Come Down, Lord!

Do you remember when you were—as John Flavel put it— “restless and impatient… in His absence”? You could bear anything but that. Sickness you could bear. Pain and temporal losses you could endure. But His absence was unbearable . You could not stand to go on without the sense of His dear smile. You longed to walk and live and breathe in the light of His countenance (Psalm 4:6–7; Psalm 89:15). Do you remember when “Divine withdrawments were to you as the hell of hell (Flavel)” ? Those seasons when God seemed to hide His face from you—when He was distant, and there was not that familiar communion and fellowship in the prayer closet—were to you as hell. You wept and you groaned and you cried for His return. You stirred yourself to take hold of God (Isaiah 64:7), and you wrestled with Him as you told Him you would not let Him go (Genesis 32:26). Do you remember when the world was a burden to you? Do you remember a time when, if it were not for your sense of duty, you would have gladly...

  When the two blind men cried out saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David, Jesus stood still (Matthew 20:30-32).  Though the multitude rebuked them, as if Jesus had more important and pressing matters to attend to, He still took time for them.  He stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you (Matthew 20:32)?  Hugh Martin says that in the biography of Jesus “we have the very Christ himself - the living Saviour - still speaking to us as never man spake, still going about doing good.”  As Martin puts it, when we read the Bible we deal with Him, and He with us.  He says, “The true and living Christ, present with you - secretly and subjectively present in you by his Spirit - deals with you.  And you in the Spirit deal with the true and living Christ, present with you - ostensibly and objectively present with you - in his own holy word and history.”  He added, “Jesus is here as he was there; here now, as...

 For part one go here . So what we do? We know a little bit of what is possible, but we are confronted with the Church’s lukewarm condition.   What do we do?   One thing we have found studying revival is that almost invariably there is a connection between prayer and revival.  Our problem is actually simple one.  We do not have because we do not ask.  And when we do ask it is half-hearted and insincere.  We are not importunate in our praying. We pray briefly, often carelessly; and there is often a measure of hypocrisy in our praying because there are things that revival would accomplish we don’t actually want. We are addicted to things of the world and unless we are laying those things down, dealing with the idols of our hearts we can’t expect God to hear us. I want to give you three examples of the connection between importunate prayer and revival: First, in the Hebrides .  When things were at their worst it was two women who twice a week...

In a book titled  The Turn of the Tide , Vernon Higham  wrote that once we have faced the potential of revival nothing else will do .   He added, " His touch alone will suffice.  We have no option in the matter.  Only  revival  will meet our need...  We try to bring little buckets of blessing... but what is this in a drought?  We need a drenching. We need showers of rainfall from heaven and the only one who can provide them is God."    Are you burdened for revival?   I was encouraged and challenged by the testimony of a father who on the discovery of dishonesty in his son stayed up all night to pray for him - and got the victory!  His son was gloriously saved.   Is it any wonder that Spurgeon urged the importance of at least occasionally praying all through the night?    Where is that same valiant spirit among us?   A minister speaking on  revival  (in 1840) asked questions...

I admit I have chosen an odd title for a blog entry on a site dedicated to revival and authored by a reformed presbyterian minister.   Part of me would like to say that nothing is wrong with reformed presbyterianism.   But something is very much wrong.  I don't mean to say that there is something very wrong with the thing itself, but something very wrong with reformed presbyterianism as it is in our day.   A little background...  My roots are Baptist.  I spent a few years on the mission field as a child, and in my early adulthood I spent some years in charismatic churches (pentecostal and non-denominational).  In the reformed world there is a love for doctrines and distinctions.  We are truth men.  Many of us are confessional.  We ought to be!  We read old books and circulate them.  We love good publishing companies like Banner of Truth .  But there is something almost too civilized about us.  I re...

In a book titled The Turn of the Tide , Vernon Higham wrote that once we have faced the potential of revival nothing else will do.   He added, "His touch alone will suffice.  We have no option in the matter.  Only revival will meet our need... We try to bring little buckets of blessing... but what is this in a drought?  We need a drenching. We need showers of rainfall from heaven and the only one who can provide them is God."  Are you burdened for revival?  Each week a growing number of men- laypeople and pastors - from a variety of denominations gather together to pray for revival.   We would like to invite you to come.  We meet on Friday nights at Faith Presbyterian Church at 8 pm and pray into the night.   We believe God is burdening others across our nation to seek Him for revival.  If you are one of those men we want you to come and pray with us.  If you are coming from a distance please let us know so that we can pr...