by Pastor Tom

Prayer for Revival

“What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” Ps 89:48

You may have heard the report about the four Soccer Camps we recently conducted. Reporting on Sunday morning requires brevity so you mostly heard facts about what it took to get thirty two people to conduct sixty hours of Soccer Camp in four different cities. This is a report on the human side of the equation.

In all, over sixty families sent their children to participate in a three hour camp that included Bible teaching, a gospel presentation and testimonies about Christian athletes. The training theme was titled, “Off the Bench”, which encouraged the children to prepare for the moment they are called off the bench to get into the game, and getting ready for heaven was an easy transition for the teaching time. Soccer was a great draw. The city parks were very cooperative in providing the promotion and space, and the church family was so helpful in the logistics of pulling it off. Our faithful God moved in the hearts of many children to make professions of faith. The names of the children weren’t recorded, but we are in the process of visiting the families who sent their children. So far there have been six professions of faith during the visits, three adults, one high school girl and two children.

As we think about our work as a church, we are driven to plead with God for a harvest of souls. In his book, The Thought Of God, Maurice Roberts encourages us to pray for revival by considering the Psalmist’s own pleading with God. In Ps 89, Ethan the Ezrahite appeals to the eternal transactions between the Father and the Son to save the church and that His eternal attributes of steadfast love and His faithfulness to all generations allow Him to say, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’ ” (vv1-4).

Ethan eventually considers what seems to be a renunciation of these covenants by God because of the apparent plight of God’s people, “But now you have cast off and rejected;

you are full of wrath against your anointed. You have renounced the covenant with your servant.” (vv38-39). But of course, the Psalmist understands the faithfulness of God and the assurance of His trustworthiness; he spends the first 37 verses of the psalm beautifully expressing it. So what is Ethan doing as he closes the Psalm? He is pleading with God for revival. Ethan, inspired by the Holy Spirit, extols the covenant of a faithful God to build His church and then pleads fervently for God to keep His word.

This may seem impertinent to implore the God of all creation to keep His promises, but Ethan’s words serve as a model to us to deeply understand the promises of God and to pray accordingly. “Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Mt 9:38