Israel had no king. The people clamored until God gave them what they thought they wanted. Consequence? ... leanness to their souls. Even Moses, who actually saw God face-to-face let his father-in-law influence him to gather a committee to help him do what God had commissioned only him to do. The offspring of that "committee" eventually became the Sanhedrin who crucified our Lord.
"There is safety in a multitude of counsellors", so says Proverbs 11:14, but there can also be confusion if we do not fall on our knees in desperate trust, coming again to the power-packed Truth that:
Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' Name.
When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high ad stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.
His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.
When He shall come with trumpet sound, Oh, may I then in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousess alone, faultless to stand before the throne.
That "trumpet" may not sound in my lifetime, or in yours. Obviously the last chosen one is not in yet. Uncountable Muslims are coming to Christ in what could be termed the least likely places on earth. Our Lord's time clock for His return is based on the "full number" and only God knows what that "number" is.
"How Shall we Then Live"? wrote Frances Schaefer in the 70's ...Keep on doing what we are doing IF we are not just warming a church pew and listening for the hundredth time to the same message we have heard again and again. GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES! You don't need a manual; Build relationships with the people you already know, earning the right to perhaps give them a little booklet containing the Gospel, or a tract. Have them for dinner in your home (Whatever happened to sacrificially cooking a dinner for an acquaintance?). DON"T shove them off on your pastor or staff in your church. LOVE THEM TO JESUS. Feed His sheep. You know more than you think you do. Every new believer needs to know some basics: 1) Jesus is God in the flesh. 2) There is only One Way of Salvation: through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. 3) The Holy Spirit indwelt them from the second they received Christ. 4) The Bible is the inerrant Word of God. 5) This person has a new set of friends and a new set of enemies. Tell them about satan, for he will come after them immediately. Establish them in a small group if possible where the Body functions well. This person is your responsibility to nurse, then to wean, when it is time. There is more of course, but KEEP IT SIMPLE. You cannot imagine how much fun it is to "go and make disciples". They will be part of your life until you take your last breath and then you will spend all of eternity with them and the rest of the family of God.
As reality sets in that "The King is in the altogether", the hoarded monies have really run out and there are no more free lunches, that revival many of us have prayed for for years just might yet happen.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in high places...a battle that requires God-armor from head to toe.
Love, Jo