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Let the priests, who minister in the Lord’s presence, stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar. Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord! Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery. Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say, ‘Has the God of Israel left them?’”
Joel 2:17
The disciples were men who turned the world upside down and had No great intellectual capacity. No great financial backing. No great social standing. They were about the most despised men in and around Jerusalem. And yet they broke out somehow - and later it was said that they turned the world upside-down.
Isn't it staggering when you think that one sermon on the day of Pentecost produced 3000 people? And we have cities where 3000 sermons are preached every Sunday and nobody is saved. And it doesn't even faze us.
I believe the key to revival is given here in Joel, "Let the priests, the ministers of God, weep between the altar and the door posts."
To stand before men on behalf of God is one thing. To stand before God on behalf of men is something entirely different.
-Leonard Ravenhill
The church has to rediscover two things. One, the majesty and the Holiness of God, and the other, the sinfulness of sin.
God never, never intended His church to backslide. God never intended His church to function with anything less than Apostolic Christianity. And it's time to call the church to prayer. I believe if we were as spiritual as we think we are we would have gone to church in sackcloth and a handful of ashes to put on our heads and mourn that the Glory has departed.
He has called us to stand in the gap.
To be the repairers of the breach.
May the Lord help us to search our hearts as well as search the Scriptures. Help us to be honest and admit that we've failed, seek the place of prayer, and the place of cleansing and the place of anointing. May we be a vital link between His Eternal Spirit and this troubled, lost world outside.