[9-23-05, the 16^th   Wednesday]                TT  XVI

Yahweh Sabbaoth

esterday I tried explaining to someone what God was doing at Tremont Temple on Wednesdays at the noon hour. It wasn’t easy. Basically, He is teaching us how to pray. Many of us, having long ago committed our lives to serving Him, have assumed we pretty much knew all there is to know about prayer.

We don’t.

The first thing He has taught us is to give up control. It is His hour; He will run it, as He sees fit. He gives us the prayers to pray, then prays them through us. He had let people know what He is doing by word of mouth. Had it been up to me, by now I’d  have spread the word via the airways, rallied local pastors behind the initiative, traveled far and wide on its behalf, organized dinners and special events to gather as many as possible. Not Him. While all the above might indeed come to pass, it will be according to His timetable, not ours.

He is teaching us patience and perseverance – not to be dismayed at the paucity of our numbers. Not to shift the hour to a back burner, where it would become one more weekly obligation amidst all the others. And not to take back control. For example, the prolonged silences have been difficult for me. Father, shouldn’t we be doing something? Praying? Singing?

My son, are you not enjoying this?

Yes, but –

So am I. Relax and enjoy it with me.

From the beginning He’s made it clear that the hour – and the Revival – is under the sovereignty of Yahweh Sabbaoth, the Lord of Hosts. As it was inspired by Jeremiah Lanphier’s prayer hour for businessmen in downtown New York in 1857, we’d assumed it would be for men only. Very quickly He rebuked us for excluding half the prayer power of metro Boston.

I want all who love me to come, regardless of how faithfully or unfaithfully. I want the fallen and the upright, the strong and the weak, the influential and the ones who consider themselves inconsequential. I want the young and the old, clergy who have secretly fallen away and laymen and women longing for my presence. I want the curious and the skeptical, the ones who have never prayed and the ones with so much experience they will be critical of every aspect. Whatever they may suppose I am about, I will not follow their expectations. This is new wine I am pouring, for which I will use new wineskins – and a few old wineskins who will let me soften them and make them new again.

            Last Wednesday we prayed for students, the disabled, small churches that were struggling, churches large and small that were not on fire. Several of us, sensing we were entering a time of final preparation, asked what exactly must we do. Before the hour was over, we had our answer.

            You have asked me what you must do, to prepare the way for my coming. You already know. Humble yourselves, so I will not have to humble you. Pray, hearing my voice, not your own. Seek my face – not a crown, not celebration, just my face. If you do, you will see me.  And turn from your wicked ways. Is ‘wicked’ too strong a word? Any way you choose, over the way I would choose for you, is wicked. You know the ways I mean: the ways that take you away from me, not towards me.

I have said that I would have your hands clean and your hearts pure, to work in my revival. Cleanse your hands, cleanse your heart, in the Blood of the Lamb. For I would have you whiter than snow, to reflect the dazzling light of the first rays of the dawn that is coming.