REVIVAL … Many parts of this message comes from a sermon by Leonard Ravenhill.
INTRO...WHAT IS REVIVAL? My dictionary defines it as a restoration to life of consciousness, vigor, and strength.
And REVIVAL is our topic today...a BIBLICAL REVIVAL that recovers, repairs, and restores us Spiritually. PRAY!
The prophet Hosea tells us in HOSEA 10:12-14... "12 Sow to yourself in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord till He come and reign righteousness upon you. 13 Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men. 14 Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled..." (KJB)
We in America are so sinful...we have plowed wickedness, we have reaped iniquity, we have eaten the fruit of lies...we have turned from God...we have trusted in our own path...in our own way.
Today I tell you we are entering the final battle...the end is upon us...unless we turn back to God's will, God's path, God's way...and break up our FALLOW GROUND...we will not be ready for what is to come.
God right now is calling all SAINTS to arm themselves with the FIRE and POWER of the HOLY GHOST!
So what does the Prophet Hosea mean when he speaks of... “FALLOW GROUND”?
All who have farmed understand the term fallow ground...it means ground that has been once fruitful but now has been plowed under...no seed has been sown in it...it is unproductive...so like us today.
But notice in HOSEA 10:12 there is a human emphasis...it says... “break up “YOUR” fallow ground”.
In other words...the prophet is directly speaking individually to us concerning our spirituality.
Now let's take another look at this fallow ground that Micah speaks to but this time through King David and the Psalms...PSALM 85:6 says... "Would Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice in Thee."
King David is asking God's help to break up his fallow ground...to revive it...revitalize it.
See...if our lives spiritually are like FALLOW GROUND...if we have become spiritually unproductive then we will experience an absence of joy, an absence of vitality, and absence of ecstasy.
It means we are walking our path alone...without the Holy Ghost guidance.
Yet the word "REVIVAL" assumes that a Spiritually fruitful life did once exist because you can only revive that which has already had vitality but has become sick and weak and apathetic.
But understand...many today do not think they are in that state...and yet they are.
God has laid a vision on my heart...Paul said "this one thing I do" and that was “to sell out to God's will”.
In our world today Islamic fanatics have done that to Allah...the war is on...and we as God's Saints need to sell out to GOD'S WILL right now or we will lose the battle...we need to revive our fallow ground.
I truly believe that the final battle is on...Satan's forces are mounting...and God's forces need to awaken!
In the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 3:19 we read... "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of REFRESHING shall come from the presence of the Lord."
Whatever else we say about revival we have to recognize this...REVIVAL is an ACT OF MERCY from GOD.
And that Godly act of mercy is grounded in the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD ALONE.
Yet there is a vast difference between revival and what we today call EVANGELISM.
We hear that word evangelism or evangelic tossed around a lot today.
And when we speak of a revival we most often think about church advertising for planned services... "Our revival will begin next Sunday at 11:00 am and it will end the next Sunday night at 6:00 pm."
Obviously this is something planned and purely mechanical, it is something which man has engineered.
FIRST...I THINK THAT ONE OF THE OFFENSES OF REVIVAL IS THAT IT CANNOT BE ORGANIZED.
As a learned theologian once said, "When revival comes it changes the moral climate of a community."
You can have revival that covers a church...You can have revival that covers a city...a state...You can have revival that covers a whole nation...and I am thinking in this context more than in the other contexts (though sometimes revival starts small and spreads from here to there...just like a fire spreads.)
And sometimes it may start through an organized event where the proper preparation has been made.
But revival cannot be organized...evangelistic meetings can be and often are organized...Revival cannot be subsidized...evangelism can and usually must be...Revival cannot be advertised...yet evangelism can.
Why doesn't revival need to be advertised? For this reason...FIRE is the most self advertising thing there is.
Before the Day of Pentecost Jesus told the disciples in ACTS 1:8... “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” This is our MISSION...God commands IT!
And on the day of Pentecost there was spontaneous revival... ACTS 2:1-4 says... “1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
And that kind of revival draws people like a magnet because it is a RAGING AND CONSUMING FIRE.
SECOND...TO BRING THIS DOWN TO MODERN TECHNOLOGY...REVIVAL CANNOT BE COMPUTERIZED.
There is information that you can put into a computer and presto, you get the answer predicting an outcome.
You cannot predict revival because there are periods in which one thing only controls the events that follow.
Sometimes revival is totally taken over by sorrow and sometimes revival is totally taken over by joy, by ecstasy...'till you don't know whether you are in the flesh or whether you've gone out of the earth.
Paul experienced this type of REVIVAL...but sometimes revival is taken over by nothing but stillness.
There are times when you go to a prayer meeting and the power of God is there.
And there is a stillness and you feel it is creative...you feel... "Now something is building up, somebody is going to come out shortly with a heart wrenching...heart bursting...agonizing prayer."
THIRD...REVIVAL CANNOT BE RATIONALIZED.
Again, one of the odd things about revival is you can't put your finger on the spot, usually, as to how … or why … or where it begins because it is not within our sovereignty.
It is supremely an act of God...it is strictly within the Almighty God's Sovereignty.
You find a certain preacher might go with a series of messages to a community and before long that community is alive, it is throbbing, and revival is spreading like a wild and uncontrollable FIRE.
But he goes to another community with exactly the same group of men, the same type of prayer is poured out, the same sweat and soul wrenching anguish and message...yet there is no response.
You can't predict and you can't organize revival. Why?
Because you can't organize where the wind is coming from or where a fire blazes.
The Spirit, the wind, blows where it wants to go. If you say it's going to come this way, it comes that way.
If you say God's going to use that man, very often He doesn't even bother with that man.
Revival so often comes through unknown characters.
I don't think the world or our nation has ever been in a greater era of turmoil than it is at this moment.
Whatever we say about revival we have to recognize this...there are 3 things about the birth of natural life...conception, gestation, and then birth...you cannot alter the program.
And there has never been a revival that I can trace that has not been preceded by a vision (conception) … agonizing prayer (gestation)…leading to that FIRE leaping from one person to another (a birth).
You might say... "I haven't got to that stage yet of agonizing prayer. How does it come?" Well, it comes through VISION...you see that must come first...you cannot alter the program.
FOURTH...LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT VISION...
If we are going to get a concept of revival we have to get a vision of God's sorrow over sin...AMEN!!!
I want you to listen to that again... “If we are really going to get a concept of Biblical revival...we have to get a vision of God's sorrow...His absolute and total anguish over our sinfulness”.
We have to get a concept of how we...you and I...day by day...offend the Almighty and Sovereign God.
And individually, as Christ Body, and as a nation … we offend God in millions and millions of ways.
Leonard Ravenhill says... “When I was praying in the Bahamas one day, I saw a great column of smoke, which happened to be coming from tires that were being burned. It was as black as could be, and over there on the right I saw a small wisp of smoke going up from the ground. I didn't think much of it until about a year after, I was praying and the Lord said, 'Remember that volume of black, thick smoke? It is like the volume of sin that goes up every day.' All the blasphemy, all the unbelief, all the dirty stories, all the lying, all the deception, all the sex-perversion, all the drunkenness, all the child molestation and abuse -- this tremendous column of iniquity goes up in the sight of God. And remember that small puff over on the right...that little wisp … of what? That is the praise that God gets out of His people.”
If we are going to realize how much we need revival we need to recognize the dimension of sin in this world. We have to recognize that sin utterly, completely, and agonizingly offends the Almighty God.
PSALM 85:4 says... "Turn us, O God of our salvation and cause Thine anger towards us to cease."
You know I think one of the tragedies of our day is this...the people of Israel could not live if God turned His face away from them and it seems, we in America, cannot live if God turns His face on us!
FIFTH...THE AWESOMENESS OF GOD'S PRESENCE THROUGH PRAYER...THE AWESOMENESS OF GOD'S MAJESTY THROUGH THE CONSUMING FIRE OF HIS HOLY SPIRIT...
I've been in meetings or just one on one visiting and the Holy Ghost would come with such awesomeness and power that we would just have to sit down because of His very presence and I didn't know what to do.
That feeling...that invasion of God's power was so awesome that there was no way that you could handle it, so you just sat down and let the feeling rush over you...you let His Spirit indwell in you.
Then we would while sitting, pray and pray and there was an overwhelming sense that God was dealing...not with our intellect nor our body nor our emotions so much as with the inner spiritual man.
Have you ever had a sense of that kind of feeling? We need that kind of feeling more today.
In the Old testament Joel speaks about the priests, the ministers of God.
Look with me at JOEL 1:13... "Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl ye ministers of the altar, come lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God."
Now go over to VERSE 12 OF THE 2ND CHAPTER... "Turn ye now even to Me with all your heart and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments." AMEN!!!
Come on down to VERSE 17... "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach."
How do you get to that state because we need to get to that state TODAY..we need to sell out to God's will!
There is no way you can jump to that level in ten minutes. Why? Because...
It is an operation … It is a process … IT IS A PREPARATION.
There has to be an individual breaking up of fallow ground in ALL OF US for that to happen.
We must ask... “What is there in my individual life that obstructs the flow of the Holy Spirit?”
If you are going to break up fallow ground you have to get your own life into a state of discipline. AMEN!!!
And we are the most undisciplined generation of believers ever.
There is no way of getting to revival unless previously there comes a sense brokeness.
America, we are broke spiritually...our bank account is overdrawn...and if we are going to fix it...we've got to break down and LET GO and just LET GOD'S HOLY GHOST TAKE CONTROL!
We need to quit wasting time on a broken government...we need to revive one by one the Spirits of God's Saints...and the rest will take care of itself...AMEN!!!
Why? Because what God wants is not to fill up empty pews. NO!!!
He is not concerned about filling empty churches...He is concerned about filling empty hearts...and empty lives...and empty eyes that have no vision...and empty souls that have no passion...and empty wills that have no purpose...He is interested in filling His Saints with His HOLY GHOST FIRE!!!
Have you ever thought about the enormity of the Jewish system?
A great monolith of priests, Levites, offerings, sacrifices, new moons, Sabbaths, and Urim and Thumin.
Then suddenly the Almighty puts one individual there, John the Baptist...and he has one commission.
To him God said... "You go and prepare the way of the Lord." One thing he was given to do...ONE!!!
But he has all this that is against him...at least 2000 priests, a senior priest, an elaborate temple...
A system of buying and selling cattle and other things for sacrifice...for atonement of sin...
An outer court, where you could come to a priest and tell him of your sin and your guilt and pay him and he would make an offering of atonement for you...
And this fellow...this John the Baptist...this wild and crazy man...he comes and he is saying...
The religious system is all obsolete...it is broken...and then he says...the Almighty God is going to manifest Himself independent of all of that...outside all that...outside the gate.
And then the people begin to say to him... "You must be that man." See...Satan had stepped in.
And he says, "Oh, no, no! I am not the One. I am just coming to prepare the way of the Lord."
Just think of the enormity of the revival God planned by planting His Vision in this one man.
Now think of the sorrow of God after Adam failed...
Think of all the people living up until Noah and their failure...and the Almighty God's sorrow.
Think of the sorrow of God after the whole system...that Jewish System that He'd inaugurated failed...
Then think of something which may be even more agonizing still...causing God even more pain...
Think of the fact that 2000 years have lapsed since Jesus came and brought revival by doing a full work of redemption...and the church is still dragging its feet today!
Just stop right now and think about all that for a minute...think about how we are failing...about how God probably wants to vomit us out of his mouth or remove our lampstand.
The human dilemma that we are in right now is that we have never been at a lower point in history.
Yet people sometimes say... "Don't worry, we have got out of many, many situations like this before.
Please...Oh, no we haven't! Don't you fool yourself. We've never gotten out of worse situations than this before. WHY? Because we have never been in a situation like this before. That is why!
We've never had difficulties like this...
We've never had this plague of divorce like we do today...
We've never had millions of girls under 16 becoming pregnant, never...
What did I hear on the news... "Tonight 20,000 unwed girls in America will get pregnant"...yes, 20,000...and how many more out of wedlock couples had sex last night and did not get pregnant.
In America today among adults...1 in 100 adult people are incarcerated...they are in jail...
Beloved...today sex is a sport. Immorality is an accepted way of life...
People say there are fewer divorces than last year...yes there are BUT...
How do you expect any more when they don't get married anymore?
They did get married at one time and got divorced...they don't even bother to get married now.
They just live together...they have a baby, so what? "We agree to part," that's it.
They never wonder how are they gonna pay for that baby left by a broken home.
They just say...hmm...the government will pay for it...beloved...where is our shame?
Leonard Ravenhill said... “The world has lost the power to blush over its vice; the Church has lost her power to weep over it.” And that is absolutely embarrassing...totally humiliating.
And it is agonizing and a sad state to your God...and beloved...HE IS ANGRY!!! AMEN!!!
We are a broken nation. Never, never in our history did we need revival more than today.
But you don't just wish revival...no you don't because wishing it ain't gonna cause revival to happen.
Leonard Ravenhill says... “People say to me all over the country, I am interested in revival. I say, Yes, so are millions of Americans. I find all kinds of people interested in it. But I don't find many people burdened for it. On their knees praying for it. Shedding great big old crocodile tears for it. People are very interested in revival, but we will not start to break the fallow ground. We aren't willing to prepare the way of the Lord.”
I heard a story of a man that said he remembered as a little boy that he used to go to bed at night with a candle...now I never had that joy, did you?
He said he remembered thinking how many other candles you could bring and light off that one candle?
And I wonder...yes I wonder. He said he never found an answer, but I sure do wonder just how many.
Jesus said He came... "To bring fire on earth..."
How many do you hear preach on that text today? And what kind of fire did He mean?
Well, surely not hell fire. No...not hell fire...I believe He meant GOD'S HOLY GHOST FIRE! AMEN!!!
The most devastating fire of all is not the fire that consumes a building. It isn't even the fire of hell.
THE GREATEST, MOST DEVASTATING FIRE, IS THE FIRE OF GOD.
We say today over and over... "God is love, God is love, God is love..."
And yet Malachi says our God is a consuming fire. "Who shall abide the day of His coming..."
Malachi goes on to say... "He is like a refiner's fire."
And John the Baptist in MATT 3:16 says... "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire..."
But you see, that aspect is not stressed in the day in which we live.
Everybody talks about “the baptism”. So what do we mean by “the baptism”?
Man baptizes with water, but John said that Jesus will baptize with Holy Ghost Fire.
Have you been Baptized by the Holy Ghost FIRE? If you have share it with someone else today!
There will be thousands of people who will say to you if you are the one who gets a Holy Ghost heart and a revival vision... "Oh, you've got tunnel vision. It ain't that bad...we are making progress." NO WE ARE NOT!
But do not let your tunnel Vision trouble you...Why? Hmm...cause you are in very good company.
See, I think the reason why the Apostle Paul conquered...why he out-triumphed us...why he out-smarted us...why he out-suffered us...why he out-prayed us...why he out-sacrificed us...why he out-preached us ...was because he settled on that one thing...he had that tunnel vision...He said..."This one thing I do."
And my answer to those who say... “You have tunnel vision” is... “I want PAUL'S TUNNEL VISION!!!”
You have got to have one vision ... You have got to have one heart... AMEN!!!
You have got to have one purpose … YES PRAISE GOD...Paul said... "This one thing I do..." and that one thing was … “I sell out to God's will totally.” AMEN!!!
CONCLUSION...WELL, WHAT DOES THIS ALL BECOME? WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT THIS REVIVAL?
I believe this one thing has to become an obsession for us. … I've wept about it...did that this morning.
I feel a personal sense of failure...we are not on FIRE FOR GOD.
And I've prayed...I've groaned...I've read...and I've fasted for revival...an uprising of the Holy Spirit and His FIRE to come into our presence and rekindle the FIRE in our souls! BUT...there isn't much sign of it.
Then God says to me... Well Hugh, are you sure? You see ... PRAYERS NEVER DIE.
"What are these under My altar? The prayers of saints...AMEN! You never pray a prayer that is born of God without it being on record with God. God never wastes anything.” PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY!!!
He says to me... “Do you think I don't hear your prayers child...those born of grief, of anguish, of a desire to see an overthrow of iniquity, for after all that is what revival is...never think I will let them die?”
John the Baptist was a man with tunnel vision...his only goal was to “prepare the way of the LORD.”
But again...the shadow of darkness and death is over this generation like nothing we've ever had before.
The greatest tragedy of all is this...a sick church in a dying world...and by that I mean God's Church... His Body and all the souls in this world who are dieing in a sinful state as the world dies around them.
We have neither the vision nor the passion, nor at this moment, the intention of setting our house in order...we don't have the FIRE needed "to break up the fallow ground" -- “to prepare the way of the Lord”.
My hope is that as we go forward we are not just going to talk about revival, but that we are going to individually seek a personal revival.
My prayer for each of us today is this... “COME, HOLY GHOST, COME...PLEASE COME UPON US WITH YOUR FIRE!” and help us break up the fallow ground...HELP US PREPARE THE WAY FOR THE LORD!!! PRAY!
