Preacher who had a brother fall asleep every Sunday when he would start preaching. Preacher decided to do something about it. Preached on Hell one Sunday and Sure enough the brother had fallen asleep. Preacher pounded the Pulpit, when it came to making this point:
“If anybody wants to go to Hell, just let them stand up right now!” Well, all that brother heard after being waking from the pounding on the pulpit was: “Stand up right now!” Of course the whole church just gasp at him for doing this and of course the brother was pretty embarrassed also. All he could think of to say was: ”Preacher, I don’t know what we just voted on, but looks like you and me are the only one’s for it.”
Why do people fall asleep at church? Why do we act sometimes like worship and church are exhausting? I mean, shouldn’t worship and praise and fellowship build us up and re-energize us?
Psalms 28:7 says; “The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusts in him and I am helped, my heart leaps for joy and I give thanks to him in song.”
I want to talk you this morning about the need for revival. Revival is not church meetings. You can put a sign outside that says: “Revival Meeting next week.” But that is not revival. Revival can’t be programmed.
Revival is not an evangelistic crusade or some kind of evangelism campaign. Revival is not the same thing as Church growth. We can have two hundred more members than we did last year and still not be revived.
Revival is not a work of emotions, you can’t bring revival by singing a lot of songs real loud or by singing the same song a hundred times over, until your worked up and feeling real good.
So what is Revival? Revival is when God visits his people to wake them up Spiritually. Acts 3:19 “Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out and times of refreshing may come from the Lord . . .
When revival happens, the church will be full of people and those people will be full of God. The book of Acts should be normative for the church. In other words what we read about happening to the church in the book of Acts should be happening in the church today.
I believe the book of Acts is not about how the church once looked like in it’s extra-ordinary days, I believe it is describing how the church ought look like in it’s ordinary days, like today!
Do we believe that what we read about happening to the church in the book of Acts should be happening today? You see, I think that what we see in church today is so subnormal, that normal would feel abnormal.
We have become so used to subnormal, that if normal ever showed up, we’d have a business meeting that afternoon to see what we could do to stop that from ever happening again.
What we sometimes call extra-ordinary, ought to be ordinary in the Kingdom of God.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that what we read about happening to the church in the book of Acts can and should be happening right here?
I think we may want it to happen and I think many of us may hope that it will happen, but do you believe that it can happen?
That’s what can happen when revival comes. Revival does not come by design.
It can not be orchestrated or produced by the flesh.
Revival is not the church deciding to do something, revival is God deciding do something with his church. Revival is God deciding to send a fresh movement of his Spirit among his people.
Revival is when God sovereignly (He Chooses to ) grants his body / church / Temple a fresh experience of his spirit. That’s why you can’t orchestrate a revival.
If you were to read about some of the revivals that have occurred just on this continent you could not explain how / why they happened.
Have any of you read about the Cane Ridge Revival? The Cane Ridge Revival is part of our Heritage, the churches of Christ were birthed at that revival.
Barton W. Stone of Kentucky in the early 1800’s preached to 25, 000 people and we who are members of the churches of Christ were a part of that revival.
And that is amazing, because I’ll tell you, if anything like the Cane Ridge Revival from which we sprang, ever broke out today in this congregation most of our folks wouldn’t come here anymore.
Not only would they stop coming, but as they left, they would be condemning us for it. Or at the very least, we would call a men’s business meeting to make sure that it never came back to our church again.
Revival is connected to a working of the Holy Spirit , , , , , ,
Scripture teaches that we are all indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we are all Temples of the Holy Spirit, but because we thinking individually more than we corporately, we sometimes miss the picture of the Holy Spirit operating through the church as a whole.
For example, in I Cor.3:16, 17 “Don’t you know that you yourselves are Gods temple and that Gods Spirit dwells in you” He means corporately! The Church! “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him for Gods temple is sacred and you (Plural) are that temple.”
Now over in I Cor. 6 he will tell us that we individually are temples of the Holy Spirit, but here in Chapter 3 he is saying that the church also makes up a Temple and in that! Temple the Holy Spirit lives!
For example in Acts 4, the saints were praying, because they were beginning to feel persecution, they were being told that they could no longer preach in Jesus name.
And so the church! gets together and they pray boldly to the Lord, asking the Father to help them to be bold in the midst of this persecution.
And God was so pleased with their prayer that the text tells us in Verse 31 “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”
Now wait a minute, didn’t they already have the Holy Spirit? They sure did, Acts 2 makes that very clear!
These people praying were already Temples of the Holy Spirit, but something happened in a corporate experience!
And the whole church in one moment felt the move of Gods Spirit.
Revival is a gracious move of the spirit that brings renewal to the church. It can not be bought but! It must be sought.
God is very willing to revive his church, if his church wants to be revived. Revival can not come by design, but it will not come unless it is desired.
It’s not going to come until we want it to come, revival is an invasion from heaven at the request of the saints on earth. God wants to revive his church more than we want to be revived.
II Chronicles 7:14 Solomon raises an interesting question, he prays to God and he asks him this question, he says:
God, I know the hearts of these people and I know their history is to be in love with you, be on fire for you and then they grow cold and drift away into sin and then in your discipline they come back to you and ask you to accept them and they will love you and be on fire for you, but then their hearts will grow cold again and again they will leave you.
And what Solomon wants to know from God is this: “Will you come back , , , Will you accept them again , , , if we stumble and fall and drift away one more time, Will you come back?”
That’s a Good question isn’t it? God responds by saying in II Chronicles 7:14 , , , “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 will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Revival is Gods sovereign choice to fill those who no longer want to be empty! But it must be sought! God says: If you humble yourselves , , , Pray , , , Seek His face , , , Turn from our wicked ways , , , Then! He says: He will hear from heaven and he will forgive our sin and he will heal our land.
Revival can’t be bought, but it must be sought. It can’t be designed but it must be desired. It can come, but it won’t come until we seek Him to bring it!
One of the first things that must happen in seeking revival is that we must become a humble people. “If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves.” God says: He will revives us.
One of the great revivalists in the Bible was King Josiah. It was under his reign as King of Juda that the people discovered the Books of the Law, after they had been lost in the destruction of the Temple.
When they discovered the books of the Law, he read them and when he realized how far his people have drifted from their God he begins to mourn and to weep.
And the Bible says in II Kings 22:19 “The Lord says, because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and this people, that they were to become a curse laid waste and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard your prayers.”
One of the most wicked Kings that Juda ever had was a man named Mannasah. In II Chronicles 33: 10,11 . . we are told that when the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, they would not listen, so Verse 11 tells us that they put a hook through his nose and led him off to Babylon.
Then in verse 12 & 13 says: “In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and HUMBLED HIMSELF GREATLY! Before the God of his fathers, AND WHEN HE PRAYED TO HIM, the Lord was MOVED by his entreaty and listened to his plea, so he brought him back to Jerusalem and his Kingdom, then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.”
You will find this same pattern in every revival that is recorded for us in the Bible, God hears, when his people humble themselves. Daniel 10:12 says: “Do not be afraid Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come in response to them.”
God promises to respond when his people humble themselves, but notice God put the responsibility to humble ourselves on us. Now don’t misunderstand, God can humble us any time he wants to, in fact we have a choice, we can either humble ourselves or God will do it for us, either which way, but one way or the other, your going down.
God says, if you want me to respond and bring revival, you humble yourselves. The command is not to feel humble, the command is not to praise humility, the command is for us to intentionally humble ourselves.
Zephenia 2:3 says, Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands, seek righteousness, seek humility, perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.”
The two words we should pay very close attention to here, they are “Seek Humility”. We praise humility, we preach humility, we teach humility, but do we seek humility? Do we seek occasions to humble ourselves?
Do we intentionally, deliberately seek to be humble? Revival will not come until we seek humility!
How does one seek Humility?
1# Seeking humility means confessing our burdens for the way things are. In every revival in the Bible it always starts with people desperately confessing to God how broken they are about the way things are.
We need to cry out in desperation about the way things are. Isaiah 59: says that the “Lord looked and was displeased that there was no one who seeks justice.”
Why was no one Praying or Fasting or Mourning and Weeping to God about the way things are? Why weren’t his people down on their faces ashamed of the sin in their land and begging him to come and heal it?
The world does not know that we are it’s only hope and sometimes we too forget that our future depends on God listening to our prayers.
Are we no longer desperate enough to ask God to come and revive us? Do we feel a burden for the way things are?
William Booth, the man who started the Salvation Army once sent off two young missionaries to start a new work in a distant land.
They wrote back and said in their letter: “We have tried every method to reach these people and they just will not respond to the Gospel.” His response to them was just two words: “Try Tears.”
It is the same for us today, but our tears can’t be just for those who will not listen to the gospel message, they must also be for ourselves.
I don’t think the greatest problem in America is the Darkness, I think it is the Light. The church is supposed to be Gods preserving influence to the world, that holds back the wrath of God.
That is why Jesus said in Matthew 5:13 “You are the light of the world, You are the salt of the earth , , , If you loose your influence, what will happen to the world?”
It is so easy for us to blame the world for all of our troubles, but why are we surprised that sinners, sin? Why does that shock us? The problem isn’t in Washington or Hollywood, the problem isn’t that sinners, sin.
The problem is that our pews are filled with people that can’t wait until Saturday night to go spend $7.00 to watch the world sin. The problem is that the Salt is loosing it’s seasoning.
Joel 2:12 says: “Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your hearts and not your garments, return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in Love and he relents from sending calamity.”
Revival is not going to come as long as we’re to proud to Pray and Fast and Weep and Mourn about the way things are. If how it is now, is good enough for you, revival will never come.
To seek humility is to stress the spiritual disciplines of Prayer and Fasting. You see, we have one great source of hope and that is the promise from God, that we can move His heart through prayer.
Revival is always proceeded by a passionate calling on God by His people. God is moved by men and women who are moved by the way things are.
We need to start praying for revival, if it is ever going to come, to this place. But along with prayer I want to encourage us to fast also.
I have never been much on fasting, I have never known much about fasting, but in study about revival in the Bible there is one inescapable fact, you don’t find revival in the Bible without fasting.
In the scriptures, fasting is the means whereby one intentionally humbles himself.
Psalm 35: 13 says:
“I put on sackcloth and humbled myself, with fasting.”
Ezra 8:21 says:
“I proclaimed a fast so that we might humble ourselves before our God.”
Fasting is an ordained visible means that God recognizes as an attempt by his people to humble themselves. Fasting, subjects the desires of the Flesh.
Fasting means that I am willing to give up something that my physical body demands in order to seek what my eternal spirit needs. Fasting is a sign of seeking humility in ourselves.
To seek humility, is to recognize in our own lives, a greater need for Holiness / Purity.
A greater need for true Faith, not just the belief that the set of doctrines we adhere to are the right ones.
A greater need for Devotion to the things of God.
A greater need for Righteousness in every area of our lives.
Why doesn’t revival come more often if a church is praying for it? Sometimes it is because of the sinfulness of those who ask.
Psalm 66:18 says “If I cherish sin in my heart the Lord would not have listened..” God is not going to send revival until his church gets serious about holiness and Purity and Faith and Righteousness.
Revival always brings remorse, because before God brings revival he will bring intense conviction. He will clean house. You start praying for revival, you better watch out cause sin will be exposed.
You pray for revival and we better watch out because God will expose sin in the lives of those, who are praying for it. Revival is asking God to reveal to us, everything in our lives, everything in the church, everything in the land that is displeasing to him.
Psalm 34:18
“The Lord is close to those who’s hearts are breaking ,he rescues those who are humbly sorry for their sins.”
Isaiah 57:15 says:”This is what the High and lofty one says: he who lives forever, who’s name is holy, I live in a high and holy place but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
The Apostle Peter said:
Cloth yourselves with humility one toward another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under God’s mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time.”
That word “opposes” in the Greek is a military term. It is used to describe what a general would do in the field of battle in lining up his men to attack.
What that means is that if you’re not going to humble yourself, you are lining up against God and he is going to go to war with you.
And folks, God has never lost a battle, not with Satan, not with you, not with me, you will lose, you will be humbled.
Sometimes, when we are going through intense persecution, we say: Well, I must be doing something right and the devil doesn’t like it cause look at all this persecution.
That is spiritual pride walking around in the disguise of false humility. We can not go on thinking that if we remain proud, that it is some attack on your spirituality by the devil cause it is not, the Bible says that it is God who opposes the proud!
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
To revive something implies that there is some kind of spiritual decay or inactivity going on and it needs to be revived, to be made alive again.
It is for a people who are weak!
It is for those who will humble themselves.
Revival will not come simply because we pray for humility
Revival will come when we seek humility.
It will come when we stress the disciplines of prayer and fasting and mourning and weeping over sins committed.
It will come when we are burdened with the way things are.
Don’t you want to be on fire for God again?
Can you remember how good it felt to be close to him?
You can be revived, you can be made alive again, don’t we want that as a church?
All he asks is for you to surrender, to humble yourself.
Things don’t have to stay the way they are.
