Still pondering what it will take to bring revival

I wrote a post a while back, June 19 to be exact, about how we can't have revival until we have reformation. That is probably true, but we can pray for reformation as we pray for revival. And when God comes in revival He always comes convicting of sin and correcting error. We can't get reformation by any other means than we get revival anyway, it has to come from God convicting us. Those who are aware of what's wrong can list the problems and pray over them. I'm back to yearning for revival in any case and continuing to read about it makes me aware of the TIME put in by those who were instrumental in bringing it in years past. Waiting on the Lord that much usually brings revelation to the waiters, too, revelation of what is needed, what we need to do, what we need to pray about. We can pray for light on what God requires of us to bring revival.

I hope there are hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of God's people praying their hearts out for Him to rend the heavens and come down and straighten us out. There are signs here and there on the internet that there are many who have the same yearnings I've been having for God to act, for His presence in our midst. In my case it's a huge struggle, often mostly just yearnings, since doing what I need to do is SO hard, although I'm getting a little more disciplined. I hope it's not such a struggle for everyone else.

Pray pray pray, pray in a way Christians today just don't pray, don't know how to pray, don't even think of praying. Reading the stories of Christians who made a difference in the past, who were used by God in bringing revival for instance, shows a scattered army of prayer warriors above all, men and women who spent hours at a time in prayer, sometimes almost continuous prayer for weeks, months at a time, at the least gatherings of prayer meetings for hours at a time into the night once or twice a week. Some had more time than others, but they did whatever was possible, they gave up entertainments if they had any taking up their time.

How many pastors spend as much as an hour in prayer before a sermon? I know one (pastor of a Charismatic church) who gets up at four every morning to pray for his church. It may be I simply haven't heard of the others, but I have a feeling very few do anything like that. But any story of God's coming down begins with people praying intensely and protractedly. I recently read the story of a (Pentecostal) pastor who fasted so much he sometimes fainted but tremendous revival came to his congregation. The elders of a (Presbyterian) church in Scotland met to pray for hours at a time twice a week for months, to pray for the young people of the community who were rejecting the church, and revival came after five months to that community, a presence of the Lord so mighty that one who had been praying fell into a trance, and great numbers of local people were deeply convicted of sin.

That's another thing: this conviction of sin was called "distress of soul" and some suffered it for days before finally receiving God's grace in the new birth. It was a kind of labor people typically underwent before experiencing the new birth. Leonard Ravenhill talks about how necessary this labor was once considered to be as Christian leaders were above all afraid of "plucking underripe fruit" in those days. They promoted no trivial little prayer of acceptance of Jesus, they let God Himself work on a person as long as it took as he writhed in conviction of sin, in a real labor of soul. It sometimes took the help of others, a pastor or others coming alongside in this struggle, to lead someone to the new birth. Would anyone today have a clue what to do in such a situation?

WHY DON'T WE HAVE THINGS LIKE THAT HAPPENING TODAY?

OBVIOUSLY BECAUSE WE WON'T PAY THE COST, WE WON'T DO WHAT IS REQUIRED TO BRING IT ABOUT. WE'RE A LAZY COMPLACENT BUNCH.

How to pray like that? The only thing for it is to abandon everything else, EVERYTHING else, give up all theological ideas, just lay them aside and ask God to show us. We'll never figure it out ourselves. Put it all in His hands, sit or stand or kneel or lie flat on your face to pray and stay there until you are actually praying. Exert your mind to think of Him and ask Him His ways.

One thing I am finally learning after much reading and listening to those who preach on these things, such as Leonard Ravenhill in particular, is that while doctrine is important up to a point -- at least faith must be Biblically founded even if wrong in some particulars -- God overlooks all kinds of errors if a person is dedicated to knowing Him personally and willing to submit to His guidance self-sacrificially. "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek for Me with ALL YOUR HEART." What it takes is seeking Him in the Bible and spending MUCH time in prayer.

I've also been coming to a resolution of my nagging concern about the phony charismatic "revivals" which is that we don't have to understand every little thing that happens, the key is PEOPLE WHO ARE FIRST OF ALL BIBLICALLY FED AND REALLY SEEKING GOD IN SELF-SACRIFICIAL PRAYER AND POURING OUT OF SELF. Most charismatics don't do any more than the average noncharismatic in perfunctory prayer, brief prayer, even the occasional fasting but not with any real dedication to seeking the Lord during it, and I now understand this casual, even trivializing, attitude to be a root of the problems in all the churches. But I did meet someone once who had the fragrance of the Lord about her -- something my spirit knew as soon as I got close to her -- a lady in a Charismatic church who had the reputation of spending long periods in prayer for the Lord's causes. She's the only one I ever met who had that aroma of the closeness to the Lord-- and that is what we need, that closeness, that scent of the Holy Spirit about us.

ANYONE in any denomination who seeks the Lord with all-out dedication will find Him, doctrinal differences be hanged so long as all take the Bible as their authority. Calvinists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Wesleyans, Finneyans, Pentecostals, anyone. Leave it to God to change what needs changing of doctrinal error -- He generally does that in a revival as well as convicting of sin.

What a difference it would make if every speaker (and every attendee for that matter) at any conference on doctrinal issues prayed for an hour or two a day for at least a week before the conference (I'm trying to think of something doable, but really I think this much should be a regular habit and not just done before a conference). Then we might hear from God Himself rather than merely the correct doctrinal thoughts of men. Then something might really come of conferences, those conferences we hear on Christian radio for instance. Same of course if it were done before every sermon, the pastor and the whole congregation praying for God to speak, not just a perfunctory prayer, though that's better than nothing I guess, but lengthy daily prayer.

I'm coming to understand that the reason for the phony demon-inspired Charismatic "revivals" is that people there seek signs and wonders, God's gifts but not God Himself, not God's will, not holiness, not obedience, and the biggest problem as I say above is that they don't spend any more time seeking His face than the rest of today's churches. If you pray for anything less than God He may give you that but not Himself; you'll have nothing better than idolatry in that case. I've realized there's no point in worrying about the authenticity of the gifts of the Spirit as such. The problem is that people don't seek the Lord enough and if they did the gifts problems would not be problems. The Holy Spirit DOES give gifts to His people and we don't have to worry as much as I've often done about whether this or that is genuine or not AS LONG AS GOD HIMSELF is our heart's desire and not the gifts and we are really seeking Him in earnest.

Obedience is key. I'm having to fight with some very bad habits -- sins -- of overeating and sleeping at odd hours -- gluttony and sloth -- don't think such things won't impede the Spirit. I could excuse myself on the basis of my age, and there's certainly something about getting old that throws off all your internal regulators (especially if you've lived your whole life in bad habits), but I know it's still basically an excuse and I don't want an excuse, I want God. I HAVE to learn discipline if I want to spend time with the Lord, no matter what my age. "They who wait upon the Lord SHALL renew their strength!" I'm holding on to that one. I think I'll do a post on these particular sins eventually.

Some from whom I've sought guidance say "Oh you don't have to fast." Sorry, fasting is one of the most important things you can do to open the channels to God -- even partial fasting, single-meal fasting, fasting from luxury foods, whatever is possible in a given situation as long as you pray during that time. God can't enter until the vessel is empty. But I'm learning that at least in my own case discipline in eating and sleeping has to be a foundation before even fasting will accomplish much. I'm aiming for the simplest possible meals at set times (a simple sandwich on the cheapest bread with no frills, a bowl of soup from a can); getting my sleeping under control will probably be much harder.

I've heard some complain that protracted prayer isn't necessary either, even dismissing it with the quote (from Spurgeon I think), "when God wants to bring revival He sets His people praying" as if we'll just sort of find ourselves praying when God wants to move? It was said with a bit of scorn as I recall, as if we'll KNOW it when God plans revival and otherwise we shouldn't be trying to drum it up or whatever the idea is (how do you drum anything up through prayer?). Although it's a true observation that revival is God's doing and not our own, the complacency in that statement is disturbing. We can't force God to do anything. We can ask and ask and He will do as He wills, but we SHOULD ask and He IS merciful and He DOES listen to His people. Things are NOT fine just the way they are; we are NOT the church God wants us to be. We have the name but not the power.

All the reports of prayer for revival that I know of are reports of effort and exertion and true affliction of the soul, a wrestling with God, a struggle over long periods of time. And what about those of us who have been yearning for revival and don't think we even KNOW HOW to pray? What about us? Is God calling us but we don't know how to respond? How come they knew how to pray a hundred years ago? They knew what to say, they didn't run out of supplications for hours on end. They pounded on the door of heaven and did not give up even if it took weeks, months, years.

(10/18, post moved here from Faith's Corner, dated there Sept 28th)