"Send Revival" by Jesse Phillips

You always can tell that the Spirit of God is moving in a generation when the songwriters start coming forth and I am thrilled to discover that Jesse Phillips (my esteemed pastor-friend from the USA) has written a song - and what better subject than a cry for revival? It is available on You-Tube here;



Here are the lyrics;

"For every flame of love grown dim
And every passion that has died
For every prayer of faith that ceased
Ignite us once again inside
For every vision and godly ambition
Holy Spirit breathe new life

Send Revival
Send Revival
Send revival, Sovereign Lord
How we need You,Spirit, plead with You
Come revive our hearts once more

For every eye that needs to see
For every heart that now must know
For every city, land and place
To which the gospel now must go
And for your mission in this generation
Holy Spirit breathe new life

Come restore our first love
Come renew our hearts
In your time as you choose
We pray for revival".

As we grow older - and 2008 is another year - let's not face the horrendous fact that our love for God chills. Let us see 2008 as a stoking of the fire! Let us see the fires of revival in our hearts, our churches and our countries burn so that the ends of the earth will be covered with the glory of the Lord!

Fighting For the Prophetic

I have been quite provoked by an issue that my friend Jesse has raised in two of his posts - "Review: Beginner's Guide to Spiritual Gifts, 'Who Said God Said?' (Ch. 7)" and "Question of the week: should a prophecy be written down beforehand?". In his review of Sam Storm's excellent book on spiritual gifts, Jesse asks some key questions;

"First, do you agree with Storms observation that there has been abuse? Second, how wide-spread do you think it is? Third, do you agree with Storms list of reasons why, or what would you add?"
I was thinking through the issues that Jesse discussed and it occured to me that I haven't heard much of a discussion about the devil's involvement with the spiritual gifts. If the Word of God commands that spiritual gifts are earnestly desired but especially prophecy - then surely the devil will realise that prophecy could potentially be very powerful for use in the Kingdom of God. I thought about two strategies that I would employ if I were trying to hinder prophecy in the Church.

1. He can try and keep Christians back from fully entering into the gift of prophecy. Or cessationism in other words.

2. He can push those who believe in prophecy into excess which will result in fear, hurt and suspicion which will get back eventually to his first strategy - that of preventing Christians from entering into the prophetic.

I have to say I think he has been quite successful in hindering the prophetic altogether or tarnishing it with the false, the fake and the bizarre. We have all read the "horror stories" usually published by John MacArthur or Hank Hanegraff about prophecy. But it is a bit more unusual to hear testimonies and read transcripts of true and genuine prophecies.

It is my goal to fight for the genuine prophetic because I have had my life changed and blessed immeasurably by the genuine prophetic in my life from friends I trust. I have therefore dug out some prophecies that were (thank God!) written down and transcribed from the Stoneleigh Bible Week 2000. They are, in my opinion, examples of the genuine and the good and how God can use them to motivate and inspire His Church.

Here they are - still as true today as they were seven years ago.

Dave Devenish Prophesying at Stoneleigh - "Faithfulness of God".

Terry Virgo Prophesying at Stoneleigh - "Represented on high".

Terry Virgo Prophesying at Stoneleigh - "Receive My grace".

Dave Devenish Prophesying at Stoneleigh - "My strategy for the nations".

Terry Virgo Prophesying at Stoneleigh - "Participation in the Holy Spirit".

Dave Devenish Prophesying at Stoneleigh - "Bathing in My glory to change the nations".

"Baptism of the Holy Spirit" Paper by Jesse Phillips!

I am tremendously excited that my friend from the US - fellow charismatic blogger Jesse Phillips - has condensed his thesis from SG Pastors College into a workable and helpful set of notes on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

It is available here.


While the initial thesis is of enormous interest to many of us who are interested in debating the "when" and "what" of this important doctrine, Jesse recognised and wrote that the length of the paper may have put some off reading it. The material is now condensed into 5 pages and is immensely readable.


I do urge any who have an interest in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and are perhaps wondering; "Did I receive when I believed?" to go and make use of this free resource. What better reward for Jesse's hard work than to know that many Christians have come into their rightful and free inheritance by receiving the Baptism of the Spirit?!

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the Prophetic

I was tremendously stirred and excited to read my friend Jesse's notes from an awesome seminar covering the prophetic from the "Glory" Conference in Florida. A couple of key quotes really stood out to me;

"We need to understand the priority of the gifts. The scripture teaches that the gifts are a priority in the church. They are not a priority over glorifying God, but neither are they opposed to God's glorify. There is no dichotomy; they help us glorify God".

"We must crave the gifts as an incredible priority. God is giving each of you his gifts. The Spirit is saying, "I'm pouring out my gifts, so that each one of you should receive these gifts, to the end that God be glorified, and so that you may be built up in love (Eph. 4)."

"God pours out his Spirit on all flesh, and the evidence of that is that we become a prophetic people. We are a prophetic people because God has called us to be a prophetic people ... We're all called to prophesy because we're all called to be a prophetic people.This is not so much about us maintaining our charismatic distinctive, but our character as the people of God".

The prophetic is an issue of key importance - simply because the Word of God states that it is an issue of key importance! I discussed with Jesse when we spoke my stirring that we need to carry on defending the gifts of the Spirit against cessationists but at the same time move on into them in greater maturity. I was really encouraged to see that Jesse's dad seems to agree with that;

"A tendency for us as charismatics is to become defensive even though we don't have to [I addressed some related issues here]. In other words, we just do what the scripture encourages, regardless of those who disagree".

One of the most common pragmatic arguments that cessationists profer (and is headed up by John Macarthur) is that they "have heard a false prophecy" somewhere that usually had something to do with directing people to go somewhere or natural phenomena that doesn't happen. The impression that is given that it is only air-headed freaks who prophesy. I was reading Dr Martyn Ll0yd-Jones's views on the prophetic - and they make for maybe quite surprising reading.

"A preacher is taken up; he is in this realm of the Spirit and God is giving a message through this man to the people. It is not an inspired utterance in the sense that the Scriptures are, but in another sense, it is an inspired utterance because the Spirit is giving it and using it. Thus a vital element in preaching is a reliance on the Holy Spirit". "Knowing the Times" - p276.

Dr Lloyd-Jones took some effort to distinguish between teaching/preaching and prophecy. He said;

"The difference can be put in one word and the word is immediacy. It is a word that is given to him, that comes to him. Preaching and teaching are not like that. The preacher and the teacher is the man who takes time to study. He takes time to think and prepare. He arranges his matter. He has got order. He has got system. That is the truth about teaaching and preaching. A preacher and teacher should never enter the pulpit and trust to the immediacy of the moment. That's not preaching and teaching - that is prophecy. Prophecy is something that is given to a man immediately and directly" - "Spiritual Gifts" 3 - Tape 3313.

The word "immediacy" is one that has been used in conversation by SLW - the author of "Sounds of Thunder" prophetic blog. These quotes need careful consideration because all will admit and know that Dr Ll0yd-Jones was no "air-head" charismatic! He took the Word of God seriously and he governed his theology from that. As must we. Let this be another step towards what Jesse wrote; "The rising of a prophetic people ...".

League of Charismatic Bloggers!!

My friend Jesse Phillips (who runs the "Resurgence" blog) has put his considerable skills to work and has set up this aggregator site (I don't know what that word means really!). But it's here:

League of Charismatic Bloggers.

Jesse is hosting it and the vision is simple yet powerful;

"We believe for an ongoing charismatic resurgence (see a journal) and the part blogging can play in it".

It's an exciting step. As I have said before, we seem to be continually in uncharted waters with the art of blogging (whatever that is!). Yet it continually excites me that the Church is moving away from consumer mentality where we sit back and expect our leaders to feed us, but are stepping out and writing what we are seeing!