The temperature is in the nineties and a hundred degrees is in the weather forecast and no prospects of rain on the horizon. It is hot and dry and rain has been practically non-existent over the last several weeks. Rain waters the earth and revives the land, vegetation, and crops, not to mention the spirits of the people. Rain is needed but there is another rain that is needed and that is a spiritual rain in the lives of God’s people. If God’s people desired the spiritual rain  with the same degree as they do the natural, we would see a better country and a better land. Moses wrote long ago, “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:(Deut. 32:2). The Lord’s doctrine found in His holy word is as a rain that waters the earth. When the world beats God’s people down with its blistering rays of tribulation and barrenness, the good old gospel can be a reviving rain that gives courage to press on. Good news revives those ready to faint. Jacob thought that Joseph was dead all these years, but when he was brought word that Joseph was yet alive and a governor in Egypt, his heart was faint because he didn’t believe the report. However, when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent, something happened. The Bible says, “when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived:” (Gen. 45:27). Jacob (now Israel) revived when he believed the true report.
When God’s people believe the true report of the gospel, it is like a reviving rain that waters their soul and lets them know that not all is lost because Jesus is still on His throne. The Psalmist said, “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.” (Psalm 46:4). How we need to be made glad in this low ground of sin and sorrow when we see such a landscape of disregard for God and His word. Let us not be found among those that have this disregard because we do that at our own peril. We see clouds without rain in the world as abortion is free for the asking and homosexuals are embraced as though that were the norm. That is a desert land. How we need the rain from above that comes down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning! We need rain; let us pray that God would send rain back into the hearts of His people. But once again there is something required. “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;Â If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (June 27, 2012–Elder Larry Wise
