Remove the Road Block — Brian Long

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord for that message already. That was from the Lord. Thank you, Brother Dale. Tonight we will turn to Isaiah, the 57th chapter again. Isaiah 57. And the message tonight, prepare the way.

Removing the Roadblock to Revival

That's our theme. Tonight the message is remove the roadblock. We must remove the roadblock. There's something that stands in the way that must be removed. Isaiah 57, and we'll begin reading in verse 14.

We're gonna read just two verses here as our text. And one shall say, heap it up, heap it up, prepare the way, take the stumbling block out of the way of my people. For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy.

I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. The command from the Lord again here as you see tonight is prepare the way.

That's what God is clearly calling us and commanding us to do, to prepare the way for him to come to us in revival. Isn't that what he says in the 15th verse? To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Revival as an Awakening of the Church

Now what is revival? Many have tried to define that, what it is. And I wanna share with you just a few here. First of all, from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. He says, you cannot revive something that has never had life.

So revival by definition is first of all, an enlivening and quickening and awakening of lethargic, sleeping church members. Suddenly the power of the spirit comes upon them. They are humbled. They are convicted of sin.

Then as a result of their quickening and enlivening, they begin to pray. New power comes into the preaching of the ministers. And the result of this is large numbers are converted. So the two main characteristics of revival are first, this extraordinary enlivening of the members of the church.

And second, the conversion of masses of people who have been outside in indifference and in sin. Then Duncan Campbell says it this way. Revival is a community saturated with God. I love that definition.

Revival is a community saturated with God. In revival, he says, when God the Holy Ghost comes, when the winds of heaven blow, suddenly the community becomes God conscious. A God realization takes hold of young, middle-aged and old so that as in the case of the Hebrides revival, 75 of those saved one night were saved before they ever came near a meeting.

I have the privilege of meeting Mrs. Mary Peckham. Back then she was Mary Morrison. She was converted during the Hebrides revival. And her story was that when as a teenage girl, when God the Holy Spirit came to that Hebrides island, the presence of God was everywhere.

You couldn't get away from His presence. She was walking down the road one day and she said, oh God, I'm not even worthy to walk on Your earth. So she took off her shoes. And she said, I'm still not even worthy to walk on Your earth.

So she walked down to the beach and leapt into the ocean. She said, oh Lord, this is Your ocean. Where am I gonna go? She couldn't get away from the presence of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, that's revival.

When God comes and a whole community is saturated with the presence of God and it's as if you can't get away from Him, 75 converted before they ever came to a church meeting. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Wouldn't that be amazing if the presence of the Lord came down upon Ingram and suddenly everybody, somebody's watching TV and suddenly they're gripped with the conscious awareness of the presence of God.

Someone is walking down the road. Somebody's children are playing in the street and suddenly they know God is God and He's here. That's revival. But revival, as you've heard already, and we've said many times, revival doesn't start out there, does it?

You can't revive something that's not already, has a little bit of life in it. Revival, to start out there, to be out there, it has to first start in here, among us. And to make it even more personal, for revival to begin in the church, revival has to begin in here, right here in my heart.

Pride as the Stumbling Block

But there's something that God has very clearly revealed here in this 14th verse that stands in the way of revival. God has called us to prepare the way for Him to come to us in revival. Something is standing in the way.

If you'll notice in that 14th verse, He says, take the stumbling block out of the way of My people. There's a roadblock, there's a stumbling block that stands in the way. And you and I will never know the power and the presence of God in our lives until that roadblock is removed.

It stands in the way. Does God really want to come and revive His people? He wouldn't be telling us to prepare the way for Him if He did not. God wants to come and meet with us even more than we actually want to meet with Him.

But He very clearly reveals here that there's something that stands in the way. And as long as this roadblock is in the way, as long as this roadblock is not removed, there's a hindrance to God coming and manifesting His presence and meeting us in revival.

And I want to tell you tonight that that roadblock, the greatest hindrance to revival, the stumbling block that stands in the way, is pride. Pride stands in the way. It stands before us and God as a roadblock, a stumbling block to keep God from coming and reviving us again.

You'll notice from our text, there are two places that God dwells. The 15th verse. He says, Thus saith the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in that high and holy place.

So God dwells in the high and holy place. Heaven is His throne. The earth is His footstool. He dwells in the highest of heaven. He inhabits eternity. But isn't it amazing? I stand in awesome wonder of this, that the Almighty God not only dwells in the high and holy place, but where else?

He says, With the humble and the contrite. With Him who has a contrite and humble spirit. The same God who inhabits eternity longs to dwell in the humble and the contrite people. Broken, that's what it means.

Broken people. The stumbling block and the roadblock that stands in the way, of course, is pride. Listen carefully as I read a piece that's written by Charles Spurgeon on pride. He says, Pride is so natural to fallen man that it springs up in his heart like weeds in a watered garden, or rushes by a flowing brook.

It is an all-pervading sin and smothers all things like dust on the roads or flour in the mill. It's every touch as evil as the breath of the cholera or the blast of the Sahara wind. Pride is as hard to get rid of as Sherlock from the Furrows or the American blight from the apple trees.

If killed, it revives. If buried, it bursts the tomb. You may hunt down this fox and think you have destroyed it, but lo, your very exaltation is pride. None have more pride than those who dream that they have none.

You may labor against vain glory till you conceive that you are humble and the fond conceit of your humility will prove to be pride in full bloom. It imitates humility, but it is most truly pride. Pride is a sin with a thousand lives.

Pride is a ringleader and captain among iniquities. It is a daring and God-defying sin. Arraigning divine justice as Cain did. Challenging Jehovah to combat as Pharaoh did. Or making self into God as Nebuchadnezzar did.

It would murder God if it could, that it might fill His throne. Brothers and sisters, for certain you and I are in danger of pride. Possibly we are even now victims of it. Let us be on our guard, for it may be ruining us, even without our knowledge.

Pride bars the favor of God. The Scripture says God resists the proud. No grace comes to the proud, but He gives grace only to the humble. There is one thing I don't want from God, and that is to be resisted by God.

And yet the Scripture is so very clear. God resists the proud, but He gives grace only to the humble. The origin of all sin is pride. Sin did not begin with murder. It did not begin with drunkenness, slander, adultery, gambling.

Sin originated with pride. The root of every single sin is pride, and there is nothing that God hates so much as He hates pride. Proverbs 6, verse 16. These six things does the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination to Him.

And the first one He mentions, notice, is a proud look. The very first one of all the seven. God hates pride. Proverbs 16, verse 5 says, everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Pride is what we must fear and hate the most because it manifests itself in such subtle, deceitful, and dangerous ways.

You know, a Christian cannot go out and murder someone and sleep peacefully at night. A Christian cannot go steal something from someone and sleep peacefully at night. But a Christian can often have pride, a heart full of pride, and it never even bothered them and they sleep peacefully at night.

It is a deceitful and deadly sin, and it is the very roadblock that stands in the way from God coming in revival. Pride is like that small bacteria, that virus that gets inside of you. It's so small you can't see it or detect it until finally it manifests itself and you become sick.

When we understand that pride in our hearts is the very root of all sin in our life, we will finally realize that no matter how much we repent of certain external sins, if the root of those sins remain, we remain unchanged on the inside.

It's like this big tree standing in the way. God says prepare the way, but there's a big tree in the road. And unless we deal with the root of pride, it's like taking a pair of scissors and trying to snip off all that bad fruit off the bad tree.

The tree stands in the way. What we need tonight, brothers and sisters, is Almighty God to lay His ax to the root of the problem, and that is the roadblock of pride. Bring it down. That's been my personal prayer to God.

Lord, convict me of every form and degree of pride and lay the ax to the root of pride in my life. Get rid of it. It's the one thing God resists. It's the one thing that shuts us out of true personal revival.

And let's not fool ourselves into thinking that pride is only a problem for the lost. It's not, is it? It's so subtle and none of us are immune to it. The most effective means the enemy has to keep someone from being filled with the Holy Spirit is to keep them full of themselves.

And I tell you tonight, God will never fill anyone with His Spirit who is already so full of themselves. He fills empty vessels. He fills broken vessels. Here's a poem written by Beth Moore that says it so well.

The Deceptive Effects of Pride

My name is pride. I am a cheater. I cheat you of your God-given destiny because you demand your own way. I cheat you of contentment because you deserve better than this. I cheat you of knowledge because you already know it all.

I cheat you of healing because you're too full of me to forgive. I cheat you of holiness because you refuse to admit when you're wrong. I cheat you of vision because you'd rather look in a mirror than out a window.

I cheat you of genuine friendship because nobody's going to know the real you. I cheat you of love because real love demands sacrifice. I cheat you of greatness in heaven because you refuse to wash another's feet on earth.

I cheat you of God's glory because I convince you to seek your own. My name is pride. I am a cheater. You like me because you think I'm always looking out for you. Untrue. I am looking to make a fool of you.

God has so much for you, I admit, but don't worry, if you stick with me, you will never know. There are two ways, brothers and sisters. There are two ways to come to humility. One is that you and I can humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.

The other is to have God humble us. And I can tell you from personal experience, it is a whole lot easier and less painful to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God than to have Almighty God humble us for us.

Which will you do tonight? The stumbling block that stands in the way of God longing to meet with His people says first, remove the roadblock. Remove this thing called pride that stands in the way. The question now though is how?

Learning Humility by Looking to Jesus

How do we get rid of it? How do we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and therefore remove this roadblock of pride? Do we put on a certain look? Do I dress a certain way? Do I try and speak meekly and humbly and put on some kind of outward appearance?

No. You can put on the most humble, outward appearance and dress the most modest and have the most humble look, the most pious look, and behind that mask and behind all those clothes can lie an evil, wicked heart of pride.

What is the answer? How do we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God? It's humility of heart that the Lord is after. And therefore, there must be a repentance and a rejection of every form and degree of pride that comes into our life.

But there's only one way that I know to walk in humility. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. There is no other way. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Matthew 11, verse 29.

Jesus says, take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. Where do I learn humility? Where do we learn humility? From the One who demonstrated the greatest, deepest humility that this world has ever known or ever will know.

Jesus Christ. No one ever exemplified humility like Him. How do we learn humility? We learn humility from Christ. And I want you to turn with me, if you would, to Philippians 2 to not only stand in awe and praise God for the way He demonstrated humility, but also follow Him in it.

Philippians 2, beginning in verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men.

And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. First of all, notice that in verse 7, it says of our Lord Jesus, He made Himself of no reputation.

What does that mean? It means that He emptied Himself. He laid aside all of His privileges and gave up His rights. Whereas pride is being full of self, humility is being empty of self. And our Lord Jesus emptied Him of Himself.

Humility doesn't think of self. Humility thinks of others. You'll notice twice here, He mentions the mind. In verse 3, He says, Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind.

Let each esteem others better than himself. In verse 5, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Therefore, there's a battlefield that goes on right here in the mind. And humility does not think of self.

Humility has its mind set upon Christ, looking unto Jesus, and it thinks of others. Putting others before self. Some mistakenly think that humility is always thinking bad about yourself or beating yourself up or talking bad about yourself.

But Jesus Christ never did any of that. And there was no one so humble as Him. Andrew Murray said, The humble person is not one who thinks meanly of himself. He's the one who simply does not think of himself at all.

Humility is selflessness. It's thinking of others. It's being emptied of self. Emptied of self-confidence. Empty of self-preservation. Empty of selfish ambitions. Empty of selfish motives and desires.

Availability and Selfless Service

You remember that Jesus, one day He was needing to preach to a crowd. They were pressing against Him as He was along the shores of Galilee. And those in the back of the crowd couldn't hear Him, so He looked and He saw a boat.

It was Simon Peter's boat. And He stepped into that fishing boat, rowed out into the sea, and was able to preach to the multitudes. He used that empty fishing boat and turned it into a sacred pulpit. A platform from which the Son of God would preach the Word of God.

Why did Jesus use that boat? I want to submit to you as for two reasons. Number one, it was empty. And number two, it was available. And this very night, God is looking not for a boat, but for a body.

He's looking for a people with the same two characteristics. Are you empty of self? Willing to deny yourself? Willing to be emptied of all self? Are you empty? And secondly, are you available? That's what He's looking for.

But notice, not only did He empty Himself, make Himself of no reputation, but it says in the 7th verse, He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant. Humility serves. Humility doesn't come to be served, but to serve.

Jesus said the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life as a ransom for many. And He came not to be served, but to serve. And you know how to test whether or not you really have the heart of a servant?

It's by how you react or respond when you're treated like one. Do you really have the servant heart of the Lord? My mind immediately goes back to that night when Jesus sat down with His disciples. Within the next 24 hours, He would be going to a cross.

And He knew it. He would be laying down His very life for the sins of the world. And He sits down with His disciples, His 12 disciples to eat this Last Supper. Takes bread, gives thanks and breaks it and says, this is My body which is broken for you.

Takes a cup and says, this is My blood, the blood of the New Covenant which is shed for the remission of your sins. He's talking about laying down His life. The very next day, He's going to a cross. And in the midst of it all, His disciples are talking amongst themselves about who is the greatest.

What would you think? You know you're facing death. You're laying down your life for these men. You're giving your all for them. And they are discussing among themselves who among us is the greatest. You know what Jesus did?

In the midst of all of that, He gets up and He girds His loins with a towel, takes a towel, takes a basin with water, and He goes to these disciples one at a time and He begins to wash their dirty feet.

Doing the job of a slave. This is the King of Kings. This is the Creator of heaven and earth. This is the Son of the living God. And He's doing a job that even His disciples would never dare to think of doing.

And not only does He wash the feet of each one, but He becomes such a humble servant that He goes to one who He knows is going to deny Him, and He still washes his feet. He goes to another who's going to betray Him, and He still washes his feet.

We say, okay, Brother Brian, I'll shovel the snow off of my friendly neighbor's driveway but my enemy? This is humble service. Washing the feet of someone who would betray me, blessing someone who hates me, becoming a servant.

That's our Lord Jesus Christ. Two men were in a prison camp, concentration camp. One was a Christian, the other was not. The Christian man fed his friend every day. He served him. He wiped his wounds.

Showing Jesus Through Compassionate Service

One day he held him in his arms and as his friend was dying, he began to tell him about Jesus. This dying man looked up at his friend and said, I've never heard about Jesus until I heard you talking about Him.

He said, I don't know Him, but if He's anybody like you, if He's anything like you, I want to know Him now. Friends, can people say that about you? Can they look at you and say that? If Jesus is anything like you, I want to know Him.

How did this man see Jesus in this prisoner? He saw Him in Jesus when this prisoner became a humble servant and began to serve in practical ways. Feeding Him. Wiping His wounds. Taking care of Him. Become a servant.

And don't expect any reward or any pat on the back or anything in return for it. Make yourself a slave for the day. Open that door. Help her change the tire. Help with the kids. Clean up the mess when no one is watching.

Visit the neighbor. Weep with those who weep. Rejoice with those who are rejoicing. Take care of the poor. Go to the grocery store and gather up some groceries and take it to a needy family. Humble, practical ways of serving.

Pay someone's bill. Husbands. Serve your wives. Out of love for them. Wives, serve your husbands out of love for them. Children, serve your parents out of love and obedience to them. Become a servant.

This is the way our Master walks. This is the way He's calling us to follow. Be willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of a needy soul. Are you willing to be called up in the middle of the night? Jesus was.

You didn't have to go through a secretary to get to Jesus. Nicodemus could come to Him in the middle of the night. He was always willing to be inconvenienced. That's the heart of a humble servant. Being willing to be broken bread and poured out wine.

This is the humility of our Lord Jesus. This is where He's calling us to follow Him. And wouldn't it have been enough for Christ to have just left Heaven and come to earth and be a King here on the earth?

That would have been humility enough. But He doesn't do that. He comes from Heaven to earth and becomes a man. But He goes lower than that. He becomes not only a man, but a servant. And still yet, He humbles Himself even more and not only becomes a servant, but it says here in the next verse, verse 8, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

The Way of the Cross and Denial of Self

And this is the way of humility. The way of the cross. Humility is the death to all self-effort. Five times, Satan said in Isaiah 14, before he became Satan, he was Lucifer, this glorious angel. And five times he says what?

I will. I will. I will. I will ascend to the heights. I will make myself like the Most High. Jesus Christ came with the very opposite spirit and said, not as I will, but Thy will be done, Father. Pride says, I will.

It's all about me. Humility says, not as I will, but Thy will be done. And Jesus said in Luke 9 .23, If any man be My disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. The cross is where my will crosses with God's will.

And where your will and my will crosses with God's will, somebody's will has to die. And you and I have to make a decision. Will we deny ourselves? Will we die to pride? When my conversation with others is always centered around me, then I have not denied myself.

When I cannot admit when I'm wrong, then I have said, I will, not Thy will be done. When I can't ask someone else to pray for me, when I won't initiate reconciliation with someone who has broken fellowship with me, when I'm too proud to say that I'm sorry, will You forgive me?

I've not denied myself, and I've not taken up my cross. When I say to the Lord, I will surrender this much to You, but no more, I've said my will, I will, instead of Thy will be done. What kind of heart does God revive according to this 15th verse in Isaiah 57?

Contrasting Proud and Broken Hearts

Only the broken. It's only the humble. I want to read some things off to you here tonight that was written by Nancy Lee DeMoss, a godly woman with Life Action Ministries. And I want you to honestly listen to this and see where you fit.

You will find yourself in one place or the other. One is a characteristic of a proud person, the other a characteristic of someone who is broken. Proud people focus on the failures of others. Broken people are overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need.

Proud people have a critical fault-finding spirit. They look at everyone else's faults with a microscope, but their own with a telescope. But broken people are compassionate. They can forgive much because they know how much they've been forgiven.

Proud people are self-righteous. They look down on others. But broken people esteem all others better than themselves. The proud have an independent, self-sufficient spirit, but the broken have a dependent spirit recognizing their need.

Proud people have to prove that they are right. The broken are willing to yield to the right, to be right. The proud are self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation. But the broken are completely self-denying.

The proud have a drive to be recognized and appreciated, but the broken have a sense of their own unworthiness and are thrilled that God would use them at all. The proud are wounded when others are promoted and they are overlooked.

But the broken are eager for others to get the credit and rejoice when others are lifted up. The proud feel confident in how much they know. The broken are humbled by how very much they have to learn.

The proud keep others at arm's length, but the broken are willing to risk getting close to others and to take risk of loving intimately. The proud are quick to blame others, but the broken accept personal responsibility and can see where they are wrong in a situation.

The proud are unapproachable or defensive when criticized, but broken receive criticism with humble and open spirit. The proud are concerned with being respectable, but the broken are concerned with being real.

The proud find it difficult to share their spiritual need with others, but the broken are willing to be open and transparent with others as God directs. The proud have a hard time saying, I was wrong, will you please forgive me?

But the broken are quick to admit failure and seek forgiveness when necessary. The proud tend to deal in generalities when confessing sin, but the broken are able to acknowledge specifics when confessing their sin.

The proud wait for the other to come and ask forgiveness when there is a misunderstanding or conflict, but the broken always take the initiative to be reconciled. The proud compare themselves with others and feel worthy of honor.

The broken only compare themselves with the holiness of God, and therefore they feel a desperate need for His mercy. The proud don't think they have anything to repent of. The broken realize they have a need of continual heart attitude of repentance every day.

The proud don't think they need revival, but they're sure that everybody else does. The broken continually sense their need for a fresh encounter with God and for a fresh feeling of His Holy Spirit. Are you proud tonight, or are you broken?

God comes only to revive the heart of the broken. That's the only kind of heart He revives. He only comes when the way is prepared, and the way is prepared by removing the roadblock of pride. And I want to say to you also here in the end, our pride is seen most clearly, I believe, by prayerlessness.

Prayerlessness as Evidence of Pride

Proud people don't see a need to pray. Proud people don't continue in prayer. They don't see a need. They don't know how much they need God. There's an example of that in the New Testament. You remember when the Lord Jesus, on that dark night in the Garden of Gethsemane, He pleaded with Peter, James, and John to stay awake with Him and to pray.

Peter had confidently said to his Lord, I will never deny You, though everyone else may run away, I will never, ever deny You. If I have to die, I will not deny You. And Jesus is saying, stay awake and pray, lest you enter into temptation.

Peter fell fast asleep. You know why? Proud people don't see a need to pray. How is it with you, my brothers and sisters? Nothing reveals pride and independence of God more than prayerlessness. Are you one who rushes to your knees?

Are you one who rushes to prayer meeting? Because you see your need, and you see your need for revival as a church. Pride says we can make it without Him. And we prove that by prayerlessness. I'll never forget a story about D .L. Moody when he was preaching in England.

Humility at the Altar

When he preached, the news was spread abroad because not only would the common people gather to hear him and fall under conviction, but also the high class and the noble. On one occasion, he was invited to preach in an Anglican church.

The altars were filled with broken sinners calling out to Jesus, and one of the workers came up to Moody and said, Mr. Moody, Lady So-and-so is here. She's come tonight. And she wants to meet with you privately in one of the side rooms.

So she came in. And she says to him, Mr. Moody, I heard you preach tonight. I was under conviction. She said, even though I'm a church member, I know I'm lost and I want to be saved. But Mr. Moody, you have to understand something.

She said, I know you don't understand the way we govern in Britain, but you see that man down there on the altar, fourth one from the left? That's my coachman. And it would be so unseemly for me, Lady So-and-so, to actually kneel at the same altar next to my coachman.

What do I do? D .L. Moody looked at her and he said, with great pity, woman, you can do as you seem determined to do. You can be lost forever. And he turned to walk away. She said, Mr. Moody, Mr. Moody, I see, I see it now.

She followed him out. She went to the altar. She asked the one who was kneeling next to her coachman, please move over, move over. She kneels down right next to her coachman and she says, oh Tom, oh Tom, please pray for me.

And he did. And she did. And she got saved. Do you know why? Because she was willing to finally come to Christ the same way we all have to come to Him, and that is humbly and broken. Have you ever humbled yourself and knelt at an altar?

Have you ever humbled yourself and went to your knees and cried out to God? Never mind what people think about you anymore because you've suddenly been smitten with conviction to see your own desperate need for God.

The Preacher's Personal Brokenness

Brothers and sisters, I'm not preaching down to you tonight. I'm preaching to you on level ground because I stand here as one who God continues to break and continues to show me my need for Him. But I stand here as one who the Lord had to take through fire after fire after fire to break me of pure, stinking pride.

Early in my ministry, God moved mightily. And I was preaching under the anointing of the Holy Spirit and people were being saved and people began to come. The church that I was pastoring, they were coming from five different states, all different denominations.

God was moving. And you know what? This thing creeps in. And even though I would say, oh, glory to God, glory to God, it's all the Lord. Deep inside, I'm thinking, the Lord really needs me. You know, I'm really doing something here.

And the Lord had to take me through a year of absolute brokenness. I ended up out of the ministry for a whole year. And I'll never remember God laying me down on my face and showing me He did not need me, but it was a privilege to serve Him.

I want to tell you tonight, brothers and sisters, unless you and I are willing to humble ourselves before God and recognize not His need for us, He doesn't need us, but our desperate need for Him, until we're willing to call that roadblock what it is, it's pride in my life, and repent of it, the Lord will not come in revival.

He resists the proud. He gives grace only to the humble. Will you stand with me tonight? Johnny, would you come and lead us in worship? Heavenly Father, I know, and we know, as we've looked into Your holy Word, there is only one kind of heart that You revive, O God, and that is the humble, broken heart.

A Prayer for Revival and the Removal of Pride

I pray tonight, Father, that You would search our hearts, and You would reveal to us, Lord, where do we stand? As a broken people who see our desperate, dying need for You, or as a proud, religious people, Lord, who have a big stumbling block that stands in the way.

And while You are longing for us to prepare the way so You can come in revival, You are waiting for us first to respond to You and remove this roadblock called pride. Tonight, I pray, Lord God, that You would lay the ax to the root of all pride in my life and the hearts and lives of my brothers and sisters.