Chico Alliance Church
Revival Part Two Reflecting on God's Faithfulness and Our Sinfulness
ACTS ACCOUNTS Acts 2; 3:20; 4:34
Revival is not making ourselves better in order to please God. Revival comes as we realize His holiness and our helplessness and sinfulness and we cry out to Him in humility to change our hardened hearts. Only when we allow the Spirit of God to change our unbelieving, hardened heart will we notice a change in our unbecoming, sinful behavior.
REVIEW
The revival account in Nehemiah's journal is the longest written account in the Bible. So far we have focused on three elements. Do we long for revival? There is no genuine corporate revival apart from these five elements recorded in Nehemiah 9-10.
I. REBUILD THE WALL
II. RESTORE THE WORSHIP
A. FIRST, rally together with one mind and purpose. Heb 10:25;13:16
B. SECOND, read and study the Word of God together for understanding.
Nehemiah & ezra planned two Bible Conferences: one general conference and one conference for heads of households.
There is no genuine lasting revival apart from the word.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Heb 4:12;2Ti 3:17;1Pe 1:23; 2:2
Early church devoted themselves to the teaching of the Word. The Psalmist: "Revive us O, Lord according to Your Word." The people in Nehemiah's day spent time seeking to understand the Word of the Lord. They were led by Ezra who experienced God's good hand: For Ezra had set his heart to study and practice the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. Ezr 7:10 What a contrast to earlier Israleites who: The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Isa 29:13
C. THIRD, as they listened and understood and sought to obey the Law, the people were deeply convicted. They began to weep and lament their sin. Before grieving over their sinfulness, Nehemiah encouraged them in the wonderful salvation that was theirs through God's abundant grace.
Rejoice together. Rejoice in our mutual heritage. Rejoice in our position in Christ Rejoice in his wonderful salvation. Rejoice in God.
An evil man is snared by his own sin, but a righteous one sings and rejoices. Pro 29:6
This morning we examine the FOURTH element necessary to bring about revival -- Reflection. Reflection on His faithfulness and our sinfulness.
Isaiah 63:7-64:4
D. REFLECT TOGETHER
NOW, we reflect together on God's abundant faithfulness and our appalling sinfulness. Following the feast days, that lasted a good portion of the month. Nehemiah calls them back for a day of reflection. The day is noted 24th day of the 7th month. There are several other noteworthy items mentioned concerning this meeting.
1. THEIR ATTITUDE
Humility demonstrated by their fasting and dress.
2. THEIR ATTIRE
They clothed themselves in sackcloth and dirt.
Sackcloth was a strong, rough cloth woven form long dark hair of the oriental goat or camel. It came to have symbolic meaning. Wearing of sackcloth was regarded as proper garb for serious and sober occasions demonstrating sadness, or penitence. Clothes can demonstrate attitude or feeling.
3. THEIR ACTIONS
a. Suspended eating (fasting)
b. Separated from foreigners
This separation was for the purpose of purity. Association with foreigners usually got the Jews messed up all the time. They would continually allow outside influence to infiltrate their practices. They would even emulate the worship practices of the pagans around them. God instructed them to come our from among them and be separate because they were to be special people.
APPLICATION
So often we become tainted by our trafficking in this world. There come a time when we need to come apart, to separated from all outside influences for a time to allow the Word to do its cleansing work.
c. Stood and confessed sins
The people had been listening to the Word in two Bible conferences and were now feeling the conviction and realizing how far they had transgressed from God's standard of righteousness. As a result they stood to confess their sin and the sins of their fathers.
CONFESS
Old Testament Hebrew root comes from the word to use the hand, throw at or away, cast, confess, praise, thank. It is used in reference to sin or in reference to confessing the attributes of God or in expressing gratitude for His benefits. This was an act of public disclosure of my failure and God's faithfulness. The same word is used later as they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God.
Pro 28:13;Dan 9:5;Dan 9:21;Psa 32:4
The New Testament terms for confession also can be used in two ways. It is a combination of the "one" or "the same thing" and the word "to say". Thus we could translate it, "to say the same thing", "to agree", "to declare or confess."
This term is used with reference to sin and in reference to confession or allegiance to Christ by our words and/or our life. Jam 5:16;1Jo 1:9
Confession always precedes revival. Confession is an acknowledgement that my present predicament is due to my personal rebellion and the rebellion throughout my family line and not because of God's inability. Confession is an agreement with God concerning the nature of my sin against Him and my need for His continual saving grace.
Early Church Confession
Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. Act 19:18-20
As long as we fail to acknowledge our sin before God and others and justify ourselves and try to make ourselves look good, we will not experience revival.
"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2Ch 7:14
We have such a defective view of sin. The Church at Laodocia had come to the place where they felt they were all right and had no need.
Two aspects to sin:
1--To do the things we have been told not to do.(tresspass-commission)
2--Failure to do the things we have been told to do. (sin-ommission, miss the mark)
Selfish pride is at the core of sin. I sin any time I seek to function independently from God and seek for self gratification. Sins result from sin. Behind every sin I commit, somewhere I made the decision to walk independent of God. The people realized their sin and acknowledged it before God and others.
d. Stood and read the Word
We don't really know what they read here. Perhaps Deuteronomy the cursings and the blessings. Perhaps Genesis, perhaps Leviticus and the instructions for worship.
e. Stood and confessed/ worshiped
4. THEIR ADDRESS TO GOD
The purpose of this address is to acknowledge how God has continually been faithful and that man in spite of God's goodness has continually been sinful and rebellious. Here we see a potent picture of divine faithfulness in spite of human failure. It is a confession that says, "Lord, this is what you did in spite of my rejection and rebellion against you."
PERIOD ONE ONE 5-17 "The Exodus"
GOD'S MIGHTY PERSON
Creator, sustainer, sovereign, source of life, the I AM.
GOD'S RELATIONSHIP WITH MAN
Choose Abraham and named him and promised him.
DELIVERED -DIRECTED -DICTATED TRUTH -DISTRIBUTED FOOD-DIVIDED THE LAND
In spite us this awesome supernatural provision the people turned away in selfish perversion. They acted arrogantly, became stubborn and would not listen, refused to listen, did not remember his wondrous deeds, wanted another leader to take them back (Numbers 14)
PERIOD TWO "Decision to enter"
As they were to enter the land, the people refused to enter in because of unbelief.
They did not consider or remember God's past provision. They grumbled and complained Num 14:1-4; 14:11
PERIOD THREE 18-25 "Wilderness Wanderings"
GOD'S GRACE IN DISCIPLINE
ISRAEL'S REBELLION
PERIOD THREE 26-31
GOD'S LOVING DISCIPLINE
APPLICATION 1Cor 10
The Bible says we should learn from their example.
We however learn to act like them rather than NOT act like them. We must examine our heart. Sin is a heart problem before it becomes a behavior problem. The sin of rebellion and unbelief is the starting place for sins. May we stop looking at sin in terms of an external manageable standard designed to make us look good.
Let us reflect on just how at how we have failed to take possession when God tells us. Let us examine or refusal to believe God.
Just how are we doing according to GOD'S standard? If we want the fire of God, if we want God to rend the skies and reign his power upon us, there must be an honesty before Him and a repentance. There must be a confession of our faithlessness. We must acknowledge that we have failed and cry out for His enabling grace to change our heart and fill our heart. Only when we allow the Spirit of God to change our unbelieving, hardened heart will we notice a change in our unbecoming, sinful behavior.
Christ has promised us His very life if we will but let Him fill us with Himself. His grace only becomes effective as we acknowledge our sin and draw near to Him.
Christ paid a high price to provide that grace. We should never take that grace for granted but let it drive us to greater dependance on Him.
How would God have you respond to the message? If you put off response today, you will probably do nothing. We must set our heart not only to hear but to respond in obedience to the Word of God. Make some decsion NOW!
