for revival

Fervent prayer from scripture

man-praying-bible-gettyimages-stevanovicigor.1200w.tn

Here is another call for revival.

Make us strong again,
    and we, your people, will praise you. – Psalm 85:6 GNT

It has been a conversation with a few of my friends this week. Spurgeon really had a heart for this particular Psalm when it came to prayer

BRETHREN, if you will pray this prayer, it will be better than my preaching from it! And my only motive in preaching from it is that you may pray it. Oh, that at once, before I have uttered more than a few sentences, we might begin to pray by crying, yes, groaning deep down in our souls,” Will You not revive us again that Your people may rejoice in You?”

Is it not true that when a man of God who is called to preach or teach or whose books on commentary regarding scripture passes away – we miss them for those reasons and see our world empty of greatness and declare our world has lost a mighty person of God. I think of John Knox and of Luther and I think how powerful they were and I see through them that we have lost our ability to pray like them.

Luther was a man of whom they said, as they pointed at him in the street, “There goes a man who can have anything he likes to ask of God.” He was the man who, by his prayer, dragged Melancthon back from the very gates of death and, what was more, the man who could shake upon her seven hills the harlot of Rome as she never had been shaken before, because he was mighty with God in prayer! Oh, that I could but stir up my Brothers and Sisters to be instant in season and out of season, if there is such a thing as out of season with God in prayer! Let us get away to our closets! Let us cry mightily to Him! Let us come to close quarters with Him and say, “Will You not revive us again that Your people may rejoice in You?

When is it a good time to pray a prayer like this? I pray this often when I remember any gracious act of God in my past.

Here are some verses in Isaiah chapter 31 that were turned into hymns of prayer.

Just as a bird hovers over its nest to protect its young, so I, the Lord Almighty, will protect Jerusalem and defend it. – Isaiah 31:5 – Grant Peace, We Pray, in Mercy, Lord

The Lord said to me, “No matter how shepherds yell and shout, they can’t scare away a lion from an animal that it has killed; in the same way, there is nothing that can keep me, the Lord Almighty, from protecting Mount Zion.  – Isaiah 31:4 – Zion Stands with Hills Surrounded

Their emperor will run away in terror, and the officers will be so frightened that they will abandon their battle flags.” The Lord has spoken—the Lord who is worshiped in Jerusalem and whose fire burns there for sacrifices. – Isaiah 31:9 – Captain of Israel’s host, and Guide  and Over the River

How about this prayer of worship.

I turned around to see who was talking to me, and I saw seven gold lampstands, and among them there was what looked like a human being, wearing a robe that reached to his feet, and a gold band around his chest.  His hair was white as wool, or as snow, and his eyes blazed like fire; his feet shone like brass that has been refined and polished, and his voice sounded like a roaring waterfall. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth. His face was as bright as the midday sun. When I saw him, I fell down at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the first and the last. I am the living one! I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I have authority over death and the world of the dead. – Revelation 1:12-18 GNT

I am reminded that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and it feels like my greatest need is to keep stirring up a combination of God’s greatness and a deep reminder of His grace. That is why praying over scripture helps me see God’s character and His works.

” This is the just temperature of a state of spiritual health, – namely, when our
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ does answer the means of it which we enjoy, and when our affections unto Christ do hold proportion unto that light; and this according unto the various degrees of it, – for some have more, and some have less.” – Owen

 

If depended on my prayers, I pray in the Spirit

Hearing-the-Holy-Spirit-_2000x800

How would I answer this question on a daily basis?

“If revival in this land depended on your prayers, your faith, your obedience, would we ever experience revival?”  – Del Fehsenfeld Jr.

Psalm 80 challenges me right in this area and leaves me with a message.

I should pray earnestly for revival among God’s people.

With impending doom in sight, mostly due to the unfaithfulness of the people in following God, there is a prayer, an earnest prayer, asking God to send revival. In fact, it is repeated three times.

Bring us back, O God!
    Show us your mercy, and we will be saved! Bring us back, Almighty God!
    Show us your mercy, and we will be saved! Bring us back, Lord God Almighty.
    Show us your mercy, and we will be saved. – Psalm 80:3,7,19 GNT

The prayer format goes something like this –

  • restore and save
  • how long will You be angry?
  • here is what has been happening when You were involved and then when You were not
  • God come and take care of Your people again – restore and save them

How can I develop greater faithfulness and fervency to pray for revival?

When Paul was writing the Corinthian church  he quoted a passage from Isaiah that just might shed some light here.

If you won’t listen to me, then God will use foreigners speaking some strange-sounding language to teach you a lesson. He offered rest and comfort to all of you, but you refused to listen to him.  – Isaiah 28:11-12 GNT

When I read this chapter, this verse sticks out like a sore thumb for it does not fit into the context of the chapter at all. Of all the verses Paul could have quoted when speaking about the abuse of the gift of tongues and all things relevant, he picks this little verse from Isaiah to explain what God was talking about. This is what God was going to do – God was going to pour out, over the church, the gift of speaking in tongues and it was going to be a restful experience to those who exercised it.

And I have found that in my own devotional life, when I have a problem and I don”t know how to pray over a particular situation, or I have a problem and I want to praise God and I feel a total inadequacy in English, that as I begin to praise the Lord in the Spirit or I begin to pray in the Spirit that it is such a restful experience. And I just find great rest in it. Great peace in it.  – Chuck Smith

Make conscience of daily exercising thy graces in meditation as well as prayer. Retire into some secret place, at a time the most convenient to thyself, and, laying aside all worldly thoughts, with all possible seriousness and reverence look up towards heaven; remember there is thine everlasting rest; study its excellency and reality; and rise from sense to faith, by comparing heavenly with earthly joys. Then mix ejaculations with thy soliloquies; till, having pleaded the case reverently with God, and seriously with thy own heart, thou hast pleaded thyself from a clod to a flame; from a forgetful sinner, and a lover of the world, to an ardent lover of God; from a fearful coward to a resolved Christian; from an unfruitful sadness to a joyful life; in a word, till thou hast pleaded thy heart from earth to heaven; from conversing below, to walking with God; and till thou canst lay thy heart to rest, as in the bosom of Christ, by some such meditation of thy everlasting rest as is here added for thy assistance. – Baxter