During the Advent season, we commemorated the first coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In my last couple posts, I reminded us that besides that remembrance and besides our anticipation of His second coming, we ought also to be seeking the Lord's coming in power again to His Church to reform and revive her. Along those lines, in those posts I included two hymns from "The Psalmody:  A Collection of Hymns for Public and Social Worship" (Freewill Baptist Printing Establishment, Dover, N.H., 1853): "Within Thy Courts, O God, To-Day" by V.G. Ramsey and “Savior, Visit Thy Plantation” by Isaac Watts. Today I'd like to present another hymn by Isaac Watts from "The Psalmody." This first stanza in particular expresses my heart now in regard to the current state of Christianity here in the west.

Return, O God of Love, Return

Return, O God of love, return;
Earth is a tiresome place:
How long shall we, thy children mourn
Our absence from thy face?

Let heaven succeed our painful years,
Let sin and sorrow cease;
And in proportion to our tears,
So make our joys increase.

Thy wonders to thy servants show;
Make thine own work complete;
Then shall our souls thy glory know,
And own thy love was great.

Then shall we shine before thy throne,
In all thy beauty, Lord;
And the poor service we have done
Meet a divine reward.

Hymn # 821 in "The Psalmody..."

Watts' Psalm is based on Psalm 90:13ff...

13  Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. 14  O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15  Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. 16  Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. 17  And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. (KJV)

13  Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
14  Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15  Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16  Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17  Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands! (ESV)

Psalm 90 was written by Moses. Both Moses' words and Watts' words may seem strange and incomprehensible to some of us:

Return, O LORD, how long?

How long shall we, thy children mourn
Our absence from thy face?

In my last post, I cited John Elias, and I will cite his words once more today:

O brethren, be not easy without his presence! I believe that some of you know the difference between the shining of his countenance and every other thing. I often fear that many are now in the churches that know no difference between the hiding and the shining of his countenance.

Many Christians may read what I've written and ask, "Why in the world would we need to ask the LORD to return?" And, "What do you mean by our absence from His face?" And, "What is all this talk about the hiding and the shining of His countenance?"

My dear friends, we too casually and too flippantly speak of Jesus' promise to be with us always, though certainly it is true that He is with us always...  And yet, we must understand there is another sense of our Lord's blessed presence which we are sorely missing and for which we ought to be importunately seeking. But sadly, as Elias put it, "many are now in the churches that know no difference between the hiding and the shining of his countenance."

In "The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts," the sub-heading to the hymn title is "Breathing after heaven." What exactly is this breathing after heaven that Watts had in mind? What is the shining of the LORD's countenance of which John Elias spoke?

Perhaps these words by Martyn Lloyd-Jones (and Jonathan Edwards) may help us. ML-J defined revival as "days of heaven upon earth."

A revival, then, really means days of heaven upon earth. Let me give you one of the greatest definitions ever written of what is true of a town when there is such a revival or a visitation of the Spirit of God. It was written by the great and saintly Jonathan Edwards about the little town of Northampton in Massachusetts in 1735.

This work soon made a glorious alteration in the town. So that in the Spring and Summer following it seemed, that is to say the town, seemed to be full of the presence of God. It never was so full of love nor so full of joy and yet so full of distress as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought to them. Parents rejoicing over their children as newborn, husbands over their wives and wives over their husbands. The doings of God were then seen in His sanctuary. God's day was a delight and His tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful. The congregation was alive in God's service. Everyone earnestly intent on the public worship. Every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth. The assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the Word was preached. Some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbours.

Jonathan Edwards: Works, London 1840, Vol I, p. 348.

. . . Do you know about these things? Are you interested? Are you concerned? Are you moved? Do you not begin to see that if only this happened today, it would solve our problems? This is God visiting his people. Days of heaven on earth, the presidency of the Holy Spirit in the Church, life abundant given to God's people without measure. I trust that we have already seen and felt something that creates within us not only the desire to say, 'What is that fervour? Oh that we might know it. Oh, that it might happen to us', but also that we might feel it to such an extent that we begin to plead with God to have pity and to have mercy and to visit us in that way with his great salvation.

From Chapter 8 "Expecting Revival" in Martyn Lloyd-Jones' book "Revival" (Wheaton: Crossway, 1987), 103-104. You can listen to and/or download the audio sermon here titled "What Is Revival?"

My brothers and sisters in Christ, if we are indeed now citizens of heaven, and if we have been quickened with the Spirit's heavenly breath, ought we not be breathing after heaven all the day and all the night, pleading with our God of love to return, that our lives and our churches and our communities and our country and all the nations might be full of the presence of God?!

Isaiah 62:6 On your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the LORD in remembrance,
take no rest,
7 and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it a praise in the earth.

Psalm 72:15  Long may he live;
may gold of Sheba be given to him!
May prayer be made for him continually,
and blessings invoked for him all the day!
16  May there be abundance of grain in the land;
on the tops of the mountains may it wave;
may its fruit be like Lebanon;
and may people blossom in the cities
like the grass of the field!
17  May his name endure forever,
his fame continue as long as the sun!
May people be blessed in him,
all nations call him blessed!
18  Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous things.
19  Blessed be his glorious name forever;
may the whole earth be filled with his glory!
Amen and Amen!

Spirit of the Living God, breathe into us, that we might breathe after heaven all the day and all the night, and plead with great pleadings for our God to visit us! Holy Father, have pity upon Your Church! Return, O God of love, return! Earth is a tiresome place without Your face shining upon us! Lord Jesus Christ, Dayspring from on high, visit us again as You did long ago! According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, rise upon us, enlighten our darkness, so Your glory might be seen upon us, and all the peoples might praise You and rejoice in Your salvation, that all the earth might be filled with the glory of the LORD. Amen.

In my last post, I wrote of my concern that during Advent we are prone to look back at Jesus' first coming and to neglect seeking the living Christ to come again in power to reform and revive His Church:

Over the past few years, there’s been what seems to be an exponential proliferation of Advent devotionals available online. Now, don’t get me wrong:  some of these may indeed be good and helpful. However, it’s all too easy for us to become nostalgic about these things… we begin to look back at Christ’s first coming with a sickly sentimentality. And, before we know it, we may be lulled into seeing Immanuel as set in historical concrete in the manger at Bethlehem and the Holy Spirit as set in historical concrete in the upper room in Jerusalem! When we do so, for all intents and purposes – dare I put it this way – are we not in grave danger of emasculating the Holy One of Israel?! (See Psalm 78, especially verses 40-43ff.)...

In that post, I included John Newton's "Savior, Visit Thy Plantation" taken from the “The Psalmody:  A Collection of Hymns for Public and Social Worship." Once again today I'm including another hymn from "The Psalmody..." in the hope God might use it to stir us up to importunate prayer for the Spirit of God.

By importunate prayer I mean the type of prayer that was taking place in the upper room in Acts 1 & 2: — prayer that owns our insufficiency and confesses God's sufficiency; prayer that pleads for God's Holy Spirit to descend in Pentecostal power upon Christ's Church; prayer that understands all of our obedient "tabernacle building" apart from the Presence of God leaves us sorely lacking (see Exodus 40... "So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle..."). As Mrs. Ramsey wrote in her hymn I've cited below:

We build this house with toil and care;
But vain the labor of our hands;
Unless thy presence meet us here,
An empty monument it stand...

O! my friends, do we seek the cloud and the glory?! Do we miss the Beloved?! Are we sick of love?! Does God's Spirit within us provoke us to cry out with Moses, "O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance" (Exodus 34:9)? Can we really stop satisfied with an empty monument?

Or, are we more like those whom John Elias described? Are we easy without God's presence?!

It is a dark night on the Church, the depth of winter, when she is sleepy and ready to die, and the Lord is hiding his face in the ordinances, and when only a few are crying out for his appearance, and those scarcely audible in their call! It is still more awful, if while they are asleep they should think themselves awake, and imagine that they see the sun at midnight. Yet such are the circumstances of the Church generally. Yea, the darkness of night I say, is upon her, and she is slumbering, having lost the presence of her Lord, and so unhappy as not to know the loss she has sustained! ...

O brethren, be not easy without his presence! I believe that some of you know the difference between the shining of his countenance and every other thing. I often fear that many are now in the churches that know no difference between the hiding and the shining of his countenance. O be not satisfied with any thing instead of him – fluency, or any gift in prayer, or preaching! His countenance pre-eminently excels all things as to light, strength virtue, fruit and the consequences hereafter. It extracts the heart out of the creature, and draws the soul heavenward. It conveys the affections to the things where Christ sits, it causes the traffic of the soul to be in heaven, seeking a better country than any here below. They are made pilgrims here, their treasure and home being in the heavenly world.

from "John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays” by Edward Morgan (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973, revised edition published in one volume, 241-242 & 247. (For more, please see my posts on my other site here and here.)

 

Following the hymn below, I've included a necessary and urgent exhortation from Charles Spurgeon — words which are as timely today as when they were when they were first spoken almost 140 years ago. (A little note on that... it is true that God's Spirit is sovereign, and yet are we for the most part oblivious to the glorious fullness that is in Jesus now? Do we perhaps not presently enjoy more of a realization of Christ's fullness — "many a Pentecostal shower" — because we do not understand we can ask, seek, and knock for God's blessed Holy Spirit? James 4:2c You do not have, because you do not ask.)

* * *

Within Thy Courts, O God, To-Day
by V.G. Ramsey

Hymn # 856 in the “The Psalmody...”
(Freewill Baptist Printing Establishment, Dover, N.H., 1853)

Within thy courts, O God, to-day
We come with songs of joy and praise;
Accept our homage, here, we pray,
The humble tribute which we raise;
And let the blessings of thy grace
Descend, and consecrate this place.

Thou, who of old didst condescend
Between the cherubim to dwell,
Such tokens of thy presence send,
That future ages yet may tell
The wonders of thy matchless grace,
Displayed within this holy place.

We build this house with toil and care;
But vain the labor of our hands;
Unless thy presence meet us here,
An empty monument it stand:
O, let the visions of thy face
Adorn and sanctify this place.

Here by the Spirit's mighty power,
O, may our souls be often stirred;
And many a pentecostal shower
Attend the preaching of thy word;
While listening throngs, with wonder, trace
Thy glories in this sacred place.

* * *

"For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." Colossians 1:19

“And of His fullness we have all received, and Grace for Grace.” John 1:16.

I. My first point this morning is this––THERE IS A GLORIOUS FULLNESS IN JESUS. . . .

II. The next encouraging fact is that THE FULLNESS IS IN JESUS NOW. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." The glory of the past exercises a depressing influence upon many Christians. "We have heard with our ears and our fathers have told us the wondrous things which You did in their day and in the old time before them." But we dolefully complain that the golden age of Christianity is over—its heroic times are matter of history. Indeed, this feeling is transformed to fact, for scarcely any Church now existing realizes that it can do what its first promoters did! All appear to be quite sure that these are bad times and but little is to be done in them. We do not expect, nowadays, to find a Methodist so full of fire as the first field preachers. The Quakers are never as fanatical and even the Primitives are not ranters now! The old reproach has ceased because the old ardor which provoked it has cooled down. So far so bad.

I see grave cause for sorrow in all this. A people are in an evil case when all their heroism is historical. We read the biographies of former worthies with great wonder and respect. But we do not attempt to follow in their steps with equal stride. Why not? It has pleased the Father that in Jesus all fullness should dwell, a fullness for Paul, a fullness for Luther, a fullness for Whitfield [sic], and blessed be God, a fullness for me and a fullness for you! All that Jesus has given forth has not exhausted Him! Christianity has not lost its pristine strength—we have lost our faith—there's the calamity! Oh, ignoble sons of glorious sires, you have degenerated, but not your Master! And if, even in your degeneracy, you would cast yourselves upon your unchanging God, you would rise to more than the strength of your sires and do yet greater things that they!

The fullness of Jesus is not changed. Then why are our works so feebly done? Pentecost, is that to be a tradition? The reforming days, are these to be only memories? I see no reason why we should not have a greater Pentecost than Peter saw and a Reformation deeper in its foundations, and truer in its building up than all the reforms which Luther or Calvin achieved! We have the same Christ, remember that! The times are altered, but Jesus is the Eternal and time touches Him not. “But we are not such men as they.” What? Cannot God make us such? Are we weaker than they? The fitter to be instruments for the mighty God! Away with the cowardice which thinks the past is never to be outdone! Is not the Lord of Hosts with us? Is anything too hard for Him? We must labor to eclipse the past as the sunlight eclipses the brightness of the stars!

The mass of professors have their eyes only on the future. The good times are coming, by-and-by, but they are not here yet. We look forward with much hope to the golden age that is to be, when we shall see the fullness of Jesus and nations will be born in a day! Brothers and Sisters, does my text say, “It pleased the Father that in Him all fullness shall one day dwell”? No, but, “in Him should all fullness dwell.” Whatever has been done can be done now—and whatever shall yet be done, can be done today, by His Grace. Our laziness puts off the work of conquest. Our self-indulgence procrastinates. Our cowardice and lack of faith make us dote upon the millennium instead of hearing the Spirit’s voice today! Happy days would begin from this hour if the Church would but awake and put on her Strength, for in her Lord all fatness dwells.

When the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the earth? Some doubting ones say, “We do not wonder that there is success in such a place,” but we cannot have it. We hear of earnest ministers and we conclude that where they labor God will send the blessing, but not to our ministry. We conclude that when yonder woman gathers the young people around her, it is no wonder that blessing comes. Does Christ depend on ministers or on holy women? Have you said, “Alas, I cannot have the blessing.” Why not? How dare you limit the Holy One of Israel? You who dwell in towns where all is cold around you, do you despair? Is it in your minds that Christ is dependent upon the circumstances in which He has placed His servants? “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.” What if the servants are empty—their Master is not! If the means of Grace lack power, Grace from above is still Omnipotent. Only fly to the Fountain and the dried up streams need not distress you.

Furthermore, our Churches believe that there is a great fullness in Christ and that sometimes they ought to enjoy it. The progress of Christianity is to be by tides which ebb and flow. There are to be revivals like the spring and these must alternate with long lethargies like the winter. O accursed Unbelief, will you always pervert the Truth of God? Will you never understand this Word of God—“It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell”? It is not the Lord’s purpose that a fullness should reside in Jesus during revivals and then withdraw. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! The highest state of revival should be the normal condition of the Church. When her martyrs are most self-sacrificing, her missionaries most daring, her ministers most bold, her members most consecrated, she is, even then, below her standard—she has not fully reached her high calling—to come down from her position would be sin!

God grant us Grace to feel that we have not to drink of an intermittent spring, nor to work for Christ with an occasional industry—but as all fullness dwells in Him—it is ours to believe that today we can have all the blessing of a true revival! That today we can go forward in the power of God! That at this very hour we lack for nothing which can lift the Church into her highest condition of spirituality and power! God grant us to receive Grace for Grace today!

Reference:  "The Fullness of Christ the Treasury of the Saints" (No. 1169), A Sermon delivered on Lord's Day Morning, April 19, 1874 by C. H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. Accessed 12/13/13 from  http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols19-21/chs1169.pdf / HT: Daffyd Morris, who cited a portion of Spurgeon's sermon in his first address "Why Should Jesus Send His Spirit? (1)," given at the 2007 Reformation and Revival Fellowship Conference, which you can access here.

* * *

Luke 11:

1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread,
4 and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’?

8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?

13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Please read Judges 5. Here's Dale Ralph Davis writing on Deborah's song found there:

It is difficult to know whether Yahweh's going forth from Seir and marching from Edom refer to his contemporary coming to the conflict with Sisera or whether the reference is to his ancient coming to his people in Egypt and his meeting with them at Sinai. In any case, there is a clear hint of Yahweh's delivering Israel from Egypt and preserving them in the desert when Deborah refers to Yahweh as 'the One of Sinai.' There he came and met with them; there he had placed them under his law at liberty. But Yahweh – and this is Deborah's point – is not stuck at Sinai. Rather, the God who decisively came to Israel at Sinai comes again and again to the aid of his people in their present troubles. Yahweh is not set in historical concrete at Sinai; rather the One of Sinai is mobile marching forth again and again to rescue his flock....

Times were so bad folks couldn't even travel safely – they had to take the back roads, because thieves and thugs freeloaded on the main highways. Israel was totally defenseless, having neither warriors (v. 71) nor weapons (v. 8b; cf. the later situation under the Philistines in 1 Sam. 13:5-7, 19-22). Sometimes it is only when God's people see how hopeless they are (the picture of vv. 6-8) that they can appreciate how mighty Yahweh is (the picture of vv. 4-5). Desperate people (vv. 6-8) and sufficient God (vv. 4-5) are placed side by side that the former might rest in the latter. The apostle makes the same point in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9. Surely God's afflicted people should derive great comfort from knowing that the God who came to Sinai (or Golgotha) is the God who comes repeatedly to his people in distress. Omnipotence delights in encores.

from Dale Ralph Davis’ “Judges: Such a Great Salvation” (Christian Focus: Fearn, Ross-shire: 2000, reprinted 2003, 2006), 83-84.

Over the past few years, there's been what seems to be an exponential proliferation of Advent devotionals available online. Now, don't get me wrong:  some of these may indeed be good and helpful. However, it's all too easy for us to become nostalgic about these things... we begin to look back at Christ's first coming with a sickly sentimentality. And, before we know it, we may be lulled into seeing Immanuel as set in historical concrete in the manger at Bethlehem and the Holy Spirit as set in historical concrete in the upper room in Jerusalem! When we do so, for all intents and purposes – dare I put it this way – are we not in grave danger of emasculating the Holy One of Israel?! (See Psalm 78, especially verses 40-43ff.)

How many Christians are looking at the current condition of the Church (as well as that of society at large), and looking unto Jesus - our Hope, and pleading day and night with the LORD, that He might have mercy upon us and send the Holy Spirit once again in reviving power to His Church? O, my brothers and sisters in Christ, our God is a God who "delights in encores" – He is a God who delights in mercy and relishes to show Himself strong on behalf of those who hearts are loyal to Him ~ to those who rely upon Him! (Micah 7:14-20; II Chronicles 16:7-10)

Sadly, too many of us forget that "omnipotence delights in encores." We are happy to read about the manger, and we are content to read about the upper room – but these glorious movements of Yahweh do not captivate our minds and stir up our hearts to plead with Him to awake and arise and come down once again as He did at Sinai, Kishon, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem – and as He did countless other times throughout the Bible, as well as throughout Church history. Has He changed? Is the LORD still not good, does His steadfast love not endure forever, does His faithfulness not endure to all generations (Psalm 100:5) - including to His blood-bought flock here in the 21st century?

Isaiah 51:9  Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD;
awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago.
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
that pierced the dragon?
10  Was it not you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the depths of the sea a way
for the redeemed to pass over?
11  And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

And tragically, we don't even have eyes to see that our situation is desperate. And, because we don't see our situation is desperate, we don't see any need to cry out to Almighty God to come again to us in Pentecostal power.

And yet – are we not yet in the last days, and have we not been promised?

Acts 2:37  Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38  And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39  For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

As I was looking up a hymn online, I came across an old hymnal, "The Psalmody:  A Collection of Hymns for Public and Social Worship" (Freewill Baptist Printing Establishment, Dover, N.H., 1853). (You can access the hymnal by clicking here.) In this hymnal, two sections caught my eye: "Dedication" and "Revival." Lord willing, I'm hoping to present a few of these hymns throughout the Advent season. My  prayer is that as you read and reflect upon these hymns, our God might impart to you a clearer sight of our current condition and fuel within you the spirit of unceasing prayer to the LORD to rend the heavens and come down.

Prayer for a Revival
# 818 in "The Psalmody..."
by John Newton

Savior, visit thy plantation;
Grant us, Lord, a gracious rain;
All will come to desolation,
Unless thou return again:
Lord, revive us;
All our help must come from thee.

Surely once thy garden flourished;
Every part looked gay and green
All its plants by thee were nourished
Then how cheering was the scene!
Lord, revive us;
All our help must come from thee.

Keep no longer at a distance;
Shine upon us from on high,
Lest, for want of thine assistance,
Every plant should droop and die.
Lord, revive us;
All our help must come from thee.

Dearest Savior, hasten hither;
Thou canst make them bloom again;
O, permit them not to wither;
Let not all our hopes be vain:
Lord, revive us;
All our help must come from thee.

Let our mutual love be fervent;
Make us prevalent in prayers;
Let each one, esteemed thy servant,
Shun the world's bewitching snares
Lord, revive us;
All our help must come from thee.

Break the tempter's fatal power,
Turn the stony heart to flesh,
And begin, from this good hour,
To revive thy work afresh:
Lord, revive us;
All our help must come from thee.

* * * * * * *

Psalm 34:15  The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.