Corporate Revival

Introduction

Revival is a topic that is dear to my heart only because I have experienced it in my life. I know what God can do to revive a church that is dead. We just talked about dead Orthodoxy. These are the churches that need revival. They need life poured back into them. Sometimes revival is needed because new growth is needed in the church. Throughout history times of revival have often been proceeded by times of serious searching for God in prayer. One such revival began by a prayer meeting on the island of Barvas in the Hebrides islands of Scotland. According to testimony from people who lived at the time, the churches on the island were dead and dry. They had a legalistic form of godliness but not power. Religion was taught in the public schools even by lost teachers as a form of tradition, but the church was cold.

In 1949, two elderly women one blind and the other suffering from severe arthritis, Peggy and Christine Smith decided to begin praying two to three nights a week from 10 PM to 3 AM in the morning. They believed God had given them a promise from Isaiah 44:3 “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, And floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, And my blessing upon thine offspring:” and that God was going to bring revival.

After awhile of praying like this, they sent for their local minister and told him what they thought the Lord was going to do and asked him to get the local preachers together to pray at the same times with them for Revival. Rev Mackay did just that. He gathered the men of the church, preachers, leaders together to pray in an old bard. Now they did this in an old barn in the middle of winter with no heating. They continued doing this for weeks praying twice a week for five hours each time. Finally a deacon got up and read Psalm 24:3-5 “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, And righteousness from the God of his salvation.” He stood up and made a heart probing statement:

It seems to me to be so much humbug to be praying as we are praying, to be waiting as we are waiting, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God.”

He then prayed, “God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?”

It was at that meeting that Revival broke out and not just in that barn, but all the country around it. According to Duncan Campbell, the preacher God used in this revival: The church was crowded with people when the word of God was preached. People were weeping over their sin making things right with one another publically. People were on the sides of the streets on their knees confessing sin to God and getting right with Him. Church services lasted into all hours of the night. This revival continued in Barvas for five weeks before it began spreading to other parts of the island.

God does not promise widespread national, geographic revival like this, but He will renew the life of His people. Revival can come to Harvest Hills Baptist Church. Revival does not always mean the people have drifted into sin. Sometimes it is just a renewal of God’s power and making God’s presence known in the believers as we see in our text today. This church had not fallen into sin. This isn’t that much longer after Pentecost and yet we see the Holy Spirit filling the people with renewed power for the mission He had given them.

I. Their Gathering

Acts 4:23 “And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them.”

After arrest and release of Peter and John from prison, the Apostles returned to bring a report of what the Lord had done. Notice the first couple words of the text here they went to their own company. Those who deny church membership need to read verses like this. The apostles had a specific group of people that they felt they belonged to and they were a part of. It is to this group that they came back and gave their report.

Notice also that it was this church that the apostles felt they could come to for spiritual support and encouragement. They had a home with these people. The word company is not in the Greek, rather the words are merely “their own.” This is a commonly used idiom but it expresses that they viewed this group, their local church, as a “community of mutually supportive friends (Bock).” Have you ever thought of the people of the church as your people? Or even as your friends, or are we all just a group of people you see every now and then. Is your life here or do you identify more with those outside the church? When the apostles has a problem, they knew they had a group of people they could go back to for support.

In the context of Corporate Revival, these questions are important because if we are going to see Revival as a church, we must all be seeking it together. When we are disconnected from the group we cut ourselves off from what the Lord is trying to do in the group. Imagine if Revival broke out at HHBC next Sunday, but you weren’t here.

Imagine what it would have been like to be Thomas, when Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection. He for some reason was not there and because of that, he could not join in the joy, excitement and experience that the other disciples had seeing Christ again. In fact, he was resistant to it all because he was not there.

We can be cut off from the group in multiple ways.

physically- You don’t even show up. The bible is replete with teaching on the necessity of the community of believers for growth in our lives. You cannot be everything God wants you to be without the Church. but we are very individualistic people and so if I don’t feel like going to church today, I skip it. After all can’t I just read the bible for myself. You could but there is something more God wants to do in your life by being part of the group.

emotionally- feeling like part of the group takes time and as long term church members, we need to be doing more to make people feel like they belong here. If you do not feel part of the group, you will not receive as much of the benefit of being in the group as you could. You can become emotionally absent, by not participating in anything, by not trying to make friends Proverbs 18:24 “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” (relationships are two ways). You can be emotionally absent because you are just here out of habit. You can be emotionally absent by walking in at the last minute and then leaving immediately when the service is over.

spiritually- maybe you struggle to feel like part of the group because you are on a different spiritual level than others. Carnality will keep you out of church. But here is the good news, you don’t have to remain a carnal, worldly, baby christian. Churches are families. It is natural to be a newborn christian, but it is not natural to be a 40 year old baby christian. One thing that is true about families is that the mature ones (parents) help grow the immature ones.

Don’t let yourself become disassociated, disenfranchised, or cut off from the family life of the church. God wants to do something in your life through this church. And if HHBC is going to see revival, we must be seeking it together as a group.

II. Their Prayer

A. The Nature of their prayer

Acts 4:24-30 “And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.”

Lifted up their voice to God with one accord- together as a group the church prayed to God with their voices. There is a reason I have tried to place more emphasis on corporate prayer. Corporate prayer is essential to the life of the church. In the text, we see at least three benefits to corporate prayer:

Corporate prayer can encourage other believers- Peter and John came to these believers for support and they found it as they joined together to pray for one another. It is nice to know other believers are praying for you, but it is even greater to know other believers are praying with you. Periodically, I try to text people and let them know when I am praying for them to try and be an encouragement. I don’t always tell people when I am praying for them because I pray for everyone of you every week, but sometimes the Lord impresses me to let you know. Usually the response is something like, “how nice.” But the spiritual, emotional, and even physical support can be so much greater when I kneel beside you and earnestly lift up your needs before God. There is companionship, emotional uplifting, and sympathy when we pray together for the struggles we are going through.

Corporate prayer can unify believers- We see this in the phrase one accord. Unity is having the same mind, goals, and direction as other believers. When we join together to pray about one specific need together and earnestly seek God’s face, it unites us in the same goal and the same passion. The phrase literally means to have the same mind. They were all of a united mind to seek the Lord about this issue.

Corporate prayer as we will see also brings revival. God began to do a work in my heart when I was in high school through our prayer times as teens back in rooms 107 and 108. God used other godly young men who took a lead to passionately seek after God to stir up my heart. Having left our previous church under bad circumstances, I was in a place where I was angry with God and I was not seeking after God, but in those prayer meetings God melted my heart and revived my passion for Him. Without them, I never would have gone to bible college, served on the mission field and now become your Pastor. Fervent, true heartfelt prayer can revive the hard hearted.

Prayer is the breath of faith. Prayer meetings are the lungs of the church.

Charles Spurgeon

B. The content of their prayer

I think it is important for us to take a look at what they prayed as well.

They affirmed God’s sovereignty- The word Lord in this verse is different than the normal word for Lord. This is the word from which we get the word despot. It carries the idea of being the owner as well as an authority figure. thou art God- because God is the creator of all things He has the right to do with them as He pleases. Why talk to God about His sovereignty right now? Why not just pray for the salvation of the lost priests? Why not pray for the deliverance of others who might be persecuted? Why not even pray for vengeance against those who stand against the gospel? Why pray about God’s sovereignty? They were acknowledging that God was in control of even the persecution that christians face. God has a plan. Sometimes He allows us to be persecuted for our faith. Think about your situation at work: those coworkers who make fun of you because you don’t want to talk about fornication or drugs or listen to their music. What is God trying to accomplish at that moment? Does God really want us to be silent and pretend like it doesn’t matter or does He want us to take a stand and point them to Jesus?

They recognized God’s word- These believers knew that persecution was part of God’s plan and will because they had read about it in scripture. Psalm 2:1-2 “Why do the heathen rage, And the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,” OT scripture told them that those who stand with the Lord, “his anointed,” will be rejected by the world. The world rages, stand against, gather, and dream up new ways to hurt those who stand with the Lord.

They followed the example of Christ- As they should have they understood that Psalm 2 has an implication for God’s people, but it ultimately speaks of Christ. Jesus was persecuted. Many kings and people in authority tried to have Him killed from His birth by Herod, to the cross with Pilate, the Romans and all of Israel who joined together to kill Him. But Acts 4:28 “For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” is key. Everything that happened to Jesus, the beatings, the whippings, the cross, the blood was part of God’s plan. Men did what they wanted to do but God’s sovereignly and powerfully arranges the events of history according to the plan He had determined to be done before hand.

C. The request of their prayer

They asked God to do three things:

Behold- see what these people are doing to us. As we have seen in Lament prayer, it is perfectly fine to tell God what all the problems are. To tell Him how you feel. To say, look at what they are doing to us. Behold their threatenings- take account of what they are threatening to do to us.

Give us boldness- It is easy when people treat you strange for being a Christian to feel like you should just be quite, keep your head down and say nothing. These disciples didn’t want to be cowed down by the priests; they needed boldness to stand for the Lord and speak up. I think of the teen who maybe mocked and made fun of at school because of their Christian stance. Overtime they might want to just fit in, not be made fun of and not noticed. Maybe they start wearing the same clothes as everyone else, they never say anything about Church or God, they try to look like everyone else. The Christian teen does not need to look like everyone else, what they need is boldness to not be ashamed of Jesus. These believers were human. They would have felt the same pressures and they knew such boldness was not natural. God had to give it to them.

Show yourself strong- these believers asked God to stretch out His mighty hand and perform miracles. These miracles would point men to Jesus and show that He was truly the Messiah.

Notice that in this prayer they did not pray for God to judge those who persecuted them nor did they pray to escape the persecution. These disciples were more concerned about their witness for God than their own personal safety.

III. The Results

After their prayer we see God answering that prayer.

A. Filling- they received the filling of the Holy Spirit. Remember the baptism of the Spirit by which we are placed into the body of Christ is a one time event, but the filling of the Spirit is something we need over and over again throughout our lives. Eph 5:18 “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;” literally be ye being filled. If we are going to see God do a work of revival, we need the filling of God’s spirit in our lives.

B. Boldness- notice it does not say and they spake with tongues. The filling of the spirit in this text showed itself by giving them boldness to speak the word of God. Remember this is exactly what they had asked for. God is answering their prayer. If we are going to see Corporate Revival, we must ask for it. James 4:2 “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.”

C. Unity- there was also a sense of unity because of this prayer meeting. The text says they were of one heart and one soul- they had one passion. We have preached on the verses that follow before and vs 34-37 set up our next message in the book of acts so we will save them for that time.

Conclusion:

AT Pierson once said: “There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.” This is the lesson that we see in this text and this is why I emphasize corporate prayer so much. We could do more. Revival, awakening, must be proceeded by a united community of believers seeking the power and presence of God in their midst to accomplish His glory in our lives and our church. If you can catch the vision for Corporate prayer, we will be on our way to see God do great things.