Revive Us Again Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Renewed Opportunities
Renewed Opportunities
I have recently had lots of conversations with people that awakened their knowledge and opened their eyes to that which they thought they knew about the Bible. Many were taught things about the Bible that were not quite accurate when you dig a little deeper.
The point is not really to expose heresies or prove a point, as much as it is to create or awaken a new desire for believers to rediscover the depths of truth in the Scriptures and hunger for a deeper relationship with the Lord
I have also discovered, that you can have all the depth of knowledge and a desire to pursue knowledge, void of a desire for deeper relationship with the Christ.
Revival is a renewal, a rediscovery, a reawakening, a redirecting of desire to know, love, and please the Lord with your whole heart and life. It involves receiving God’s forgiveness and then living the renewed life in that forgiveness.
So often, we perceive revival as an occasion, an event, or a one and done. We define it by manifestations and activations. But revival is a daily thing of desires directed to the Lord.
Zechariah, grandson of the Priest Iddo, comes into service of the Lord after the return from their seventy years of exile in Babylon. He was a priest in addition to a prophet. His ministry spanned into the reign of Xerxes I, king of Persia during the time of Esther. While Haggai’s prophecies pointed out Israel’s sin and willful disobedience, Zechariah’s are actually words of encouragement to a people struggling to restore worship to the Lord.
https://www.insight.org/resources/bible/the-minor-prophets/zechariah Copyright ©️ 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Everyone of us need a personal revival. At first glance of Zechariah 12 and 13 one might only see the judgement of God. But in deeper review one will discover God’s mercies in the midst of His call to repentance and renewal. You also see God revealing Messiah to us afar off.
The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him:
I love how God reminds Israel of who He is. I believe true revival involves awakening each day and recognizing that the spirit within you, that arose this morning, was put there by the one who formed you. This speaks to the purpose of God for your life. This reminds me that God in my life, is intentional and therefore, each day is filled with opportunities to serve Him, not self.
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
Here we go with one of the most abused and misused words in the Bible, “Grace”. It is in the Hebrew, khane חֵן meaning favor or God choosing to show good-will towards you. It is the Yetzer HaTov יצר הטוב pursuing you even when your flesh nature inclines toward the Yetzer HaRa יצר הרע. Note that it is God who pours this good-will out with a desire for mercy from God’s judgment. But look who it is poured onto and through, “the one whom they have pierced”. This is Jesus Christ. The one we pierced with our sin against God. When our souls recognize what our sin does to Him, and it vexes or grieves us to the core, we are postured for revival.
“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.
Here in is the result of desire to be made clean and holy because of who Christ is. Here again we see the Christ, the “Fountain of Living Water” that cleanses, renews, restores, and revives us.
“And on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness.
True revival cannot come without removal of that which displeases God. In this is a prophetic word for us even today. The day is coming when all the idolatry of man shall be no more in the land. The day is coming when the spirit of uncleanness will be squelched once and for all. But that day has already come for those who are in hot pursuit of a passionate relationship with Jesus Christ our redeemer and deliverer. Now is your opportunity to remove every idolatrous desire within and embrace the holiness, daily right standing with God that does not come through religion but pure and undefined relationship. You have an opportunity right now to purpose that the spirit of uncleanness has no place in your life.
And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
When you face trials, do not always consider it punishment but refinement. When a soldier or an athlete's instructor pushes them and challenges them, they do not count it as punishment but testing that they may reach a higher potential than one who is never tested.
The end result here in Zechariah is “They are My people, an the Lord is their God.” This is the end result of revival.
Throughout Scripture “the third” is often connected to a day of Revival:
On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God:
And she said to them, “Go into the hills, or the pursuers will encounter you, and hide there three days until the pursuers have returned. Then afterward you may go your way.”
On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish,
Do you see a pattern here. It is a pattern of God bringing deliverance and revival to His people.
Chazal says that Abraham “saw afar off” meaning he had full assurance in the presence and promise of God even in the midst of his difficulties and unknown challenges and opportunities to come.
It is said that when Abraham “raised his eyes”, it was not a sensory matter but a spiritual matter. To “raise the eyes” is to shift your focus from the natural realm of troubles to the supernatural realm of deliverance. It is to turn your vision from the physical desires of the flesh to the righteous desires for and of the Lord.
In the flesh, which initiates desire? The object desired or the desire within the flesh for the object? When your eyes see something and desire is provoked within, did the object create the desire or was the root of desire already within you? Do you go around all day contemplating doughnuts thus struggling with doughnut desire every moment of the day? Do you go to bed and wake up dreaming and longing for doughnuts? Or, does the desire start when you see a doughnut?
The forbidden tree was in Eden before Adam. God presented the tree to Adam with instruction and there was no desire. Adam even presented it to Eve and there was no desire. It was not until another voice presented the tree in a different light. A false light. A deceptive light that is really not light at all but darkness.
This is the same with our fleshly desires today. When we redirect every desire of our being towards loving God and honoring Christ, revival has begun within us.
John Wesley said, “I continue to dream and pray about a revival of holiness in our day that moves forth in mission and creates authentic community in which each person can be unleashed through the empowerment of the Spirit to fulfill God's creational intentions.”
Let our prayers be for revival in our day. Let us realize that even in the midst of cultural captivity and social depravity, God brings revival to those who seek Him with all there heart. Let us not see these as days of trials but great opportunity.