Revive Us Again pt 2
Revive Us Again (pt 2)
Psalm 80:14-19; 2 Chron. 7:14
What image do you come up with when I say “revival”? Do you think of old camp meetings where it’s 100 degrees outside and you’re sitting inside a dusty old canvas tent or in a building with all the windows open and very little air movement except from those old funeral fans waving back and forth and that 100 degree outside temp is actually 15-20 degrees cooler than where you are sitting. Do you think of a fire and brimstone preacher standing up front soaking wet from sweat, with a handkerchief in one hand and his big King James Version, with Jesus’ works in red edition Bible in the other? What an image it is! Sometimes we think that revival started in the mid to late 1800’s and ended in the mid 1970’s or 80’s. Well, that is totally wrong. Revivals started in the Old Testament, as soon as man turned away from God to do his own thing. God would punish man even as it broke His heart and waited for man to come back to Him, truly repentant.
Psalm 80 is record of one of those times of repentance. Listen as read this from the Good News Translation:
Turn to us, Almighty God! Look down from heaven at us; come and save your people! Come and save this grapevine that you planted, this young vine you made grow so strong! Our enemies have set it on fire and cut it down; look at them in anger and destroy them! Preserve and protect the people you have chosen, the nation you made so strong. We will never turn away from you again; keep us alive, and we will praise you. Bring us back, Lord God Almighty. Show us your mercy, and we will be saved. (Ps 80:14-19)
Isn’t this a great prayer? Come and save this grapevine that you planted, this young vine you made grow so strong. We’re talking about the nation of Israel here, but we can take that a step further because it says: Preserve and protect the people you have chosen, the nation you made so strong. Preserve and protect the people you have chosen! It’s talking about us! We are the chosen people of God! How do we know that? Look at what James said in the book of Acts and this is from the New Living Translation, James says: Peter has told you about the time God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for himself. If that were not enough to prove to you that you are or can be a child of God, look at what Joel said in the Old Testament and which Jesus Himself repeated, “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; . . .”
Why is this so important to me? Because we have to establish who it is that needs reviving before we can truly ask for revival. One of the greatest passages on revival never mentions it directly but it does tell us the who, how and why of revival. This passage comes from the book of 2 Chronicles the seventh chapter. Solomon had just finished building the Temple of God, had spent days consecrating it, it had been a great festival and when it was over Solomon sent everyone home. That night the Lord appeared to Solomon and said:
the Lord appeared to him at night and said: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices. “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, (2 Ch 7:12-13)
Before I go any further, I understand that God was speaking to Solomon about things going on in his day, but I believe he is speaking to us also, about things that are going on now, in our nation, our city, our church. So when you read or hear that God has chosen a temple for Himself it also means that He has chosen this building, and more importantly, He has chosen us as His temple!
God told Solomon, I have heard your prayer and I choose this place as My temple for sacrifices. God has chosen this place also, this building for His sacrifices. That does not mean we are to start bringing in animal and grain for sacrifices. But it does mean that He wants us to sacrifice on the alter, all the things of this world that are keeping us from Him. He wants us to sacrifice our idols of money, pride, jobs, leisure anything in our lives that tend to place above God or makes us do things that keep us out of God’s house for extended periods of time. You get the idea. He chose this place and is involved in our Church and we need to give Him 110% of our dedication and love.
God goes on to tell Solomon, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,” What God is saying is, whenever I have to punish you. He did not list every punishment because they are so vast and each punishment is different or what punishment worked one time may not work the next. We had to punish each of our boys differently. What worked on James at one time was not giving him his allowance, Jason on the other hand could have cared less about money so we had to do something else. After a while, even withholding his allowance did not work on James so we had to come up with something different. But here’s the deal no matter what the punishment there was something our boys always had to say, “I’m sorry.”
So God is saying to Solomon, “I may have to send punishment from time to time, but”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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Ch 7:14)
Did you catch that? If My people. He did not leave it at that because God knew if He did not clarify who His people were there would be arguing about for all times – so He clarified, if my people, who are called by my name, -- Here we go back to that theme that revival can only come to those that need to be revived – don’t confuse revival with awakening. Revival is to revive something that once was – awakening is waking up to the fact that you need something. Make sense? Awakening can happen during a revival, sinners can come to a saving relationship with Christ through revival, but the ultimate goal is to revive the people of God to a life they once had.
So God tells Solomon, I have chosen this temple you have made for Me and if there are times when I have to punish My children, My children, the ones that are called by My name – going back to taking away James’ allowance, I can take his away but it would be really hard for me to take away the allowance of a neighbor’s boy, because he did not carry my last name – God says, if my people, the ones who are called by My name will 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.
This is how revival gets started. When we realize that we have been wrong, that we have tried to do things our way without trusting our Heavenly Father. The very first step is to humble ourselves. We need to get down on our knees before the King of kings and the Lord of lords and tell Him that we have been wrong, we can not do it without Him, that we have wrongfully placed other things above Him and we want to make that right. We need to do that each and everyday until we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our heavenly Father has forgiven us and He will when we truly come before Him with a broken heart/spirit for Him to mend.
Second, which is tied to the first, we need to pray. We need to speak to our Father without giving Him all the “wants” in our lives. We need to pray asking forgiveness, asking that He would show us how to be used for His good. In other words, speak to Him as a child speaks to his father. We need to humble ourselves before we go into the throne room of God, and we need to pray, to speak to our Father, and we need to seek His face.
You might be thinking that is what we have been doing if we humble ourselves and pray, but there is more to it. Seek His face, look at God in the eye, so to speak and let Him know you are truly repentant and that you want to be in His presence from that time forward and that you never want to leave it. Whenever we wanted to make sure we had the boys’ attention we would tell them, “look me in the eye”, give me your full attention. We are to seek Gods’ face and give Him 100% of our attention and when we do those things the last part should be easy to do or easier to do and that is turn from their wicked ways.
We leave that world or those things that we were placing above God behind, we turn away from it and turn towards God and He says if we do these things then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
We will never see revival until we do all these other things – We need to do this as individuals and as a church. You know God did not finish His discussion with Solomon at this point even though this is where we normally end this passage, but God goes on to tell us what happens if we don’t put Him first and stay in constant contact with Him. Let’s look at verses 19-22
“But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. And though this temple is now so imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why he brought all this disaster on them.’ ” (2 Ch 7:19-22)
Why did I include this passage? Because we have to know there are consequences to our not listening to God. Sometimes it happens over time, we slowly make our way out of the throne room – slowly backing out until we think we are out of our Heavenly Father’s eyesight and I believe that has happened in our church. I’m not saying that each and every one of us has walked out of the throne room, but maybe as a church we have. We have allowed weeds to grow in this beautiful garden of God’s.
Walter Kaiser Jr. wrote, “It is bad enough that the world exhibits sins that only a few years ago the most godless man would have turned away from in revulsion; now the same list of sins is shared by the church of the living God. Surely revival is needed when believers fall into such vices and scandalous sins as incest, abortion, divorce, homosexuality, and cheating on employers and on the government. Revival is also needed when worldliness so captures our hearts that we are as entrapped by our insatiable desires for leisure time, extended vacations (away from the house of God), and every kind of entertainment similar to that of the ancient Israelites who were likewise led into the idolatry of the Canaanite culture of their day.” He goes on to say that we need to have leisure time and it is Scriptural, “but when any form of leisure or entertainment competes for the believer’s time and loyalties, equaling or exceeding the time and joy that he gives and receives from spiritual things then he as crossed the line and entered headlong into idolatry.
That is a big part of the church’s problem today, loyalty to God and His Kingdom has taken second place in most people’s lives. The second thing that has hurt the church comes from the spirit of controversy that pops up in a church over major and minor issues. You see, Christian life cannot flourish apart from an environment of love and brotherly concern.
But all of these can be overcome and true revival can happen today if we would humble ourselves and pray, if we would seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, if we would pray the words that Isaiah wrote some many years ago:
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! (Is 64:1-2)