A Great Revival Pt 2.

Introduction

We’ve been talking about Revival and this reminds me of a story of an old preacher who was known for his simple wisdom and love of God. One day while at a special meeting of students he was asked this question. “Why don’t we see revival happening in the Church in the United States today?” The pastor was quiet for a moment, thinking on it, and scratched his chin. After the silence, he wisely said this,”The reason why we are not living in revival today……is because we are content to live without it.” That is, we are content to live without God working in, on, and through us in new exciting, bold, strong, and unexpected ways. Church family, I pray that we are never a people who are content not seeing God working big time in our lives and our church body and everyone around us. I pray that we are never a people who are content with plateauing in our faith. I pray that instead we are a people who are on fire for Him in every situation and long for His glory and the furthering of His kingdom above everything else. Let’s pray.

Prayer

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much, that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.

Context

So far in our series through the book of Nehemiah, we have seen God work in huge and unexpected ways in Jerusalem. Indeed, huge tasks were accomplished, the city was rebuilt, and now, the attention of the people goes away from revitalizing by rebuilding, to revitalization in worship and commitment to God. In last week’s text, we saw the calling cards of revival happening within their midst, especially that the people were called into a new deepness of relationship with God, The Word of God was proclaimed to them, and they responded to it. All of this happened, with people prostrating (laying down) themselves before God and asking Him in deep and fervent prayer to revive and revitalize the people.

In today's text, we see that revival is still happening and more actions that take place during a revival. What they were experiencing were the actions that we have seen both biblically and historically happen when an area is experiencing revival (that is, God pouring Himself out in a new and unprecedented way and people turning to Him in new, strong, and unprecedented ways as they confess Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord). God ordained revivals have actions that take place. Those actions were happening here. For us today, if you are wanting to experience personal revival or church wide, city wide, area wide revival, it is good for you to know, watch for, being an anxious participant in, and ask God to orchestrate these actions. So, for the sake of knowing them, watching for them, and preparing for them, let’s jump into the text and from it I want you to see and understand these actions that always happen during a great and true revival.

Message

The first action in today’s text I want you to see and understand that happen during revival is that the: People cry out to God 1-4

9 On the twenty-fourth day of this month the Israelites assembled; they were fasting, wearing sackcloth, and had put dust on their heads. 2 Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. 3 While they stood in their places, they read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day and spent another fourth of the day in confession and worship of the Lord their God. 4 Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani stood on the raised platform built for the Levites and cried out loudly to the Lord their God.

A few days after the festival they had just celebrated (known as the feat of the tabernacle, the feast of booths, or sukkot) had finished, the people came together again. This time, the realization of what they as people had done in their betrayal and rebellion against God, they took to fasting and mourning over their wicked thoughts, deeds, and actions. They came together somberly and seriously, putting aside anyone and everyone else, because this was a family affair, one that they needed to get right together. Once again, the book of the Law was read in front of them and then they spent a significant amount of time confessing their sins out loud and worshiping God. In their midst, were worship leaders who cried out loudly and desperately to the Lord their God.

Have you ever had one of these moments before? Perhaps you have had many. It’s hard to explain, but to anyone who has ever been in one, it is very much real. With your world falling around you, with no options left available to move forward, with every hope you had completely extinguished, what do you do?.... You stop, because no action, movement, or thought can do you any earthly good in this moment and you know it. Sadness grips you and at this time, even the simple and regular act of breathing seems unimportant as you become overcome. In desperation, not even knowing what to say, you cry out, “Oh God, please help me.” You know you should say more, so you do, and the only thing that comes out is the same, “Oh God, please help me.” You try for a third time and all that comes out is, “Oh God, I don’t know what to do or say, please help me.” This is what they collectively were feeling.

There is a pastorism, maybe it comes from somewhere else, I just know I've only ever heard pastors much older and wiser than me say this, that goes, “Sadness and grief are the healing emotions.” Israel was now more deeply grieved than ever, they were at their lowest point, and now seeing no other options as viable, good, or useful, they committed themselves even more so to God, His goodness, His righteousness, and His forgiveness for their sins that were terrible. Revival wasn’t only in the air and in their midst, now it was in their hearts, in their inner selves and beings. They were ready for more of God. God ordained revivals have actions that take place. One of which is that people cry out to God. Believer, do you cry out God? Have you? Does the fact that He is disgraced and thought little of move you in despair requiring action? Are you ready to feel and experience these things before your God and before your church body? Or are you not ready for that because the sin of pride and the need for control has you in its grips? If not that, what is it? Are you not that desperate for God yet? Well, you should be. Everyone of us should be, we have no room for pride, because at the end of day nothing is ours, it’s all God’s and He will do with it what He wills. Don’t be afraid believer, don’t be afraid, church, to cry out to God, He is waiting for you to, so that He can revive your brought down spirit.

This leads us to our next point, the next action I want you to see and understand that happens during revival is that we must:

Know and admit reality 5-37

5 Then the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said, “Stand up. Blessed be the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting.”Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 You,[a] Lord, are the only God.[b] You created the heavens, the highest heavens with all their stars, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them, and all the stars of heaven worship you. 7 You, the Lord, are the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and changed his name to Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful in your sight, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and Girgashites— to give it to his descendants. You have fulfilled your promise, for you are righteous. 9 You saw the oppression of our ancestors in Egypt and heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10 You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his officials, and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly they treated our ancestors. You made a name for yourself that endures to this day. 11 You divided the sea before them, and they crossed through it on dry ground. You hurled their pursuers into the depths like a stone into raging water.12 You led them with a pillar of cloud by day, and with a pillar of fire by night, to illuminate the way they should go. 13 You came down on Mount Sinai, and spoke to them from heaven. You gave them impartial ordinances, reliable instructions, and good statutes and commands. 14 You revealed your holy Sabbath to them, and gave them commands, statutes, and instruction through your servant Moses. 15 You provided bread from heaven for their hunger; you brought them water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to go in and possess the land you had sworn[c] to give them. 16 But our ancestors acted arrogantly; they became stiff-necked and did not listen to your commands. 17 They refused to listen and did not remember your wonders you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.[d] But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love, and you did not abandon them. 18 Even after they had cast an image of a calf for themselves and said, “This is your god who brought you out of Egypt,” and they had committed terrible blasphemies, 19 you did not abandon them in the wilderness because of your great compassion. During the day the pillar of cloud never turned away from them, guiding them on their journey. And during the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go. 20 You sent your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst.21 You provided for them in the wilderness forty years, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell. 22 You gave them kingdoms and peoples and established boundaries for them. They took possession of the land of King Sihon[e] of Heshbon and of the land of King Og of Bashan. 23 You multiplied their descendants like the stars of the sky and brought them to the land you told their ancestors to go in and possess. 24 So their descendants went in and possessed the land: You subdued the Canaanites who inhabited the land before them and handed their kings and the surrounding peoples over to them, to do as they pleased with them. 25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land and took possession of well-supplied houses, cisterns cut out of rock, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. They ate, were filled, became prosperous, and delighted in your great goodness. 26 But they were disobedient and rebelled against you. They flung your law behind their backs and killed your prophets who warned them in order to turn them back to you. They committed terrible blasphemies. 27 So you handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them. In their time of distress, they cried out to you, and you heard from heaven. In your abundant compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the power of their enemies. 28 But as soon as they had relief, they again did what was evil in your sight. So you abandoned them to the power of their enemies, who dominated them. When they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven and rescued them many times in your compassion. 29 You warned them to turn back to your law, but they acted arrogantly and would not obey your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, which a person will live by if he does them. They stubbornly resisted,[f] stiffened their necks, and would not obey. 30 You were patient with them for many years, and your Spirit warned them through your prophets, but they would not listen. Therefore, you handed them over to the surrounding peoples. 31 However, in your abundant compassion, you did not destroy them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and compassionate God. 32 So now, our God—the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant— do not view lightly all the hardships that have afflicted us, our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all your people, from the days of the Assyrian kings until today.33. You are righteous concerning all that has happened to us, because you have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly. 34 Our kings, leaders, priests, and ancestors did not obey your law or listen to your commands and warnings you gave them. 35 When they were in their kingdom, with your abundant goodness that you gave them, and in the spacious and fertile land you set before them, they would not serve you or turn from their wicked ways. 36 Here we are today, slaves in the land you gave our ancestors so that they could enjoy its fruit and its goodness. Here we are—slaves in it! 37 Its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have set over us, because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please. We are in great distress.

The Levites got up, and what did they do here? They spoke the truth! They didn’t sugar coat it, they didn’t overlook some of the parts, they didn’t make excuses for themselves, they just said the truth in this worship service. What truth did they speak, well, there are 3 categories. The 1st truth they spoke about was the greatness and goodness of God, they spoke about the great deeds He had done for them all throughout their history, retelling how He had shown His abundant love and willingness to forgive. The 2nd area of truth was the mistakes and sins that the whole nation had made, they made idols, they took what wasn’t theirs, they uttered blasphemies against God, they ignored warnings, and they continued and continued and continued into a state of evil sin that God sent them out and away from the land that He had promised them and in the temple in which the almighty God dwelled. They were confessing their sins, their rebellion against God as a group. Then, the 3rd area of truth they spoke about was their current situation. Now that they had been all called back into relationship with Him, still they are enslaved by foreign powers. They are a ruled race by outsiders, paying taxes and homage to others that they couldn’t afford, forced to give the fruits of their labors to someone else instead of feeding themselves and giving to the worship of their God. They were in distress, and this is not a situation where the chosen people of God should find themselves if they were in His service and good graces. Yet the fact and truth remains, so there must be some action that they need to take.

The people here are well on their way to revival, because they are now knowing and openly admitting the reality of the situation they were in and not making excuses for it any longer. There is a true story of a church not very far from here that was experiencing a very hard time. With nearly 150 years of history, it had deep roots in a rural area, even winning many community awards for its activity in the 1950’s and 70’s. In fact, such a cornerstone was it, that the whole area and region is referred to by the name of the church. However, Over time, something happened. The Word of God stopped being preached (instead morality was), division took place many times, lives stopped being changed by The Gospel of Jesus, and Unqualified leaders and selfish leaders took control of the body. Before too long, God stopped honoring the ministry of that church. This led to times of both drastic and steady decline from the 90s until they found themselves in a bad place, even after renting their church house out to another congregation that would meet Sunday evenings. This continued until almost everyone left, the pastor at the time was very aged, had no vision of purpose for the congregation, and he found himself with usually only 3 other people on a Sunday morning. When this happened, he stopped preaching sermons and he taught bible lessons from a lectern on the ground and functioned more as a personal chaplain than a pastor in his twilight years. Seeing no way forward, but believing God wasn’t done with this church yet, they came together and agreed to be absorbed into a local church that had the resources and manpower to continue the ministry there.

That’s just the beginning of the story though, at that time, the unstoppable winds of change began to sweep the area! What had before mostly been abandoned or underused farm land that went unused for decades and ruined old farm houses that trees grew through started to be developed. In just a few years time, a population explosion happened in the area, and these people needed a local church to attend and receive community ministry from! In this little church after they let go and let God take control of it, the Word of God was (and is) being preached, the church regularly comes together for prayer, the people became on fire for God and His Glory, new believers are constantly made and discipled, and God honored and honors their ministry. Today, this church is no longer under the wing of another local body, but as was the original plan, it became a healthy, thriving, revitalized church and able to stand on its own. God breathed revival and revitalization into the area, into the church, into the people, and now this church body stands as a bright beautiful beacon on display from the power of our almighty God.

This story is remarkable but not unique, and we see it happening right now in multiple places even within our own county. God ordained revivals have actions that take place. One of which is that people of God admit reality. For the Israelites, they admitted that they had sinned and fallen away from God at the same time, they also admitted who God is, who they and their ancestors didn’t want Him to be, all powerful, all mighty, in total control, jealous for His glory, unable to look pleasantly upon sin. Which is, quite the opposite of what any fallen human (including myself, including yourself) is like. So, believer, I ask you once again. Are you ready and willing to experience revival? Are you ready to let God take control and do as He wills? Are you experiencing new and deeper relationships with God or are you plateaued? If you, if we have plateaued, then it’s know and admit the reality you and we find ourselves in.

Which leads us to our natural next action that we will see unfold which is to:

Commit yourself to God 38

38 In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement in writing on a sealed document containing the names of our leaders, Levites, and priests.

After all of this, coming together, confessing what they had done and admitting the reality of their situation and the reality of our infinite God, they knew as His chosen people, they had to do something. So, they committed themselves to God in a new, strong, and binding way that none of them had ever done before. Next week, we will see more about this commitment, for now, it will be to know that they took action by committing themselves to God, His Laws, His Statues, His Glory, and His kingdom.God ordained revivals have actions that take place. One of which is the people committing themselves to God and putting away all else.

Conclusion

Beloved, we know the mission that God has called each and every one of us individually and collectively is to: Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples, but are you prepared and preparing your hearts to do whatever it takes to live it out? Let us all in union cry to God, Know and admit the reality of our situation and commit ourselves to whatever it is God has in store for us without looking back.

With all of that being said, I would be remiss if I didn’t share the Gospel (or the Good News) of Jesus Christ with you today, for the benefit of both believer and non-believer in the room. This begins all the way back at the beginning, God created everything, and he created all things good. He gave His most treasured creation (us, mankind) the ability of free will, the ability to choose Him or rebellion. Man was deceived by Satan and desired to be like God and sinned (or rebelled against God). This brought the curse of sin and death into the world and it remains with us to this day; which separates us from God. God, though, loved His creation (mankind) so much that He worked through history to redeem all mankind that would turn to Him from sin so that we can experience a full and perfect relationship with Him again. This was through the perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the pay for sins. Accepting this free gift from God, makes you new and forgiven. All you have to do is accept this free gift by repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus and you will get to experience the good side of God’s justice forever. So, now that you know this, you can no longer plead ignorance. I invite and urge you to respond today non-believer and apply this to every part of your life believers in the audience today.

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much, that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.