A Solemn Assembly? (The Call Nashville, 4 Years Later)

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Friends, I write today in humility, knowing that what I say may offend, or even anger some of my brothers and sisters in the Lord.  This is not my intent.  I love the Church and all of her various expressions of Christ in her.  If I come across as being sarcastic and/or seem to be belittling the efforts of some very sincere brothers and sisters, I apologize, and can assure you that it is not my intent.

With that being said, let’s look at some important issues…

Today just happens to be July 7, 2011.  Now, that date may not seem to be too significant to you, but it should certainly be significant to anyone who has been involved with the “prayer movement” over the last several years.  You see, four years ago today, well over 80,000 passionate worshippers and intercessors gathered together at Titan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee, for theCALL Nashville.  This was to be a massive prayer and fasting gathering, aimed at turning America back to God.  Various high profile ministers and worship leaders graced the stage throughout the day, offering up songs of worship, intense prayers and proclamations that America’s time for revival had finally come.

The event was literally alive with expectancy as well known “prophets” and internationally known speakers had been heavily promoting the event for months.  Prophetic words went out stating that this event would mark the time when America’s “territorial spirit”, whom we were told was Ba’al, would be brought down.  We were also told that the corruption of American youth, which saw a dramatic spike in 1967, would be reversed as we were exiting a 40 year period of wilderness wandering in America.  In addition to all of this, many were prophesying that this gathering and the passing of this significant date, 7-7-07, would serve as the flashpoint for a worldwide increase in signs, wonders and miracles.  Also, we were told that it would mark the beginning of a dramatic shift in the music industry.  A new breed of prophets would rise up, carrying a new sound from heaven that would bring revival and demonstrations of power to the cities and nations of the earth.

To put it plainly, this date and event really seemed to be the answer to all of our problems!

I myself was in attendance at this meeting and saw some amazing things take place.  The worship was intense and sweet.  Many valid points were made, and I must say that I left the gathering feeling deeply affected.

That being said, as the weeks and months unfolded in front of us, amazingly, very few of the prophesied results came into being.  America continued to hobble along in her former state.  Ungodly laws and politicians still seemed to dominate the landscape, and for the most part, there really was no significant change in the spiritual climate of the Church.  What happened?  Did we do something wrong?  Was this yet another case of, “Prophetic words are potential, not promises!  We aren’t seeing the prophesied results because the Church is failing to do her part!”?  Or was it maybe that we only gathered 80,000 + to the stadium, and not the full 100,000?  Certainly something had to have gone wrong somewhere, right?  Because here we are, 4 years later, and the same things that we went to Nashville to see remedied are still very much in existence, and are, in some ways, more pronounced now than they were then!  Who blew it?  Who dropped the ball?

The answer to the question won’t be a shock to most of you, but still, here it is: WE DID!  You read it right folks.  There it is in all caps and bold and italicized font–WE, the Church blew it!  And no, I don’t mean that we blew it in regards to keeping up our end of the bargain and so God changed His mind about America.  What I am saying is that we blew it in believing that gathering together on a special date, in a special location was the answer to America’s problems in the first place!

Again, I’m not saying that nothing significant happened in Nashville on 7-7-07.  I’m sure lives were changed and impacted.  But as a nation, we’re no closer to the Church’s ideal of revival than we were on 7-6-07.  Why is this?  I think the answer is pretty simple:  Solemn assemblies and massive prayer gatherings are not the answer for America’s, or any other nations woes.

The modern concept of the Solemn Assembly is taken directly from Old Testament scripture, the book of Joel in particular:

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion,
     declare a holy fast,
     call a sacred assembly.
16 Gather the people,
     consecrate the assembly;
bring together the elders,
     gather the children,
     those nursing at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
     and the bride her chamber.
17 Let the priests, who minister before the LORD,
     weep between the temple porch and the altar.
Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O LORD.
     Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
     a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
     ’Where is their God?”18 Then the LORD will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people. 

(JOEL 2:15-18)

The passage quoted above has become the flagship scripture for all of the major prayer, fasting and solemn assembly ministries in America.  We are told, as spoken by the prophet, that when things look bleak for a nation, there is only one remedy: gather the people together en mass to pray and fast!  After we’ve fulfilled our part of the bargain, the Lord will look upon us, and if our hearts were sincere enough, our yearnings deep enough and our fasting genuine enough, He’ll change His mind about judging us, and instead show us favor and mercy.  This all seems to fit nicely within the parameters of Joel’s prophecy, right?  Maybe not…

You see, there is one tiny problem with following Joel’s prayer and fasting prescription for nationwide revival.  The whole point of Joel 2:15-17 was to bring us to Joel 2:28-32, which reads thus:

 28 ’And afterward,
     I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
     your old men will dream dreams,
     your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women,
     I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will show wonders in the heavens
     and on the earth,
     blood and fire and billows of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness
     and the moon to blood
     before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
32 And everyone who calls
     on the name of the LORD will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
     there will be deliverance,
     as the LORD has said,
among the survivors
     whom the LORD calls. 

 Have you noticed the problem yet?  The prayer and fasting prescription was only given to bring us to the above promised outpouring of the Spirit from Heaven!  Still haven’t seen the problem yet?  Fast forward a few centuries to the Day of Pentecost, just 50 days after the ascension of Jesus Christ.  A group of staggering, stumbling, tongue talking, mumbling believers spill out onto the streets of Jerusalem.  Onlookers point and stare, accusing the group of dipping into Grandpa’s cough medicine a wee bit too early in the morning.  Then the Apostle Peter stands up from among the group.  Just a month or so earlier he was a deserter and a coward, but now he stands bold as a lion and declares the following:

15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 ”‘In the last days, God says,
     I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
     your young men will see visions,
     your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
     I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
     and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heaven above
     and signs on the earth below,
     blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness
     and the moon to blood
     before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls
     on the name of the Lord will be saved.

(ACTS 2:15-21)

Peter declared by the Holy Spirit, that Joel’s prophecy concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit had come to pass.  Now, you must understand, Peter was not saying that they had merely witnessed something similar to Joel’s prophecy coming to pass.  He was stating that once and for all, Joel’s prophecy concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon “all flesh” (simply meaning all nations, Jew and Gentile alike) had come to pass!  The Holy Spirit did not fall on Pentecost, only to evaporate back up into the Heaven’s the day after, needing to be prayed back down if the Church decided that she wanted another “outpouring”.  No, the Holy Spirit came to stay!  Never again would the Holy Spirit “fall from heaven”, or “come down” upon His people.  He had come, and He was not intent on leaving.

Jesus had this to say about the coming of the Holy Spirit:

16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.

(JOHN 14:16)

What does this mean?  It means that the Holy Spirit, after Pentecost, will not come and go.  He has come to abide with us forever.  Therefore, Pentecost need not ever be repeated.  He has come!  Furthermore, Peter declares that the Holy Spirit has been “…sent from Heaven…” (1 PETER 1:12)  He does not state that He is being sent, or that He will need to be sent afresh each and every time we need revival.  No, the Apostle states that the Spirit has come, and He’s come to abide forever.

Therefore, if Joel’s prophecy concerning the Spirit’s coming has already been fulfilled and doesn’t need to be repeated, Joel 2:15-17, the verses dealing with preceding solemn assembly, have become obsolete.  ”WHAT!”, some might say, “The scriptures becoming obsolete? That’s total and complete heresy!”  Well, the writer of the book of Hebrews declares that the whole of the Law of Moses has become obsolete (HEB 8:13).  We have no problem with omitting portions of Old Testament scripture that deal with dietary laws, the upkeep of facial hair or the proper way to dispose of human waste.  We do, however, tend to get nervous when we’re told that key ingredients in our Charismatic folklore are actually obsolete in Jesus Christ.  This is the case with Joel 2:15-17.  Unless we are expecting the Holy Spirit to be sent to the earth afresh, we need not recreate the Joel 2:15-17 scenario.  If we claim that we do in fact need another Pentecost, that we do not in fact have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we make both Christ and Peter out to be liars.

Friends, the idea that we are lacking in the Holy Spirit’s power and can somehow coax Him in to coming closer to us, or that we can somehow impress God with our fasting and repentance so that He will give us a double shot of the Holy Ghost, is not only foreign to the New Covenant, but is also an offense to the finished work of the Cross.  Nowhere in the epistles or in the record of the early church’s life in the book of Acts do we read of solemn assemblies being held in order to bring revival after Pentecost.  In fact, we never again see believers having to tarry, wait or pray for the Holy Spirit.  It was always given instantly at the laying on of the Apostles’s or a believer’s hands.  You and I have been given the fullness of the Spirit through Christ.  We need not starve ourselves in the baking sun in order to get Him to come to us.  He’s already with us!

Now, is there anything wrong with gathering together for mass prayer and worship?  Certainly not.  However, we must never put our faith in a gathering on a magical date or at a special location.  Our faith must be rooted firmly in the finished works of Jesus Christ.  It was His request to the Father that earned us the gift of the Holy Spirit, not our actions, fasting, prayers or travail (JOHN 14:16).  It is Christ and Christ alone.  Watchman Nee once said, “The basis upon which we receive…the Holy Spirit is not our praying and fasting and waiting, but the exaltation of Christ…”.

Friends, we need not frantically try to squeeze through small windows of time, just hoping that we pray or do enough in this magical 24 hour window so that God will be impressed.  The Holy Spirit does not need us to pray away the darkness, or plead with Him to come.  He has come (PERIOD)!  To repeat Joel’s prescribed solemn assembly is actually to take a prescription that was written for someone else!  Have you ever taken the wrong prescription?  It could actually kill you if you get the wrong stuff inside of you.  We must be very careful how we read scripture and what we apply to our lives as New Testament believers.

I’ll leave you with this exhortation: YOU ARE REVIVAL!  The fullness of the Godhead now lives and moves within you (COL 2:9-10)!   We need not scream at the sky awaiting the Holy Spirit’s arrival.  He arrived 2,000 years ago, and now simply commissions us to go forth in His power and might.  I have good news for you today, there is no climactic revival coming to America!  It’s already come!  It’s Christ in you…and therefore, it’s you.  Be encouraged, we don’t have to wait around another millenia, waiting for the day when we can line up the 7′s again.  Christ is in you, and this is the day of salvation, this is the year of His favor!  (LK 4:19, 2 COR 6:2)

Filled with the Spirit,

Jeff

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