“WILL YOU NOT REVIVE US AGAIN?” Psalm 85
FBCF – 8/14/22
Jon Daniels
INTRO – “True revival is that divine moment when God bursts upon the scene & displays His glory” (Del Fehsenfeld). There have been times this has happened throughout history: 1857 – US in state of decline – politically, economically, & spiritually (sound familiar?). A young layman named Jeremiah Lanphier decided to have a prayer mtg at noon on Sept. 23 – 6 people showed up. 3 wks later – 40 people. Decided to start meeting for prayer at noon every day. Stock market crashed on Oct. 10. People began flocking to these noon prayer meetings. Within 6 months, 10,000 people were meeting in NYC alone. Spread to other cities. Thousands meeting for prayer in Chicago, Cleveland, & St. Louis. Some have suggested that between 500k & 1 million people were saved in 1857-58.
The Welsh Revival happened in 1904-05 – 100,000 people got saved. Move of Spirit started through the preaching of one 26 yr-old preacher, Evan Roberts.
1932 – Revival in North China came through the prayers of a single missionary woman, Marie Monsen. More people saved that year than ever before. One missionary estimated that 3,000 people got saved in his town alone.
1996 – Henry Blackaby preaching at Howard Payne Univ. for 3 days. On Tue night, 2 young men who were Christians & leaders on the campus, came to the platform & confessed that they had been in bondage to pornography & lust & how it had shut down their prayer lives. Broken over their sin & crying out for forgiveness & cleansing. Blackaby asked if there were others. An avalanche of young men came to the stage, weeping & crying out to God.
Suddenly, a beautiful young woman stepped to the platform. “You’re saying it’s just the men. Well, we women also have lust in our hearts.” Began to describe the brokenness in her heart. Blackaby asked if there were other young women who needed to come & let God heal & purify their hearts, too. Girls began to run to platform from all over the auditorium, weeping over their sins.
Adults in the auditorium also began to confess their sins & cry out in repentance. 3 ½ hours later, the meeting was still going on as God’s Spirit brought revival to many lives that night. (Told my Henry Blackay in his book, HOLINESS, p. 64-68)
1857 – 1904 – 1932 – 1996. What about 2022? Are WE ready for revival? A true revival? A revival that shakes us to our core, shows us our sin, & shifts our focus back to Jesus?
EXPLANATION – Psalm 85 (pg. 493)
The Psalms are awesome! One writer called them “a masterpiece of praise” (David Gunderson, Intro to Psalms, NIV Grace & Truth Study Bible, p. 688). Every emotion you & I have ever felt or will ever feel is found somewhere in these 150 chapters – grief, sorrow, joy, delight, anger, discouragement, peace, calm, worry, fear, faith & hope, praise, confession, thanksgiving – all woven into these Holy Spirit-inspired words. The Psalms are so useful to help us express what’s truly on our hearts to God. That’s why I encourage you all the time to wallow around in them.
And the Psalms also remind us of revival & our desperate need to return to the Lord!
- Psalm 80:19 – “Restore us, Lord God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.”
- Psalm 19:7 – “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”
- Psalm 22:27a – “All the ends of the earth will remember & turn to the Lord”
- Psalm 80:18 – “Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, & we will call upon your name!”
- Psalm 51:12 – “Restore to me the joy of your salvation & grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
Psalm 85: “revive” – v. 6 – This Heb word is ALL ABOUT LIFE! Listen to all the different meanings of this word:
- To live – have life, continue in life, remain alive, to sustain life, to live prosperously
- To revive from sickness, from discouragement, from faintness, from death
- To preserve alive, to let live, to give life, to restore to life, to cause to grow
- To keep alive, to promise life, to nourish up, to recover, repair, restore life
Revival is all about LIFE!
APPLICATION – We need to prepare ourselves for the revival that God wants to send to us.
Asked staff last week, “When revival truly comes to FBCF, what is it going to look like?” – more evangelism; people not content to be observers, but desiring to serve; fulfill Great Commission; deep hunger for the Word
What can we expect when God revives us?
EXPECTATIONS OF REVIVAL:
FAVOR & FORGIVENESS – v. 1-3 – The people of God had sinned against the Lord in the past, & God had disciplined them through droughts & famines, just like He will do & is doing right now. But He had forgiven them & shown His favor toward them.
What a blessing! What relief to know that it is God’s desire to show us His favor & to forgive us! He is pleased w/ us & accepts us & “covers all our sin.” And the ONLY way He can cover our sin is through the blood of Jesus! In fact, that word for “cover” means “to overwhelm.” The blood of Jesus overwhelms our sin & sweeps them away like a flood! That’s the ONLY way we can experience God’s favor & forgiveness!
- Over last couple of weeks, we’ve seen over 10 people come to faith in Christ. Their sins have been covered over & swept away. They’ve been overwhelmed by the power of the Holy Spirit. They’ve received Christ as Savior & His blood has washed away their sins. And that can happen to YOU today, too!
RESTORATION & REJOICING – v. 4-7 – This generation had wandered away from the Lord as the generation before them had done. And as God’s painful discipline came into their lives, they began to cry out to the Lord. They needed His restoration, His patience, His forgiveness, His steadfast love & salvation.
And that’s exactly what God will do when He revives His people! We are just like His people in the OT. As the hymnwriter said, we are “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” He WILL restore us, refresh us, bring us back to Himself. He LOVES to do that! And when He does, it truly sets our hearts to rejoicing!
- “Experience Restoration” – FBC B’haven - Building was restored from the inside out & made useful again.
- That is what God does in us in revival. God is in the restoration business!
PEACE & PRESENCE & PROVISION – v. 8-13 – These folks were hurting due to the consequences of their sin but knew what they needed to do. They needed to listen to what God was saying to them & remember the truths about who God is & what He will do.
When He revives His people, He speaks peace to them (v. 8), & when God speaks, it is done. He spoke the world into existence & He speaks peace into our lives.
- Wed night, standing in a driveway of an African-American family who were believers. Talked about how scarce peace is in people’s lives these days & the desperate need for us as Christ-followers of all races & walks of life to come together, love one another, & work together to spread the Gospel of peace in our community. People are desperate for PEACE in their lives. Prince of Peace has come to give us that peace.
When He revives His people, His presence is near to us through the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, who fills us, comforts us, convicts us, & empowers us.
- His presence is here today.
- Philippians 4:5 – “The Lord is near”
- Psalm 34:17-18 – “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears & delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted & saves the crushed in spirit.”
- Bill Elliff – “If you have His presence, you have everything you need—wisdom, joy, power, peace, direction, love, life itself. But if you do not have His presence—if He is not with you—you have nothing that is valuable or that lasts.” (https://billelliff.org/blogs/news/the-promise-of-gods-presence?_pos=2&_sid=f790f8946&_ss=r)
And when He revives His people, He provides for us that which is good (v.12). His “faithfulness springs up from the ground” (v. 11) as He blesses us & provides for our every need.
- What is YOUR greatest NEED today? God will supply it (Philippians 4:19).
All of this hinges on our:
REALIZATION OF OUR NEED FOR REVIVAL – God’s people here in Ps 85 realized how far they had moved away from God & how desperately they needed Him to move in their lives. They needed revival!
Do you & I realize that same thing today? Or have we grown comfortable in our sin that we are blinded to it? The consequences haven’t seemed too severe, so we decide to keep taking our chances. Like someone who is walking on the thin ice of a frozen lake, taking their chances that the ice won’t break & plunge them into the freezing water, you & I keep easing farther & farther into our sin & away from the Lord. We hear the ice cracking but taking our chances anyway. That’s the folly that is talked about in v. 8 – word literally means “stupidity.” We’ve got to realize how stupid it is for us to continue in our sin & realize our desperate need for God to revive our cold hearts.
David’s confession in Psalm 51:4 after his sin w/ Bathsheba must be our confession – “Against you, & you only, have I sinned & done what is evil in your sight.”
REPENTANCE OF SIN – We often think that, once we’ve confessed our sins to the Lord, we are done. It is true that God completely forgives our sins the very moment we confess them – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful & just to forgive us our sins & cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9).
But our confession – our agreement w/ God about our sin & how wrong it is – must lead to our repentance.
“You cannot separate repentance and revival. Because personal revival brings a new holiness and closeness with God, it is always preceded by repentance and maintained by repentance.” (“21 Days of Prayer for Revival,” YouVersion)
REAL RETURNING TO THE LORD – “If you return to me, I will restore you so you can continue to serve me” (Jeremiah 15:19a NLT)
“’Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘& I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Zechariah 1:3b)
“For the Lord your God is gracious & compassionate. He WILL NOT turn His face from you if you return to Him.” (2 Chronicles 30:9b)
