A WAKE-UP CALL TO THE CHURCH
How is the last revival going to happen? It requires something powerful, something world-shaking to precipitate it. Isaiah tells us this shaking will happen in one day. In chapter 47, he says the spirit of Babylon must be dealt with. Throughout Scripture, Babylon has always represented a spirit of prosperity, ease and pleasure and the Babylonian spirit is the same in every age.
In short, Isaiah says there can be no widespread, last revival until the spirit of greed and false security is brought down. We can pray for revival, we can cry out to God to pour out His Spirit, but it is impossible unless the Lord first shakes all things: “Hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. . . . Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know” (Isaiah 47:8, 11, my italics).
God is not going to overlook sin, but He will strike down the devil’s strongholds. He’s going to sound a wake-up call to His Church with a “sudden desolation.” Indeed, this will be an act of great love on the Lord’s part. He so loves His Church that He refuses to allow ease, pleasure and apostasy to blind and ruin the object of His love.
“Let favor be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord” (Isaiah 26:10). Here is proof that revival is impossible in a time of ease and prosperity. Isaiah says in plain terms, “In a time of blessing, the people will not turn.” Nothing is going to happen until the pocketbook is affected. Only “when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9).
In short, Isaiah says there can be no widespread, last revival until the spirit of greed and false security is brought down. We can pray for revival, we can cry out to God to pour out His Spirit, but it is impossible unless the Lord first shakes all things: “Hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. . . . Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know” (Isaiah 47:8, 11, my italics).
God is not going to overlook sin, but He will strike down the devil’s strongholds. He’s going to sound a wake-up call to His Church with a “sudden desolation.” Indeed, this will be an act of great love on the Lord’s part. He so loves His Church that He refuses to allow ease, pleasure and apostasy to blind and ruin the object of His love.
“Let favor be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord” (Isaiah 26:10). Here is proof that revival is impossible in a time of ease and prosperity. Isaiah says in plain terms, “In a time of blessing, the people will not turn.” Nothing is going to happen until the pocketbook is affected. Only “when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9).