Dear Phyllis,
Friday night we probably had the night of the year. We have a big Christian extravaganza once a year called, “Holy City Chiang Mai”. This is a Korean deal started by Korean missionaries eight years ago and it really is some production. It is about as good as it can get. I don't know what you could do to improve on it. Technically is is for prayer for Chiang Mai and pray they did. This year they held it in the Convention Hall for Chiang Mai University. Pammy said there were 3,000 there. I would guess there were all of that. I saw very few empty seats. It started off with a Korean Christian dance team doing a high quality Christian dance. Then they had a gal from Korea that probably was an opera singer sing a couple of songs. The second one was in Thai but Pammy said it was pretty hard to understand. They had a top pastor from Korea give, what I suppose, was a pretty good message. Of course he preached in Korean and the interpretation was in Thai so I couldn't get a word. And over the night they had special prayer for a number of items ranging from prayer for the Thai king to all the churches, church leaders, young people, minority groups, and casting out demons. Prayer was a significant portion of the evening that lasted four hours. The last half hour or so was a praise time that turned into a Christian rock concert. There must have been at least 400 or 500 young folk standing up front jumping up and down singing praise songs.
There was only one thing left out – Jesus. It thought it was as good a production as natural man could produce. But that was the problem. It seemed to be man serving the Lord totally executed in the realm of the soul – minus anything in the spirit. I asked Pammy what she thought of the evening. She said it was like a festival. Very good. I say that as I sat there for four hours with zero sense of the presence of the Lord. When it was over I stood at the exit waiting for Pammy. I must have looked at the face of 2/3 the people leaving, and nearly all had a somewhat glum look. I saw no one that looked like they had met with the Lord.
Two weeks ago a friend sent me an e-mail with Leonard Ravenhill on You Tube. It was excellent. One of the videos was an interview of Leonard Ravenhill. One of the question posed to him was what he thought was the greatest hindrance to revival in America. He immediately answered, “Evangelism”. I totally agree. The interview was probably 10 or 15 years ago. He said we was watching the #1 evangelist in America on TV giving an invitation. The evangelist said, “Please come forward. It will only take five minutes.”. When he heard that Ravenhill said, “I wept and went to bed”. Being born-again takes more than five minutes. It takes deep conviction of sin. It takes a genuine crying out to God.
Recently I have been watching a number of Leonard Ravenhill and Dave Wilkerson messages on You Tube. Wilkerson had a couple of irrefutable messages on false prophets. With deep passion and conviction Dave quoted Paul's words, “Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so we say now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” (Gal. 1:8,9). Dave Wilkerson didn't mention anyone by name but by his description of the message and church there is no question that he was referring to Joel Olsteen. By any honest examination of Olsteen's message I see no way that anyone could come to any other conclusion than he is a false prophet. Along with the seeker-friendly message Wilkerson denounced the prosperity gospel message. If the prosperity gospel is correct then the Church in Smyrna must have been the worst and the Church in Laodicea must have been the best (Rev. 2:8-11; 3:14-22).
Listening to these two men of God pour out their heart describing the abysmal condition of the church in America today and the example of genuine men of God in years gone by peeled some of the barnacles off my heart and brought me to my knees. As Ravenhill was preaching on the church in Laodicea which was characterized by lukewarmness I burst into tears and said, “Lord, I am not even lukewarm”. That is true. When I consider my embarrassing prayer life and wasted time on the computer I had to stand in the front of the back-sliders line.
Paul Almstead consistently reports of a revival going on in his Thai church. If what he says is accurate, that is something the likes of which I know of in no other church in Thailand, Japan, or America. Every Sunday people are walking in off the streets and every Sunday is a new record. They literally can't get in the building. They are having a 5:00 AM prayer meeting every day and 35 people are coming to the Wednesday night prayer meeting. Twenty five years ago when I was in Los Angeles I attended John MacArthur church every Sunday. He announced a Wednesday night prayer meeting that I decided to attend. I was utterly stunned to discover that a church of 8,000 to 10,000 had a church prayer meeting of 15 to 20 people. I couldn't believe it! But then I looked at my own life today. I was too embarrassed to stand in line with the true servants of God standing before His Throne of Grace and went around to a back door to plead for mercy. I have boasted for several years that I have two hours of devotions each morning, but then when I had to account for the rest of the 22 hours each day I had to pull a sack over my head. It has been many years since I have done serious knee drill (praying on my knees). But I have committed myself to getting back to disciplined praying for an extended time each day on my knees. This is starting to pay some dividends as Jesus is opening my eyes to see things a little more clearly than before and there is some sprinkle drops of mercy in answer to prayer.
Oh for a new day of reality! Oh for a new day of David Brainerd praying for hours on his knees in the snow. Leonard Ravenhill told of several of his friends who pray 5, 6, 7 hours every day. Oh my flickering candle would scarcely melt and ice cube. I fear nothing came from the Holy City Chiang Mai last Friday night. But if God can find two or three genuine warriors in a closet perhaps He could do something in Chiang Mai.
Lord Jesus, help us for Your own great Names sake.
bill
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