Scripture Reading: Hab. 3:2a; Hosea 6:2; Joel 2:28-29; Hag. 1:14; Mal. 3:1b; Hag. 2:7a; Heb. 7:22; Acts 26:18b; Col. 1:12; Mal. 4:2a; Rom. 8:20-22
In this concluding message to the life-study of the Minor Prophets, I have the burden to speak a word concerning the revival revealed in the Minor Prophets. We may say that this matter of revival is the “kernel” within the “shell” of the books of the Minor Prophets.
Habakkuk 3:2a speaks of revival: “O Jehovah, revive Your work / In the midst of the years.” Among God’s elect there has always been an aspiration to be revived. As long as you are a saved one, every day, consciously or unconsciously, there is an aspiration with a spontaneous prayer within you: “O Lord, revive us.” Although we may not realize it, such an aspiration has been within us through all the years of our Christian life.
We may think that Habakkuk’s prayer for revival was good for him but has nothing to do with us. However, regarding his prayer, we need to realize that with God there is no time element. In the eyes of God, one person among His elect represents the whole. God always considers His elect as a corporate Body. This means that Habakkuk and we are one in the unit of God’s elect. Thus, when Habakkuk prayed for revival, we also prayed. We prayed for revival twenty-six hundred years ago. Such a prayer is an everlasting prayer.
Many times in the last six years I charged the saints to put the God-ordained way into a living practice, but without a revival, how could we have anything living? If we endeavor to practice just the first step of the God-ordained way — to visit people for the gospel — without being revived, this will be a heavy burden that no one can bear. We all need to realize that we have been saved and kept on earth to do one thing — to go to disciple the nations, beginning from “Jerusalem” and spreading to “Judea,” to “Samaria,” and to the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8). If we live for our education, a career, a good marriage, or a nice house, that is vanity of vanities. We are living here for the spreading of the Lord Jesus, not merely to our neighborhood but to the entire world. If we would do this, we need to be revived. This is why the Lord has led us to practice the morning revival.
This matter of morning revival is according to the natural law in God’s creation. God created the universe so that there is a sunrising every twenty-four hours. We believers should follow the sunrising to be revived every morning. Every day we need a “sunrising,” and this sunrising is a revival. If we experience a daily revival, then we will be living and qualified to practice the God-ordained way and to help the church to take this way.
On the one hand, Habakkuk prayed for revival; on the other hand, Hosea spoke of the desolation of the “two days” and the resurrection on the “third day”: “He will enliven us after two days; / On the third day He will raise us up” (6:2). Since to God a thousand years are as one day (2 Pet. 3:8), these “two days” may refer to a period of two thousand years. For almost two thousand years, from the time Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70, Israel, our representative, has been desolate. From that year Israel lost the priesthood, the sacrifices, the prophets, the king, and the temple. Eventually, there will be the “third day” — the thousand years of the millennial kingdom — when Israel will be raised up, that is, restored.
The principle is the same in our Christian life. At a certain time we became desolate. After the two days of desolation, there is the third day, which signifies the pneumatic Christ in resurrection. Today we may receive the pneumatic Christ in resurrection and thus enjoy the reality of His resurrection. If we have the resurrected Christ, we are in the morning, the sunrising, and this is a real revival to us.
In 1984 I realized that the recovery was in a dormant condition, like the desolation of the two days in Hosea 6:2. However, if we experience a real revival, we will be in the third day.
Joel 2:28 and 29 speak of the outpouring of the Spirit. Every day we need the outpouring of the all-inclusive, consummated, compound, life-giving Spirit as the processed and consummated Triune God. This all-inclusive Spirit includes Christ’s divinity and humanity, the effectiveness of His death, and the power of His resurrection. This Spirit is our portion, our inheritance.
“Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people” (Hag. 1:14a). Here we see the response of God’s elect, who were stirred up by the Lord in the order of God’s authority. When they responded by being stirred up in their spirit by the Lord, we all were included.
In the Minor Prophets there are both the divine Spirit, the consummated Spirit of God, and the human spirit, the stirred-up spirit of God’s elect. The divine Spirit has been poured out, and our human spirit (the key to experiencing and enjoying Christ) responds to such a Spirit by being stirred up.
We may feel that our spirit was stirred up early in our Christian life but that it is no longer stirred up. However, this is not true. Unconsciously, the spirit of every regenerated believer is stirred up. If we go to a place of worldly entertainment, our spirit will be stirred up to tell us to leave that place. Whenever we grieve the Spirit (Eph. 4:30), we have no peace. This is the stirring up of our spirit. When we read the Bible, we feel calm and peaceful. Even in this calmness, our spirit is under the stirring up by the Spirit. Every day we cannot avoid the stirring up of our spirit. The Bible reveals that once the consummated, compound, life-giving Spirit comes into us, He will never leave. As He dwells in us, He is often a “troublemaker,” stirring us up either negatively or positively. If we take care of this negative or positive stirring up, we will be revived, and we will be strengthened and encouraged to carry out the God-ordained way.
The Minor Prophets also reveal that God’s Christ is our enjoyment. The enjoyment of God’s Christ is actually the enjoyment of God Himself.
We may enjoy Christ as the Desire of God’s elect (Mal. 3:1b; cf. Hag. 2:7a). Whether we are hot or cold toward the Lord, we desire Christ. Can you say that you have no desire for Christ? Every day we desire Christ.
We may enjoy Christ also as the Angel of the covenant (Mal. 3:1b). For Him to be the Angel means that He is a serving one. In His coming back, Christ will be the Angel of the covenant. He enacted the new covenant with His blood at His table (Matt. 26:26-29; Luke 22:20). In the new covenant, God is imparted into us as life and as our life supply, and we have the forgiveness of sins (Jer. 31:31-34).
Christ not only enacted the new covenant through His death, but in resurrection He executes the new covenant as its surety (Heb. 7:22), making it real to us. In particular, He assures us that our sins have been forgiven and that we have Him as our life and life supply signified by the bread at the Lord’s table. Day by day we may enjoy Him as the surety of the new covenant.
As the Angel of the covenant, Christ dispenses the riches of the covenanted Triune God into His elect. According to Acts 26:18b, we have received not only the forgiveness of sins but also “an inheritance among those who have been sanctified.” This inheritance is the Triune God Himself with all He has, all He has done, and all He will do for His redeemed people. The Triune God is embodied in the all-inclusive Christ, who is “the allotted portion of the saints” as their inheritance (Col. 1:12).
Finally, Malachi 4:2 tells us that we may enjoy Christ as the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings.
As the Sun of righteousness, Christ is our enjoyment for growing in life, in the dispelling of the darkness. Just as the shining of the sunlight enables plants to grow, Christ’s shining as the Sun of righteousness is for our growth in life.
As the Sun of righteousness, Christ is our enjoyment also for healing in life, in the effacing of unrighteousness. Before we enjoy this healing in life, unrighteousness prevails, but through this healing unrighteousness is effaced and is replaced by righteousness.
At this juncture, I would like to give an additional word on the matter of revival.
The revival revealed in the Minor Prophets can be applied to the family, to the church, to the nations, to the entire human race, and even to the whole universe. In principle, everything and everyone on earth are in the desolation of the two days spoken of in Hosea 6:2.
Since the fall of man, there has been in all of creation an aspiration for revival. Concerning this, Romans 8:20-22 says, “The creation was made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will also be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now.” As a result of Adam’s fall, corruption, slavery, and death have come into the whole creation. Today everything is decaying and is under the slavery of corruption. All the things that are under this slavery aspire to be revived.
Man’s fall brought in corruption, and with corruption there is slavery. Because of this corruption and slavery, there is the need everywhere for revival, for restoration. This need can be met only by Christ and in Christ. Christ was resurrected on the third day, and as the pneumatic Christ in resurrection, He is the reality of the third day. Christ, therefore, is the element of the revival for which all of creation aspires. The corruption and desolation can be swallowed up only by Christ’s resurrection.
Unbelievers as well as believers aspire to be revived, to have a new beginning. Everyone wants something new. Only Christ is the renewing factor. Only Christ, who rose up on the third day, is the renewing power. For the whole universe and for all of mankind, Christ is the reality of the third day.
When we received Christ, we received Him as the One who is Himself the resurrection (John 11:25). Immediately after receiving Him, we had a new beginning in our human life. That new beginning was a revival. However, eventually we again entered into a state of desolation and thus needed another revival. This cycle of desolation and revival, revival and desolation, has been repeated again and again.
The way to have the revival we need is to contact Christ, repenting and confessing our sins, failures, and darkness. By doing this we are brought from the desolation of the two days to the resurrection of the third day. Whenever we are in desolation, we need such a revival. We need to come to the third day, and the third day is nothing other than the person of the resurrected Christ with the reality of revival. In addition, we have the outpouring of the Triune God as the consummated, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, and our spirit responds by being stirred up.
When our spirit is stirred up in response to the outpouring of the Spirit, we enjoy Christ not only as the resurrected One but also as the One desired by all of mankind. He is mankind’s unique need. Everyone, the believers and the unbelievers alike, desires Christ.
The Christ we desire has enacted the new covenant and He, as its surety, is now executing it. Through this covenant God has been allotted to us as our legal portion in Christ, who is the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings. Apart from Him, we have darkness and unrighteousness, but with Him everything is light and righteousness.
When we have such a Christ, we not only have revival — we have restoration. The millennial kingdom will be a time of restoration. This restoration will consummate in the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem as the center. That will be the ultimate, the consummate, restoration accomplished by the resurrected Christ.
