Preparing For The Last Great OutpouringExemplo

What Must We Do? 

In a culture steeped in unbiblical ideas of individualism, you might ask, “What do I have to repent of? I don’t commit fornication or adultery. I don’t do drugs. I don’t lie, steal, or cheat. I serve others to the best of my ability. What’s left?” Scripture, however, thinks in corporate terms, God’s people as a collective unit. Biblically speaking, we exist as one entity, inextricably connected with one another without sacrificing our essential individuality. More than this, we stand in solidarity with the generations who’ve gone before us.

If the people of God, called by His name, choose to humble themselves, pray, and turn away from their wicked ways, then God will forgive and restore their broken land. Here lies a pivotal principle. It might be better for us to stop crying out for God to do something like revival and begin to cry out in repentance for ourselves as individuals, our nation as a whole, our culture in which we participate, and our church as the body of Christ. We must do this as a people together so that God can do something like revival. 

After literally decades stretching into centuries, during which Israel refused to listen to the warnings of the prophets to turn away from idolatry and went so far as to sacrifice their children to Baal/Molech, God finally had to act. In 586 BC, the Babylonian army conquered Judah and utterly destroyed Jerusalem. The people spent seventy years of exile in Babylon. 

As those years drew to a close, messengers came to Nehemiah in Babylon concerning conditions in Judah and Jerusalem. The news broke Nehemiah’s heart and he spent days weeping and mourning over what he’d heard. But then he prayed.

Nehemiah understood that the destruction of his homeland and the exile to Babylon were the direct results of turning away from the Lord and compromising His commandments. Although he himself was a righteous man, he confessed sin and repented for it in solidarity with his people as if all their sins, as well as his forebears’, were his own. Rather than stand above and apart from them, he identified with them and owned the collective sin of Israel personally in identificational repentance. 

Do we want to change our world? Do we want a move of God to rock the church and the culture around us? Then we must heed the lesson from Nehemiah.