“Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (Psalms 85:6)
The prayers of Scripture, like its promises, never grow old. They deal not with the changing circumstances of life, but with its living heart and abiding needs. So this prayer of the old psalmist is as fresh and fit for our lips today, as when the ink was wet in which he wrote. The same Spirit who inspired him also “helpeth our infirmities.”
The word “revival” has come to be often used for a season of extraordinary religious activity, attended by numerous conversions. But it properly means the quickening, strengthening, elevating, of life already possessed; but perhaps feeble, declining, threatened with extinction. This must be God’s work, by the power of his Spirit. All life, natural and spiritual, is from God. At the back of all force is his power; at the back of all causation, his will; at the back of all law, his wisdom.
But there is this wonderful and glorious difference between the realm of natural and of spiritual life – in the material world we have to deal with laws; the power working under and behind those laws is hidden. But in spiritual life it is just God’s power we have to deal with. In the natural world there is ample range for prayer; but in the spiritual we are limited to prayer. We are to pray for daily bread, for which we must work, as well as for forgiveness of sin, for which we cannot work. But with this difference – the ungodly husbandman will reap his harvest, if he works for it, though he does not pray; but pardon, and the grace of God’s Spirit, will not be given to those who do not ask.
The conditions and forms of national life and of Church life are wholly different from what they were when Psalm 85 was penned, but principles abide. Righteousness still exalts a nation. “Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord!” A dead or lukewarm Church cannot be a joyful Church; nor a lukewarm worldly Christian a joyful Christian. Revival, with all its fruits, either in the Church or in the nation, must begin in the hearts and homes of Christians. Then the joy of the Lord will be our strength. With God is life’s fountain. In him our bodies live: how much more our spirits!
Pastor J. Mark Wagenschutz
This was adapted and edited from Pulpit Commentary