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.

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

If you've been following this blog for any period of time, you know that in addition to the Bible itself, God has greatly used the reading of Church history to the nourishment of my soul. The Protestant Reformation was just one of a series of revivals our God has used throughout the history of His people to reform, renew, and revive His languishing Church.

My friends, we are in very great need of another such reformation. Today, as we commemorate Martin Luther's nailing the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg door in 1517, as we must be sobered as we look out upon evangelical Christianity and find very few professing Christians who have any real awareness of the need. The valley is full of bones, and the bones are very many and very dry. And yet, our God is the God whose Spirit blew in the midst of that valley and raised the dead to life, and our God is the God who came down in the 15th and 16th centuries and brought light after darkness! Post tenebras lux!

I recently came across a book by Gilbert Wardlaw (1798-1873). Wardlaw was a minister of the Gospel in Edinburgh in the 19th century. Since I am in constant prayer and on the constant look-out for encouragements to spur me on to persevere in prayer, I couldn't help but be drawn to the book:  "Testimony of Scripture to the Obligations and Efficacy of Prayer; More Especially of Prayer for the Gift of the Holy Spirit:  In Three Discourses."

After reading a short bit of the book, I actually jumped to a section at the end of the book entitled "Note, on Revivals of Religion." I hope to bring you a couple excerpts from that portion of the book, beginning with one today. My prayer is that God might use Wardlaw's words to encourage you to persevere in prayer and faithfully labor toward the revival we so desperately need.  James 5:7  Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 8  Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh...  10  Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. 11  Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy...16 ... The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 17  Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. 18  And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (KJV)

NOTE, ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION. Of those awakenings in religion, which have been generally called revivals, some have no other conception than of scenes of fanaticism and enthusiastic extravagance. Even among many really religious persons in this country [Scotland], a considerable degree of misconception and prejudice on this subject, there is reason to apprehend, prevails. It may be of use to suggest to the attention of such a few considerations, and details of facts, which may tend to show that the prejudice which exists is unfounded, and stands greatly in the way of the most substantial interests of true religion.

In the first place, general principles are decidedly in favour of the reality and advantage of revivals. A revival has been defined, "the work of the Holy Spirit carried on to a greater extent than usual, in the conversion of sinners and the edification of believers." In this there is surely no thing which ought to awaken prejudice in the minds of any who know what the work of the Spirit is. That this work should be more powerful and extensive in a religious community at one time than at another, we might expect from considering the course of religion in the minds of individuals, and what has been seen in the church in all ages. The life of a believer is one of continual backsliding, to a greater or less extent, and of continual recoveries from backsliding. The history of the church has, from the beginning, been one of the same kind. This is strikingly seen in the case of the children of Israel, in their successive apostasies from God, and their successive reformations; and it has been not less conspicuous in the New Testament church, since it was planted, to this day. The prophets laboured to produce revivals of religion; John the baptist preached for the same object; the day of Pentecost was a remarkable revival of religion; the epistles to the seven churches in Asia were designed to recal them to their first love; the successive witnesses for Christ in the dark ages of papal usurpation were the instruments of successive revivals; the protestant reformation consisted of a number of great revivals in different countries; the religious impulses since given to the church by remarkable individuals, and by several separating bodies of Christians, were occasions of religious revival. In short, there never has been seen in the church that steady and orderly progress of religion, to the idea of which many Christians are so partial. When most prejudiced against revivals, it is probable that we then stand most in need of them. In all times and circumstances, there has existed in the church — and the lessson which it teaches is a most affecting one — a constant tendency to relapse and decline; and true religion has been kept alive in our sinful world by a series of successive recoveries.

Nor is there any thing in the rapid spread of religious excitement from one to another on these occasions, which ought at all to excite our incredulity as to its genuineness. God has been, in all times, the hearer of prayer. When one Christian has been awakened from slumber, his prayers ascend to God for others around him, and he uses means for impressing divine truth upon their hearts; his prayers and endeavours are successful; praying souls are multiplied; and, in answer to prayer, the Spirit of God is shed forth abundantly both on the church and the world.

~ From Gilbert Wardlaw's "Testimony of Scripture to the Obligations and Efficacy of Prayer; More Especially of Prayer for the Gift of the Holy Spirit:  In Three Discourses" (Edinburgh: Waugh & Innes, 1829), 155-158. (HT for the text: https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=IicQAAAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PP9)

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May our God who has awakened us from slumber, awaken others from slumber. May our God who never sleeps nor slumbers, keep us awake and alert and watching and laboring on the wall. May our God, who ever lives to intercede for us, finish the work He has begun in us, and in His time, shine His face once again upon His Church and revive us again, to the praise of His glorious grace. May the Lamb receive the reward of His sufferings, for He alone is worthy! (Psalm 121; Isaiah 62:6-7; Ephesians 6:17-18; Philippians 1:6.)

Continuing on from my last posts (here and here) about extraordinary prayer based on John Calvin's commentary on Joel...

Here's Calvin introducing the second chapter of Joel:

     This chapter contains serious exhortations, mixed with threatening; but the Prophet threatens for the purpose of correcting the indifference of the people, whom we have seen to have been very tardy to consider God's judgments. Now the reason why I wished to join together these eleven verses was, because the design of the Prophet in them is no other than to stir up by fear the minds of the people. The object of the narrative then is, to make the people sensible, that it was now no time for taking rest; for the Lord, having long tolerated their wickedness, was now resolved to pour upon them in full torrent his whole fiery. This is the sum of the whole. Let us now come to the words.

Source: John Calvin's Commentary on Joel, Part 4, Lecture Forty-first, on Joel 2:1-11, found at http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/m.sion/cvjoe-04.htm, boldface mine.

Matthew Henry begins his commentary on Joel 2 with these words (italics mine):

Here we have God contending with his own professing people...

It's far too tempting for us as Christians to shut our ears to God's call to us to repent. We look at the world, and we see their sins, but all the while we remain hardened and blinded to our own sins and to our own sinfulness. Amos 3:1 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt...

O LORD our God, forgive us our indifference, our stupidity, and our tardiness in considering Your extraordinary judgments upon us. Forgive us for turning our backs upon You, and spurning You and Your ways. Be kind to us, soften our hearts, and give us ears to hear Your warning trumpet being blown before us – Your people who are part of Your Church. At this time, our wickedness is extraordinary; therefore Your call to us to repent is extraordinary.

By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have been delivered from slavery to sin, self, the flesh, the world, and the devil. We have been united with Christ in His death and in His resurrection, so we might walk in newness of life, to be separated unto You, to offer ourselves as slaves of righteousness, and to bear fruit to holiness (~ Romans 6:1-7:6) – and yet so often we do not walk as we have learned so in Christ. We have been redeemed in order to be a holy and peculiar people, and yet we walk according to the lusts of our flesh, rather than in Your Spirit. We continue to think and act and speak as if we have never been redeemed. All too often we go back to "Egypt":  we yoke ourselves with the world and imbibe the spirit of this age; we follow the prince of the power of the air, rather than coming out and being separate and showing ourselves to be Your sons and daughters (~ II Corinthians 6:11-7:1). "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" ~ Amos 3:3, KJV.

May we not be deceived by a false sense of  security and assurance. May we not be lulled into a deadly sleep of presumption. May Your Holy Spirit make us sensible that now is not the time for us to take rest, but to prostrate ourselves before You in confession and repentance for our wickedness. Give us eyes to see and hearts to know and to acknowledge our transgressions, that we might confess our sin as evil, and justify Your judgments against us (Psalm 51). Grant us a godly sorrow like the Corinthians exhibited (II Corinthians 7), so we might prove that we have not received Your grace in vain. Work in us a godly sorrow that produces repentance unto salvation. May our repentance be deep and not superficial. Turn us and we will turn to You with all our hearts. May we rend our hearts and not our garments. May we tremble at Your Word. May our hearts be broken and our spirits contrite.

Your trumpet is not being blown among the nations – but among Your holy nation. Your trumpet is not being blown in the world – but in Zion, in Your holy mountain. We are Your people called by Your name, and because we have turned away from You, You are pleading with us to turn to You and to rend our hearts and return to You. You are gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love! Though we are unworthy, though we have engaged in extraordinary wickedness, for the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, for the sake of Your holy name among the nations, because of Your great mercies, we are fleeing to You! Holy Father, may You be zealous for us, pity us, and relent and leave a blessing behind You, for Your mercies in Jesus Christ are extraordinary!

Psalm 103
8  The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9  He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
10  He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12  as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13  As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
14  For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.

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* Please add your PRAYERS below as God's Holy Spirit leads you. *