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The Power to Heal the Past, by C Peter Wagner

by Geoff 18 July 2011 2 Comments

The Power to Heal the Past

by C Peter Wagner

An article in Renewal Journal 8: Awakening

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The Power to Heal the Past, by C Peter Wagner
An article in Renewal Journal 8: Awakening
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Dr C Peter Wagner, formerly Professor of Church Growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, author of numerous books, was President of Global Harvest Ministries and Co-ordinator of the United Prayer Track for the AD2000 and Beyond Movement.

_________________________________________

The Kingdom of God has been steadily advancing

and the rate of advance has never been greater than it is now

_________________________________________

The 1990s were extraordinary times. The Kingdom of God has been steadily advancing and the rate of advance has never been greater than it is now. The steady movement of the light of the Gospel of Christ has pushed the forces of darkness into their final comer, the part of the world called the 10/40 Window [people living 10-40 degrees north from west Africa to east Asia]. The future has never been brighter for the people of God, but at the same time the task has never been more formidable. As Scripture says, the devil has great wrath because he knows he has a short time (see Rev. 12:12).

New Spiritual Weapons

God never fails to provide the resources His people need for any challenge He gives them. The unusual times in which we live are no exception. God has provided the Body of Christ with some new spiritual weapons which will help us penetrate the darkest realms of the Enemy with the message of salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. Among these new weapons of warfare, three stand out above the others in my estimation:

* Strategic‑level spiritual warfare

* Spiritual mapping

* Identificational repentance

When I say these are ‘new’ weapons, I do not mean that they have just now come into being. Their roots go back to the Bible. Certain individuals and certain Christian traditions have used them in the past to one degree or another. The newness comes in the fact that only in the 1990s has the broad spectrum of the Body of Christ begun to understand the nature of these weapons of spiritual warfare and how to use them in advancing the Kingdom of God.

At this time I am going to deal with the third of these spiritual weapons: identificational repentance. This gives us the awesome power to heal the past.

Identificational Repentance

For me at least this is very new. I have been a Christian for 45 years, and I never once recall hearing a sermon from the pulpit on identificational repentance. I have four graduate degrees in religion from respectable academic institutions, and I was never taught a class on the subject. You do not find the issue raised in the writings of Martin Luther or John Calvin or John Wesley.

Fortunately, we now have a textbook on the subject, namely John Dawson’s remarkable book, Healing America’s Wounds (Regal Books). In my opinion, this is one of the books of the decade for Christian leaders of all denominations. Only because we now have access to this book has the United Prayer Track or the AD2000 Movement been bold enough to declare 1996 as the year to Heal the Land, featuring massive initiatives for repentance and reconciliation on every continent of the world. This is so important to me that I require my students at Fuller Theological Seminary to read Healing America’s Wounds and I invite John Dawson himself to come in and help me teach my classes.

Some may wonder what international significance a book like Healing America’s Wounds might have. Only this. We Americans are not ignorant of the fact that our nation has gained high international visibility for many things, some good, but some very bad. Now by God’s grace many American Christian leaders want our nation also to be known for our deep remorse over the national sins and atrocities we have committed. We want to be among the first to corporately humble ourselves before God and before the people we have offended, to confess our sins, and to seek remission of those sins in order to heal our deep national wounds. With no desire to be arrogant, we hope that if we provide a good example which pleases God, some other nations may see fit to follow our lead.

What exactly is involved in identificational repentance?

Personal Repentance

In order to understand it, let’s go from the known to the unknown. Most of us have been well trained to understand personal repentance. We know that sin can and does invade our personal lives. When it does, it has devastating effects not only on us, but on others around us. And we know what to do about it when it happens. This has been taught in every one of our seminaries and Bible schools. We do find it in the works of Luther and Calvin and Wesley. It is no secret that personal sins can and should be remitted.

A basic theological principle for this is found in Hebrews 9:22: “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission for sins.”

In Old Testament times the blood was that of bulls and goats and other animals which were sacrificed. Then Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross to pay the price for sin once and for all. So today when we deal with a sin in our personal life we know that we must:

* Identify the sin specifically.

* Sincerely confess the sin and ask God to forgive it.

* Know that God is faithful and just to forgive our sins whenever we do confess them because of the blood which Jesus shed on our behalf.

* Once forgiven, walk in obedience from that point onward, and do whatever is necessary to repair the damage that our sin has done to others.

It is important to recognise that having a sin forgiven does not automatically and by itself heal the wounds that the sin might have caused.

Corporate Sin

We must recognise that nations can and do sin corporately. God loves nations, and I join those who believe that God has a redemptive plan for each nation, or for that matter for each city or people group or neighbourhood or any visible network of human beings. But corporate national sin damages the relationship of the nation to God and prevents that nation from being all that God wants it to be.

Is this a hopeless situation? No. The Word of God has clearly outlined the remedy:

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14).

God desires to bring corporate healing. He wants to heal the land. The way that He does this is parallel to the way He deals with individuals. If we desire to see the healing come to our national wounds, we must take the following steps:

1. Identify the national sin. This is no place for vagueness. We must be specific, not evasive. For example, the principal sin of my nation, the United States, is clearly racism and our corporate sins which have established the spiritual strongholds are clear. The broadest and most pervasive sin that our nation ever committed was bringing Africans to our shores as slaves ‑ human merchandise to be bought, sold and used for any conceivable purpose to satisfy the desires of their white masters. But beyond this, the deepest root of national iniquity, and also, as I see it, one of the primary causes of our subsequent lust for slaves, was the horrendous way we white Americans treated our hosts, the American Indians. What does the breaking of over 350 solemn treaties say about U.S. national integrity?

2. Confess the sin corporately and ask God for forgiveness. We must not assume that one act of repentance and confession will suffice in all cases, although in some it may. Because the ministry of identificational repentance is so new to many of us, we do not as yet have a clear idea as to specific rules and guidelines on this matter. Meanwhile let’s follow John Dawson’s advice: we keep doing it until it’s over; or Cindy Jacob’s criterion: we forgive until there is no more pain.

3. Apply Christ’s blood. Since there is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood, there will be no remission of national sin outside of the atonement of Christ. For this reason it is very important to recognise that only Christians can do the necessary confession and repentance because only they have the spiritual authority to apply the blood of Jesus. Granted, Christian leaders who have been endowed with a higher level of spiritual authority than others can often be the most effective participants in such spiritual initiatives. But political, judicial and legislative authorities who are not redeemed by Jesus Christ and who are not filled with the Holy Spirit cannot be designated as point people for significant acts of repentance, although they may often be present when the act occurs and participate in whatever gestures of forgiveness may be appropriate.

4. Walk in obedience and repair the damage. Obviously this final step will frequently be the most difficult to implement, particularly in cases where the national iniquity has passed through many generations. Presumably, however, legislative acts and judicial decisions will much more readily accomplish their intended purposes once the strongholds of iniquity have been removed and the power of the Enemy has been weakened.

The Iniquity of the Fathers

Why should we be concerned about what our ancestors might have done? This is an important question raised by many who hear of identificational repentance for the first time. The answer derives from the spiritual principle that iniquity passes from generation to generation. One of many biblical texts on the matter comes from the Ten Commandments that Moses received on Sinai: “I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations…” (Exodus 20:5).

Technically speaking, sin can be understood as the initial act while iniquity is the effect that the sin has exercised on subsequent generations.

I interpret the reference to the third or fourth generation as a figure of speech meaning that it can go on and on. Time alone does not heal national iniquities. In fact if the sin is not remitted, the iniquity more frequently than not can become worse in each succeeding generation. But the cycle can be stopped by corporate repentance. Quite obviously, the only ones who can confess the sin and put it under the blood of Jesus are those who are alive today. Even though they did not commit the sin themselves, they can choose to identify with it, thus the term “identificational repentance.”

We have two clear biblical examples of how this is done, Daniel and Nehemiah: Daniel said, “I was… confessing my sin and the sin of my people” (Daniel 9:20). Nehemiah said, “Both my father’s house and I have sinned” (Nehemiah 1:6).

Notice that each of these two confessions has two parts: the sin and the iniquity. Both Daniel and Nehemiah confessed sins that they did not commit, and both recognised that the iniquity had been passed to their own generation. Because of this they admitted that they were not personally exempt from the residue of that sin in their own daily lives. For many of us the second part is more difficult than the first because we have too often tended to fall into patterns of denial.

When we remit the corporate sins of a nation by the blood of Jesus Christ through identificational repentance, we effectively remove a foothold that Satan has used to attempt to hold populations in spiritual darkness and in social misery. It happens because we are recognizing that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, as Paul says, but “mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). When we do that, the glory of Christ can shine through and the Kingdom of God can come in power.

“Heal the Land”

The year 1996 was designated as the time when Christians around the world agree to take aggressive action toward healing the wounds of their lands. Many initiatives begun in 1996 will continue in subsequent years. For example, a “Reconciliation Walk” in which thousands of Christians will walk the known routes of the Crusades was planned. Scheduled from November 1995 to June 1999, the top agenda item was repentance for sins of Christians against Muslims and Jews. Other planned initiatives include:

American whites repenting on the sites of Indian massacres.

American whites repenting for the slave trade.

Christians from Japan repenting for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Europeans repenting of the sins of World War II.

Christians from the North and from the South repenting over sins of the American Civil War.

Similar events are being planned on every continent of the world.

As the Body of Christ agrees to pull down strongholds of corporate sin, the way will be opened for revival of churches and a harvest of souls greater than anything previously imagined. Identificational repentance gives us the power to heal the past.

© C. Peter Wagner. Used with permission of Global Harvest Ministries.

Some books by C Peter Wagner

Leading your Church to Growth (1984)

The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit (1988)

Your Church can be Healthy (1990)

Spiritual Power and Church Growth (1990)

Prayer Shield (1997)

Churches the Pray (1997)

Breaking Strongholds in Your City (1997)

Church Growth and the Whole Gospel (1998)

Church Quake (1999)

Your Church can Grow (2001)

Your Spiritual Gifts can help your Church Grow (2005)

Praying with Power (2008)

Warfare Prayer (2009)

Discover your Spiritual Gifts (2010)

Now available in updated book form (2nd edition 2011)
An article in Renewal Journal 8: Awakening

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Contents: 8 Awakening

Speaking God’s Word, by David Yonggi Cho

The Power to Heal the Past, by C Peter Wagner

Worldwide Awakening, by Richard Riss

The “No Name” Revival, by Brian Medway

Review: Fire from Heaven, by Harvey Cox

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Speaking God’s Word by David Yonggi Cho

by Geoff 18 July 2011 4 Comments

Speaking God’s Word, by David Yonggi Cho

An article in Renewal Journal 8: Awakening

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Speaking God’s Word, by David Yonggi Cho
An article in Renewal Journal 8: Awakening
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Dr David Yonggi Cho wrote as the senior pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea. This article is reproduced from his message “Speaking God’s Word for Church Growth” published in the Church Growth Manual, No. 7.

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__________________________

Even though you may have

no ability in yourself, say

“I can do all things in Jesus.”

__________________________

One day the Holy Spirit impressed upon my heart, “God sent his word, and he healed the people. Why don’t you give the word boldly to the people?”

This must have been the idea of the Holy Spirit. “Speak the healing. God sends his word through your mouth. God asked Ezekiel to speak to the air: You life, go into that body. So, why don’t you speak?”

At first I was scared, but then I was determined to speak. After I saw those impressions, then I began to boldly speak that such and such a person was healed, and such and such a disease is disappearing.

Miracle after miracle began to occur. The person who was healed came to me saying, “When you spoke that word, it shook me hard. Suddenly I felt the healing power flow, and I was healed.”

Through my own experience, I found the wonderful secret that through our mouth confession God’s creative power is working. In the book of Genesis, God spoke and the light appeared; God spoke and the firmament appeared; God spoke and the earth appeared. Jesus spoke and the people were forgiven. Jesus spoke and the sick people were healed. Jesus spoke and the devil left them. Jesus spoke and the turbulent sea became calm.

When you read the Bible, sick people were not healed just through prayer in the New Testament. They were healed by ‘speaking’. Peter said to Aeneas, “Rise up” (Acts 9:34). To Paul Jesus said, “Stand on your feet.”

They always spoke healing to the people. From that time until now, I would always just speak the word, and God created tremendous miracles.

Eastern Russia

In 1992 I went to the eastern part of Russia. It was very dangerous there. Russia was in a great turbulence, especially in eastern Russia. It is so far away from Moscow that the discipline was very loose. It was very difficult there. I went to a stadium filled with about 35,000 people. The Russian Orthodox Church was out there to attack me. The Communists were scaring me. On the second day I was ready to leave my hotel and was being carefully watched by the KGB. However, I could not leave my hotel because they were trying to assassinate me. They constantly intimidated me so I was incarcerated in the hotel. I was sitting in the hotel the whole day, and in the evening I would go out.

That evening when I took up my Bible and was ready to leave the hotel; I heard a voice. It was a very clear voice. It was almost audible. It was ringing in my soul: “You are leaving as a living man, but you will return as a dead man tonight. You will be assassinated. You came as a living person to our city, but you will return home in a casket. So don’t go to the meeting or you will return home in a casket.”

Every day people in Russia were being killed by shooting. So, I was preaching behind bullet‑proof glass that the Russian government had given to me. If I would be killed, it would become a diplomatic problem, so the Russian government commanded me to stand behind bullet‑proof glass. They could shoot me from the back. So while I was preaching, I was very conscious of the people behind me. It was a terrible feeling.

When I heard that voice in my hotel room, I had to decide if that was from the Holy Spirit or from the Devil. If you don’t clearly discern this right away, then you will be in trouble. At that time I began to see the predicament of Paul. When Paul was returning to Jerusalem, the government and prophets said that Paul would be arrested and bound and put in jail. These things would be waiting for him, so he was admonished not to go up there. But Paul was determined to go to Jerusalem, knowing that he would be arrested.

Before my experience in Russia, I always thought that Paul made a great mistake. He should have listened to the voice of those people. Still Paul went because he discerned the right voice of the Holy Spirit.

Almost instantly, I said to myself. “I should not go to the service tonight. I do not want to die. I want to see my wife and children.”

I prayed, “God, what shall I do?”

I began to hear another voice, a still, small voice in my heart with great assurance. Then I heard two distinctive voices. That was some experience. The first voice was coming strong and loud in my soul, “You are a dead person. Tonight you will be shot at. They will carry your dead body to the hotel. Don’t go.”

Then the Spirit said to my heart when I prayed, “Go to the meeting tonight. You will have great miracles in the service tonight.”

So I said, “You Devil, in the name of Jesus Christ, get out of me. To live is Christ. To die is gain. So if tonight I go to heaven, it is okay. I am ready to accept that.”

I went out of the hotel trembling. I was really afraid. The people were packed in the stadium and as I sat on the platform, I was constantly looking behind me.

Just before I stood up to preach, an ambulance was coming to the stadium. Usually an ambulance would not be permitted to get close to the stadium. As the ambulance came closer, I could hear the siren and thought, “Oh, they must have heard that I was going to be shot at and they have come to take me away.” I froze in my chair.

The back door of the ambulance was opened, and they carried a man out. He looked like a rich man and one who was in high authority. They put him into a wheelchair and pushed him out among the crowd. The Communist young people came and began to argue. They said, “Why do you come to this kind of meeting? He is preaching false doctrine. There is no living God. You cannot be healed. You are bringing shame on us. We are Communists. We do not believe in God. He is telling a lie. Go back into the ambulance.”

At that moment, many Christian people came and said, “No, Christ is living.”

These two groups of people were surrounding this man in the wheelchair and arguing back and forth. I got inspired and said, “Oh God, if you don’t heal this man in the wheelchair now, I will be in great trouble. I will be shot at for sure then.”

35,000 saved

I stood up and preached under the unction of the Holy Spirit. When I asked for those who wanted to be saved, all 35,000 people stood to their feet.

I said, “Everyone sit down. You misunderstood me.” So I said, “All those who want to be saved for the first time, please stand up.”

The 35,000 people stood up again. I asked my interpreter, “Did you say my words correctly?”

He said, “Yes.”

I asked, “Then why do they all stand up?”

He looked at me and said, “Pastor, these people have never heard the Gospel before in their lives. For 70 years we have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are all newcomers. You are from the Western country. You don’t know our situation. They all heard the Gospel for the first time this evening, and they all want to be saved. So, just accept them. Don’t question them.”

So I had them stand up and led them to Jesus Christ. Then I began to pray the healing prayer. Usually, I have great success in divine healing in Russia because the people are so humble and so easily believe. However, that night I was concerned about the Communists’ gang. Though I preached strongly, and prayed the healing prayer strongly, I was afraid to announce the healings that took place.

Healing Miracles

God had clearly put in my mind that a miracle was going to take place, but I was afraid. So I just said, “This man with a deaf ear was healed. This man with arthritis was healed. This man who has stomach trouble is healed.”

Actually, I could not say that the man in the wheelchair was healed, but my interpreter said, “Yes, everyone knows this person. He is a great man. He was in an accident and has a broken backbone. He has been in a wheelchair for seven years. They tried every way, but he could not be healed.”

I have been trained medically, so when I heard that I thought, “That is impossible.” It is impossible for that man with a broken backbone and broken nerve chord to be healed.

The people began to stand up and testify of their healings. This strengthened my faith, so I said, “My brother, who is sitting in that wheelchair, you are healed.” That was not an easy job at all. That man started to rise up. He sat down again but struggled to rise up a second time. He sat down and a third time struggled to get up. Very wobbly he started to walk a few steps, then he began to run, then rushed onto the platform.

He hugged me with a typical Russian bear hug. I was being choked. He hugged and cried saying, “I am healed. I was sitting in that wheelchair for seven years and now I am healed.”

Then I began to hear a roaring sound as the Christian young people chased the Communist young people. The Communists were running from the stadium, and the Christians were running following after them.

This man who was healed was so excited that he jumped off the high platform. I was scared then. Then he went to where his wheelchair was and hoisted it into the air and began to walk. The entire stadium was in an uproar at this time.

The Communists had completely failed that night. What a success for the Christians! Before I left my hotel, the Devil scared me. And, if I had not heard the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart, I would not have come to the stadium. Since I prayed and heard the Holy Spirit. I could come.

A positive announcement is very, very important. If you speak negatively, you will stop the current of the Holy Spirit. But when you speak positively, you release the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, when people begin to talk negatively among your cell leaders – “”I have no power. I have no strength. I have no confidence.” – they can do nothing. They are already defeated. So I tell them not to say negative words. Always say, “In Jesus Christ I can teach. I can win. I can preach. I can do all things in Jesus.”

Even though you may have no ability in yourself, say “I can do all things in Jesus.”

Your attitude is very important. If you don’t teach your cell leaders to have the right kind of attitude, after two or three tries in their cell meetings they will give up. The number of casualties is too heavy.

Give your cell leaders strong teaching on having visions, and living in the vision. Then make their attitude to be positive, let them see Jesus. Don’t let them look at the wilderness. Don’t let them look at themselves. Make them look to Jesus. Then make them confess an affirmative confession. This is very important for church growth.

(c) Church Growth Manual No. 7 published by Church Growth International, Yoido P.O. Box 7, Seoul 150‑600, Korea. Used by permission.

Some books by David Yonggi Cho

Successful Living (1977)

The Fourth Dimension (1979)

Prayer, Key to Revival (1987)

Praying with Jesus (1988)

Successful Home Cell Groups (1988)

The Holy Spirit, my Senior Partner (1996)

More than Numbers (1997)

How to Pray (1997)

Prayer that Brings Revival (1998)

Unleashing the Power of Faith (2006)

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