Little of this, little of this.
I want to paint a picture for you
of what's happened in terms of biblical revivals
up to now.
There are revivals that are recounted in the
word, but they're not called revivals.
The closest thing you can get to it
in the Bible, the Hebrew Chaya, which means
to be alive, to live.
Like you say L'chaim, to life.
It can be used in an active sense,
in a causative sense, meaning to make alive,
to revive.
And on that level, the most famous verse
in the word for revival is Habakkuk, the
third chapter.
We want to look at the history of
revivals or highlights of past revivals.
We want to stop for a moment and
look at things in the word, even though
they're not called revivals.
That's a term that we've put on it.
But Habakkuk chapter 3 verse 2, a verse
we'll look at again next time, says, Lord,
I have heard of your fame.
Habakkuk, the prophet, saw Judah come under the
power of the Babylonians.
He cried out to God because the Judeans
were living in sin with no judgment.
God answered his prayer by sending the Babylonians
in judgment.
Then he had a worse predicament.
The Babylonians are totally godless and they're destroying
your people with no fear of you whatsoever.
What do we do?
And God communicated to Habakkuk the foundation of
trusting God and looking by faith and seeing
the end.
But Habakkuk could only look back to the
things that God had done.
He heard about them, had an experience in
himself.
He heard about the great acts of God.
Lord, I have heard of your fame.
I stand in awe of your deeds, O
Lord.
Renew them in our day, in our time.
Make them known in wrath.
Remember, mercy and that word, renew them, revive
them.
Triggers this verse to us as a key
revival verse and one that we're going to
look at again, as I said.
Charles Finney's revival lectures begin with this verse,
Habakkuk chapter 3 verse 2.
How did God renew and revive his work
and make his deeds known to Israel in
the past?
Well, you think of a man like Josiah,
a godly king.
We'll just look at this as one biblical
example over in 2 Kings.
It tells us about Josiah coming to reign
as king at just the age of eight
years old.
2 Kings chapter 22, verse 1.
He was eight years old when he became
king and he reigned in Jerusalem 31 years.
Verse 2 tells us he did what was
right in the eyes of the Lord and
walked in all the ways of his father,
David, not turning his side to the right
or to the left.
Then in the 18th year of his reign,
when he's 26 years old, he sent the
secretary, Shafan, son of Azalias, so on to
the temple of the Lord to rebuild the
temple, to restore it, to repair it, not
rebuild, but restore and repair.
And they found the book of the law
of God.
There was a revival of lost truth.
We didn't know, we didn't understand, we didn't
see.
Now they found the word.
There's a rediscovery of the word of God
that takes place.
But just so you can see the state
of the people at that time, these are
the only worshippers of Yahweh in the world.
They have the only temple that is properly
his anywhere in the world.
This is the true covenant people of God.
That's it.
They are the remnant.
Look at what it says in chapter 23,
verse 4.
The king ordered Hilkiah, the high priest, the
priest next in rank and the doorkeepers to
remove from the temple of the Lord all
the articles made for Baal and Asherah and
all the starry hosts.
So within the temple of the Lord, there
are idols to gods and goddesses.
Verse five, he did away with the pagan
priests appointed by the kings of Judah to
burn incense in the high places of the
towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem.
Those who burned incense to Baal, to the
sun and moon, to the constellations and to
all the starry hosts.
You realize that only those from the tribe
of Levi and then within that of the
family of Aaron could be appointed as priests.
And yet they were appointing pagans, non-Jews
to be priests and to burn incense to
all of the gods.
Verse six, he took the Asherah pole from
the temple of the Lord to the Kidron
Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there.
He ground it to powder and scattered the
dust over the graves of the common people.
He also tore down the quarters of the
male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple
of the Lord and where women did weaving
for Asherah.
Can you believe it?
They had homosexual prostitutes in the temple of
the Lord, not as a separate thing, but
as part of the fertility cult in the
worship of Baal.
It was in that state that the law,
the word was recovered.
Now, you have to understand, even though people
were sinning and knew what they were doing
was wrong, and many of them recognized that
they were violating the covenant.
Still, there was no gravity to it.
There was no no danger to it.
I mean, look, there are different gods, different
nations were incorporating these different gods into our
own worship, into our own lifestyle.
We still worship Yahweh also.
But when Josiah began to seek the Lord,
when there was a revival in his heart,
they absolutely, totally destroyed idolatry out of the
land and the hearts of the people, the
hearts of the nation were turned back to
righteousness and to fearing God.
In the reign of King Asa mentioned in
Second Chronicles chapters 14 and 15, the people
of Judah entered into a covenant with God
that whoever did not seek the Lord would
be put to death.
There was a revival, there was a national
turning, there was a consciousness.
We've got to get rid of the sin.
Things are not right between us and God.
We've got to seek his face.
And then he'd come and mightily deliver his
people or postpone the judgment that had to
come.
So whenever the works of God, the acts
of God just become a story, a memory,
it's time, it's time for revival to come
again.
Well, let me give you some quotes here
of revivals that Winky Prattney refers to and
some others that involve Charles Finney.
I'll quote from another book.
But on page 15 of Revival, Winky Prattney
talks about the outpouring of the spirit that
broke under the ministry of David Brainerd.
David Brainerd was the son-in-law of
Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan Edwards was the president of Princeton University.
One of the greatest philosophers and theologians in
the history of the United States and a
man greatly used by God in supernatural revival.
Brainerd was famed, as it says here, he
prayed in the snow until it melted around
him.
And was stained by his blood as he
coughed away his life with tuberculosis, even as
he was dying.
Sick at 28 years old, his testimony was
shaking people's lives, just reading about his life,
even how he died.
But the famous account, when he went into
the woods in the snow to pray, snow
up to his shoulders and he prayed with
such fervor that when he next looked around,
all the snow had melted around him.
It says that he prevailed in prayer for
revival among the American Indians.
He describes in his journal how it finally
began in 1745.
Look at this description.
This is revival breaking.
The power of God seemed to descend on
the assembly like a rushing mighty wind and
with an astonishing energy bore all down before.
I stood amazed at the influence that seized
the audience almost universally and could compare it
to nothing more aptly than the irresistible force
of a mighty torrent.
Almost all persons of all ages were bowed
down with concern together and scarce one was
able to withstand the shock of astonishing operation.
Among the American Indians, and there was really
one man that prevailed in prayer to see
it happen.
Skip over to page 121.
There's a description of the state of the
American frontier before God poured out his spirit
upon it last century.
Now, I want to say this and it's
important that you hear it.
Things many times before in the United States
have been like they are now or worse
in terms of the sinfulness of the society.
In terms of rationalism and skepticism within the
society.
In terms of anti-God movements within the
society.
But we don't know it because we're just
comparing things to recent years and it's worse
now than it was 10 or 20 or
30 or 40 years ago.
I mean, remember that a little over 100
years ago, our nation was divided in a
bloody war over the issue of slavery.
How can we even countenance that?
Believers were heavily persecuted in centuries past on
college campuses that began as Christian college campuses.
And then the believers were just about driven
out to hold a Bible study was almost
an impossible thing.
I say that to say that we see
a lot of things happening.
We say, oh, it must be the end.
Well, it's certainly time for revival and judgment
on the United States, but it's not necessarily
the end.
The end of the society, the end of
the country or the end of the world.
In fact, God could wipe out America and
there's no word that says in the word
that that would mean the end of the
world.
The great Roman Empire was wiped out and
civilization has gone on all these centuries since
then.
But everybody feels that way.
Oh, this must be the end.
This must be it.
Well, it could be the end of society
as we know it in our country.
Or it could be a time of great
upheaval, reviving, purging, judging.
But let's realize that our situation today is
not unique in terms of world history.
In terms of even the history of our
country.
Sure, there are differences and our technology has
increased and there's all kinds of drugs and
abortion available and all this other stuff.
But it's just sin in a different form.
Well, look at the description here of the
frontier country.
A flood of rationalistic literature came from France
and Great Britain, which Dr. Timothy Dwight described
as the dregs of infidelity vomited upon us.
The whole mass of pollution emptied on this
country.
An enormous edition of The Age of Reason
by Thomas Paine.
He was militantly anti-God.
An enormous edition was published in France and
sold in America for a few cents and
where it could not be sold, it was
given away.
The effect on U.S. colleges was disastrous.
Students looking for an excuse to rebel against
the society of the day embraced rationalism and
called themselves by the names of famous skeptics
and infidels.
Bible colleges became centers of skepticism.
Christian students became such a minority that on
some campuses they felt compelled to meet secretly.
In shades of the radical movements of the
late 60s, students of those days held mock
communion services, forced the resignation of a Bible
college president, and attempted to blow up a
campus building.
Now, skip down to page 126.
Look at the description of how it was
after the revival.
The frontier was radically transformed.
Instead of gambling, cursing, and vice, spirituality and
genuine Christianity characterized the early Western movement.
It was God's great hour.
Revival stopped skepticism in its tracks and returned
the helm of the country to the gobbler.
How did these things happen?
Well, people began to preach.
They called for camp meetings, and to their
shock, thousands of people showed up.
Mass meetings in frontier land where almost all
the people would be gathered.
If you think of a crowd of 20
,000 in a sparsely populated area, you're talking
a huge crowd.
And people would be standing, six or seven
or eight different people, preaching all over to
the crowd, standing on fallen trees and anything
else they could stand up on to be
heard and be seen.
And the power of God would just fall
through the place.
This was in our country.
Frontier.
Daniel Boone was involved with it.
To just put a little flesh on it
for you so you understand, you know, put
a little reality into it.
Look at the description.
The noise was like the roar of Niagara,
reading on 125.
The vast sea of human beings seemed to
be agitated as if by a storm.
It's 20,000 people there for a six
-day camp meeting.
I counted seven ministers all preaching at one
time, some on stumps, others in wagons, and
one standing on a tree, one up and
falling, lodged against another.
Some of the people were singing, others praying,
some crying for mercy in the most piteous
accents, while others were shouting most vociferously.
While witnessing these scenes, a peculiarly strange sensation,
such as I had never felt before, came
over me.
My heart beat tumultuously.
My knees trembled.
My lips quivered.
And I felt as though I must fall
to the ground.
A strange, supernatural power seemed to pervade the
entire mass of mind there collected.
I stepped out on a log where I
could have a better view of the surging
sea of humanity.
The scene that then presented itself to my
mind was indescribable.
At one time, I saw at least 500
swept down in a moment as if a
battery of a thousand guns had been opened
upon them and then immediately followed shrieks and
shouts that rent the very heavens.
We pray for people.
Everybody falls down.
The custom now is that you drop the
towels or the blankets on men and women.
Maybe the guy's ankle is going to show
or something.
I haven't figured that one out.
But we have it all nice and organized,
and oh man, the spirit, everyone I prayed
for went down.
Well, they always go down.
It doesn't matter who prays for them.
You get the local vendor selling ice cream
on there, put them in a suit and
have them pray for people, they'll all go
down.
It's just learned reaction custom by so many
of them.
Oh, we're having a great moving of the
spirit.
I mean, look, we're all psyched up.
We're waiting for it to happen.
We're standing there and still nothing happens.
Here you're talking about outdoors.
Thousands of people gathered together, a lot of
them hardened sinners, and the spirit falls and
hundreds fall into the power of God.
And they don't just fall.
I mean, our meaning is they fall and
they get up the same.
You know, the person goes down under tremendous
anointing, it seems, and they get up, they're
still sick, or they get up and they're
still demonized, or they get up and they're
still walking in sin and bondage and confusion.
You say, what happened?
I mean, there was a lot of divine
energy, but there wasn't much of God himself
confronting that person.
I've also seen it happen when the spirit
falls on someone in one instant, they're instantly
transformed.
I've seen them laid out, unable to stand
up, and when they finally can stand up,
they're different people.
I'm not saying it's all, nothing.
I'm exaggerating the point to emphasize this.
But here, you know, Brainerd prays and the
spirit falls and the American Indians just bow
down into the power of God and hear
the Frontier Revivals.
I mean, we're talking the stuff that's involved
and it's just a sweep of the Holy
Spirit.
That's the powerful, that's the powerful.
All the big thing about being slain in
the spirit is only a fraction.
What we talk about is only a fraction
of the things that have happened among peoples
and generations past that didn't even speak in
tongues or pray for the sick or do
any of that stuff.
So much more.
Here it had a transforming effect on society
as a whole.
You look at the life of a Charles
Finney.
Finney was saved to the bone.
Seven years old, saved to the bone, saved
to the core with weeping and total recognition
of the holiness of God and Jesus' great
love and his utter sinfulness.
Deep transformation takes place to the point that
within the next couple of days people come
in and see him and are deeply convicted
of sin and run out to the same
place in the woods where he got saved
and they bow down and get their hearts
right with God.
The first year after he was born again,
more than 63 people in his community were
saved through him.
Shortly after he was saved, he went to
his house.
His mother and father had not saved him.
His father, an old man.
He came to the door and said, Father,
you're an old man and I've never once
heard a prayer other than this house.
Charles, you're right.
Pray for me.
His family is soundly born again.
And for years, for several decades in the
United States and overseas also, where Finney went,
revival followed.
We won't spend most of our time talking
about past revivals and highlights.
We're just doing that tonight to really give
you a picture and give you an understanding,
give you a vision, give you a hunger.
We want to see how these things happen.
We want to see the elements.
We want to see how they work together.
We want to talk about repentance and what
it means.
We want to talk about denominationalism, stopping the
things of God.
We want to look at these various factors.
You take a Finney, what was it?
What was it about his meetings?
Well, let me read you one of the
most famous accounts, and it's also one of
the most fun accounts to read because it's
so incredibly vivid and such a wild, remarkable
story.
Finney had been preaching.
He was saved in Adams, New York and
had great revival meetings in the true sense
of the word with thousands upon thousands saved.
It's said that in his life, his last
century, no big media, no advertising campaigns like
we have today, no radio and television, but
a half million people led to the Lord
through his ministry.
We're talking about raw spiritual power and spiritual
might.
Well, he was ministering and he was invited
to go to another town.
And this was in Antwerp.
He would often preach in school buildings because
they wouldn't have them in churches because he
preached too common.
He preached too clear.
He spoke to the people instead of just
talking in a high lofty ministerial language like
we have in history and other classical literature.
He preached to the people.
So instead of holding his meetings in churches,
he held his meetings in school buildings.
So a man invited Finney, a godly man
invited Finney to come and speak in his
town.
So it says, a Monday evening at 5
p.m. was set for the service.
This is as Louis Drummond recounts it.
Since the school was only three miles from
town, Charles decided to strike out on foot.
He had labored long on the Lord's day
and lost it.
He sat down by the roadside and felt
he could scarcely go another step regretting not
taking his horse.
But at the appointed hour, he trudged up
to the schoolhouse and to his delight found
it packed almost beyond capacity.
He actually had to stand in an open
door himself to leave the services.
The worship began with a hymn.
Now Finney was a trained musician.
The people were terrible singers.
Each one, quote, had physically trained senses.
It was terrible.
Now get this scene.
He finally put both hands over his ears
to blot out the discordant fellows.
He could still hear them, however.
The grating, irritating sound literally drove him to
his knees in vocal prayer.
So here he is there singing.
He's on his knees covering his ears, praying.
God anointed his prayer and soon a deep
consciousness of the Holy Spirit's presence took hold
of him.
He no longer thought of his sermon subject
as was common for him.
When he rose from his knees, he picked
the text up.
Get you out of this place for the
Lord will destroy the city.
Genesis 1914.
He then proceeded to preach on the story
of Lot and the destruction of Sodom.
He told in graphic terms of how God's
judgment fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah because of
their sin He
had not been on his feet for more
than 15 minutes preaching in this manner and
applying the truth to the people when all
at once what Charles called an awful solemnity
settled down on everyone.
The people began to fall from their seats
and cry for mercy.
He described the unbelievable scene by saying, if
I had a sword in each hand, I
could not have cut them off their seats
as fast as they fell.
In a few minutes, they were completely prostrate.
The preacher could not go on.
The people were in such an agony of
prayer that loud cries for mercy completely dominated
the scene.
The old man who had invited faith to
the community sat there in stunned amazement.
Finney looked at him and screamed above the
den.
Can't you pray?
He instantly fell on the floor and poured
out his soul to the Savior.
Finney's own heart was so overflowing with joy
that he could hardly contain himself.
Well, what was it?
What had that tremendous effect?
What was so incredible about it?
Well, Finney didn't know anything about this town,
but they had an incredible reputation for ungodliness
to the point that they were called Sodom
by all the surrounding areas.
And there was only one godly man in
the entire town.
That was the old man that asked Finney
to preach and they nicknamed him Lot.
And when Finney got up and began to
preach about God pouring out fire and brimstone
on Sodom he didn't know anything.
But as he continued to preach the power
of God and conviction was so strong and
so powerful that the scene that I just
read about ensued.
You see, revival brings the reality of the
anger of God and the wrath of God.
And I've asked this question a lot lately
but who has ever heard any more of
the wrath of God and the anger of
God?
We just want to talk about the goodness
of God and the love of God and
the mercy of God and the compassion of
God and God wants to bless you and
give you good things and do good things
for you and He's not mad at you
and on and on.
And all those things that are being said
have truth in them and God is love.
God is also holy.
God's name is jealous and it's in the
context of not tolerating sin that He says
His name is jealous.
If Yeshua is never angry with anyone why,
pray tell, is He coming back and flaming
fire taking vengeance on them that know not
God?
Why are they going to be destroyed from
the presence of God forever?
Because sin is hated.
Paul in Romans 11 says it plainly Behold
therefore the goodness and the severity of God.
Goodness to you who believe but severity to
those who fall.
If there's any term of endearment that we
have for Yeshua it's the Lamb of God.
When I say term of endearment I mean
a term that so totally speaks to us
of His mercy.
Nothing about His anger.
Nothing about His ferocity as a lion.
Nothing about His power.
The Lamb of God.
The sacrificial servant.
That's what the Lamb of God communicates.
And yet, Revelation the sixth chapter one of
the most awesome verses in the Bible look
at what it says.
Revelation chapter six beginning in verse 15 Then
the kings of the earth the princes, the
generals the rich, the mighty and every slave
and every free man hid in caves and
among the rocks of the mountains they called
to the mountains and the rocks fall on
us and hide us from the face of
Him who sits on the throne and from
the wrath of the Lamb.
For the great day of their wrath has
come and who can stand?
Go over to the 19th chapter of the
book of Revelation.
The picture of Jesus there.
Verse 11 I saw heaven standing open and
there before me was a white horse whose
rider is called Faithful and True.
With justice He judges and makes war.
His eyes are like blazing fire and on
His head are many crowns.
He has a name written on Him that
no one knows but He Himself.
He is dressed in a robe dipped in
blood and His name is the Word of
God.
The armies of heaven were following Him riding
on white horses and out of His mouth
comes a sharp sword with which to strike
down the nations.
He will rule them with an iron scepter.
He treads the winepress of the fury of
the wrath of God Almighty.
He treads the winepress of the fury of
the wrath of God Almighty.
On His robe and on His thigh He
has this name written King of Kings and
Lord of Lords.
Again ask yourself why is there so little
fear of God on radio and television?
With a lot of unsafe people watching people
preach the gospel on television and hearing them
on radio.
Many unsafe people take these things in.
Why is there no fear of God in
their lives?
Because they are told God just wants to
do good things for you.
He just wants to bless you.
He just wants to give you a better
life.
You don't have to repent.
You don't have to turn from your sin.
Just ask Jesus and He will make your
life even better.
They are not told the reality of judgment.
They are not told the reality of the
wrath of God.
Consequently, consequently, there is no fear of God.
I heard a guy preach a message the
other day and I believe he loves the
Lord and the Spirit of God is upon
him.
It was a great show listening to him
also.
He was very entertaining, hysterical and everything else.
He said I grew up and I didn't
want God because I just heard how big,
bad and mean He was and He is
going on with this just dead religious picture
of God.
That is not what I am talking about.
He just wants to do good things for
me.
Then I got saved and amen to what
he is saying.
The goodness of God leads us to repentance.
But you have to ask the question, where
is the fear of God going to come
from preaching that message?
If God is just this nice grandfather type
figure who just wants to do good things
for his little kitties, where is there the
concept of the fury of the wrath of
God Almighty?
It is not there.
And you get up and talk about it
and people think you are anti-faith or
anti-love or anti-compassion.
But I ask you with grace in one
hand to paraphrase, grace in one hand and
a sword in the other.
Isaiah 1, if you are willing and obedient
you will eat the fruit of the land
but if you rebel you will be devoured
by the sword.
At the least that is the message that
the world has to hear.
Fine for us as the people of God,
the wrath of God has been diverted through
the blood of Jesus and we are whole
and clean and pure.
Fine, amen.
We could die and go to hell forever
if we don't warn them, if we don't
speak, if we don't bring the reality of
judgment to them they will never repent, they
will never turn.
I can't picture someone saying you know, a
bunch of unsaved people, hard hearted, mockers, skeptics.
I can't picture someone getting up and saying
you know what, I just want you to
know how much God loves you.
I just want to tell you how good
He is and I just want to tell
you that heaven is a wonderful place and
if you just love God He will just
love on you and things go better with
Jesus.
I can't picture people falling out of the
seats screaming for mercy with a message like
that.
Sure if you preach a message with the
love of God from the heart of God
it can affect people and melt them and
they can break down.
But so much of our superficial gospel is
not going to lead anybody to repent because
they haven't been confronted with God and His
reality.
Why should I repent?
Repent of what?
Well if you have nothing to repent of
you're in heaven.
The only ones who have nothing to repent
of are those who have already gone on
before us.
Every other single child of God because we
slip, because we fall, because there are areas
of our sinful nature that have not been
totally put under our feet in terms of
our own experience, every single one of us
has to deal with it and at times
go before God, God I'm wrong, I've sinned,
this is not right, I turn from it,
forgive me, cleanse my heart.
I had mentioned earlier 1857, the outpouring of
the spirit and the abolition of slavery.
The fact is you had a whole nation
go to war over a change of heart
and a change of conscience.
A president was elected who was an abolitionist
riding on the crest of the wave of
the spirit of revival in the United States.