Rebuilding the Ruins

Ruins are run down structures that have been abandoned, left to the forces of decay and entropy. Many castles in Europe lie in ruins having been abandoned in favor of more modern dwelling places. While they make for interesting places to visit, no one lives among the ruins. They have been abandoned and stand as monuments to what once was.

Yesterday I awoke with a burden to pray. It had been building for two days until the agony of it could not be contained. I began to moan and cry out to God in harmony with (Romans 8:26) "The Spirit himself making intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." I went driving and found myself in the Loop District of St. Louis a few blocks away from Washington University, one of the top rated, ultra modern universities in the world. With my natural eyes I was seeing beautiful, even regal, buildings and a well-sculpted landscape. With my spiritual eyes, I was surveying the wreckage of a landscape in ruins.

There were church buildings everywhere. Liberals, Conservatives, Apostates, Foreign Gods, it was all a mishmash of everything but Christ. That's not to say there aren't godly outposts there - I know there are - but the whole lay of the land seemed to be one big ruin. It wasn't the cold rain that was stinging my eyes.

It is with a prophetic prospective that I surveyed the landscape of this particular university. I could sense ruins, places that had fallen from their former glory, and no longer served any practical usage. Yet among the ruins I sensed a stirring of life, a sense of destiny that was lost being regained. I felt the stirrings of revival.

God's command is clear. When He is about to pour out the rain of Heaven in the person of sending an outpouring of his Holy Spirit (as a type of rain), we are to begin to prepare by plowing up the fallow ground. If you're not from a farming background, fallow ground is land that was once tilled and produced and abundant harvest of crop. It is land that is no longer being worked and is now not producing fruit. Fallow ground is hard earth that needs sharp steel run through it so it can be plowed, seeded, and farmed with an eye towards harvesting its produce. It is a picture of hearts that have grown cold before God.

Hosea 10:12 "Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." Breaking up fallow ground is done by praying till God comes in power and begins to restore the ruins and recreates a vibrant testimony of Himself in the earth.

God rebuilds waste places with living stones - his people - and established them using Jesus Christ, the Chief Cornerstone, as the new foundation. I sense that the Lord is calling out for his church to reclaim the waste places for the kingdom of God.

God promises to those that labor is hard places that a touch of Heaven is fast approaching. In some of the hardest places on earth - university campuses - that have been dulled with humanism and compromise and have sneered at Truth, he will come and do a new work. This verse has been bubbling up in my heart for months. Isaiah 58:12 "And they that shall be of you shall build the old waste places: you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in."

Survey history and you'll see that many great moves of God began on university campuses. Many of our great institutions of higher learning were started to train preachers and to provide Christian education. God is coming to reclaim the ruins of our campuses to harvest the souls of the young. Amos 9:11 "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up its broken breaches; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old."

Used with permission from:
Bryan Hupperts
© 2000 SheepTrax Ministries
4744 Stone Hill Drive
St. Louis, MO 63128
Sheeptrax@saintly.com
http://members.igateway.net/~bryanh

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