A land not rained on

When IFB’s director Ray Borlase published his first book in 1986, he concluded with a chapter inspired by Ezekiel 22:24, where God described Israel as a land that had not been cleansed or rained on. Ray observed that England was similar in a sense, because while other parts of the UK had experienced revivals more recently, England had seen nothing since the evangelical revival of Whitefield and Wesley in the first half of the 1700s.

Ray also wrote of a week of prayer in Manchester at the end of the famous 1976 drought, where people confessed the sins of the church and then felt they could ask God to send the much-needed rain, asking Him to send it only if He was also willing to send the rain of His Spirit. By the end of the week, rain was falling across the nation, and empty reservoirs were full again within months. He commented:

“I believe God expressed His heart in that He was willing to send the latter rain of His Spirit. Now let us express our hearts and plead for the outpouring of His Spirit!”

At IFB’s most recent conference in August, with the first evening disturbed by persistent emergency alerts about the risk of wildfires, one of the main areas we felt led to pray into was the dryness and hardness of the soil in people’s hearts. This dry ground has made it difficult to sow the seed of the gospel in our nation for many years, leaving spiritual labourers weary and discouraged.

There have been signs of fresh openness in some hearts, most notably in younger people, but we long for a much greater softening of the ground, and so we asked God to send the revival that our nation doesn’t deserve but desperately needs. Noting that the 1976 drought was 50 years ago, one person prayed that God would mercifully make this a year of jubilee rather than judgement. Might we all dare to pray such a prayer, whatever our personal expectations, experiences or eschatology?

To settle for anything less than revival risks leaving our nation without any real hope of change. While we can and should pray about governments, laws and court cases, only heart transformation will change lives, fix our society, and create lasting fruit of real value. We don’t just want to restrain people from evil – we want them to detest it!

Much has been made of the political and societal changes spearheaded by believers such as William Wilberforce in the late 18th and 19th centuries – and we can surely see God’s hand of mercy in their efforts – but it was the revival in the early 18th century that sowed the seeds for these changes. At that time, top-down efforts to tackle rampant crime and drunkenness through laws, imprisonment and hanging had failed, and heresy and apathy reigned in churches and clergy. But the Wesleyan revival began to change society from the bottom up as people’s hearts were transformed, paving the way for many fruitful societal and political initiatives later. With family breakdown, abortion and other issues growing unchecked in our own day, will anything less than widespread revival stem the tide?

When he wrote in 1986, Ray acknowledged our nation was facing increasing judgement, and we must acknowledge the same reality today. But the reality of increasing and impending judgement in Joel’s day didn’t stop the prophet from believing there could be a reprieve, and he asked “who knows” whether God might relent as part of his call to prayer and repentance. (Joel 2:14).

Whatever our opinion about the timeline for the Lord’s return, it shouldn’t prevent us from believing that there could be time first for a further awakening across the land. However many signs we see heralding that great day’s approach, we still don’t know for sure when it will be, just like we don’t know for sure whether God may “even now” relent and show mercy to many in our nation (Joel 2:12).

We never know exactly how the Lord will work as we pray and sow – a fact made clear in Mark 4:26-29 – but our hope is in God, who (in a sense) is only limited by our prayers. One person at our conference asked Him to give the church a “godly discontent” for anything less than full repentance and salvation in the nation. May He give that to each of us!

“For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground…” (Isaiah 44:3, NASB)