Revival for today.

Can we really see revival?

It is with great expectation that we move into the Summer of 2008. Many summers are remembered more or less by things such as weather, catastrophe, births and marriages.
What if we were to plan, let us say, a summer of revival?

Oh, I know we cannot force revival in the truest sense, but we can pray, “Lord, Send a revival to the hearts of every one of us.” We can purge our lives and our homes of any and everything that would cause us to sin or hold on to a pet sin. It is a shame to think that we would pass through another month, another season, and another year and not seek true revival.

If revival is to come to the heart and lives of believers, it will not come without repentance. Until we are sorry, so sorry for the sins we have committed, the good deeds we have omitted, how can we expect revival? There is a story in 1 Kings 18 concerning a time of testing for God’s people. The Prophet of God called for two bullocks and the false prophets of Baal cut up one bullock and laid is pieces in a particular way on the altar and prayed to their god to send fire and devour it. This was thus to prove that their god was real.

As the day progressed, and fire did not fall on the altar and consume it, it was the Prophet of God’s turn. He did the same, cutting up the second bullock and laying it on the altar as well, but went further, and poured water upon the sacrifice, making it seem even further impossible for the sacrifice to be burned up. However, this prophet was not the prophet of a false god, but of the Living God of the Bible. When he prayed, fire fell from heaven and consumed his offering.

R.A. Torrey in his book The Pursuit of God makes a clear comparison from this story of the “motions” of religious service we see in Christianity, compared to the reality of serving God. He shows us that while we are attempting to do everything right in Christianity, we have no fire. We have the sacrifice laid on the altar, it has been ever so carefully arranged, but there is no consuming fire, read:

“Current evangelicalism has (to change the figure) laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel. But God be thanked that there are a few who care. They are those who, while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice, are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire. They desire God above all. They are athirst to taste for themselves the 'piercing sweetness' of the love of Christ about Whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing.”
Let the summer of 2008 be a summer of revival in our hearts as we desire the hand of God on all we do here. Pray for revival.

Pastor