Leaders Took the Lead and People Offered Themselves Willingly 1985

It's true to say that revival in the body of Christ never begins with us. We can't engineer revival. We can't make it happen.

God has to send his spirit. God has to cause his voice to be heard, to wake us up, to raise us from the dead. The initial action, always in revival, the beginning of revival, always comes from God's side.

But it's also true to say that when God does send revival, and he's sending it now all over the earth, it only really begins when there are some people who take initiative, who respond to the moving of the spirit, and begin to take the lead in some way. Until somebody takes the lead, nothing happens. And the revival that begins only begins to get momentum going, and hold that momentum when people offer themselves in response to what they see, willingly respond with eyes that are open and hearts that are alive with worship and praise and thanksgiving and repentance to what they see God doing.

Reading today from Judges chapter 4, verse 1. And the people of Israel, again, did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Javan, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who dwelt at Harosheth Hagoyon.

Then the people of Israel cried to the Lord for help, for he, that is, Sisera, had 900 tariots of iron and oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for 20 years. Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at the time. She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment.

She sent and summoned Barak, the son of Abinuim, from Kadesh in Naphtali, and said to him, The Lord God of Israel commands you, go gather your men on Mount Tabor. Take 10,000 from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun, and I will draw out Sisera, the general of Javan's army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand. Barak said to her, if you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.

And she said, I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will send sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kadesh, and Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kadesh, and 10,000 men went up at his heels, and Deborah went up with him.

So the picture we have is that Israel turned away from God again and stumbled into 20 years of terrible oppression under Javan, the king of Canaan. And things were really bad, and you couldn't have any wheat lying around in a bushel somewhere around your house invisible to anybody, because the soldiers of Sisera, his general, would just come and take him. People were beaten down, they had given up hope, and they lived in fear.

All the time they lived in fear. But there was this woman of God, this prophetess named Deborah, who was judging Israel at the time, meaning she was ruling Israel at the time. Somebody says, what? A woman ruling Israel? Well, and you can be sure there were quite a few men in Israel at the time who said the same thing.

There were men who were jealous, and men who were angry, and who were resentful, but the truth is that there was not a man in the land with half her courage. The day came when Deborah, under the anointing of the Spirit, proclaimed, now it's time to throw off the yoke of bondage. And she sent north to the country of Naphtali, that's where the tribe of Naphtali was, and summoned Barak, the son of Abednegom.

And he had to come. He has to travel a long distance and come and stand before her under this palm tree. And she says to him, the Lord God of Israel commands you to gather your troops on Mount Tabor.

And when you do this, the Lord says, I will gather Sisera, the general of David's army, and all his troops and all his terrorists to meet you by the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand. Now this was the beginning of revival in Israel at that time. And this revival began because Deborah took initiative.

She took the lead. Now Barak wasn't quite as sure of himself, and he says, okay, I'll do it if you go with me. But if you don't go with me, I ain't going.

And she says, I'll go with you. But know this, that the glory from this victory will not go to you, it'll go to a woman. Reading on in the same passage.

When Sisera was told that Barak, the son of Abednom, had gone up to Mount Tabor, Sisera called out all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him from Harosheth Hagoyim to the river Kishon. And Deborah said to Barak, up, for this is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hand. Does not the Lord go out before you? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him.

And the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak with the edge of the sword. And Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot. And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth Hagoyim.

And all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword. Not a man was left. But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.

For there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, Turn aside, my lord. Turn aside to me.

Have no fear. So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. And he said to her, Pray, give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.

So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink. And then she covered him. And he said to her, Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and asks, Is anyone here? Say no.

But Jael, the wife of Heber, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple till it went down into the ground, as he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died. And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, Come, I will show you the man whom you are seeking.

So he went in with her to the tent, and there lay Sisera dead with a tent peg in his temple. And you say, What a gruesome story. But it wouldn't seem so gruesome if you had been living under the boot of this man Sisera for 20 years.

If you had torn your children out of your arms and taken them as slaves and burned down your barn, then you would say this is war. And the truth is that all the gruesome, terrible, bloody stories in the Old Testament are a physical manifestation, an outward material manifestation of a war which continues down to this moment in the spirit realm. And it's a war.

And Sisera represents Satan. And we need to understand that Satan is our enemy. And that as he is our enemy, this means that we either conquer him or he conquers us.

No neutrality. You can't say, Well, look, I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone. It won't work.

He'll say, I'll leave you alone, and he'll take you by the throat, and you won't even know it. This is a war. And the impotence and the weakness and the paralysis in the body of Christ will not leave until we begin to drive the enemy back, and until we pull down his strongholds, and until we begin to take the territory which is rightfully ours.

And this will not happen until the leaders take the lead, and until the people offer themselves willingly. Reading just a few more verses in the same passage. So on that day, God subdued Jabin, the king of Canaan, before the people of Israel.

And the hand of the people of Israel bore harder and harder on Jabin, the king of Canaan. Then sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinimum, on that day, that the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly. Bless the Lord.

Whenever God sends revival to the body of Christ on earth, two things always happen on the human side, always. One, the leaders take the lead. Two, the people offer themselves willingly.

Okay, now what does it mean for the leaders to take the lead? Who are these leaders? Very clear who the leaders are out there in the world. The leaders in the world are those men and women who know how to take hold of power and wield power, and exercise and assert power over other people. Whether this is true in the business world, it's true in the political sphere, it's true in the labor union movement, it's true in military confrontations, everything, always.

We know who the leaders are in the world, but in the body of Christ, the leaders are those who take the lead in serving. And when revival begins to stir over the body of Christ, certain men and women emerge who take the lead in serving. So we're not talking about electing somebody to the church council or putting somebody on a committee.

We're talking about any man, any woman, any young person who begins to become aware that the Spirit of the Lord is calling for action and starts to act. For instance, throughout the body of Christ, all over the world right now, believers are coming together not only as congregations like this, but even within congregations they are coming together in smaller groups. And I'm not talking about cliques, I'm not talking about people who gather together because they have this or that or something else in common in addition to Jesus.

I'm talking about people who come together only around the Lord himself. And they come together so that they can support each other and confront each other and be accountable to each other and encourage each other and pray with each other. Now these small groups are also forming here.

How many will we have? Well, it's not a matter of, you know, taking the whole parish all across the city and suburbs and dividing it geographically and say, we'll have 20 small groups and we're going to, you're going to be in this one, you'll be in that one, you'll be in this one. That's not how it works. We will have as many of these genuine, valid, small groups inside the body as we have leaders.

These things never work unless you have a leader. So a man or woman begins to see the need. They set a date.

They invite some people to their house. They go visit them. Call them on the phone.

Write them a letter. Show an interest. It begins to meet.

This group starts to meet. And now this person, whoever it is who's going to be the leader, takes responsibility. Functions as a pastor.

Shepherds. Watches over. Daily prays by name for these people.

Cares about them. Ministers to them. And what happens? The group begins to grow.

Gets bigger and bigger. Pretty soon it's too big. Now we have to have two groups.

But we will only have two groups that will work if we have another leader. Somewhere in that group there has to be somebody who has that gift. And as that gift begins to manifest itself, it's called forth.

And we have two groups now. And this is how it goes. Or let's say there's somebody in the gathering here who feels that they have a gift for teaching.

Feels pretty certain that they have a gift of teaching. And they say, but nobody ever asked me to teach around here. Well, if you have a gift for teaching, and if you have something to teach, don't wait for somebody to give you a Bible study on a silver platter.

Take the lead. Invite a few people to come together at the house of your best friend, who can't turn you down. And then begin to teach.

Teach these people. If you have a gift for teaching, you have a gift for teaching. It will very soon be manifest that you indeed have a gift for teaching.

And the people will respond. The people will offer themselves willingly. And this thing will prosper, and you'll grow, and they'll grow too.

On the other hand, if it turns out that you really don't have a gift in that area, in some other area, you'll find that out pretty fast too. And then that issue will be settled in your life. And you can go on.

Or let's say there are some among us who feel a concern that there are people in the congregation who aren't getting enough visits. There are people who would benefit greatly if somebody who cared about this person would go to see them more often. Well, don't just sit there and say, people ought to go to see Bill Chapman more often.

Or why don't they go and see Mamie Brown more often? You go and see them. And I'm not trying to shove it off, but if you have that insight, that means God is calling you to do something. Take the lead.

And we don't take the lead by making somebody else do what we see. That's a gift for administration. People can do that too in other areas.

But we're talking about taking the lead. So you go see Mamie Brown. And maybe you take somebody with you to see Mamie Brown.

Or you go see Bill Chapman. And there are many, many other shut-in, discouraged people who need attention, need that kind of regular concern. Do it.

Or maybe there's an area in our outreach that we're just missing totally, and you can see that. Don't sit and gripe about it. Do something about it.

Get some people together. Share it with them. Pray it.

Nobody's going to be worried about a revolution forming. If it's done under the Spirit of God, and we're concerned to be obedient to the Spirit of God, this thing will be blessed. We just had a movie over there on the other side.

Very, very good. The teaching was absolutely, I felt, right on. Very, very clear.

Centered exactly, I feel, where it should be. Talking about, you know, getting out of the salt shaker and into the world and done in a beautiful way. How did we have that movie? We had that movie because some people took the lead.

What happens is there is a group called the Women's Charity Fellowship that meets on Sunday mornings during Sunday school. And somebody in that group felt that this would be really helpful. And this group took the initiative, and there it was.

And nobody stopped them. You know, nobody turned them down. Nobody gave them a hard time.

And we were all richly blessed. A few weeks ago, again, there were some sisters and women in this flock who were concerned about a certain area of our corporate life. They were concerned that from their point of view, they felt that walls were coming up in some of the interpersonal relationships inside the flock.

And so instead of forever complaining about it, they got together on a Friday night in the home of one of these women. And they prayed. They prayed not for just one hour or two hours or three hours.

They prayed all night long. I don't know exactly how they did it, whether they took turns or how they did it, but they prayed all night. The following Sunday, here in this room, our jars began to break.

Light began to shine between us. Peace began to spread. You could almost feel it.

And this was because the leaders took the lead. And the people were then able to offer themselves willingly. And in this case, the leaders who took the lead were not the pastor and the church council, but these women.

In the coming days, we're going to see the spiritual awakening, which is moving over the face of this earth right now, manifesting itself even more clearly among us than ever before. It will manifest itself in this way, that leaders will emerge who will take the lead, whether it's Deborah speaking a word from God, or a barrack getting his army together, or a jail driving a tent peg into Satan's head. And it will be people who in the past perhaps were often shy, sometimes self-conscious, often perhaps a little self-pitying, perhaps a little cynical.

I don't want to get involved, never works. Every time I do, I get my head shot off. But now they move, they take the lead.

And as the leaders, those kinds of leaders, whoever they are, men, women, young people, whoever, begin to take the lead, the second sign of revival will manifest itself among us. The people will offer themselves willingly. It'll happen.

Reading from Acts chapter 2, verse 37, and this is the passage that immediately follows Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. Peter just finished his sermon, and now when they all heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, to everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.

And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. So these people who were baptized were offering themselves willingly, body, soul, and spirit to the kingdom of God.

They were offering themselves literally to death, so that they dying could provide now a body through which Jesus in his spirit could move and work. They were offering themselves gladly. Reading on, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Now they offered themselves to become pupils, disciples, learners, learning so that they could be effective out there in the world and get the job done. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done to the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

And so now they offered themselves to each other, gladly, so that they could be one, truly one, the fulfillment of John 17. And now together they offer themselves in the name of Jesus to the world, so that other people out there could be harvested in the kingdom of God. Nobody had to beg them to get together.

Nobody had to push them to go out there. Nobody had to manipulate them to proclaim Jesus to the world. Nobody had to force them to let their light shine.

They offered themselves willingly. And in the coming days, we're going to see more of this. We're seeing it now, but we're going to see more, much more.

And we're going to see, as the leaders, whoever they are, God knows who they are, among us, offer themselves to him and take the lead. The people will offer themselves willingly. In this neighborhood, in this city, and these suburbs all around us will feel the impact of the kingdom of God through us.

And the Lord will add to our number day by day those who are being saved. And the revival, which is God's revival, will go on and on and on.