The Need for a Three-Fold Revival

O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.

Habakkuk prays this beautiful prayer, asking the Lord to REVIVE His work. I trust that before the service is over, this will be your prayer.

But revivals take several forms. Our the points of this message start very personal and then go general. At the same time though, the first one is a matter of one soul while the latter have to do with a multitude of souls. I want to hit this quickly this morning and jump into the message.

I. The Need for a Reviving of your Soul

Before Christ, your soul is dead. It is already condemned saith the Lord. It cannot revive itself. It must be revived.

The greatest of all revivals that ever occurs is that one that happens when a new soul comes to Christ. When you were redeemed by the blood of the lamb, to me there is not greater revival you will ever have.

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!

That miracle is not accomplished any other way, but by faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don’t know why people add things to the salvation.

People call it legalism when a pastor continues to preach holiness and righteousness. It is not legalism, a pastor’s job is to continually inspire you to be more of what God wants you to be. Legalism is when you add works to salvation.

That comes through a revival that starts at salvation:

Ephesians 2:1 AV

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

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.

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 our own personal daily revival.

II. The Need of a Continual Personal Revival

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.

We need to do this in our lives.

Billy Sunday said, “They tell me a revival is only temporary; so is a bath, but it does you good

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.

A. Revival of your Love for God

Deuteronomy 6:5 AV

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Matthew 22:37 AV

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

B. A Revival concerning putting off the world

1 John 2:15–17 AV

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

C.Revival on keeping our lives clean

Proverbs 4:23 AV

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

2 Timothy 2:21 AV

If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

D. Revival of Staying Passionate about God and godly things

We just preached on not being lukewarm.

Revelation 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Matthew 5:6 AV

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

E. Revival of thanksgiving

Praise and give thanks to God continually and in all ways on all days, regardless of your circumstances.

Hebrews 13:15 AV

By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

F. Revival of Prayer

1 John 5:14–15 AV

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

Mark 9:29 AV

And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

G. Revival of the importance of God’s Word in our Lives

2 Timothy 2:15 AV

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Read, study, meditate on, and memorize God's holy Word

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

We need a continual personal revival today! It would be good if everyone had a personal revival. You and I have no control of others, but we can have a spiritual revival in our own life.

We need a revival of our soul unto salvation; a personal/continual revival, the next we see...

III. The Necessity of the Church having Revival

This is an important one. The church needs to have a revival.

1 Tim 3:15 teaches us that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.

If the pillar and ground of the truth on earth is dead, then what good is it. Church’s need to look at themselves and see that they to need revival.

When does a church need a revival?

A. A church needs a revival when its focus is on the things of the world

What every church needs and every believer needs is to get their eyes off the world and off themselves and off of temporal things and to keep looking up.

Colossians 3:1–2 AV

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Our focus cannot be politics.

Our focus cannot be sports.

Our focus cannot be COVID panic.

B. A church needs a revival when it is no longer convicted of sin

A great problem with the churches mentioned in Revelations 2 and 3 is that they are were allowing sin in their churches.

Jeremiah 5:31 AV

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

C. A church needs revival when they have lost their burden for the souls of men

Jude 22 AV

And of some have compassion, making a difference:

IV. How to Have Revival

It works the same for church as it does for the individual Christian, it is through the simple prescription we have spoken about before:

2 Chronicles 7:14 AV

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Being on of God’s people as we studied last week; there are some things that we need to be and be doing:

A. We need to humble ourselves

Matthew 23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

B. We need to pray

Mark 9:29 AV

And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

C. We need to turn from our wicked ways

Psalm 66:18 AV

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:

The church today needs a REAL REVIVAL! In a general sense, the churches of today have lost their MORAL COMPASS! They have lost the knowledge between right and wrong, between good and evil, so we must be careful because so many have lost their knowledge about separation from that which is evil.

We depend on the Lord, we ask God to send a revival in our daily lives, and in our church. We ask him to make us into vessels unto honour that we might bring other to him.

What do people need to see in us: Something different from the world. Its not something that quite place their finger on when they see us but they know that there is something peculiar and interesting about us.

It is a church and individuals experiencing revival.

A Revival of love for others:

A Revival for righteousness:

If we are going to persuade the lost world to come to Christ, we are not going to win them by “trying to be like them”. They will come to Christ when we can show them “something better”.

Let God bring the increase, and he will.

A man once asked Gypsy Smith, the famed evangelist, how to have a revival. Smith asked, "Do you have a place where you can pray?" The man answered that he did. "Tell you what you do." Smith said, "You go to that place, and take a piece of chalk along. Kneel down there, and with the chalk, draw a complete circle all around you. Then pray for God to send a revival to everything inside of the circle. Stay there until He answers... and you will have revival." Gypsy Smith knew that true revival begins in the heart of each person.

For our church to have revival – it is going to start through some people deciding to pray and get ahold of God.

THE NEED FOR A THREE-FOLD REVIVAL

Habakkuk 3:2; 2 Chronicles 7:8-14

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