Hijacked by God’s Old Moves

By Paula A. Price, Ph. D.

Part One
One of a Series of Articles on Revivals

Article I – May 31, 2008

Misinterpreting God's New Thing

H ow many of us have heard it? “God is doing a new thing; the former
things are no more. The old way of doing church (and God) is passing away, or
passé.” We have all heard these words…for years, if not for decades. Yet we
continue to disbelieve them, failing to conform to and evidence their effects in
our lives and our world. What am I talking about? I am talking about the
repeated cycles of revival where seducing and divining spirits of God’s old moves
hijack the new. Although God has been relentlessly moving to restore apostleship
and prophets in His church, these sensual wildfires keep cropping up to derail
His efforts and aims. Whenever the people of God talk about the new thing He is
doing, they end up taking us back into the old, whether subtly or intentionally.
Aspiring ministers or frustrated leaders sharing their heart for change and
renewal say that they want the John G. Lake, Katherine Kuhlman, Aimee Simple-
McPherson, T. L. Osborn, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin, Smith Wigglesworth
(and on it goes) anointing. Whatever historical revivalist some modern ministers
admire, they attribute their power manifestations of God's next move to it. They
yearn to revive the public displays of power the bygone evangelists became
famous for exhibiting. In their minds, it would appear that the old revivalists
are the only models today's church feels it can trust to fire God's people up again.
Desperately clutching their memories and fascinations of the old belief, they
continually take us back to the old to fulfill any prophecy or sign the Lord sends
to announce a new move. Sadly, many modern ministers seem obsessed with
mimicking history's departed servants' gifts believing that reviving them
facilitates every new thing the Lord does. Only as their devotees can these
ministers perceive themselves participating in modern revivals. So how does this
become the equivalent of hijacking? Read on.
Psalm 85; 138 and Isaiah chapter 57, among many others, give us a very explicit
pattern of the Lord's type of revival from scripture and His motives for launching
one. They detail its causes, rationale, and describe the fruit we should expect once
revival has begun. The following outlines how the Holy Spirit orchestrates
revivals ignited by the Lord. Below is what the prophet Isaiah understood about
the Godhead's inspired revivals.

Isaiah 57:15-19

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the
high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the
humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. 16 For I will not contend for ever, neither will I
be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made. 17 For
the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on
forwardly in the way of his heart. 18 I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also,
and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. 19 I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to
him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.”

As you can see from the above passage, the Lord’s revivals have some definite
goals and predetermined outcomes. They are not merely spiritual episodes
injected into human history to recirculate God’s olden days. Neither are they to
relieve us of the doldrums of what we would call monotonous Christianity.
Revivals are meant to bring about lasting change. They are the Lord’s direct
response to His church’s and the world’s mistreatment of Him and His
righteousness. Revival permits the Lord to relieve Himself of humanity’s abuse of
His grace and goodness. The church's apathy, indifference, covetousness, pride,
arrogance, and alienation are what trigger revival. The world's aggression against
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and its vicious attempt to eradicate His work,
pervert the scriptures, and dissimulate His true church all occasion an outbreak
of revival. Generally speaking, alienation from the Lord and quenching His Holy
Spirit underlay the Lord's decision to woo us back to Him. Believers' alienation
from their heavenly Father and their Savior means they cease to be His light and
salt in the world. Remember this: when God's children resolve to persistently
walk contrary to His way of life, choosing to follow the desires of their own hearts
and ignoring or perverting His scripture truth instead, the Lord will send revival.
Also, once Christians begin to blend the faith of their founder Jesus Christ, or
to fuse with world's religions to trifle under foot the blood of God's glorified
Lamb, revival can and should be expected. One thing is sure, revival is not the
result of God's visiting family in response to its demand that He impress them to
keep them. In defense of His holiness and righteousness, revival is a direct
response to mass violation of God's laws and spite for His Son. By the Holy Spirit,
He steps onto our world front to correct the world's exploitation, brutality,
cruelty and godlessness in a given generation. The signs of revival-sparked
depravity are always idolatry, witchcraft, and chaos. When these begin to wreak
havoc in the world and spoil the Lord's ongoing redemption of the souls that He
promised His Son, a new move takes place. It is needed because godlessness
becomes so rampant so as to make His people vulnerable to the wickedness in
their land. As you can see, the reasons the modern church have been enjoying
and calling for revival are not the same as the ones the Lord uses to send it. Since
the powers and agents of revival come from the Lord, it stands to reason that its
motives and outcomes should be determined by Him as well. God's reasons
should be acknowledged and repented of as exemplified for us by Daniel the
prophet in chapter 9 of his writings. The Lord's revival signatures addressed with
mankind go all the way back to His eternity. Such moves are to achieve His
purposes whether or not there is physical healing or other miraculous signs and
wonders, although no true revival would flourish without them.

For revival to be lasting, it must begin and end with God’s word, not just His
muscle. That is the pattern given us in scripture and it repeats itself right up to
the Almighty incarnating His word—Jesus the Logos—to launch the move that
birthed the church. The signs and wonders that so tantalize the older members of
the modern church are incidental (and instrumental) to the Lord's aim of
returning His people and land to His scriptural truths. The witnesses of those
good old days recall and long for a return of the bygone miracles and
manifestations of the early revivalists, and for sentimental reasons they cannot
help but want whatever God does today to mirror that era. The Lord, on the other
hand, uses His power displays to kick-start His revival as mere calling cards that
announce His coming to recapture the heart and soul of His church, and
reestablish Jesus' dominion in the world. The demonstrations of the Holy Spirit
that manifest revival are to the end that the Lord’s righteousness and truth are
once more hallowed and promulgated throughout the world, not only to heal and
deliver the souls of fatigued and disenchanted Christians. God sets out with each
new move to realign His people once more to Him. A most confirming mark of all
revivals is what the Savior sets forth as the number one sign of the true ones in
John 17:17. There He declares the greatest sign of the Godhead’s revival is
sanctification, not by signs and wonders, but by God's truth. These are what our
God uses to summon His people from the world to Christ's purity again. Hence,
sanctification from the world to Christ stands out as the Lord's supreme revival
goal. Now for those of you who say that we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit at
salvation, and that should take care of it for the rest of our lives, I would like to
call your attention to what today's church considers sanctified. If you studied the
Bible from God's perspective instead of the doctrines of men, you would see that
what the Lord ordained for His sanctified saints to look and behave vastly differs
from what is preached across most pulpits and promoted throughout the modern
church.

Let's take, for instance, the issue of tattooing that is running rampant in the
church. Compare what contemporary preachers, prophets, praise and worship
leaders of the Most High God serving His altar today with what the Lord Jesus
gave His life's blood for on the cross. You will see that there is a great difference
between the two perspectives. As a case in point, notice how they peddle revival
of the ancient deities’ rituals and demands that Jesus died on the cross to
dethrone. Excessive liberty-laced doctrine perverts the liberty that Christ
delivered to His precious body on earth. As you wonder about God's position on
tattooing, consider the following example. Ask yourself, if you were on a missions
trip and saw a whole tribe of worshippers marred with grotesque images all over
their bodies, wearing dreadlocked hair sporting pierced body parts, would you
say that they needed Jesus Christ or not? Would looking at their grotesquely
scarred flesh make you say they needed to change their god to Christ? No doubt
you would be so moved by their bondage to sin and death and the evidence of it
in their flesh that you would pray for them to enter the liberty of Jesus Christ's
salvation, and conclude your mission’s trip to their world was to set them free
from such bondage. By what standards or criteria would you encourage them to
do so? Based on all of the reasons that we have traditionally used to evangelize
the world, on what grounds would you say they needed to be saved, especially if
you have not spoken to them? Inwardly, upon looking at their appearances and
practices, like Paul you would be grieved at heart and impelled to offer them
Christ's salvation, and you would set out to persuade them to be saved. Once the
tribe received Jesus Christ, you would expect to see definite changes in how they
worship, how they prepare to worship, and what they consider essential to
offering themselves as living sacrifices to our Lord. What signs would you look for
to say they were freed from their savage bondage and their cruel god? You would
want them to change their rituals so that they ceased from the heinous abuse of
their bodies for their tribal deity. Most likely as Jesus Christ's representative, you
would seek visible signs of their conversion as you taught them the difference
between their cruel god and their new Savior. From God's word you
would motivate them to change their behavior, prayers, and worship from the
darkness to the light. Over time, after teaching them the way of the Lord, you
would eventually want to see them alter their appearance and their attire as much
as possible to reflect the living God. The Lord uses His word to fill the voids in
people’s souls to release them from the strongholds (social, cultural or otherwise)
that keep them captive to the sways of the god of this world. By His indwelling
Holy Spirit, He removes their appetite for what they have to offer and replaces it
with a craving for His own ways. In this manner, the Lord totally eradicates the
way they used to view life or want to live it and implants in them the way He lives
instead. Now here is the big question. If what you observe in that tribe on your
missions trip translates to bondage to darkness and the devil, why is it liberty for
those Christ has supposedly set free? Does Christ save us to continue life as usual
or does He save us to free us to serve Him according to His and His Father's way
of life?

When bathed in true revival, people do not leave the way they came spiritually,
emotionally, psychologically or physically. When departing Christ’s revival
presence, they exit with more than a warm feeling or fantastic stories to tell about
their spiritual escapades. They take more from the experience than a revived love
for the Lord and leave on fire, driven and impassioned about the God that just
touched them. That is how it was with the madman from Gedara in the
Gospels, and the many others that crossed paths with Jesus Christ and His
salvation. Transformed and empowered, truly revived saints (and they must first
be saints in order to be re-vived in the first place) return to their world to share
more than signs and wonders, spiritual antics, religious exploits, or sensational
tales. These people return to publish and promote the Almighty’s type of life that
is replete with His righteousness, holiness and truth. The genuinely revived do
not leave the experience simply healed from their physical maladies. Without
passivity or shyness about what happened to them with the Risen Savior, truly
revived souls boldly and passionately preach the resurrected Jesus Christ. They
realize that they have been converted to His purity, holiness, righteousness, and
reverence and practice both enthusiastically while testifying about Him to
everyone they can. For these people, the Godhead’s revivals do not emptily
distribute healing and deliverance. They reestablish Jesus the Messiah as the
head of the revived one’s life and shift their course of existence to no longer
admire the world, envy or aspire to its sinfulness. The ones that our Lord Jesus
truly revives do not need annual trips or revisits to relive what they felt. They
conform to His death and wage war on Satan’s destructive culture in His name.
Biblical examples of revival introduce the next article in this series.

Paula A. Price is vastly becoming the international voice on the subject of

apostolic and prophetic ministry. She is widely recognized as a modern-day
apostle with a potent prophetic anointing. Having been in active full-time
ministry since 1985, she has founded and established three churches, an
apostolic and prophetic Bible institute, a publication company, consulting
firm, and global collaborative network linking apostles and prophets
together for the purpose of kingdom vision and ventures. With an
international itinerant ministry she has transformed the lives of many
through her wisdom and revelation of God’s kingdom.

As a former sales and marketing executive, Paula blends ministerial and

entrepreneurial applications in her ministry to enrich and empower a
diverse audience with the skills and abilities to take kingdoms for the Lord
Jesus Christ. A lecturer, teacher, curriculum developer and business trainer,
she globally consults Christian businesses, churches, schools and assemblies. She has over a 20-year
period developed a superior curriculum to effectively train Christian ministers and professionals,
particularly the apostle and the prophet. Her programs often are used in both secular and non-secular
environments worldwide. Although she has written over 25 books, manuals, and other course
material on the apostolic and prophetic, she is most recognized for her unique 1,600-term Prophets’
Dictionary, a concise prophetic training manual entitled Church Prophets, and her most recent
releases, Divine Order for Spiritual Dominance, for five-fold ministry and Eternity’s Generals, an
explanation of today’s apostle.

Beyond the pulpit, Paula is the provocative talk show host of her own program, Let’s Just Talk: Where
God Makes Sense. She brings the pulpit to the pew, weekly applying God’s wisdom and divine
pragmatism to today’s world solutions. Her ministry goal is to make Christ’s teachings and churches
relevant for today. “Eternity in the Now” is the credo through which she accomplishes it.

In addition to her vast experience, Paula has a D.Min. and a Ph.D. in Religious Education from Word of
Truth Seminary in Alabama. She is also a wife, mother of three daughters, and the grandmother of
two. She and her husband Tom presently pastor New Creation Worship Assembly in Tulsa, OK.

Learn more about Dr. Paula Price and her company, PPM Global Resources at www.drpaulaprice.com.