Forgotten Truths

2 Chronicles 7:14

There are many neglected truths, divine jewels, found in the pages of Scripture.  One such truth is that God has always worked out His will through a select minority.  Minorities, not majorities, write history.  The people of God have never constituted a majority in this world, and at the conclusion of this age the situation will be sufficiently problematic that when speaking of those dark times even our Lord was caused to marvel: when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?  [Luke 18:8].

What is revival but the people of God living out the normal Christian life?  What the Bible presents as the normal Christian life appears with increasing rarity in our day.  The normal Christian life is actually spelled out in some detail in our text.  To understand that life, we need but consider the verses of our text and review the well-known words of 2 Chronicles 7:14.  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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  I trust this verse has become familiar to us by now

The People of God are Addressed — If my people, who are called by my name…  Once again, I must make this crucial point, primarily because it is so terribly easy to distort: God revives His own people.  One of the great and common errors of the church in the closing days of this Twentieth Century is equating revival and evangelism.  Many hold the opinion that evangelism precedes revival.  I sadly observe that too many churches held up as a standard for evangelism in this day are also among the most spiritually destitute.  To induce an individual to recite a formula in the false belief that such secures salvation is far from the biblical model.  People are saved by faith in Christ and not by a prayer.  Consequently, many “evangelists” pluck green fruit, inducing professions before possession, or people are born into the kingdom of God only to be placed in cold, dead churches as though refrigerators were preferable to incubators for new-born babies.

I note that the great crusades of virtually every major “evangelist” of the past century have perpetuated this unbiblical model of evangelism preceding and precipitating revival.  This probably accounts for the fact that the best known evangelist in this century is able to document as few as one percent (1%) of his “converts” serving in a church one year after their “decision for Christ.”  Churches with retention rates such as these are in grave danger of dying.  Strong churches anticipate that they will retain the majority of those confessing Christ, not for a year only, but for so long as the believers live in that immediate locale.  This is because they realise that revival precedes evangelism, and they put into practise that belief.

God always speaks first to His people to bring them to Himself that their hearts may be renewed and their faith restored and their lives refreshed.  When thus revived, God’s people will by divine nature evangelise, for a city on a hill cannot be hidden and those in whom the light of the world shines will not put their light under a bowl [Matthew 5:14, 15].  God does not revive those who are unvived.  Life precedes renewal, and the dead cannot be revived.  It is only those alive in Christ who are called to revival.

I am struck by the pointed challenge God presents in Psalm 50:16, 17:

To the wicked, God says:

“What right have you to recite my laws

or take my covenant on your lips?

You hate my instruction

and cast my words behind you.”

The wicked, the unsaved, the lost, those under God’s just condemnation, are confronted with the question of why they should appear religious or even make such an attempt.  God resists the wicked, but the redeemed are encouraged to speak up:

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

his love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say this—

those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,

 those he gathered from the lands,

from east and west, from north and south

[Psalm 107:1-3].

Underscore in your mind this great truth: revival comes only through the people of God.  There is no possibility that revival can come through the unsaved because they have no life within them.  Though the lost may speak of revival and even appear to favour such divine activity, they have no possibility for such holy refreshing.

The People of God are Called to Humility before God — If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves…  Do you recall the words of Micah 6:8?

What does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Humility is not a small matter in the eyes of God.  James pointedly reminds us that

God opposes the proud

but gives grace to the humble

[James 4:6].

Through the years of my pilgrimage, I have learned to hold many doctrines with humility.  I differ in doctrine with other good Christians.  Such areas of difference should not lead to pride, but instead I should be humble before God, giving Him thanks that He has given me the understanding I have.  Likewise, practise of the Faith may differ from other good, Christian people.  We need not agree in every detail to honour God, but we can rejoice that God calls others to the praise of His glory according to His will.

This is not to suggest that we should differ about the essential truths of the Word, (its authority and accuracy, Jesus’ divinity, His sacrificial death and bodily resurrection, salvation by faith, and His anticipated return for His own); it is but to say that none of us are yet perfect in our own understanding.  While we do hold certain truths dear, we do so with deepest humility.  I plead with you to have convictions, but I caution you to hold your convictions with humility.  You will find that such humility leads you to rejoice in the fellowship of believers even when in disagreement about some matters.  You will find that such humility causes you to rejoice in God’s grace revealed in all His saints.

Permit me to move back to the issue at hand and perhaps provide some insight into this concept of humility.  The Hebrew word which is translated humble themselves in our text is derived from a verb which conveys the meaning to bow the knee or to kneel.  The arrogant spirit which appears so highly prized among our contemporaries is precisely what God cannot bless.  It is such arrogance which keeps men from receiving Christ as Master and the salvation He offered through submission to Him.  It is such arrogance which keeps believers from experiencing the rich blessings God desires to pour out on His own people.  It is such arrogance which keeps us from experiencing revival.

Perhaps the greatest truth which we have forgotten today is that revival, the refreshing movement of God’s Spirit among His people, waits our voluntary humbling.  When we confess that it is not through adopting formulae, through recitation of prayers, or through manipulation of people that such times of refreshing come, when we confess our utter dependence upon God for every blessing, when we admit our own weakness and poverty of spirit, then we shall have taken the first great step toward renewal of vision, refreshing of heart, and revival of the spirit.

The People of God are Called to Pray — If my people, who are called by my name, will pray…  I know each of us prays, but I wonder if we give ourselves to prayer.  I know that we pray and I know that we pray for one another.  However, I know that there is always need to stir up our pure minds to still greater efforts in prayer.  As a congregation, we have far too few times in united prayer—and this lack causes deep concern for me.

A review of Acts leads me to the realisation that whenever the people of God met in New Testament days, whether as an assembly or in smaller groups, prayer became an indelible mark of their identification.  Could such be said of us today?  The prayers recorded in the Bible are characterised by intercession, for that is the heart of prayer.  When we pray, do we truly invest time interceding for God’s glory and for other saints?

Even a casual review of Solomon’s prayer which brought this promise from God reveals that it was a prayer of intercession for the people of God.  Solomon prayed for God to hear [6:20, 21], for God to establish the innocence of those wronged [6:22, 23], for forgiveness of the sin of the people [6:24, 25], for righteous instruction [6:26, 27], for justice [6:28-31], for revelation and knowledge of the true God [6:32, 33], for deliverance in time of conflict [6:34, 35], and again for forgiveness of the sins of His people [6:36-39].

I do not suggest that we should not pray for our own needs, but I do suggest that our prayers ought to reflect a divine balance which demonstrates above all else our desire for the good of God’s people.  What do you know of the need of your fellow worshipers?  We should invest time together so that we can pray knowledgeably for one another.

Have you ever taken note of how frequently in the Bible we are encouraged to pray for others?  We are to pray for our enemies [Matthew 5:44] and for those who mistreat us [Luke 6:28], as well as praying for fellow saints [James 5:16].  We are to pray for missionaries [Colossians 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:25; 2 Thessalonians 3:1], even as we pray for each other [Hebrews 13:18; Colossians 1:3].  Intercessory prayer implies that we know one another and that we understand the needs represented among our fellow members, among our missionaries, and even the needs of those who are hostile to the Faith.  Such expectation for intercessory prayer anticipates that we will take the time both to inquire how we may pray and that we will solicit prayer through confession of our needs.

We may only speculate what might happen if we began to so live that every mask was stripped from our public faces and if we began to live openly with one another.  There is, I suppose, a danger that some would attempt to practise spiritual nudity, seeking to bare the most intimate details of personal life or attempting to coerce such intimacy from others.  However, since we would be inviting the Spirit of God to rule over us I rather suspect that such indecent attempts would quickly shrivel in the warm light of God’s gracious Spirit bathing us and we would simply confess our own needs, soliciting intercession from God’s people.  I suggest that were we to practise intercessory prayer for one another that we would take yet another great step toward revival.

Few actions could excite me more than that the people of God should insist that time be set aside for prayer that the people of God might openly request opportunity to importune God, that the people of God should seek time to pray together before each service and during each time of worship and at other times throughout the week.

A few years back I listened in awe as first a Canadian Baptist pastor who had visited the former Soviet Union and then a young Ukrainian woman spoke of the churches in the Ukraine when that nation was yet a Russian republic.  I was especially moved as the young woman told of the worship of God’s people under the heavy hand of Communism—worship always preceded by a time of prayer.  The people, some sixteen hundred of them in her home congregation, would kneel together and begin to pray.

One might suppose that sixteen hundred people praying together would be a chaotic situation, that the effort would be a case of sheer bedlam.  That was apparently not the case, for as the people prayed, the Spirit of God descended, controlling the meetings and the saints prayed one after another, the prayers continuing so long as there was need.  We begin to fidget if, in a prayer session, prayer occupies more than a few minutes, and yet these persecuted and pressured saints prayed for hours at a time—one after another!  The other point noted was the eagerness with which the people prayed.  There were, the young woman declared, no pregnant pauses as the people waited for someone else to begin to pray as though the gathered saints were embarrassed to pray.

I was taught that prayer was to be brief, that if the Pastor’s prayer was longer than about three to five minutes the minds of the people would begin to wander.  That teaching was errant, I am convinced.  Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the great Baptist preacher who occupied the pulpit of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London during the middle to latter decades of the nineteenth century.  After his death, his deacons were asked to recall Spurgeon and his sermons.  Few could recall specifics of his particular messages, but without fail, each of those godly men spoke of his prayers.

To my knowledge few of Spurgeon’s prayers were ever recorded or transcribed.  However, they were noted for their impassioned importunity and lively delivery which swept the entire congregation up in the glory of God which that great man of God sought and anticipated.  What would happen if the Pastor were to so pray today?  I regret that at the moment we may only speculate, but I ask your prayers for me that I might so pray here and that together we might be caught up into the presence of the Living God.

I confess that I long for each of us to experience the joy of united prayer.  Churches today appear too sophisticated and assuredly, the people are too busy to pray.  The cost of our “busyness” is that we sacrifice every hope of revival and the normal Christian life which each of us inwardly longs to see by the prompting of God’s Spirit.  Let this knowledge incite each of us to consider how we may encourage one another to pray.  May God Himself stir our hearts so that when we meet, whether as a congregation or simply as friends, that we do not fail to pray.  Pray for me and pray for one another and pray for the glory of God to be revealed in our worship and each time we meet.

The People of God are Called to Seek God’s Face — If my people, who are called by my name, will seek my face…  Brother Lawrence was a pious Carmelite brother who lived and ministered during the Seventeenth Century.  This devout monk maintained copies of his Conversations and Letters which were published after his death in book form with the title The Practice of the Presence of God.  Brother Lawrence had spent many years as a soldier and a footman before entering the Carmelite Order at over fifty years of age.  He is described as a great awkward fellow who broke everything.

It has been years since I last read The Practice of the Presence of God, but the book made a great impression on me during the early years of my pilgrimage.  The writings of Brother Lawrence stress the need to do everything—including kitchen work which he naturally disliked—for the love of God, thus arriving at a condition in which the presence of God is as real in work as in prayer.  Seeking the face of God, then, is not a matter of deep mystery so much as it is a recognition that God is glorified in what we ordinarily consider to be the mundane if we but seek Him.

Truly, the heart of the message this day lies in this one thought—as the people of God seek Him they are revived.  The changes which occur in His presence are less the result of our deliberate forethought then they are a natural outworking of our having been in the presence of the Living God.  In His presence, we are humbled, rejecting every claim to priority for self.  In His presence we find ourselves compelled to pray because we realise our greatest need is communion with Him.  In His presence we find ourselves longing to know where He works that we may stand with Him there and enter into the work He performs.  In His presence, we are conscious of our own wickedness and we will naturally repent that we may glorify His Name.

May I suggest that inwardly each Christian has a longing to know intimacy with the Father.  Each of us yearns to know His love in an immediate fashion.  Such desire is the work of the Holy Spirit creating in us that hunger for intimacy as is said in Scripture.  Do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?  [James 4:5].  God created us to enjoy intimacy with Him, but it is we who break the very bonds of fellowship for which we long.

Dear people, may I encourage you with the Word of God and the repeated promises of our God which assure us that He will be found by those who seek Him.

I love those who love Me,

and those who seek Me find Me

[Proverbs 8:17].

Sharon will become a pasture for flocks,

and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds,

for My people who seek Me

[Isaiah 65:10].

You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart [Jeremiah 29:13].

I have often read the words which the author of the Hebrews letter penned.  Early in my Christian walk they thrilled me, and they thrill me still.  Perhaps they thrill you.  Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him [Hebrews 11:6].

Clearly, our God delights to reveal Himself to those who seek His face.  Therefore, the promise given in our text is a promise iterated throughout the Word He has given and we may be confident that He will bless with His very presence those who earnestly seek Him.  This is the message given us in Isaiah 57:15:

this is what the high and lofty One says—

he who lives forever, whose name is holy:

“I live in a high and holy place,

but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,

to revive the spirit of the lowly

and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Hearing a promise such as this, the hearts of God’s people resonate with the longing cry: “Ah, Lord God, let me be that one with whom you live.  Let me know the glory of God.”

The People of God are Called to Turn From Their Wicked Ways — If my people, who are called by my name, will turn from their wicked ways…  Coming to this point in the message I recognise that I have preached now for three weeks, speaking of the need for revival in our day and among our people.  In each message, I have spoken of the necessary requirement for Christians to turn from their wicked ways so that revival may come.  I feel somewhat like the preacher who was called to a church and within a matter of weeks after his arrival he preached a message on repentance.  The following Sunday he preached the same message.  The same message was presented yet again on the third Sunday and so forth for several more weeks.  Finally, some of the elders gathered their courage to confront the preacher and their spokesman queried: “Preacher, you have preached the same message every Sunday for weeks now.  Why do you only preach this message?  Do you have only one message?”

The interlocutor had hardly asked the question of him before the preacher replied: “I do have other message and I’ll quit preaching repentance when you repent.”

I am not suggesting that as a people we are exceedingly sinful above all other Christians, but as your pastor and as a servant of God I am compelled to confront each saint with the reminder that we live in a fallen world.  Consequently, we too frequently experience the effects of the sinful lives among whom we live and move and have our being.  Thus, we too often find ourselves compromised, hesitating to speak out firmly against wickedness and discovering that we are willing to tolerate just a little bit of sin.

Isaiah, finding Himself in the presence of Holy God, was compelled to cry out: Woe to me!  …I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty  [Isaiah 6:5].  Peter, realising that he was in the presence of Jesus the Lord, Holy God, was terrified and compelled to cry out: Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!  [Luke 5:8].

Any of us might think well of ourselves compared to our fellow worshipers and especially in comparison to outsiders about us.  Humanly speaking we are pretty good people.  However, we are not to compare ourselves with one another.  We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves.  When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise was the conclusion of the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 10:12.  Although we consider ourselves less sinful than others, when we find ourselves in God’s presence, we will be horrified at our own sinfulness.

Dr. Alexander McLaren was a noted Baptist pastor in London during the latter part of the nineteenth century.  This great pastor had a small white dog which he dearly loved.  On one occasion, it snowed near the house where he was staying and he turned his little pet out to care for its morning duties.  Until that moment he had always thought of his pet as a white animal, but against the brilliance of the snow his white pup appeared dirty, drab, dingy.  Just so, purity depends upon the standard against which we compare a given action or attitude.

My dear people, I shall not long tarry with you.  Should Christ delay His return I have at most a few years to serve Him and then my voice will be stilled until the day of His return.  So long as He gives me breath, I am compelled to speak of the need for pure lives and of the need to seek that divine refreshment we speak of as revival.  Such times of renewal and refreshing are given by a Sovereign Lord, but they appear to be given in response to the preparation of the people of God.  As God’s people, both in ancient times and in contemporary times, give themselves to seek God, to honour Him, to put Him first, He responds by giving them the greatest gift imaginable—His very self.

This is my hope for us.  This is my plea to you.  I seek God’s very best for us as a people and I pray for His very presence among us.  Today, I am asking only that those who long for revival review their hearts.  Before God, ask that He search your heart.  Should you discover some aspect of life which is displeasing to Him, may I plead with you to this day rid your life of that which dishonours and displeases Him.  Perhaps the need is to humble ourselves, confessing our weakness and inability to do right.  Perhaps the need is to again declare our desire to pray or to actually begin to pray.  Perhaps the need is to seek God’s face as He has invited us to do.  Perhaps the need is to quit some secret sin.  Whatever the need God reveals, make the necessary change now.  Amen.

Have you ever taken note of how frequently in the Bible we are encouraged to pray for others?  We are to pray for our enemies [Matthew 5:44] and for those who mistreat us [Luke 6:28], as well as praying for fellow saints [James 5:16].  We are to pray for missionaries [Colossians 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:25; 2 Thessalonians 3:1] just as we are to pray for each other [Hebrews 13:18; Colossians 1:3].  Intercessory prayer implies that we know one another and that we understand the needs represented among our fellow members, among our missionaries, and even the needs of those who are hostile to the Faith.  Such expectation for intercessory prayer anticipates that we will take the time both to inquire how we may pray and that we will solicit prayer through confession of our needs.