Revival

It's good to be here with you all. Now, please turn with me to the 85th Psalm, Psalm 85. I want to speak on the subject and I believe it would follow well with what we've just heard of revival, subject of revival.

Psalm 85. Now, as you turn to the 85th Psalm, you'll know that many of the Psalms, of course, are written by David and they're set in the timeframe obviously if he wrote them of David's life. But a number of Psalms are written not in that timeframe.

They're not written in chronological sequence. This Psalm, for example, you'll notice is interesting while it refers back historically with the opening, it is set in a timeframe that literally follows the Babylonian captivity. So Psalm 85, I'll just go over a few things in the Psalm and then get to the main subject.

To the chief musician, a psalm of the sons of Korah. That is interesting. Already, we're reminded as we read the opening of this psalm of the mercy of God, that horrific rebellion of Korah, where the earth opened up and swallowed Korah and yet here are his sons that are singing.

So it's interesting to the psalm for the sons of Korah. Lord, and even that the beginning, Jehovah, the covenant name, not the sovereign Lord, but the covenant keeping God who is faithful to his word, even in the midst of our unfaithfulness. Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land.

Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Even that again is a reminder, not Israel, but Jacob. The crooked, the supplanter, the man who needed correction, the man who got the name change.

And so we are right at the very beginning of this psalm. We are saturated, inundated with the mercy, the faithfulness, the goodness of God as he impresses us with that truth. But then he says, thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people.

Thou hast covered all their sin. Selah, think about it. Thou has taken away all thy wrath.

Thou has turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. Now I won't go into it because it's not my intention, but you can see really an illustration, a reference almost to the day of atonement there with the two goats that were given. And so you have the idea there of what was forgiven, what was concealed or covered again.

And the idea there you can see in these two aspects. But you'll notice number one, he says in verse three, thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. But then verse four, turn us, O God of our salvation and cause thine anger toward us to cease.

Wilt thou be angry with us forever? Wilt thou draw thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will speak. That is such a clear principle that there can be no revival without the importance of the word of God and hearing it.

There must be that. That is a characteristic of every revival. And what I find very interesting about this is this.

Who is this psalm centered around? A people that now have returned, have gone from Babylon. The mass of the nation is in Babylon. They were carried away, right? And so now you have this remnant of people and they are coming back to rebuild.

There's rubble around them, but they are focused. They are intent. They are exercised.

And yet what is amazing to me is these are the people that are crying out to revive us. What that tells me is this. There's always room for revival.

If we are ever self-satisfied where we are, then we are in great need of revival. And these people in the midst of that exercise of heart, that movement of spirit, yet they are still crying out, revive us again, O Lord. So keeping that in mind, just to go through the rest of the psalm, he says, I will hear what, verse eight, I will hear what God the Lord will speak for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints, but let them not turn again to folly.

So this is the third time we're reading of turning. I think that fits in very well with Brother William has said where Abraham went to the south, turn again. Don't let us slip away.

Keep us exercised. Keep us in your spiritual fervor that we might pursue and not be turned aside. Even while we're doing this in the midst of exercise, surely his salvation is nigh or near them that fear him.

That glory may dwell in our land. It's interesting. They're crying out for the glory to return.

You remember that glory cloud in Exodus? And then even some years before this, Ezekiel would see the departure of that glory cloud. And now this is what they're crying out for. This is what the older men wept for when that temple was rebuilt, that the glory had departed.

And we read of that in the days of Samuel, the glory had departed, but now they're crying out for this. He says, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

And we know that is ultimately the fulfillment of that as a Calvary in the cross of the Lord Jesus. But here, this is a practical expression, a real desire for this to occur. Even at this time, truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good and our land shall yield her increase. I think that's interesting. One of the reasons that the people were carried away into captivity is because they had failed to keep the Sabbath.

They had failed to give the land rest. They had worked the land, they had plowed the land, they wanted productivity from the land, and they never gave it the rest that God desired. And because of that, that's one of the reasons they were carried away.

I think that's interesting. He's recognizing that. And he says, then the land, then there will be true productivity for God.

When we honor you, when we keep your word, when we obey you, when we are revived. And he says, righteousness shall go before him and he shall set us in the way of his steps. But I wanna go back to verse six.

Will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? Don't leave out those last two words, in thee. Revival, it's an interesting subject. The word carries the thought of to give life, to give life in fact again.

I've always thought it was interesting. Sometimes you'll see and you'll go by different evangelical places. And I had a friend years ago and he said, we're having revival meetings in our church.

And I said, oh, good. I said, so these are for the Christians? And he said, no, these are so that we can see people saved. I said, then call them vival meetings.

Don't call them revival meetings because the lost people, they don't have life. They don't need to be revived, they need to be vived. Revival is for the believer.

And this is what the psalmist is crying out for. Revive us again that we might rejoice in thee. As far as the word is concerned, it's found eight times in the Old Testament.

It's only found twice in the New Testament, but the word literally in the Hebrew is found over 200 times. It's the idea of simply to live or to be alive. The context of the word where it is often used has the idea to have life, to continue, to sustain, to be prosperous or to prosper, to cause, to grow, and of course, only something that has life can grow, to refresh, to restore, to health from sickness, discouragement, faintness, and even death.

The only two times we read of it in the New Testament are in the book of Romans. And one time it's in relation to sin, that sin was revived. The sin, in other words, where we were dead to sin, Paul is writing in Romans 7, sin revived.

And then the other time is in chapter 14, where it's talking not about sin now, but about the Savior, that Christ both died and revived in terms of resurrection. But here I want you to think of something, that this is a prayer here. It's a prayer.

Wilt thou not revive us again? All revival begins with prayer. It's really what it is, it's a prayer. Isn't that where most of us suffer the most? I know for me, prayer, my prayer life is not what it should be.

The time spent in prayer, the burden of prayer, the reality of prayer. There are times when I've actually had to drag myself to my knees because I felt guilty. I crawled into bed and I thought, I really didn't pray tonight, and just so you do.

But I have to confess, it's terrible. I know, I've actually fallen asleep praying. And sometimes it's happened in meetings too.

Sometimes people go on too long, way too long, and they pray and then they put us to sleep, that's a little different. But prayer life, he says revive us again, it's a prayer. Now by revival, I literally mean, what the psalmist literally means is a spiritual awakening.

A spiritual awakening. A revival takes place when the heart recaptures its first rapture. It's the love for Christ when the flames are fanned, when there's a movement spiritually, a response to the lordship of Christ and his word in obedience.

It's interesting that revivals have taken place in the past and historically. Any student of church history can acknowledge that. There was time, there were times, not only biblically, maybe for example in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and then the New Testament times, but then you go through historically, you have the days of the reformation, the Puritan awakening, the Puritan age, the great awakenings, number one and two, in the 1700s and in the early 1800s.

They were tremendous times. I think we need revival. We need revival.

We get so set in the status quo. We get so used to just coasting along and just being able to say, well, you know, I went to meeting and I didn't miss and I do read my Bible now and then I peel off the calendar and then we flip the negative side to gauge our spirituality and say, I don't do this and I don't do that and I'm not like them, but meanwhile, in our hearts, there is a laxity, a laziness, a lethargy, an apathy, a deadness. We need revival and I don't hear one amen.

We need revival. As you go through this, I want you to think of how many of us will literally, in our hearts first, not verbally maybe, but we'll acknowledge the prayer of this and agree with the psalmist, but yet how many today I wonder in this conference, yes, it's good to see people. You've made the trip here.

You've got in your cars. We've all come together. We see our friends.

We see family and so on, but I wonder how many after today will still remain utterly listless and unchanged. Why did you come here today? Really, why did we come here? Did we come here expecting? Did we come here wanting to hear the voice of God and experience revival? Did we come here today with a heart exercise in the presence of God? Or maybe we thought, well, you know, Ankeny, it's not one of the bigger conferences. You know, it's not one of the, you know, nothing against brethren.

I appreciate you doing your conference here. You know, now this isn't a stark road. You know, this isn't a this conference.

This isn't a, it's just Ankeny, you know, and I come here because, you know, it's just nice to know. Have I come here today, young, older, mothers, fathers, elders, people in each assembly, just believers, if you're not in an assembly even, and then you're praying about these things. Have you come here with a real heart's desire before God to acknowledge Jesus Christ is Lord? And I today have purposed in my heart that I will seek God and his word.

Revive me, revive us, oh God. You know, it's interesting when I wonder if, I wonder if there were an announcement. I know ministry meetings take place, right? In various assemblies and so on, and that's great.

We should do that. There have been a lot more in past days than there are now, I notice. There's not as many ministry meetings.

We need teaching, brethren. We need people that can teach us the word of God, expositionally unfold truth to us, doctrine and so on. There's a tremendous need for that.

But I'm just wondering if it were announced in your assembly, the assembly where you're at, we are going to have revival meetings. First of all, I wonder if people would say, what is that? You know, it is a biblical word. Just because other people use it incorrectly doesn't mean we shouldn't.

Second of all, I wonder how many would show up. I wonder how many would be conspicuously absent from revival meetings. I wonder how many people during the course of the normal meetings that don't show up would especially not show up.

Oh no, no, revival meetings? No, we don't need that. No, we do need that. Why is this the case? It's interesting because when you look at the subject, nobody objects to revival in terms of nature, right? We come out of the winter season.

What's the first things we're looking for when it comes to be March and right around that time? You wanna see the flowers, right? You wanna see the snow go away. You wanna see the robins. You wanna see the birds.

You're listening, you're looking, right? You're looking for revival, the signs of life springing, emanating in nature. Nobody objects to that. What about in our bodies? People who have gone through sicknesses, weakness.

And then you start getting healthy again, thank God. And you start getting stronger. And you're able now to do the things you weren't able to do because of the sickness and being laid aside.

You are being revived. No one is against that there in terms of our health. What about business? What about a revival in business? People say, you know, especially self-employed, you know, we had a bad year last year.

You know, numbers weren't as good. You know, numbers were down, sales were down. But you know what? Things are looking good now.

There's, you know, we're now, we're in the positive. We're not, we're, you know, coming out of things. There's a revival in terms of our business.

So whether it's in nature, whether it's in health, whether it's our business lives, we do not object to revival. We don't, we embrace it. We long for it.

We look for it. Why is it that it is so difficult when it comes to spiritual things? Well, why is it that some don't even really admit it and pursue it? Because I'm challenging everyone here, myself first. I was challenged reading this.

My challenge began before I got up here. And it's gonna continue after I get down from here. But I'm challenging every single person here because this pulpit should be a place where we challenge the people we're speaking to, all of us.

And I wanna ask you, why is there not, or has there not been, or will there not be revival after today, starting now? I think there's a few things. There's a few reasons. Number one, true spiritual revival because people are just carnal, just carnal.

There's a carnality. It's interesting in 1 Corinthians chapter two, when the apostle Paul was writing to the assembly there, he says that we speak spiritual, spiritual to spiritual, right? He's referring to himself. If you look at the context, I don't wanna take you there, but he's saying, we apostles.

There is apostolic revelation. There is truth that he was responsible for communicating to the assembly in Corinth. And he says, we, as given by the spirit of God, communicate spiritual to spiritual people.

But you know what he says right in the next chapter? He says, but I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual. But as unto carnal, he says, for you are yet babies. You can't take this.

That spiritual truth that I'm communicating to you is falling on deaf ears. You're unable to grasp it. You're unable to follow it.

Why is it that there are believers that simply are unable to follow and take in spiritual truth? Because they are carnal. They are fleshly. They are driven.

They are motivated. They are directed. They are guided.

They are propelled by fleshly desires, and they will not hear. They cannot hear, rather. Then there's another problem, not just carnality, but some in assemblies, you can preach and preach, and I hate to say it this way, but if you think everybody in your assembly is saved, you might be mistaken.

I believe there are people that are in company with assembly testimonies, and they're in the midst of them, and they're not saved. And they are affecting, they are dragging that testimony and affecting it. And there certainly can't be any revival there because they need to be vived first before they can be revived.

And so, people who are not saved. That's why, brethren, I would encourage strongly strongly from the truth of Scripture to be very, very careful when it comes to reception to the assembly. Because if people aren't showing spiritual exercise and life before, don't expect it to be so after.

That's simple. So, there's other reasons, and I'm just gonna move through them quickly. I think sometimes there is the dependence and desire for the emotional, the visible.

We want something that's tangible, right? Something that borders on excitement, on almost entertainment. And we're looking for that. That is not revival.

And that will not produce spiritual revival. It will produce something that is spurious, fleeting, empty, and shallow. And then, I think there's also the reason is because some people have seen what's counterfeit.

It's not real. So, they think, what's the use? That doesn't negate the fact that revival is a scriptural and spiritual truth. You don't throw away a real diamond ring because there's zirconium out there.

You hold on to the real one, it's valuable. You don't throw away your money and your wallet because there are counterfeit bills out there, right? You want the real deal. My prayer today is that there will be assemblies here and individuals here because an assembly is only as good as, if I can put it that way, and spiritually successful as the individuals within the assembly.

And the bowing to the Lordship of Christ. And so, go after the real thing. Don't settle for entertainment.

Don't settle simply for activity. Settle for the reality of a spiritual depth of awakening in a plowing up by the Spirit of God. I'll get to that in a minute.

So, who's to blame for some of these things sometimes? Well, some put the weight on the preacher. I can be guilty of that. We can all be guilty of that.

But, and there are people there, I will say there are the professional preachers, right? The people who, well, they want to be popular. They wanna be accepted. They wanna be everybody's friend.

And so, there are statements that are never, there are things that are never addressed. There are truths that are never brought out. And unfortunately, it's a far cry from the Apostle Paul who said in Acts chapter 20, I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God.

I have taught you publicly and from house to house. They did not say one thing in the homes and another thing on the platform. They were consistent.

I was somewhere recently and I've appreciated some of my brethren who know Brandon was down there too. And one of the statements I made to the believers there is this. I do not preach one thing one place and another thing another place.

May God preserve me from it because I'm capable of it. And so, yeah, sometimes it is the preachers. The preachers do contribute to that.

But, you know, not all the blame is there. Sometimes it's leadership. And leadership, unfortunately, listen, it's just, I'm not throwing stones.

I was the first one included in this group. Leadership, you can have divided oversights. You can have men that are pulling one way and another group pulling another way.

And as long as that happens, Hosea reminds us of that. Scripture reminds us of that, that an assembly will rise no higher than its oversight. And that is essential, brethren, to grasp that, to get that.

Sometimes it's with the congregation itself. I think what I'm trying to say is this. We're all culpable.

We're all capable. There's no one exempt from hindering revival. And saddest thing is when there are those that exempt themselves from blame altogether.

I think what is significant is this. The man who's praying for revival here is actually a believer who not only is pretty spiritual, I would say, but he's actually written part of the Bible. None of us are exempt.

The sad thing is that today, someone has said this. The modern church is to a great extent an ease-loving church, an ease-loving church. We have, this is what he said.

We have demanded the harvest without the necessary cultivation. Therefore, he says, there have been many so-called revivals that have actually brought death rather than life. In other words, the condition was actually worse afterward than better.

And I think Hosea would answer this. The prophet Hosea in chapter 10, he says this. As he pleads for revival and the cost of it, that's another thing, revival costs.

Anything that's worth anything costs. If there's going to be revival, there's going to have to be sacrifice. There's going to have to be time spent.

We've been hearing about communion as our brother has reminded us, that costs. There's going to have to be study, that costs. You're going to have to push other things away to include these things.

The phone will have to be moved away. You'll have to lock yourself in your closet. The Lord Jesus says that, even in prayer, go into your closet.

We hear about people coming out of the closet. Go into the closet. It means quiet time.

It means isolation. It means meditation. It's costly.

And the problem we are seeing of not doing that has literally permeated our lives today. There is a malaise. There is a weakness.

There's a deadness when there should be a revival and a spiritual empowerment. Don't buy in to the Laodicean narrative and put a blanket on everybody and say, well, that's just the way things are. I don't want to be that.

Do you? Can I ask you, do you want that? And so Hosea says this, break up your fallow ground. Hosea 10, verse 12. Break up your fallow ground.

For it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you. What is he reminding them of? He's reminding them, I know we're going into the fall now, but he's taking us back to springtime. He's taking us to the farm, to sowing.

You'll never reap if you don't sow, or no, let me correct that. You will always reap, but it depends on what you sow. That's Galatians six.

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. But if you want to reap spiritually, if you want to reap blessings from God, if you want to reap reward at the judgment seat of Christ, there's going to have to be cost involved. Break up the fallow ground.

He's giving us imagery of the plow. You could almost see the glint of the metal as it strikes into the earth, right? Cuts the furrow, the seed has to be sown. One of the things that has to be done is ground has to be cleared.

Brethren, all of us, I'm sure we all have in our lives, you can think of things right now in your life. I can think of things as I'm preaching here that need to be swept away, cleared away. Ground that has to be burnt as it were off because the seed will never be sown and bear fruit.

Just as the Lord tells us in those various grounds where there's things that will choke, where there's things that will command competition, and he says, break up the fallow ground. So our hearts must be broken anew. William was reminding us of when we were first saved.

Didn't that have to happen? Had to happen. Salvation doesn't happen without that ground being broken up, without a heart being broken, without repentance, without, can I use the term, with repentance is turning from, right? Turning away from, turning to. What is the psalmist praying for here? Turn us again.

He's crying out for repentance because revival will never take place without repentance, without confession of sin. And there will never be confession of sin and repentance if we are not made aware of where we are going wrong through the truth of the word of God. That has to be applied to us.

And the only way that will happen is by you taking this book and bowing to its truth in the presence of God, and me doing the same. And so repentance equals something more than just giving up clearly positive wrongdoings. Let me just touch on this, and I'll work to the end of this.

What I mean by that is this. There's obvious things. What do they call it? The seven deadly sins and so on, right? I don't know, they're all deadly, right? And there's not, every sin is deadly, right? The wages of sin is death.

But when it comes to the things that we excuse, where we allow, where we coddle, we just don't smash them. We're not willing to put them to death. Early commitments.

Commitment. That is one of the most important. Commitment.

Uncharitable judgments. Looking down on other believers simply because we don't like what they do. I'm talking about unscriptural things, or I'm talking about, but even then we shouldn't look down on them.

Pray for them. Failure to adequately represent Christ. His character.

Repenting of a lack of prayer, and a lack of power. Do I ever bemoan the fact of the lack of power, spiritual power, in my life? When it comes to assemblies here, let me ask you this. What was the last person you saw added to your assembly there, or even saved? There are assemblies that go for years without seeing people saved.

And we can say, and it is true, salvation is of the Lord, but it is something that should be happening. And if you wanna keep using that as an excuse, go ahead. But the bar, I guarantee you, you do that, the bar will keep getting lower and lower and lower.

We need to repent of our spiritual barrenness. Isaiah 66 says, when Zion travails, she brings forth children. We need to repent of our listlessness, our indifference.

We need to repent of the fact of that God and his word does not have the first place. We can give it the second place, the third place, we can fit it in, but not the first place. So a number of things.

So I'll leave you with these points of contemplation. When Samson, problem is this, if we don't realize we need revival, we are blind. When Samson wakened from his guilty sleep, I want you to think about that.

Remember when Samson was on the lap of a Delilah sleeping there, book of Judges. And when he goes out to meet the enemy, the enemy that he had triumphed over prior, in days prior, and again and again, he was conscious of no change, no great change. In fact, it actually says, the King James puts it, he wist not, he knew not that the Lord had departed.

He knew that the Lord had departed from him. He was as weak as any other man. His spiritual power had been drained.

His Nazarite ship was even affected. A lot of things there. But the point that I want to make is this, he didn't know it.

He didn't know it. Now, had you told Samson that his strength had departed, that God was no longer with him, he would have given you a hot denial. He would have said, oh no, no, no.

In fact, the fact that he didn't know it proves that. He's going out to do, just like he had done at any other time. And I want to make this point.

Please don't miss this. The fact that he was unconscious of his danger did not lessen or destroy the danger. In fact, it only increased it.

Did you get that? It only increased his danger. And when we are unaware and uncaring of our spiritual need, it will put us in great danger. We've been hearing that.

The other thing is this, his lack of any sense of need made his blindness, his shackles that he was going to take and his slavery inevitable. In other words, that was where that was going to lead to inevitably. So listen to this.

I read of a certain assembly that passed a resolution with regard to itself. And it said, it read something like this. This is amazing.

Listen to this. Whereas we have the best oversight in the city and whereas we have the best history assembly-wise and we have the best stands and we have the best practices because we are an assembly, it has been resolved that we are rich and increased with goods and of need of nothing. Sound familiar? That assembly is Laodicea.

No call for revival. The fact that they thought they were rich didn't make them rich. As the Lord saw them, the Lord of the churches, what they really were, he had to declare to them in a brokenhearted way that in spite of your boasted wealth, in spite of your perceived, what you think is your stand, he says, you are in reality wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

Now, I'm not saying that. The Lord said that. And if there's any assembly Christians here that are saying, well, that's not us, then that is exactly who we are.

We need to have a spiritual sensitivity where there is no vision, the people perish. We need eye exams, spiritual eye exams. I'll just end with this.

I'm already over my time, but she stood in the harbor for 97 years, 97 years. I've seen her many, many times. She has welcomed 17 million immigrants to her shores.

As the one century birthday approached, it was obvious that the Statue of Liberty was in great need of repairs, restructuring, restoration. 2,000 iron bars within her superstructure had actually deteriorated to half the original thickness, 2,000. Her skin, her outer skin had been thinned by the effects of what was around her, acid rain.

Air pollution and pieces of the torch that were used to give light had actually fallen off. Americans gave millions of dollars to the push of Restore the Lady. That was what it was called, Restore the Lady in time for the nation's 112th birthday.

We need restoration. It's costly. It's gonna affect our torch.

We're not gonna shine. God, help us. I'm not preaching to us, to you.

I am preaching for you today, and I am preaching to me. I need restoration. I need revival.

We all do. Oh, that we would pray at this conference. Oh, God, revive us again, that we may rejoice in thee, the God of our salvation.