The Sound of Revival

Ezekiel 37:1–7 (NIV)

The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.

He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.

He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!

This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.

I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

Introduction

Growing up in church I observed that churches asks us, it’s members, to speak a lot.

We love it when you get to church early so that you can grab a coffee, find some friends, and fellowship together.

We then begin each service by singing. We want everyone to sing together with us.

Then we do a little meet and greet. We want you to go and say hello to your neighbor, say hi to a friend.

When it’s time for the sermon, even though we want you all engaged in listening, we also want you talking back to the preacher. We want “amens” or “come on” or “preach”… we want you engaged.

Then we conclude each service with the opportunity for you to come forward and to pray, and talk to Jesus.

And then when that’s done, we prefer you don’t run out the door but that you find someone people to talk to and maybe even go grab lunch where you can talk again.

Have you ever noticed this?

We want you all talking!

Transition

And today, I’m going to peel some of this back today and we’re going to explain to you why we ask so much of you on a Sunday.

Revival Has a Sound

As I have spent time studying revivals there are things that all revivals have in common. As we’ve talked about already, there needs to be a commitment to prayer and fasting. Beyond that, there needs to be a hunger for God’s presence. Both of these we talked about in the first two messages of this series that we are in. But today, we are going to go into another common marker of revival.

That marker is simply this, Revival has a Sound.

The Sound of Revival is Faith Declared.

What is Faith?

Let’s talk about faith. Hebrews gives us a definition of faith, so that’s where we’re going to start.

Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Everyone say confidence.

How many of you know that you can see confidence.

If two people walked into this tent right now, one of them confident and the other insecure you know right away. You do not need the gift of discernment to know when someone has confidence. It oozes from them. You can almost smell the confidence on them.

Do not confuse this with arrogance. Arrogance is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a person who has confidence.

And when we look at this definition of faith, it tells us that it is confidence in what we hope for.

What is that hope?

It is everything that is in here. This book produces hope in me. Why? Because this book points me to Christ, and here’s what it says about me and Christ:

Colossians 1:27 (NIV)

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

So the hope that we are confident about is that Christ is living in me.

Come on, someone say that with me - Christ is living in me.

That is what gives me the confidence that I have.

It’s not because I am good, but it is becuase God is good.

It’s not that I have all of my stuff together, but Christ within me is working all things out for my good.

So my confidence is not in me. There’s nothing that I have or have accomplished that makes me confident about myself, I simply am confident about Christ!

He’s the one who is undefeated.

He is the one who has never lost a battle.

He is the one who conquered death, hell and the grave.

And, he has decided that He is going to take up residence in me, and that is the hope that I am confident about!

Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Back to our definition of faith… it is confidence in our hope, but it is also assurance about what we do not see.

The writer is making a contrast here of what we see.

All of us have the ability to see two ways; the first way that we see is through our eyes, and the second way that we see is through our spirits.

And what we learn from God’s word is that everything that we see in the visible is temporary. It will pass away. It’s here now, but it will be gone tomorrow. And in contrast, what we cannot see with our physical eyes, and what can only be seen with our Spiritual Eyes is what is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

What does that look like Pastor Josh?

With your eyes you might see a doctors report that you are sick, but with your spiritual eyes you’ll see that God has already healed you, and a miraculous healing is on its way.

With your eyes you might see that you do not qualify, but with your spiritual eyes you’ll see that God can miraculously open up a door for you.

Oh Pastor Josh, this sounds very superstitious. This can’t be real.

Fine. What is the prime interest rate right now?

7.5% on Wednesday, January 18.

The rates most home buyers are seeing on their mortgages right now is about 6%

But the mortgage rate that we have on our loan for this property is 0%

Yes, 0%

Why?

Because as we were praying for a new home, the congregation here was praying for a new community. And when our prayers collided with their prayers, the economy of heaven comes down to earth and we see the impossible become possible.

Why? Faith.

You have to have faith.

Paul said this about the absence of faith...

Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

So the sound of revival is faith declared. It begins with faith, and then it must be declared.

Thoughts To Declare

A declaration is the expression of our thoughts.

Let me unpack this with all of you here.

What we say, or what we declare, is rooted in our thoughts.

So the first thing we need to do is get our thoughts right.

Pastor Craig Groeschel in his book, Winning the War in Your Mind said this:

“Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts.”

So the first thing that we need to do is get our thinking aligned with the word of God.

We do not align to what the world says.

We do not align with what culture says.

We do not align with our trauma.

We always align our thoughts with the word of God.

Is it easy? Not always.

Can it be done? Yes.

2 Corinthians 10:4–5 (NIV)

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We will absolutely have thoughts that invade our minds, and what we need to do is capture these thoughts and bring them into the light of God’s word.

If you’ve ever felt like you cannot do something, remind yourself that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

If you’ve felt like you are not enough, remind yourself that you are fearfully and wonderfully made! Created to do good works for the Glory of God.

If you’ve felt like something traumatic happened to you that disqualifies you, remember that if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation.

I can go on and on. You can give me an excuse, and I can give you a scripture.

But here is what I know, whatever thought wins the argument is the direction that your life will begin to move in.

So why on earth would you want to believe that you are not good enough? Why would you want to believe that you are inadequate? Why would you want to believe that you are disqualified?

Bring every one of those thoughts and subject them to the word of God and start moving in the direction of God’s word over your life!

You can only move in one direction at a time, so move in the direction of God’s word. Move in the direction of God’s voice. Move in the direction of the Holy Spirit leading and guiding you.

Open Up Your Mouth

Now let me put it all together as we move on to declaring what we are thinking.

Now, declaring has fallen on hard times. We have become so theologically educated that we have disconnected from a very biblical principle of declarations.

Now, I understand that there is a danger in declarations. That danger is when what we declare is not rooted in the word of God we can get things sideways.

You cannot speak your way into a mansion.

You cannot speak your way into a Rolls Royce.

You cannot speak your way into a job you are completely unqualified for.

And yes, the church has done some silly things with declarations and decrees.

But let’s get back to the word of God and let that be our guide.

Proverbs 18:21 (NIV)

The tongue has the power of life and death...

As we said earlier, our thoughts become words. Words are the indicators of the conditions of our souls. When all we speak is death, all we’ll see is death. But when we begin to speak life, even over impossible situations, we are not only aligning our thoughts with the word of God, but we are aligning our world with the word of God.

I didn’t say “the world”, but I did say our world. Your world will be shaped by your words.

This is why the word “yet” is such a life giving word.

If you do not have something that you are hoping for, begin to say “yet”.

We don’t have a house that allows us to host, yet.

We don’t have a car large enough for my family , yet.

We don’t have the income to take our family on a vacation, yet.

That posture is life giving!

Is not ignoring the negative, but it is speaking to what you are believing to come. It is bringing hope to a situation that others see as hopeless.

Now let me unpack some places we see this in the scripture.

Ezekiel 37. There is a passage about a vision that the prophet had about a Valley of Dry Bones. In his vision, he is seeing Israel far from God, removed from their home, and in captivity. In this vision, look at what the Lord asks him to do.

Ezekiel 37:1 (NIV)

The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.

Ezekiel 37:4 (NIV)

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!

Ezekiel 37:7 (NIV)

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

God said to Ezekiel speak to these bones, and watch them come to life!

In the same way, you need to speak to the things in your life that are dead and watch them come to life again.

Speak over your finances.

Speak over your marriage.

Speak over your goals and dreams.

Speak over your children.

If you do not see what you want to see, start speaking to that thing!

Numbers 20:7–8 (NIV)

The Lord said to Moses,

“Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”

This passage is actually a lesson for us.

God commanded Moses to speak to the rock so that water would flow from it. It wasn’t just that water would flow from it, but it would be used as a moment to open the eyes of the people with Moses, and it would reveal another powerful aspect of God to them.

For those of you who know the story, Moses did not speak over the rock. Instead, he hit the rock with his staff, and water came out. This disobedience caused Moses his chance to enter into the Promised Land.

God said speak to the rock, and he struck the rock.

When God says speak, you need to open up your mouth and speak to what he’s calling you to speak to.

Let me take you to when Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land, and they needed to fight against Jericho. God commanded them not to use swords and spears, but to simply walk around the walls of the city for seven days. On the seventh day, here is what God commanded Joshua to tell Israel.

Joshua 6:16 (NIV)

The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!

When Israel did this, the walls of Jericho supernaturally fell, and the Israel possessed the Land.

Likewise, the Sound of Revival can also be a shout.

Have you ever wondered why we get so excited in our worship services? Have you ever wondered why people will sometimes spontaneously sing, pray or shout? It’s the sound of revival. It’s speaking, singing and shouting over what the enemy is bringing against us.

Conclusion

I’ll close with this final example.

All of us who have been reading from the Book of Acts we read through this.

Paul and Silas were placed in a prison for preaching the Gospel. As people turned away from idolatry, the business of selling idols took a hard hit. They decided to bring false accusations against Paul and Silas and had them placed in a jail.

They could have sat in jail and been quiet. But instead, they decided to pray and sing. In other words, they began to open up their mouth.

Acts 16:25–27 (NIV)

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.

I wonder how many of you just need to start speaking over your situation. How many of you need to start singing over your situation.

We need to sound like people of faith.

When you sound like a person of faith, you don’t need to go around telling people you are a follower of Jesus, you sound like a follower of Jesus.

And when we, all of us together, begin to open up the sound of revival, revival will come to our church, it will come to our homes, and it will come to our city.