An old pastor friend of mine once told me that he was invited to a special ministers’ meeting to hear the famous evangelist Oral Roberts. He was there a bit early, and was sitting facing the front when he suddenly sensed the presence of God come into the room. The spiritual atmosphere had changed, and on looking around, he saw that Oral Roberts had just walked into the room. Oral carried an amazing anointing on his life that influenced everything around him,with people being healed and souls being saved along with amazing miracles. This should be the norm for us as well as the Sons and Daughters of God. As we get closer to the Lord’s return, I believe that our light should be getting brighter and brighter according to Proverbs 4:18-19 and that we will influence the spiritual atmosphere around us.
I don’t think we have inherited all that God has for us in this life yet. There is much more land, yet be possessed. The best is yet to come. I believe the Church today needs to make some changes though in order for our level of influence to increase.
There is a great story about Jacob returning home to Canaan Land after God had dealt with him over the years in Mesopotamia.
He was told to return home to Canaan with his wives, concubines, children and servants, who obviously still had some heathen ways in them. As they got nearer to the border of Canaan, Jacob told them all to prepare themselves. They were heading back to Bethel in Canaan, where God had met with Jacob in the past. Bethel means the House of God.
“Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.” Genesis 35:1-5
Jacob told his people to do three things: Get rid of their idols, cleanse themselves and change their garments. When they obeyed the end result was that the fear of God fell on all those around them.
I feel there is a prophetic picture here for us, the modern Church in these last days. We all want to see folk saved and there is a lot of darkness around us in the form of unbelief and worldliness. We can shout at the darkness or we can be those who turn on the lights.
Many Christians want to see those around them change, but the Lord wants us to change first. Just like Jacob and his family, when they changed the atmosphere around them changed. We can be blind to our spiritual condition not realising that our repenting will result in the fear of God coming on all those that we are concerned about. We can be pointing the finger at them telling them to change, not realising that there are 3 fingers pointing back at us. We need to change first. I believe the Church needs to make some major changes first before there will be revival around us and the keys are found in this portion of scripture in Genesis 35.
1 Peter 4:17 says that judgment must first come to the house of God. Jacob was heading towards the house of God and we are told that in these days we are God’s House.
Jacob said that they needed to cleanse themselves. For us today under the new covenant we can only be clean through the blood of the Lamb - Jesus. What can wash away my sin – nothing but the blood of Jesus? The bible tells us that the word of God also washes us and to be a child of God we are meant to know these truths. It’s not by works or any self-effort that we are made clean. The heathen believe there all sorts of ways to be made clean from sin, but only the blood of Jesus can perfectly achieve this. The question is do we believe it?
The second thing he told them to do was, change their garments. As Christians we all know that you can’t enter the kingdom of God unless you have on the Garment of Salvation and we receive this by faith. We are also given the Robe of Righteousness.
“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,” Isaiah 61:10
Praise God we are given these garments when we were saved. Paul says that we actually are the righteousness of God when we are in Christ. When we put this robe on, we become as righteous as Christ is. This enables us to be His Bride, equally yoked and these garments allow us to enter into the very presence of the Father.
The Garment of Praise is also very important, but many Christians forget to put this garment. It’s the Garment of Praise that makes us strong, for the joy of the Lord is our strength. We need to pray that the Church sees the need to praise all day long, for God lives in the praises of His people. If God lives in the praises of His people then who lives in our grumbling? It was grumbling and moaning that kept the Children of Israel out of Canaan Land later on. We are also encouraged to put on God’s Armour, which is a whole other subject.
But I think the major problem with today’s Church is in the area of idol worship. Just as Jacob told his family to throw away their idols, so do we need to even today. An idol is something that takes God’s place in our lives. We may not deliberately worship idols, but we can do it out of ignorance. Idol worship is making something matter more than what matters most, and what matters most is Jesus.
Jesus wants to be number one in our hearts, for He is a jealous God, a jealous lover. King Solomon said that we should guard our hearts, for our very lives are affected by those things we love - our affections. Proverbs 4:23.
We are in a very Laodicean Age and the problem we face today is lukewarmness. Being lukewarm is having a mixture of hot and cold in our lives. We are neither red hot for Jesus nor are we cold. We have a form of godliness, but deny its power. It can take awhile for the Spirit to convict us of idols, but it’s worth changing.
Psalm 16:4 says that sorrows are multiplied for those who worship idols. We all have sorrows in our lives, but I can see that many Christians have more than they are meant too have because they have allowed the Devil in through unconsciously worshiping idols.
You can change the spiritual atmosphere over your life when you understand these things and then influence those around you.
Susannah Wesley the mother of John and Charles Wesley who helped bring about a great revival in England said. "Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or removes your desire for spiritual things, that is sin to you." Her advice to her sons helped bring about revival in England and avert a Revolution. England became the ‘People of the Book’.
We see that after Jacob obeyed God and did those 3 things, the fear of God fell on all the places where they went. I believe this is God’s plan for us today as well. As we get our lives sorted out, we can change the spiritual atmosphere in our lives, our families, our church our workplace and even the nation. Amen.