At the end of 2012, I wrote about the Rev. Nathanael Leonard, who ministered in Plymouth, Massachusetts in the 18th century, and wrote that:

We were sensible of an awful degeneracy, and kept days of fasting and prayer, year after year, that God would pour out his Spirit upon us; especially on the rising generation.

In like manner, in the following century, the Rev. James Haldane Stewart  (1776-1854) was filled with a similar spirit of grace and supplications "year after year." Stewart, who ministered in London and later in Liverpool, traveled extensively and spoke and wrote frequently in order to stir up believers to pray for the Holy Spirit.

For eighteen straight years, from 1837 through 1854, Rev. Stewart wrote and published an "Invitation to Prayer on New Year's Day." These annual papers were exhortations to Christ's Church to gather together to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

However, it was actually years prior to this time when the Lord first began to impress upon Stewart the necessity to pray for Holy Spirit. In his diary on January 1, 1821, Stewart wrote:

After reviewing the past year, I may well call it a year of peculiar mercy. In every way I have received blessings from the Lord. Amongst many other marks of His kindness, I would notice .... giving me a blessing on my journey, putting it into my heart to excite Christians to prayer for the Holy Spirit, and blessing me in my endeavours. . . . . . My great desire at present is to carry into effect the uniting of all Christians in prayer for the Holy Spirit. This engrosses all my wishes; at least, it is the uppermost thought in my mind. It seems to me so great an object, that, though I may proceed but slowly, I shall be richly repaid in the end.

Source:  "Memoir of the Life of the Rev. James Haldane Stewart" by David Dale Stewart, 95-96. (HT for the text: http://books.google.com/books?id=hT4BAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false) // Photo credit: Work found here / PD-100.

I love the story of Stewart for it is a reminder to us (to me!) that the God who calls us to pray for Him will surely be faithful to equip us (me!) year after year after year after year ... 35 years like Stewart ... or even more!

I Thessalonians 5:24  He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

(See also Hebrews 13:20-21; Philippians 2:12-13.)

To consider that Stewart continued to strive faithfully toward this object for 35 years until the year of his death in 1854 is a testimony to the power of God alone... Isaiah 26:12a ... you have done for us all our works. Psalm 115:1: Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

It was about five years ago that God first began to burden me to pray for revival in the Church. A year later, as I recounted that calling in my post here, like Stewart, I alluded to Nehemiah's words in Nehemiah 2:12:

And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. (See Nehemiah 2:9-16.)

At this point, I can only agree with Stewart that my desire for Christians to gather together in prayer is "the uppermost thought in my mind." If you had asked me over five years ago if I had any such desire at all in my mind, I would have had to honestly reply, "No."

I find these words of Stewart a great encouragement:

It seems to me so great an object, that, though I may proceed but slowly, I shall be richly repaid in the end.

As my eyes have been opened to see more clearly the current state of "Jerusalem" (i.e. - the Christian Church), I am increasingly grieved and filled with an even greater urgency to see believers uniting together in prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit – and yet, all the same, I know that there is great wisdom to my proceeding but slowly, being wary that the work of the Spirit is never accomplished by fleshly devices (think Abram, Sarai, and Hagar!), and I am trusting the Lord will have mercy and pity upon His people and pour out of His Spirit once again in His appointed time. There will come a time when the Lord will arise again for the sake of His name – and surely the foretaste and precursor of His coming is when He begins to burden souls to pray for His return in mercy. Writing on Zechariah 3:5, Matthew Henry reminds us that "When God designs the restoring or reviving of religion he stirs up his prophets and people to pray for it, and does it in answer to their prayers."

Zechariah 1:12  Then the angel of the LORD said, ‘O LORD of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?’ 13  And the LORD answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. 14  So the angel who talked with me said to me, ‘Cry out, Thus says the LORD of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. 15  And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. 16  Therefore, thus says the LORD, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it, declares the LORD of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. 17  Cry out again, Thus says the LORD of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.’”

Almighty God, as You strengthened Your servant James Haldane Stewart year after year after year to stir up believers to pray, strengthen me by Your Holy Spirit to persevere with joy in the good work You have appointed to me – for You alone know how often I feel like the desert owl, the lonely sparrow...

Psalm 102:1  Hear my prayer, O LORD;
let my cry come to you!
2  Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!
3  For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
4  My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;
I forget to eat my bread.
5  Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my flesh.
6  I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
like an owl of the waste places;
7  I lie awake;
I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.
8  All the day my enemies taunt me;
those who deride me use my name for a curse.
9  For I eat ashes like bread
and mingle tears with my drink,
10  because of your indignation and anger;
for you have taken me up and thrown me down.
11  My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass.
12  But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever;
you are remembered throughout all generations.
13  You will arise and have pity on Zion;
it is the time to favor her;
the appointed time has come.
14  For your servants hold her stones dear
and have pity on her dust.

O Lord our God, may the reforming and reviving of Zion continue to be "the uppermost thought in my mind" until the appointed time comes for You to favor us!

Psalm 137:5  If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget its skill!
6  Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy!

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!”