A WORD IN SEASON TO THE WEARY

"…that house … fell not: for it was founded upon a rock" (Matthew 7:25)

      

Before Nehemiah started building the broken wall, he went round to see for himself how they were broken down and how the gates were consumed with fire. Before we rebuild the House of God, first, we must find out the cause of barrenness.

These days in many places we find believers and Christian leaders praying for revival and awakening among God’s people, without being sufficiently concerned to know the cause for their barrenness. Only by using some customary phrases in prayers such as “we have sinned” and so on, we cannot see God working in the midst of His people. They think they have achieved their objective by praying and forgetting all about it. Believers also cannot expect revival without going beyond praying about it and doing nothing more. Unless a patient tells the doctor the details of his troubles the doctor cannot examine him, or diagnose his disease and give him the right treatment. The condition of the walls of Jerusalem was due to the sins of the children of Israel. This had not been faced frankly. For many years God, out of His love went on warning them through His prophets, but they continued to disobey God with much indifference to His repeated warnings. After giving them sufficient chances, God sent Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and destroyed their city, broke down the walls and burnt the gates.

         

These days also we can find similar situations; there is a barrenness among believers, because they insist on following man-made customs, practices, rituals and ceremonies rather than obeying His Word. They fail to diagnose this as the root of the trouble. When a man wants to build a strong building first of all he has to lay a strong foundation. In the spiritual sense we see that our Lord also has said that if we build our house upon a rock it will not fall by the wind, storm or floods. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our rock. We have to build upon Him Who is the rock; that means, our procedure for building has to be according to His teachings, His instructions, His heavenly will, His heavenly plan, His heavenly wisdom and heavenly power. In Eph. 2:20 we read, “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”. That is how we believers have to build a spiritual house on a strong spiritual foundation. Many people forget this first law and try to build God’s House on sand, on things which have no support from God. That is why we see everything is falling into pieces. God is giving us a very solemn warning in Heb.12: 26 that He is going to shake all that is of man-made origin and practice. Hence whatever we do, it has to be based on God’s Word, if we want our work to bear fruit and withstand the test of opposing forces.