
Anti-Revivals

Samuel Smith
23 Jan'19
5
ANTI- REVIVALS
"We have sinned against the Lord.... Cry unto the Lord our God for us." (After suffering from the oppression of their enemies for twenty years, the Israelites then pleaded, wept, and humbled themselves to God for a rescue. Even though, this wasn't a hallmark of true revival, God still showed mercy.
Revivals that are mostly catalysed by sufferings from our sins tends to lose its genuineness. Our hearts resemble that of the garden of the sluggard; and what is worst, we find that very many of our anti- revivals proceed either from pride, vanity, or indolence.
We look at the weeds (sin) that overspread our garden, and breathe out an earnest wish that they were eradicated. But why? What prompts the wish? It may be that we may walk out and say to ourselves, oh! "How beautiful and orderly my garden is!" This is pride! Or it may be that our neighbours may commend and say oh! " how fine your garden is". This is vanity! Or I may wish for the destruction of the weeds, because I'm weary of pulling them up. This is indolence.
What is the practicality in this allegory? The garden represents the heart whilst the weeds represents sin. Now, let's take a look at this; most of the explanations given to the word "pride" may confuse you with how it is used in this context. Yet, it is important to note that spiritual things are always viewed with spiritual spectacles. Spiritual pride is when you think you are ok with your Christian achievements; perhaps, you can teach, preach, pray and sing with an angelic voice. This feeling might soon tend to deceive us into thinking that there is no need for revival if we can do all these with a blink of an eye. We will always need revivals until Jesus appears the second time. This is because the more we behold His pure, innocent and sinless life, the more our sinful spots becomes visible.
The applauds of the crowd could be dangerous as the applauds to oneself since the former fosters the later. That feeling of complacency we get when brother X commends that we are good preachers or singers could be detrimental to our need for revival. Not to say we shouldn't be encouraged on our efforts, but let vanity have its better explanation here. Sometimes, our problem isn't pride or any other thing like it. There is an acknowledgement of our sins, there is humility, but we so much give indolence a way. Talk of the sleepy night prayers, mind - wavering meditations, sluggish attitudes at church, a little sleep, a little appetite, neglect of Bible studies, neglect of prayer -- these are the setbacks that are engulfing our revivals.
Heavenly help always goes with human co-operation. We need not be sluggards, especially when things aren't right between us and God as a result of pride, vanity and indolence -- revival could only come in the absence of these three. Our prayers then should be "Lord, take away my Anti- revivals" more than to say "Lord, revive us"!
Kwaku Sarfo Agyei Isaac