Will God Ever Again Bless Us with a Revivall? I Pretty Much Gave Up on That Some Time Ago but Here I Am Hoping Yet Another Time.

Something always eventually brings me back to this theme. This time I heard a very good talk by the founder of Sermon Audio, Steven Lee, on the importance of prayer:

A CALL TO UNITED PRAYER

He's lamencing the lack of fervent desperate prayer in this time of worldwide chaos and calamity. At the end he plays some short clips of others expressing the same lament. The churches aren't pratying enough or aren't praying with enough passion.

Leonard Ravenhill had a similar take on the situation. Here we so desperately need God to act and He isn't acting and it must be because we are not praying enough or praying in the right way.

He plays a clip of Dr. Alan Cairns, a very inspiring preacher, lamenting the fact that we don't have the personal experience of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Again this is laid to a lack of prayer or rigyht prayer. <>
I've wanted to see a real revival for a long time. times when the Holy Spirit comes in power and transforms our lives and transforms the culture around us. Wy is it not happening? I've talked about this many times in this blog. I don't think it's a simple lack of prayer.

I think it's like the situation at Ai when Joshua was defeated and sought the Lord for His favor. The Lord told him to get up and find out about the man who had stolen thinhgs from the city of Ai. That was the reason for Joahua's defeat. When that problem was recognized, the guilty man brought to justice, then God tgave them victory.

God isn't blessing our prayers because we aren't meeting some condition He requires for us even to pray to Him at all. I think that is our abandonment of the head covering for women. In 1 Corinthians 11: 2-16 Paul says women are to pray with our heads covered. TAhis passage has been twisted by modern interpretation to deny that a literal head covering was meant, and I've argued this at length in my blog Hidden Glory. The head covering signifies God's order of headship of Christ over man, man over womaan. It's a creation ordinance. Marriage is another creation ordinance we've violated recently with the legalization of gay marriage.

It starts with the churches. If we're ignoring god's creation ordinance it will impact the Christian life in many ways, and there's every reason to think that this is the cause of the deterioration of the culture around us too. The head covering is no trivial thinjkg though people often try to dismiss it as trivial. It represents God's created order, His ordering of the sexes, the family, everything that relates to that basic structure.

I always come back to it though usually in a state of despair because it is not taken seriously by the churchesw. The best preachers have accepted the false interpretation and don't seem to notice the spiritual weakness in their churches. Some hardly have any idea that a great move of the Holy Spirit is even possib. Topo many churches are accepting a tepid spiritual life as normal.

I do hesitate to be as empphatic about this as I am. Who am I after all to suggest such a sweeping explanation for such a broad lack in the churches? Well I'm nobody but I nevertheless strongly propose that if the churches resumed the practice of women's covering our heads we would very likely see an increase in our influence in the culture through our prayers, and an incrase in our spiritual life.

I dare to say it. I wish I had a way of making people see it.

There are other problems too. "Ecumenical" prayer meetings are an abomination in the sight of God and yet that's what occurs at the prayer breakfasts for the nation in Washington D.C. Our National Cathedral is a disgrace of an excuse for a "Christian" church. Would Elijah have had a prayer meeting with the priests of Baal? I'll even mention that Jewish Messianic believers who pray with a yarmulke on their headsw or with a prayer shawl pulled up over their heads are also violating 1 Cor. ``.
None of that is likely to be a problem with the Sermon Audio prayer group. I just mention it because it does interfere with prayer in this country in other groups. I wrote to Steven Lee about this. How nice it would be if I'd succeeded in persuading him. It would be my only success but he's got a huge website soit could have a big effect through him. It's up to God but as usual I guess I can still hope though it gets harder all the time.


============================================

Added Later: I listened again to Steven Lee's talk and thought maybe I didn't give him enough credit. He did do a great job of making the case for prayer and it's hard to disagree with the charge that we are slow to pray when it is needed. Anything that gets us praying is a good thing. So maybe I spoke too soon about the problem beintg something that precedes prayer instead. I go there because of what does seem to me to be real effort at fervent prayer that has simply not borne fruit. That is what suggests that something else needs to happen first. I still think that is probably true but at the same time I don't want to say anything that woujld discourage people from praying. Just put a cloth over your head and see if it makes a difference. If you're a woman of course. And take off your headgear of any sort whatever if you're a man.

https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/misc/sermons/122021225375961/