I just discovered that the host of Sermon Audio.com which has an enormous collection of sermons on every topic, put out a call to prayer for revival to begin in January of this year, and I hadn't known it until now. In fact the way I came across it was so accidental it seems supernatural. With my bad eyes I was poking around trying to fix some pages that were out of alignment and didn't fill the whole monitor, don't know how they got that way, but I didn't hit the right icon a few times and on one such miss this page from Sermon Audio came up on my screen:
A JOINT RESOLUTION OF UNITED PRAYER
FOR THE
REVIVAL OF RELIGION
AND THE
ADVANCEMENT OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM ON EARTH.
It is very much worth listening to his talk on this subject. He starts out with some quotes about some of the most evil things you'll have ever heard, of Facebook posters putting up pictures of cruelty to animals and small children, as well as some horror stories from other parts of the world, the point being that we don't hear about such extreme evil in the world becuase it is kept from us. This is reason enough for the Church to be in constant prayer.
His journal of the weeks of prayer so far is inspiring.
Here's his
Synopsis.
This resolution is based on An Humble Attempt, originally put forward by Jonathan Edwards in 1748. Its design is to encourage God's people in the duty of united extraordinary prayer; setting aside some time every Saturday, privately or publicly, to pray for the revival of His church and the advancement of Christ's kingdom in our homes, in our churches, in our nation, and in the world.
He is calling for a commitment to one prayer time every week, on Saturday, and he has 236 people who have signed up for it. It is to go for the 52 weeks of 2020. When he put out this call he didn't know about the pandemic or the rioting or any of that. People somehow sign their names to the document and I don't see how that is done yet.
I'm very glad to see this but at the same time I have my usual doubts. Other prayers and calls to pryaer for revival over the last few decades have not produced revival and I've been speculating here about possible reasons why not. My guess is we need to start with repentance, both individual and as churches and I gave some conjectures about that.
I certainly understand why it would be limited to once a week, but I also wish at least some of us could manage more than that. For it to be united, however, which is Jonathan Edwards' focus, we need agreement with each other.
But I don't want to go too far beyond where Steven Lee of Sermon Audio goes. I'd just like this message to be passed around among as many Christians as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment