In September 1857, in New York City, Jeremiah Lanphier, a 48-year old businessman began passing out handbills that read: "A day Prayer-Meeting is held every Wednesday from 12 to 1 o’clock in the ... North Dutch Church! Only one man showed up for the beginning of the meeting -- Lanphier! At 12:30, he heard the footsteps of one man climbing the stairs. Within a few minutes, a total of six men had joined Lanphier to pray. The next Wednesday brought 20; the third week was attended by between 30 and 40 men.
The meetings were so encouraging that it was decided that they should meet daily. Within six months time 10,000 businessmen daily were "confessing sin, getting saved, [and] praying for revival." (157) A chain reaction of church after church began to hold morning, afternoon, and evening meetings.
A visiting merchant to New York City who was selecting goods when noon came. "He requested the city wholesaler to work through the noon hour" so that he would be able to return to Albany by the evening riverboat. "He was resolutely told, ’No! I can’t help that. I have something to attend that is of more importance than the selling of goods. I must attend the noon-day prayer meeting. It will close at one o’clock, and I will then fill out your order.’" They both attended the meeting and the visitor was converted. When he returned to Albany, the new convert immediately began a noonday prayer meeting in the state’s capital. (55-56)
At its peak, there was an estimate 50,000 converts per week. During a two year period, 10,000 were joining churches weekly, and Sunday schools flourished. (Orr 7)
The Awakening of 1857-1858 brought over one million new converts into the American Church, and revived the over four million members present before the Revival. For the world to be converted, the church of God must be transformed.
I believe that the God who has brought Great Awakenings in the past will bring Great Awakenings in the future if His people understand 3 things:
• What prevents a Great Awakening
• What precedes a Great Awakening
• What is the produced by a Great Awakening
During the days of the prophet Samuel, the people had gone through a difficult time. The Ark of the Covenant had been captured by the Philistines. It was a crushing blow by their bitter enemy. While the Philistines held the Ark, God poured out His wrath upon them, by afflicting them with a plague of tumors.
The Philistines were so plagued by these tumors that they called the wicked priests and diviners and asked, “What shall we do with the ark.” The detestable diviners designed a plan to appease the wrath of God.
5 "Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your rats that ravage the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps He will lighten His hand from you, from your gods, and from your land. (1 Sam 6:5 (NKJV))
The diviners thought that this offering would appease the wrath of God. But this brings us to our first point. There are things that prevent a Great Awakening.
I. What Prevents a Great Awakening
A. The people ignore the Ways of God: Look at the solution offered by the diviners
1. Let us make an image...
a. This image was more than just a statue or a form, it was an item of worship. But listen to Exodus 20:4, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God Ex 20:4-5 (NKJV)
b. The diviners did not understand that God is a jealous God who will not share His glory with another.
c. What a far cry this is from the Creation account which says, “Let us make man in our image.”
d. Instead of recognizing that humanity was fashioned in the image of Divinity, the detestable diviners sought to fashion divinity by the hands of humanity.
e. Although we do not have golden idols in America today we can call a teenager popstar an American idol but our Supreme Court must decide if our school children can say, “one nation under God.”
f. Our courts are being asked to decide criminal law and civil law but cannot post God’s original written law the 10 commandments, in their court. No wonder so much of our nation is in a spiritual slumber.
2. Let us make images of a rat...
a. Not only did the people not understand that God is a jealous God, they did not understand that He is a Holy God.
b. 29 ’These also shall be unclean to you ...: the mole, the mouse... 31 ’These are unclean to you... Whoever touches them when they are dead shall be unclean until evening Lev 11:29-31 (NKJV)
c. God is a Holy God! His way is Holiness. Placing an image of an unholy rat in the place that symbolized the presence of God was an unholy thing. The things done by the diviners were detestable to God.
d. If we are to see a Great Awakening in these days while Jesus tarries, we must rediscover the ways of God. We must respect that He is a jealous God and we must reverence Him as a Holy God. Until we as a nation do that we will continue in spiritual slumber
B. The people ignore the Word of God
1. While the detestable diviners were ignorant of the ways of God, please notice how the irreverent Israelites ignored the word of God.
2. Now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it 1 Sam 6:13 (NKJV)
3. Beth Shemesh was a Levitical city set aside for the clan of Kohath, the Levitical family given the responsibility to care for the ark. In Numbers 4, the Kohathites were commanded to keep the ark covered, to refrain from touching the ark, and never to look in it.
4. Yet
a. Verse 15 – they display the ark on a rock
b. Verse 19 – they open the top of the ark
5. The Kohathites knew the Word of God but they did not do the Word of God.
a. Irreverent
b. Irreligious
6. God’s people must get back to the Bible. I believe that all sixty-six books -- all the way from Genesis to Revelation -- are the Word of God. I believe in the Bible’s integrity and inerrancy and in the fact that we need to get back to its teachings.—J. Vernon McGee’s Thru The Bible
7. We’ve come a long way, but let us not think for a moment, even as Southern Baptists that the Battle for the Bible is over. Let “the Bible as our sole authority on faith and practice” be more than just a motto, let it be our rallying cry. If we treat the word of God lightly there will be a heavy price to pay.
8. Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter. 1 Sam 6:19 (NKJV)
9. God dealt sternly with the irreverent Isrealites. The people ignored the Ways of God; they were careless and casual with the Word of God and the results were devastating.
10. Sometimes God uses the megaphone of judgment to wake His people from their spiritual slumber. God sent this judgment as a wakeup call. But notice what happens, “and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter. 1 Sam 6:19 (NKJV)”
a. The irreverant Isrealites did not mourn because of the magnitude of their sin
b. They were not sorry for their actions, they were grieved that God judged their actions. They did not repent, and God allowed them to continue in spiritual slumber.
11. And so we come to Chapter 7. Then the men of Kirjath Jearim came and took the ark of the LORD, and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill, and consecrated Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the LORD. So it was that the ark remained in Kirjath Jearim a long time; it was there twenty years. And all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD. 1 Sam 7:1-2 (NKJV)
12. There are twenty years of Spiritual Slumber between verses 1 and 2.
a. 20 long years of spiritual darkness
b. Yet after twenty years of spiritual slumber a stirring began in the hearts of the Israelites
c. Something had begun to happen. No longer were there actions that prevented a great awakening, now there were actions that preceded a Great Awakening.
II. What Precedes a Great Awakening
A. The people have a clear perception
1. Verse 2 says, “then all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.”
2. No longer were they just sorry that they were caught in sin; the Isrealites clearly perceived that
a. Their hearts had shifted away from God
b. Their wills no longer choose to obey God
c. Their lives had produced substitutes for God
3. In verse 3 Samuel said, “If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and Asteroths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve Him only...”
4. Repentance is having a clear perception of your unholiness and God’s holiness. Repentance is not being sorry that you got caught. It is not just feeling sorrow for your sin. Repentance is not just taking simple action to avoid the wrath of God.
a. Repentance is purging yourself of the unholy: verse 4 says, “the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashteroths...”
b. Prostrating yourself before the Holy, “and they served the Lord only.”
5. Notice please what happens after the people have a clear perception.
B. The people have a careful confession
1. The second thing that precedes a Great Awakening is that the people have a careful confession.
2. Verse 6 says, “We have sinned against the Lord.” In confessing of sins you must agree that what you have done is wrong. You must come to the place where you grieve over your sin and prepare your heart and your will to follow Him in obedience.
3. But the process did not end there. Having carefully confessed their sins before God, the people began to continually intercede before God.
C. The people have a continual intercession
1. Verse 6 says, “So the children of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that He may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” And Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Then Samuel cried out the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.”
2. You have a resource far greater than a man offering a lamb as an intercessor for you.
3. You have the Son of Man, the Precious Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world standing before His Father’s throne interceding on your behalf. He is your Intercessor! He is your sacrificial lamb.
4. Go before Him in prayer. Stay before Him in prayer.
III. What is the product of the Great Awakening
A. Look at verse 10, “Now as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel.But the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philisties that day, and so confused them that they were overcome before Israel.”
B. Now, with their sins purified, and with their trust in God Himself, God acted. A terrible horror struck the Philisitines. They fled in terror from this divine visitation, and the men of Israel pursued them, killing many. As a result of this decisive battle some of the land taken by the Philistines was restored, and the Philistines were unable to invade Israelite territory again in Samuel’s lifetime.
C. Verse 12 says, “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer saying, Thus far the Lord has helped us.”
D. Today I set before you a memorial to the Great Awakenings the Lord has brought about in the past. “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”
E. Samuel knew that the people of Israel were at a crucial turning point and so he set up a memorial...
1. It was a memorial of remembrance – what God had done in the past
2. It was a memorial of recognition – that God is at work in the present
3. It was a memorial of revelation – that the God who had worked in the past will continue to work in the future
4. Thus far the Lord has helped us. He has helped us up to this moment. He is working in this moment. He will continue to work from this moment on.
5. Today I believe that our nation is at a crucial turning point. And so I set before you a memorial. Remember, God has worked mightily in the past in Bridgeway. Recognize that He is at work in the present. Realize that He will continue to work into the future.
a. Have a clear perception of our Sin
b. Have a conscious confession of our Sin.
c. Have a continual intercession before our Savior.
I pray that God will again thunder with a mighty thunder here at Bridgeway.
I pray that He Awakens every member of the church from spiritual slumber.
I pray that the mighty hand of God will display His glory and that as His glory shines forth the lost are saved.
I will not rest I will not retreat so help me God, until he Brings a Great Awakening in my lifetime, or until the Lord takes me home.
