Where Are the Hot Hearts, Set Aflame in Revival?

By Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Contrary to what we might expect, the blessing of revival is to be found in the pathway of true humility, repentance, and brokenness. There are no alternate routes; no shortcuts. The very things we dread and are tempted to resist are actually the means to God’s greatest blessings in our lives.

Again and again in the Scripture, we learn that God resists or opposes the proud (Prov. 3:34, Ja. 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:5). The concept here is that God sets Himself in “battle array” against those who are proud. He stiff-arms the arrogant, keeping them at a distance. God repels those who are self-sufficient and who take unholy pride in their accomplishments.

On the other hand, He pours grace on the humble and comes to their rescue. As an ambulance races to the scene in response to a call for help, so God races to the scene when His children humble themselves and acknowledge their need.

Will God Hear Us?

These are days when many of God’s people are coming together to cry out to Him on behalf of our nation. They are acknowledging that there are no human solutions to the tidal wave of evil in our land.  Nothing short of divine intervention can overcome the darkness and the lostness of our world.

But we need to remind ourselves that there are some prayers God will not hear; there are some solemn assemblies He will not attend. There are some fasts that are not pleasing to Him.

When the children of Israel came to fast and pray with unclean hands and hearts, God said, “Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear . . . though you make many prayers, I will not listen” (Ezek. 8:18; Isa. 1:15, esv). In fact, the Scripture goes so far as to say that our prayers and our fasts are actually an abomination to Him if they are not accompanied by humility and repentance.

We would all be quick to agree about the need for repentance outside the walls of the church. But are we as quick to recognize our own need for repentance? We can readily identify the sins of the White House. But have we become blind to the corruption in the “church house”? We decry the sin of our world. But have we not tolerated virtually all the same sins in the church?

As we read Scripture, we see that the sternest words of reproof were issued, not to the pagan world, but to the people of God. When the ascended Lord Jesus looked down from His throne in heaven, His final message to the churches was not, “Go and preach the gospel,” but, “Repent!” For an unrepentant church has neither the motivation nor the capacity to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord.

True State of the Church

I have been asking God to help me see what He sees when His all-knowing eyes examine the Church in America. The picture is not a pretty one, and the truth is painful to admit. But we have to get honest, if we ever hope to get God’s attention.

The truth is, when it comes to how we live, how we think, how we look, how we sound, and how we “do ministry,” we have become virtually indistinguishable from the world outside the church. We have bought into the world’s philosophies and practices. Whereas the Church used to tell the world how to live, now the world is telling the Church how to live. We have accommodated to the culture, rather than affecting the culture for Christ.

Thus, church and ministry have become big business—we are more familiar with management and marketing principles than with the principles of humility, purity, faith, and prayer. Many pastors and Christian leaders have become CEOs rather than spiritual shepherds.

We have utilized nearly every worldly method conceivable to attract the lost, and, in many cases, have lost both our distinctiveness and our effectiveness.  In an effort to convince the world that Christianity is fun, we have entertained and amused ourselves to death. Why do Christian celebrities and comedians perform to sell-out crowds, while scarcely a few attend the prayer meetings?

Have we lost confidence in the power of the Word to convict, the gospel to convert, and the Spirit to draw people to Christ? We have seen what human effort, ingenuity, creativity, and technology can do; we know what money, organization, and promotion can do. But we have yet to see what God can do!

In an effort to make Christianity palatable to our soft, self-centered generation, many are preaching a diluted message that sidesteps the issue of sin, eliminates the demands of the cross, and overlooks the need for conviction and repentance.  In an effort to make our message “relevant,” we have ended up preaching another gospel that is no gospel at all. We have preached Christianity as a way to find fulfillment, rather than a calling to take up the cross and follow Jesus.

Living by Scriptural Standards

Inside the Church itself, in far more ways than we care to admit, we have failed to live by Scripture. Like King Saul, we say we have obeyed the Word of God. But how do we explain all the evidence to the contrary?

For example, we are a community of the forgiven who refuse to forgive. We live with unresolved conflicts—in our homes, among church and ministry staff, and between “committed” believers.

The bride of Christ has forgotten how to blush. We sin without shame. We have lost our ability to mourn and grieve and weep over sin. Even our language betrays our theology of irresponsibility. We speak of leaders “falling” into sin, rather than acknowledging that these men and women have chosen a pathway of compromise and gratifying the lusts of the flesh.

In our casual brand of Christianity there is little sense of the fear of the Lord. How else could millions of churchgoers sit under the preaching of the Word week after week and leave unchanged, unmoved? How else could so-called believers who claim to believe in holiness, sit in their living rooms or hotel rooms, laughing at ungodly jokes, lifestyles, and philosophies purveyed through television, movies, and the Internet?

When was the last time you saw God’s people “tremble at the Word of the Lord”? When was the last time you trembled at the Word of the Lord (Isa. 66:2)?

Some Hard Questions

Yet, even as we list these standards, some of us may believe that we have not rejected the ways and the Word of God. Then could I ask you some questions God has been asking me in recent days?

If we are so close to God, where is the passion? Where is the compulsion, the unction, the fire?

– Where are the tears? Where is the mourning, the grieving, the weeping? Why are our eyes dry and our hearts dull? Where is the groaning, the crying out in soul travail?

– Where are the Isaiahs who stir themselves up to take hold of God, praying fervently, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That you would come down!” (Isa. 64:1, nkjv)?

– Where are those who abhor sin, whether in the world, in the church, or in their own breasts, who cry out with the psalmist, “Indignation has taken hold of me because of the wicked, who forsake Your law” (Ps. 119:53, nkjv)?

– Where are the Jeremiahs whose hearts are in anguish, and whose eyes overflow with tears for the desolation of God’s people? Where are the prophets who are willing to risk their reputations, their retirement funds, and their acceptance within the Christian community, in order to say what needs to be said to our generation?

– Is not God’s Word like a fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Then where is the preaching with conviction, confrontation, divine fire, and Holy Spirit anointing? Where is the urgency, the solemnity, when we talk to men and women about eternity and the condition of their souls?

– Where are the hot hearts, set aflame by the coal from the altar of the Lord? Where are the men and women who have been with God, who have tarried in His presence until they have heard His Word, and then descended from the mount with the glory of God radiating from their faces and the power of God reverberating from their hearts?

If our hearts are not broken over what breaks the heart of God, if we are not part of the remnant that sighs and laments and groans within over the detestable things that are going on in the temple of God, then we are part of the multitude that is in danger of His chastisement and in desperate need of repentance.

God calls us to repent. He calls us to be afflicted and mourn and weep—first over our own sin. For He will not hear or heed our prayers for our nation, as sincere as they may be, until we have first humbled ourselves and repented of our wicked ways. “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God” (1 Pet. 4:17, nkjv).

The Pathway to Revival

In a sense, revival is really nothing more than the release of God’s Spirit flowing through broken lives. Historical records of revivals bear this out over and over again. The most dramatic, widespread revival movements in history have begun with a handful of humble-hearted believers whose revived lives and prayers have become sparks that ignited the lives of those around them.

Interestingly, the most godly men and women on the scene have generally been the first to humble themselves and have then been used as instruments of revival. The greatest hindrance to revival is not others’ unwillingness to humble themselves—it is our unwillingness to humble ourselves and confess our desperate need for His mercy.

Revival blessings flow to and through those who are truly broken before God. Andrew Murray said it well: “Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds you abased and empty, His glory and power flow in.”

NANCY LEIGH DEMOSS has communicated her burden for revival for more than 30 years. She is the author of more than a dozen books and is the host of a nationally syndicated daily radio broadcast “Revive Our Hearts.”