MK Gantt Ministries

Many are praying for a “move of God,” a revival that will sweep the nation. I’ve heard some ask, “Where is the revival? Why is God delaying?” I have some questions of my own. 

Where is the church that is flooded with the awesome presence of Jesus Christ? 

Where are believers so awed and reverent, they gather in holy silence, where no one dares be flippant or silly? 

Where are the voices so filled with Christ’s presence that even sinners weep? 

Where is the place where the backslider and the wicked sinner become so miserable they either run to the altar, or out the door? 

Where, tell me where, are the preachers so anointed their faces seem to shine with supernatural glory, and whose words have convicting power?

Where are Christ-followers who live in the glorious victory that comes from spending much time in the presence of Jesus? 

Who do you know that is exciting to be around, because you can sense victory and peace in them? 

Where are those who rejoice in pulling down strongholds, casting down evil imaginations, victorious over lust and passion; who have found and appropriated the strong arm of the Lord to all their hurts, problems, and anxieties?

Why do we have churches who conduct services without Holy Presence? 

Why do we have preachers who possess great eloquence but have no power?

And why do we look to the world for “methods” that might increase our attendance rather than falling on our faces before a Holy God to cry out for a new visitation?

I cannot quote exactly, but I’ll summarize a message preached by Pastor Michael Pitts  almost thirty years ago at a revival meeting in California: “The lines have become so blurred . . . We’ve got gospel singers singing secular music and secular singers singing gospel music. We have preachers sounding like motivational speakers and motivational speakers trying to look like preachers. We’ve got psychics trying to be prophets and prophets acting like psychics, and we’re standing here in the middle and don’t know where to go. The gospel music industry is filled with singers who have no pastor; who do not go to church, but they have an agent who acts like a pimp to prostitute their gift to anybody that will pay the right amount of money.” 

Michael Pitts didn’t use the word, but I will; mixture.  The church of this generation is guilty of the sin of mixture. In so many places, in grave ignorance, we have shut out the presence of Christ because we refuse to be a separated people. We want to mix. We do not want to be different.

Mixture means “to combine or blend into one mass so that individual characteristics are gone.”  It is the intermingling of two elements causing them to lose their separate uniqueness, to take on a new, singular character. Doesn’t this describe exactly what is happening to the Bride of Christ today? God’s people want to blend and intermingle with the look of the world, the thinking of the world, the methods of the world. As a result we have  lost our unique, different, special character. We lose our godly character and take on the character of the world. God calls this spiritual adultery. Listen to what He says through the prophet Ezekiel: 

 “And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! declares the Lord God),  you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square.  At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself[f] to any passerby and multiplying your whoring. You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to the greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. You played the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied; yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied.

 “How sick is your heart, declares the Lord God, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute,  building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment.  Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!  Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings.  So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different. Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord . . . [Ezekiel 16:23 -35]

Let me say it bluntly: God hates mixture. From the beginning, God chose to reveal His Presence only through a special, separated people. He chose to reveal Himself through Israel — if they would avoid the sin of mixture.

“For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special (called out) people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth…” (Deuteronomy 7:6)

1 John 4:1 says “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God.”  Paul warns us to “test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).   In spiritual matters, mixture is a sin. “You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together.” (Deuteronomy 22:9-11) Do we imagine that God was speaking of spiritual matters here;  and not only sowing, plowing, and our wardrobe? 

Of the many failures of the modern church, the deadliest is the sin of mixture; mixing worldly philosophy with the Word of God, mixing fleshy demonstrations with the genuine power of God, and mixing false teaching with truth.  Mixture creates confusion.  It muddies the waters and makes it harder to determine the source of a teaching, ministry, or movement.  In the Old Testament, the children of Israel were constantly getting in trouble by mixing with pagan philosophies and idols.  They tried to worship the Lord and worship idols as well.  They wanted to mix the rituals and practices of the gentiles with their own worship.  

This always brought the judgment of God.

Sadly, this same old pattern lingers even to this day.  Moses warned the Hebrews as they approached the Promised Land: “You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean.” [Leviticus 10:10]  We must not mix self-help methods with biblical principles.  We cannot espouse New Age practices along with genuine gifts of the Spirit.  We must not permit demonic counterfeits to function alongside the genuine manifestation of the Holy Spirit.  The result of this mixture is seen in the passage from Deuteronomy: “lest the yield of the seed you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled.”

We must separate the “precious from the vile” (see Jeremiah 15:19).  The church must once again pray for discernment that we might judge between the truth and a lie, between the power of God and the deception of the enemy, and uproot the mixture that is among us.  We must have the cleansing water of the Word of God wash us from all defilement that has come through mixture!

When observing the passover, the Jews were commanded to remove all leaven – because a “little lump” will spread through the whole. Before going into battle against Jericho, Joshua commanded the people:  “Consecrate [purify] yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.” [Joshua 3:5] 

We cannot be content with “praying for revival.” We must also pray the prayer of David when he said,  “Search me O God and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” [Psalm 139:23-24]