THE 4 ENEMIES OF REVIVAL
2 Chr. 7:14
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: Have You Ever Wondered How You Survived?
1. When I was a kid, we rode in cars with no seat belts or air bags, and in the back of a pickup trucks on a warm day doing 55 mph.
2. Our houses and baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. The insulation in our schools was asbestos. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles. We rode our bikes with no helmets or knee pads.
3. I often caught rides with total strangers. We didn’t have air conditioning or smoke detectors. My friends and I often rode our bikes behind mosquito fogging trucks, thinking the fog fun, not knowing it was DDT! Our dogs didn’t have rabies shots.
4. We didn’t inspect our Halloween candy, just ate it. We drank water from garden hoses and not from bottles. We’d be gone from morning till night & our parents didn’t know where we were all day.
5. We constantly ate foods made with pure lard, drank sugar sodas, but weren’t overweight… we were always outside playing. We took snakes or frogs or lizards to school, but never guns.
6. We shot off fireworks without supervision and without getting arrested. We left our bicycles in our front yards at night, and they’d still be there in the morning.
7. Seatbelts or airbags wouldn’t have done us any good anyway, because we’d pack ten people into a Volkswagen! When I think about all that, I’m surprised we survived!
B. TEXT
“If my people, who 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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7:14.
C. THESIS
1. I think we all know our country needs a spiritual awakening, but how do we get there?
2. The above verse offers the answer: revival happens when God’s people (not the lost) get revived!
3. When we really get committed, sell out, go all in, decide to live completely for God – that’s when it starts becoming possible. Francis Bacon said, “Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they are not altered for the better designedly (on purpose).”
4. WE HAVE THE TENDENCY TO:
a. Take back our consecration to God;
b. Leave our 1st love to Christ;
c. Withdraw from a state of total surrender to God and come back under the control of a self-pleasing spirit;
d. Maintain the outward appearance of religion while backsliding in our heart-love for God.
e. WE LIVE BELOW OUR PROPER STATE
5. Joe Namath said, “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” If God is real, He deserves our best! C. S. Lewis said, "The only thing Christianity [Jesus] cannot be is moderately important." He’s either not important at all, or the most important thing in the world!
6. So this morning I want to hit on the Four Enemies of Revival for normal, saved church goers who’ve been walking with God, yet weak human nature & this fallen world are dragging down.
I. PARTIAL REVIVAL
A. EZEKIEL’S 2-STAGE VISION OF REVIVAL
1. God gave Ezekiel a vision of a huge valley full of dry bones. Ezekiel was told to prophesy of revival for Israel. It happened in 2 stages.
2. “So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, BUT THERE WAS NO BREATH IN THEM.” Ezek. 37:7-8.
3. As Ezekiel prophesied, the bones disentangled themselves and began to form small groups which belonged to their original owners. Then those bones rearranged themselves into skeletons, each bone finding its proper place. Then the interior body organs reappeared, the sinews, the muscles, and at last their skin appeared.
4. The humans were completely reconstituted to be the persons they had been. They looked good, they had everything necessary they supposedly needed, but one thing was missing – they had no spiritual life (Breath) in them!
5. Ezekiel could have mistaken the appearance of the multitude as that the miracle was complete; but it wasn’t! They weren’t revived. PARTIAL REVIVAL IS NOT REVIVAL! They were closer to death than to life! Just because you’re ½ revived doesn’t mean that’s where God wants you!
6. Just because we go to church and mimic (life) what Christians do, doesn’t mean we’re saved!
B. THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN IMITATIONS
1. We’ve all seen the imitation Elvis Presleys. They’re not, of course, the real thing.
2. We all know about the imitations in the merchandising world – “knock-offs;” “look-a-like” purses, dresses, shoes, cars, jewelry, etc.
3. The same occurs in the spiritual world. There are those who don’t have the substance of Christianity, but put on the façade, the veneer. Paul said there’s even cheap copies of the Gospel (Gal. 1:6) that won’t save.
4. The Lord Jesus said that at the Judgment Seat He would have to separate between the “Sheep & Goats;” that is, between genuine Christians and those who are pretenders, only imitators.
5. So we need to be careful that we have really surrendered to Jesus and are currently walking close to Him. We don’t want to hear Him say, “Depart from Me; I never knew you!” Mt. 7:23.
6. Many will be surprised they’re not right with Christ on the Day of Judgment. This incomplete formation hinders revival; ½ revived doesn’t equal revival!
II. LACK OF HUNGER FOR SPIRITUAL THINGS
A. QUOTES
1. A.W. Tozer wrote, "Revivals come only to those who want them badly enough. The problem is not to persuade God to fill us, but to want God sufficiently to permit him to do so. The average Christian is so cold and so contented with his wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness." [‘Born After Midnight’]
2. Leonard Ravenhill, "The only reason we don't have revival is because we are willing to live without it!"
B. WHAT IS HUNGER FOR GOD?
1. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt.5:6). What is meant by hunger? Spiritual hunger is the appetite of the soul panting for spiritual food.
2. Peter said, “Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word…” 1Pet. 2:2. Just as a baby, after birth, naturally hungers for its mother’s milk, so we, if we’re born of God, should hunger for Him and His Word.
3. Spiritual hunger is not reserved only for a few impassioned souls, but should be the normal state of every Christian who is in dependence on God.
4. Doctors consider appetite one of the strongest indicators of your health. Loss of appetite is an indicator of a much deeper problem. If we go without food for a prolonged period, the body can cease to hunger.
5. Many Christians have gone without spiritual food so long that they’re like emaciated forms barely alive spiritually.
6. David developed his hunger for God; “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land, where no water is” Ps. 63:1. “I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land.” Psalm 143:6.
7. Are we hungry and thirsty for God? Do we long for His presence more than our daily food?
8. Imagine going to a restaurant & letting the waiter read you the menu & describe the food and its taste. Then you go home, not having eaten anything!
9. That’s what many do at church. They hear about God, but never “taste & see that the Lord is good!” Revival won’t come until the people of God get hungry for God!
C. HUMOR
1. An ill-prepared college student was struggling through his final exam in economics. He happened to be taking the test just before Christmas.
2. In desperation he scrawled across the bottom of the paper, “Only God knows the answer to these questions. Merry Christmas!”
3. When he got the paper back, the teacher marked it: “God gets 100. You get 0. Happy New Year!”
III. NO PASSION
A. DO YOU HAVE PASSION?
1. What are you passionate about? I don’t believe LOVE is “doing right” or “keeping God’s commands” or even “being patient and kind.” That’s what love looks like when it walks & talks. BUT LOVE…IS…PASSION!
2. Q -- DO YOU HAVE PASSION -- FOR GOD? If someone looked at your life, would they say YOU HAVE PASSION?
NOT for missions, NOT for ministry, NOT for evangelism –
BUT FOR GOD!!!
B. GREATEST COMMAND? BE PASSIONATE!
1. One day a man walked up to Jesus and said, "Lord, what’s the most important thing in the Bible?" Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mk. 12:30.
2. In other words, “Nothing matters more than that. That’s the number one thing in life. I want you to love Me passionately."
3. John Bevere tells how when he first met his wife, he thought of her constantly. He’d do whatever to spend as much time with her as possible. He couldn’t help but talk about her. It was a joy for me to do whatever she wished. His affections were set on her.
4. But a few years later, he turned his attention & affection to other things -- the ministry. It became bothersome to do something for her. He only thought of her occasionally. He bought her gifts, not out of love, but obligation.
5. “Our marriage was in trouble. Our first love was dying! Our original love was no longer there, it was difficult even to get along. Then God turned my heart and let me see how selfish I had become and helped me rekindled the flames of our first love and healed our marriage.”
6. This is exactly what Jesus meant when He said, “You have left your first love.” (2:4-5). If we lose our passion, it matters to Him!
7. When we have our first love. Other people see it.
C. ILLUSTRATION PASSION: “THE REAL THING”
1. In England, years ago, there was a great actor named Macready. An eminent preacher once said to him: "I wish you would explain to me something." "Well, what is it? I don't know that I can explain anything to a preacher."
2. "What is the reason for the difference between you and
me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all."
3. Macready's answer was this: "This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction." [G. Campbell Morgan, Preaching, p. 36.]
4. The point is, people can see whether we have passion or not. We’ll never win people to Jesus unless they can see that He’s our greatest love!
IV. FAMILIARITY
A. THE PROBLEM
1. Lev. 10:1-10 tells the story of 2 brothers, Nadab &Abihu, sons of Aaron the brother of Moses, who were serving at the Tabernacle. But they were careless in their handling of sacred things and the fire of the Lord burned them up.
2. What was the problem? They became so familiar with God that they became irreverent.
3. It’s so easy to take the Bible, or church, or our relationship with God, or prayer for granted – they can lose their sacredness/ uniqueness in our hearts and be common.
4. It’s easy to think we understand God, have figured Him out, that we have this whole Christianity thing down.
5. As J. B. Phillips put it; “To many people God has been captured, tamed, and trained to their liking.”
6. But God says, “Among those who approach Me…I will be honored” Lev. 10:3 and “Those who honor me I will honor” 1Sam. 2:30.
7. If we don’t fear Him and tremble at His presence, do we really honor Him? Will we really be allowed to approach Him?
B. WE NEED A GOD WHO INCITES OUR WONDER
1. What drives people to go way out in the deserts of Arizona to see the Grand Canyon? They want to see something bigger than themselves! Why do they go to Niagara Falls? To see something majestic, mighty, staggering!
2. The God of the Bible is a God described by words like “Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Infinite, Eternal, and Immortal,” to mention only a few.
3. All around us are the signs of His POWER:
a. GOD’S VASTNESS -is seen in the physical universe which seems to have no limits and includes hundreds of billions of galaxies!
b. HIS POWER -- is mirrored in the great flaming orbs of the stars, in the power of the Sea and of the Wind.
c. HIS ETERNITY – is seen in the measureless eons of time.
C. ILLUSTRATION
1. Does God Still Inspire Awe?
1. A few years ago, Angela and I got to go to Niagara Falls for a vacation. I’d always heard it was a beautiful sight, but I kept thinking, “It’s a waterfall – what’s the big deal?”
2. When we got there, I was in awe. What I saw just took my breath away. No picture or words can capture its beauty.
3. But, I noticed something odd -- the workers around it didn’t seem awed by it. They actually ignored it!
4. Then it hit me … they’d become so familiar with the falls that it had become commonplace to them. It had lost its attraction, its wonder. It was just there. Nothing special.
5. O God! May we never become that way toward You! May Jesus never become common, so familiar that He fails to inspire awe in us.
6. God, rip the callouses off our hearts! Take the blinders off our eyes! Let us see Your grandeur again and let us treat You as sacred again!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: SPIRITUALLY UNCONSCIOUS
1. Ed Hinton writes in Sports Illustrated that champion race car driver Dale Earnhardt was known for being so calm before races that occasionally he would take a catnap just before the start. While other drivers would have a pulse rate of 100 to 120 before a race, his would be less than 60.
2. But on August 31, 1997, at the Southern 500 race in Darlington, South Carolina, Earnhardt unintentionally took catnapping to a dangerous new level. At the start of the race, Earnhardt fell asleep at the wheel.
3. He went into a semiconscious state but kept on driving. When he reached the first turn, he hit the wall but kept on going. At the second turn he again hit the wall, harder this time. Finally he pulled off the track. Later he would say he remembered nothing of this.
4. Frightening but true, it is possible, for a while, to drive over one hundred miles an hour and yet be asleep.
[Choice Contemporary Stories & Illustrations For Preachers, Teachers, & Writers. Craig Brian Larson, Baker Books, p. 247.]
B. THE CALL
1. The Apostle Paul told the early Christians they needed to wake up; that they were spiritually unconscious. WAKE UP!
2. I’ve addressed 4 areas holding back revival:
a. We just think we’re revived but we’re really not;
b. That we’ve honestly not been hungry for God;
c. There really is no passion for God in our lives;
d. We’ve not been treating God as the holy, all-powerful God that He is.
3. I want revival, do you? Let’s come forward, repent, and ask God to help us get revival again!
[The material for this message was gathered from many different sources, so I can't claim originality for it and no source contributed greatly to it's composition.]
