The Waters Cover the Sea
If you’re like me and you grew up in the charismatic movement, you heard prophecies all the time about revival. It wasn’t unusual for a traveling evangelist, prophetic voice, or a writer or teacher to talk about revival, prophesy great revival for America, or encourage the church that they were speaking at to prepare for revival because “it is coming.”
I came to Christ in the midst of this revival fervor, so I’m certainly no stranger to it. I’ve made significant life decisions believing that the revivals that people were predicting were going to happen. While I don’t regret a single of the decisions I’ve made, the lack of revival can be discouraging. I know friends who have been deeply wounded or at least left wondering where the revivals that were promised are.
Some of these promises made weren’t inspired by the Spirit. Some of them came and we didn’t recognize them because they came in a form we weren’t expecting. Some of the promises of revival were true and we are still waiting for them to happen because their time hasn’t come yet. Regardless, all of these things can discourage a person.
I’ve said it before: I still believe in the movement of the Spirit. I believe we need to keep praying for revival. But I also know there is a certain amount of revival fatigue that has hit the body of Christ. It can be the promise that is kept dangling in front of us and that can make us heartsick.
So, this morning, as I was praying and journaling, the Lord brought this verse to my mind:
For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.-Habakkuk 2:14
So in a way that only the Holy Spirit can do, He took the words of the Bible and made them alive in my spirit. It was as if in reading the words of Scripture, He was saying “I know you hunger for people to turn to Jesus and live holy lives. I know there have been promises of revival. Some of those prophecies have come and gone just like the prophets who gave them. But my word doesn’t come and go. I promised that the Earth would be filled with the knowledge of my glory like the waters cover the sea. There is no way that this cannot happen.”
Think about it. Where do you see the water not covering the sea? Nowhere. Everywhere there is sea, there is water covering it. According to the Bible there is a day coming where the knowledge of the Lord’s glory will cover the Earth in that way. While the prophecies of your favorite speaker may or may not come true, the Bible has proven true over and over again and you can trust in its promises.
So friends, you who have believed in the promise of revival, the prophecies of revival may have failed you, but you can trust the Lord. He will fill the Earth with the knowledge of His glory. Don’t let your heart grow weary. You can give your life for this reality and even if you don’t see it in your day, you can trust knowing that God will cause it to come to pass. It will happen.
You can count on it.
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- - July 12, 2017
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Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 
I, too, had been immersed in this same prophetic soup for over two decades. Did Jesus and the apostles believe this regarding worldwide revival? Did Jesus preach a narrow way that few find? Did He prophesy a great falling away where brother betrays brother to death? Did He wonder if there would be any faith evident on the earth when He returned? Did Paul prophesy an apostacia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and Peter the burning up of all creation with fire? We know the story of Revelation where there will be a new heaven and earth. Is Habakkuk 2:14 more for that time? More for the Millenial reign and the eternal state? This thinking doesn’t make the dominionists happy or those who need to “dangle the carrot” to somehow motivate their troops or keep them in the fold. Maybe it is the now and the not yet. Clearly now we get to partner with the Spirit in having the planet eventually hear of The Way (knowledge of the gospel of the glory of God) without them universally actually participating in it and after the great purgings of the future prophetic events the universal experience of the glory of God in the new heavens and earth will be a complete reality. That is, by the way, what we are exhorted to look for – a new heaven and earth where righteousness dwells.
Growing up in church and Charismatic culture, there was often so much emphasis on asking God to bring the harvest and send revival that it was at the cost of actually learning to become revival. People taught me to sit in a prayer room for hours asking for revival, but not how to walk in power and heal the sick. A lot of what they taught me to ask for was things Christ had already done.
Prayer is so important (Jesus sometimes prayed all night,) but it has to come out of a position of understanding the gospel. Theologically the heavens were opened when Jesus’ body was torn. (Hebrews 9 and 10) Thus the heavens are open now because when Jesus’ body was torn, the heavens were rent. Asking God to open the heavens is essentially the same as asking him to make a way of salvation and provide a way into his presence. He already has! No wonder that kind of prayer is frustrating.