I. INTRODUCTION
We’re wrapping up our study on revival today. I hope it’s been a blessing to you to study some of the revivals in the Bible. I think it would be good for us to study today the last revival found in the Old Testament and that’s in the book of Nehemiah, because we want to ask the question this morning, “Can revival be built to last, or does it just go away and you never know it?”
Have you ever seen people who do not realize when something is gone? Maybe they even realize it but do not want to admit it. Maybe it’s an athlete at the end of his career, he’s lost a step, but he says he’s the same, but everyone knows what he had is gone. I wonder what it is like when the fire of revival is gone. Wouldn’t we all suddenly be aware of it? Wouldn’t we all show up one Sunday and say, “You know, it’s gone. Revival is gone.” Or does it happen so gradually that few even notice the fire is out?
In fact, after the studying the revivals like I have I have to ask the question, “Why don’t revivals ever last?” There’s no revival in the history of humanity that has lasted. We studied a couple weeks ago the revival in Ninevah. It saved an entire city for a generation or two, but it didn’t last. We saw a revival under Elijah, under King Asa, we’ve studied revivals in Christian history, and they’re great encouragement for us but they never lasted.
And we don’t have to even look at history, do we. Can’t we even look at our own hearts? Can’t you look back on a time in your life when you became a Christian or you rededicated your life to God, and you said, “God, I want to burn for you.” And for a time you were on fire for God. But it’s not burning like that today maybe. Why do revivals never last?
I’m not sure I have all the answers, but one thing I’m sure is revival cannot be inherited, it can’t be just passed on from father to children. Every generation has to make their own decision for it. But I do want to study a revival that had a longer impact than any other revival in the Bible, and it’s from the book of Nehemiah. And I’d like for you to open your Bibles there. Now Nehemiah was a cup-bearer for the king of Persian. He was a Jew. And word came back to him that some exiles had returned to Jerusalem but they had not yet repaired the city. And particularly the wall of the city was down. So Nehemiah humbled himself before God and he wept and prayed and fasted for forty months, God opened a door and Nehemiah was able to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls.
He got some people together and there was much opposition, especially from the Samaritans, but he motivated the people and he rebuilt the walls in 52 days! And you might think, “mission accomplished”, but Nehemiah knew the mission was not accomplished. Because Nehemiah knew the real problem was not that the wall was down. You see the wall was never the issue.
It makes me think, for example, you’ve seen pictures of the Great Wall of China, it stretches for 1,000 miles. They say it’s the only man-made object you can see from space. Why did they build it? Because they were tired of bring invaded by the barbarian hords from the north. So they built this awesome wall that was too big to climb over, it was too big to knock down, it was too deep to dig under, and yet 100 years after it was completed China was invaded three times by hords from the north. How? The barbarians simply bribed the gatekeeper and he let them right in.
You see, I don’t care how strong the wall is if the character of the people that maintain it is weak. And Nehemiah knew that no wall could secure the future of the nation. What really need to be repaired was the spiritual life of the people. Many of those exiles had returned to Jerusalem but they hadn’t returned to God. And the real threat was not outside the wall but inside, and I see we get a hint why revivals don’t last. Write this down. I believe revivals crumble because more from neglect than from attack. The problem in Jerusalem was not strength of enemy outside the wall. The problem was the weakness of people inside the wall. And I want to suggest to you that revivals crumble today not because our enemy is so great that he breaks down the revival wall, but because we allow, through neglect, for that revival fire to go out.
You know that if you don’t refuel a fire it will go out. Revival will die unless we intend for it to last. It’s like the cowboy I heard that wanted medical insurance. So he asked the insurance agent and the agent said, “Well, tell me if you’ve had any accidents?” The cowboy said, “No.”. The agent said, “You mean you’ve never gone to the hospital?” Cowboy said, “Well, I had to go last summer when that bronc kicked my ribs in. I had to go a few years ago when that rattlesnake bit me on the ankle.” The insurance agent said, “You wouldn’t call those accidents?” He said, “Nah, they did it on purpose.”
Revival doesn’t last by accident. It lasts because you purposely intend for it to last. And the revival that God is trying to start here in Eagleville in your hearts, and I know he’s working in some of your hearts and Satan wants to poof it out. But there’s no reason that fire can’t burn for two years, ten years or forty. But we have to intend for it to burn. And I want to show you how we can build revival to last from the book of Nehemiah. Because Nehemiah knew the wall wasn’t enough, and he got all those people together and he did four things that are so important. This is what we need to do:
A. Keep Hungering for “God’s Word”.
The fire of revival needs fuel. It needs soul food. So in Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5. READ. Now I have to notice the reverence they are giving God’s Word. And I ask the question, “Do we honor God’s Word like that today?”
Have you ever noticed when someone says a prayer no matter what someone is doing they will stop? But we don’t do that when we read the Bible. Do we give the impression to visitors that we honor the reading of God’s Word?
Two ways you do that:
1. A Spirit of “Commitment”. It says they listened energetically, they listened intently, and I want you to notice their total lack of time consciousness. From the time the sun came up to the middle of the day they stood up and listened as God’s Word was read. Let me tell you one reason revival doesn’t last, because we are too dictated by our watches. And God will not let revival be dictated by a watch. God is not going to send revival as long as you tell Him when you can squeeze it in. God’s going to send revival when you so hunger for His word that you lose all sense of time because it’s so good to hear from Him. Takes a spirit of commitment and it’s going to….
2. A Spirit of “Expectation”. We’ve got to expect when God’s Word is opened something awesome is about to happen. Let me tell what I think we’ve come to believe, maybe we don’t say it out loud but I see it in our attitudes sometimes. I think we subtly thought that since God has stopped writing, God has stopped speaking. And that is dangerous conclusion. This is a living word and every time it’s opened and read and preached God is speaks to hearts and moves powerfully if we expect to hear Him that way. And if we are going to have revival continue we’ve got to expect every time we come together that God is going to speak to our hearts because he still talks to His people.
Elizabeth Barrett, one of America’s great poetesses, was semi-invalid because of childhood accident, she had to be cared for by a rather tyrannical and overbearing father. Well, she met Robert Browning. They fell in love and wanted to get married. But the father didn’t want them to. So they ran off and got married in secret. Sailed to Italy where they lived rest of their lives. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote her father every week for ten years. After ten years she got giant box in mail-in it every letter she had ever written, unopened. And they contained some of the most beautiful and classic English literature ever penned.
You see, God has written a love letter to you. God has written telling you how much he loves you, how much he wants to move powerfully in your life, how much you mean to him, but if relationship is going to stay close, you’ve got to read his words. You’ve got to read the letters. So it says in Nehemiah 8:18
In the great welsh revival in the years 1905-6 in Wales, a young man named William Williams came to Christ and wrote a hymn called “Guide Me O Though Great Jehovah”. And do you remember the last part of the first verse? “Bread of Heaven, feed me til I want no more.” Now that’s a revival payer. You keep hungering for the Word of God if you want revival to last.
B. Keep Honoring God with “Passionate Worship”
Look at Nehemiah 8:6. I’ve always been amused at people who think worship gets a little too emotional at church. Listen, worship was never meant to be a case of the bland leading the bland. It is amazing how we have taught ourselves to control and subdue and resist those feelings of passion for God.
Listen to Nehemiah 9:4-6. READ. Now I’ve thought some dumb things in my life but one of the dumbest is when I thought, “You know, if you don’t feel like going to church, if you’ve got a bad attitude just stay home because it won’t do you any good any way.” What a foolish thing to think. Now I say, “If you’ve got a bad attitude and don’t feel like going to church, go any way, cause you just might have an encounter with God.” Because I’ll tell you what happens when the church worships God, God shows up.
The Bible says in Psalms 89:15, “Happy are the people who know how to praise you Lord. Let them live in the light of your presence.” You see the presence of God is powerfully felt when we come together to worship. The Bible says that God sits on the throne of the praises of His people. God loves to be in the midst of His praise. And so when we worship Him in a powerful way, when we worship he is here.
That’s why Paul said in I Cor. 14 when the unbeliever comes in he falls down on his face and says, “My, the preaching is good in this place.” No. “Boy, those people sure can sing.” No. What did he say? He falls down on his face and says, “Surely God is in this place.” God is present when people worship Him. And we should want that fire to burn. We don’t want Satan to poof it out. And I tell what will keep that revival fire burning. There’s nothing that revives us like knowing God is with us.
Do you remember a few years ago those whales that got trapped up north in the ice? And there was one little hole in the ice they kept trying to come up to and got bruised and bloody and they were five miles from the ocean. And they were trying to get the whales to safety. What they had to do is about every twenty yards cut a new whole in the ice and move them toward the water. And you see, our lives are a lot like that. I mean our journey to heaven many times can be tough, and the pilgrimage isn’t easy, and we get bruised sometimes, and I tell you what we need every bit along the way. We need to come up for air. And that’s what worship should do for us. In the Welsh Revival they said, “The churches are full of people and the people are full of God.”
You want to keep the revival fires growing strong? You hunger for the word and you worship God with passion, regularly and consistently. And
C. Keep Humbling Yourself Through “Honest Confession”
Because we’ve already seen the foundation of the revival wall is humbling ourselves. And that demands facing the truth about our sins. So in Nehemiah 9:1-3. READ. Now we’ve already seen their worshipping, they’re listening to the Word of God being read. But they do something different, because they add confession too. Because let me tell you what happens. If you start to worship God, and you start to come into his holy presence, you’re going to become aware of your sins. And what you do with that awareness is whats going to decide if revival keeps going. See Isaiah 6. Because if you don’t deal with that sin, if you ignore that sin, you’re going to block the flow of God’s presence.
I believe revival fire is quenched when confession is not practiced as a regular discipline. What do I mean about confession? You see, they prayed a long prayer, and basically what they said was, “God, here’s our story. You poured out blessings on us and we basically turned our backs. We went our own ways and our sins got us into trouble and so we cried out in distress RESCUE US and you did. And pour out blessings on us. And you did. And we enjoyed that for a little while. And we sinned again. And we’ve been doing that over and over and over again, and we’re in a mess now and it’s not you’re fault.” They said in Nehemiah 9:33. READ.
You’ve got to reach that same point. Where you look back to your life and say, “God, it’s not her fault or his fault, it’s not the environment, it’s not my genes, it’s my rebelliousness that causes my problems, and God, you’ve been good. You’ve been just, you’ve been faithful, it’s not you fault I’m where I am today.” We’ve all got a story, folks, just like Israel’s. And we’ve got to tell the truth about it.
God wants pour out blessing on us, folks, but we have to be honest about our sins. Revival is not maintained by token prayers. But by broken prayers. The Bible says in Psalms 24:18, “The Lord is close to those whose hearts are breaking. He rescues those who are humbly sorry for their sins.”
Isaiah 57:15 says, “This is what the high and lofty one says who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit. To revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” If you want revival to last, you’ve got to keep your heart humble.
Because only the broken heart is big enough for God to live in. Are you going to let Satan poof it out or are you going to keep it burning? Hunger for the word, and honor him with worship, and humble yourself regularly in confession to God, and
D. Keep Heralding Your Desire to Put “God First”
Because revival is for those who are determined to take God seriously. I’ll tell you what I think Nehemiah did that helped his revival last longer than most. He had the people go public. And put it in writing. In Nehemiah 9:38. READ. You see, God is a covenant maker. That’s how he establishes relationships with you and me, he invites us to enter into a covenant with Him. Now he makes the covenant and I tell you something about God. He is always up-front, he’s never tried to trick you with fine print. He’s always said up-front what the covenant terms are. We don’t make the covenant, we renew the covenant. Need to do it regularly.
Specifically like Israel. Do you know what they did? They said, “God, here’s three areas we’re going to renew this covenant. Number one is our marriages. We’re only going to marry other believers and we’re going to keep our marriages pure. Number two, our business dealings, we have not been honest in the way we’ve been trying to make money and we’re going to stop and number three, our tithes. We’re going to start giving a tenth of everything we have again.”
And I want you to notice they put it in writing and leaders signed it first. First name on the list (Neh. 10:1) was Nehemiah. You cannot keep revival in your heart if you avoid chances to go public before God. Your going to have chances at your school, your going to have chances at work, your going to have chances on your ball team, and in your neighborhood, to let people know whether or not your on God’s team. You cannot keep fire burning if you avoid those chances.
Brett Butler was a well known baseball player. For years played for the Giants, as one of their most popular players and then his contract was up and he signed a free agent contract with the LA Dodgers. The most hated rivals of the Giants. So the first time the Dodgers came to San Francisco the crowd didn’t know what to do. Here was one of their more popular players wearing another teams colors. So he walked out on the field and some clapped and some hissed. And then Brett Butler walked across the field and grabbed Tommy Lasorda, the manager for the Dodgers and gave him a great big hug. And the crowd got angry and started booing. And he said, “Brett, why did you so that?” He said, “Because they need to know I’ve changed teams and I’m a Dodger now.”
You’ve got to put it in writing and go public about your team. I think that’s why this revival lasted so long. Maybe no revival in history had a longer impact than this one because after this revival the Jews never again practiced idolatry. They never again did worshipped other gods.
I’m wondering today what do you need to say you’re never going to do again? What do you need to put into writing right now to make a difference? I’ve got a place down at the bottom of your outline. It says, “Dear Lord, Today I’m renewing my pledge to return to you with my whole heart. This means I must…….”
I want you to put something in writing what you need to do to keep revival in your heart. Maybe it means you need to start tithing. Maybe it means you need to start reading God’s word everyday. Maybe it means you need to decide to be here every time the doors are open to worship God. Maybe it means you need to start showing your passion when you worship. Maybe it means there’s some sin in your life you need to confess. I don’t know what it means. You need to fill in the blank. But I want you to put it in writing. I’m going to give you a few moments.
You see, God’s trying to start a fire in your heart and Satan’s trying to poof it out and you decide who wins. So fill that out right now.
(Fashioned for my audience from a series by Rich Atchley)
