by Tom Wagoner
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?” What a wonderful question God seems to be asking our Fellowship. Psalm 24 has become important to me as I am challenged of the Lord to ascend in revival into His presence.
Much has been said about repentance and the providence of God, but many of us believe the time is right for His people to experience an unusual move of God, what we are calling revival. Duncan Campbell from the Hebrides Revival off of Scotland said, “Revival is an unusual, captivating awareness of God in the life of an individual, a church and a community.” We have seen very little of the unusual manifestation of God in our churches, and I grieve because of that.
Psalm 24 is associated with the return of the ark to Jerusalem and begins in verses one and two with a statement about calling the Lord’s claim when the Psalm says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof….” This earth is His, our movement is His, our churches are His, and we are His. The Lord claims control of all that is. Then we see the Lord’s call when he asks the question, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?” The hill of the Lord speaks of spiritual power. We know that when God moves in revival, the power will come.
“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?” Someone has said the answer to that question falls into three areas: Christ-likeness of life, Christ-likeness of longing, and Christ-likeness in language. Christ-likeness of life involves having clean hands and a pure heart. Clean hands speak of the outward life and pure heart speaks of the inward life. How many times have we projected something we really are not? How many times have we stood to preach when in reality the power is not upon us? Then it follows with Christ-likeness of longings — not lifting up our souls to vanity (the original carries the idea of emptiness and shallowness of this world). Finally, Christlike in our language involves not swearing deceitfully, and this projects the importance of our words. They must be trustworthy, honest, and dependable. God give us revival! If these things are true, we can ascend to the hill of the Lord.
When asked the question, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord” in Psalm 24, I hope that we all will cry out to God, “We will! We want to stand in your holy place.”
Let’s seek the Lord’s face individually, together with our brethren, and in our state Fellowship meetings. Let’s weep and cry out to God, fast and pray and believe Him for revival. It just may be in our next meeting when the power of God will fall and we will see the glory of God almighty manifested in revival.
A website has been established for the purpose of communicating our prayers for and our reports of genuine revival. It is www.revivaljourney.com.