Why Does Revival Tarry?

"Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear" (Isa. 59:1-2).

I'm still asking the question, "Why does revival tarry?".  Why aren't more hearts broken and contrite?  Could it be that our "iniquities have made a separation" between us and the LORD?

Sin is an ugly and resilient monster.  Unfortunately, sin isn't a monster that attacks us from the outside, but one that devours us from the inside.  It doesn't die easily.  It keeps popping up here and there. We tend to harbor it as if it were a stray kitten.  But in reality, it is a ravenous lion seeking to devour everyone in its path.

Sin separates us from God.  It functions as a dividing wall of hostility.  God, the Holy One, is angry at our unrighteousness.  His holy justice rages against our iniquity.  We cannot approach God while still in our rebellion.  Sin has cut us off, and muffled our voices so that our prayers are not heard. 

Revival may tarry because we harbor sin in our hearts.  Our prayers go unheard when there is sin in our hearts.  Our sin "hides" us from God's face.  For this reason, we need to confess our sins to restore our relationship.   We have to abandon sin, if we want to see revival.

Are you ready to experience revival?  Are you ready to make a break with sin?

Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV).

It's a Love/Hate Relationship

There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings where Frodo discovers that Gollum has followed the fellowship into the mines of Moria.  When he reports his discovery to Gandalf, Frodo learns that the ring has drawn Gollum to them.  Gollum, we are told, has a love/hate relationship with the ring, and with himself.  Because he can never be free from his need of the ring, Gollum can never be free of self-loathing.  Believers seem to struggle with a love/hate relationship, as well. 

Much like the ring, sin pollutes the heart and enslaves those who tinker with it (which is all of us). The ring enslaved and transformed the creature Smeagol, into the wretched beast Gollum, just as sin enslaves and transforms humanity into wretched rebels.   We are born into this world bent toward sin.  Thus, we develop a taste for sin very early.  When God, in his grace, sees fit to reveal his Son to us through the preaching of gospel and the witness of the Spirit, he calls us out of the darkness, and into his marvelous light.  By exposing our sin for what it was, God creates a holy hatred for sin within our hearts.  Our past experience with sin and the introduction of a new heart within us creates tension within us. Paul describes this tension well:

I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I don not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin living in me that does it. . . What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me form this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom. 7:15-20, 24-25, NIV).

When the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart through regeneration, he changes the desires of our heart so that we desire to do the will of God (see John 3:1-21; Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:24-27).   Even with this new heart, we still wrestle with the desires of the flesh.  We are torn in two directions.

The new heart wants to be obedient to God, but the sin present in our bodies wants to continue to rebel against the Lord.  The good news for us is that nothing can separate us from God's love in Christ (see Rom. 8:31-39).  Although we might relate to Gollum's dilemma, we cannot say that it is exactly our dilemma.  While there is certainly a love/hate relationship with sin raging inside a believer, the Scripture is clear we are to live as if we are dead to sin.

Sin no longer has dominion over us.  We have been set free, through faith in Christ, from sin and death.  We have a continual cleansing presence in our lives, the Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 John 1:9).  Our sin, and the debt it has incurred, has been nailed to the cross.  If we did not have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we would have no way of overcoming our sin natures. But, in Christ, we do have the Spirit within us.  Therefore, we can walk in the power of the Spirit, and overcome the desires of the flesh.

Gollum's story, although fictional, is a sad one, because he could never be free of his need of the ring.  But our story is not, because Jesus has freed us from the penalty of sin (the lake of fire), and because he will, ultimately, rescue us fully and finally from the influence of sin when he comes in his glory.

Do you wrestle with a love/hate relationship to sin?  Do you find yourself doing what you hate?  How do you recover peace of mind?  How do you overcome self-hatred?  I would love to hear from you.

Against the Flow

I recently began reading Kris Lundgaard's The Enemy Within. In speaking about the Christian's awareness of indwelling sin, he offers this thought provoking word picture:

"Believers are the only people who ever find the law of sin at work in them. Unbelievers can't feel it. The law of sin is a raging river, carrying them along; they cannot measure the force of the current, because they have surrendered themselves to it and are borne along by it. A believer, on the other hand, swims upstream--he meets sin head-on and strains under its strength" (page 25).