W. Robert Godfrey

No, the history of the church has just been sort of constant ups and downs, hasn't it?

But we see that already in the New Testament, don't we?

Look at Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

It's always such an encouragement to me that I'm not a Corinthian.

I'm bad, but maybe not that bad.

What a mess the Corinthians are in, having heard the apostle Paul himself preach to them and convert them.

And then down they go, and Paul writes to them, and they come sort of back up.

But it reminds us that just because Christ has come, it doesn't mean that his people all of a sudden are perfect.

that there's never going to be any spiritual up or down again.

And certainly the letters to the seven churches in the book of the Revelation make the same point, don't they?

That churches sometimes are better and sometimes are worse.

Now, we mustn't be hyper-Calvinists and assume we're always worse, but there's ups and downs, and that's important to bear in mind because it means the

We may need to be a repentant people.

We need to see our own sin.

We need to turn to the Lord and plead the way the psalmist pleads here in Psalm 85 so powerfully.

Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you?

Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

You know, you look at Europe today, you look at parts of America today, and you say,

Don't they need to pray like this?

I'm struck again as a historian, I always have a strange look at things, but I can't help but think Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, the great Puritan foundations of America, where some of the purest religion in the history of mankind was practiced.