This may be a controversial statement, but God answered our prayer by allowing Covid-19. He is still answering our prayer. Going even further, we are praying that God keeps shaking this world.
I attend a smaller church in Duluth, MN. This last winter, we had an Evangelist come through and preach on revival. He told a story of a small church that actually saw revival. Their church ended up growing exponentially and winning many souls to Christ. Some other pastors contacted the pastor of that church and asked, “How did it happen? Why did he (the pastor) think the church saw revival?” He was reluctant to respond, but after they pressed him, he told the other pastors that a small men’s group had been praying for revival. The men had started meeting on Monday nights and praying together for revival in the church. The pastor then added that the men had been praying for 25 years.
Boom, the conviction! Did my church really desire to see revival? Did I personally desire to see revival? Did we really desire to see revival in the United States or even the world?
As a result, the men of our church started a men’s revival prayer meeting on Tuesday nights.
In this region, people are very hard-hearted. They are multi-generational Catholics and Lutherans. They don’t want to hear the Gospel, and while our door-knocking had resulted in a slow stream of souls being won to Christ, we were hoping for softer hearts.
We needed God to move as only He can. We needed God to soften hearts as only He can.
…So, we prayed. The Tuesday men’s prayer meeting focused on asking God for a shaking that would soften the hearts of the lost as well as wake up the Christians who were sleeping. Our church ended up adding fasting on Tuesdays to go along with the prayer meeting.
We prayed for a shaking that would shake the United States and this entire world. We prayed for God to move the hearts of mankind as only He could.
God answered prayer! Not to our merit, but to His glory, 2020 has been an incredible year and a wonderful year. We have seen prayer after prayer answered, and God has really softened hearts. We have seen souls saved.
We are still praying that God keeps shaking this world.
Why?
To see the lost shaken out of their comfort and hardness to spiritual matters.
To glorify God and draw all mankind to Jesus.
To see a refining in Christians.
To have a focus on the eternal rather than the temporal.
Biblical Perspective
Some of the statements above are very counter to the wishes of lost mankind and counter to the prayers of many Christians. What is pleasing to God? Does God desire Christians and churches that would rather sacrifice the open hearts of the lost for a comfortable life?
I John 2:15 – “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
As announced on radio programs and online, some Christian denominations and organizations started prayer initiatives to ask God to reverse COVID, stop the protests, and calm the crazy weather events. It seems many Christians want to go back to how life was in the “old norm.” Many churches were filled with people who had no intention of doing anything for God. Lost people were enjoying life with their boats, cars, houses, and all manner of distractions. Most people, including Christians, had a general hardness to the true Biblical life of a Christian.
What are true Biblical Christians to be? We are to be living sacrifices for God.
Romans 12:1 – “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
I Corinthians 6:19-20 – “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Our focus and desire should not be to get back to the old comfortable life, but to go anywhere and do anything in the service of our Saviour. We should also be willing to go through anything as a servant of God. I heard an old quote that says, “People don’t turn to God on the mountaintops; they turn to God in the valleys.”
This world is in a wonderful valley! This is a time to reach the lost like no other time.
Please don’t pray that life will go back to “normal,” but that God would be glorified and souls would be drawn to Jesus in these “gloriously dark” days.
(“Gloriously dark” was a term I heard from Adrian Rogers years ago. The term describes the combination of how as the world falls increasingly into darkness and rebellion, we can see the brightness of Jesus’ glory drawing nearer in His return.)
These are also prophetic days. This age is certainly drawing to the very end. Christians, for the last 2,000 years, have lived and died desiring to see the return of Jesus. We will very likely see it. Additionally, some may not know that Jesus has been waiting for 2,000 years for us to see His glory as well!
John 17:24 – “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”
Jesus wants you to see His glory! Hopefully, today will be the day!