Seeking God for Revival
Notes
Transcript
Preliminary:
Preliminary:
Well I don’t need to remind you that Revival begins Friday. Are you ready?
I know life is crazy busy, and times are stressful, and it might be a bad time with all you have going on right now - But sometimes I think it is good to stop take a breather and get revived.
I want to encourage you to take your freedom in this revival.
If you feel like raising your hand - raise your hand - in fact I would raise it on purpose a time or two.
Feel like saying AMEN or Praise the Lord or Hallelujah or some other appropriate phrase - by all means say it
Feel like going to someone to encourage them (I don’t recommend hugging or hand shaking - but if God’s in it you better do it)
Feel like coming to the altar in the beginning of the service - come to the altar.
Let’s relax and just let God work among us.
Sometimes however there is some things that have to be done prior to seeing God move in that fashion -
Our text talks about that: Psalm 63
Read: Psalm 63:1-2
Read: Psalm 63:1-2
1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, My flesh longeth for thee In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; 2 To see thy power and thy glory, So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Now perhaps this should be reserved for part of The Glory series - but I felt led to preach this tonight.
The Psalmist begins with a prayer a longing
He identifies first who he is longing and seeking for: God
He identifies how much he longs for God
My soul thirsteth for thee
My flesh longeth for thee
Then he says what he is longing to see
To see thy power and glory as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary.
David is praying, “Lord I’m in a dry spell spiritually and need your help”
In our words, “Lord I need a revival.”
Greater Vision several years ago sang a song that I think of sometimes the lyrics were simply, “Lord do a new thing, in the old fashioned way.”
This is kind of what David was praying for.
He expresses the reason why he is seeking and longing for God
Look at Psalm 63:1 the last phrase:
“In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;”
David is telling us - the situation is pretty bad - and He’s longing for a fresh encounter with God.
As I scope out the spiritual landscape around us I notice that we too are in a spiritual famine, the bleached bones of many lie wasted away in the sands of time we are desperately longing for and praying for God.
As I read Psalm 63 I have to ask myself - “Why was it dried out?” I want to talk about at least two reasons why God’s people dry out.
1. Too Much Heat
1. Too Much Heat
Now notice I did not say too much fire. Fire purifies and cleanses - but heat from friction with dry things out and burn things up and out.
1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
As I look out on the Christian landscape I see people who are fighting and warring among themselves. This kind of friction and heat will dry up the spiritual life and we will find ourselves in desperate straits fast.
Margaret Allen tax accountant told the story several years ago that she met with an old farmer who had owned and used a particular tractor and implement for I believer over 40 years. She asked him how he managed to use it for that long, he told her it took lots of oil.
Lord send the oil.
Too much Cold
Too much Cold
As we saw just last week the cold can affect so many things. Even the heat. It was getting so cold in some places that it was taxing the power grid.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
I remember in MO a year or so before we moved to Wichita, during the winter months that we had a strange phenomon. Now I don’t know the technical term, but the meteorologists and the radars all said that it was snowing in our area. The problem was it was so cold, all the precipitation in the air had frozen and dried up so there was nothing to make snow with - but it was snowing, and you couldn’t see it.
I’m afraid love of many has grown so cold that you can’t see or feel it any more.
Lord send a fresh outpouring of holy love to the Church.
The Cure
The Cure
The Psalmist realized the cure was not in his training as a warrior
not in his abilities as a king
not in his music, wealth, cleverness, or anything else
HE WAS SEEKING GOD
A God who promised to
3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, And floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, And my blessing upon thine offspring:
A God who promised
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
The God who had shown his power and glory in the sanctuary before -
We sometimes talk about the Fire and the Glory
“...during the 1905 revival in the Mukti center in India, the evangelist Ramabai had been teaching the hundreds of girls at the center about the Holy Spirit. As they were meeting together in prayer, girls began to be filled with the Spirit. Early one morning while all the girls were on their knees weeping and praying, suddenly a visible fire flamed around one of the girls. They all saw it, and one girl ran across the room for a bucket of water. She was about to throw it on the girl when she realized it was not literal fire. The girl told them all that she had been filled with the Spirit, and she exhorted them to repent: “O Lord, I am full of joy, but forgive and cleanse my sisters as you have me…O Lord, we must have revival, we must have it. Begin it today.”
Duewel, Wesley L.. Revival Fire (Kindle Locations 260-266). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
Or one that happened a little closer to home and a little more recently
Bro. Howard Johnson held the first revival soon after the church [Peace Valley] was built. One night during this revival a woman there with her two children and a hired girl decided to go home as the altar service was long and the children sleepy. She had only gone a short way when they heard shouts of victory and she looked back. They said it looked like sparks of fire showering on the roof of the church. A young girl had prayed through. That woman’s youngest son later became the Sunday School Superintendent.
This would have been around 1940
The History of the Bible Holiness Church, Cecelia Leulf Douglas and Ruth Smith Taylor p. 241
I pray along with David tonight
1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, My flesh longeth for thee In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; 2 To see thy power and thy glory, So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Will you pray this with me - Let’s close in prayer tonight on behalf of our up coming revival
Lets not give in to the pressure to dry up and dry out and freeze up Lets pray God would pour out His Spirit upon us during these services.