The Theology of Biblical Revival
Psalms 85:1-13
1 (To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah.) LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.
2 Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.
3 Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.
4 Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
5 Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?
6 Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?
7 Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.
8 I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.
9 Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.
10 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
11 Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
12 Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.
13 Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.
Introduction: What is Revival?
1. Revival is not a week worth of meetings.
2. Revival is not started in one day.
3. Revival is not controlled by man.
4. Revival is a heart thing.
5. Revival is always brought on by REPENTANCE.
6. Revival is renewed zeal to obey God
As we read through the revivals recorded in the Bible we can quickly see commonalities among them. In his book Revival Fire, Geoff Waugh lists nine similarities among Biblical revivals:
* They occurred in times of moral darkness and national depression.
* Each began in the heart of a consecrated servant of God who became the energizing power behind it.
* Each revival rested on the Word of God, and most were the result of proclaiming God’s Word with power.
* All resulted in a return to the worship of God.
* Each witnessed the destruction of idols where they existed.
* In each revival, there was a recorded separation from sin.
* In every revival the people returned to obeying God’s laws.
* There was a restoration of great joy and gladness.
* Each revival was followed by a period of national prosperity.
Ideally, we should never have to pray for revival, as the Lord would have us live in a perpetually revived state. The early church (during the New Testament era) lived in continuous revival. The believers were dynamic—although, as the epistles clearly reveal, they were not faultless. That gives us great hope today!
- Chet Swearingen
I. The Remembrance – favor v. 1-3
In verse one we have a clue to the context of this of this Psalm. The captivity of Jacob is a reference to the return of a remnant from Babylon. The word that stands out is
a. At one time Israel had the refreshing of His presence
b. At one time Israel had the realness of His power
c. At one time Israel had the reassurance of His promises.
II. The Regression – folly v. 4-8
The main reason for their captivity in Babylon and the destruction of the Temple and the wreck and ruin of Jerusalem was idolatry. The Psalmist calls it the folly.
The Bible understands that idolatry extends beyond the worship of images and false gods. It is a matter of the heart, associated with pride, self-centeredness, greed, gluttony ( Php 3:19 ), and love for possessions ( Matt 6:24 ).
Idolatry is a major theme of the Bible. It challenges God's sovereignty and attempts to offer an alternate explanation to the issues of life. But Scripture not only records people's failures; it also records the hope of repentance. In his mercy, God raised up men and women who challenged the faulty theology of the community.
As Tim Keller states in his book Counterfeit Gods, an idol is “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, and anything that you seek to give you what only God can give.”
a. Self - We are a self-obsessed people, or at least, I am. Throughout the day, I filter everything through the lens of how it affects me, and in social settings my focus usually lands squarely on myself. Though I know I exist to glorify Christ and reveal His love to a hurting world, so often, I easily slip into self-elevation mode.
Our culture might convince me this is beneficial. After all, if we don’t look out for ourselves, who will? According to Scripture, Christ. We belong to an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful Savior who gave His everything so that we might live. In return, He asks that we willingly give ourselves to Him.
Through surrender, we break free from the idol of self and in so doing, find the freedom to be all that God created us to be—men and women of purpose designed to glorify our Creator God.
b. Security - The challenge with modern day idols is they often arise from really good things, even necessary things. These are needs and pleasures our loving heavenly Father longs to provide. The problem comes when we attempt to fill our needs, be it for significance or security, in our own strength, apart from God. Because our efforts will always be insufficient, our hearts will remain empty, which means we’ll continue grasping.
This is precisely how the idol of security rises up. We know inherently, everything we rely on apart from Christ is shaky at best. Careers end, relationships fail, stock markets crash, and unexpected medical bills can wipe out, in a moment, every insufficient foundation we’ve amassed beneath us.
But Christ never fails. When we place our security in Him, we remain strong, unshakable, no matter the chaos we encounter. To find freedom from the idol of security, we simply need to lean deeper into Christ. As we do, we discover He is strong and present enough to carry us through whatever we’ll face.
c. Success - What do you do? Often, upon meeting someone, that’s the first questions we ask. And when we’re enslaved by the idol of success, this simple inquisition can trigger one of two reactions: insecurity or pride. We soon find ourselves listing all our accomplishments in an effort to prove our worth or gain respect. But God measures success based on obedience, not results. In all things, our role is to obey; He’s responsible for and sovereign over the outcome.
Our identity is and must be found in Christ alone. He wants us to know who and whose we are, and Scripture says, in Christ, we’re cherished, chosen, and empowered men and women of God handcrafted for an eternal purpose. Our value doesn’t increase when we reach our goals or get promoted. Nor does it decrease when we’re laid off or encounter rejections. Knowing this, and anchoring our hearts in grace, frees us from the idol of success and enables us to become all we were meant to be.
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III. The Renewal – fear v. 9-13
What the Psalmist is talking about is “godly fear” which is reverence, respect and obedience to the will and Word of God. When there is a revival of Godly fear several things happen…
a. There is an awakening of backslidden Christians
The word “backslide” can have many connotations. We may even know people we consider backsliders. However, what does backslide even mean? If we write about this topic, we need to make sure we are talking about the same thing. Though people have different ideas of what backslide means, the definition that I believe fits best is one sliding back from their closeness to Christ. For some reason, this person is growing cold in their relationship with Jesus (and sometimes engaging in behavior that signifies their life before Christ).
Revelation 3:15 “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.”
b. There is the conversion of nominal Christians
Ephesians 5:14 “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”
The Apostle Paul referred to the Corinthians as carnal Christians.
Does that describe you? If so, would you like to change?
There was a time, perhaps, when you were a spiritual Christian. You still had your first love; a fire burned in your heart for God. But something has happened along the way, something has disturbed your relationship with God, and you no longer know the joy, the peace and the thrill that you once knew.
You do not take time to read your Bible. Your prayer times are few. Your interest in spiritual things has waned, and yet there is a great hungering after God, an aching in your soul for the joy and victory that you have seen in the lives of others. You want that joy in your soul, that thrill in your heart. You want to know the power of prayer again.
From the divine viewpoint, defeated Christians are abnormal. They are paralyzed members of the Body of Christ. Backsliding and carnality are not only inexcusable, they are incompatible with the normal Christian experience. They produce a regime of contradiction. Since the living Christ dwells within every one of us who has accepted Him as Savior, there is never any reason for defeat. No enemy is too powerful for Christ! Every temptation may be resisted!
www.billygrahm.org
c. There is the bringing of hard-to-reach non-Christians to faith in Christ.
Although not the primary reason for revival the conversion of lost souls is often the result of real revival.
Churches grow during times of revival. Many in the community come to faith in Christ, partly because when sleepy Christians wake up and nominal Christians get converted, it beautifies the church. The church becomes an attractive place. It becomes a powerful place. And this change happens for various reasons.
On the one hand, sleepy and nominal Christians begin to reach out to their neighbors in a way they weren’t doing before. On the other hand, people hear about it, and the news spreads. Whole churches and unconnected people come in just because they’re curious. In other cases, they come in because they’re brought in.
WWW.GOSPELCOALITION.ORG
Conclusion: IT ALL STARTED BY ONE MAN WANTING TO PRAY
In 1857 there was a 46 year old man named Jeremiah Lamphere who lived in New York City. Jeremiah loved the Lord tremendously, but he didn’t feel that he could do much for the Lord until he began to feel a burden for the lost and accepted an invitation from his church to be an inner city missionary.
So in July of 1857 he started walking up and down the streets of New York passing out tracts and talking to people about Jesus, but he wasn’t having any success. Then God put it on his heart to try prayer. So he printed up a bunch of tracts, and he passed them out to anyone and everyone met. He invited anyone who wanted to come to the 3rd floor of the Old North Dutch Reform Church on Fulton St. in New York City from 12 to 1 on Wednesday to pray. He passed out hundreds and hundreds of fliers and put up posters everywhere he could.
Wednesday came and at noon nobody showed up. So Jeremiah got on his knees and started praying. For 30 minutes he prayed by himself when finally five other people walked in. The next week 20 people came. The next week between 30 and 40 people came. They then decided to meet every day from 12:00 to 1:00 to pray for the city.
Before long a few ministers started coming and they said, "We need to start this at our churches." Within six months there were over 5000 prayer groups meeting everyday in N.Y. Soon the word spread all over the country. Prayer meetings were started in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington D.C. In fact President Franklin Pierce started going almost every day to a noonday prayer meeting. By 1859 some 15,000 cities in America were having downtown prayer meetings everyday at noon, and thousands were brought to Christ.
The great thing about this revival is that there is not a famous preacher associated with it. It was all started by one man wanting to pray. People have been seeking God, and seeking a relationship with God through Jesus Christ for centuries.
(From a sermon by Rich Anderson, Seeking The Face Of Jesus Christ 2/18/2011)
Conclusion: ENABLED TO REPENT
“A Christian is not one who never goes wrong, but one who is enabled to repent and begin over again after each stumble—because of the inner working of Christ.”
C.S. Lewis
If there is no repentance, there can be no pardon. Some years ago a murderer was sentenced to death. The murderer’s brother, to whom the State was deeply indebted for former services, besought the governor of the State for his brother’s pardon. The pardon was granted, and the man visited his brother with the pardon in his pocket. “What would you do,” he said to him, “if you received a pardon?” “The first thing I would do,” he answered, “is to track down the judge who sentenced me, and murder him; and the next thing I would do is to track down the chief witness, and murder him.” The brother rose, and left the prison with the pardon in his pocket.
Because of what this man had done, death penalty was waiting on him. The opportunity was granted to him, but it called for repentance. Since there could be no repentance, there also could be no pardon.
