I speak on the need of a spiritual awakening. I am simply calling this ONE VOICE. My hope is to be flooded by a river of God’s grace. My desire is to see God open the windows of heaven and send us a flood of His grace like the flood He sent upon the earth in Noah’s day. Only instead of water, we would see torrents of His grace. His grace would cover the tops of the loftiest trees on the earth. Oh, that His grace would cover the most extreme sins in our land!
As we approach our Community Thanksgiving service this upcoming Wednesday at Fine Arts Center, we seek to see God move in a fresh and powerful way in the River Valley.
Why Awakening?
When our eyes scan the American horizon, the skies for biblical Christianity look dark in many respects. The tide of God’s grace is out to sea. A quiet communion with God and the delight of knowing Him in His fullness (Psalm 16:11; 63:1-4) is neglected. We need heavenly rain. God’s church languishes rather than flourishes in our day. And we are helpless to do anything about this. We are like sailboats without wind. Or coals without fire. We are useless without the animating power of God.
The last time God has moved in global revival was between 1904 and 1910. While Americans experienced a significant revival in the 1970s called the “Jesus Movement,” biblical Christianity has declined significantly in the past four decades. We now have an entire generation (both Gen X er’s and Millennials) who has never experienced a revival.
Revival is a time where God invades His people. Revival is a time when God hits the fast forward button. It’s a time when He gives saving health to His people. It is a time of when sluggish believers are awakened. It’s a time when some Christians question if they can claim the name of Christ as they begin to understand their deep sinfulness.
But this act of humility is a strong sign that God’s grace is present with them.
It’s a time when preachers experience new power to explain the Scriptures.
It’s time when Christians pray for their neighbors.
So these three (3) pastors join our voices together in order to communicate the need for God Himself to revive us.
Today’s Big Idea:
Join Me in a Call to Pray to Revive His People and Elevate His Name
Let’s stand in order to read from Isaiah 63.
“Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me.? For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.? O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.? Your holy people held possession for a little while; our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.? We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence—? as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—?to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!? When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.”
Isaiah 63:15 - 64:4 (ESV)
The nation of Israel had been God’s chosen to people through the period of time covered by the Old Testament.
The nation has splintered into two nations when Isaiah wrote these words.
Israel in the north and Judah in the south.
Isaiah probably spoke these words to the southern nation of Judah after they have been conquered by the superpower of Babylon.
The holy city of Jerusalem had been plundered and God’s people had been taken away from their homeland.
It seemed that God had lost and evil had triumphed.
So it’s out this historical context that Isaiah writes.
1. It’s God We Miss.
“Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me.” Isaiah 63:15b
Tragedy has fallen over Israel.
And Isaiah’s words display the people’s profound grief over their sins.
Isaiah’s describes the people’s sadness beginning in Isaiah 63:15 and it extends all the way through Isaiah 64:12.
Their God is missing!
There is little evidence to their eyes that God is for them.
Similar to our nation’s defeat at Pearl Harbor, Isaiah looked upon a people who were devastated.
He asks God to “Look down from heaven and see…”
Isaiah 63:15a
God sees everything all the time.
Yet, it seemed to Isaiah that God had turned His head.
God had His attention elsewhere.
Because of Israel’s sadness, the prophet Isaiah asks God to look (Isaiah 63:15).
He asks God to return (Isaiah 63:17).
He requests that God not be angry (Isaiah 64:9)
And finally, that God look upon His people once again (Isaiah 64:9).
Again, Isaiah continues:
“Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me.”
Isaiah 63:15b
Where is Your intense love for us?
Where is Your manly strength on our behalf?
Do You agonize over us?
Does Your heart melt in sympathy when You look on our pitiful condition?
Isaiah is praying when He believes He has been forsaken.
Yet, he prays.
Isaiah missed God.
He could tell that God wasn’t present with them as God had been before.
Isaiah missed God.
While there are many bright spots inside our churches, the River Valley is stewing in nominal Christianity.
We are confronted with church members whose religion can best be described as “civil religion.”
For so many of you, you take Jesus Christ seriously and you are an encouragement to the rest of us.
Still, the church is too weak.
One half of the American population believes gay and lesbian relationships are fine according to a May 26, 2010 Gallup poll.
A little more than half of the American population believes having children outside of marriage is equally fine.
Further, Gallup discovered that 26% of people who identify themselves as evangelical Christians believe in astrology.
Evangelical Christians have a higher rate of divorce than atheists and agnostics.
A significant number of Christians identify their spiritual state as stalled.
Still further, many of our teens and young adults believe faith consists of a bland, feel-good gospel where a benevolent, harmless, one-size-fits-all God loving showers their immorality with blessings.
Who can deny that we have refashioned God into a much more friendly version that our predecessors?
God is brought on as an addition to make this world’s benefits much more accessible to us.
Much of our Christianity has become familiar and predictable.
What our nation and our churches need is a widespread awakening that reshapes our people from California to Maine.
We dip our teaspoon into the vast ocean of the living God.
We hold the teaspoon in our hands and say, “This is God.”
God calls us to throw down our teaspoons and dive into His ocean of glory.
We miss God on the contemporary scene.
2. It’s God We Have
Someone asks, “Pastor, you just told us that we miss God and now you’re telling us we have God? Which is it?”
In one sense God was missing.
Yet, in another sense was God was very much present.
God was present with His people but He was present in judgment.
God was judging His people because of the words in verse seventeen (17):
“O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.”
Isaiah 63:17
They had hardened their hearts against God.
They had turned aside from righteous ways.
God was actively working but His face was against His people rather than for His people.
God’s compassion was absent.
While His judgment was very much present.
Isaiah poses two (2) questions to God in verse seventeen (17):
“Why Yahweh, would You cause us to wander from Your Ways?”
…and…
“Why would You harden our hearts from fearing You?”
These two (2) questions come very close to blaming God for the nation’s problems.
Since God is in control of everything that happens on earth, He has allowed His people fall into sin.
Isaiah sees a high and lofty God who is in control of everything.
Yet, Isaiah knew better than to blame God for his sin.
Isaiah knew the only person to blame for their sin was themselves.
God had been motivated by compassionate love for His people.
The reason why God had changed is because His people had rebelled.
So, these words from the prophet Isaiah are not whining criticism of God but holy anguish over the condition of God’s people.
Look at verse 16 again:
“For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.”
Isaiah 63:16
If Abraham were climb into a time machine and see us, he would wonder, “Who are you people?”
These people bear little resemblance to their forefathers.
The people had strayed widely from the faith of their fathers.
A mark of genuine revival is a deep mourning for sin.
How could we have committed such an act against so holy and so good a God?
3. It’s God We Need
Isaiah is doing more than blaming God for the problems, He is reminding God that His honor is at stake.
He knows that it is God that is missing…
He knows that God is present in judgment on His people…
Yet, it’s God that His people need.
“Your holy people held possession for a little while; our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.?19 We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who are not called by your name.”
Isaiah 63:18-19
This is an appeal to God’s own interest.
God should intervene in Israel’s problems because Israel is His family.
God’s honor is tied up in Israel’s situation.
Everyone knew that Israel’s God is Yahweh.
If Israel were in decline, then people would naturally think God Himself was weak.
This is just the way Moses many years earlier prayed to God.
Moses felt God was going to abandon His people.
So Moses reminded God that His reputation is tied up with Israel’s reputation:
“For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”
Exodus 33:16
The reason why God needs to listen to Isaiah’s request and turn with compassion is that some of the negative consequences have fallen on Him.
Israel was distinct from every other nation.
Israel was God’s possession and God will act in order to save both His reputation and the glory of His name.
The solution to our problem is humility on our parts.
It’s not seeking a quick fix for our sin in order to enjoy the lake.
It’s not making excuses but realizing that our sin crucified Jesus.
Still, we need God to come to vindicate His name.
This leads to a remarkable prayer that I hope all three (3) churches pray continually:
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence—?2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—?to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!?3 When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.?4 From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.”
Isaiah 64:1-4
Isaiah knows the solution is God.
He needs God.
We need God.
We pray that God splits open the door to His beautiful home and comes down to earth.
His very presence would make the mountains quake.
God is not a small god.
His voice is so strong that the Psalmist says:
“The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.”
Psalm 29:5
When He arrives His will reveal His people and gory.
He will bring salvation to His people.
His light will bring help to His people.
Nothing has been seen or heard like the God who is coming.
No movie trailer can preview the event that is to come.
No slick marketing campaign will prepare you for His presence.
His coming will be awe-inspiring…
breath-taking…
it will invoke fear in the nations to lead us to godly wisdom…
His presence will be sufficient to make water boil.
There is nothing to prepare you for His arrival.
And this is what we need.
I need to pause for a moment.
There is something different about our missing and Isaiah’s missing God.
There’s something different about Isaiah’s urgency in prayer and our praying.
Isaiah’s prayer is remarkable because He is praying while very little evidence exists that God is merciful.
Isaiah is praying while every trace of God seems to have vanished.
Isaiah longed for God.
He hungered for God.
He was a desert crying out for water.
In contrast too many on the contemporary scene see that things are as they should be.
We sense things aren’t right.
Yet, we read our papers, drink our coffee, check out Facebook pages, and complete our daily tasks.
We are sure to DVR our favorite TV programs but can’t find time to meditate on Scripture.
We lack the palpable hunger and thirst that Isaiah had.
We have forgotten the glory of God.
And our missing God lacks the intense urgency that Isaiah had.
Asking God for revival is coming to Him greedily asking for Him to fulfill His promises.
It’s a greediness for God’s honor to be vindicated.
It’s the double-look of viewing the weakness of the church and the strong purposes of God and urgently crying out:
“Your Son died for more than this. You are capable of far more than what we see today.
Your enemies are too strong and You must come to vindicate Your holy and glorious name!”
In so many respects, the Spirit of God seems to be gradually withdrawing while Satan seems to have greater reign.
Off to the West of Scotland, there are some islands called the islands of the Hebrides.
In 1949 God got these islands in His grip and He shook them with wave after wave of awakening.
It lasted on into the 1970's.
A man who was powerfully used of the Lord in this Hebrides awakening was a man named Duncan Campbell.
He was preaching in a city called Arnol.
Many are surprised when learning that when God moves in powerful revival that some of those who oppose it are those who claim to be God’s own people.
And that’s was happening in the Hebrides.
There was stiff opposition in Arnol to this awakening from the Lord.
They were inviting preachers from the mainland of Scotland to help them resist them this plague of revival
Duncan Campbell preached in the church in Arnol and he said it was cold...,
perfunctory....,
nothing happened....,
and the fire didn’t fall.
After the service was over, an old elder said, “it seems as if we are going to have to give ourselves to prayer.”
He said, “We can use my farmhouse, it’s about a mile out of town.”
So at about 11:30 that night, 30 or 35 people gathered in the farmhouse of the old elder.
Duncan Campbell says “There were a half dozen preachers in that place and all of us prayed, but I have to say that the praying lacked the fervor, lacked the fire ...”
And then he said, “I felt lead to call on the old elder himself to pray.”
He says it so casually, “The old elder prayed for about 30 minutes ....”
Now you be honest with me.
Have you ever been in a small group prayer meeting where somebody was so full that they prayed for a half hour?
“The older elder prayed for about 30 minutes when he stopped his prayer, but it was obvious that he was not through.”
When he resumed he said this, “Lord, there are a half dozen ministers in this house and I don’t know how it is with any them, not even Rev. Campbell, but Lord if I know my heart, I am thirsty!”
“I am thirsty for revival! And you said in Isaiah 44 that you would pour water on him who that is thirsty and Lord you are not doing it.”
And then he said, “Lord ... do you realize that Your honor and your integrity are at stake?”
“You said You would pour water on him who was thirsty, I’m thirsty and you’re not pouring it out.”
And then that godly man lifted his face to heaven and said, “Lord on the basis of Your covenant of promise to Your people and on the basis of Christ’s redemptive work in our behalf, I challenge You to come to the rescue of Your honor and Your integrity and do it now!”
You say, “What audacity to talk to God like that!”
Oh no, just a sheep that’s much closer to the shepherd than most of us.
“I challenge You on the basis of Your covenant of promise to Your people and on the basis of Christ’s redemptive work in our behalf, I challenge You to come to the rescue of Your honor and Your integrity and do it now!”
Duncan Campbell says, “Do you want to know what happened then? Read the 4th chapter of the book of Acts.”
That huge farmhouse shook like a leaf!!
Dishes rattled noisily in cupboard.
A clock fell from a mantle to the floor.
The meeting broke up about 1:30 in the morning.
They left the farmhouse to see the city nearby alive.
Lights on in virtually every house.
Scores of people streaming out to the farmhouse of the old elder saying, “We want to hear the Word of God too! We want to be saved!’
The mighty Arnol revival had its beginning in that meeting for prayer.
When God’s people really pray, the presence of God is displayed.
It is of paramount importance that we pray that God will prepare the spiritual leaders for such an awesome’ visitation of the Holy Spirit.
We are to pray that we will:
1) have understanding of the ways of the Spirit and will make room for God;
2) be sensitive and flexible to flow with whatever new thing God wants to do;
3) be taken over by the fear of the LORD and released from the fear of men;
4) be given a deep desire to repent of all hypocrisy.
