August 4, 2012

• update 8/4/2012: “praying for a revival of religion”

   
  Please note:  If you’ve not read my previous posts Update/prayer requests – October 7, 2010 and Simeon’s Waiting, Payson’s Waiting, Our Waiting, and update 6/13/2012: “Grant me also a spirit of prayer!” | “Oh the happiness of communion with God,” I’d suggest you do so prior to reading today’s post. All of those give you some background as to the work of God in calling me to prayer for revival… Philippians 2:12-14.

  The following is the text of a letter (slightly edited) which I recently sent to a few other members of our church…

  Dear . . .

  I recently talked with each of you about the possibility of us getting together as a group to pray. I know that along with myself, God has given each of you a heart to pray for the revival of the Church. It’s one thing for us to be praying individually, and we should be doing that, but I feel that we’re separated (~ Nehemiah 4:19), and this is a time for us to come together as a group, so we might be seek the Lord and be that house of prayer for all nations which God desires ~ Zechariah 12:10-14; Isaiah 66:6-9.

  Earlier this year the name of the Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin resurfaced for me. Griffin was a pastor in the eastern/northeastern U.S. during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Griffin experienced several revivals of religion during his lifetime. I’ve continued to reflect on these words for several months now:

  In his early ministry, Dr. Griffin was subject to seasons of deep mental depression. He would sometimes come from his study in much distress, complaining to his family that he could  not study, and that his sermons were “so flat,” that nobody could hear him. But, when emerging from this gloomy state, his mind would act with unwonted vigor and success. In these seasons, he did not enjoy his usually comforting evidence of personal piety. In a letter dated December 18, 1813, to a young minister of his acquaintance, he says: — “I am interested to know what God has done among the people of your charge. From the trials with which he was exercising your mind in August, I concluded that he was preparing you to do something more than common for his holy name. In former years, I used statedly to have those trials before revivals of religion; and, before that in which you were born. I wholly gave up my hope for a time.” It was about that period that he invited a few choice members of his church to meet in his study every Thursday evening, for the single purpose of praying for a revival of religion. As their interest increased, he called in others, till the meeting consisted of six or eight. It was strictly private, and, as he afterward assured me, became a scene of earnest wrestling. “If any one,” said he, “had come in with a cold heart, it would have been like throwing water upon the fire. This small-company continued thus wrestling week after week, unknown to the church at large. Nothing, externally, indicated any unusual tokens of the special presence of the Holy Spirit for two or three months. But the time had come when those prayers were to be answered, and when God was to be seen as a prayer hearing God.”

  ~ from “Recollections of Rev. E.D. Griffin, or, Incidents illustrating his character” by Parsons Cooke (1855), 117-119.

  My primary purpose is that of Griffin’s:  to facilitate and to encourage one another in our “praying for a revival of religion.” And by “choice members,” I think all of us would humbly agree there is nothing at all choice about us, except the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has deemed to pour out His love, mercy, and grace upon us in Christ Jesus, and He has been drawing us to the ministry of prayer, and He has brought us together at . . . Church at this particular time. God Himself has made each of us willing in His power, He has given the burden for His Church and the desire to pray for her. In addition, from my reading Church history, it appears to me that prior to every revival of religion, God has raised up pockets of people to pray, a few choice members, as Griffin put it. Now, as to whether God will move in our case, we know He is sovereign and He pours out His Spirit according to His good pleasure – and yet He ordains means, which include importunate prayer. So let us take hold of and pay heed to Jesus’ words:

  Luke 11:5  And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6  for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7  and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8  I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9  And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11  What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12  or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

  Luke 18:1  And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2  He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3  And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4  For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5  yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’”  6  And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7  And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? , Will he delay long over them? 8  I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

  May God find us faithful in the ministry to which He has called us ~ Hebrews 13:20-21.

  Lord willing, I would ask that you consider we all meet together for a meal and then prayer afterwards on one of the following dates . . .

  I don’t know how often we might meet in the future, but I am trusting God will lead us. I am also trusting, as happened with Griffin, that God will raise up others with a similar passion and will lead us to call them in as well. I am praying that God might be gracious to us and rend the heavens and revive us again for the blessing of . . . Church and His Church at large to the glory of His name.

  I Samuel 14:6  Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, “Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the LORD will work for us, for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few.”

  Yours in Christ,
  Karen

  ---

  I deliberated whether to share this with you publicly, but I have seen the ruins in the Church and her continuing decline. We must cast off and stop resorting to fleshly and worldly means, and take hold of the means God has provided:  to come with boldness and assurance in prayer to His throne of grace, for this certainly is a great time of need (Heb. 4:14-16), and then diligently plead with God to have mercy upon us and rend the heavens and send His reviving fire to us so we might be the burning lamp and brightness to the nations which God intends us to be (~ Isaiah 64 & 62).

  I also want to encourage those of you whom God has been burdening to pray for revival in the Church to continue to follow His will for you and not to shrink back due to fear, doubt, or uncertainty. Our flesh, the world, and the devil will continue to give us every possible reason not to pray. And I will tell you this:  not very long after sending this letter, temptations, doubts, questions, and second-guessing of every possible sort began to fill and plague my mind about the whole endeavor. Yes, it seems preposterous and impossible to us, yet His ways and His thoughts are higher than ours. Our God continues to command His people to seek His heart and His face in prayer, and our seeking Him is never in vain.

  
  
  

       Isaiah 45
       11  Thus says the LORD,
       the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him:
       “Ask me of things to come;
       will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?…
  
       19  I did not speak in secret,
       in a land of darkness;
       I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
       ‘Seek me in vain.’ …

  A day after writing that letter, I reflected: “It seems so far fetched to think a handful of people praying could battle the powers of darkness, yet that is always God’s way, so He alone gets the glory due His name.”

  Yesterday, as I was reading Ralph Wardlaw’s Commentary on Zechariah 14, he referenced a portion of Isaiah 51, and I opened my Bible and read it:
  
  

  Isaiah 51:3 (NKJV)
  For the LORD will comfort Zion,
  He will comfort all her waste places;
  He will make her wilderness like Eden,
  And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
  Joy and gladness will be found in it,
  Thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

  The LORD’s desire is to comfort ALL our waste places. Therefore, so long as there ARE waste places in any part of the Church, we ought to be praying day and night…

  For God’s glory in the Church and the joy of the elect,
  Karen

  ---

  Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked NKJV taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vittore_Carpaccio_-_praying_man.jpg  / CC BY-SA 3.0 / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}

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