OUR COUNTRY DESPERATELY NEEDS REVIVAL 4-19-08
What we need here in our Land today is a Heaven-sent Revival! Not something drummed up by Man, or some sort of program-generated revival, our nation is in dire need of a Revival straight from the throne-room of God. What most Churches call revival nowadays is from Sunday night _Wednesday.
Let me say that the lost world can not have revival because it is dead in trust passes and sins, something dead can not be made alive apart from being born again. Revival means to be re-vived, and dead things are not re-vived, but we that have been born again can be re-vived if we’ll do what Gods says here in His Word.
And God tells us how we can have revival in our text today in:
2ND Chron. 7:14 If my people,**{Israel} which are called by my name, shall 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. ^^~~~
It seems as though the whole world is on a none stop slide into hell, and I’m sorry to say that our nation has slipped so far from the things of God that it appears that there’s no turning back. God cannot bless a nation like ours has become as He would, if only the American people would turn back to Him, and give homage to Him as it did so honor Him many years ago.
If you’ll think about it, we that are parents, we don’t reward our children if their rebellious and neither will God bless His rebellious children, oh God don’t disown His children because their rebellious, but instead Chastens them. A person could change his or her name and even move to another country, but he’s still belongs to the same family, his Father is still the same.
Like the Prodigal son, God the Father is waiting with out stretched arms to have His wayward child back close to Him once again.
There’s no telling what God would do for any nation that would whole heartily follow Him. But instead our nation it seems has just about forgotten about God, not all, but a vast number of our nation.
God said in Psalm 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Have you ever seen such wickedness that’s going on in our land today? There’s many places across the country that you had best not be caught at after dark, fearful of what will happen, perilous times are here there’s no doubt about it.
Psalm 50:22 Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. It seems as though God is slowly but surely removing His Hand from our country. And let me say right here, that if we ever elect government officials that don’t want to stand with Gods chosen people Israel, we’re on our way to certain destruction, I believe the only reason God has blessed our nation the way He has in the passed is because of our stand with Israel. Listen, Israel don’t necessarily need us, but we surely need Israel.
Gen.12: 2-3 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee:
Psalm 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD;
Today we have become a nation of many gods, there are people now in this country whose god is “alla”, and some even praying to Mary, talking to dead saints thinking that they can help them, And many other self-made gods, how can God bless this nation?
Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. And I want us to be sure and realize that that is not a request, it’s a command.
A real revival is not built on emotions and sentimental thoughts of yesteryear. It is not eyes full of tears. The flesh can do that. It is not shouting. The flesh can do that, too. It is not large ------crowds. A circus can attract crowds. It is not even folks getting saved. God graciously saves by grace, even when churches are not in a state of revival. The word “revival” literally means to “revive to life again”. It is God’s people coming alive again to their responsibilities toward God. It is returning to a life of obedience to the things of God.
I want us to look at our text verse again: 2ND Chron. 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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.
Lets consider the surrounding passages of which our text verse was written. It is important to remember that Solomon had dedicated the new temple, Solomon’s temple. King Solomon gave a prayer of dedication in 2 Chronicles 6:12-42.
But the prayer had nothing to do with the temple, as it had everything to do with the people of God who would come to pray and worship in the temple.
Solomon knew that the God of Israel could not be contained within the confines of the temple. 2nd Chron 6:18 But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!
Solomon also knew that God was interested in residing in the hearts of His people. 2nd Chron 6:30- 31 Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and render unto every man according unto all his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men:) 31That they may fear thee, to walk in thy ways, so long as they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.
We today dear brother & sisters are the temple of the Holy Spirit. I Cor.6: 19-20 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
We are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God which is our reasonable service. (Romans 12:1)
God is not interested in dead religion? Dead praying? Dead preaching and dead teaching and dead singing.
It seems as though many of our Church services are trying to impress the people there around us instead of being sincere in our worship of God. You would think that we would get tired of trying to make an impression, of trying to be religious.
All people the world over that believe in some kind of god has religion, there’s many religions but only one salvation, there’s many little gods but only One True God, and that is Jehovah God, and if the people of the world do not receive His Only Begotten Son, their religion is vain, God will not allow any people into His heaven that trample over the Blood of His Dear Son.
Ephesians 4: 4-6 there is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
It’s easy to be a Christian on Sunday, but what about the rest of the week?
Did you know that there are some so called Christians that seldom ask God to bless their food when they might go out to eat, afraid some one might see them?
Well dear heart God is looking all the time. 2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth,
Psalm 139:7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 8If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
Revival can only come when we as Christians get our hearts and mind on the things of God and off the things of this world.
1 John 2: 15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
James says in James 4:5-8 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? 6But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you
When revival truly breaks out, and God’s glory is manifested the focus will not be on men and women in the ministry. The center of attention will be Jesus. Eyes will not be on the preacher. Folks won’t be concerned about the color of your shirt, blouse, the color of your tie, or even the color of your skin. Listen dear heart if people want to come to Church to worship God then they should be welcomed in.
Acts 10: 34-35 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
When the Glory of God is in a church house.... no longer are folks concerns about the trivia matters. Doctrine is most important. Sound teaching is a must, but there are little matters that
we allow to separate and hinder God’s work. When the Glory of God is in the church house, there is freedom to worship. There will not be a printed program to follow, do all things in a godly manner and allow the Holy Spirit to have freedom to do His work.
We don’t read of Solomon having a structured program to follow, the worship was spontaneous. Solomon didn’t say, “let’s all bow down before the Lord.” When revival comes...you don’t need motivation to get you in the mood for worship. You come ready to pray, ready to sing, ready to hear, ready to worship, and ready to praise the Lord.
Listen as I read our text verse once again:
: 2ND Chron. 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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.
We all need to pray more. The early church saw God move in miraculous ways after spending time in prayer. It is not a matter of if God will move in our day, it is a matter of if God’s people will humble themselves and pray.
If we will pray, God has promised to move in response to prayer . Jer. 33: 3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
We are limited, but prayer taps the unlimited power of almighty God! Pray with humility: shall humble themselves--
there was nothing magical about Solomon’s prayer. His faith was not in his prayer, but in God. As we pray we need to come humbly expressing our dependence upon God. God gives grace unto the humble according to I Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God,
In James 4:6 it says God gives grace unto the humble. Again James 4:10 “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”
Many of Gods people are guilty of spiritual pride, or denominational pride. We must pray with sincere humility.
Prayer coupled with seeking God’s face.
It is not for the purpose of getting God to see our face, but that we may behold his face. We will not literally see the face of God this side of heaven, but we can experience his face just the same.
God’s face means He is looking upon you. He is seeing you. He is hearing you. He has your attention. To have God’s face, we are in the position to see God answer our prayers.
Prayer with repentance. and turn from their wicked ways;
Sin blocks our prayers. We must come with repentance. Turn from their wicked ways.
It is not enough to admit we are doing wicked things. We must turn away from that which is dishonoring to God.
It seem that some folks think we can have revival, without changing our behavior. Theres some Christians that even use profanity from time to time, and that’s certainly not pleasing to God. Some Christians need to stop their gossiping, their complaining.
Many of us are as the Bible says, “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” 2Tim.3:4
Before there is real revival, there will have to be some real repenting. God won’t bless dirty hearts.
Some of the results of revival are:
“I will hear from heaven”
When the conditions are met, then God will hear from heaven. He still answers prayer. The problem is that we have not met these conditions.
What a blessed thought of God hearing from heaven.
When revival comes, we will be more sensitive to sin in our lives. We will also be more conscious of God’s forgiveness. And people will be more forgiving toward one another.
God will heal our land: and will heal their land. With the power of God’s forgiveness comes healing. God will heal our land. God will heal our broken homes. God will heal our sin-infested communities.
God will heal our churches. God will heal people’s marriages that may be in trouble. God will heal the brokenhearted. God will heal the sin-sick soul by saving them by His Amazing Grace.
When Revival comes to a church it doesn’t stop there. It goes home with folks. It goes with them to the schools, and to their jobs.
The greatest need in our Land is for a Heaven-sent Revival, but it will only happen when we meet GODS REQUIREMENTS.
