Why Do You Look For The Living Among The Dead

  Luke 24:1-5  Now upon the first day of the wk, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.  And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher.  And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.  And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:  And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? 

  It’s time for revival to break out in our churches. No doubt the coming of the Lord is near. When the church becomes anointers and what I mean by that is conduits of the Holy Spirit and gets away from social club ways and becomes again what we were meant to be in the first place people will be getting to all our churches extremely early to find seats and parking places. The truth is too many times people come in and find not anointers but dead bodies in need of anointing!

 1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. 
 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher. 
 3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.
The “they” mentioned in verse one expected to find a corpse. Many today can’t turn to the church and find what they’re looking for. Far to often they’ve shown up needing to find life but found a lifeless body, dead rotting flesh. No excitement nor enthusiasm. A going through the motions mentality that changes nothing. In fact when one enters into a place like that they often leave with the stench of death. They often will not go to another church because all they expect to find is another corpse! These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.” Revelation 3:1 Those most tragic words identify the nature of this church, the words "you are dead." This church was contaminated with the world. This church was defiled. This church was characterized by inward decay, spiritual disintegration and dry rot. It was dead like so many churches today. This church may have been socially distinguished, but it was dead and all its works were just grave clothes. It’s true that some churches today are literally dead, beautiful on the outside but inside like an open sepulcher, full of dead bones. Walking dead! They may have pastors and they have music and there are people there. But they're dead. These churches are basically populated by unredeemed, unrepentant people playing church. They have a name that it’s alive, have a seemingly known reputation, but spiritually they’re dead. If the life goes out of a man’s body, he is said to be a corpse. He’s what they call ‘the remains.’ It’s sad, but 'funny’ sad, that a strong, fine man with shining eyes and vibrant voice, a living man, dies, and we say, ‘the remains’ can be seen at a funeral home. All the remains of the man, and the least part about him, is what you can see there in the funeral home. The living man is gone. You have only the body. The body is ‘the remains.’ And so it is with a lot of today’s churches. The body is dead and all that’s left is the ‘remains’. The Holy Spirit has gone out of these churches and all you have left are ‘the remains.’ You have the potential of the church but you don’t have the church, just as you have in a dead man the potential of a living man but you don’t have a living man. He can’t talk, he can’t taste, he can’t touch, he can’t feel, he can’t smell, he can’t see, he can’t hear. Why? Because he’s dead! The soul has gone out of the man, and when Holy Spirit is not present in the Church all you have left is the ‘remains’, a corpse. 

 A great Old Testament analogy of this is the story of Samson. The charming lovable hero of Israel in the dark, dark days of their history, the greatest champion of freedom, the strongest guy that ever lived. So many feats and so many exploits, so much heroic strength and courage that his name has become equal to strength. But you see a sad, sad ending to the life of Samson as it unfolds. You remember that he was beguiled by Delilah and as a result of his haircut, lost his strength. The haircut wasn't really the issue, it just symbolized his unwillingness to obey God and when he didn't obey God, God took his strength away. And while in this condition he was confronted with danger, you remember. And when he tried to meet it, the Bible records his inability in these sad words, "He whist not, or he knew not that the Lord had departed from him." Oh what a sad sentence. He didn't know God was gone. It was the same old Samson with the same living name that was synonymous with strength, but the power was gone. The result was Samson's defeat, Samson's imprisonment, Samson's blindness and Samson's death. And that miserable wreck, that pitiful, blind giant tied with two brass chains stooping over a grinding mill in the prison of Gaza is depicted as one tragic figure. This is as it is with some churches today... once strong, once virile, once alive, once a powerful holy church began to sow sin, mock the sanctity of marriage, they’ve defiled the marriage bed by bringing sin into it, allowed satan to steal the minds of our children. They’ve become weak and blind and dead, bound in brass chains grinding the grain of sin's prison, not even knowing that God had long since departed. There’s noise coming from within but it’s more like clanging cymbals than anointed worship. How many churches have I seen like that? With all the business of activity, dressed up, organized, but the whole congregation is blind, weak and dead. And like Samson, their corpses grinding at some prison mill. Maybe if you listen carefully the next time you drive by one of those places you can hear the grinding and remember the words of Christ. "You have a name, you're the So-and-So church, but you're dead." How sad! But can I tell you something..even in dead churches there are some Godly people, some people whose hearts still beat for God. God always has a few, has always had a remnant. Not everybody bows the knee to Baal, right? Romans 11:1 to 5 reminds us of that. There were a few. There was some wheat in the first church of the tares. There were a few spiritual among the unspiritual, a few sincere among the hypocrites, a few humble among the proud, a few separated among the worldly. You’ll find some true Christians thrown in there and because of their refusal to stain their garments with the things of this world, while under the pressure of that church to do it, Christ will replace their humanly preserved clean garments with those that are divinely pure. Hallelujah! I think we are going to have to restudy this whole teaching of the place of the Holy Spirit in the Church, so the Body can operate again. Holy Spirit is the heartbeat of a church and when He is not there, the 'heart’ no longer beats, the church is dead, no longer living. All’s that left is the corpse, the remains. And since Holy Spirit is no longer present, since the power has gone we have to do all kinds of professional things...things to keep a dead corpse moving such as big bands, choreographed dancers...smoke and mirrors. You say, but preacher what can I do? I’m glad you asked... a famous evangelist once described the North American church as a “sleeping giant.” This description says that she may look impressive and pompous, (all that glitters is not gold) but there’s little real and genuine spiritual life present. The only sound coming from this pompous organization is a very comfortable snoring sound. It needs a lot of prodding to get such a giant moving and to make any significant difference in the world. A sleeping giant may be temporarily paralyzed but a dead and lifeless church is already permanently in the graveyard, buried in the earth or at least ready to be buried. All that’s needed is the funeral. So you ask what you can do...you can wake up that’s what! What does that mean? Well you can't be indifferent any longer, can no longer just go with the flow. You can't just lie around and let it go. We can no longer turn a blind eye to what’s going on around us and in our churches. These people are just sorta’ hanging around in a sort of daze. Walking zombies! If you want renewal, if you want revival, if you want to pour life into a sleeping church, dead church...wake up. That's the idea. Wake up, be alert, look what's happening, see where you are, care, get involved. Go back to Christ. Go back to the cross. Go back to the doctrines of sanctification. Start embracing holiness again. Go back to what you know is the truth. I believe this is a call to the dead to wake up. I think He's calling to the believers and saying, "Come on, wake up! Get moving before rigor mortis sets in. Make a difference. Get involved!" You really don't have any choice, you can't go anywhere, you can't go down the street to the First Church of the Wheat because there isn't one. So you're going to have to find out what's still alive in your dying church and strengthen it. Fan that ember into a fire. Pray this prayer... Lord bring renewal, bring revival and let it start in me. And keep on praying, wait and pray until the Breath of God moves upon us with mighty life giving Pentecostal power.
 In His love,
 Elizabeth 

“Lord, send Your Holy Spirit in power, that we might not be a dead church, striving to look alive, pretending to function as though alive, while the life is actually gone. Amen.” ~ A.W. Tozer