Author:
Teacher Maria vonAnderseck
Maria serves as a called and confirmed Chief Teacher in the restored government of God and she is an IDCCST Spiritual Life Coach. She is the co-founder of s8w Ministries. Teacher Maria walks you through spiritual transformation from start to finish, God’s way. View my profile.
What does revival mean? Because there are so many calls to “revival” these days, we should know what revival means to God. If we don’t understand God’s call for revival, there’s a good chance of stepping out of turn and not being fully committed to the cost.
In the book of Ezra, God gives us a good example of what revival means to Him and what it will cost. The return of the children of Israel after their captivity was accompanied with a very specific visitation of grace that opened their spiritual eyes to see how far they had drifted from God’s purpose. In the following verses, we’re going to see how God connects the word “reviving” to the word “repair” or restoration.
Ezra 9:8-9
8 And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.
9 For we were bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
God provided this example for the church today. We see how God connects the reviving of grace to the opening of spiritual understanding to the call to repair the house of God. Why was the house of God in need of repair in the days of Ezra? It was plundered by conquering kings and left in ruins. Not only did God begin the work of restoration under the hand of Ezra, but God went further to cleanse the people who had transgressed His covenant and had married “strange women” and had raised families with them.
When Ezra spoke by the mouth of the Lord, saying, “Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives” revival now took on double duty (Ezra 10:11). Not only were they called to repair the house of God, but the children of Israel had to begin the painful work of separating themselves from their “strange wives”.
This transgression was so widespread that the people said that the work to separate themselves from their “strange wives” could not be accomplished in a day or two. Equally important, the people could not take action on their own, they could not elect their own officials to police themselves. Revival (repair) was done under the hand of God’s steward, Ezra.
Who Are the Strange Wives of Today’s Church?
Let’s bring this home to the condition of the church today. Spiritually speaking, who are the “strange wives” believers have joined themselves to? Under the law of Moses, the children of Israel were forbidden to marry outside their own. To do so meant to take on the traditions and customs of the people they were marrying into. The way of God’s covenant could not be preserved if outside traditions were introduced.
A wife is the one with whom a man bonds and builds. So, today, spiritually speaking, God is addressing the strange doctrines believers have been bonding and building with that are foreign to God’s covenant. Each doctrine is a transgression against God in that the covenant God made through Jesus Christ could not be preserved. Since strange doctrines are deeply entrenched in the minds of believers, the painful work to separate from them does not happen in a day or two and it doesn’t happen without proper supervision.
Every strange doctrine (teaching) is born out of necessity, not covenant. Necessity is the mother of false doctrine and bears strange children (fruit) to God. For example, worship trends were not born out of covenant (not joined to the priesthood of our Lord), but born out of the necessity to express love for God one’s own way.
Prophecy was born out of the necessity to know God will for one’s life apart from covenant. Transformation and change were born out of the necessity to have an encounter with God apart from covenant. The counterfeit spiritual government was born out of the necessity to have the five offices of God’s government accounted for and spoken for apart from God’s covenant.
How many times have we heard in the natural world that necessity is the mother of all great inventions? From electricity to the invention of automobiles to the refrigerator and every gadget in the kitchen, our nature is to fill a void that we see with something that is useful. Spiritually speaking, when the church left the stewardship of apostles to walk their own path, a lot of voids and empty spaces and question marks were just begging to be filled and answered.
Attempting to join their needs and desires to God’s will apart from God’s new covenant instructions led believers to embrace, bond with, and mold their affections with strange doctrine. Just as the children of Israel saw no wrong doing in their selection of a bride to build a family, so also do ministers today see no wrong doing in their selection of doctrine.
When we think about the many calls to revival heard today, and how believers are called to gather together in a tent or other conference venue for a day or two, one can see how different these calls are from the call to revival God made through Ezra. The counterfeit calls to revival are calls to return to what used to be without first separating from the strange wives (false doctrines) and children (practices) that were born of that union. No attempts are made to re-building God’s covenant connections.
In fact, counterfeit calls to revival are calls to build again upon the foundation of a long train of false reformers who did not restore the church to the covenant of Jesus Christ. They did not rebuild God’s house, nor did they separate themselves from the many strange doctrines they fathered. Revivals are simply ways to build new platforms to bring more believers into the net of deception.
Are You Committed to the Cost?
Now that God is re-packaging revival so we can know what revival means to Him, believers are asked to count the cost. Earlier I said that if we don’t understand God’s call for revival there’s a good chance of stepping out of turn and not being fully committed to the cost. Can we imagine for just one moment the terrible pain of separation the children of Israel were called into? They had already established their roots with their strange wives and now God was asking them to tear those relationships apart.
They had built strong family ties and now God was asking them, no, commanding them to break these familial ties, to uproot themselves from the very things they spent a lifetime nurturing. God had commanded them to alienate themselves from the routine they had fallen into and to abandon the proud lineage they had worked so hard to build. Yet, they all agreed, not only to break their ties with their strange wives, but to also accept the voice of God in His steward, Ezra, that He selected to oversee the work.
Ezra 10:12
Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.
Ezra 10:4
Arise; for this matter belongeth unto thee: we also will be with thee: be of good courage, and do it.
God was with Ezra in this work of restoration to rejoin the faith of the people to the covenant God made with them through Moses and God was with the children of Israel as they separated themselves from their strange wives.
What strange doctrines have you called home? What strange doctrines is God uprooting? He is uprooting all of them. The voice of God’s grace is again heard in this new apostolic season, as God speaks through His restored government to wash and cleanse by truth a new generation of believers who will serve Him in righteousness. God is also giving strength to those believers who are answering His call to walk in the fulness of His covenant through Jesus Christ.
