Father, we pray that the eyes of our
understanding would be open, that your spirit would
give us revelation, that we might know who
you are there, that we might recognize the
work that your Son has accomplished, Lord, that
the blinders would fall from off of us
and that we would see and know and
understand the God with whom we have to
be.
Father, give us insight in the working of
revival to set things right this night, in
Jesus' name, amen.
I want you to turn to Colossians, the
first chapter, Colossians chapter 1.
The subject of revival had been burning on
my heart for months before I came to
teach it and then since I've been teaching
it and spending a lot of time before
God praying about these things, the burning fire
has gotten even greater.
So I've reflected a lot on the question
of what exactly is revival.
Of course, we've taught it from different angles
and we've talked about what revival brings about
and characteristics of revival and highlights of past
revivals, but I was just trying to boil
things down to the basic fundamental meaning of
revival.
There are a couple of definitions we're going
to look at, but one is as simple
as I know how to make it and
I believe it'll give you a perspective for
everything else we look at.
Charles Finney said that God is one pent
-up revival.
God is one pent-up revival.
I believe that's true.
Now, if that's true, that means revival is
the manifestation of God, as simple as you
can say it.
Revival is the manifestation of God.
God is one pent-up revival, and it
follows that revival is the manifestation of God.
Just like something else that we'll look at
later, I was considering the fact that if
our God is a consuming fire and revival
is the manifestation of God, then revival is
the fire of God falling.
It would follow that same way.
If God is one pent-up revival, then
revival is the manifestation of God.
If God is a consuming fire, then revival
is the fire of God falling.
Now, I give you some of those definitions,
and in particular, the basic concept that revival
is the manifestation of God, so that you
can understand how revival sets things right.
Revival sets things right.
Revival brings things into God's divine order, in
the body, among the believers, and in the
world as well.
Not totally in the world, unless the world
becomes, quote, the church, that won't happen.
And not totally in the body, because that
won't happen until Yeshua returns.
But there is a fundamental setting of things
back in order.
When you understand that revival means restoration, then
you can relate to the fact that when
real revival comes, when real revival is happening,
things get set in the proper order before
God.
Now, on the one hand, if you look
around and you look at what the Word
says, and you look at the fellowship that
you're in, and you look at the state
of the body as a whole in the
United States, it's obvious that things are not
in order.
From top to bottom, inside out, it's obvious
that things are not in order.
We're not going to keep hammering that point.
We've laid that out clearly enough.
Revival presupposes declension.
Revival presupposes a falling away.
We're ready for revival on that level.
We are candidates.
Just like I say before a healing line,
now listen, you can only come up for
prayer if you're sick.
If you're not sick, you're not allowed up
to be prayed for for healing.
You say, well, that goes without saying.
Well, yeah, well, the only ones that need
to be revived are those that are dead,
or those that are backslidden, or those that
are out of order.
So when you look around and you see
that things are not in order and not
according to God's priorities, even according to our
limited understanding of what proper order is, we
say, OK, we need revival.
What will revival do?
How will revival set things right?
Well, in Colossians, the first chapter.
Paul writing, I mean, it's amazing to think
Paul didn't have Paul to read, and yet
he wrote what he wrote.
In other words, he had he had the
scriptures, he had what he learned by revelation,
by the spirit of God.
He had the accounts that were circulating of
the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.
But the whole theology, all the insights, I
mean, it was by revelation of the spirit,
meditation on the word.
It's phenomenal to see what he came up
with.
And these letters that he wrote, I don't
know if we can imagine the impact that
they would have on these early communities of
believers as they began to see the depth
of what he was saying.
So here he's just writing a letter and
it begins to say in the fifteenth verse
of the first chapter, speaking of Jesus, that
he is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
The fundamental fact of Yeshua's coming into the
earth is that God is revealed in him.
You want to know what the father's like?
He says, look at me, the father's in
me, I'm in him.
What I do, I do by him and
through him.
So by him, by Jesus, all things were
created, things in heaven and on earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rules
or authorities, all things were created by him
and for him.
He is before all things.
And in him, all things hold together.
Now, the little chapter heading here or paragraph
heading rather in the NIV before verse 15
says the supremacy of Christ.
And that's certainly what Paul is presenting here,
the absolute supremacy of the Messiah in all
of creation to the point that in the
second chapter, he lays out that everything in
creation, heaven, earth under the earth, everything is
going to have to acknowledge that Jesus is
Lord to the glory of God, the father.
So all things are created by him and
for him.
And he is before all things and in
him, all things hold together.
Paul is nailing this on every level to
show that Jesus is preeminent.
When John was baptizing people, they came to
him and they said, well, you the Messiah,
you Elijah, you the prophet, you should know.
He said, there's one coming after me who
has the preeminence because he was from before
me.
He came first, even though he's being revealed
after he came first.
He has the preeminence.
He is the head of the body, the
church, the congregation, the ecclesia.
He is the beginning and the firstborn from
among the dead so that in everything he
might have the supremacy.
What is God's central purpose?
How can you sum it up that in
all things Jesus would have supremacy for God
was pleased to have all his fullness dwell
in him and through him to reconcile to
himself all things with the things on earth
or things in heaven by making peace through
his blood shed on the cross.
Now, we could go on with Paul's argument
here, his whole emphasis in Colossians on Jesus
being the head, having the supremacy.
But I want you to understand that one
of the first things that revival will do
is restore Jesus to his proper role as
head of the body.
It will restore him to a position of
preeminence within the body.
That's going to happen in different ways.
On the one hand, he will again become
the center of worship.
Now, there's a certain parallel in the charismatic
movement and in the Messianic Jewish movement, which
is that there are a lot of courses
based on old covenant themes and Israel, Jerusalem
restoration themes that don't talk all that much
about the work of Jesus.
It's not just in the Messianic Jewish movement
that in our emphasis on restoration of Jewish
revival and Old Testament truth, not just us
that have left out the cross and the
blood, but it's something that's just central these
days in the charismatic movement that there has
been a leaving out of the fundamental message
of the cross, the blood, the work of
the Son of God.
Now, it's not totally absent, obviously, but there's
no depth to it.
A lot of the courses just are.
They may talk about Jesus on some trite
level, but the depth, the reality of his
work is missing.
When revival comes, it will bring Jesus back
to a place of centrality in worship.
Songs will be written about him.
Praises will be directed to him.
Yes, always to the glory of God the
Father.
It's not either or.
But again, that'll be central.
Preaching about the cross, preaching about the blood
will become absolutely foundational.
If I ask you, how many of you
have heard a series of messages preached on
the cross or on the blood since you've
been believers?
Many of us, if not most of us
would say, I can't really remember.
I remember Dynamic Series on the Gifts of
the Spirit.
And I remember before the building program, we
had a big series on tithing.
And I remember we had something about reaching
out to our neighbors, you know, and having
family barbecues.
And I remember, but I don't really remember
a series on the cross or on the
blood.
Recommend to me a good series of tapes
on the cross or on the blood.
Tell me good books to read on the
subject.
It's just not what people have been talking
about.
That is a symptom of the fact that
we are not a revived body.
And that we need revival to get things
right so that Jesus as Lord is seen
in his central and supreme role within the
body.
Now, it has happened all the time because,
listen, God's setting things right.
God's setting things in order.
It's out of order that Jesus is not
central.
It's out of order that people are not
caught up with him as they ought to
be.
Therefore, when revival comes, the focus goes back
on him.
And God gives us a tremendous revelation of
the son of God.
OK, I just want you to get a
feel of some of the things that have
that have happened as revivals come.
This is in the description of Jonathan Edwards.
But you could you could multiply this all
over the place in the so-called First
Great Awakening in the 1700s in the United
States.
He's giving some characteristics of revival here.
He says the highest transports I have been
acquainted with, the affections of admiration.
Remember, he's not writing in 20th century slang
here.
Love and joy, so far as another could
judge, have been raised to the highest pitch
and the following things have been united.
A very frequent dwelling for some considerable time
together in view of the glories of the
divine perfections and Christ's excellencies.
The soul has been, as it were, perfectly
overwhelmed and swallowed up with light and love,
a sweet solace and a rest and a
joy of soul altogether unspeakable.
The person has more than once continued for
five or six hours together without interruption in
a clear and lively sense of the infinite
beauty and amiableness of Christ's person and the
heavenly sweetness of his transcendent love.
I mean, we sing, I keep falling in
love with him, falling in love over and
over again.
I mean, he's talking about the real thing
here.
The heart was swallowed up in a kind
of glow of Christ's love coming down as
a constant stream of sweet light at the
same time, the soul all flowing out in
love to him so that there seemed to
be a constant flowing and reflowing from heart
to heart.
The soul dwelt on high, was lost in
God and seemed almost to lose the body.
Extraordinary views of divine things and the religious
affections were frequently attended with very great effects
on the body.
Let me just read this next paragraph because
it's good, but it's not totally related.
The person was deprived of all ability to
speak.
Remember, Jonathan Edwards becomes the president of Princeton.
I always rehearse that fact.
One of America's greatest philosopher theologians.
And yet he's discussing these things that happen
when real revival breaks.
It's not just emotionalism.
In fact, it's not emotionalism at all.
The person was deprived of all ability to
speak.
Sometimes the hands were clenched and the flesh
cold, but the senses remaining.
Animal nature was often in great emotion and
agitation and the soul so overcome with admiration
and a kind of omnipotent joy as to
cause the person unavoidably to leap with all
his might and joy and mighty exaltation.
That's how a philosopher theologian talks about people
getting set on fire by the Holy Ghost.
Well, you could read account after account after
account where people in revival just get transfixed
with the Son of God, just get visions
of the cross, just get visions of the
power of the blood, just get overwhelmed with
the absolute reality of what Jesus has done.
You have to ask yourself, when is the
last time you felt overwhelmingly grateful for the
sacrifice of Calvary?
There was a friend of mine that that
I got to lead to the Lord, became
a friend after I led him to the
Lord in high school.
And when he got saved, he really got
saved.
I mean, he we used to call him
his reputation before he was saved was like
Mr. Goody or good body or something.
I mean, he was just not like the
rest of us.
He didn't smoke.
He didn't drink.
He didn't get high.
He didn't curse.
He didn't fool around with anybody.
I mean, he was just like a real
good guy.
But when he got saved, he got such
a revelation of his sin that he wept
and cried out to God and broke.
And I never saw anybody repent like that
to this day.
It's about almost 17 years ago.
Never saw anybody get saved the way he
got saved with a depth of conviction, praying
through till he knew that he knew that
he was saved, jumping up and shouting hallelujah
in the streets afterward.
Well, he was so caught up with the
love of God and so, so intimately excited
about Jesus, that some of the words to
the songs that didn't make sense to him
didn't bother him because he was so happy
and he didn't realize he was singing about
cavalry.
He thought he was singing about the cavalry
and he couldn't understand, you know, the whole
thing about singing about it and rejoicing about
it.
Years I spent in vanity and pride, knowing
that, you know, it was for me.
He died and so on, you know, and
singing about the cross.
He couldn't understand the connection of that, you
know, to some American, you know, horse army
or something like that.
But he was just so excited about Jesus.
He sang it anyway.
When was the last time you just felt
overwhelmed with joy for what Jesus did and
just so close to him, just in love
with him?
That's what happens in Revival.
And you see, God puts his blessing on
the preaching of the cross.
That's why in Revival it's prominent, because people
are preaching what he blesses.
And that's the central proclamation that the world
must hear.
That's the fundamental message that they must take
hold of, that our sins were nailed to
the cross on the shoulders of the son
of God.
That's where God's power is on.
I've been really wrestling with issues in prayer
about how to effectively preach the gospel to
Jewish people that don't know the Lord.
What's the message?
You know, when you get a shot, when
you get the opportunity, when people are gathered
together at a rally, what is the message
that you can bring?
How can you show them?
How can you cause their eyes to be
open?
What's it going to take?
And as I've really prayed about these things
and God's just reduced me to the most
basic, fundamental proclamation of human sin and God's
solution and the need to repent and be
saved, it's just hit me, you know, the
only way this can possibly work is if
the anointing of God is on it.
You know, I mean, we always go around
that we're going to convince, we're going to
persuade, we're going to do it all these
other ways.
If we'll just preach the message and the
fullness of the spirit, God will bring about
the results.
And I've heard people engaged in legitimate mass
evangelism talk about how they just got up
and basically quoted the scriptures.
A movie I saw of T.O. Osborne
preaching in India, almost all he did was
just preach the word, just quote scriptures about
that God wanted to give us life.
And the effects of that message were tremendous
to see.
So during revival, Jesus is brought back to
his central place, the cross and the blood
are emphasized, God's blessing is on that message.
There's another reason, though, that the cross and
the blood are emphasized in revival.
That's the only way into the presence of
God.
There's no other way in aside from the
blood.
And if we're going to meet with God,
we've got to go back to that fundamental
door and pass through that door in order
to get in.
I would challenge you to go to some
of the older hymn books and read songs
about the blood and the cross and see
if they seem foreign to you.
When I got saved, I mean, I heard
about the blood continually, not not so much
an explanation of the power of the blood,
but just it was something talked about all
the time.
I can remember.
This is strange.
All this emphasis on the blood.
I mean, it's almost it's almost uncomfortable.
I mean, the blood is not a pleasant
subject.
But I remember just hearing a lot of
talk about it when I was first saved.
And I remember when I was going to
be preaching a series of messages at my
home church when I was saved, I don't
know, a couple odd years, maybe three years.
We're going to have a series of so
-called revival meetings and I was going to
do the preaching.
And one night I just really I had
this one song on my heart and I
knew that it was written by a fellow
named Elisha Hoffman, and I just assumed that
he must have been Jewish with a name
like that.
And that night we used to take requests
for the hymns that would be sung and
all the hymns that were requested, all three
that were requested were all songs that this
guy wrote.
And I noticed that all three of them
centered in on the blood, and I said,
well, that would make sense if he was
Jewish and got saved.
The whole revelation of the blood would make
sense.
Go back to the hymnals, read them, read
the songs about the cross, see if they
almost seem just too Christian, if you know
what I mean, too traditional Christian or or
dead Catholic or something.
See, see how far you've gone from just
these fundamentals.
I want to quote to you from Martin
Lloyd-Jones in his book on revival when
he deals with the glorification of Jesus.
Let me give you his words beginning on
page forty seven.
Revival above everything else is a glorification of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God.
It is the restoration of him to the
center of the life of the church.
You will find this warm devotion, personal devotion
to him.
It leads to our hymns, our anthems of
praise, Christ, the center of the life of
the church.
You will find that in every period of
revival, without exception, there has been a tremendous
emphasis upon the blood of Christ.
The hymns that have been sung most of
all in periods of revival have been hymns
about the blood.
The very nerve and center and heart of
the Christian gospel is this, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith
in his blood, that he might be just
and the justifier of him which believeth in
Jesus, in whom we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of sin without shedding of
blood is no remission of sin.
The very heart of our gospel is that
God hath made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him.
That's our glory.
That's our joy.
That's our identity.
That's what sets us apart.
And revival brings us back to that foundation.
If revival is the manifestation of God, then
another byproduct of revival is going to be
a new revelation of the holiness of God
and consequently walking afresh in the fear of
God.
So you sure will be exalted again as
central, but then the father will be seen
in all of his holiness and all of
his glory and all of his power.
Someone heard a teaching recently about different ethnic
groups or different nations or different peoples having
specific tasks by God tasked to bring certain
aspects of truth back to the body.
Now, I can't say that I fully understand
where each person fits in specific emphases, but
it's clear that you've got different people, groups,
different nations with certain strengths.
And I know for sure that God is
not pleased when Gentiles try and become Jews.
Why?
I'm not saying appreciate the whole word and
appreciate the feasts and things like that.
But when Gentiles try and take on a
legitimate Jewish lifestyle, I'm sure God's not pleased
with that.
Why?
Because he's created each one for his own
special honor and glory.
A word that God gave me very clearly
in Israel was for Gentiles to quit trying
to be Jews.
Why?
Because he said, you're insulting my taste when
you do it.
I made you the way I want you
to be.
It would be like me here speaking, not
God, but me coming in in a dress.
God didn't make me to be a woman,
he made me to be a man.
Well, the same way it says at the
end of the book of Revelation that all
of the kings of the different nations bring
their glory into the into the kingdom, that
there's a specific glory and splendor and special
quality about each people group in each nation.
And the fact of the matter is that
it was said by this woman who was
giving a teaching that the specific call on
Jewish believers is to bring back the holiness
of God to the body.
Again, she was dealing with different aspects, this
nation as this call, this nation is that
I can't say I agree or disagree.
I haven't really listened to it carefully, just
heard it through the grapevine.
But why would it be so?
Why could it very well be true that
Jewish believers are called on to bring a
restoration of the holiness of God back to
the body?
Well, we take the whole Bible seriously.
One well-known preacher said he said, now
you've got to take the whole Bible seriously
from Matthew to Revelation.
Well, I agree with that as long as
you don't leave out the rest of the
Bible along the way there.
And for some, that is the Bible, Matthew
to Revelation or the Gospel of John or
the epistle to the Romans, or maybe a
glimpse in the Psalms or Proverbs.
But when you look at the whole word,
you've got to take God's holiness seriously and
you've got to walk in the fear of
the Lord.
You see, for for a Jewish believer, Mount
Sinai is a foundation and you're we're not
standing under the mountain that's quaking with fire
and smoke, Paul says, or the writer to
the Hebrews says, it's much worse now.
I mean, now we're talking about hearing from
God straight from heaven.
He says those days it was easy.
Now God's really putting a demand on us.
Well, during revival, as God reveals himself, people
see just how cold and hard they have
been towards God, they see how little fear
of the Lord there's been in their lives,
they see just how much they were able
to sin without conviction, because all of a
sudden you see him and you recognize, you
know, my thoughts during the day or the
words that came out of my mouth or
these desires or late at night when no
one's looking in the things that race through
my heart, God knew all of that.
See, we know that all the time, but
there's not a working revelation in us, there's
not a clear understanding of that.
One rabbi in the Mishnah said, basically, if
you want to live right here on the
earth, they're just a couple of principles to
go by.
You know, remember that there's an eye that
sees everything and a year that hears everything
and all your deeds are written down in
a book.
Well, there's that revelation that comes back to
us, the fear of the Lord, the holiness
of God.
When Isaiah saw God, he knew the Lord
before that he may have been operating prophetically
before when he saw him in his fullness.
He was undone.
He was shocked, shocked and undone by the
holiness of God.
When Peter gets a revelation of the character
of Jesus on a boat, he was following
him already.
He'd already left everything to follow him.
But when he saw his glory reveal on
the boat with the miraculous catch of fish,
he fell on his knees and said, Depart
from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man.
Now, you have to realize how totally undone
Peter must have been to say that, because
he was on a boat and the water
when he said, Lord, depart from me.
I mean, he was so overwhelmed by the
presence of the Lord, he just wasn't even
thinking.
I don't think he was saying you could
walk on the water.
He wasn't conscious.
I didn't understand that.
Just so undone.
Depart from me, Lord.
I'm a sinful man.
When Job gets hold of a revelation of
God, he repents in dust and ashes.
There's a revelation of God that comes.
And that's why people who have been even
the godliest people, you know, and there's a
real revelation of God, they weep and wail
and get on their faces and say, I'm
undone.
I'm vile.
People say, oh, that doesn't line up with
my faith confession.
When you meet the object of your faith
confession, you change your speech a little bit.