FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 9, number 9, March 4, 2010
If . . . My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and will heal their land, 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Are You Willing to Pay the Price?
The prophet Daniel was around fourteen years old when, along with some 10,000 of his countrymen, he was sent away into exile to Babylon, or modern day Iraq. While in Babylon, we see (in Daniel 9) that he was reading the prophet Jeremiah and discovered that Yahweh had prophesied a return from the exile after seventy years had expired. Perhaps half way through this exile, Daniel became very burdened and longed to see this promised return. He surveyed the spiritual condition of God’s people in exile and realized they were terribly guilty of heinous sin. Daniel 9 is a profound prayer, recorded and preserved by the Holy Spirit for our edification. Daniel confesses his own sin and that of God’s covenant people. Note the tone and language of this prayer in a few excerpts below:
. . . we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly, and rebelled, even turning aside from Thy commandments and ordinances. . . Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee. To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him, nor have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His teachings which He set before us through His servants the prophets . . . O Lord, in accordance with all Thy righteous acts, let now Thine anger and Thy wrath turn away from Thy city Jerusalem, Thy holy mountain, for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people have become a reproach to all those around us . . . O Lord, Hear! O Lord, Forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Thine own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy name.”
I mentioned in my last article that we can have revival, that God wants to bring it, but we must be willing to pay the price for it.[1] And what is that price? In the 2 Chronicles passage noted above we have the marvelous promise of renewal, revitalization, and revival, couched in a four-fold conditional context. God is addressing His covenant people during the reign of Solomon, just after the Temple has been dedicated and the Spirit of God has fallen on the people, filling the Temple with the glory of the Lord. A huge sacrificial offering was given to the Lord and the people rejoiced. Afterward Yahweh appears to Solomon in the night, saying that He has heard his prayer, saying that if He shuts up the heavens so that there is no more rain, or if He sends pestilence and as a result His people humble themselves and pray, if they seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, then He promises to hear from heaven, forgive them, and heal their land.
You will note that Yahweh is addressing His covenant people. He says, “and My people who are called by My name.” God does not need to hear the fruitless prayers of pagan America to act. He only needs the prayers of His blood bought people, those in covenant with Him, those who have bowed the knee to Jesus, confessing Him alone to be Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9-10).
And what are these four conditions for the restoration of God’s favor? First, if God is to heal the land of His people, then they must humble themselves before Him. God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Thus we must humble ourselves under His mighty hand (1 Peter 5:5-6). Isaiah says that God looks to those who are humble and contrite in spirit, who tremble at His word (Isaiah 66:2). He also says that Yahweh dwells in two places, a highly and holy place and with the lowly and contrite of heart to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite (Isaiah 57:15). If God is to move upon us and heal our land, then we, His people, must humble ourselves before Him and our fellow man. O dear people, where shall we begin! We have debased God and exalted ourselves. We have stripped God of His sovereignty by embracing our self-actualization. We have denied the divine authority of His word by exalting our intellect. We have foolishly rejected all He teaches pertaining to life and godliness in favor of the latest fad coming out of secular universities, main stream media, and Hollywood. We have worshipped the mammon of wealth, trusting it to bring comfort, while rejecting the sufficiency of the Savior who loves us and gave Himself for us. We have grumbled under His frowning providence, forgetting all the while that His blows always are love, that He works all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We, like the church at Thyatira, have tolerated evil in the church and world, failing to confront the wickedness of church and state concerning the sanctity of all human life, sexual perversion in the form of heterosexual and homosexual sin. In cowardice we have listened to the intimidating threats of the world which calls us intolerant for holding these views.
We, like the early church in Jerusalem, have failed to remember that the middle wall of partition has been broken down between Jew and Gentile, that we are guilty of showing personal favoritism to those like us, and rejecting those unlike us ethnically or sociologically. We have failed to deny ourselves in all the relationships on which any culture is founded—state, family, church, and business. When in a place of prominence or power, we have not sacrificed, choosing instead to abuse our position by paying ourselves more than we deserve while denying those under us a fair salary. When in a place of submission, we have judged our superiors, assuming they are cheating us, begrudging them their position and income, being guilty of instigating class envy. We have failed to work diligently, robbing our employer while all the while demanding entitlements from him. We have failed to love our wives and children sacrificially, instead choosing to bow the knee to the god of money, position, and fame, sacrificing their spiritual and emotional well being for the mammon we thought would satisfy them. We have worshipped our children, coddled them, failed to demand obedience and hard work from them, being so concerned about their self-esteem that we have crippled them.
We have robbed Christ of His eternal glory by failing to challenge those who mindlessly claim that Jesus is one of many ways to God, that His death and resurrection either did not happen at all or is inconsequential. We have presumed on God, glibly thinking that our programs, personalities, plans, and persuasive powers are sufficient to bring reformation to our culture and church. We have made big ministry plans while forgetting that unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. We have failed to preach Christ crucified, instead offering a psychotherapeutic Jesus who lacks saving and transforming power.
Until we humble ourselves, until we see that we are guilty of heinous sin, until we are profoundly and deeply grieved over our sin, until we see something of the depth of indwelling pride, then we shall not see revival. God resists the proud.
Second, if we are to see revival then we must pray. By prayer I have in mind what we see in the prayer lives of men like Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul. All possessed a God exalting, man debasing spirit. These men prayed long, often, and with earnestness. They labored in prayer. They were relentless. They had faith in God whom they believed would answer them. They prayed alone and they prayed with others. They were focused on Christ and His kingdom. They were decreasing while Jesus was increasing.
By 1744, though pockets of revival were still present in the Great Awakening in America , England , Scotland , and Wales , ministers became alarmed that the revival fires were smoldering. A number of Scottish Presbyterian ministers called for weekly concerts of prayer, either on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. They agreed to pray in this manner for two years. Others soon joined them, including Jonathan Edwards and his church in Northampton, Massachusetts when he read about it. What some church historians call a hidden revival fell upon the British Isles from 1790 to 1840. The Methodist Church , in 1791, the year of John Wesley’s death, had 72,000 members. Due to the hidden revival (called this because so few church historians note it, preferring instead to focus on the Great Awakening of 1735 and the 1859 and 1904 revivals), the Methodists had grown, through conversion growth, to over 360,000 by 1850. A total of 1,500,000 people, one in ten, were brought into non-Anglican churches in the British Isles from 1790 to 1840.[2]
Without earnest prayer and without humbling ourselves before God, then we cannot expect revival. But we must also seek God’s face. This is part and parcel of the first two components. The Hebrew word for seek means to search out, to strive after, to enquire. The same Hebrew word is used extensively in the Psalms. “And those who know Thy name will put their trust in Thee; for Thou, O Lord, hast not forsaken those who seek Thee,” (9:10). “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek Him will praise the Lord,” (22:26). “He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation. This is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Thy face—even Jacob,” (24:6). “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple. . . when Thou didst say, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to Thee, ‘Thy face, O Lord, I shall seek’” (27:4,8).
To seek God means that we desire Him and His presence more than our necessary food (Isaiah 58:5ff, Matthew 6:16), at times even more than sexual intimacy (1 Corinthians 7:5). It means to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6, Isaiah 55:1, Psalm 42:1-2). It means that we keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father (Colossians 3:1-3). It means that whatever things were gain to us, we count them but rubbish in order that we may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8). It means that we refuse to set our minds on earthly things, remembering that our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:19-20).
To seek the face of God is difficult in any historical and cultural context but modernity presents us with our set of problems in this regard. The noise, the pace of life, all our technology constantly work to mitigate a zeal for God. Instead of coming in at night after a meeting and spending time with a good book, I tend to turn on the television and fritter away an hour or two before going to bed. Sometimes a television program particularly grabs my attention and I stay up too late at night, and do not get up early enough in the morning to spend lengthy time with God. And sometimes while meeting with God in the early morning hours I suddenly remember someone I “must” contact and quickly open my e mail account. The next thing I know I have wasted an hour of valuable “God time” on lesser things like e mail correspondence or reading my favorite on-line newspaper.
We do not seek the face of God because we are not desperate for holiness and revival. A man who has not had water in three days can think of nothing but getting water. He would pay any sum demanded to have that water because he knows it is a matter of life and death. A couple whose ten year old daughter is missing will pray earnestly, stay up all night, follow every lead, pay any sum required to get back their daughter. They are desperate. We are not desperate for revival because we are not overly concerned with the glory of God, His weightiness, His manifold attributes being displayed to a world of scoffers. We have our own salvation and that typically is enough for us. We are not grieved by the few numbers of converts we see in our churches. Perhaps we have comforted ourselves by wrongly applying the doctrine of election, thinking that the few conversions we see must be God’s eternal plan, failing to understand that we have no idea how many elect there are, failing to keep in mind that God’s benchmark is the book of Acts, that we ought to be seeing many conversions everywhere. Perhaps our lack of zeal for God, coupled with our natural cowardice, has convinced us that better days have passed us by, that God’s great work today is limited to what World Mission experts call the southern world of China , South America, and Africa .
What does it look like to seek God? This is not easy to quantify. We cannot simply put a measure of hours per day one spends alone in earnest prayer, though surely this must require some substantial investment of time. A man who says that he loves his wife but rarely sits down to talk with her, who refuses to spend anytime with her, betrays his own profession. A man who says that quality of time with his children is more important than quantity of time is only half right. One may desire a filet mignon of excellent quality but at the same time he expects it to be larger and weightier than a postage stamp. To seek God’s face begins with a heartfelt desperation—a hunger and thirst for holiness, a zeal for the glory of God in the salvation and sanctification of sinners. There will be fervency, persistence, earnestness in prayer that will surely translate into longer times with God than one previously experienced. How long? I don’t know. It will vary from person to person.
And if we are to see revival today, not only must we humble ourselves, pray, and seek the face of God, but we must also turn from our wicked ways. Remember—God is not saying that our wicked, unregenerate culture must turn from her wicked ways. The emphasis is on the people of God—“If My people, who are called by My name . . . “
Evan Roberts, the leader of the Welsh revival of 1904, 1905 told the people that they must do four things to see revival. One, past sins must be confessed or the Spirit will not come. Two, anything doubtful (possibly displeasing to God) must be removed. Three, there must be a total surrender to God. And four, new converts must make a public confession of Christ as Lord and Savior.[3] The consequent revival was copious and profound.
A revival fell in 1974 upon the Baptist Church in Oradea , Romania . Romania was perhaps the most oppressed of all the Eastern bloc countries and the church was mired in scandalous, godless behavior and lethargy. Pastor Livu Olah called for repentance and began preaching with great power. Within minutes after he began his sermons the people were weeping over their sin, heartbroken, ready to forsake their evil ways. This spread throughout the congregation and conversions began to multiply. By June, 1974 one hundred converts had been baptized. By the end of 1974, another two hundred and forty-nine were baptized, with one hundred and forty-nine coming in one service alone.[4]
Something similar happened in 1907 in Pyongyang, Korea. After ten years of ministry in the 1880’s by Presbyterian missionaries from America, there were only seventy-four Protestants in the entire country. By 1930 there were 415,000, and by 1955 there were 1,170,000.[5] Today one in four South Koreans are Christians. How did this happen? It began with a men’s prayer meeting at Pyongyang when the Holy Spirit came upon the assembly, bringing a deep conviction of sin, resulting in a prolonged time of agony and repentance, causing them to make right the wrongs each had done to one another. Those who had stolen goods returned them. Those who had held grudges confessed and sought reconciliation. The spirit of repentance, of turning from their wicked ways, spread throughout the church in Korea. Unbelievers in huge numbers began to be saved. And when persecution came at the hands of the Japanese, the American Presbyterian missionaries stayed with their Korean brethren, not fleeing to safety, and suffered death with them.[6]
And what does it mean today for us to turn from our wicked ways? If we are to see revival then we must ask God to show us our own sin, to ransack our hearts and minds (Psalm 139:23-24). As God the Holy Spirit shows us our sin, then we must be quick to confess it to God and to others (James 5:16). Perhaps there is so much sin, packed deeply into our lives, that we are not even aware of it, not sensitive to it. We must ask the Holy Spirit to give us tender consciences and hearts, the humility to admit our sins to one another. How frightening! We all want to look good, to appear spiritual before our friends and peers. Some today flippantly confess their sins without any apparent desire to hate them and forsake them, but when the Spirit comes there is a holy hatred and grief over sin, an earnest desire to turn from it. Certainly wisdom ought to be used in having public confession where those of the opposite sex may be present. These are delicate matters which the Elders of the church must carefully govern. Furthermore, this is not something that should be contrived or manipulated. All sin, any sin must come under the purview of the Holy Spirit, and when revealed, must be confessed, repented of, and forsaken.
May God so work in our churches, in our leadership, that He moves upon His people to humble themselves and to pray, to seek the face of God, and to forsake our wicked ways. He then promises to forgive us and to heal our land. These are the requirements for a return to the revival salvation of the book of Acts and this alone will prevail in our modern world where we know so little gospel power.
[1]See my devotional What Is Biblical Revival? dated February 25, 2010
[2] Give Him No Rest, Erroll Hulse, pages 97-100.
[3] The Welsh Revival of 1904, Eifion Evans, Page 84.
[4] Give Him No Rest, Erroll Hulse, page 136.
[5] Ibid. page 138.
[6] See the The Korean Pentecost and the Suffering Which Followed, by William Blair and Bruce Hunt, published by Banner of Truth, for a remarkable example of revival.
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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