Has There Even Been Anything Like This?

“Has There Been Anything Like This”

Introduction:

Revive us again; Fill each heart with thy love

May each soul be rekindled with fire from above

Hallelujah, thine the glory

Hallelujah, amen

Hallelujah thine the glory

Revive us again

In just two weeks we come to a time of revival here at Oak Grove. Churches all across the country dedicate a week out of the year in an attempt to spiritually revive their congregations. I hope that over these next two weeks we can prepare our hearts to be revived. I think that many times a revival preacher will get up and preach and nothing changes in people’s lives. Many good sermons are brought and the faithful are edified, but those needing to be revived do not make an effort to be changed. That mainly comes because we sometimes expect God to do the reviving for us. Sometimes though we must make an effort to be revived and make steps in our own lives to be changed. As we read of revivals in the Old Testament we see a conscious effort on God’s people to be changed. When David wanted to be revived spiritually he prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God and renew a right Spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence oh Lord, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me, restore unto me the joy of my salvation, and renew a right spirit within me.” Is there anyone here who does not want to be revived? We as a church and we as individuals are yearning for a revival.

Perhaps you remember a time in your life in which you felt really close to God. You may remember a time that you were living faithfully to God. Perhaps today you miss those times and need to be revived. What I hope to do is to impress upon you that we need a revival, and to encourage you of the great need individually to be open to God’s Word.

During the time of the prophet Jeremiah Israel was in great need of revival. The people of God had fallen into sin and forsaken God once more, and Jeremiah was the revival preacher for the week. Jeremiah brings up several things in chapter two that remind me of the world in which we live. I wonder sometimes if God was to send a messenger to us what would he say and what would he tell us to do, where have we failed? The main question that is asked through Jeremiah that impacted me is, “has there been anything like this?” Jeremiah says the immorality and how people had turned on God and wanted to know if this was as bad as it gets. I don’t know about you, but as I look at think world I wonder, has there been anything like this? I think that we have out done the people in Jeremiah’s time and we need to come back to God, we need a revival. God told the Israelites that he was taking each of them individually to court. God is going to take us each to court in a way, and I wonder what he may rule. We need revival and we need to change, but are we willing to change and to grow in our faith. Or are we going to here message after message without applying God’s Word to our life.

Text: Jeremiah 2:4-13

I. Has There Been Anything Like This in the Nation

The people of God in the Old Testament made up a nation. As they settled in the land in which they were promised they became a mighty and powerful nation. Israel as a nation held God at the center of all that they did. While Israel was different in many ways from modern day America, one can see many similarities in the faults in which God found in ancient Israel and faults of modern day America. I wonder as Jeremiah wondered about his nation, has there ever been anything like this? Surely people for many centuries thought that they were living in the worst times ever. I wonder though could we claim to be in the worst and most immoral and ungodly generation in history. A lot of times you will hear people who have been around for a while sit and talk about how things have digressed. You hear those people saying, when I was young that would have been unheard of. I know that Sodom and Gomorrah were extremely wicked and immoral; they were an abomination to God. I know that Israel constantly fell into idolatry and forsook God many times. I know that ancient Rome was extremely immoral, and that immorality led to its fall. Knowing all that and knowing the way things are now, I cannot help, but to wonder has there ever been anything like this?