The Hope of Revival

By Franklin L. Kirksey
Bible Book: Lamentations  3 : 18-42
Subject: Revival; Renewal; Repentance
Introduction

According to the late Dr. Stephen F. Olford, "Revival is that strange, sovereign work of God in which He visits the people-restoring, reanimating, and releasing them into the fullness of His blessing. Such a divine intervention will issue in evangelism; though, in the first instance, it is a work of God in the church and among individual believers."

Tom Phillips tells about taking a course at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, in the fall semester of 1971, under Dr. Lewis Drummond called "Revival 101". Phillips entered the class with the commonly held preconceived idea that revival is an evangelistic   campaign. To his surprise, "Dr. Drummond described great periods of history when the Holy Spirit moved on a people in a powerful fashion. He began in the Bible where God intervened in the affairs of men and women, then in history with nations transformed through His intervention, or charios moments. Dr. Drummond challenged us regarding how such movements came through prayer, brokenness, and humility. Once an individual is spiritually broken, then God can intervene in a mighty manner. Phillips confessed, "I learned that revival is a continual process of brokenness and restoration, not just a one-night event or even a series of meetings. As I listened to his explanation, my heart jumped. I suddenly knew that I was born for revival and to be part of a spiritual awakening- an awakening that I believe is now in the embryonic stages of touching America and the world!"

Tom Phillips with Lisa Marzano, Ignite Your Passion for God: A Daily Guide to Experiencing Personal Revival (Chicago: Moody Press, 2001), p.35.

As Henry Blackaby once put it, you cannot revive something that has never been vived, or born to start with. Accordingly, revival should be understood as referring to a return to spiritual health and vitality after a period of spiritual decline into sin and broken fellowship with God... Friends, it is crucial for us to realize that true revival involves restoring spiritual life and power within the Christians who make  up the membership of any particular church.

We must come to realize that the focus of revival should be the lifeless and powerless spiritual condition of Christianity within the church... not the people outside the church who do not even profess to be Christians.

Until Christians really come to understand and appreciate the fact that it is ourselves who are spiritually sick and desperately in need of spiritual healing and reviving, we will never experience true revival" "Do we really want revival?" by Thomas Baird Accessed: 02/22/05 Available from:

http://www.sermoncentral.com

Roy Hession makes the following telling observation in his classic titled The Calvary Road, "Only one thing prevents Jesus from filling our cups. . . sin." And the dirtiness in the cup of America looms large as we're absorbed with ourselves: our self-image, self-indulgence, self-pity, self-complacency, and self-seeking. The source of these 'self-exhortations' is unbelief, an inverted form of pride. They hinder our intimacy with Christ." Tom Phillips with Lisa Marzano, Ignite Your Passion for God: A Daily Guide to Experiencing Personal Revival (Chicago: Moody Press, 2001), p. 57.

Such is our nation. In the article "Prodigal Nation," published in Washington Watch, Peter Marshall wrote that the United States has become a prodigal Washington Watch in the following ways. We have:

  • Rejected the "right way to do things" . . .in every . . .area of american life.
  • Trashed the reputations of our nation's founders.
  • Ended the practice of reforming our society in light of god's word.
  • Rejected education with a biblical worldview.
  • Rejected the notion of our founding fathers that "religion is the basis and foundation of government" (James Madison).
  • Rejected the fact that our constitution only works when the people whom it governs are moral and religious.
  • Rejected benjamin franklin's comment that "only virtuous people are capable of freedom.
  • Rejected the fact that americans of faith must be involved in current and moral civil government

Adapted from the two-part article "Prodigal Nation" by Peter Marshall. See Peter Marshall, "Prodigal Nation-Part 1," Washington Watch, June 1998, 1,5; and Peter Marshall, "Prodigal Nation-Part 2,", July 1998, 1.

Tom Phillips with Lisa Marzano, Ignite Your Passion for God: A Daily Guide to Experiencing Personal Revival (Chicago: Moody Press, 2001), p. 57.

There was a pervading sense of hopelessness throughout the land of Judah. Jerusalem had fallen to that bitter and hasty nation, ruled by Nebuchadnezzar, known as the Chaldeans or Babylonians. The prophet Jeremiah confesses, "My strength and my hope perished from the Lord" (Lamentations 3:18) and in verse twenty he explains, "My soul still remembers and sinks within me." Those were days of degradation, desolation and depression.

But in the midst of such discouragement, disillusionment and distress Jeremiah writes, "This I recall to mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I hope in Him!'" (Lamentations 3:21-24) Jeremiah also declares, "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and keep silent, Because God has laid it on him; Let him put his mouth in the dust-There may yet be hope" (3:25-29).

I. A Compelling Resolution

Jeremiah continues in this hopeful vein and then in verse 40 we find a compelling resolution in the words "Let us." He invites all those in Judah to make the same resolution. Simply put, the word resolution means to decide or determine to do something. We find 12 such resolutions in the book of Hebrews noted by the words, "Let us." This is the prophet's attempt to stir the people to action. Note it takes someone who is right with the Lord to call others to revival. As the song says, "We need a revival from the pulpit to the pew."

II. A Comprehensive Review

A comprehensive review is in order for genuine revival to come. This is what Jeremiah calls for when he writes, " . . .search out and examine our ways . . ."(3:40b) much like Haggai the prophet who declared, "Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; consider your ways!" (Haggai 1:7) This review is to be an thorough examination of their life. Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.    Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?-unless indeed you are disqualified."

III. A Compulsory Repentance

The prophet then calls for a compulsory repentance when he writes, "and turn back to the LORD.

." (3:40c), much like the apostle Paul who explains, "how you turned to God from idols to serve the true and living God." Notice Jeremiah did not say "Repent in a manner of sin to a degree," as Vance Havner once described some of the preachers of his day, as if it was optional. Repentance has been defined as a change of mind and heart that leads to a change in direction. It has also been defined  as the act of turning with sorrow from a past course of action. Revival requires repentance.

IV. A Compassionate Reconciliation

Jeremiah the prophet then calls the people of Judah to a compassionate reconciliation to God when he writes, "Let us lift our hearts and hands To God in heaven. We have sinned and rebelled and you have not forgiven." (Lamentation 3:41-42) Didn't Jeremiah talk about the "mercies" and "compassions" of God in Lamentations 3:22? Why hadn't God forgiven? Although our God is a merciful, compassionate and forgiving God there must be repentance on our part to produce reconciliation. There was an estrangement between God and His people. Although their fellowship was broken, they still had a relationship with the true and living God. Like the story of the prodigal  son in Luke 15:11-32, there was a compassionate reconciliation of the Father and his wayward, willful, wicked son when he repented and returned to his father. This was the hope that Jeremiah could envision.

In an article titled, "The Worship Service: A Hindrance Or A Highway For Revival," Ron Owens writes, " His words still call out to us as His people: 'Return to Me, and I will return to You (Mal. 3:7)." "I have returned unto the God of my childhood, To the same simple faith as a child I once knew. Like the prodigal son I long for my loved ones. And the comforts of home, and the God I outgrew. I have returned to the God of my childhood, Bethlehem's Babe, And the prophets Messiah. He is Jesus to me, Eternal Deity, Praise His name. I have returned. I have returned to the Father of Abraham, to the Shepherd of Moses. Who [is] called the Great I am. He is Jesus to me, Eternal Deity, Praise His name. I have returned."

Make the rest of your life the best of your life.

"Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft" according to 1 Samuel 15:23. "Why does God equate the sin of witchcraft with the sin of rebellion? After all it is not murder or rape. To learn why, we must look at what witchcraft entails. It does not matter what you call it, witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, tarot reading, horoscopes, ouija boards or any one of a hundred other names, witchcraft is rebellion and therefore is a sin against God.

The purpose of any one of these forbidden practices is to seek knowledge over and above that which is allowed by God, whether it be to foretell the future, to have power over others or to control things that belong to God. In short to be as God Himself. Our God is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). In Deuteronomy 6:15-16 it says; (For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. 16 Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted Him in Massah. In Exodus 17:7 we are told that at Massah the Israelites rebelled against the Lord God saying "Is the Lord among us or not." God created us for His pleasure. What right do we have to rebel against Him and put our trust in things other than what He allows? We do not have the right to do this. As 1 Corinthians 6:20 tells us: For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

V. A Completive Rejoicing

When true revival comes there will be a completive rejoicing. Revival is incomplete without rejoicing. It is the icing on the cake of genuine revival. In Revivals: Their Laws and Leaders, James Burns writes, "Revival produces a wonderful outburst of joy. When the agony of conviction, the awful sense of abandonment, and the grief and terror of sin are passed, there breaks upon the heart the blessed peace of forgiveness. No joy that earth has to offer can compare with this mysterious gladness that awakens in the heart forgiven and restored. Men have exhausted language trying to find for it a worthy expression. At such a time, the splendid imagery of Isaiah--that the mountains and hills break forth into singing and all the trees of the field clap their hands--does not appear excessive. To those caught in the flood of joy, all the world seems changed. Their hearts are light and their faces glow.

Like those of the early church, they "eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart" (Acts 2:46).

Nor is this joy limited to those who have been newly converted. It fills the hearts of those who are already avowed followers of Christ. It sweeps with its radiant life into the church and makes all its worship pulse and glow with spiritual fervor. Dr. Dale, describing the effect produced by Moody and Sankey at the close of their first mission in Birmingham, England, which produced the deepest impression on the life of the city and its churches, says:

I hardly know how to describe the change which has passed over them [i.e., the members of his church]. It is like the change which comes upon a landscape where clouds which have been hanging over it for hours suddenly vanish, and the sunlight seems to fill both heaven and earth. There is a joyousness and elasticity of spirit, and a hopefulness which have completely transformed    them.

This is the effect of a revival wherever it appears. It irradiates the atmosphere and leaves in its place numberless happy men and women whose faces are aglow with a new light and whose hearts throb with an intense joy.

One of the characteristic outlets of this newborn gladness is an outburst of song. Song is the natural expression of the jubilant heart. It is human nature's way of escape for feelings that are too rapturous to keep silent. Most of the great leaders of revival have been poets as well, and the revival is borne along on the wings of exulting praise.

"James Burns, Revivals: Their Laws and Leaders (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1960)

In the words of the Father of the prodigal son, "Rejoice, rejoice, My son is coming home again rejoice, rejoice, and kill the fatted calf."

CONCLUSION

Finally, the effect of a revival upon the church is profound and far-reaching. While the word "revive", strictly speaking, means "to bring to life again," the word, in its religious application, has been widened to include the awakening of those who were dead and the quickening of those already awakened. Revival, when it appears, reveals to the church its spiritual decay, worldliness, and insincerity of witness.

Historically, spiritual decay seems to move along two distinct lines. The first tendency is for the doctrine of the church to lose its power of convicting the conscience and moving the heart. Interest begins to wane and men's minds are attracted in other directions and by fresh discoveries made in other fields. Preachers continue to use the old words once so full of convincing and converting power, but now powerless, these expressions become the mere jargon of the pulpit.

The second tendency is for the worship of the church to become formal and lifeless. When the spiritual glow departs, the forms of worship become ends in themselves. At such a time the ministry degenerates. Those who minister in holy things become worldly, and the love of wealth, ease, and power--the three deadly sins of those who occupy this high vocation--appear. They give the sanction of an evil example to the worldly, and become the object of scorn to the skeptical and indifferent.

These dangers are a constant menace to the church. However, the moment the first breath of revival touches the heart of the church, then instantly, as if awakening from a long stupor, men wake up.

They break the chains that bind them, and with a newfound joy, they return to simplicity of worship and intense sincerity of life.

James Burns, Revivals: Their Laws and Leaders (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1960)

J. I. Packer defines revival as "a visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God's near presence and holiness. All this ushers in a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise of heart in repentance, praise, and love with an evangelistic overflow."

I hold before you the hope of revival!