Talk, talk, talk

" Thus saith the Lord God; woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!" Ezekiel 13:3

About now, I'm sure you've had your fill of all the prophesies for this new year. This is going to be the year that God is going to do this and do that, move here and move there. This is the year of your deliverance, of your blessing, of whatever it is that you have been waiting for. This is the year. Hang on; here it comes.

Funny. Weren't those the same things we heard last year? And the year before? Ah, but this is a new year, so we get to hear them all over again. (Sigh) If these were about secular things, we'd call these people con artists. But no, this is in the Church, so we call them prophets.

There is a real danger in these kinds of prophesies of peace. I understand that we all want to encourage the Church to be edified and to strengthen our faith, but is this the word from the Lord or is it a ploy to bring us into a false sense of security and to weaken our defenses?

According to Ezekiel, false prophets only serve to keep the people of God from repentance by deceiving them into thinking that all is well between them and God. Their message is always the same – God loves you and is going to shower you with all your hopes and dreams. Everything is wonderful. Relax and be raptured.

It would be nice if all we had to do is sit back and watch God do all the work, but that's not how it reads in His Word. Just as Israel broke her covenant with God in becoming worldly, so we have fallen far from the great calling in God that we once had. Do we still have it? Well, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, to be sure, but that calling also cries out for us to walk deeply in the Spirit of God to receive it. And that we have lost. We say we do, but take a look at the on-fire Christians of just a couple of generations ago who prayed and fasted their guts out for lost souls, and you will be sorely embarrassed. No, all we do is talk.

I get tired of reading emails, essays, and mini-messages about how God is going to send a great move of the Spirit to us and call the Church back to a glorious revival. Sorry, but after a while, it all sounds like just so much white noise. Talk, talk, talk.

Talk is cheap. Even the Bible says so. (Pro 14:23) When are we actually going to do something besides talk?

No revival comes without repentance. Not only personal repentance, but corporate repentance for the whole Body of Christ. And that takes prayer – real hard, contending prayer, the kind of desperate prayer that breaks through the heavens and grabs hold of the Throne of God. That kind of prayer will bring us closer and closer to His holiness, and the closer we get, the more our sinful nature stands out in sharp contrast.

The kind of Holy Ghost conviction that we need to birth a true outpouring is the kind that will break you. Knees will crack, hearts will break, and tears will flow. I'm not talking about poetic analogies – I'm talking about a broken-hearted repentance that is so piercing that it will change your life forever.

Lenoard Ravenhill once said that the only prayer God hears is desperate prayer. He must have gotten that from Elijah, a man who was just like us, but a man who knew what the righteous, fervent effective prayer could do. Elijah was a rainmaker. If you want it to rain, you will have to pray like him.

Anything short of that is just talk.

Brother Dale, RevivalFire.org

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