The Time I Almost Stopped a Revival

Our church started in the former communist auditorium at the Academy of Sciences in Riga on Easter 1993.

Satan had tried his hardest to stop us, but the power of God pushed back those forces of darkness, and the church was born in the power of the Spirit. We saw signs, wonders, and mighty deeds as throngs of people came forward to get saved when we started the church. It was a real-life book-of-Acts scenario with every imaginable kind of miracle taking place!

 But most churches at that time still operated underground because they had been illegal due to the atheistic regime that had ruled that part of the world for so long. So when we began to publicly announce our meetings and make a “commotion,” it garnered a lot of amazing attention. What was happening in our church was being talked about in all the underground churches and even in the newspapers and TV news. But as things were getting rolling, something very ugly took place between another pastor and me Riga that I am not proud of, but God used it to teach me an important lesson.

At that time, there were only a handful of “aboveground” in churches in Riga because nearly all the others tried to conceal their church activities from the sight of the former KGB, now the secret-security services. One of those who dared to go “aboveground” started his own church and declared that he and his congregation were going to lead the way forward for the next generation of believers in Riga. About the time God instructed me to start our church, his church was the most progressive and boisterous church in Riga — they had made quite a noise within the newly emerging Christian community.

But there were things I didn’t like about this pastor or his church. For example, some of the things he taught rubbed me the wrong way. And I didn’t like what I perceived to be an arrogant attitude toward other churches in Riga. He had publicly bad-mouthed a lot of the underground churches. Hearing someone talk like that really irked me. It was true that some of the other churches were a little stuck in the traditions of their past; nevertheless their congregations were filled with good, faithful people, many of whom had spent time in prison for their faith. I felt they deserved respect.

And when Denise and I started our church, it seemed this other pas[1]tor wasn’t very happy about it. We were on TV every day, giving voice to the Gospel in the nation where it seemed he wanted spiritual preeminence. When our church began to grow quickly, he may have felt threatened and protective of his own flock and his work in that virgin, aboveground territory that was the new Latvia. But one day he started a war of words with me, and I engaged the battle! Unfortunately, a verbal feud marked by raging carnality erupted between me and this other pastor.

Back and forth, we began to publicly rip at each other with our words. It was shameful and revealed immaturity in both of us. But I wrongly convinced myself that someone needed to stand up to him — and since no one else would do it — then that someone would be me! I was ready to keep up the fight till the end to “win” this feud. What ensued between him and me was so ugly that even today — decades later — people still remember the mud-slinging that took place between this pastor and me in those days. It was really nasty and ugly.

Then the Holy Spirit stopped me long enough to pose a question to my mind: Rick, do you want to keep having a revival in your life and your church? I replied, “Yes, Lord, You know I do.” He asked me again, Are you absolutely sure you want to keep having revival in your church? I answered, “Yes, Lord, You know I do.”

A third time, the Holy Spirit asked, How badly do you want revival to continue in your church? I answered, “Lord, You know how desperately I want to see revival continue in our church. I’ll do anything You ask of me if it will bring a great move of God to the world.” And that’s when He answered me, Then I am requiring you to deal with your wrong attitude toward this man, because this foul attitude in your heart will stop you from experiencing the move of God I want to give you.

I argued, “My attitude? What about his attitude? Have You forgotten that he is the one who picked this fight, not me!” I even told the Lord, “My family gave up everything to move here, and he could have welcomed and supported me, but instead he has been ugly from the very start. He is the one who started this feud, not me!”

 But then the Lord explicitly told me that I was to go to him and repent for my wrong attitude toward him. Persistent in my tone, I replied to the Lord, “And what about him, Lord? What are You going to do about all the wrong things he has said and done against me?”

 I’ll never forget what the Holy Spirit said to me at that moment: I’m not talking to you about this man and what I’ll require him to do. I’m talking to you about YOU. I will deal with him for what he has done to you, but right now I’m dealing with YOU for your immature reactions to him.

 I definitely wasn’t ready for what the Holy Spirit said to me next. He instructed me to get in the car, drive across town, go into that pastor’s office…and GET ON MY KNEES IN FRONT OF HIM and repent for every ugly thing I had heard and believed and said to others about him.

Ugh! That was the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew the Holy Spirit had told me to do it.

When the Holy Spirit asked me to go to this fellow minister and get on my knees in front of him, my first response was, “NO, I WON’T DO IT!

I’m not giving that man the gratification of seeing me on my knees in front of him. I don’t want to give him the pleasure!” You see, I was certain that the moment I walked out of his office, he would tell everyone, “RICK RENNER has bowed before me today!”

For two months, I heard the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit asking me again and again, Are you going to obey Me? Are you going to do what I’ve asked you to do? Are you going to go to that pastor, get on your knees, and repent for your attitude toward him?

I argued with the Lord for two months about the matter, but He just kept saying, Rick, do you really want to keep having revival or do you want it to stop? If you’re going to really experience revival, you have to do what I’m requiring you to do.

 It got to the point that the Lord was interrupting my prayer time every day, saying, Are you going to obey Me? Are you going to obey Me? Are you going to obey Me? At last, I threw in the towel and said, “Yes, yes, YES — I will obey You!”

 After telling my associate what the Holy Spirit was requiring me to do, I asked him to go with me for moral support, and I drove across town to this other pastor’s office. As I sat across the room from the pastor, he and I uncomfortably talked about the weather, politics, and even about our children. I was trying to buy time, hoping he would apologize first. But, finally, when we didn’t have anything else to talk about, I knew the time had come for me to do what I had come to do. At that moment, I had a choice. I could get up and leave that room with unfinished business and fail this assignment, or I could slip down on my knees and do what Jesus had requested me to do.

After breathing a deep sigh, I told this pastor, “I’m here today to do something that the Lord is requiring me to do.” I continued with all the sincerity I could muster: “I’ve heard a lot of bad things you’ve said about me and I am deeply disturbed about some of your teachings that I believe to be very wrong. But I’m not here to deal with you. Today I’m here to deal with me, because I’ve sinned against you. You have offended me, and as a result of my offense, I have believed every negative thing any person has told me about you, and I have said unkind things about you. I’ve been wrong, and I have been a source of division. Today I’m here to ask you to forgive me.”

My heart cried out to hear this man respond, “Well, Rick, I have said a lot of bad things about you, so I need to ask you to forgive me as well.” But instead of apologizing to me or acknowledging that he had done anything wrong, he just stared at me with what felt to me like a look of glee in his eyes. At the time, it seemed to me that he was relishing every moment of my contrition.

Then I heard the Holy Spirit say, Now it’s time to get on your knees in front of him. I inwardly argued with the Lord: Please don’t ask me to get on my knees! But the Holy Spirit quietly spoke to my heart again, Rick, you need to get on your knees in front of this man to properly ask for his forgiveness.

 The Holy Spirit Said, ‘BOTH Knees!’

 Hesitantly, I lowered myself down on one knee, thinking that if I did it halfway, on just one knee, it would be enough. But I heard the Holy Spirit say, BOTH knees!

 I knew full well at that moment that if I wanted to please the Lord and to keep experiencing His power in our church and ministry, I had to fully obey Him no matter how humiliated I felt or how this man responded. I also knew that if I didn’t get it right this time, I would have to come back a second time. God would not let me off the hook. So I slowly lowered myself down onto both knees and looked up at this pastor and said, “Brother, I repent before God and before you for the ugly attitude and words that I’ve fostered and perpetuated against you.”

From that day forward, I didn’t care anymore what this man ever said or didn’t say about me. I had done what the Lord required of me, and I was free. Even more, I began to take steps to pursue peace with this pastor. Denise and I invited him and his wife to our home for dinners on multiple occasions. I also invited him to speak in our church, and I attended his church conferences. Later, this pastor also acted on what the Lord spoke to his heart to do in order to pursue peace with me.

Over many years, that pastor and I became cherished friends. Today when I go back to visit Riga, we meet for breakfast and share from our hearts with each other about life and ministry and what the Lord is doing in our hearts and lives. We have a mutual and genuine respect for one another. The devil had very different plans for our relationship — and for the Christian community in that city who would be ill-affected by our bitter feuding. But we chose to thwart those demonic plans by doing what God told us to do in order to pursue peace with each other.

 When this pastor in Riga was interviewed for this book, I became even more thankful for how the grace of God can turn a bad situation into a good one. He said, “I have a very good relationship with Rick Renner, who is a very special person in my life.” He remarkably added, “I don’t remember one time when Rick ever argued with someone. In fact, people would think you were joking if you said to them that Rick Renner got mad about something.”

Well, that’s how I endeavor to live my life, but it certainly wasn’t the case back then when I fell into the trap of offense and allowed myself to be drawn into a public blitz with a fellow believer and minister of the Gospel. But, oh, how the grace of God can make up for our bad attitudes and wrong actions. If we are willing to do what God requires, even the worst relationships can be turned around.

That pastor added, “I’m so proud of Rick and how he’s broadcasting on so many channels every day all over the world. He’s really an example to the younger generation of how to work hard, how to watch after your body and your health, and how to have a good physical presence — he’s doing such a good job. Rick and Denise have been amazing and they are still amazing. I have great gratitude to God for my dear friend, Rick Renner.”

Instead of that earlier spirit of competition in our younger years, that pas[1]tor amazingly stated, “When a star or professional comes to a stage, the stage quickly becomes small because of his or her presence. That’s Rick. When he steps onto a platform, he brings the bigness of God’s presence with him, and it fills not only the stage, but the whole auditorium. In fact, that ‘presence’ is so big that when he and his family left Riga and moved to Moscow, we who remained could feel his absence.”

As I look back on that day when I knelt before that pastor in his office, I’d have to say that it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life up to that moment. But I learned a priceless lesson through that experience — that is, if we will obey God by responding to an offense in humility and love, we’ll not only dismantle the enemy’s trap, but we’ll also create a platform for God to move on both sides of the situation in a way that will honor Him and promote His purposes. If I had refused to humble my heart and repent for my own role in all that ugliness between us, my lack of repentance could have bottlenecked everything God wanted to do in our lives and ministries. He had nations He wanted to touch through both of us!

As soon as that issue was taken care of and I was beyond that spiritual hurdle, God poured more growth out on us. The church continued experiencing a divine outpouring; the TV network was expanding at a breathtaking speed; and tons of mail continued to arrive at our offices from viewers. In fact, by this time, our TV programs were being broadcast in most places across the USSR.

 If I showed you a map of our coverage, it would quickly become clear that God had done the impossible through us. We were broadcasting on more than eighty large stations, middle-range stations, small stations, and in any area where a door opened. In fact, if a door opened, we automatically walked through it because we knew that regardless of where the programs were broadcast, we would be speaking to masses of people who had never heard the Gospel or the teaching of the Bible. Even though we didn’t have the money to do any of it, we had a directive from Heaven.

Bishop Nikolai Gribs, one of the most respectable Russian bishops in all of Latvia, vividly recalled those early years when he said, “In those days when tons of mail were coming in from television, Rick and his team answered every one of those letters that came into his office. There were a lot of questions coming from people because they knew nearly nothing about God or the Bible. The people who wrote the letters were deeply affected by Rick’s programs and by the fact that he really answered them and didn’t forget about them — when people wrote to Rick, it wasn’t just a letter they sent into ‘outer space.’ Oh, I remember those boxes and boxes filled with letters — stacks and stacks of letters from people with so many needs.”

He added, “When the Iron Curtain fell, it provided an opportunity for different missionaries and missions organizations to come do work in the USSR. Over time, fewer and fewer came, but the most faithful stayed — and Rick and his family were the most faithful from those earliest years. Rick was a big blessing because he could speak to all kinds of people — to ministers, businessmen, and to lay people. His teaching was simple, but straightforward and strong. He wasn’t trying to build a career and didn’t have his mind on himself. His mind and focus really was on us. We watched as he gave us his life and experience, and he did it without any ulterior motives or strings attached. Most important was, we could see that the way Rick spoke was really the way he lived. His words and his actions matched.”

Bishop Nikolai concluded, “Rick — he left everything he was building in America to come to us and was willing to do whatever God was telling him to do. What God did through Rick and his family encouraged all of us to do whatever God would ever ask us to do. By watching Rick, we learned how to do the work of the ministry honorably and correctly.”