“Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.
And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.
And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.” (Leviticus 6:9-11)
I can’t help getting a picture in my mind as I read this of those old fashioned prayer warriors who would take their burden for revival to that secret place in God and burn like a fire all night long in a holy sacrifice until they were left prostrate in consecrated hot ashes before the Throne of God in the morning.
One of the hardest things to get across to most churches when I am preaching revival is this concept of deep prevailing prayer that finds an agonizing place of travail before the Throne of God. It is easy to relay the principles of revival. I’ve practically got all the chapters memorized. I can show anyone the blueprints for revival that God has written into His Word. I can even tell you in passionate terms what the price for revival entails. But what I cannot do is insert that deep abiding burden for souls into someone’s heart – the kind of burden that drives you to travailing agony before God. God has to do that.
Throughout history, every revival has been preceded by faithful souls in travailing prayer. This is not the quick and efficient microwave prayers that we are used to in church. Those are convenient, but not effective. Neither is it repetitious chanting asking for the same thing over and over again like a tape recorder. Those prayers lack the passion that drives through the barriers of spiritual warfare that hang over you. No, travailing prayer is like what a woman goes through in childbirth. This is a total commitment of heart, body, mind, and soul in an agonizing labor to take hold of the hem of God’s robe and bring forth a living child. Revivals are only borne from such prayer.
Only those whom God has carefully chosen can fulfill such a calling. It is far too deep and heavy for mere mortal man to bear without the power of God’s Holy Spirit. Just as the priests could not carry the Ark of the Covenant without the assistance of the Spirit, so these secret warriors are driven to depths of agonizing prayer by the One who agonized before them on Calvary.
When we find sacrificial saints who become so consumed in the fire of prayer that there is nothing left by morning but hot ashes with the coals of fire still in them, then and only then, can we expect revival.
This is the heart and soul of true revival – not the showy expositions that the “would-be” revival preachers today are giving us. Yelling “Fire, fire, fire!” does not bring down the fire of God. He is not amused with such cheap antics. Neither is God impressed with your efforts to show how powerful you are by pushing people to the floor to get them to be “slain”. Neither will making a show of the gift of healing bring repentance to a church who has lost her way in a Laodicean complacency.
The big names in today’s Charimatic movement are more show than substance, more circus than church, or as Ravenhill put it, more Hollywood than holiness. How can we not be ashamed of our carnal attempts to circumvent the sacrifice that burns us to ashes?
Only travail and agony bring forth birth. God does not deal in C-Sections.
“Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” (Matt. 9:37,38)
Brother Dale