There is a lot of suffering in this life. We see it in many areas of our life. For example, we see it:
(1) IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
Illus: A young boy was watching his mother as she tried on her new fur coat. He said, "Mom, do you realize some poor dumb beast suffered so you could have that coat?"
The mother quickly responded and said, “Son, how dare you talk about your father like that!"
While we see suffering in the animal kingdom, we also see it-
(2) IN THE HUMAN KINGDOM
Many times when we go to the hospital we see a lot of suffering, so naturally none of us enjoys going to the hospitals for that reason.
One of the few times we enjoy going to the hospital is when a mother is used of God to give life to a baby. I do not know how doctors and nurses feel as they deliver babies each day. Maybe it is just routine, but when God puts life in that new baby, most of us see it as a miracle, and we never get tired of looking at a newborn.
When we look at a newborn, we know we have witnessed the miracle of the gift of life. ONLY ALMIGHTY GOD CAN DO SUCH A MIRACLE!
But also, when God saves a person, He breathes new life into them. The miracle of the new birth in Christ is the greatest of all miracles.
Illus: So often in these so called healing campaigns we see on television, the PHYSICAL is exalted over the SPIRITUAL. That is, they might take five minutes to deal with inviting the lost to come to Christ for salvation, but they take an hour dealing with the healing of the physical body.
But when God takes a sinner that is dead in the trespasses of sin, and breathes new life into that individual, this is the greatest miracle of all. ONLY ALMIGHTY GOD CAN DO SUCH A MIRACLE!
Illus: In the Book of Mark, a demon-possessed man was so wild that he had to live in a grave yard. He was dead spiritually, and he lived with the physically dead.
Look at this man. The devil had completely taken over his life. Look at Mark 5:2-5, “And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.”
The Lord miraculously cast the demons out of this wild man, and into a herd of pigs. But look at the miracle in this wild man’s life. The people lived in fear of this demonic man. They could not bind him, even with chains.
Look what happened when they heard what the Lord had done in his life, look at verse 15, we read, “And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.”
Notice, the wild man:
• Lived in a cemetery with the dead
• Could not be tamed
• Could not be bound with a chain
He now is:
• Sitting at the feet of Jesus
• Clothed
• In his right mind
Salvation is the greatest miracle of all miracles, and this miracle is being performed daily. When this takes place, we know that God placed new life in an individual. They were dead, but now they are alive.
As Christians live in a world that is filled with sin, that new life can drain down like a car battery. And once this happens, they need to be re-charged spiritually! In the church we call this REVIVAL! Churches schedule revival services periodically, so that the saints of God can get revived.
Illus: Billy Sunday said, “They tell me a revival is only temporary; so is a bath, but it does you good.” (Billy Sunday (1862-1935)
We only RECEIVE the Spirit ONCE, but we need to be REFILLED almost daily. When a person becomes cold and indifferent, they need the power of God to revive them back to full life.
But it is possible to have these revival meetings and still not have the saints of God revived. This is done so often! To prevent this from happening, let’s look at what the Bible defines as a REAL REVIVAL!
Before we can have REAL REVIVAL we have to recognize the need for-
I. REVIVAL IN THE INDIVIDUAL
Illus: Nat King Cole used to sing a song that stated:
“It’s not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”
• Something we all have in common is that we do not have a difficult time seeing faults in others
• It seems we have a difficult time seeing faults in our own life
Illus: This problem we have of seeing the fault in others, reminds me of the man who went to see the eye doctor. The doctor asked him what his problem was. The man said, "I keep seeing spots in front of my eyes." The doctor checked his eyes and prescribed a pair of glasses for him to wear.
He returned a week later, and said to the doctor: “I still see spots before my eyes.”
The doctor said, “Didn't the new glasses help?” The man replied, “Sure they helped, now I see the spots much clearer.”
Many folks are good at seeing the blemishes in the life of others, BUT THEY HAVE A VERY DIFFICULT TIME SEEING ANY BLEMISHES IN THEIR OWN LIFE. This seems to be a problem that has been around a long time.
Illus: The Lord addressed this problem in the New Testament. He said in Matthew 7:3-5, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”
Before we can experience REVIVAL in the church, God’s people need to look at the faults in their own lives, and quit finding faults in the lives of others.
People that are always finding fault in others are people who usually do not love people.
Illus: Every pastor has people coming to him frequently because they are so concerned about someone in the congregation they have found some fault with. Most of the time those same people that are finding fault, are in worse shape than those they are finding fault with.
Illus: Sometimes they make me think of children when they are playing with each other. When one can not have it his way, he will say, “I am going to tell Mom on you!” In other words, “You jerk! I am going to get you in some serious trouble because I do not like you!”
Most of the time, the one that is doing the telling has done worse than the other.
Illus: They remind me of the Ku Klux Klan. When they found a husband that was cheating on his wife, they would take him out in the woods and beat the daylights out of him. Now I think that was probably good, but the problem is that those who were beating the daylights out of the man, lived worse lives than he did.
Honesty compels us to admit that if we take care of the things in our own life, we are not going to have much time to take care of things in other people’s lives.
But people who are always finding fault with others, CLAIM they do not have faults in their life. Listen, a person can claim anything they want to claim, but their claiming it does not make it true.
Do you ever feel like I do at times? I feel that those who are always claiming to be perfect and finding fault with every one else, and act like they are perfect themselves, need to get a swift kick in the you know where!
Just because a person claims something does not make it so.
Illus: A city boy went duck hunting in the country one day. While hunting, he shot a duck which fell on the property of a farmer.
The boy crawled over the fence to claim his kill, but the farmer, seeing what had happened, rushed out with his shotgun and yelled, "See here! That duck belongs too me!"
The city boy replied, "But I shot the duck, therefore it belongs to me!"
The farmer became very angry at him, claiming the duck was his. He said "It fell on my property so it belongs to me!"
They continued to argue, each claiming ownership of the duck. After a while the farmer said, "We should settle this the old-fashioned way."
The city boy asked, "What is the 'old-fashioned way'?"
The farmer explained, "The old fashion way is for you to bend over and I’ll kick you as hard as I can kick you, and then I will bend over and you can kick me as hard as you can.”
The young man from the city agreed. He bent over and the old farmer kicked him almost out the county.
The young man, grunting and groaning, said, “Ok, it is your turn. Bend over and let me kick you.”
The old farmer said, "You claim the duck is yours and I agree, you can have the duck!” and he walked away with joy written all over his face, knowing he got a chance to kick this young fellow who claimed the duck was his.
Our claiming something does not mean a thing.
Illus: When it comes to claiming something, I am reminded of the story of the Lone Ranger. Legend has it that it was a very hot day and he was out chasing some criminals, but he decided to take a break and he rode into town at breakneck speed on his horse, Silver.
His horse was panting and sweaty, and he tied his horse to the hitching post and strolled into the local drug store and got a nice glass of lemonade.
While he was sipping on the refreshing lemonade, a stranger comes into the drug store asking if anyone owned this white horse outside.
The Lone Ranger quickly speaks up, claiming ownership of Silver and asks the man why he wanted to know who owned the horse.
The man scolded him for riding his horse like that and hitching him up to the hitching post sweaty and panting.
He said, “That horse is panting so hard that he can hardly catch his breath. The least you could have done is walk him so he can cool down gradually.”
The Lone Ranger walked out and he told the man he was absolutely correct. “I am ashamed of the way I treated Silver.”
He saw Tonto, and asked him if he would walk Silver while he finished his glass of lemonade, and his good friend Tonto agreed.
He went back inside and he was enjoying his lemonade again, and a total stranger walks in and says, “Does anyone here claim to own that white horse outside?”
The Lone Ranger again claimed he owned the horse and asked what the problem was now.
The man said, "No problem, But I thought you might want to know that you left your Injun running."
Listen, our claiming something does not mean a thing. A lot of people need to get off their high horse and quit searching for faults in the lives of others, and look at their own life.
We can claim anything, but just because we claim something does not make it true. Many in the church today need to quit making false claims and recognize the need for INDIVIDUAL REVIVING in their life.
Illus: A man once asked Gypsy Smith, the famed evangelist, how to have a revival. Smith asked, "Do you have a place where you can pray?" The man answered that he did. "Tell you what you do." Smith said, "You go to that place, and take a piece of chalk along. Kneel down there, and with the chalk, draw a complete circle all around you. Then pray for God to send a revival to everything inside of the circle. Stay there until He answers... and you will have revival." Gypsy Smith knew that true revival begins in the heart of each person.
We need a personal revival today! It would be good if everyone had a personal revival. You and I have no control of others, but we can have a spiritual revival in our own life.
We looked at REVIVAL IN THE INDIVIDUAL, now look at the need for...
II. REVIVAL IN THE CHURCH
There are those who see us as INDIVIDUALS, but there are also those who see us as a CHURCH, not as individuals.
The church today needs a REAL REVIVAL! We have lost our MORAL COMPASS!
Illus: When you are lost in the woods and you do not know which way to go, you are in trouble. The fact is, you can walk for days and end up back where you started from. But if you have a compass, you can find your way out because that compass gives you a reference point. Every time you look at it, the arrow will point accurately to the north.
Illus: Billy Graham said, “We've lost sight of the fact that some things are always right and some things are always wrong. We've lost our reference point.”
As sad as this may be for the lost world, the same is true among Christians. We can never be effective as a church until we can convince the lost world that we have something better to offer them than what they presently have.
Illus: If you were eating a steak, and someone walked up to you and wanted you to trade it for a sausage biscuit, would you trade? I do not think so! WHY? BECAUSE WE MAKE OUR DECISIONS BASED ON VALUE. IF IT IS NOT BETTER, WHY SHOULD YOU TRADE?
If we are going to persuade the lost world to come to Christ, we are not going to win them by “trying to be like them”. They will come to Christ when we can show them “something better”.
Illus: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in Growing in the Spirit, said, “You and I are to be such that as we walk up and down the streets of life, people will be struck and attracted. You have seen them turn and look at a well-dressed person. ... They should be struck by us, and look at us, and think, ‘What is this person? I have never seen anybody quite like this before!’ ... That is the kind of people we can be and the kind of people that we must be. And when we become such people, believe me, the revival we are longing for will start, and the people outside, in their misery and wretchedness, will come in and will want to experience what we have experienced.”
The New Testament church was able to do this and multitudes came running to Christ.
Conclusion:
We need spiritual reviving, and God will send it when we recognize:
I. WE NEED IT INDIVIDUALLY
II. WE NEED IT AS A CHURCH
