现在先知开始从神的角度来看整个事件，神的原则以及神的荣耀成为了他的负担。我相信他的祈求可以这样演绎：「主啊，我们这些属于你的子民无论要忍受甚么，都不要紧，只要你的工作得到复兴和保持纯洁。」他其中一个伟大的祈求，是神会「在这些年间复兴（祂的）作为！」（哈三2）。大部分解经家都相信「这些年间」这句话是指「当那些预测的可怕事件在我们中间发生时」。

啊，但愿今天在我们的教会能够听到更多这样的祷告。而事实上我们所听到祷告，却大多是关于核子威胁、世界经济、暴力、贪污等主题。当然，这些都是重要的事情，我们也需要在祷告中记念它们，但这些却不应该是我们最关心的事项。我必须指出，教会在这个时代所应该关注的核心，是祈求神透过全球性的圣灵复兴，来重建祂的子民的属灵生命。

「教会最关心的应该是属灵生命的重建」

进深研究
赛二十六1-9；代下十五15；诗三十八9，七十三25

1. 以赛亚为甚么寻求神？
2. 诗人承认甚么？

祈祷
我的父、我的神，我们总是容许自己堕入灵性的贫乏和空虚之中，求您赦免。求您再次向我们吹进您的灵气，亲爱的主，就从我开始吧。阿们。

From Confusion to Confidence

Day 112

A plea for revival

"Why don't you tear the sky apart and come down?..." (v.1, GNB)

Bible reading:
Isaiah 64:1-8

1 [a]Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!

2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!

3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?

6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to[b] our sins.

8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.

Message

We ended yesterday with the thought that the highest form of prayer is when we are concerned about the glory of God - and nothing else. Habakkuk did not petition God to give up the idea of using the Chaldeans to refine the people of Judah. Nor did he ask that there would be no sacking of Jerusalem. There was no such petition because he had come to see that the forthcoming events were well deserved.

Now that the prophet had begun to see the whole issue from God's point of view, his burden was for God's cause and God's glory. His petition - so I believe - can be paraphrased in these words: "Lord, whatever we, Your people, have to put up with is of no concern so long as Your work is revived and kept pure." His one great plea is that God will "revive [His] work in the midst of the years!" (Hab. 3:2, NKJ). Most commentators believe that the expression "in the midst of the years" means "while these terrible things that are predicted are going on among us".

Oh, that we could hear more of this kind of praying in our churches today. Most prayers we hear are concerned with topical issues - the nuclear threat, world economy, violence, corruption, and so on. These issues are important, of course, and most certainly there is a need to keep them in the focus of our praying. But these matters should not be our biggest concern. I have no hesitation in saying that the chief concern of the Church in this present age should be the spiritual restoration of God's people through a world-wide Holy Spirit revival.

"The chief concern of the Church should be spiritual restoration"

Prayer
My Father and my God, forgive us that we have allowed ourselves to slip into the depths of spiritual poverty and emptiness. Breathe once again into the midst of us - and begin, dear Lord, in me. Amen.

Further study
Isaiah 26:1-9
2 Chronicles 15:15
Psalm 38:9; 73:25

1. Why did Isaiah seek God?
2. What was the psalmist's confession?

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