Most assuredly, I say to you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone: but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

1 Corinthians 10:11 says: Now all these things happened to them as models: and they are written for our counsel and instruction, upon whom the ends of the age have come.

Death Comes Before Life

In the part of the world where I grew up, the rain falls in summer. In winter everything dries up and dies. And the grass that was so lovely and green in summer begins to turn yellow and fade.

Usually around that time of the year is when you see forest fires. Sometimes people just carelessly throw a match, or maybe the sun beams through glass and acts as a magnifying glass. Whatever the case, we see a lot of forest fires.

As a result it became a very early experience for me to see how a countryside that was lush and green would turn to yellow and show death almost overnight.

Then a fire would come and sweep it all away, and that countryside would be transformed into just black, barren bare land.

I remember the first time I looked at the land that had been devastated by fire like that. I thought, "Everything is destroyed. Everything that took so long to grow is gone. Is there any hope for this land?"

But summer came around again and the rain began to fall. And it seemed like that which had died and had been purged and destroyed, suddenly began to spring to new life. Green grass sprang up out of the ground.

But where did it come from? Wasn't it all dead and destroyed by the fire? Where did the grass come from?

I discovered that the very ash from the fire provided a fertilizer for the seeds that lay dormant in the ground. They were ready to spring up at the first sign of water.

Death must come before new life can begin. But when death comes in the natural it is not total. When the grass dies it may be gone, but it leaves the seed to spring forth again.

When the fire comes and burns everything it does not destroy the seed. That seed remains in the ground, and although it may look as though everything has been destroyed it has not.

Instead the way has been prepared for new growth to take place; in fact for even more growth to take place than there was before.

The church of God is no exception to this principle of nature. The church has to go through death. We have spoken a lot about death in other places but I am not talking about that here.

Death has to come before life. I want to show you that the church has gone through death, and it has also gone through the fire. However there are seeds that are waiting to come up and sprout once again.

Church History

In this section I want to give you a history lesson. I hated history, and apart from geography it was probably the subject I disliked the most at school.

I admit that I didn't enjoy any subject that involved a lot of studying and learning. So do not expect a great historical account because I am not a very good historian.

I will however try and paint some pictures for you of the history of the church, from the beginning through until now.

If I leave out some of the facts and if I get some of them wrong, the analytical historians out there are welcome to correct me, but I will not change the notes. I am painting pictures here and I want you to see those pictures.

Noah and the Flood

Right back at the beginning of time, when God first made man, a new vision was born. God looked down and said, Let us make man in our image and in our likeness.

God created man and set him on the earth. However man sinned and became corrupt. And the Scripture says that God looked down and repented that He had created man. God said, I will destroy the earth with a flood.

Death came. God destroyed, but He didn't destroy everything. There was one family who stayed behind. God raised them up and chose them to be the seed that would spring forth a new generation of mankind.

That was the first time we see this principle of destruction followed afterwards by a new world.

As the flood destroyed the old world, the Scripture says that Noah and his family came into a new world. Was it a different world?

No it was the same, but it had changed because the flood had destroyed everything. And now this group of people who came from the old, came into the new as the seed to bear forth a new generation of mankind.

The Nation of Israel

Let's continue and look at God's chosen nation of Israel and the 12 tribes that He raised up. But they did not follow His laws. The whole thing turned sour and God said, "If you don't sort yourselves out I'm going to deal with you."

Israel did not listen and they went into the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities. Israel was scattered and destroyed. But it was not completely destroyed was it?

We read that a remnant came back during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. They returned and rebuilt Jerusalem, and the nation of Israel rose up once more.

You might ask me, "What about the 10 lost tribes?"

I do not want to go into British-Israelism here. I believe all 12 tribes came back at the time of Nehemiah. They returned and a new nation of Israel rose up with the same 12 tribes.

The same nation rose up once more. God had destroyed them but not totally. Death had to come in order that the new could come forth.

The Old Covenant

Next we see the Old Covenant that God established with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. We see that God destroyed the Old Covenant.

When Jesus hung on the cross and He said, It is finished, the Old Covenant was finished; it was over.

A remnant then entered into the New Covenant. There are more Gentile Christians today than there are Jewish Christians.

Again it was the same thing. God took a remnant from amongst the Jewish people in order to begin the New Covenant and the new move that He had planned amongst mankind.

The Apostolic Era

Then we come to the apostolic era and the birth of the church as we know it today. On the day of Pentecost as the Holy Spirit came down and 3000 souls were saved, the early church was birthed. It started off in mighty power.

Jesus spoke and said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, in all Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

The trouble was they sat in Jerusalem. They stayed where they were and had a revival. They forgot His Word.

In the middle of that revival power somebody received a vision to go out. His name was Saul of Tarsus. God had to use Saul to come and destroy the church.

What was He destroying? He was destroying the Jewish church. He had to destroy and scatter it, and make them get out of there to somewhere else.

You know something never ceases to amaze me. You read in the Acts of the Apostles how the Lord used Peter to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. When he arrived back the Jews all got on his case and said, "What are you doing mixing with Gentiles?"

He sat down and explained in detail how God had revealed Himself and how He had given the Spirit. The penny finally dropped and they came to the conclusion, "Oh, so God has given salvation to the Gentiles as well. Yeah, we got it."

Then the next verse says, And they went out and preached to Jews only.

They didn’t get it. The Lord had to bring destruction and scatter them.

Death of the Church

We look at the early church amongst the Gentiles when Paul moved out and started the new move, but again death came.

The church began to fade away. I don't know what caused it but I have some suspicions and opinions.

One of the opinions that I have is that the early apostles failed to make proper disciples. As a result, when they died out there was nobody to follow on.

Everybody followed the apostles' leadership, and while they were alive things were great.

However as soon as they died out there was nobody to take their place and the church went into the Dark Ages. The apostolic era came to an end.

What happened? The church went into death. The power of the Holy Spirit began to vanish. The traditions of men and religious ideas started to creep in and the power was gone.

People say, "Well that's because God only gave it to the apostles and they had a specific ministry. They worked in the gifts of the Spirit and they moved in the power.

But when they died it was no longer necessary because the church had now been established. Therefore God did away with the gifts and the power of the Spirit."

Have you heard that teaching? That is why the church died, because they failed to pass it on.

They failed to take what God had given them, to pour it fully into others and to mentor them. They did not do as Jesus did when He said, As the Father has sent me, so send I you.

The church died and the same procedure we saw earlier was followed again. There came the death, the fire and the persecution and everything that happened to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it destroyed it.

It appeared to destroy the church until it looked like that blackened countryside that had been burned and there was no life left.

But I want to tell you life was there. There were seeds that were still in the ground and that were waiting for some fresh water to come upon them to bring them back to life again.

The Start of Reformation

God began to move in the time of the Reformation. This is all church history and I am not very good at it, but I am just going to go through some of the phases.

In the early Reformation men began to get back to the Word again. Satan had locked up the Word so badly that nobody could get their hands on it. Nobody was allowed to teach it or preach it except those appointed by the church.

It was not allowed to be in the hands of the common man, and the hierarchy determined what you were supposed to believe, even if you did get to read it. That is about as dead as you can get.

But God began to move, and He began to inspire certain men such as Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Hus. Various other men of that time began to get into the Word and bring back the truth of justification by faith.

God raised up the Anabaptists to bring back the truth of water baptism, and gradually things came to life in the body of Christ.

As we trace the history of the church from the early apostolic era until now, we see various different phases that God took the church through after it had been through death.

The greatest growth occurred when the rain began to fall though.

When did that happen? It was not that long ago; just a little before my lifetime.

In this last century that has just passed, God began to move in restoration of the Body of Christ. If you are in the later stages of life, you can look back and see some of the phases that God has taken the church through in your very lifetime. 

The main one happened before our time at the turn of the century. As the century came in God began to pour out His rain. They called it the Latter Rain Movement.

God moved by His Spirit. He poured fresh water upon those seeds that had lain dormant for so long, and the church began to come to life again.

Something Greater in Store

God started to do more than simply restore things. Why? Because when death is followed by resurrection it brings something greater than what was there before. The resurrection is greater than the death.

You have to go through death in order that the new life may come in a greater dimension than you ever had.

Your vision for ministry has to die before God can raise it up and exalt it to the level that it should be. Everything in you must go through death.

Jesus came as the last Adam. He came in the same condition that God made man in originally. But when Jesus died and rose from the dead, the Scripture says He arose in a new life and in a new body.

Jesus was lifted up and exalted far above all principality and power, might and dominion, and every name that is named.

He was exalted far higher than Adam ever was. The resurrection brings a greater dimension than the original death.

What am I saying here? I am saying we must stop thinking that we have to get back to what the early church had. It is not good enough. God has something far bigger and far greater for us.

What the early church had was the birth of the vision which was only the start. The church has gone through death.

And it had to go through death for that very reason - in order that the Lord could raise up and bring out a church triumphant; a glorious church, far greater than this world has ever seen.

We are living in that time right now. In this last century we have seen God restoring His church. He has restored and brought back everything that the early church had.

We have not reached the final goal though have we? No we haven’t, because restoration is not enough?

There is a new move and a new vision coming. There is a new countryside that you will see and there are new trees that will be growing there.

There will be a new and greater dimension of the power of the Spirit of God in these end times in which we live than what the early church ever saw or knew. It will be different and greater than before.

That is what I will continue to share on here. I will be showing you what the new church is going to look like.

This generation will be part of stepping into the move that will bring about that new church.

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