PSALMS 85:1-7
REVIVAL IS POSSIBLE
INTRO:
I want to center our thoughts on verses 6 & 7 and speak to you about revival.
I don’t intend to elaborate on the need of revival, the steps to revival, why we don’t have revival these days or what revival is.
I will however mention one thing along this line and that revival is not a great ingathering of the lost however it may include that.
Revival is strictly, and I emphasize strictly, for the people of God which constitutes the church.
All through the ages the people of God have needed reviving so the need of revival is nothing new to the people of God.
The people of God have always needed revival because they have sometimes gotten too involved with the things of life until their relationship with God has grown cold.
God knows this and that is why He called some to be evangelist so they can help us in having revival.
An evangelist is a specially called person and given special talents and gifts to do the work God called him/her to do.
So when a church member goes to the altar, don’t think they have backslid, for in most instances they have not.
If during a revival you feel God tugging at you heart don’t hesitate to come to the altar for God is just trying to draw you back to a more intimate relationship with Him.
This doesn’t mean they have backslidden but they have become so engrossed with legitimate things that they have let the fervency they once knew and had with God wane cold.
Like the Laodicean church they have become not lukewarm but cold.
And like the Laodicean church or the church of Ephesus they need to repent of their coldness their loss of their first love and return to God.
In fact all the churches of Asia Minor were admonished to repent of something and return to God except two, Smyrna and Philadelphia.
So when the invitation is given and you feel a tug at your hearts please don’t hesitate to step out and come to the altar.
Who knows but what your move will prompt others to follow and pray thus renewing their relationship with God and a mighty revival break out.
My heart yearns for this to happen in this church and it can if everyone will obey God.
The psalmist recognized the need of revival thus he begins his prayer for revival by reminding God and himself of how good God had been to him. (v. 1-3}
In verse 4 he asks the Lord to “Restore us, O God of our salvation.”
I think when the psalmists said restore us he was thinking not only of himself but all the people.
In verse 6 the tense of his prayer turns to that of an earnest plea when he cries, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you.”
Notice in verse 4 the psalmist is asking for a reviving of the joy of salvation.
In chapter 51:12 David makes the same request,” Restore to me the joy of your salvation.”
That’s why we need revival today to restore the joy of salvation we once knew, but have now grown cold.
And I use the word cold on purpose for in Revelation 3:15-16 the risen Savior chastises the Laodicean church for being neither cold nor hot. In verse 16 He says because you are lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth.
The joy bells don’t ring as loudly as they once did,
Now the psalmist also gives us the idea that revival is a restoring of the joy of salvation.
In this message I want to share with you something the Lord gave me the other night in prayer meeting during the scriptural devotion.
It is my prayer that this message will challenge you in such a way you will begin to cry and with each cry your crying to God will become more and more intense until God cannot help but rend the heavens and come down and restore to each the joy of salvation.
I. REVIVAL IS PROMISED
A. Turn to II Chronicles 7:14
a. There you will find one of the greatest promises God ever gave to His people.
b. Notice it says, “If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
c. This world is in a sad and wicked situation because the church is in a sad situation.
d. The longer the church remains in the condition the longer and more wicked they will become.
e. But if the church will cry to God for the healing balm of Gilead the great physician will come and apply the healing balm to His people.
B. The church used to be attractive because she had something to make her attractive, she had the Shekinah glory, the Pentecostal fire burning within her heart, and the glory shining on her face, because she had the joy of salvation bubbling up and down in the inner recesses of her soul.
a. God’s people weren’t ashamed or afraid to raise their hands and faces towards heaven and shout hallelujah or glory to God, neither were they ashamed to shout, run the aisles for they had something to shout abut..
b. But God’s people have lost the joy of their salvation thus the attractive force the church once had is lost also.
c. Thus God’s people needs to be revived and the wonderful thing about it God has promised too.
d. Notice the last phrases of II Chron. 7:14 God said, “I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
C. Now turn to Revelation 3:20
a. Here the Savior says, “Behold (take note, pay close attention), I stand at the door and knock. If anyone (notice the word anyone) opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me.”
b. This is another of those exceeding great and precious promises Peter tell us about in II Peter 1:4.
c. This is an invitation to the church to open the door and allow the risen Savior in.
1. And I promise you when He is allowed to come in, in the measure He wants to something will happen.
2. People will know something happened to the Burleson Church of the Nazarene.
d. It is an invitation with a promise and the promise is to come in.
e. Friends if the church will allow the Savior in there will be dining such as it has never had.
f. It will be such a dinning that the joy of the risen Savior will radiate from every face so people will see Jesus in us.
g. I long to dine with the risen Savior don’t you?
II. REVIVAL IS NOT ONLY PROMISED BUT POSSIBLE
A. Possible for the risen Savior has promised, proscribed, and provided the way for revival to take place.
a. Turn back to II Chronicles 7:14 and notice what God says there?
b. He says if my people will HUMBLE THEMSELVES and PRAY and SEEK MY FACE and TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS.
1. Those words carry the thought of possible.
2. Anything is possible with God when people humble themselves before Him.
c. Now the word IF presents a hypothetical situation.
1. It suggests a possibility of doing one thing or another.
2. In this case it presents the possibility of revival.
3. Don’t let satan, the agnostics, the cold dead professors of modern day religion make you believe we can’t have revival.
4. For God promised and He said I AM THE SAME TODAY AND FOREVER I NEVER CHANGE.
5. Friend we serve that never changing God.
d. When the conditions are met by the people of God, God must meet to have revival.
e. Notice too, God said when these conditions are met He would HEAR FROM HEAVEN, FORGIVE THEIR SIN AND HEAL THEIR LAND.
B. Now turn to Matthew 6:33 there we find the word of Jesus admonishing us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.
a. In Jeremiah 29:13 we are told “You shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart.”
b. These and other verses that tell us to seek the Lord by no means mean that we should neglect the necessary duties of life but in the performing them we are to keep God and His kingdom first.
c. Part of the kingdom of God is the church and it is in sad disarray.
d. It takes little or nothing for people to miss church today.
e. I am not indicating that if you miss church you are neglecting the kingdom of God but simply pointing out a fact.
f. Church should be the third or fourth most important thing in our life.
g. God is always first, family is always second, and what comes third is a personal choice one needs to make for themselves.
h. But if we are going to have revival that will restore the joy of salvation we must return to putting and keeping God first.
1. I have found in over forty years of serving the Lord that if I keep Him first He will take care of all the other things I need.
2. The scriptures I just shared with you tells us revival is possible when certain conditions are made.
III. REVIVAL IS A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
A. In Psalms 51:12 David after confessing his sin of sexual morality and murder and asks forgiveness also asks the Lord to RESTORE TO ME THE JOY OF YOUR SALVATION.
a. Now as mentioned before revival is a restoring something to its original condition.
b. David not only needed and wanted forgiveness of his sin, but a reviving of the joy of God’s salvation.
c. Just as salvation is a personal experience and relationship with God so revival is personal experience.
d. The church is revived through personal revival of its membership.
e. If you want the church to experience revival then you must experience revival individually.
B. Revival is not only a personal experience but a personal responsibility.
a. It is yours and my personal responsibility to see that the church experiences revival.
b. Until we as members of this church assume personal revival the church will never experience revival and will go on in a slumbering sleeping condition.
1. It will continue to dwindle away as it drifts along on the sea of time towards eternity.
2. If the church continues to slumber and sleep people around it will continue in their lost condition to a devils hell.
3. We then will be held accountable for them.
4. Ezekiel 4:17 -20 God tells us if we do not warn the wicked of their wicked ways and they die in their sin He will require their blood at our hands.
5. In other words God is telling us He is holding us responsible for the lost.
6. How better to reach the lost than to experience an old fashioned, God sent, sin revealing, sin killing revival?
7. I say this because revival will enliven the church and make it attractive again.
IV. REVIVAL IS A PERSONAL CHOICE
A. Like many other things we have, or don’t have, is a choice.
a. Your being here today is a choice.
b. The car you drive is a choice, the cloths you wear is a choice, the person you marry is a choice, the amount of education you have is a choice.
c. When you stop and think of it just about everything about us is a choice.
B. So whether we have revival or not is your choice.
a. It’s like gipsy Smith said to a lady one time when asked how could she have revival.
b. He said do you have a place you can go and be alone with God to which she replied yes. He then asked do you have a piece of chalk to which she replied yes, He then said go to that place take the piece of chalk with you and get on your knees, draw a circle around you and ask God to send revival to everything within the circle.
c. What he was saying to the lady is that revival is a personal choice and you can have it by choice.
d. You can have revival right now if you choose too.
e. So what will it be, revival or just a series of church services?
f. The choice is up to you.
V. REVIVAL IS THE PRODUCT OF SEVERAL THINGS BUT PRIMILARY A TOTAL
SURRENDER.
A. In I Kings 20:1-4 we find the story of Be-hadad the king of Syria surrounding Samaria when King Ahab lived.
a. Ben-hadad sent messengers to Ahab telling him, “Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children even the goodliest are mine.”
b. Ahab sent Ben-hadad word, “I am thine and all that I have.”
c. This may seem a strange scripture to use at this time, but it really isn’t. It is a beautiful example of absolute surrender.
d. God asks us one thing and that is our all.
e. He will be satisfied with nothing but our all.
f. Until He receives our all we will never receive His all.
1. When God asks us for something He is always ready to give us much more than we gave Him.
B. Another point I want to make here is until we surrender all, and that unconditionally, we will continue to struggle and never gain the victory.
a. Victory is gained through surrender.
b. Thus revival is gained through surrender.
C. One other scripture to use in making this point: John chapter five where we find the story of the cripple at the pool of Bethsaida endeavoring to be the first in the water.
a. One day Jesus came by stopped and asked the cripple if he wanted to be made whole.
b. When the man in his own words said yes Jesus made him well.
c. The point here is Jesus appealed to the man’s will and when the man surrendered his entire will to Jesus, Jesus healed him.
d. He is making the same appeal to the church today and when the church answers in the affirmative Jesus will heal the church and give it revival.
