REVIVE US AGAIN
II Chronicles 7:11-14
INTRODUCTION: I love that song "Revive Us Again" Sometimes we ought to start that in the middle of one of my sermons when some of us get kinda drowsy. Speaking of drowsy, there is a story I want to share with you. One particular Sunday a preacher was preaching a powerful sermon on hell and how terrible hell would be. In the congregation there was this one fellow who fell asleep every Sunday. The preacher came to a point where he pounded the pulpit to emphasize how bad hell was, and said if anyone wants to go to hell let him stand up right now. Well the only part that the sleeping guy heard was the "stand up right now part" so he did! He stood there for a few moments and looked around, then he said" Well preacher, I don’t know what we just voted on, but it looks like you and me are the only ones for it."
One thing that has always perplexed me is why we sometimes talk about church and worship as if it were exhausting, as if it would make us tired to do it. People say all the time, "I’m just too tired to go to church." The implication is that church would just wear us out. It would make us more exhausted. We never say, "I’m tired. I’m worn out. I’m gonna go to church to get fired up, to get re-energized." But it seems to me that is what we ought to do! An opportunity to praise God ought to get us excited and fired up. King David said in Psalm 28:7. I think we can all think of times like that, when our hearts leapt for joy, when our hearts were aflame for God. But you know, a fire must be refueled or it will go out. Let’s look at another passage together. Psalm 85:6,7. Maybe this morning you need God to re-light a fire in your soul that’s getting a bit cold. What you need, maybe what we need, is revival. That is what we are going to talk about this Fall. What is it when God sends revival? First let me tell you what it isn’t!
I. REVIVAL IS NOT A SET OF CHURCH MEETINGS.
A. A lot of us grew up saying that our church is going to have a revival on such and such date. It is part of the year’s schedule, like VBS, or a retreat. But that is not revival. It’s a good thing to do, but it isn’t revival.
1. Revival is not a crusade either. Now, I love a good evangelistic effort. After all it is part of what we ought to be doing as God’s people, but it is not a revival. Revival is not even church growth. You see a church can be growing but not have revival because revival implies spiritual declension and lethargy.
2. The very word says that something is alive but is about to die. It is struggling with life and needs to be awakened. If you’re not a Christian you don’t need revival, you need regeneration. But if you are a Christian there is a good chance that during the course of your Christian life your gonna need a few revivals.
B. I came across something interesting the other day. Some of you can remember when the church would have two week long meetings. I didn’t know why that was until I found out that often the first week was just for revival. The emphasis was to get the church back on fire for God and then the second week they would focus on evangelism.
1. But somehow we decided that going to church for two weeks was too much so we cut it down to one week and went straight to evangelism. When that became too much, we just cut it down to two or three nights. And when that didn’t bear any fruit we quit doing it at all.
2. Well maybe it wasn’t fruitful because we were trying to do evangelism before we had revival. You see when I read the book of Acts, I think that should be the norm for the church, revival then evangelism. Nowadays I think that at times God’s church is so subnormal that normal seems abnormal.
3. Think about it for a few moments. Sometimes we have become so accustomed to subnormal that if normal ever showed up it would seem abnormal to us. As a result, I think that in a very real sense God’s church is like a sleeping giant. And Satan’s motto is to let sleeping saints sleep. Therefore, in order for the church to function as the body of Christ, God has to bring revival to his church.
II. SO WHAT IS REVIVAL?
A. There are a thousand different definitions out there, but here is the one I like the best. "Revival is experienced when God visits His people to awaken them spiritually." When God visits! It’s not something man does. We sang it just a moment ago, "Revive us again; fill each heart with thy love. Let each soul be rekindled with what?" Fire from Above!
1. Revival happens when God visits His people and He wakes them up spiritually. And it can happen in many different levels. For example, Revival can happen at the group level, at the individual level, at the community level, and even the national level. One of the most famous revivals in the last century was the Wales revival where 100,000 people came to Christ in five months.
2. This revival was so powerful that they had to start closing down bars because people stopped going to them. They had to let the wardens off at the prisons because there was no one to put in jail. The whole nation was having revival. The most amazing thing to me was that the mines were having trouble getting the mules to work because so many of the miners got converted to Christ and the mules only knew how to work when they were cussed. The miners stopped cussing and the mules didn’t know what to do. You know what was said about the Wales Revival? The churches are full of people and the people are full of God.
B. The best definition of revival from the bible in is Acts 3:19 where Peter says, "Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." That is what a Revival is. It is a time of refreshing that comes from the Lord. It rekindles the fire of the H. S. in the soul’s of God’s people.
1. Now, when revival comes, some great things will happen. God’s people will have a new passion for prayer and for worship and for God’s Word and you are not gonna have to beg them to come to church. When revival comes you are gonna see a renewed confession, even a ruthless confession, of sin and a real, renewed commitment to holiness. And a lot of the things God’s people used to tolerate they won’t tolerate in their lives anymore.
2. Then you are gonna see an increased burden for the lost and an emphasis on evangelism. Revival is almost always followed by great numbers of people coming to Christ. But the amazing thing about revival is that it cannot be manufactured. If it could, I would have already bought the kit and we would have had it a long time ago. But revival is heaven sent and not man made. God can’t be forced in sending revival by anything we do.
3. Revival is a strange, sovereign visitation of God where he reanimates and restores life into his weak church. He can’t be obligated to send revival. But he longs to send it. He longs to awaken his church; he longs to get that sleeping giant up on its feet. So that subnormal becomes abnormal and normal comes back.. Folks, we can’t organize a move of the spirit of God, but we can set ourselves to catch the wind when he blows. That is why this Fall we are going to study the great revivals in the church and you are going to pray for a revival for this church, this city, for this country, most of all for your own heart.
{You see we need revival, and let me tell you why.}
III. REVIVAL IS NEEDED BECAUSE WE ARE PRONE TO LET OUR LOVE
FOR GOD GROW COLD.
A. Have you heard the story of the little church in rural Tennessee. They had a revival meeting every spring and an old guy in town would come every spring and renew his life to God. In the fall he would begin to cool off and by winter he would get cold, but in the spring he would get fired up again. So on the first night of the revival he would come in and sit on the back seat. The next night he is up about two rows. The next night about two rows more. Then by the 4th or 5th night he was on the front seat saying fill me Lord. There was a little lady who knew him well who was heard to day, "Careful Lord, he leaks."
1. Well the problem is that we all tend to leak. The Lord fills us up with the Holy Spirit and he starts a fire in our hearts, but after a while that fire just doesn’t burn as hot as it once did. A man by the name of Robert Robertson was born in 1737 in England and grew up very poor. His father died when he was just eight. He began to run around with the local thugs and got too out of control for his mother.
2. One week the town was holding a revival with the great preacher George Whitfield. The boy and his friends decided they would go to the revival and break it up. Well he went, but the preaching was so powerful that instead of breaking it up, he got it. He was converted to Christ and entered the ministry. At the young age of 23 he wrote one of the great revival hymns, "Come thou fount of many blessings."
3. In the 3rd verse Robert Robertson tells that he knew we have the tendency to let the fires go out. The actual words he wrote were "Prone to wonder Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above." You see revival is needed because we often neglect to fuel the fire.
B. In Revelation 2:4 God is talking to the church at Ephesus. He said you do a lot of good things, a lot of things I admire but there is one thing wrong, you don’t love me as you did at first. Revival is needed because we neglect our love relationship with our God. And it may not be something you have noticed, that you don’t love God as much as you once did. But I want you to know that God does notice.
1. In Jeremiah 2:2, "I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me…" I don’t know of a bride who is completely in love with her husband when she gets into bed one night and wakes up the next morning and doesn’t love him anymore. That’s not how it happens. What happens is that over time that relationship gets taken for granted. You go through a routine of a relationship and over time you come to realize that you just don’t love each other like you did at first. That is how it happens with our love relationship with God.
2. So the question is this, how can we know that we need revival? What are some signs that the fire is burning low? Ask yourself if these apply to you.
*Prayer is no longer a vital part of your life. Its just something you do occasionally.
*You have grown content with your Biblical understanding and you don’t hunger anymore. You have gotten all the knowledge of the Bible that you need. You could sit in class and talk about the Bible for hours but not be different when you are done.
*One sure thing is that the gatherings of God’s people are not eagerly anticipated. You can hear the preacher talk about be here for Worship on Sunday Night and for Bible Class on Wed. night and you know in your heart that you have absolutely no intention of going. It is not even important to you to even THINK about going. Absolutely the fire is burning low.
*Another is that pointed spiritual discussions embarrass you. It can be in your house, office, or even in the church foyer. Someone can talk to deep about Jesus and you just want to change the subject.
*Another, is certain sins can be indulged in your life and it won’t bother your conscience. You can easily mouth songs and scriptures and nothing happens in your heart. You can hear God and his standards mocked with no indignation. You can listen to, read and watch morally degrading material in the name of entertainment.
*Divisions and quarrels in the fellowship don’t bother you.
*Injustice and human misery almost never cross your mind.
*A sure sign is that the lostness of people with out Christ never crosses your mind. You never stop and see all the people in the mall and freeway, the ballgame and think they don’t have Jesus.
*Never think about or sense God’s presence in your life.
*That strong desire just to praise the Lord almost never wells up in your heart. In fact your heart doesn’t leap for joy because there is not a song there.
C. I don’t know if any of that hits you or not but the list could be twice as long. With these signs it seems to me that some Christians act like they are in an arranged marriage to God. Someone decided a long time ago that you and God ought to get together. Now there are some good things in that relationship but there is no passion and no love. Revival is not just changing behavior but falling back in love with God. And the thing is that God always wants to save the marriage.
1. You see revival is promised when we return to God. Every revival in the Scripture contains an intense and intentional turning back to God. And God has said that if you will turn back to him he will light the fire again. He said in Malachi 3:7, "Return to Me and I will return to you." God wants revival more than you do. He wants to see you wake up as well as to see his church to wake up. And even though we can’t orchestrate the exact time we are to experience spiritual revival that is no excuse for you not to orchestrate your own revival right now.
2. God and God alone will decide if he is going to send a revival to this church or to America, but you don’t have to wait for God to return to this church, you can return to God right now. You can return to God today, right here, he will meet you where you are, but it must be on His terms.
D. II Chronicles 7:11-14. This passage explains more than any other what we must do in order to experience revival in this church. Before we study the revivals in the Bible we are going to discuses, for the next 3 sermons, three things God said he is looking for. Humility, to seek His face… and for the people to turn from their wicked ways. Those are what God looks for.
1. Lots of people are praying for revival and do not know what they are asking for. If God comes to visit his people there is always a need to see remorse before there is rejoicing. If God did truly did come and visit this church there would be such amazing confessing of sins because the Holy Spirit convicts of sin.
2. It is painful to come under genuine Holy Spirit conviction. But let me tell you what is more painful and more miserable. And that is to ignore everything I am saying today, to get right back in that car and go right back home, and go right back to old half asleep Christianity and slowly drift further and further from God.
E. Let me finish the story about Robert Robertson. For many years he was on fire for the Lord, but over the years he proved to be a prophet and began to wander. He left his God, and his church. According to history late in his life he found himself in a carriage with a woman who was humming the song "Come thou Fount of Many Blessing" Robert seemed quite despondent until the lady began a conversation, saying maybe what you need is the message of this song. History tells us that he broke down in tears and said, "Madam I’m the one that wrote that song. And I would give anything if I hadn’t because I would give anything to have those feelings again."
CONCLUSION: I want to ask you this morning if you are thirsty for more of God than you have been experiencing as of late? Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that God will light the fire when you get on the altar. When you humble yourself, turn from your wicked ways, seek his face and get on the altar and God will light the fire. The heart can be rekindled with the fire of the presence of the spirit. You need to go into these sermons this Fall with your heart and mind turned to the altar where we made our vows. I don’t know how or when God will send revival to America but you need to open a way for God to come into your heart. No reason for you to live drifting away from God. Ask God to light the fire, to rekindle those feeling you once had.
