Why Moves of God Are Often Messy

thoughts by Charles P. Schmitt, founding pastor

The movings of God’s Holy Spirit have become the
Church’s most serious quest in this generation! God’s
revival Presence is our most precious pursuit. This is
“the generation of those who seek Him, who seek your
face, O God of Jacob” (Psalm 24:6). When the Lord whom we
seek suddenly comes to His temple, amazing things happen.
The church is revived; sinners are converted; backsliders are
restored; the sick and the infirm are healed; the work of the devil
is driven back; society is changed; and, above all else, our Lord
Jesus Christ is honored and held high!
This past century has been a phenomenal revival century; and the
fruits of God’s revival Presence in the 20th century abound. When
I was converted in the early 1950’s, the population of planet earth
was just over three billion people, and three percent of that three
billion professed to be the Lord’s (some ninety million people).
Today, fifty years later, because of the moves of the Holy Spirit,
in a world of over six billion people, seventeen percent (some
one billion people) now profess to be the Lord’s (with another
billion nominally so)! The amazing fruit of God’s moving!
I consider it a privilege to have been touched by every major
move of the Holy Spirit in the past half century. My wife, Dotty,
and I were converted in a time of revival in the early 1950’s. Our
Dutch Reformed youth group and our high school experienced a
season of refreshing from the Presence of the Lord at that same
time. We also experienced outpourings of the Holy Spirit in
Minnesota during the Charismatic move and the Jesus People
move in the 60’s and 70’s. Our experiences were riveting! We
then experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 1994 here
in Immanuel’s Church when Pastor Guy Carey visited us from
south Florida; and we were further impacted in the years
following by both the Toronto Revival and the Brownsville
Revival. And now there is a present fresh “sound of abundance
of rain” coming out of central Florida and other places, and we
are reaching out again in great expectation toward the Lord!
“While on others you are calling, do not pass us by!”

Someone recently commented, “Revivals are always ‘messy’”—
and they are. Having walked through a number of moves of God,
I have yet to see a revival that wasn’t “messy.” And that issue is
the burden of this present writing. Why are revivals inevitably
“messy”? And what can we do to preserve the precious parts of
God’s move?
First of all, let us be perfectly clear on this—every move of the
Holy Spirit is pure. What comes down from God out of heaven
is always pure. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming
down from the Father…” (James 1:17). “The wisdom that comes
from heaven is first of all pure…” (James 3:17). What the Father
sends is always good and perfect and pure! When the one hundred
and twenty were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of
Pentecost, that was a pure work. It was a good work; it was a
perfect work. It was not totally conventional, however. The
sound of “a violent wind,” the tongues of fire, the speaking in
other languages caused “bewilderment”; onlookers were “utterly
amazed.” Some were “perplexed.” Others mocked. They “made
fun … and said, ‘They have had too much wine’” (Acts 2:1-13).
From their overwhelming joy and their lack of inhibition, and
probably even their staggering, the saints appeared drunk. The
first thing Peter had to explain was that “these men are not
drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is
what was spoken by the prophet Joel…” (Acts 2:15-16). What
God does is always pure, though it often is unconventional!
And then there is the human element. As that enters into the mix,
the mix can become “messy”—not because of God, but because
of man.
Behaviors and mannerisms, words and actions that are not
always edifying to the saints, and which can be distracting to
seekers, this is the plight of every move of God. Someone has
said it would be better, however, to have some “wildfire” than
“no fire,” and I guess if one were pressed to choose between the
two, any fire is better than no fire—but I would still opt for the
“holy fire”—God-kindled fire!

We need to ask at this juncture, exactly what is the root of some
of this distracting behavior? Why do some behave and carry on
in ways that do not always edify? The problem is addressed by
Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter 14 (a passage we rarely hear
mentioned in revival circles today!) It is interesting to me to note
in this passage that Paul never upbraids the Corinthians for
“false manifestations,” nor does he ever imply that what they are
doing is “of the devil” or even “in the flesh.” He begins on the
basis that these are spiritual manifestations, but ones that need
guidelines. From the Corinthian situation we learn two valuable
principles. First, that the Manifest Presence of God does not
automatically authenticate all that may be going on in a meeting.
Second, if manifestations of the Spirit’s Presence were
uncontrollable, then Paul’s guidelines for people to control
themselves and their manifestations would make no sense. The
specific Corinthian problem was this—“if the whole church
comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who
do not understand [‘some inquirers,’ NIV margin] or some
unbelievers come in, will they not say you are out of your
mind?” Paul then sets down some guidelines—“If anyone speaks
in a tongue, two—or at most three—should speak, one at a time,
and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the
speaker should keep quiet…” (1 Corinthians 14:23, 27-28). Paul
was concerned about the seeking inquirer and about the lost
unbeliever! And we should be too! I’m sure some were not
happy with Paul’s adjustments. I’m sure some accused him of
quenching the Spirit and taking away their liberty. I remember
the statement being made at Toronto and Brownsville—“we’ll
probably let things go that should have been stopped, and we’ll
probably stop things we should have let go. Please forgive us.”
Leadership is not always perfect in its judgment calls, but an
imperfect leadership is better than no leadership at all. The goal
of all godly leadership is to keep the move of God as free from
human oddity as possible.
But what are the roots of some of these peculiar happenings? A
“spirituality” that is out of balance can be one of the roots. Some
of the Corinthians had this “off-center” spirituality. (We used to
call it “super-spirituality” in times past.) The Corinthians
thought they “knew something,” but they really didn’t yet know
as they should (1 Corinthians 8:1-3). I pick up Paul’s impatience
with the super-spirituality of some of the Corinthians in his
words of rebuke in 1 Corinthians 14:36-38. “If you won’t play
by the rules, God can’t use you. Sorry.” 1 Corinthians 14:38, The
Message. Unfortunately, usually “super-spiritual” folks are not
correctable. They don’t want to play by the rules. They just up
and leave.
Spiritual immaturity can be another root of the problem. It was
one of the problems the Corinthians had—“To be perfectly
frank, I’m getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How
long before you grow up and use your head—your adult head?”
(1 Corinthians 14:20, The Message) I find myself at times
concerned when I am with some saints, and note how their jerks
and their outbursts are identical to those in a certain stream in the
move of God. I sense their behavior is a “learned behavior”;
they’re actually subconsciously “imitating” what they’ve seen
and heard elsewhere, and you can usually tell exactly where.
They carry that brand, but, for them it’s not “original.” When it
came to the holy anointing oil and the holy incense in Exodus
30, both were forbidden by God to be imitated (Exodus 30:32-
33, 37-38). God wants to do original things in and through each
one of us; “imitation” is usually a sign of immaturity. Paul wrote
to the Corinthians, “As long as you grab for what makes you feel
good or makes you look important, are you really much different
than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going
your way? (1 Corinthians 3:1-3, The Message).
Then there is that false understanding of “freedom.” The
Corinthians were enmeshed in that, also. They were “free”—free
to do as they felt, regardless of who they turned off. They really
didn’t care about others, only that they could be “free” to
exercise their freedom. Paul’s whole argument on this issue of
freedom in 1 Corinthians, chapters eight, nine and ten is that we
are free—but free to serve others, and that those who are really
“free” are free to lay their freedom down for the sake of others!
Paul testified: “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make
myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible” (9:19).
And he admonished the Corinthians: “Do not cause anyone to
stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the Church of God—even as I
try to please everybody in every way … so that they may be
saved” (10:32-33). Verse 33 in The Message reads: “…don’t be
callous in your exercise of freedom, thoughtlessly stepping on the
toes of those who aren’t as free as you are. I try my best to be
considerate of everyone’s feelings … I hope you will be, too.”
Doing things “to be seen of men” may be yet another root of
strange behavior. It probably explains some of the Corinthian
behavior. And it was surely the cardinal sin of the Pharisees.
“Everything they do is done for men to see” (Matthew 23:5-7).
When people have not yet found their inner self-worth in Christ,
they will seek it in performance before men. When the honor
that comes from God is not sufficient, they will seek to be seen
of men, hopefully to be honored and applauded by them. This is
their “search for significance.” I find myself concerned when
some are not always content to be on the sidelines, but must
rather be in the limelight. Some of the Corinthians “limelighted”
themselves; and so Paul sought to “sideline” them—“the speaker
should keep quiet … and speak to himself and God” (14:28). I
remember the time when Pastor John Kilpatrick stopped a man
right in his tracks in one of the Brownsville revival meetings.
Pastor John told him to sit down and “keep quiet.” I thought that
was rather bold leadership, but leadership that was appropriate
and needed.
Another cause of strange behavior in seasons of spiritual
outpouring is what I call ‘scapegoating’—“the Spirit made me
do it.” People do odd things because they feel “compelled by the
Holy Spirit” to speak or act a certain way. The probable fact of
the matter is that the Holy Spirit really is moving upon them, but
this is the way they are choosing to express that moving. And the
greater fact of the matter is that they really can choose to
respond differently! It is within their power to do so! There are
some instances in Scripture where God’s grace is seemingly
irresistible. King Saul’s prophetic experiences in 1 Samuel 10:9-
11 and 19:23-24 may be an example in the Old Testament, and
Saul of Tarsus’ Damascus road conversion in the New
Testament may be another example. Saul apparently had no
control over his conversion. But when this same Paul himself
later corrects the Corinthian behavioral irregularities, he takes
off in a different vein. People can control what is happening to
them and through them! “The spirits of prophets are subject to
the control of the prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but
of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:32-33). The context—a detail of
regulations as to how spiritual gifts and anointings were to best
function, not in disorder, but for the edification of others—that
context helps us to understand Paul’s statement in verse 32. The
Message translates verse 32: “If you choose to speak, you’re also
responsible for how and when you speak.” W. Robertson Smith
in The Prophets of Israel, comments: “In the New Testament
Paul lays down the principle that, in true prophecy, selfconsciousness,
and self-command are never lost. ‘The spirit of
the prophets are subject to the prophets.’”
A final Corinthian problem which may have contributed to some
of their erratic behavior is their going “beyond what is written.”
The Corinthians were a highly charismatic church; they “came
behind in no gift,” but they were not always careful to remain
within the channels of the river of Holy Scripture. They went
beyond what was written. Consequently, Paul admonished them
with a familiar word spoken in the first century—“learn from us
the meaning of the saying, ‘Do not go beyond what is
written’” (1 Corinthians 4:6). “It is written” was very important
in Jesus’ own life (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10), and “it is written” should
be the measuring rod for all we say or do when God is moving
upon us. “All Scripture is God-breathed [‘inspired by God,’
KJV]” and, in itself, is sufficient “so that [we] may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
If a behavior is foreign to the Holy Scriptures, we have grounds
to question its validity. And surely anything—any move, any
movement, any manifestation, or any ministry—that diminishes
the centrality and supremacy of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be set
aside, for the focus of all spiritual experience and expression,
and the very heart of all Holy Scripture, is “that in everything
[Jesus] might have the supremacy [‘the preeminence,’ KJV]
(Colossians 1:18)!
Problems in various moves of God often do not come from the
members of that particular congregation where the move is
taking place. But problems can come from those who come in
from the outside and are not used to the discipline of that
particular congregation. It’s great to have visitors; it’s wonderful
to host seekers—but some, and probably only a few, come with
a lot of emotional baggage. They travel across the country to be
where God is moving, hungry for His Presence. And without
leadership-oversight they can negatively impact a meeting
by strange and distracting doings, and take the meeting right
off course.
And so these are some of the reasons why revivals are often
“messy”—an “off-center” spirituality, an immaturity, a
subconscious imitation of others, a misguided understanding of
“freedom,” doing things to be “seen by men,” a failure to realize
“the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets,” and going
“beyond what is written.” The challenge in all of this is for us
not to throw the baby out with the proverbial bathwater. We
must be careful not to discount what God is doing, as
unconventional as it may appear at times, because of some
human extremes. And let us rather believe that our Lord can
speak to both us and our leadership to help sort things out.
By His grace, we will cherish the move of God! We will honor
the Presence of our Father! And we will offer an acceptable
sacrifice of worship to Him who is so worthy! “O Lord, revive
thy work in the midst of the years” (Habakkuk 3:2, KJV).