DEEPER TRUTHS OF REVIVAL

1. PRAYING FOR REPENTANCE, NOT REVIVAL

Many modern-day evangelicals are praying for America in carts before horses. They’re praying for revival, when they ought to be praying for repentance, which is the prerequisite to all revivals. As John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, illustrates, divine visitations only occur when the way is prepared for Jesus to come by our repentance.

It’s not for God’s blessings that we need to pray, but for our brokenness. We need God to break our hearts with a godly sorrow that leads to a repentance not to be repented of. Revival is not possible in America until we turn from our sins with broken hearts and return to Christ with all of our hearts.

As long as we believe the future of our nation is being determined in our polling places rather than in our prayer closets and prayer meetings; as long as we are more concerned with what is happening in the aisles of Congress than with what is happening in the altars of our churches; and as long as we are looking to our government to solve our problems rather than to our God, there will never be revival in America, no matter how loud and long we cry out for it from our carts before horses!

2. A REELING REALIZATION

To the remnant of the redeemed who have experienced a real move of the Spirit and are acquainted somewhat with His miraculous workings comes this reeling realization: Our world today is relatively void of both, despite the voluminous claims of the rest of the redeemed to the contrary. It reminds us of the division among the people of God when the foundation was laid for the second temple (Ezra 3:12-13). The elderly, who remembered the glory of the former temple, wept at the sight of the little foundation for the new temple, while the younger generation, who knew nothing of the former temple, shouted for joy. It is said you couldn't discern the sound of the elderly's sobbing from the younger generation's shouts of joy.

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