August 20, 2013

• Extraordinary prayer: Lament like a virgin... not in an ordinary way (Calvin on Joel 1:8)

  Over the past several days, I've been considering how prayer for revival differs from ordinary prayer. Please excuse me for using the term ordinary, for I realize that prayer is a sacred privilege granted to all the children of God through the cross of Jesus Christ, and no prayer prayed in the Holy Spirit to our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ is in any way ordinary! ...

  That said, there is prayer to which God calls His people which is extraordinary. For example, in 1748, Jonathan Edwards published "An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People, in Extraordinary Prayer, for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth." (If you've never read Edwards' "An Humble Attempt," you can read it online beginning here.)

  Lord willing, in my next few posts, I'm hoping to bring some Biblically-informed reflections as to what extraordinary prayer looks like, so God's bride might be stirred up to ask our God to pour out upon us a Spirit of extraordinary prayer and supplications for reformation and revival to the glory of God.

  I've been rereading the book of Joel along with John Calvin's commentary (which you can find here; & HT for the text I'm using). John Owen's translation from Calvin's original Latin makes use of the words "ordinary" and "extraordinary" in several places. Those references brought to mind Edwards' desire in "An Humble Attempt" to promote extraordinary prayer. In particular, I was initially struck by Calvin's words on Joel 1:8 (KJV):

  Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

  Calvin writes (emphasis mine):

  The Prophet now addresses the whole land. "Lament", he says; not in an ordinary way, but like a widow, whose husband is dead, whom she had married when young. The love, we know, of a young man towards a young woman, and so of a young woman towards a young man, is more tender than when a person in years marries an elderly woman. This is the reason that the Prophet here mentions the husband of her youth; he wished to set forth the heaviest lamentation, and hence he says "The Jews ought not surely to be otherwise affected by so many calamities, than a widow who has lost her husband while young, and not arrived at maturity, but in the flower of his age." As then such widows feel bitterly their loss, so the Prophet has adduced their case.

  The Hebrews often call a husband "ba'al", because he is the lord of his wife and has her under his protection. Literally it is, "For the lord of her youth;" and hence it is, that they also called their idols "ba'alim", as though they were as we have often said in our comment on the Prophet Hosea, their patrons. 

  The sum of the whole is, That the Jews could not have continued in an unconcerned state, without being void of all reason and discernment; for they were forced, willing or unwilling, to feel a most grievous calamity. It is a monstrous thing, when a widow, losing her husband when yet young, refrains from mourning. Now then, since God had afflicted his land with so many evils, he wished to bring on them, as it were, the grief of widowhood.

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  O LORD our God, be merciful and gracious to us for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for we are Your people called by Your name. We confess we have brought shame and reproach to Your name. We confess we have presumed upon Your mercy and grace. We confess we have not lamented and mourned over our sinfulness and our sin as we ought. We confess we have not lamented and mourned for You as we ought. We confess so much of our prayer is not extraordinary. Forgive us our great sin of presumption. Forgive us our monstrous sins of apathy and disinterest. Restore to us right reason and discernment, that we might spiritually feel this most grievous calamity and lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. Grant to us the same Spirit that filled Jeremiah and the watchmen on the wall, so we would not hold our peace, but weep day and night, and give You no rest until You make Your bride a praise in the earth. Make us sensibly aware that You are hiding Your face from us, that we might lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of our youth. May our heads be like waters and our eyes like fountains of tears until Your face shines again upon us. May we seek You with importunity and impudence, for You have told us that we do not seek You in vain. And then show Yourself to be a prayer-hearing God, show Yourself to be strong, and look down from heaven with pity upon us, and return in Your power, glory, majesty, and might for the sake of Your name and renown throughout all the earth.

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  * Please add your PRAYERS below as the Holy Spirit leads you. *

   

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