Revival(part 2)

But what seems to be the problem today? it seems that things have gotten worse in the past centuries.
• Despite increased funding for law enforcement and stricter laws violent crime has increased 500%
• Sex education programs have proliferated and at the same time illegitimate births have increased over 400%
• The divorce rate has quadrupled
• Single parent homes have become the majority
• More than 200% increase in teenage suicide
there are so many more things in general that can be listed on, name it u have it.

Today there is still hope!!
Revival is possible as long as God is God. Jonathan Edwards argued that God grants light when the darkness is the greatest.

When there was disinterest in religion, gross immorality, rampant unbelief, God poured out his undeserved, gracious blessing.

Do it again God!

1. IF MY PEOPLE WILL HUMBLE THEMSELVES

God has said, "If my people will humble themselves." God will visit us when we reach a point of desperation. When we surrender that pride, when we give up the idea that we can do pretty good on our own, and we get down on our knees and admit things are not as they should be, then God will come to His people. God says that the first thing I am looking for in my people is a spirit of humbleness.

David said in Psalm 51:16,17, "You, O Lord, do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart..."

Jim Cymbala in Fresh Wind Fresh Fire: “When I was at my lowest, confounded by obstacles, bewildered by the darkness that surrounded us … I discovered an astonishing truth: God is attracted to weakness. He can’t resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need him. Our weakness, in fact, makes room for his power.”

James 4:6-10 – “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” 7Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

The next thing we must do to attain revival is that we must pray
2. IF MY PEOPLE WILL PRAY AND SEEK MY FACE

Are you pretty satisfied with the state of the church today – with the devotion to God in your own heart? Revival will not come that way. "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face." God never sends revival to those who don’t want it enough to even bother asking for it in prayer.

The king in Nineveh said, "I want you to put on sackcloth and I want you to call URGENTLY on God." Urgently – that means with a sense of emergency and with intensity. People who pray revival prayers are those people who pray long, hard, intense, and unyielding prayers from the depths of their hearts. One person calls this full-throttle praying.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." That is Full Throttle praying and that is exactly what God is looking for!

One person said, "I prayed for revival in my marriage for a whole week and nothing happened." That’s not revival praying. Some say, "I’ve been praying for a whole month for revival at my church and nothing’s happened." That’s not revival praying either. Those who pray revival prayers are desperate, whole-hearted, never-ending petitioners of God. They never give up. They never quit.

Dwight L. Moody, that famous evangelist from Chicago went on vacation to England. He wasn’t planning to do any preaching; he was on a sabbatical. But he met a pastor there who said, "Mr. Moody you’re so well known, would you come and speak at our church?" So he went to preach the next Sunday morning.

That afternoon Moody wrote in his journal that they were the deadest crowd he had ever seen and that the only thing worse than preaching to those people was that he had promised to go back that night and preach again. But as he preached he noticed that the atmosphere had changed, he did not know just why.

At the close of the meeting, he was led to give an invitation for those who wanted to be saved to stand. Something amazing happened. A great crowd of people stood. He didn’t know what to do. So he said, "Maybe you don’t understand what I am asking. So when we are dismissed if you believe you are unsaved and you need to be saved come over to this little room and meet with me." When the service was over, he went to the room it was packed!

He left the next day for Dublin Ireland. Shortly after arriving there, he received a telegram from the church to return, “Come back. Revival has broken out." So Moody got back on the train, went back to that church and preached 10 straight nights. And hundreds of people came to Christ.

Not long afterwards, he learned the secret. An invalid lady, who could not attend the church, was praying for a mighty outpouring of the Spirit upon the church. She prayed for months. Once she saw in the papers accounts of some of the Moody meetings in America, and although she had never heard of Mr. Moody before, she began to pray that God would send him to her church in London for a revival.

One Sunday morning, her sister returned from the service and informed her of Moody’s presence and his preaching.

She spent the whole afternoon in prayer that God would make that night a night of power. And God did!

Charles Spurgeon – “Whenever God determines to do a great work, he first sets his people to pray.”

We need to be like Jacob. Remember when He saw an angel of the Lord at the brook Jabbok, and he wrestled with him all night. The angel in the morning said, "Let me go." What did Jacob say in Genesis 32:26, "I will not let you go until you bless me."

The preacher challeges us to pray that way. pray that God will send revival to whatever place it is and to say, "God I’m not going to give up until it comes."

3. IF MY PEOPLE WILL TURN FROM THEIR WICKED WAYS

Repentance is not only for the hardened sinner on Skid Row. Repentance is often required of those of us who have accepted Christ and are inside the church. Our Lord said to the church at Ephesus, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works" (Revelation 2:5).

Real repentance involves confession of sin and turning away from it.

When Paul preached at Ephesus, the Bible says that "many came, and confessed, and showed their deeds" -and not only that, they turned from their sins, and made a bonfire of those things which should not have been in their homes.

Our sins need to be confessed, and if we have wronged another person, we need to confess (like Zaccheus in Luke 19), and make restitution.

If you have spoken unkindly to a brother or sister in the church …

If you stole something from the place where you work--for the sake of honesty and for the sake of a clear conscience, get those things made right! It won’t take long.

We need to go to the person who has been wronged and say, "I have sinned; I’ve done wrongly toward you; I apologize; will you forgive me?" We must never be ashamed to do that.

Jacob was told that he had to put away the idols that were in his household and be clean before the Lord if he wanted to experience the blessing of God and his reviving power (Gen. 35:1-4).

Joshua commanded the nation of Israel that they also had to “throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD” Joshua 24:14.

Isaiah said, “Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!” (Isaiah 1:16-17).

God wants us to be clean persons, channels through whom his blessings, witness, and interventions in this world can flow.

If we are to be clean we have to renounce all bitterness, wrath, malice, harshness, unforgiving spirits, filthiness, and immorality; in short, anything that would “give the devil a foothold” (Eph. 4:27).