How loud is this call to the church of God, to be fervent and incessant in their cries to Him for this great mercy! How wonderful the words used, concerning the manner in which such worms of the dust should address the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity!When we review the picture Isaiah paints of God's vision for His church of a church bright with the light of truth and righteousness, shining the way through the darkness with the beacon of the gospel, a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord displaying His glory and kingdom rule, a people over whom God rejoices, we shake our heads to look at the state of the church of our day. Rather than seeing a church energized and exercised in the redemptive realities and responsibilities that are hers as the covenant people of God, we see a church distracted, lethargic, indifferent, ineffective, withered and stagnant.
The blame falls in the dereliction of the watchmen and their foremen in the priesthood of all believers and the officers God has raised up over them in His visible church. The church has not been faithful in putting God in remembrance, taking no rest, giving Him no rest until we see His church animated and active for the cause of His kingdom. We have been sinfully silent and negligent in our call to be importunate in prayer--insistent before God, bold, expectant, demanding, audacious until He revives His church and makes it a praise in the earth.
Jesus urged us to importunate prayer in the parables of the persistent friend (Luke 11:5-13) and the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). He calls us to pursue God in prayer as One who invites us to hound Him in the outworking of His sovereign purposes.
Yet at the end of the the parable in Luke 18 Jesus closes with a startling, unexpected statement, seemingly a non sequitur: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (v. 8)
I used to think that a strange statement, almost contradicting His assertion that He will lose none of those sheep given Him by the Father and for whom He died. Yet as I see the church's growing lifelessness, prayerlessness and powerlessness it makes we wonder if faith is not flickering. The watchmen are silent. God is not being brought to remembrance by the importunate prayer of His people. The churches flounder. The plant withers. Darkness spreads.
We can only begin on the foot of repentance and plea to God to bring forth its fruit for being the faithful watchmen He calls us to be. As Daniel prayed on behalf of state of God's visible covenant people:
O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.
May God give us no rest in giving Him no rest until His church is renewed, her influence for His kingdom is restored and her faith burns brightly to the glory of God and the gain of the nations.
2 comments:
Very inspiring. Thank you for sharing. We do need to be watchmen, on our knees in prayer. It is so easy to get caught up and distracted by the world. There is so much going on, so much information to sort. It is overwhelming.
Thank you again for allowing me to come to your church (only got a little lost because I didn't drive far enough into town before turning around and asking for directions). I enjoyed meeting everyone and giving my report.
In Christ Alone,
Not only have the watchmen fallen asleep, but they have come down from the wall, removed their armour, thrown away their trumpets and abandoned the call ...why ? because the darkness seems too dark! We have forgotten that we are the carriers of the light shining forth. We have forgotten that what is required is faithfulness and obedience. Lord have mercy upon us.
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