Let us Repent! A Call To Revival & Restoration
Let us Repent! A Call To Revival & Restoration
“ Remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works. And if not, I am coming to you quickly, and will remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent”( Rev 2:5).
Christian, what think you of yourself- your undone duties, your unimproved hours, times of prayer omitted, your shrinking from unpleasant work and putting it on others, your being content to sit under your vine and fig tree without using all efforts for the souls of others? Won ' t you pray,“ Lord, forgive me my sins of omission?” Remember, Repent and Redo!
Worldliness
We have been carnal and unspiritual. The tone of our life has been low and earthly. Associating too much and too intimately with the world, we have in a great measure become accustomed to its ways. Hence our spiritual tastes have been vitiated, our consciences blunted, and that sensitive tenderness of feeling which, while it turns not back from suffering yet shrinks from the remotest contact with sin, has worn off and given place to an amount of callousness of which we once, in fresher days, believed ourselves incapable.
Perhaps we can call to mind a time when our views and aims were fixed upon a standard of almost unearthly elevation and, contrasting these with our present state, we are startled at the painful changes. The
study of the Word of God in its dogmatical form more than its devotional form has robbed us of its freshness and power. Daily, hourly occupation in home, office, in Christian service, has engendered a formality and coldness in dealing with God ' s spiritual and eternal varieties. We are carnal, sold under sin. The world has not been crucified to us, nor we unto the world( Rom 7:14; Gal 6:14). The flesh with its members has not been mortified. What a sad effect all this has had, not only upon our peace of soul, on our growth in grace, but also upon the fruitfulness, effectiveness and blessedness of our Christian life and service( Rom 8:12; Gal 5:16-23).
Self-pleasing
We have shrunk from toil, difficulty and endurance, counting not only our lives dear unto us, but even our temporal ease and comfort.“ We have sought to please ourselves” instead of pleasing“ everyone his neighbour, for his good to edification”( Rom 15:1,2). We have not“ borne one another ' s burdens; so fulfilling the law of Christ”( Gal 6:2).
We have not presented ourselves unto God as“ living sacrifices,” laying ourselves, our lives, our substance, our time, our faculties, our strength- our all upon His altar( Rom 12:1). We seem to have lost sight of this self-sacrificing principle on which as Christians we are called upon to act. We have had little idea of anything like sacrifice at all upto the point where a sacrifice was demanded, we may have been willing to go, but there we stood; counting it unnecessary, perhaps calling it imprudent and unadvised, to proceed further. Yet ought not the life of every Christian disciple be a life of endless self-sacrifice and unwearying self-denial throughout, even as was the life of Him who“ pleased not Himself?”( Rom 15:3).
Slothfulness
We have been slothful, We have been sparing of our toil. We have not endured hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Even when we have been instant IN season, we have not been instant OUT OF season. Neither have we diligently sought to gather up the fragments of our time, that not a moment might be thrown idly or unprofitably away( Heb 11:6; Eph 5:15- 17). Precious hours and days have been fearfully
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