In my last post, I began to write about extraordinary prayer – specifically about our need for God to pour out His Spirit upon us so we might lament like a virgin (Joel 1:8), to lament "not in an ordinary way" (using the words of John Calvin). In this post, I'm reflecting once again on extraordinary prayer... in particular that extraordinary prayer ought to arise from God's people today because we are living in a day and age in which the judgments of God are extraordinary.

Joel 1 (ESV)

12  The vine dries up;
the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
all the trees of the field are dried up,
and gladness dries up
from the children of man.

13  Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;
wail, O ministers of the altar.
Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God!
Because grain offering and drink offering
are withheld from the house of your God.

14  Consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders
and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the LORD your God,
and cry out to the LORD.

15  Alas for the day!
For the day of the LORD is near,
and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

16  Is not the food cut off
before our eyes,
joy and gladness
from the house of our God?

17  The seed shrivels under the clods;
the storehouses are desolate;
the granaries are torn down
because the grain has dried up.

18  How the beasts groan!
The herds of cattle are perplexed
because there is no pasture for them;
even the flocks of sheep suffer.

19  To you, O LORD, I call.
For fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness,
and flame has burned
all the trees of the field.

20  Even the beasts of the field pant for you
because the water brooks are dried up,
and fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness.

Joel 1 (KJV)

12  The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men. 13  Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.

14  Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD, 15  Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. 16  Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17  The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered. 18  How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19  O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. 20  The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

From John Calvin's commentary on Joel (found here):

~ (Calvin's Lecture Fortieth. HT: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/m.sion/cvjoe-03.htm, emphasis mine)

Some of you here in the West may wonder why I refer to "extraordinary" judgments of God coming upon us at this time, or as Calvin put it "not usual" and "did not happen according to the ordinary course"... I do so because we are now witnessing that even the lushest pasture-lands, especially on mountains, and those mountainous regions that we have known to be ever green are currently in the process of being burnt up... More specifically, denomination after denomination, as well as congregation after congregation, as well as individual Christian after individual Christian which were once lush and green are now being burnt up... In Joel 2:3, we read these alarming words:

Fire devours before them,
and behind them a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them,
but behind them a desolate wilderness,
and nothing escapes them.

Not one of us is immune from this. Let none of us be like the prideful Southern Kingdom who thought they were safe and they would escape the judgment of God, even though they were warned by the words of the prophets time and time again, even though they were warned by the example of the Northern Kingdom taken into captivity years beforehand. Know this: there has been a continuing slide and decline taking place in Christianity. Those who were once renowned for being holy and solid in both doctrine and practice have now become a people of loose doctrine and loose practice, so we can rightly say with the apostle Paul:

Romans 1:24  For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

* * *

Holy Father, the cries of the lowly and brute beasts serve as a right rebuke to us whenever we are at ease in Zion, whenever our hearts are not overflowing with extraordinary prayer to You in these days of Your extraordinary judgments. Our merciful and gracious God, open our understanding as to our own current condition, for apart from Your enlightening us, we will remain blind and hardened and unrepentant and stupid. We long to be like children of Issachar and have a right understanding of the times. For Jesus' name sake, give eye salve to Your people (and particularly to Your undershepherds), so we might anoint our eyes to be discerning and to see these judgments for what they are: as extraordinary and unusual – so our hearts might be broken and contrite as we see the shriveling seed, the desolate storehouses, the torn-down granaries, and the dried up grain, that we might lament with an extraordinary lamentation, for it is the time for us to cry out, to cry out to You, O LORD!

Regardless of what anyone else is doing, as Your Holy Spirit imparts to us a spiritual sight and a heart sense of Your extraordinary judgments, may our mouths be filled to overflowing with extraordinary prayer to You, O LORD. May we keep our hearts with diligence, for out of our broken, trembling, and contrite hearts our mouths will pray! ~ Proverbs 4:23, Luke 6:45. May our mouths be filled with pants and groans to You, O LORD, as were the mouths of the beasts! May our mouths be filled with cries and calls to You, O LORD, as was the mouth of Joel!

May we be careful and take heed to the examples of the beasts and of Joel. These things have been written for our example. May we humble ourselves before You as we ought, and rend our hearts, repent of our wicked ways, and turn to You with all our heart. We are Your people bought with the precious blood of Jesus, and we are called by Your name. We appeal to You not because of anything in ourselves, for no good thing dwells in us – but we appeal to Your mercies for Jesus' sake, for You, O LORD, are gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Will You not relent and leave a blessing behind You so that Your name, O God, might no longer be blasphemed, but would be praised among all the nations because of us?

“... Spare your people, O LORD,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’” ~ Joel 2:17

"If God's ministers cannot prevail to affect others with the discoveries of divine wrath, yet they ought to be themselves affected with them; if they cannot bring others to cry to God, yet they themselves be much in prayer. In time of trouble we must not only pray, but cry, must be fervent and importunate in prayer; and to God, from whom both the destruction is and the salvation must be, ought our cry to be always directed."

~ from Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Joel 1

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

I've been focusing over the past few weeks on Nehemiah 8 and 9 and have been leading us in prayers that God's Holy Spirit might work in His people a greater desire for the Lord and His Word and for God to send us His servants to preach and teach the Word of God uncompromisingly and clearly, with Holy Spirit authority, power and boldness.

• May we gather as one man to hear Your Word (Nehemiah 8)
• Give us ears to be attentive to Your words alone (Nehemiah 8:3)
• one sign of revival: attentiveness to the Word of God (Whitefield's Journals)
• "People cannot take preaching...People are dying through lack of knowledge." (ML-J)
• pray for ministers to read from the book clearly, give the sense & understanding - Neh. 8:8
• Awaken a hunger for Biblical preaching (accounts of revival in Virginia in the late 18th c.)
• Forgive us, Holy Spirit, for grieving You, for not paying attention to Your Word
• Forgive us, Holy Spirit, for grieving You by despising the gift of Your Word
• May we increasingly desire to understand & study Your Word (Neh. 8:13)
• "not only in word" - send Your Holy Spirit so we might proclaim Your Gospel in power

As the Word of God is preached in the power of God, the Holy Spirit will convict men of sin, but for those who are in Jesus Christ there is no condemnation. Today I'm going to touch a little on the confession and repentance that will come as a result of the Holy Spirit's work through the preaching the Word, but for today I would like to focus more on the gift of assurance God makes available to those who are in Christ. In a future post, I hope to look at Nehemiah and reflect more on confession and repentance of sin at that time.

Nehemiah 8:8  They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

9  And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. 10  Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” 11  So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” 12  And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

Holy God,

Right preaching, teaching and understanding of Your Word come through Your Holy Spirit, and as Your Spirit moves, we will experience grief, weeping, confession and repentance over our sin and our sinfulness, much like the Israelites did here. After all, Your Spirit is Holy and Your desire for us is to be a holy nation. After all, You loved us so much that You sent Your Son to die for our sin so we might be reconciled to You. Apart from Your provision for us in Christ, we would remain separated from You, but now we are Yours, fully justified in Your sight by Christ's blood and being sanctified through Christ's Spirit. We praise You that in Your great love toward us, Your manifold mercies and You sovereign grace, You called us out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light, and You gave us ears to hear and hearts to respond to Your call, so we might be saved and become Your children.

In a similar manner, we see Israel responding in weeping and grief as they heard Your Word. We see how they were convicted of their sin and their sinfulness. Not long after this (Nehemiah 9) we see Your appointed leaders leading Your people in corporate confession of sin. We thank You that we see these responses here as well as elsewhere in Your Word. May we never shrink back from preaching Your Word, all of Your Word, including the clear teaching of Your holiness and Your call to holiness, confession and repentance of our sin. A true understanding of You and Your Word will produce true confession of sin which will bear fruits worthy of repentance.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a Gospel not only of remission of sins but also of repentance (Luke 24:44-49). We praise You, O God, for Your kindness that has led us to repentance. Apart from Your turning us toward You, we could never turn to You.

Yet, Holy Father, we see how Israel was not supposed to grieve that same day, and then again the second day they were to begin the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. After the grief and weeping here it would make sense for us to go to Nehemiah 9 and say, "Now here's the full-blown confession and repentance of sin," but that's not what we have here.

The first thing we see right after the grief, mourning and brokenness over sin is Your directing Your leaders to help Your people to rejoice in You and Your goodness to them. They were reminded the joy of the Lord was their strength. They were to celebrate Your provision by sharing with others. And during the Feast of Tabernacles they were to commemorate how You were faithful to provide for them in the wilderness. There's a clear affirmation that though all of us have sinned, though all of us deserve to be condemned, though none of us deserves anything (not even a crumb) from Your gracious and merciful hand, though we were not worthy to be children of God, yet You have loved us because You loved us. O, yes, we have greatly sinned, but we do have great cause for rejoicing! You died for us while we were yet sinners, and You made us children of God. We praise You that in Jesus Christ there is complete forgiveness and cleansing, there is no condemnation for those who are God's elect through Your covenant mercies showered down on us in Jesus Christ. It is finished!

Lord God, may all of us come to a greater understanding of the precious gift of full assurance of forgiveness and cleansing of sins for all who have come by grace through faith to believe Your Son is the propitiation for our sins – all our sins: past, present and future. Christ was condemned in our place for our sin, so we might be set free from the penalty and power of sin as well as the guilt of sin to be free to live lives holy to You. Yes, we should and must be grieved over and confess and repent of our sin, not only at our conversion but throughout all our lives. Yes, we must be seeking to be holy as You are holy, for Your will for us is sanctification and without holiness we cannot see You. God forbid we would presume upon Your mercies and trample upon Christ's blood and be deceived and believe we can remain in sin so grace might abound. Protect us from turning Your grace into licentiousness. Yes, we need to be on guard against sin, putting off our sin and putting on Christ. Yet we so desire You would show us the joy and peace You want us to have who have trusted in Christ. O, that we might truly know the breadth and length and depth and height of Your love for us in Jesus Christ. O, that we might know the freedom we have in Christ not only in our heads but also in our hearts. May Your joy be our strength!

Lord God, send us pastors and teachers after Your own heart, those who have been broken by You and have wept in true contrition over their sin and sinfulness and have come to receive the gift of joy of Your salvation. We are distressed when people try to keep Your flock bound and held captive by stirring up false guilt over their sin rather than reassuring them of the all-sufficient work of Christ on their behalf. We are distressed when there is more emphasis on works rather than grace. We are distressed when the gift of salvation is distorted into a quid pro quo. We are distressed when we see Christians who have not known the joy of their salvation. Raise up for us pastors and teachers who will remind us of the boldness, assurance and confidence that is available to all of us who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus' desire is that our joy be full, but how can our joy be full if we never hear that there is forgiveness full and free in Jesus Christ? How can the good news really be good if Christ did not pay the penalty for our sin once for all? How many good works do we have to do to atone for our sin? Chief Shepherd, look with favor on us and guard and protect us from such teachers. May we each be able to rest completely in Your gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Yes, we must be grieved over our sin and confess it. Yes, we must be walking in good works. Yes, we must be working out our salvation with fear and trembling, but our works will not save us, but such works will grow as fruit of a regenerate heart; they will the evidence of the new life You have imparted to us in Jesus Christ.

We see that after the great conviction of sin, there was very great rejoicing! Very great!

13  On the second day the heads of fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Law. 14  And they found it written in the Law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, 15  and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written.” 16  So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. 17  And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. 18  And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. They kept the feast seven days . . .

O, certainly there can and should be very great rejoicing in the Christian life. Very great! Yes, we should and must very greatly mourn and weep over our sin, because we have sinned greatly...yet You did a very great thing for us in providing atonement for our sin through Jesus Christ and then imputing Christ's righteousness to us by faith! A very great thing! May we respond with very great rejoicing to Your very great provision for our sin!

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

O, Holy, Holy, Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly and yet in Your love, mercy and grace, You provided the sin offering we could never provide: the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect, spotless Lamb of God!

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

O, what kind of God are You! Holy, Holy, Holy! We were an unclean things and all of our righteousness was filthy rags! We were dead in our sins, helpless, powerless and weak. There was no intercessor. There was no mediator. There was no hope. And yet...in the fullness of time, Holy God, You provided the Lamb to die for our sin, to make us holy, to make us the righteousness of God! You were just and justifier. You are both Judge and Advocate. You are our High Priest and atoning sacrifice! We praise and thank You. We rejoice greatly in the salvation You alone could provide!

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

O, teach us to rejoice in the salvation You purchased for us on the cross! Even as we weep over our sin, show us Your love, mercy and grace in Jesus Christ! May we never despair over our sin, but continue to look to the cross, to look to Your full provision for all our sin. Help us to know the full assurance of the pardon You purchased for us at Calvary! May we continue to soak ourselves in Your Word and Your truth about who we are in Christ, to remind us of the work You have already accomplished once for all for us. Our sins which were once scarlet have become white as snow because the spotless Lamb became sin for us. You have cast our sins into the sea. As far as the east is from the west, so far have You removed our transgressions from us. You have said You will remember our sins no more! May we come to You unashamed, because You are not ashamed of us. May we come boldly to You and cry out, "Abba, Father!" Speak to us, Holy Spirit, write these truths in our minds and on our hearts that we are the children of God. May we rejoice in the redemption You purchased for us. May we rejoice in You, O loving, merciful and gracious God! Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah! What a Savior! Amen and Amen.

Holy God, we confess we have sinned greatly, very greatly.
Forgive us our sins, O very great God!
Yet, Your provision for our sin has been very great. You sent Your only begotten Son to die for us.
Let there be great rejoicing in our hearts! O, let us rejoice with very great rejoicing!
May Your joy be our strength!

Please add your prayers as the Spirit leads you. If you are having troubling understanding the assurance of forgiveness available to all who are in Christ, please go to God and ask Him to grant You the gift of assurance God has purchased for You through Jesus Christ. I also invite you to message me and/or to read my posts on my other site on assurance and assurance and fighting for joy.

During the past couple weeks I have been focusing here on the need for us to pray for Biblical preaching to be restored to the Church:

• May we gather as one man to hear Your Word (Nehemiah 8)
• Give us ears to be attentive to Your words alone (Nehemiah 8:3)
• one sign of revival: attentiveness to the Word of God (Whitefield's Journals)
• "People cannot take preaching...People are dying through lack of knowledge." (ML-J)
• pray for ministers to read from the book clearly, give the sense & understanding - Neh. 8:8

During that time, the main Scripture text I have had us focus on has been the first portion of Nehemiah 8:

Nehemiah 8:1  And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. 2  So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. 3  And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. 4  And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand, and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand. 5  And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. 6  And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. 7  Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. 8  They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

For too long Biblical preaching has been jettisoned by many in the Church all in the name of growing the Church. There is a desire to attract people to the Church, but we know that the message of the cross, the message of the helplessness and sinfulness of man is not an attractive message. The cross is an offense and Christ is the stumbling stone. We are never to make growing the Church our primary goal. The only thing that will truly attract people to the Church and to Jesus Christ Himself is the work of the Spirit of God Himself in the human heart, to bring brokenness, a spirit of repentance, poverty of spirit and the soul hunger for the salvation found in Jesus Christ alone. If we faithfully pray and lift up Christ and Him crucified, we can trust that the Holy Spirit will draw those whom He is calling to Himself.

Let us never compromise, minimize or dumb down the preaching the Word of God in the name of Church growth or for expediency, popularity, trendiness or to gain favor with men. We are dealing with the eternal fate of the souls of men and women and boys and girls here! We're to be making disciples, not merely adding to the church rolls. The Church is not a business and must never be run based on surveys or what people say they want. God has made it clear what He wants: His Gospel to be preached to the ends of the earth to His glory! And, let us be clear about this: the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation! Yes, it's true that we may very well grow the Church in numbers through many, many other means, but how deep and lasting can such growth be if it is not rightly and solidly rooted in the right preaching of the Word of God? We need to beware of building on the sand and not on the Rock. We may very well have many souls come in through our church doors, but we must ask how many of those have truly entered into the straight and narrow gate and come into the Kingdom of God by grace through faith through the work of the Holy Spirit?

I still intend this site to be a springboard to prayer for revival. Because of that I've primarily posted prayers based on Scripture to help lead you (and me) in prayer for revival, but I have broken with that a few times, including a couple times as of late. On occasion (including today), I have brought you some exhortations and some accounts of God's past workings in Church history because I have come to see that besides reading the Bible and seeing God's hand working powerfully among His people there to revive them (including in this account in Nehemiah), another great impetus to prayer for revival is for us to look back at the history of revival in the Church. As the apostle Paul wrote about the Old Testament history of the Church, the same thing is true of all the history of the church: that these things are written as examples for us.

With that in mind, today I ask you to read a couple accounts of revival in 18th century Virginia. (The following excerpts are from Iain Murray's "Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858," Banner of Truth Trust (Edinburgh: 1994, reprinted 1996).) My hope and prayer is that as you read and prayerfully consider these and reflect on them, the Holy Spirit will spur you on to pray for revival, and specifically to pray that God would awaken a hunger for Biblical preaching in the Church and the Word of God would be given its rightful place again in the Church all to God's praise, honor and glory. (Please note: since tent of meeting is a site I would like to keep devoted to prayer for revival, if you do wish to discuss these things further, I do invite you to message me and/or check out my other blogs here and here, where I do post on some of these things from time to time. Thank you.)