我们昨天探讨过关于「祷告的灵」是甚么，今天我们会继续这方面的讨论。有些人可能认为，除非个人强烈感到受圣灵催促而祈求复兴，否则便无须这么做。不过今天的经文暗示我们，就好像在耶利米的日子那样，每当我们看到有复兴的需要时，我们是被指示要为复兴祷告。我们必须小心，不要等待圣灵特别的「感动」，才实行神的圣言已清楚告诉我们所要负起的属灵责任。

在我的年代，我看到很多基督徒认为除非个人「感到想要祷告」，不然的话祷告是没有价值的。他们以为祷告的效力有赖个人祷告时感情的强烈程度。这简直是一派胡言。慕迪（D.L. Moody）说：「最难祷告的时候，我们应该最努力祷告。」如果我们不想祷告但仍然坚持祷告，那么我们交给神的,不单是我们的祷告，同时也是一个愿意操练的灵。我们要敢于承认内心的感受，但不能倚赖它们。感受随着我们的健康情况、天气状况或最新消息而起伏不定，而我们与上头的沟通绝对不能倚赖「感受」这种不可靠的东西。

不过话虽如此，我必须指出，很多人起初在祷告中负起复兴的需要时，往往会感到被他们以前从未有过的、深刻的热诚和感受所环绕，而逐渐被带进超自然的境界里。无论如何，最重要的是：要有一个开始。

「神的圣言指出我们的属灵责任」

进深研究
赛六十五17-25，五十八9；亚十三9

1. 以赛亚预言甚么？
2. 我们求告神的名时，神给我们甚么应许？

祈祷
天父，求您更清楚地指示我，不需要等待「祷告的灵」临到，然后才可以祈求复兴。如果祷告的灵在我祈祷时来到那是最好，但是如果它没有来临，我还是应该继续祷告。求您帮助我，奉耶稣的名祈求，阿们。

Heaven-Sent Revival

Day 357

Don't wait for feelings - begin

"Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." (v.3)

Bible reading:
Jeremiah 33:1-11

1 While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him a second time:

2 "This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is his name:

3 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'

4 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the houses in this city and the royal palaces of Judah that have been torn down to be used against the siege ramps and the sword

5 in the fight with the Babylonians[a]: 'They will be filled with the dead bodies of the people I will slay in my anger and wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness.

6 "'Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security.

7 I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity[b] and will rebuild them as they were before.

8 I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me.

9 Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.'

10 "This is what the Lord says: 'You say about this place, "It is a desolate waste, without people or animals." Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more

11 the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying, "Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good; his love endures forever." For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,' says the Lord.

Message

Following what we said yesterday about the "spirit of prayer", it occurred to me that some might conclude that unless one feels strongly impelled by the Spirit to pray for revival there is no real need to do so. But as our text for today implies, whenever we see that there is a need for revival, as there was in Jeremiah's day, we are instructed to pray for it. We must be careful that we do not wait for any special "moving" of the Spirit to do what the Word of God plainly tells us is our spiritual duty.

I have come across many Christians in my time who believe that prayer is of no value unless one "feels like it". They seem to think that the efficacy of prayer depends on the emotional keenness one feels as one prays. This is nonsense. D.L. Moody said: "When it is hardest to pray, we ought to pray the hardest." When we pray and do not really feel like it we bring to God not only our prayers but a disciplined spirit as well. We must be willing to recognise feelings but not to depend on them. Feelings fluctuate with our health, the weather or the news, and our communication with heaven must not depend on something as flimsy as feelings.

Having said that, however I must make the point that many of those who in their prayer times begin to take up the need of revival often find themselves being gripped and seized by a depth of passion and feeling they have never known before. They begin in the natural and are caught up into the supernatural. The important thing, however, is to begin.

"The Word of God spells out our spiritual duty"

Prayer
Father, show me even more clearly that I do not need to experience a "spirit of prayer" in order to pray for revival. If the spirit of prayer comes as I pray, then so be it. If it does not, I will pray anyway. Help me - in Jesus' Name. Amen.

Further study
Isaiah 65:17-25; 58:9
Zechariah 13:9

1. What did Isaiah prophesy?
2. What has God promised when we call on His Name?

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