Second Great Awakening Part Six - God’s Math

A few years ago, I received what will appear to be a very simple insight.

God’s work always results in addition and multiplication.
Man’s work always results in subtraction and division.

God’s plan as I understand it, is to bring everything in heaven and earth together in His Son, the LORD Jesus Christ. Bring everything together, now that is what I call addition!

When you bring more than one thing together, what do we call that? Addition. When that number increases exponentially, what do we call that? Multiplication.

I guess, I first encountered this unusual kind of math when I was researching the events of the Second Great Awakening.

The equation I began with was illustrated to me as I read of what the work of God did in the midst of people. The first thing that came to mind is the men He used. James McGready, John and William McGee, William Hodge, and Barton Stone. These men had walked together as brothers in the LORD for years, all joined in one purpose: that the LORD Jesus would be seen for Who He Is, and that as a result of that, that people would encounter Him by the Spirit of God by revelation, and then experience forgiveness and salvation through Him. They were joined in one purpose: That Jesus would be clearly seen through everything they did.

And then, something amazing happened. God unexpectedly interrupted a sacramental meeting at Red River Meeting House in June of 1800, and then at Gasper River Meeting House in July of 1800 where they were ministering together. In the later multiple day camp meeting, some things took place that were out of their [the men mentioned] wheelhouse of experience, and they had experienced what people refer to as ‘revival’ many times before that time. Even though they were praying and expecting God to visit their congregations, they didn’t recognize Him when He did.

They stepped out of the meeting at Gasper River temporarily to ask each other if what they saw happening could be God. One very wise among them said, “If this is of the devil, it will come to nothing. But if it is God, we dare not hinder it”. And with that, they laid aside their human understanding, and rejoined the meeting, which at this time had accelerated to the degree that many were laying on the floor and crying out to God for forgiveness for the sin in their lives, that had been obvious to them.

So at this point, those men, who were by the way, not all from the same denomination, made a decision to lay aside any differences they had and allow God to knit their hearts together as one and come together in Him. That is what I call addition. And that addition, led to an amazing degree of multiplication (thousands) among the people of both in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Until- and I hate this part- sometime later, the preferences of people began to introduce the other math concepts I mentioned: subtraction and division. The men God used for the most part stayed united, even through some pretty gnarly circumstances where one of the denominations they represented split due to some ‘this is the way it has always been’ preferences in the leadership. Enter the two kinds of math that always enter any equation when people decide they can improve on something God is doing. Their preferences: “we think it should be this way”, “we don’t like this thing that happened”, “we think we can do this better,” and I could continue ad nauseam. Enter the dreaded division that always leads to subtraction, just as surely as God’s math is a process of addition that leads to multiplication.

It certainly appears to me that when God initiates something among a group of people, the very best thing we can do is keep our preferences out of it, and ask ourselves this one very important question: “What does God want?”. Because in God’s math, what we want, or like, or feel comfortable with never even enters the equation, if you will pardon the pun. =)