The great need is for trumpeters. Many dear saints love the exquisite sermons and jazzy quartettes but hate the trumpeter of the resurrection. Believers don't want to be aroused. We must awake to our high-calling of God in Christ Jesus. We must awake to our responsibility of Christian stewardship. We must awake and possess our blood-bought possessions in our Risen Lord.

Notice the pathos in the challenge and rebuke, "O Jerusalem, the holy city! O captive daughter of Zion! Rouse thyself, clothe thyself, cleanse thyself, shake thyself, loose thyself." What a terrible condition to be in - how God-dishonoring! "Captive daughter of Zion!" What a contradiction! The Church as compromised and dragged the dear Name of the Savior in the dust. Therefore, she is in captivity. The sin of the Church is that it is earth-bound.

"Shake thyself from the dust." Many are longing for a tidal movement of the Spirit to sweep through our churches, but we don't need to wait for that. The remnant of old cried to Jehovah, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old" (Isa. 51:9). God answered them with this pathetic rebuke, "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion" (Isa. 52:1). It isn't the Lord who is asleep, but His people. We must repent and get right with God and humble ourselves to the dust in sackcloth and ashes. "Put on thy strength, O Zion." Strength is at our disposal. The garment of power is hanging on the door of Pentecost (Acts1:8). Power is at our disposal. We read the menu but fail to order. "He that believeth on Me, out of Him shall flow rivers of living water." We must appropriate our resources. They are not dried up. The Church's potential is the same as in apostolic days.

There is a glorious church edifice in Florence which came fresh from the hands of builders and artists about the middle of the 15th century. Its severe outlines were relieved by delicate tinting on roof and walls; its choir and chapels were lit up with priceless examples of mural decoration. A century passed, and then Vasari broke in upon the scheme of the decoration by the erection of his hideous stone altars. Some of the frescoes were obliterated; others were mutilated. Those which remained were buried under a coating of whitewash. To hide the vandalism, it was judged necessary to whiten the walls also, and the deep roof, while the spring of the arches was tricked out in a dull ochre. Then, that the glare of light might be reduced, 19 large windows were built up. And so, obscured and dishonored, the great church stood during 300 years. It was known by the Florentines that the coarse distemper hid the superb frescoes of the Ciotto Agnolo Gaddi and Maso di Banco, but no one was able to say how the covering might be removed without destroying the exquisite harmonies underneath.

At last, some 80 years ago, a way was found and tried - costly and tedious - but practical. And now, in various portions, the church edifice begins to shine out in almost its pristine splendor. The work progresses slowly; there is still much to do, but one may at least trace the design of the build and the motive of the artist.

The Church of Jesus Christ, the pillar and ground of the Truth, came in its pure glory, unsullied from the hand of its Divine Artificer. Ball, all too soon, its splendor was darkened and its beauty stained. Yet, there have been times of refreshing from the Lord, in which the intrusive unsightliness has been, in part, cleared away. And, at such times, one begins anew to realize what the Church of the First-born in the days of the great Pentecost must have been.

What strikes one most forcibly in reading of the vitality of the Church of the First Century is not so much the glory of her conquests as the fact that it was secured with resources that appear to us altogether inadequate for a task of such magnitude. A number of plain men, for the most part significant and unknown, with the most slender equipment, against fierce persecution and hatred, "turned the world upside down." Wave after wave of persecution broke over them, and yet they emerged victorious. The message of the Acts is that the bare simplicities of Christianity are the things that count. The glory of the victorious Church was that men proclaimed the gospel with holy unction and certified it by holy lives. I am deeply persuaded that, judged experimentally by our daily lives and practice, much of the mental attitude and spiritual poise of the modern Church is pre-Pentecostal, and, in this is to be found the secret of our common weariness and impotence.

This is copyrighted material from James Stewart's book Come O Breath, available from Revival Literature, PO Box 6068, Asheville, NC 28816.