Come Down, Lord #6 – Melting Mountains & Lives Ablaze
Revival was needed in Isaiah’s day. God’s place was trampled down, and God’s enemies seemed to triumph over God’s people.
“For a little while your people possessed your holy place, but now our enemies have trampled down your sanctuary. We are yours from of old; but you have not ruled over them, they have not been called by your name” (Isaiah 63:18-19).
Even today, age-old Christian beliefs can be twisted and devalued. Christian values can be misunderstood and ridiculed.
Yet we take our stand on truth and speak it out with wisdom and grace. We seek to help people see our God and Savior as he really is.
What is needed is a visitation from God. “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! (Isaiah 64:1-2).
Those who don’t know Christ have a whole mountain range arrayed against God – mountains of opposition, hardness, stubbornness, unbelief, pride, spiritual blindness. All these mountains are erected against the knowledge of God. These mountains need to come tumbling down.
We do our part. Living a life worthy of Jesus’ name. Demonstrating God’s love and power. Speaking God’s good news.
It’s not simply evangelistic techniques, clever arguments, attractive flyers, or entertaining programs that bring people to Christ. These have their place. But they are no match for melting mountains and setting their lives ablaze for God.
It’s the convicting, converting, transforming “power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
This is what we seek: that people come to know Christ and experience the presence of God coming upon them – saving their souls, answering their prayers, healing their bodies, restoring their marriages, rebuilding their families.
Being consumed by God’s mission, seeing the day of God’s power, we ourselves need reviving first. The Bible speaks of revival in three ways:
• A personal revival – “revive me” (Isaiah 57:15).
• A group revival – “revive us” (Psalm 85:6).
• A church revival – revive your work” (Habakkuk 3:2).
Donna and I came to faith in Christ through the winds of revival blowing through southern California for me and a youth movement for Donna. “Lord, do it again!”
Action Step: “Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you” (Hosea 10:12).
~ Pastor Dave
