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A Call To Prayer And Revival
Sunday, June 14th, 2015 6:23pm
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I just had an interesting thing happen to me today. For about the past two weeks I've felt a shift in my heart from warning and traditional watchman's work to a cry for revival. Two of the things that's key to revival is humility and PRAYER. We, as a nation, and as a church body, are a prayerless people. In general we do popcorn prayer but no REAL intercession, we spend almost no prayer closet time, we have no spiritual war room, and then we sit back and wonder why our world is falling apart.

Now here's how my first sentence ties into all this. At church today, Pastor's sermon for the day was on, get this, PRAYER, the one thing we do so poorly. It included some interesting revelations too. The first is the currently changing condition of the three point force working against the church. Namely, the media, the government, and family. He specifically named the "teenager" as the third item as they tend to be the most rebellious against God in most families. But the idea is still the same, that it's a close and important family member who is rebelling against the will of God and coming against the body of Christ.

According to him, and I'd heard about this before, both the media and government are now actually CALLING FOR PRAYER instead of fighting against it. Not all of them, mind you, as you've still got plenty who are virulently against the church and want nothing less than to crush it out and wipe it from existence. Even so, baring those who are strongly anti-God, there is a growing movement within the media and the government calling people to prayer. 2 Chron 7:14 is even mentioned a lot in these prayer movements.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV) - "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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

There are so many in this land, and especially in the church, who are saying that such a thing should not, can not and, per a lack of any mention of such an event in the bible, absolutely will not happen before the rapture. Their belief is that any such revival is impossible pre-rapture and as such hoping for that is foolish. Yet that's not what I've heard from the great prophetical men and women of God, nor is that what I'm hearing from God. The world and the Devil certainly, as neither wants us to rise up in prayer and repentance before God.

They want us to remain prayerless, powerless, and without intercession as the world around us continues to fall apart. That, my good friend, is exactly why the world is falling apart around us. Did you know that before the Constitution of the US was written, things in congress were utterly and absolutely falling apart. The chances of the new republic actually surviving more than a few years before being ripped apart by partisanship, special interests and infighting at that time was nearly zero. But then a wise member of congress stepped forward and called the assembly to prayer citing a verse, which I can't specifically remember, basically saying, if we don't have God's guidance in this, what hope do we have to establish this nation?

Shortly after that we had our Constitution. Before that it'd been impossible. But afterwards it became possible, thanks to the prayers of our leaders at the time. But what about a modern day revival? What about a modern day return to truly devoted, Godly prayer? There's so many who say, "An end times revival before the rapture is not possible because the bible says nothing about it!" Up until now I've never refuted that, as the bible does indeed speak nothing of a pre-rapture revival. But then again it spoke nothing of the reformation, or the Azuza street revival, of the first and second great awakenings. It said nothing about the great tent revivals and the mega revival that happened not long after America officially became a nation. It said nothing about many, many things that happened in history.

So, shall we ignore the great revivals of the past and say they're a lie simply because the bible didn't speak about them? I don't think we should either ignore then or reject them. Why? Well, put yourself in the shoes of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield as the great revival of the 1700's rose up and began to spread across the continent like a wildfire. Who at that time would have thought that revival was either possible, or even on the horizon? It was business as usual and most people's spiritual lives were left dead, cold and empty beyond measure. If you were living in their time, would you have thought that revival was on the horizon?

Think about it. Really, really think about it. In hindsight we can look at it and say, "Yeah, revival was on the horizon and it wasn't that far off. But that's looking backwards at written history, not forward at the unknown. Prophecy is the closest thing to the future being put down in pen and ink in these days. It's not the same as what's written in history books, but similar, as it's the future told in advance. But, as a matter of principle even the most well intentioned NEVER tell all that's gonna happen in the future. When someone comes to town to speak on a particular topic, let's say it's on the issue of traffic lights vs stop signs. How much does the advertising flier list on it?

Basically the date, time, location, who's talking and what the topic of the night will be. That's about it. Do you realize that's technically, by literal definition, a prophecy? It fortells what is coming in the future, but it NEVER gives the whole details. If it did, would you want to come? No. You'd have no need to. Then why should we expect the bible to tell us everything that's coming? Or God for that matter? We shouldn't because, as I've said about myself many times, if we knew what was coming, especially in great detail, we'd just go and screw it up. That's human nature. Plus, there's another element involved. The Devil. God likes to keep him in the dark and keep him guessing. So if God tells us something, isn't it reasonable to realize that the Devil would find out too?

Yup, he would. And that's one of the very reasons prophecy is vague at point. Some things are written with great detail, like the criteria of Jesus Christ at His first and second coming. But other things are left to the imagination for many necessary and practical purposes. The same goes with a last days, pre-rapture revival. Just because the bible makes no mention of it doesn't mean it can't and won't happen, nor does it mean that God doesn't want it. Believe me, given what I've been feeling in my spirit, God wants it, and He wants it BAD! That's why I see this call to prayer as being so important. I think God is making a major push for one final revival before the rapture, to bring in the last of those who will believe before the Tribulation. And I believe He's going to do that through revival. But for revival to happen, we must pray, and pray like we've never done it before.

This isn't gonna be popcorn prayer. This can't be light prayer over our meals. This has to be war room level prayer, diving daily into the prayer closet to intercede before God and really draw close to Him. Now you may not have a physical closet which you can make into a prayer closet. But you have rooms where you can be alone, be in private, bow down before God and do so in a 2 Chron 7:14 manner, in all humility, humbleness and repentance before Him. God wants our hearts, but to get that we first have to seek Him in prayer. God also wants revival, to restore us, renew us, to bring us to the place that we need to be. But before He can do that, we first must pray. And again, I'm not talking little popcorn prayer. I'm talking about the most powerful prayer you can haul out of your little spiritual quiver.

And all that begins with a simple act of humility, and then once you've humbled yourself before God begin to follow the principles of 2 Chron 7:14 and the framework of the Lord's Prayer (Don't pray the actual prayer, but use it as a framework for HOW and WHAT to pray.) and then let God lead you wherever He so wills. And don't make it a once over lightly thing either. Make it a daily exercise, at least an hour or more a day, and as you do so, watch your life change and be revived, renewed and grow in ways you can't even begin to imagine. But, as I've said before, it all begins with prayer.

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