We Need Revival

Hannah, I'm so sorry I can't be with you in person, but our hearts are joined for revival. Look, revival is non-negotiable. Our dear, sainted friend Leonard Ravenhill often said, the reason that we don't have revival is because we're willing to live without it. But we can't live without it. Our nation is descending into moral anarchy. It's a deep spiritual confusion. And so much of the church, rather than changing the world around us, we've been changed by the world around us. We become like the world around us. Revivals are only hope. Divine visitations are only hope. You say, I've been hearing preachers say it for years. Well, it's true. Who would have thought we'd be in the state we're in today? Who would have thought we'd be dealing with the issues we're dealing with today? Come on, when Playboy magazine came out in 1953, and it was such a controversial thing, didn't even put his name on the first printing because he was afraid if it went bad that he'd just be blackballed for life in certain circles. That's a far cry from that to 12-year-olds sending naked pictures to each other on their cell phones. There's so much degeneration of the family, and so much that pulls us away from deeper things and the things of God. And we see our nation so terribly divided. We're so deeply divided politically and racially. We made so much progress in certain ways, and it seems we're going backwards. And so many churches see much more concern with making people happy as opposed to making disciples. Revivals are only hope. You say, God's only hope. Yes, God moving in power. Revival is a season of unusual divine visitation, and it starts with each of us personally. We can't sit around and wait for God to pour out His Spirit on a whole nation or on a whole state or on a whole community or denomination. We pray. We pray for outpouring. We pray for national, international outpouring. Absolutely. But revival has to begin with each of us where we search our own hearts, and we say, God, I've become cold. God, I've become compromised. God, I've lost the faith and passion I once had. I've left my first love. Think of it. Jesus speaks to the church of Ephesus in the book of Revelation, the second chapter. They were Orthodox believers. They held to biblical doctrine. They did. They tested those who claimed to be apostles and were not. They exposed them. These were solid believers. They persevered. They didn't grow weary. When testing came, they endured, and yet they had left their first love. We can do these things out of habit. And fellow ministers, preachers, leaders, it's easy to lead a double life. You say, what do you mean? Well, you ever had to preach when you're dead tired? You ever had to get up and inspire others after you just got terrible news about someone in the hospital with cancer? You ever have to get off a plane, jet lagged, and minister to a hungry crowd? It's easy to just get used to being used by God, and then the ministry becomes separated from our personal lives and our private lives. And in private, we're hardly meeting with God in prayer. We're hardly in the Word. We're watching things we ought not to watch and exposing ourselves to things that are unclean. And then we get up and minister because we got it down to a profession. Friends, we need revival in our own lives. God, start the work in me. Paul asked the Galatians, what happened to all your joy? In Psalm 85, when the Psalmist is saying, revive us again. He says that we may rejoice in you. Sometimes a way to check our lives is to say, where's the joy? Where's that fresh experience of God? When's the last time I encountered God? Habakkuk chapter three, verse two, a classic verse on revival. The prophet who's a contemporary of Jeremiah and sees his nation in turmoil and sees judgment coming and the judgment is terrible. He cries out to God. And one of the things he says, Lord, we heard about you. We heard the report. We heard about what you did in the past. We heard about these amazing revivals or what you're doing over here, what you're doing over there. And Lord, we stand in awe, but do it again in our day. Revive your work in the midst of the years. King James uses the word revive there again. Renew us again. Do it again. In wrath, remember mercy, meaning it's an urgent time. Wrath is due, but in wrath, remember mercy. Revival is our only hope. The good news is revival is part of the character of God. He makes things new every morning. His mercies renew every morning. He's a God who makes all things new. This is what Isaiah tells us. This is what Revelation tells us. This is what Lamentations tells us. And as we seek him, we're only seeking him because he put it in our hearts to do so first. He stirred us and that's where we're going after him. So Father, we pray afresh for our own lives, for our communities, for our states, for our nation. Send a fresh wave of revival. Awaken us, stir us, bring us to fresh repentance and a fresh encounter with you. And Lord, I think of that old prayer of that old man of God many years ago who drew the circle on the ground and stood in the circle and said, Lord, revive everything in this circle. Lord, each of us where we sit, where we stand, revive us, start the work in us, and may it spray from us until it touches the world. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you.