GFA’s vision statement begins with the expression to see a fresh awakening. These words presuppose that many Christians and many churches slumber. Paul wrote to the church at Rome, “it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep” (Romans 13:11, NASB [1]). Apparently, even a church “full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another” (Romans 15:14) can need an awakening.
Is this our need today? Look at the increasing comfort among professing Christians with being entertained by sins that should “not even be named” among believers (Ephesians 5:3–5). Observe the affections and priorities that take the place of seeking first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33), particularly on the Lord’s Day. Ponder our abysmal lack of personal and corporate prayer. Consider our inability to weep over the multitudes who die daily under the eternal wrath of God. Look at the declining number of God-called men who willingly offer themselves as preachers and missionaries. Most of all, ponder our failure to be gripped and shaken in our souls by the reality of unseen things, especially by the grace of Christ and the glory of God Himself. Doubtless, every Christian reader of these words will agree: It is already the hour for us to awaken from sleep.
Throughout history, God has shown His grace and power to awaken His slumbering people. God can move in the hardest hearts, drowsiest churches, and darkest places, and He has occasionally done so in a way that has cast whole communities and even countries under the glorious influence of the Gospel. Martyn Lloyd-Jones reminds us of God’s superior power compared to our feeble efforts: “When God acts, he can do more in a minute than man with his organizing can do in fifty years.” [2] Few things increase our faith like reading of past revivals. Rehearsing God’s past mighty works stirs our hopes and desires for a fresh awakening. We begin to long for God to “rend the heavens and come down” (Isaiah 64:1), and we long to see it today.
God is sovereign over when and where He sends these mighty winds of the Spirit’s power. We cannot orchestrate a revival, but we can and must set our hearts to long for an awakening and to seek one with all our being.
We ought to start with grieving over the absence of spiritual thirst in ourselves and in our ministries. Cowper’s words help:
Where is the blessedness I knew when first I sought the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and His Word? [3]
Take those questions to the Lord. Let Him use them to produce contrition and repentance.
We must increase our attention to the Bible as individuals, families, and churches. God’s words are “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12) in “restoring the soul” (Psalm 19:7).
The passage that calls us to awaken out of sleep motivates us by the nearness of Christ’s coming (Romans 13:11). Let us meditate more on the shortness of the time and the joyful prospect of soon seeing our Savior face to face.
Romans 13 continues by commanding us to put away sin and put on Christ (13:12–14). If we long for a fresh awakening, we must confess and forsake our sins and seek Christ and His character.
Nothing moves our hearts like remembering the grace of God in the Gospel. Paul appeals to us in Romans 12:1–2, “by the mercies of God” that we would present ourselves entirely to Him. We should not allow a day to pass without recalling our slavery to sin and the deserved wrath of God that once was over us, and then with grateful hearts, contemplating by faith the Son of God Who suffered God’s wrath in our place. Turn that gratitude into the prayer of Toplady:
Oh, let that grace inspire my soul with strength divine;
May all my pow’rs to Thee aspire, and all my days be Thine. [4]
Finally, let us plead with God in prayer. He alone can take our efforts and use them for the success of the Gospel. Listen to Andrew Bonar: “My chief desire should be on this day to be a man of prayer, for there is no want of speaking and writing and preaching and teaching and warning; but there is the need of the Holy Spirit to make all this effectual.” [5] God alone can draw sinners to Himself. God alone can call men to preach. God alone can give a burden for the nations that cannot be denied. He can still do more than we can ask or think.
Take Spurgeon’s words to his congregation and apply them to your own life before the Lord:
Oh, it is time, it is high time that the churches were awakened to seek the good of dying myriads. Moreover, brethren, the powers of evil are ever active. We may sleep, but Satan sleepeth never. The church’s plough lies yonder, rusting in the furrow; do you not see it to your shame? But the plough of Satan goes from end to end of his great field, he leaves no headland, but he ploughs deep while sluggish churches sleep. May we be stirred as we see the awful activity of evil spirits and persons who are under their sway.… May God arouse us for his infinite mercy’s sake. [6]
[1] Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation), 1995.
[2] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1987), 133, Kindle.
[3] William Cowper, “Oh! For a Closer Walk with God.”
[4] Augustus Toplady, “Grace! ‘Tis a Charming Sound.”
[5] Marjory Bonar, ed., The Diary and Life of Andrew A. Bonar (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2013), 102.
[6] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Travailing for Souls,” accessed June 15, 2021, https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/travailing-for-souls.
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