It time to clean house

Introduction to Revival

Let’s begin with a question, alright?

What is revival?

The root of the word itself gives us a hint into its meaning, revival mean to revive to bring back to life. Revival is an awakening of God’s people, a time of refreshment if you will...

And without a doubt, Revival is important in the life of the church.

Now you might say, why? I am a Christian? I have been saved and so forth.

I could respond with this question.... It is great that you are saved…but as your passion, desire and zeal for the Lord wained?

You see we find to do really well for a long time after salvation, but sadly something might happen, or it just may be over a period of time or zeal, excitement for the Lord wains..

And so much follows with that.....

Your spiritual life declines....

You might say, I’m good .... but are you.

Church involvment

That is the point I want to make, are you as close or closer to the Lord today as you were when you first gave your heart to Jesus.

Do you have a desire to serve, to be involved, to help as you once did......

Why do I mention this .... because revival is a concept that is clearly seen in the word of God.

God’s people have always been ones to be passionate about the Lord, about serving Him and then something happens or times gets away from them and they fall into sin or suffer a period of spiritual decline...

And God comes to a person, and suddenly the tide turns and people begins to the return the Lord as God works in this one persons life...

Now it is easy to think… gee I am not like the children of Israel… I haven’t fallen to idolatry?

Ask yourself this.... is there anything you put in front of God, even self lately that keeps you from following, from serving.... from allowing Him to be Lord in our life.

Last Sunday evening something great happened.... a bunch of people came out to participate in the Christmas cantata initial practice… I was excited.

Last Sunday

Some things were said Sunday morning that made me stop and think… you know what… we could be on the verge of revival?

Do I think we need revival?

Yes, each of us do, including me. including me. we need to be refreshed.

Please do not get me wrong, our church does a lot of good things… it ministers to each other and the community. But that cannot take the place of us going out, witnessing, sharing and spreading the gospel message.

We must have telling and doing…

All that’s need is a spark, to fan into flame in us that so that we might be like Isaiah who said “here am I ....send me!” ()

So lets begin today and let me take you to the book of Judges in the Old Testament and lets find Judges chapter 6 and lets consider the life of Gideon.

Judges 6

Judges 6:11–18 ESV

11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” 17 And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. 18 Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”

__________________________________________

Now the Midianites have been oppressing the land of God for a great while at this time. Now the Midianities are the descendants of Midian, a son of Abraham .

tells us that Abraham had taken another wife later in life, after Sarah’s death and she bore him several children, one of which is Midian. The Bible tells us that Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac, but while still living he gave gifts to his concubines children and sent them away to the east away from Isaac; Genesis 25:6.

So south east of the the promises land is where Midian ended up and there was always a bit of a rivalry there because Abraham loved Issac more.

It is seen here(Judges) the Midianites are oppressing the children of God quite heavily. As such the children are suffering...

But why is all this happening.... Israel has fell into apostacy....

Apostasy is where a person or people turn away from God, from what they know is true and fall into sin, idolatry, and worship of false gods.

It is a difficult day in the land....

1. There will be Difficult Days.....

As I have gotten a little bit older, and hopefully some wiser as well, there are some things, points to life I think I am fairly certain of today.

Here is one of them: as long as men and women live there will be difficult days ahead of us.

People have this grandiose idea that man can live a life un-touched by suffering, poverty, sickness, or some other aliment that troubles people.

as long as men live there will be difficult days ahead of us.

People think all I have to do is live good, eat healthy, consider my fellow man and all will be well.

All of those are good points my friends, but because we are human we have to consider the fact that life will not be perfect.

Suffering, discouragement or disappointment will come if we live long enough.

We know this is try because this world and those in it are touched by sin.

Now consider, Gideon and the children of Israel...

This is exactly where the children of Israel are, they rebelled, turned away from God and lived life on their own terms and sin has brought them to a bad place. Things are so bad that we find poor Gideon trying to process the wheat in the winepress, not the thrashing floor where it was normally done..

Why,

They were trying to hide what harvest they could for themselves, the Midianites would come in and steal their crops, leave them hungry and without.

So they have resorted to doing things in some unlikely spots so that their food will not be discovered....

Now on this day the Angel of the Lord comes to visit.... This is not a social call, the angel has been sent to Gideon.

Now as the Angel of the Lord comes to visit with Gideon, He extends a greeting to him…

Judges 6:12 ESV

12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”

The Lord is with you...

That phrase shocked Gideon. To be with him meant God was showing them favor, blessing and help...

Gideon is puzzeled....

And Gideon asks what we do… If God is with us, where is He…

Look at verse 13

Judges 6:13 ESV

13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

Gideon is asking a fair question, He is struggling to hear this welcome given the plight of his people.

Where is God? Why has all this happened to us?

Here is a question for you?

Do you ever have the question “why” stuck in your mind?

Why this, Why that.... When will my situation improve? and so on...............

Sure, just look at this past week.... God why does these things happen? Why did almost 60 people die in Las Vegas....

The root of it all is sin, we live in a world touched by sin…

We cannot find answers to the specifics at times, why this and not that....

But the world we live in is ruined by sin, Satan is at world to kill, steal and destroy, to hurt people, hopefully alienate people from God, in the hopes of taking them to hell with him.

But I am sure of this .... in the midst of suffering, there is a God who is on his throne and His Son, our Lord sits at the right hand of the Father....

He is aware, He is at work, He is helping..... He is coming again, soon I believe..

The call is there, difficult days exist in this world, all the more reason to get our house in order.

The Lord is at work in our world and in you… know this regardless of anything else you face. Know He is with you!

question of sufferin

Now this brings me to a second thought today....

2. God Continues to Call.....

In the midst of troubling times, God still seeks to call people to lead.... to act… and to serve.

We can see this in Gideon’s life in our passage today, but it is true that God has done this all throughout our time....

It doesn’t matter who you are… God can use you if you are willing.

Let’s go back to our text and see what God is doing… Verses 14-16

Judges 6:14–16 ESV

14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

Man this is a beautiful passage my friends… in fact it is down right awesome.

Why is it so special you might ask....

A. Divine appointment… Gideon might be the smallest, and his household a member of the smallest of all the clans… but no matter… God has called him.

Friends the circumstances do not matter when God is the one calling and sending..

God told Gideon to “go”!

Moses was a murderer and wasn’t the best speaker, but God used Him.

Joshua was the stand in, a young man who was faithful and God used Him.

Rahab was a harlot, but God used her and saved her and her household because of her faithfulness..

Come to the New Testament and the examples of who they once were reflect a fallen tide of people… But God used them.

He can use you as well… You don’t have to be the best you just have to be available.

B. Divine Purpose… Save them from their enemy.... Gideon was sent to go and save them, literally deliver the nation from its oppressor.. Midian.

Midian has carried a grudge against the children of Israel every since Abraham sent them away only choosing Isaac to be the Son of Promise according to the will of God.

But what does it really say to us today in 2017… the world, those opposed to God will always fight the children of God, the things of God and the ways of God. It is fact...

Gideon was called to deliver… We might not be at war my friends but there is a Spiritual battle all around us… we are called of God to fight, to pray, to work on His behalf seeking to push back the darkness...

Man, how can we fail.... we cannot if we stand with God. but if we rebel, if we are inactive, the battle is lost. God is sending us...

C. Divine reality… Here is the bottom line my friends, He is sending us and He will be with us. At the end of verse 14< God reminds Gideon, I am sending you…remember that! but I am going to be with you… remember that as well.

________________

Dear friends, there are only two reasons people ( born again child of God) do not feel the presence of God....

1.. Spiritual attack.... We may feel alone, we may feel like the answer is long being delayed. Listen Satan seeks to hinder God’s people.

2.. We have Fallen away… when we fall away from the Lord, we get into sin, discontent, whatever.... we isolate ourselves from Him. He is there, but we have changed the channel on the TV if you will!

But if you are seeking God, looking for Him you will find Him..

God continues to call...... maybe it’s you today!

Now one last thought for today.... are you ready!

3. Cut Down the Idols in Your Life....

It’s time to clean house. Before anything else could happen, their own affairs had to be set in order…

They had to get rid of all the idol’s in their life.

You see, the people collectively had fallen into sin, some began to worship Baal and Asherah… Baal was the Sun God and Asherah the Moon, so the worship of both covered day and night… The people had fallen into this sin, and those who didn’t where to scared to do anything about it…

God wanted them removed and a sacrifice made to Him...

Let me share the passage with you....

Judges 6:25–27 ESV

25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it 26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” 27 So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.

What is the secret of a life lived for God…

There are no other gods, idols, nothing else in your life that prevents you from seeing, hearing and following God.

Think about what is happening here, the Lord speaks to Gideon that night, and told him to cut down the asherah poles, and to pull down the altar of baal.

He was to make from those items a altar to the Lord and offer a certain bull unto the Lord.

Now here is what we think, since the Midian’s had kept food scarce, this certain bull may have been saved to offer as a sacrifice for Ba’al.

Nonetheless, the Lord commands it be given to him in worship as a sacrifice.

So Gideon, he does as the Lord commanded.

But here is why I like Gideon, he is just like us in so many ways..

He is uncertain, scared… He knows the right thing to do.. but he does it under the cover of darkness to keep from being met head on with a mob.

He is stepping out on faith but he is nervous.... are you ever like that?

I am....

But the good news is this, He is obedient.

He does as the Lord said and tore down the altars to those false gods, he burned them under the altar of the Lord and offered the proper sacrifice the Lord required for this sin.

Now the next morning...

the towns people were not to happy, they found out it was Gideon and they sought to take matters into their own hands… When Gideon’s dad stepped in...

Lets look at the text one more time,

Verses 28-32....

Judges 6:28–32 ESV

28 When the men of the town rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built. 29 And they said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” And after they had searched and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” 30 Then the men of the town said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.” 31 But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down.” 32 Therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he broke down his altar.

Now as the people sought to punish Gideon, Joash (Gideon’s father) who owned the altar spoke up for His Son, but it is a play on words if you will.

Now as the people sought to punish Gideon, Joash who owned the altar spoke up for His Son, but it is a play on words if you will.

Joash says… you heathens insult your own god… if he cannot defend his altar for himself what good is he… if you insult him, by defending what is his when he is capable, you yourself might be deserving of death.

Let him deal with matters himself...

But of course, they is the beginning of a series of events that turn the nation back to God...

Joash, the father of Gideon I supposed learned a valuable lesson this day… God’s people cannot fight for false idol’s nor serve them.

Joash, the father of Gideon I supposed learned a valuable lesson this day… God’s people cannot fight for false idol’s nor serve them.

There is only one true God… and his name is Yahweh!

This has to be the truth for us to hear today… if revival will take place in us them we must seek Hid face, repent of our sin and follow Jessus.

Let me ask you a question...

Do you have a idol in your life? Not baal or Asherah

But something you love more than God..... pull it from its lofty place

Money, possession, things, people.... the list can go on and on...

But you already no whether you are fully living for God or not...

Lets clean house.

break down the walls that keep up from being housed

let us pray....