Sermon Tone Analysis

One spring when I was in the ninth grade our P.E.

class was outside playing softball.

I was on second base when the next batter hit the ball deep into the outfield.

I immediately took off running.

Rounding third, I headed for home when I noticed a girl on the other team playing catcher, standing in front on home plate.

I continued running for home as she stood in the way waiting for the ball.

If I continued running I was going to take her out.

So, at the last moment, I dove to the right to avoid hitting her.

As a result, I broke my left arm and was in a cast for the next six weeks.

Over the next two years I had two more breaks — the right arm and then the left arm again.

It became such a familiar routine that when I broke my arm the third time and called my mother to let her know, she asked if she could have the beautician finish cutting her hair before she came and took me to the emergency room.

I don’t understand, but I’ve been told that when you break a bone and it heals that the bone is actually stronger there than it was originally.

Our theme this year is Coming Back Stronger.

I don’t have to tell you what the last three years have been like.

We’ve all experienced the losses and disappointments.

I remember when we went into the lock down to slow the spread.

That February my appendix had ruptured and I missed the next four weeks.

My first Sunday back was the first Sunday of the lock down.

I was finally able to preach and we didn’t have services.

That was a long two months.

We finally began having services online but I can assure that it’s no fun preaching to a camera.

I couldn’t wait for services to begin again in the building and I thought everyone else would feel that excitement as well.

But they didn’t.

Not everyone anyway.

It took months before we got anywhere near the attendance numbers we had before the lock down.

But I shouldn’t complain.

I hear stories of churches that are still at half their pre-COVID numbers almost three years later.

However, I know that God is at work and that we can come back stronger.

You remember the story of Job.

In one day he lost his wealth and all seven of his children.

Eventually, even his health was taken.

The only thing not taken from him was his wife and she was encouraging him to curse God and die.

But Job’s story ends with God restoring all that Job had lost and then some.

Through the prophet Joel, God promises he will restore to his people what had been taken from them.

25 I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten — the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm — my great army that I sent among you.

26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.

27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.

(Joel 2:25-27)

God says that he is able to restore what has been taken and make it even better than before.

This is the hope and the promise we have.

We can come back stronger.

However, it is going to take men of courage and men of faith.

In our culture today the role of men is being downplayed.

This isn’t new, it’s been going on for years.

If you watch TV or movies when there’s a problem the mothers are too busy to do anything and the fathers are idiots.

It’s left up to the kids and their pets to save the day.

Men are the only demographic you can make fun of any more.

Our country needs men, godly men, who will stand for God.

Our community needs godly men who live out their faith.

And our churches need godly men who will lead by example.

God has called you to be that example in your family, in your church, and in your community.

We need men who will help to turn our communities and our country back to God.

Turn with me in your Bible to 2 Kings 22.

I want to look at the story of a king who helped to turn his nation back to God.

It is the story of the greatest revival found in the Bible.

This revival took place in Jerusalem some six hundred years before the birth of Jesus.

Judah had suffered for more than fifty years under two bad kings who had led the nation into idolatry.

They were in desperate need of revival even as we are today.

Speaking about our country’s need for revival, Dr. James Vernon McGee said:

It is my firm conviction today that the only thing that can save our nation is revival.

It is either going to be revival or revolution.

There is corruption in government on all levels.

There is corruption in all organizations today.

Immorality and lawlessness abound.

Sex, liquor, drugs, filthy magazines, foul pictures, scandals, and riots reign.

This nation is wallowing like a pig in a swine’s sty.

We are like the prodigal son in a far country in the pigpen with the pigs.

Without revival, revolution stares us in the face.

Socialism is creeping in today.

Political parties are willing to sell the birthright of this nation in order to stay in power.

The church today is under the blight of apostasy.

Liberalism controls the organized church.

There is a brazen denial of the Word of God even in so–called evangelical circles.

The Word of God has been lost in the church, and there are atheists today in the pulpit.

He continues:

The first thing Christians need to recognize is that revival is personal and individual.

I don’t think revival has ever begun as a mass movement.

What we need today is not politicians calling other politicians crooks.

We need politicians who will say, “I have been wrong.

I am going to get right with God.”

It would be a strange thing, and I suppose it would frighten our nation, but it’s what we need.

What I want you to know is that Dr. McGee spoke these words in the late 70s, but it sounds like he could have spoken them last week.

I think he’s right; we need revival today.

We need a “restoration of ailing Christians to vigorous spiritual health.”

Or as Vance Havner defined it:

Revival is the church falling in love with Jesus all over again.

In 1 Kings 22 we find the story of a king falling in love with God and with his word.

1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years.

His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath.

(2 Kings 22:1)

Josiah was only eight when he became king because his father had been killed at the age of twenty-four.

He was so bad that his own officials assassinated him only two years.

So, Josiah became king at the age of eight.

2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

(2 Kings 22:2)

All good kings were compared to David, a man after God’s own heart.

To say that David was a man after God’s heart is not to say that he was perfect but that David loved God and worked hard at keeping a right relationship with God.

Can that be said of you?

Do those around you know that you love God?

David is often mentioned as Israel’s greatest king.