Every move of God is a sovereign exercise of his will. Let there be no doubt about that. There is nothing we can do to force him to bring the revival that we so desperately want and our culture so desperately needs.

But what we overlook is the significance of our response.

If we examine Isaiah 52 and 53, we see the great redemptive work of Christ, his suffering, his pain, his rejection. But when we look to the beginning of chapter 54, we find that suddenly a completely different note is sounded: “Shout for joy, O barren one... break forth into joyful shouting.”