There's something about the New Year that always makes me look back at the last and forward to the next.
In that process, my need for revival regularly confronts me.
I found something I wrote on revival long ago (way back in the 20th century sometime) and thought I'd share it verbatim because I appreciated the fresh challenge it was to me.
Hope it is for you too.
Revival.
Revival is not accomplished through any work of man. Revival is not even accomplished foundationally on prayer. True revival always begins with God.
Revival that begins with God succeeds--no force can stop it, no dam can hold it in, no human heart can halt its churning, foaming, crashing waves. Man must needs bow to it--like the genuine pull that leads to salvation, the grace of revival cannot be resisted.
Revival is grace.
Prayer-even prayer-is not the moving agent of revival. Prayer is the indication that God wants to send a revival, but your prayer is not the beginning of revival. If it were, the beginning of revial would depend on man and his prayer.
There is none that seeketh after God, none that doeth righteously (Rom. 3:10-12), no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him (Jn. 6:44). And the desire of prayer is that first sign that God has already begun revival.
Think of when you were first saved--Who began that work? Who started, built, and completed that work? Who sovereignly convicted and placed the desire in your heart to save you? Did your prayer save you? Or was it merely the first step of the work God began? A work that must needs go on. (hence sanctification)
And so in revival, there is a valid emphasis on the power of prayer. Because God's sovereign design has decreed that prayer move God. Without earnest, genuine, heart-filled dependent prayer, why should we expect God to wave a wand and revive our hearts? I don't mean pray for several months about revival. I mean truly, fervently, effectually pray until that pray succeeds.
When does prayer suceed? When God answers. And I find it hard to imagine that our lack of revival comes from God saying "No" when we have earnestly strived and finally arrived at His answer.
It is said that at the beginning of the New York revivals, men said, "We have heard preaching until we have been hardened; now it is time to pray." Oh, for the passionate prayer of "Not business as usual, O God, not business as usual."
How many times have I ended a day, blithely unaware of the power of God or changed in any recognizable way? I need revival.
The weather-reviving prayer of Elijah in James 5:17 was "earnest." The Lazarus-reviving prayer of Christ in John 11:43 was authoritative, passionate (v. 35), full of faith (vv. 41-42) and purposeful (v. 42).
Has God begun to stoke the fires of desire for revival in your heart? Pray, O Christian, pray. Pray and thank Him for this grace that is but the foretaste of a torrent of blessing to come.
Posted by apelles at January 8, 2003 07:58 AM