Brilliant bit from “A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Slippery Slope” by Lemony Snicket

A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called “The Road Less Traveled,” describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used.The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely,and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn’t hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is now dead.

I was watching a video on climate change where the scientist wrote that the research of his opponents made Intelligent Design advocates appear rigorous. This raised the question in my head, is Intelligent Design a rigorous science? And for that matter are their opponents rigorous scientists? I was reminded of the documentary Ben Stein made called “No Intelligence Allowed” where Ben Stein asked various Darwinists how life began. The answer from all of them was that we don’t know. This tells us not only is there no evidence for life beginning by Darwinian processes, but that there isn’t even a theory on how that would have happened. This leaves us with no conclusive theories on either side of the argument.

Do we then have to throw up our hands and say we can’t know anything scientifically about how life began? I don’t think so. There are all kinds of definitions of what science is, but however you define that word I believe that probability should be included, if nothing else to tell us the likelihood of something being true. As I’ve said before in this blog, calculating the likelihood of design or life by random mutation is relatively easy. The chance of something happening is 1 minus the chance that it didn’t happen. Therefore, the probability that life was the result of design is 1 minus the probability of it happening by chance, since that number is so small let’s use 0. 1 – 0 = 1. That means that, mathematically, the likelihood of intelligent design being true is 100%. So although we can’t say with scientific certainty that life was the result of design, we can say that it is by far the most likely option open to scientists.

The Holy Spirit is moving at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City so I’ve been thinking about revival over the last week.  There’s a lot of confusion over the subject of revival in the church so hopefully I can clarify what revival is and why we want it. 

Revival is simply the Holy Spirit acting in a tangible way among a group of people.  During revival the Holy Spirit

• convicts of sin
• saves, heals and delivers people
• brings joy
• creates love for God, for ourselves, and for others in the church
• gives the church a desire to read the Bible and to pray
• creates a passion for worship
• gives people a tangible sense of his presence
• does strange things (I would call them fun things)
• equips the saints for ministry

Basically revival is Christianity functioning.  Christians are dependent on the Holy Spirit’s power for almost every aspect of our lives.  Christians, in our own power and unbelievers for that matter, can use  the teachings in the Bible to make us live better lives.  We are totally incapable, however, of changing ourselves or other people without the power of the Spirit.  We can’t heal.  We can’t deliver.  We can’t even believe or love without the power of the Spirit.

This is why I get so upset when I hear people say that they think Christianity is more powerful without revival.  To me this smacks of humanism.  To believe we can get more accomplished in a “purer” way by trudging through the desert in our own strength is disastrous.  They may counter “we are going through the desert by the power of the Spirit,” to which I would reply “how can you tell?”  If what you call the activity of the Spirit looks, feels, and gets the same results as you doing things through your natural abilities, how can you tell which is which?  Shouldn’t you be able to tell?  Shouldn’t the world be able to tell?  The New Testament makes it appear that you can tell a difference.

The Church needs revival.  Revival needs to be normal.  We can’t force God’s hand, but we can ask a God who hears our prayers to send revival and to remain with us.  In the New Testament there is no indication that a powerless life is the normal Christian life.  I see in the Bible that God answers prayer.  I see in the Bible that Christians have joy unspeakable.  I see in the Bible that Christians are people who are full of love.