FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 8, number 10, March 5, 2008

And the sons of Israel sighed because of their bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God, Exodus 2:23.

Are Things Intolerable Yet?

By now you know my great passion is to see God bring a revival to our once great nation. I write about it and preach on it often. Henry Krabbendam and I are leading days of revival prayer around the nation with some early and encouraging results. By no means am I suggesting we have a revival cloud of heavenly blessing about to break upon our heads, but it may be, with Elijah’s servant, that we see a small cloud in the distance the size of a man’s hand.  

Many I hear from and speak with on the topic say they want revival, and this, of course, is encouraging. Others are ambivalent. Either they do not think it is “for today” or simply never consider it a viable option for the church in the twenty-first century. Others say they believe in revival and want it, but don’t know what to do to see it happen. I am convinced however that the great impediment to revival, the issue hindering all the people I have just described is this— revival will not come until the state of the church, of the covenant community of God has become intolerable to us.

Consider the plight of Israel living in Egyptian bondage. After Joseph’s death a Pharaoh arose “who did not know Joseph”, and he plunged Israel into slavery. She had been enslaved for over four hundred years, and finally the situation became intolerable to the covenant community. Perhaps they were remembering the promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph that they would be a blessing to the nations, that they would have a land of their own. Perhaps they grew tired of the absence of covenantal worship and the prevalence of pagan deities that vied for their affections. And surely the lack of freedom and hardship under which they labored had grown old. That’s when things became intolerable. They sighed under the heaviness of oppression, and cried out to the Lord. He graciously heard their cry, and began moving on their behalf, raising up Moses to serve as their deliverer, a type of the Lord Jesus to come.

We see the same thing with Israel during the time of the Judges. The pattern of idolatry, followed by oppressive rulers, followed by crying out to Yahweh for deliverance, followed by that deliverance is repeated many times. When foreign, pagan oppression became intolerable, Israel cried out and God answered.  Do we not see the same thing in the lives of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel?  In Daniel 9 the prophet has been reading Jeremiah and discovers that Israel is to be brought back from exile after seventy years. They are well into those seventy years and nothing is happening. Daniel finds the situation intolerable. He fasts and prays for days for God’s intervention. One hundred years after the return from exile under Cyrus of the Medo-Persian Empire Ezra is moved by the preaching of Haggai who rebukes the post-exilic people for paneling their dens while the temple remains desolate. The situation is intolerable to him. He moves the people to temple restoration. Soon thereafter Nehemiah hears of the walls around Jerusalem still in disrepair, after some one hundred and fifty years. He weeps, fasts for days, and prays. This was intolerable to him. Then in Luke 2 we read of the prophetess Anna who had lived with her husband for seven years and then as a widow until that time, to the age of eighty-four. Luke tells us that she never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers, looking for the redemption of Israel. The lack of Messiah’s advent was intolerable to her.  

In each of these cases, the intolerable nature of their circumstances drove these servants of God to earnest prayer and action. May I suggest that we are not earnest in prayer because the state of the American and western church is not intolerable to us. I could write on the condition of our present world—our economy, the perversion, abortion, and so many other problems, but judgment must begin with the household of God. I am writing to you who name the name of Jesus as your Lord.

We really don’t think things are so bad in the church. You have your salvation. Perhaps you are a member of a growing, evangelical church, and all seems well to you. I suggest, however, that the church is anemic, insipid, impotent. We are not transforming our culture. We are not even transforming the church. We are losing the war in this country. In the early days of the Reformation in Europe, Scotland, and England in the sixteenth century the church was central to any community. The same was true in seventeenth century Puritan England and New England. Congregational New England, Presbyterian Scotland, and Methodist Wales in the eighteenth century all found the church as the center of their towns. All revolved around the work of the church. Our secularization has left us with only an architectural vestige of those days, seen in the beautiful churches in every New England town center. The center, the driving force of our towns today is entertainment and leisure. We live for it. We crave it. Consequently the church has lost her savor, and we are good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men (Matthew 5:13). If we persist much longer in unrepentant worldliness Jesus may remove the lampstand (the church) out of her place (Revelation 2:5).

Perhaps you complain about the state of our government and economy, but we need to go deeper. The problems begin with the church and our toleration of mediocrity and worldliness. We have been seduced by the great harlot. We are in bed with ungodliness. “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority, and My people love it so!” (Jeremiah 5:30-31). Are you broken hearted, grieved over the lack of conversions through your church? Are you sickened by the way so many professing Christians live, acting no better than those of the world? Are you embarrassed by the failure of so many Christian marriages? Are you burdened by the progress of Islam in the world, a cult that robs Christ of His glory and deity? Are you sickened by the trash of Hollywood? Are you aware that many twenty and thirty something Christians think socialism is not such a bad idea after all, that perhaps it is a good thing “to spread the wealth around?”

Will you allow the Holy Spirit to break into your sleepy, cold heart and light a fire of intolerableness in you? Are you ready, like Ezra and Nehemiah, to pull your hair out in grief and sorrow? Will you rend your hearts and not your garments? Only then will you pay the price for revival. Only then will you begin to pray revival prayers.

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut.

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