Deep calls to deep

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.” Genesis 7:11

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.‘” John 7: 38

“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts…” Psalm 42:7a KJV

The other night God visited a prayer meeting I attended. Waves of worship in languages given by the Spirit of God filled the atmosphere, spilling out in joy, peace, and great awe. To me it felt as if I had entered a river, toes first, splashing and washing away the tiredness of my flesh. I saw swirling eddies and light dancing upon the water with my mind’s eye, and realized that, try as we might, no human could really control a living river.

As I worshipped God, I reflected upon rivers I had known, from fishing expeditions with my dad, float trips, rope swings over deeply-rooted banks, and the torrents of flood waters that often crash through the mighty rivers of my region. Rivers—life-giving, playful, refreshing, cleansing, powerful, dangerous, destructive—rivers.

I sang quietly to myself, “Oh, oh, the River of God! Wash it away, wash it away, wash it away in the River of God!” The river of God was washing me, and I allowed it to carry me into the deeper flows of the peace of God.

Then I caught a glimpse of how an outpouring of God might begin upon a people or a land. God said to Jeremiah, “…call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you…” (see Jeremiah 29:12-14).

When the heart cries of God’s people are toward Him, seeking Him with their whole beings for mercy, salvation, and restoration to be poured out upon both them and their land, He listens and responds. During times of chaos, distress, crisis, and upheaval in the past, men and women have cried out to God earnestly, beseeching Him for deliverance from their backslidings and sin, crying out for relief from the fruit of wickedness in the land. And as a result, revivals have nearly always erupted in those darker times.

By Noah’s time, although the earth was still young, wickedness had grown out of control and evil permeated the thoughts and intentions of the human race. The world was corrupted by sin; violence ruled the day, and God had seen enough.

He directed Noah to build an ark for the preservation of the race and every animal species on the earth. According to 2 Peter 2:5, it is likely that Noah preached righteousness to anyone who happened by throughout the entire ark-construction project. The door to the ark was left open until the last minute; had anyone taken Noah’s message to heart, my guess is that they would have been welcomed aboard.

Genesis 7:11 gives the report of the fateful day when the flood began. “All the fountains of the great deep burst open,” declares the Word, “and the floodgates of the sky were opened.”

In our day, as wickedness grows out of control once again, and as evil thoughts seem to saturate the very atmosphere with perversion, violence, and greed, God is once again leaving the door of the ark open for a while longer.

And He is now stirring the depths of the hearts of His people—deep is calling unto deep—and He is pressing by His Spirit upon all of us—anyone who will—to “burst open” and allow the release of living waters from their innermost being.

And as we cry out to Him and seek Him with all of our hearts, He will be found of us. The great depths within us, placed within our hearts from the beginning, will be met by the opened floodgates of Heaven, and another great flood of outpouring will occur.

In this flood, souls will be saved, not lost; and as we cry out to Him, perhaps one last time this planet will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

It is our time; may each one of us yield to the Holy One pressing upon our hearts in this hour and cry out to Heaven, “Send the outpouring of your Spirit! We must have revival!”

Dorothy