The Revival We Need

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-