PERSONAL PREPARATION FOR REVIVAL

Introduction

-As we have spent some weeks thinking about the revival meetings that are coming up next week, I have mentioned various examples of revivals that God has brought in recent centuries. One that I have not yet talked about happened in the Shantung province of China in the late 1920s into the 1930s through some Southern Baptist Missionaries who worked there.

~Missionary C. L. Culpepper stayed up late for devotions one night, but as he tried to pray he felt like stone. Finally, he asked, “Lord, what is the matter?” And this is what he reported:

~I had opened my Bible to Romans 2:17-21. It seemed the Apostle Paul was speaking directly to me when he said, “But if you call yourself a Christian and rely upon the Gospel, and boast of your relation to God, and know His will, and approve what is excellent; and if you are sure you are a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, a correction to the foolish, a teacher of children—you then who teach others, will you not teach yourself?”

~The Holy Spirit used these verses like a sword to cut deeply into my heart. God said to me, “You are a hypocrite! You claim to be a Christian! What have you really done for Christ? The Lord said those who believed on Him would have rivers of living waters flowing from their inmost being! Do you have that kind of power?”

~Culpepper awakened his wife, and they prayed into the night. The next morning at a prayer meeting with fellow workers, he confessed to pride and spiritual impotence, saying his heart was broken. The Holy Spirit began to so convict the others of sin that they could hardly bear it. He said:

~I watched their faces grow pale, then they began to cry and drop on their knees or fall prostrate on the floor. Missionaries went to missionaries confessing wrong feelings toward one another. Chinese preachers, guilty of envy, jealously and hatred, confessed their sins to one another.

~The revival spread through the seminary, the schools, the hospital, and the area churches. Culpepper said:

~The impression that the Shantung Revival wrote upon my soul lingers with me even today. Throughout the breadth and depth of Shantung Province, I discovered signs of revival. The churches were crowded as never before. Attendance multiplied. Countless people gave up their idols.

Still today, my heart often returns to Shantung.

-What an amazing story that gets me all sorts of excited about God could do next week.

-But if I am going to be completely honest, I have to confess that what is holding back revival in this church and in this nation is me. I have allowed myself to be more beholden to the world than to the things of the Spirit and have harbored sin and things of the flesh in my heart. Over the years I have lied and gossiped and gotten wrongfully angry and carried bitterness and unforgiveness and lust and hate and envy and greed and idolatry in me.

-And if there is going to be some sort of spiritual breakthrough in this church and nation through whatever happens next week, I need to be personally prepared for it. I have to do something about my heart.

-But if all of us here are going to be honest, then all of us could confess to something similar—we are what is holding revival back. And that is why all of us need to personally be prepared for whatever it is that God desires to do in us and through us.

-In the passage that we are looking at today, John the Baptist is doing his work of ministry where he is spiritually preparing the people for the revealing of Jesus as Messiah—the Savior of the World.

-And as John prepared the people, I believe that it will take a similar spiritual preparation by the people of God to receive a work of the power of God for the renewal of the soul and the revival of the church. So, let’s learn about this personal preparation:

Matthew 3:1–12 ESV

1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ” 4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

There are four senses in which we may personally prepare for revival:

I) Embrace the message of revival

-When John the Baptist began the ministry of making people ready for the Messiah’s coming, he had one clear message for the people—if you want to be ready for what God has in store, if you want to see Him move amongst His people, if you want a heart ready for the Messiah, then there is one needful thing for you: REPENT!

-Any time God was ready to do something, be it warning people of judgment, or preparing people for a great spiritual movement, the message has always been the same: REPENT.

-As one pastor put it:

Noah’s message from the steps going up to the Ark was not, “Something good is going to happen to you!”

Amos was not confronted by the high priest of Israel for proclaiming, “Confession is possession!”

Jeremiah was not put into the pit for preaching, “I’m O.K., you’re O.K.!”

Daniel was not put into the lion’s den for telling people, “Positive thinking will move mountains!”

John the Baptist was not forced to preach in the wilderness and eventually beheaded because he preached, “Smile, God loves you!”

The two prophets of the tribulation will not be killed for preaching, “God is in his heaven and all is right with the world!”

Instead, what was the message of all these men of God? Simple, one word: “Repent!”

-And it should be noted that when Jesus Himself first began His ministry, His sermon echoed that of John’s: REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND

-Repentance is a change of mind and direction. Instead of living for sin and self, you turn around and live for God. Instead of moving away from Him, you turn around and move toward Him.

-But hear me, to repent is not merely having a more positive view of God or making a few spiritual promises that you have no intention of ever keeping. It is a change of mind that includes a change of action.

-In v. 8 John tells the people to BEAR FRUIT IN KEEPING WITH REPENTANCE. That is, may you be broken over your sin and may your actions reflect that brokenness. That means that we let go of sinful attitudes and habits, and we embrace the love and mercy and holiness of God.

-It reminds me about a story of a young boy whose parents were rather wealthy. One day this boy got his hand stuck in an expensive, antique vase. His upset parents applied soap suds and cooking oil among other slippery liquids to try to get his hand out, but with no success. When they seemed ready to break the vase as the only way to release his hand, the frightened boy cried, “Would it help if I let loose of the penny that I’m holding?”

~His fist, holding so tightly to what he thought was treasure, prevented him from being free.

-We Christians are like that. God wants to bring revival and renewal and some spiritual freedom, but we are clinging too tightly to our sins and our worldliness and our idols.

-There is only one way to let it loose, and that is through repentance. The message of revival, to be prepared, is to repent.

II) Sense the urgency for revival

-As John was giving his message to repent, a natural question may have been WHY SHOULD THEY? And John gave the answer: THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND.

-For John’s message it meant that through Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God had broken into the plane of existence of humanity, and if the people were to be a part of that kingdom, there was an urgency to do something about it right then and there—RIGHT NOW IS THE TIME TO PREPARE YOURSELF BECAUSE THE KINGDOM IS HERE

-There was a choice that was placed before them, and there was no time to mull it over. In Jesus Christ the Kingdom of Heaven made its way to man—the sovereign rule and reign of God found in the King of kings and Lord of lords. That means that today is the day of salvation.

-So, for those going back and forth over whether or not to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, you need to make a decision now while a decision can still be made. You are not promised another day—you’re not even promised another breath.

-To go into eternity without Jesus Christ will leave you to have to pay for your sins all by yourself—but Jesus took those sins upon Himself if you would but believe and fully commit yourself to Him over any other life commitment you might have. There is an urgency for salvation.

-But there is also an urgency for revival. If God’s people are spiritually lackadaisical, they are ineffective for the work of God. When they are ineffective for the work of God, then they are not sharing and shining the light of Christ in a dark world. Without shining that light, the lost will remain hardened in their sinfulness. When sinners remain hardened in their sinfulness, then culture and society grow more morally corrupt.

~And on and on the cycle goes.

-You can’t tell me this hasn’t happened already. In a society that applauds the murder of babies. In a society that applauds lawbreakers. In a society that applauds perversion. In a society that calls good evil, and evil good. This society is already ultra-dark and will only get darker until God’s people feel the sense of urgency that they need to wake up and be revived and go about the work of the Lord in being world-changers.

-But, I tell you what, if we would be that church that heeds this urgent call, there’s no telling what God can do through us.

~I think of what John Wesley said:

“Give me one hundred men (and women) who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world.”

III) Avoid what suffocates revival

-While John is going about his ministry, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, came and wanted to be baptized by him. But John, being a prophet, knew that there was something not right in their hearts.

-So he calls them out, crying:

YOU BROOD OF VIPERS! WHO WARNED YOU TO FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME?

-Now, there’s a way to start a sermon. Can you imagine me coming up here one Sunday morning, and then start screaming: LISTEN UP YOU OFFSPRING OF SNAKES!...

-But he didn’t do it just to be insulting—he was telling them that he knew that they were being duplicitous. They weren’t there because they wanted to get right with God. They weren’t there because they wanted to be ready for God’s Messiah as He would reveal Himself. They weren’t there because they acknowledged their sins or wanted to turn from their sins. They were there for themselves, whatever that may have meant.

-In one way or another they were being hypocrites. They said they represented God, but they had no desire to actually serve God—they only wanted to serve themselves and to hold on to whatever political power they may have had and the influence that they had over the people.

-So, more than likely, they came to John to make an appearance, but it was all a show. Their hearts were far from God, and by what was going on in their heart they snuffed out any spiritual significance for what was going on.

-And we have to be careful ourselves not to have wrong reasons for seeking revival, because if our motives are wrong, we suffocate the work of the Spirit in our midst.

-Some people look for revival or act like they want revival as a way to mask their lack of spirituality. Some people seek revival because they have a desire for the sensational. Some people think maybe that through revival they can manipulate God into giving them what they want.

-Even as a pastor I have to be careful with my motives. Do I want revival, so I can have a big church? Do I want revival, so I can feel better about myself as a pastor? Do I want revival to feel spiritual?

-What is it that we are trusting in for revival and why do we want revival? If we trust in anything other than Jesus to bring revival, and if we desire anything other than His glory, then we will suffocate the work of revival before it even begins.

-So, we don’t trust emotions, we don’t trust experience, we don’t trust self, we don’t trust the world—we trust Jesus and want His glory…

IV) Accept the work of revival

-John tells the people that he is only the messenger—there is one coming after him who is so much greater than he is that he is not even worthy of doing for Him the most mundane task of a slave.

-While John baptized with water, this One who was to come, Jesus Christ, would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

-The baptism of the Holy Spirit happens at conversion and refers to the power of God at work in an individual. While there is only one baptism of the Holy Spirit, there can be many infillings. When someone is filled with the Spirit, they are empowered in supernatural ways to do the work of the Lord on earth.

-Baptism of fire refers to many different things.

1. The first thing that the Bible says that fire does is, fire reveals what a man really is, to show us to ourselves as God sees us.

2. The second thing that fire does is, fire refines, or purifies. It burns up all dross, all vanity, all self-righteousness, all personal ambition, all ungovernable temper.

3. In the next place, fire illuminates—truth that was dark before becomes as bright as day; passages in the Bible that could not be understood become understandable as every page of God’s Holy Word glows with heavenly light.

4. One thing more about this fire—fire spreads; nothing spreads like fire.

-And so the work of revival is bringing the Holy Spirit and fire upon us as we see ourselves for who we really are and see Christ for the Savior that He is.

~We allow Christ through His Spirit then to refine us of whatever is displeasing to Him.

~The Word of God then becomes more precious and we are able to see things that we did not understand before because our hearts were not in the right place.

~We are empowered to go forth and make disciples of all nations.

~And then we become a catalyst to ignite that fire in others.

-What God does through revival may be different than what we have ever experienced before, and at times it may be uncomfortable, but it is needed especially in days like this.

-The question is, are you satisfied with the way things are in your spiritual life, or do you want more: More Holy Spirit infilling, more fire, more power, more love, more joy, more peace, more hope—more of Jesus Christ. That’s revival working in you.

Conclusion

-But to receive it, you first must be alive in Christ. You must be born again in Him. If you have never trusted in Christ, you are not promised another chance, believe today.

-Christian, are you personally prepared for revival? I invite all Christians to come to the altar and prepare. Take to heart the message of repentance. Sense the urgency of your need for revival. Get rid of any wrong thoughts or motives that might suffocate revival. Be ready for God to bring a work of revival in your life, even if it means a lot of change…