#204 Revival in Your Home (God's Plan - Part 1)

And we're going to live as husbands and wives and children and fathers and mothers to seek in every way to reflect the glory of God.

Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening. The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports. Well, welcome to the One Cry podcast. I'm Bill Eliff, and I am so excited that I have a way more beautiful co-host this time than I've had with ugly old Kyle Reno. And so you, some of you may know my wife, Holly, but Holly is going to join me and you'll see why in just a moment. But Holly, welcome to the Woodcraft Podcast.

Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here. Yeah.

So Holly and I, just a little of our history is this year and actually a few days will be our 52nd anniversary. And we've known each other longer than that. Dated for a little while. Since seventh grade. Since seventh grade, yeah. And along the way, we've had a lot of kids and eight kids and they're all married now and we have 27 grandkids. So you can see the toll it's taken on my life. But Holly still looks like she's 17 to me. But anyway, but one little period in our life was remarkable.

In 1987, 86, maybe, Dale Faisenfeld and a ministry called Life Action came to our church in Norman, Oklahoma. Where I was a pastor for a scheduled two-week meeting, and the Lord just came in power. And that meeting went on to a third week and a fourth week. And it was just an amazing time. And Dale and I got to be very close friends. Dale was the founder of Life Action, which was the parent ministry of One Cry. Wow.

And my heart had always been turned towards revival, but now especially so. And a few years later, the Lord called us to travel with Life Action. A lot of what they did was they had teams on the road that would go and do, at that time, two-week meetings in churches. And we took our families with us, lived in trailers. It was like a band of gospel gypsies. And part of my role was to teach every night.

We had two preachers, but I would teach when I wasn't just teaching the regular revival sessions. I would teach on revival in the home. And Holly would teach the women every day. With Nancy. Yeah, with Nancy Moss. That's right. Right. She traveled with us and in those early days and, uh. And what we saw was that if you don't have personal revival in your home, you don't really have revival.

I mean, the reality is who you are when we can say we're doing great and we're walking with God, but who we are really when the shades are pulled and the door is closed is who we are. That's the reality of our Christianity. Christianity. And so I think during those days, Holly, we just learned so much about what it would take to have revival inside the walls of your home.

And the thing was, when you're teaching something and you have to teach it night after night after night, you got to live that out. I mean, you can't play games. The Lord will not bless that, honor it, use it. And, uh, so it was, uh, and we were traveling on the road with, uh, four kids and then ultimately five kids before we, uh, Daniel. Five and six, five and six, whatever. And, uh, so, you know, life was an unbelievable adventure and, uh, and we were living this out.

So we learned a lot, didn't we, during those days? We definitely learned a lot during those days. Yeah.

And as we've been thinking about this next season of our One Cry podcast, we thought we would pause and just spend several weeks here. I'm not quite sure how many. But several weeks teaching on how to have revival right inside the walls of your own home. And whether you're a family of one or a family of 10, all of this applies to you. Every bit of this is going to be applicable to you. And we're very excited about teaching this and learning together about these things.

And I'm really thrilled to have Holly around because, you know, I can't just say stuff. You know, if your wife is sitting beside you, you really got to be. I'm not sure what that means. You got to be honest. I mean, I can't just say, well, you know, I'm the most godly husband in the world and she knows different. So she's going to keep me real honest, and I think I would be anyway, but she'll add to this as we talk here along the way.

As we begin today, we want to talk about several things in this series, a revival of God's plan, a revival of God's purpose in our home, a revival of God's heart. How do we get the love of God inside the walls of our home? A revival of his covenant, a revival of harmony, a revival of unity. I mean, we're going to cover a lot of ground here in these next podcasts.

But first of all, we want to just start in Genesis 1. It's a great place to start and look at a revival of God's plan. You know, the truth is right now that you look across the scope of American culture and life, and it is amazing how far we have gotten from the plan of God for a home. Absolutely. I mean, the whole gender reversal thing and, you know, boys and girls not even knowing who they are and what they are and how the home fits into all that. Just the value, the reason why

we have children and whether or not that matters. Yeah, having children. Yeah, we'll talk about that in just a moment. And so if we want to see real revival, if you want to see real revival, it starts at 20,000 feet. It starts at the biblical value level. Understanding what God's plan is and a willingness to embrace it and not live a life that's forsaking the plan of God, because anything less than the plan of God won't work. It just doesn't work. God has designed us.

C.S. Lewis said he made us just like someone would make a car, and a car runs on gas and nothing else. And we were designed to run on God and his plan and his purposes. And it simply won't work any other way. So we want to look for just a minute at the plan, the big picture plan of God for your home and challenge you to really think, am I living this plan out? Am I going for this? Am I living for this? Now, the first place where this is mentioned is in the first book of the Bible.

God's made the different parts of creation, and he said, this is good, this is good. And then the Bible says in verse 26, then God said, let us, obvious that God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, we're all there. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Now, let me just pause right there. There is nobody in the world, there's nothing in the world that is more like God than us, right? I mean, there's the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the elephants

and the zebras and the insects and all of that. They all reflect the image of God. But we're the only ones that God says, let us make man in our image. And that means so much. He made us with personality like his personality. It's not just a random thing that we can think and feel and we have emotions and a mind and a will and we can communicate with God. All of that was designed by God because he made us, the Bible says in Psalm 8, a little lower than the angel.

Some translations say a little lower than himself. And then when we fell, he has been restoring us to the image of his son so that we could walk with him. And he made us like he is so we can join him in what he does. And what he says here is in verse 26, let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

And so verse 28, God blessed them and he said to them, be fruitful and multiply, that's another command in his plan, and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the earth. And then God said, behold, this is good. So you see in these verses the clear plan of God. Let me just give it to us in three words. First of all, we are to reflect, right?

We reflect the image of God. And when we think about our homes, our home is to be a reflection of the nature and character of God, just like our lives are. When you look up in heaven and you look in the scripture and you see God and his nature, everything about God, except the fact that he is God, which is distinct above everything, we're to be like that. If God is love, we're to be love. If God is wise, he created us to be wise.

He designed us. If God is loving and compassionate and desires unity and on and on, he wants us to be all those things. And he created us with all the capacity in him, if we're connected to him, to have those things. So the first thing that we have to embrace if we really want a revival in our homes is to say, you know what? We're going to live our home, and we're going to live as husbands and wives and children and fathers and mothers to seek in every way to reflect the glory of God.

We want the world to see, when they look at our home, them to see God, what God is like, how God thinks, how God operates, It's how God, what God feels about things. So I think, first of all, Holly, we've got to be willing to commit. If we want real revival to come to our home, we've got to make a commitment that we're going to fulfill God's plan, and that's to reflect his image. I think, yes, we want to fulfill his plan, and we're going to pray that our

children cooperate in that process. Yeah, and us cooperate. And we're not going to do it perfectly, and God knows that. And he has a plan to correct those imperfections and to grow us more and more into the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ along the course of our life. And one day, completely correct that in our eternal home, in our eternal family. So first of all, if we want revival, we need a revival that's willing to reflect the image of God.

Secondly, he says, let us make man in our image and let them rule. Now, that's a big deal. God is a ruler. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. They are the rulers of everything. And they're over everything. And so then God made the earth and said, well, who is going to rule this? And so we're going to make man and we're going to make him just like us. And as long as he walks with us and listens to us, man and woman, and cooperates with us, then they'll be able to rule really well.

So when you start thinking about that, there was another entity in this process, and that was Satan. Satan wanted to rule the earth, right? And you can almost see him over the sidelines as God was speaking this, let us make man in our image and let them rule. And all of a sudden, his blood begins to boil. And he says, wait a minute, I thought I was going to rule the earth. I thought I was going to be in charge. And so he did everything possible to begin to destroy that.

So God said, of course, knowing Satan's activity would be there, said, no, man is going to rule. Satan's not going to rule. I want man to rule, and I want you to do it in my image the way I do it. Now, just think about this. And Holly, I've thought about this a lot. We have so many things that rule over us. Like just for instance, first of all, we're supposed to rule our own bodies. God gives us this body. It's a gift. And we're to steward it, you know.

And so instead of our bodies just getting all out of control and all of us struggle with that, some more than others, you know, we're to rule over our body. Now, you can't do that without the Lord and without his grace and without his help, of course, but we're to rule over our bodies. Think of this. We are given X amount of finances in our lifetime and things. And instead of those things ruling us, just think about how we get, we violate God's plan and we don't do it in his image.

And we get in debt and how that debt just rules over us, how material things just rule over us. And they're driving our life. We can't do what God wants us to do. God says, well, I want you to go to the mission. Well, I can't. I've got too many obligations here. I want you to take my resources.

They're mine. You're just a steward. And I want you to give to somebody. Well, I can't. Why? Because it's ruling over me. It's gotten all out of control. And you just think about everything in our life, that what's happening now with pornography and moral impurity across our nation? Do you know that in the normal, the statistics are that in the normal Christian church in America, 50 to 60 percent of the men in that church any given Sunday have watched pornography

sometime during that week? Well, it's just rules over them. And you say, well, no, it doesn't rule over. Okay, well, give it up then. And it's not just men anymore. Right. Men and women. And teenagers and young kids are exposed to that stuff. Yeah. So all of this is ruling over us. And God says, no, that's not the way I planned. This is not my plan. My plan is for you to walk with me and do this thing the way I've designed you to do it and reflect my image and then rule like I rule.

I rule with wisdom. Well, to have wisdom, you've got to know God's mind. You've got to read the word. You've got to stay the word. Well, are we doing the things that are necessary? Surrender to him, the renewing of our mind, you know, growing into his likeness so that we're equipped to be able to rule like God wants to rule. And again, Satan, just think about this, what made the garden in the early days before the fall so spectacular was the presence of God.

God had made these unbelievable creatures, They're just like him. They're in his image. But he knew that they could not function unless they walked with him and listened to him. Well, Satan, you look at the whole process of the temptation and you think, what was going on there? Satan was doing everything he could just to get them separated from the presence of God. And he did it. And then look what happened. And where did it happen first? It happened in the home.

Here's Cain and Abel, and they're killing each other, right, in a very short period of time. So here's the plan. We're looking at it from the big picture view that if we want revival, we've got to find and embrace God's plan. And his plan is for me as a husband, for Holly as a wife, for our children to reflect the image of God. So we have to think about our home and say, okay, does this reflect the image of God? Is this God's plan? Is this what he wants to?

And secondly, are we letting the world and the flesh and the devil just rule over us? I'll give you a very practical illustration. And I'm not a no TV guy. I, you know, at all, but, uh, unless it's a cowboy show, but anyway, but anyway, uh, just think of that TV just rules. I mean, most families, you walk in the door after work and you turn on the television and it's, it's on till midnight and, and it's just dominates us. You say, well, I don't, the TV doesn't rule us.

Well, you can prove that very simply, Turn it off for a week. Just turn it off and see how much our lives have become oriented towards television, towards video games, towards the screen. Do you remember that moment when our kids were younger where we put the TV in the closet? Oh, yeah. Well, we got rid of the TV and then and then because we just realized it was ruling. And then I think some of the Iran-Contra affair happened or some big thing in history was happening.

And I had a little we had a little five inch TV and we pulled it out of the closet and we found ourselves sitting right around the TV every night following this. And then we thought, this is stupid. Let's buy a TV. But anyway, it rules. Yes. So the big picture, do you want revival in your home? Then make a determination by the grace of God. We want to measure everything by this. Does this reflect the nature and the character of God? Are we ruling over the world, the flesh and the devil?

Are we making decisions in our home that let the world, the flesh and the devil rule over us?

And then there's one other thing, Holly, and you're an expert at this, is God calls us to reproduce, right? Oh, well, thank you. Yeah. You're an expert. Hey, kids, you've got more knowledge than most people. But anyway, he says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And this was not just about having kids, you know. It was his plan for developing a next generation that would reflect his image and rule and reign, right? To fill the earth.

And to fill the earth. That is, that he creates. That he creates. And it says in verse 28, it says, I want you to multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it and rule. In other words, if we quit having kids, then there's nobody there to subdue the earth. And it just runs wild without a caretaker, without stewards. And if we don't do it by reflect God's image and ruling according to his plan, the world is in chaos, which we see that evidence of that right now.

So Holly and I, we won't, this program is not about this, but let me just mention this, that Holly and I both came from families of four kids and we wanted to have four kids. That's we always, you know, and we lived in the day when back in the 70s, we got married in 73, 73. Yeah, that you just went on birth control pills was the thing back then. And nobody even talked about it. You didn't even discuss that. It was just that's what you did.

And there was no rationale for it. You know, it was just the thing. Portions did not exist. Yeah, they didn't. They were just beginning to exist. And but I mean, I remember sitting in a room when Francis Schaeffer was speaking and he talked about abortion. And I turned to my brother and said, what's that? I was I was in high. I was in college. Mm hmm. And so we had four kids and then we got to the end of that and we said,

now, why are we only having four kids? Well, I was pregnant with number four. Yeah. And we thought, oh, well, so this is the fourth one. And that was what we had planned. And all of a sudden we said, no, why? Yeah. And we had a great friend who was a Christian school superintendent and his wife, and they had 10 kids, and they were 10 really godly kids. And I went to him one day and I said, Ralph, Ralph Bullard was his name.

And I said, Ralph, talk to me about this. And if I'm lying and dying, what he did was he took a Bible and he pushed it across the table. And I looked at him, started smiling. I said, don't do that to me. He said, yeah. He said, you're a student of the Bible. He said, why don't you just study it and then come back? Well, I began to just search the scripture like I would any topic. And what I found was it said, the Lord opened the womb.

The Lord closed the womb. The Lord opened the womb. The Lord closed the womb. And I saw people in the Bible just trusting God for their children. And so Holly and I began to talk about this. And of course, for me, it was this great theological. Talk about coming out of your study that day saying what you thought about having lots more kids. Yeah.

And I said, I said, man, this would be so great. I can see, you know, 10 kids and they're all different, different personalities and they have to learn to live with each other and how great this would be and how many kids would go out. I would multiply. And Holly said, she looked at me. And you said, and then I can sit on the front porch and watch all of my grandchildren and children in the front yard. Yeah. It'll be glorious.

Glorious. And Holly looked at me and said, you got all these great theories. All I can think about is 100 more years of stretch panels on my pants. Yeah. So we took time and Holly, as she always does, just prayed through it and studied through it. And she came to this conclusion. I think we ought to do this. And so we released that to the Lord. Now, I think in that moment, and this is why I want to make this point. In that moment, we were embracing the plan of God.

I remember saying, you know, if we can trust God about a car, I think we can trust him about how many kids we should have. And we didn't know if we'd have another child or not. That was up to him. But we thought we ought to be able to trust him and to trust his plan. It was actually harder for me to trust him with, Lord, do whatever you want to do in the area of kids. And I sat down at the table one night and made a list. And at the top, it said, why I don't want to have eight million kids.

And then it was a yellow legal pad. I filled it up with reasons. And then I got to the bottom of that paper and started reading it and ended up on the floor in tears and told the Lord he could do whatever he wanted. Yeah. That's a good wife right there. A little stubborn. Well, I mean, it's surrender. It's surrender to the plan of God. And, you know, we've learned after 52 years what Romans 12, 2 says, the will of God is good and acceptable and it's perfect. It's complete, lacking in nothing.

We can trust God with anything. Doesn't mean there's not any problems and difficulties in this world, but it means that we can trust God. And, you know, for us, I know some people make that decision and trust the Lord in that same area and never have children. And their faith step is, will I believe God and trust him even if I don't have any children? And for us was trust God to have a whole lot of children and to care for those children and to pay for those children and all that.

And he has. He just has. And, you know, five of our sons and son-in-laws are pastors, all of our kids, by the grace of God, are walking with the Lord and making an impact. And so we could talk about that for a long time. But just to bring this to a close, let me ask you a question.

Do you want to see a fresh revival in your life? And do you want to see a fresh revival in your home? Well, it begins by embracing, accepting, believing in, and acting like it's so. God's plan for your home. And his plan is to reflect his image. What's not reflecting his image? How can we change that? How can we turn our home to reflect his image? And all of that of reflecting his image and ruling and reigning and reproducing, all of that comes from a surrender to him and walking with him.

You know, I had a young couple that was in my office when I was in my second church, little church plant. And I had a little broken down couch that I was, he was sitting on it and it kind of sunk down. And this guy was not a Christian. And I was just, he said, you know, what do we do to get married? And I said, well, let's just talk about that. And so I began to describe to him what his responsibilities were and would be as a husband.

And I laid it on, I'll be honest, I laid it on pretty thick, but I wasn't any thicker than it is and should be. Well, you need to be this as a husband. You need to be this as a father. And this is going to require this of you. And I watched that guy just sink down in that old couch farther and farther and farther. And then he looked at me. I'll never forget this moment. And he said, I can't do this without Christ, can I?

I said, there's no way I have the glorious privilege of leading him to Christ that day and then ultimately marrying that couple. You can't do this without Christ. And Holly, we always come to this close of this time and we want to pray. And we're inviting our listeners not to just listen to us pray, but to pray with us. So would you do that right now? Now, Holly, I'm going to ask you to begin and I'll close our time.

And let's just pray that God would give us understanding about these things and that would lead to a fresh revival in our homes. Let's pray. Lord, we're grateful that you are in charge, that you have a plan that will never end until we face you in heaven. and you come back to earth. And Lord, you are the creator of all things. You know everything about us. You know every thought. You know where our struggles are. And Lord, we can stop and listen to you.

And those things are in your hands instead of ours. And that's where we want to live. That's right. And Father, we just think about. Our enemy who has come to steal and kill and destroy, and he wants to do that in the home. That's where we live. That's where it all happens. But Father, your plan is good. Your plan is joyful.

Deliver us from the idea that if we pick up the Bible and believe it and follow you by the power of the Holy Spirit, that somehow that's going to be oppressive and terrible and we're going to miss something. Lord, you came to give life and life abundantly. And Lord, help us right now where people are just sitting in their car or in their home or wherever they are. I pray, Father, that something would happen in their soul.

And they would say, you know what? I'm going to live for and embrace the plan of God that's very simply and clearly laid out in the first chapter of the Bible. So help us in that and bring revival to all of our homes. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, thanks for joining us, Holly. Thanks for being with me. And we're going to be together in the next few podcasts talking about this very thing. I hope you'll join us.

I hope you'll call somebody and tell them, hey, turn into the One Cry podcast. They've got, you know, it's not just Bill. It's somebody who's really smart and pretty that's on there. And so anyway, we hope you join us next week and bring somebody with you. Music.