it. Lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going to make war against another king does not sit down first and consider whether he's able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000. Or else while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all cannot be my disciple. And I was in an all-night prayer meeting with 13 or 14 saints. One was a missionary. And even as I read this passage and I asked them, where are you at in your Christian life? How does your Christian life compare to these requirements by the Lord Jesus? She cried out, what do you mean? What do you mean with forsake all? And beloved, I'll let you ask the Lord that question. What is it that you need to forsake to make him first? What is it that you should be doing? And during that all- night prayer meeting, we also did a report card. And in the report card, we wanted to understand where we were at in our Christian life. Were we dead or alive? Were we in a comatose state like Snow White in her glass casket? We feel we are pretty good. But how do we measure up to the Word of God? How do we measure up to the disciples in the book of Acts who turned the world upside down? Are you turning the world upside down? Are you sharing your faith? Are you full of joy? Are you full of faith? Are you willing to give your life in all things to the Lord? And so if I could ask you perhaps to take a piece of paper and put this piece of paper in front of you. And I'd like to ask you 15 questions and with these 15 questions, I'd like you to first of all give a rating to the early apostles and to the early Christians in the book of Acts. You would give them a rating between 1 and 10. And 10 would be the best score and 1 would be the lowest score. And so if you would rate first the disciples in the book of Acts, those followers of Jesus, the early followers, how you felt they reacted, and then please give yourself a score. And so if you have a piece of paper ready and if you have a pencil ready, please take this test with me. And I did too. And we did too in this all-night prayer meeting. And I want to share with you what the result was. And so the first question is, do you love Jesus more than your family? Do you love Jesus more than your wife? Do you love Jesus more than your children? Do you love him so much more that it almost looks like hate when you compare your love for him with the love for your family? Would you first of all give a score to the early disciples, one between 1 to 10, giving the better score being 10 or the best score being 10, and a higher score being the upwards numbers. Or give a low score. And then have a column on the right-hand side for yourself. And give yourself a rating for yourself. How much do you love Jesus? Do you love him more than your family? Then the second question is, do you love Jesus more than your life? Do you love him more than your life? What score would you give the early followers of Jesus? What score between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest, would you give yourself? And then the third question. May I ask you on the third question, are you taking up your cross and following Jesus? Would you rate the early disciples on that and then give yourself a rating between 1 and 10? Do you take up the cross of Jesus to follow him? Then may I ask you the fourth question. Do you forsake all that you have to follow Jesus? Now, we also have to understand that if God gives you resources, the part that we need to do with those resources is to use them for his glory. And so I ask you, to rate yourself. Rate the early disciples between 1 and 10, and then rate yourself. The fifth question. Do you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit? Do you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit? Scripture is very clear, which asks the question, are you an overcomer over the flesh? And how do you overcome the flesh? And it says, if you walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. May I ask you to give the early disciples a rating between 1 and 10, and then please give yourself a rating between 1 and 10. And then may I ask you, do you depend on the power of the Holy Spirit for your everyday life? Do you depend on the power of the Holy Spirit for every part of your daily life? Would you give yourself a rating? Would you give a rating for the early disciples in the first column, and then in the second column, a rating for yourself? The next question is, may I ask you whether you display Holy Spirit power, which includes love, joy, and peace. May I ask you, do you display Holy Spirit power? And what rating would you give yourself between 1 and 10? What rating would you give the early disciples between 1 and 10? And then question number eight, do you share your faith? Do you witness? Do you tell about Jesus? What rating would you give the early disciples? What rating would you give yourself? Would you write a score on this sheet of paper? And then may I ask you, how much do you love other people? And Scripture again says, if you love only those who love you, you get no reward from the Lord. But you ought to love those that are unlovely, those that oppose you, those that give you difficult time. Do you love other people? Would you give a score for the early disciples and then give a score for yourself? May I ask you, do you have fruit in your life? That is heavenly fruit, because the Word of God is very clear. If you have no fruit, you will be disconnected from the vine, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll be thrown into the fire. That is what Jesus was talking about. Do you have fruit? And did the early followers of Jesus have fruit? Give them a rating. Give yourself a rating, if you would. And then question number 11, do you act in faith, believing the promises of the Word of God, believing that there will be a period of time of great judgment in the book of Revelation? Do you believe that? Do you believe also all of the promises of acting in faith and attempting great things for God and expecting great things from God? And would you give yourself a rating for that? And would you give the early disciples a rating? And then question number 12, may I ask you, how do you react under persecution and opposition? How do you react under persecution and opposition? Would you give yourself a rating for that, please? Would you give a rating to the early followers of Jesus in the book of Acts? A rating between 1 and 10, with 10 being the best and the highest, 1 being the lowest. Would you rate yourself on that as well? And then may I ask you, how is your obedience to the Word of God? We adults feel we don't have to obey many parts of the Bible. We feel we have a choice, and so we often disobey and we say, no, we have a choice. But if I go by the Word of God, God means that we should follow His guidance, His precepts, also in the New Testament, because under the Lord Jesus Christ, He said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And then He raided seven churches in the book of Revelation, and He told them, repent, where they did not follow Him in obedience. So may I ask you to rate the early disciples for obedience? Give them a score between 1 and 10. Would you rate yourself for a score between 1 and 10? And then may I ask you question number 14, how is your Bible and prayer life? How is your Bible and prayer life? Does it exceed the time you spend on Facebook and the computer? Does it exceed the time you watch television? Does it exceed the time watching ball games or entertainment? And if it does not, then I wonder who's your God? If it does not, I wonder who's your God? And so would you please rate the early disciples on this question between 1 and 10, and then please rate yourself between 1 and 10. And the last question is a very sensitive one, but you know the truth in secret. Do you abstain from sexual immorality? Do you abstain from adultery? Do you abstain from things that are against the Word of God? Is there victory in your life? And would you rate again the early followers of Jesus on that? And then please rate yourself. Now beloved, once you have done that, put a line underneath each column, under the column for the early followers of Jesus, and then put a line underneath your own score. And beloved, when we added up the score for ourselves in an all-night prayer meeting, and there were 12, 13, 14 truly committed Christians were present, and we wept, we wept. You know what our score was? Our score was 24, and that was an average of all scores given. It was 24, and it compared to a score of between 80 and 90 for the early followers of Jesus. So beloved, when I look at our western world, when I look at the church in North America, they say we look beautiful. We are dressed in white, but are we snow white? In a glass casket, having eaten of a poisonous fruit that was given us to deceive us from the truth of the Word of God, that has deceived us from what the Bible says? Beloved, there is a solution, and the solution is always given by the Lord Jesus Christ, and the solution He gives us is turn around, repent, repent, repent from where you're at. Take maybe three of the lowest scores you have, and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to help you. Take those, and look at them, and then turn around from these things. You see, when Jesus looked at the early church in Ephesus, He said to them, you lost your first love. He said to the church of Pergamos, you're in sexual immorality. Turn around from it. You have open sin in your church. You follow false doctrines. You follow false religions. There's a Jezebel. There's sexual immorality. There's adultery. He said to the church of Sardis, you say you are alive, and in fact, this church looked alive, probably did many good things, but Jesus said, no, you're dead. You have forgotten the purpose. I came to seek and save that which was lost, and you're not doing that. You're not carrying on the work that I left for you to do, and then to the church of Laodicea, He said to them, you're neither cold nor hot. You're rich. You're wealthy. You have need of nothing. You look warm. You provide for yourself in everything. You have no need of me. Repent, and He said to all of these churches, repent, and with the loss of first love, He said, remember the things you did at first. Repent, and then redo the things you did at first. To the church of Thyatira, He said, well, you have a little good left in you. Hold on to that. Work on that part. Increase it. Make it better, and then also to the church of Sardis, He said, strengthen the little you have, but we must repent. We must turn around from where we're at, and then Jesus spoke of very significant penalties and consequences. He told the church of Ephesus, if you don't turn around, your place of worship, your church will be gone. It will not survive, and we know today that there is no longer a church, a Christian church in Ephesus. With the church of Pergamos, Jesus said, if you don't turn around, I'm going to fight against you, and then with the church of Thyatira, He said, I'm going to cause you great, great tribulation. I'm going to kill your children. Yes, He's a God of love. He's a God of mercy, but He will also bring judgment because He wants us to turn around from our evil ways, and then to the church of Laodicea, He said, I spit you out. I don't want you. Don't be lukewarm. Be either hot or cold. Be hot or cold, and it was with a young farmer just a day or two ago, and this young farmer has great, great fields to take care of, but he said, no, I've got to do also the work of the Lord, and he inspired all of us going out into the coffee shops and the street to share Christ, and he took time out from an incredibly busy schedule to do the will of God, and so, beloved, may I ask you this? Are you rich and wealthy? You have need of nothing, but look at your score. Do you consider yourself in a white dress, even as no white was, but are you alive or dead? Are you in a beautiful casket waiting to be awakened, and you know, then a prince came into this children's story, and the prince in our Christian lives is the Lord Jesus Christ. He sends also His Holy Spirit to remind us to do the things that Jesus talked and spoke to us about. He said, love me more than your family. Love me more than your life. Take up your cross and follow me. Forsake all. Walk in the Holy Spirit. Depend on the Holy Spirit. Display all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and walk in power with love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control. Do you have these things? If not, you must repent. You must return to God. Are you sharing your faith? Only about one percent of Christians share their faith now in North America. Beloved, it's time to be awakened from the poisonous apple that we have swallowed. We must be awakened. We must do what God calls us to do, and do you love those that are unloving? Do you have fruit in your life? Do you act in faith? How do you react in persecution and opposition? How is your obedience? How is your Bible and prayer life? Beloved, the Lord Jesus loves you so much, and He says, I stand at the door and knock, and I'm going to go to the Word of God, and in Revelation chapter 3 verses 20, Revelation chapter 3 verse 20, He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me. Turn around, beloved sister. Turn around, beloved brother, and do the things that the Bible tells us. Take your score sheet that you have. Take the three lowest scores. Cry out to Jesus. Repent. Ask Him for forgiveness. Ask Him to awaken you from your sleep. Ask Him if your dress that you have is white without a spot and a wrinkle, and then help Him in the task that He has asked us to do, and ask Him to cleanse you anew. And then in verse 21 and verse 22, here comes the promise from the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do what I'm recommending to you and to myself, to Him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne. In verse 22 of chapter 3 of the book of Revelation, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And you are the church, my beloved sisters and brothers. Let us together awaken from this beauty sleep. Let us be awakened through Christ and the Holy Spirit, and let us together spit out this poisoned apple. I thank you for watching. The Lord be with you. Thank you. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/qef_O57jnz4.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/edgar-reich/a-revival-report-card/ ========================================================================