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WATCHMEN IN PRAYER FOR REVIVAL # 04
An all too common statement heard in the church: “We do not need to pray for revival – the Lord is going to do it anyway. . .” Or its equivalent: “We do not need to prepare for revival – the Lord is doing all the work. . .”
This is said as if we have no part in the process of our own reviving or in the work to bring the Church to maturity and fullness. There is no genuine revival because we are content to live without it, or satisfied with counterfeits which bring much stirrings and emotional bliss but no stature. There is little preparation going on simply because preparing hearts for such an event involves much hard work.
The Lord God is going to do it anyway. Certainly: he is going to do it anyway, but it will be a work which is very different from what we have in mind and expect. If there is no willingness for revival according to the pattern of God among his people – times of revival will hit with awesome force, like a refiner’s fire. Times of revival will come, but it will be an ordeal of a most unpleasant kind – a piercing revelation of our dishonesty. We have a choice; to repent willingly, to agree with the terms of God in obedience or to repent, barely making it in much more agony due to our stubbornness. Many souls, many church-goers will be lost if we choose to obstinately wait for the second option.
The common notion: Revival is something pleasant, something altogether positive. A revival includes a bringing a people out from what they consider to be legitimate standards and behaviour, a people gathered unto God. Revival brings man to a position where he begins to perceive spiritually as God sees. Purging and spiritual maturity are key elements in the thinking produced at the cross of Christ.
Most men instinctively fear the prospect of a revival. The ones opposing it, the ones dodging it are quite right – it is an awful thing, it is an awesome thing. Revival reveals man’s status, it reveals the necessity of the cross, a dying to what is to be able to become what is intended. Revival is a mater of becoming, a matter of being uprooted for the sake of being moulded. Revival is a matter of perplexity, a matter of being hammered on and beaten for the sake of formation. Revival is a yielding to the formation of Christ within – all it takes is willingness, a willingness bringing the glory of God. Our choice: Pleasure and painlessness or glory, a pleasant adventure lacking spiritual reality or a journey into the presence of God, the Holy One of Israel.
Lars Widerberg