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.)

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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.

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"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.

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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!”

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.)

Over the past week or so, I've been rereading the letter I'd written just about a year ago to a few members of our congregation to invite them to pray for revival. In it I'd written:

 ~ Please see my post: update: tent of meeting 3+ years later ~ "praying for a revival of religion"

As I was rereading and reflecting on that Scripture from Luke 11, first, that phrase because of his impudence struck me... and second, the phrase whatever he needs... And then, the conclusion came:

Will we ever be impudent in praying for the Holy Spirit if we don't see our need of the Holy Spirit?

Can we presume upon God and expect His Holy Spirit to be poured down upon us in reformation and revival if we are not praying as we ought? (Yes, I know God is sovereign, but, as I mentioned above, we are responsible to use the means He provides.)

From Strong's Concordance, the Greek word for "need" is chreizo, meaning "to make (i.e. have) necessity, i.e. be in want of:--(have) need."

Revelation 3:15  “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17  For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20  Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21  The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

May our gracious and merciful God open our eyes to see our spiritual pride. May He humble us and show us how wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked we really are, so we might see our desperate need of His Holy Spirit and cry out to Him in repentance. May God pour out upon us a spirit of holy impudence in prayer for His Holy Spirit. My brothers and sisters, through the body and blood of Jesus, we are not merely going to a friend's house to ask for bread – but through the precious blood of the spotless Lamb, we now have the privilege to go with holy boldness into the Most Holy Place, to the throne of God and plead there with The Friend who sticks closer than a brother and pray to our Heavenly Father with impudence and importunity for what we need. Has He ever been a wilderness or a land of darkness to us? Is He not the Father of lights, from whom every good and perfect give comes?

Jeremiah Lanphier: "as often as I see my need of help"

As I was considering how vital it is for us to know our need, so we might pray as we ought - so we might pray impudently, I was reminded of the account of Jeremiah Lanphier, a man who saw his own need and the Church's need of the Holy Spirit. In New York City, God used this man to spark the Laymen's Prayer Revival (1857-58), which impacted countless souls in the United States and across the world.

On 1st July, 1857, a quiet and zealous business man named Jeremiah Lanphier took up an appointment as a City Missionary in down-town New York. Lanphier was appointed by the North Church of the Dutch Reformed denomination. This church was suffering from depletion of membership due to the removal of the population from the down-town to the better residential quarters, and the new City Missionary was engaged to make diligent visitation in the immediate neighbourhood with a view to enlisting church attendance among the floating population of the lower city. The Dutch Consistory felt that it had appointed an ideal layman for the task in hand, and so it was.

Burdened so by the need, Jeremiah Lanphier decided to invite others to join him in a noonday prayer-meeting, to be held on Wednesdays once a week. He therefore distributed a handbill:

HOW OFTEN SHALL I PRAY?

As often as the language of prayer is in my heart;
as often as I see my need of help;
as often as I feel the power of temptation;
as often as I am made sensible of any spiritual declension
or feel the aggression of a worldly spirit.
In prayer we leave the business of time for that of eternity,
and intercourse with men for intercourse with God. . .

... Accordingly at twelve noon, 23rd September, 1857 the door was opened and the faithful Lanphier took his seat to await the response to his invitation …. Five minutes went by. No one appeared. The missionary paced the room in a conflict of fear and faith. Ten minutes elapsed. Still no one came. Fifteen minutes passed. Lanphier was yet alone. Twenty minutes; twenty-five; thirty; and then at 12.30 p.m., a step was heard on the stairs, and the first person appeared, then another, and another, and another, until six people were present and the prayer meeting began. On the following Wednesday, October 7th, there were forty intercessors.

Thus in the first week of October 1857, it was decided to hold a meeting daily instead of weekly ….

Within six months, ten thousand business men were gathering daily for prayer in New York, and within two years, a million converts were added to the American churches ….

Undoubtedly the greatest revival in New York's colourful history was sweeping the city, and it was of such an order to make the whole nation curious. There was no fanaticism, no hysteria, simply an incredible movement of the people to pray...

~ Source: J. Edwin Orr, "The Light of the Nations," pp. 103-105, cited in http://www.intheworkplace.com/apps/articles/default.asp?articleid=51927&columnid=1935 - retrieved July 25, 2013 (boldface mine). I would encourage you to read more about the Laymen's Prayer Revival at that site and elsewhere.

~ A personal note:  I'd previously read about Lanphier and the Laymen's Prayer Revival, but as I was recently rereading some of the accounts, it thrilled me to notice Lanphier was 47 or 48 years old when all of this was taking place (he was born in 1809) ... since I'll be turning 55 next month, and God only began to burden me with the need to pray in the past few years! As many of the saints have been known to say, we're immortal till our work is done!

Psalm 138:8
The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Amen.

~ Psalm 115:2 ~

May God be pleased to use these words to show more and more of His people their need of help, that the language of prayer might be in our hearts, so we might speedily go into our closets and seek the Lord (both as individuals & as well as in concert with others), leaving the business of time for eternity, and intercourse with men for intercourse with God. May God guard and strengthen us, that we might not be followers of the Laodiceans, but see our need of Him and pray with impudence like Jeremiah Lanphier.

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