The way to pray for a desolate church is to remember past mercies, and be encouraged that God never changes.
Verse 15: “And now, O Lord our God, who didst bring thy people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand . . . ” Daniel knew that the reason God saved Israel from Egypt was not because Israel was so good. Psalm 106:7”“8,
Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider thy wonderful works; they did not remember the abundance of thy steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power.
Prayer for a desolate church is sustained by the memory of past mercies. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). If God saved a rebellious people once at the Red Sea, he can save them again. So when we pray for a desolate church, we can remember brighter days that the church has known, and darker days from which she was saved.
This is why church history is so valuable. There have been bad days before that God had turned around. The papers this week have been full of statistics of America’s downward spiral into violence and corruption. Church history is a great antidote to despair at times like this. For example, to read about the moral decadence and violence of 18th century England before God sent George Whitefield and John Wesley is like reading today’s newspapers.
Thank you for posting this.
Wow: powerful and helpful. One can’t help but wonder if John Piper had his Episcopalian friends in mind. Certainly ours is a desolate church, by any measure.
Speaking of “desolate,” I just stumbled across this descriptor in an Episcopal church website–I wonder if this is typical?
“St. X’s is a Christian church. This means that the focus of our spiritual life revolves around retelling, remembering, and reliving the stories about Jesus Christ, a Jewish man who lived nearly two millennia ago in a small corner of the Roman Empire. Through this prophet, the church knows God.”
Far cry, isn’t it, from “Tell me the story slowly, that I may take it in, that wonderful redemption, God’s remedy for sin.” There no sense at St. X’s that there’s any point to their grown-up story time than, well, just hearing the stories. Desolate indeed.