CAN WE EXPECT A BREATH OF REVIVAL AMIDST THE APOSTASY OF THESE LAST DAYS? 

(Part 1)

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: and I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” Acts 2:17-21.

In response to a comment emailed to me by one who read an article I had mounted on ‘The Burning Bush’ website, regarding the corruption all too evident within our local politicians, I replied with these words.

“Any age of apostasy is an age in which ‘Judas’ appears!! The Antichrist will be the personification of duplicity.”

Shorty after I pondered my own words and was made to realise that I was saying that the days of the Saviour’s ministry, during His first advent, were days of apostasy!

I had never thought of those times in that manner before but as I now considered more carefully what I had written, I recognised that what I had stated was very, very true!

I serves to remind us that we are to constantly “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me,” John 5:39. It is in them alone we can discover the  “pearl of great price” Matthew 13:46. Men dig in the earth for precious stones, silver and gold. Let us turn over the pages of the Bible and search for eternal treasure!

To begin our study of this subject please consider:

THE PECULIARITIES OF THE DAYS OF THE SAVIOUR’S EARTHLY MINISTRY. (Hebs 9:26)

1. In the days of the Saviour’s first advent the land had been without a prophet for just over 400 years. The brief ministry of John the Baptist, who was then followed shortly after by the Saviour’s ministry, broke that 400 year drought. That indicated there had to be great darkness and ignorance in the land!

This is emphasised in the 4th chapter of Matthew.

“Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” Matthew 4:12-17.

Here is the terrible spiritual state of the land when the Saviour came. “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”

2. The ordinances of God had been abandoned and corrupted. The Levitical priesthood was utterly unfaithful  and the temple worship defiled.

“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves,” Matthew 21:12-13.

The response of the priests to the Saviour indicates their corruption.

“And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased,” Matthew 21:15.

The priests were the chief instigators of the Saviour’s crucifixion.

“But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus,” Matthew 27:20.

3. It has to be remembered that the Saviour’s ministry took place under the political dominion of the ‘last’ of the four great kingdoms which would rule over the ‘prophetic earth’.

Those four kingdoms were Babylon, the Medes and Persians, Greece and finally Rome.

“And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise,” Daniel 2:40.

There is to be a resurgence of that fourth kingdom at the close of this age. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that it would be in the days of that fourth kingdom that Christ would return.

“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure,” Daniel 2:44-45. 

The ‘spirit of rebellion and apostasy’ centred in these four kingdoms and although there was a change of the dominating nations, the kingdoms remained the same in essence of spirit.

Thus it can be said that “in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom.” That kingdom shall break  “in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold” , the great kingdoms of earthly rebellion.

What a breaking it will be.

“Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth,” Daniel 2:34-35.

The extent of this destruction indicates that it was not the emergence of the Gospel kingdom that will bring about the complete destruction of these kingdoms. No, it is a reference to the Saviour’s millennial kingdom.

“And the seventh angel sounded; (the last trumpet) and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever,” Revelation 11:15.

4. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was the ultimate in man’s rebellion against God! 

“The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses,” Acts 3:13-15.

They did what the devil had been seeking to do since his fall into sin — the killing of Abel, of the male children in Egypt, of the slaying of the children by Herod, the attack of the devil in the Garden of Gethsemane — (“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared,” Hebrews 5:7).  All was aimed at killing the Messiah! 

In the end the devil stirred up the blind Jews to kill their Messiah. This, in the purpose of God, accomplished the redemption of His elect and utterly frustrated the schemes of the devil! It was a repeated of Genesis 50:20!

But this illustrates for us the awful spirit of  apostasy which dominated the land of Israel in the days of the days of the Saviour’s first advent.

And yet in those dreadful days it is recorded that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him,” Acts 10:38.

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name,” John 20:30-31.

“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen,” John 21:25.

The miraculous feeding of the multitudes gives us numbers.

“And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children,” Matthew 14:19-21.

“And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were four thousand men, besides women and children,” Matthew 15:36-38

These verses are indications of the crowds that gathered to hear the Saviour. Add the women and children and you can at least double, if not treble, those figures.

These are scenes of ‘revival blessings’ and yet it was a day of apostasy!

Thus I believe that we can expect the Lord to bless His people in the very near future and that for a number of very good reasons.