Well, Brother Walter has already made my day
by telling me that he agrees with me
on the subject of spirit baptism.
And if he's able to tell me after
this present address that he agreed with what
I'm going to say now, I shall be
over the moon.
And in light of what he's just said
in his review of Dr. Lloyd-Jones' book,
I think he even might.
And while I don't really know what to
say about the saints in glory taking note
of what goes on here on earth, I
think that if Dr. Lloyd-Jones knows what
I say this morning up there, he'll be
smiling too.
Our title is The Work of Revival.
Our scripture is Zechariah, chapters 1 through 8.
Please have your Bibles open.
We shall be referring that much to what
goes on in these chapters.
And I begin by reminding you of the
things that we said yesterday, matters on which
I hope we were able to agree together,
positions certainly which are basic to what I'm
going to say now.
What is revival?
It is God extending his kingdom through the
restoring of his people, the restoring of his
church, in a manner that a guy like
Edwards could properly compare to the breaking of
a wave, in a manner which Dr. Lloyd
-Jones, as we've just heard, pinpointed as unusual
and calling attention to itself by virtue of
that fact.
It's God renewing, intensifying, accelerating and deepening his
work of grace in the lives of individuals
and of communities.
Revival, we said, is a communal thing.
Revival is God visiting his people.
Revival is God visiting people in groups.
We didn't say yesterday, but we may say
now, that Peter, following Joel, celebrates revival as
God pouring out his Spirit.
We may properly speak of revival as God
pouring out his Spirit and spend a moment
thinking of that picture.
You pour out liquid in abundance.
The very image suggests that there's much there.
And when you pour it out, there's a
major flow of liquid.
And so it is when God pours out
his Spirit in revival.
I gave you a thumbnail analysis of the
things that happen in revival.
Some of these matters will be reviewed in
more detail in a moment, but do you
remember the phrases I used?
In revival, God comes close and thus sin
is seen.
And because sin is seen, the gospel is
loved as never before.
And repentance goes deep.
And godliness grows fast.
And the church becomes itself.
And the world feels the impact.
There's an evangelistic overflow.
And Satan keeps pace, trying to spoil and
corrupt what's going on.
We saw yesterday that revival was the hope
of prophets and psalmists.
It entered into their prayers, and many of
those prayers are there in the Old Testament
for us.
Revival entered again into the hopes and prayers
of Protestant Christians in the 17th century.
In the 17th century, just for the record,
they didn't use the phrase revival of religion
as it came to be used in the
18th century.
What they talked about in the 17th century
was the spiritual aspect of reformation.
The Puritans and others in continental Europe used
the language of reformation to express the desire
of their heart in this matter.
The reformation they sought was spiritual renewal in
the church.
They saw that as the inward aspect of
the work of God, whereby the outward face
of the church, as they expressed it, had
been washed, and the outward life of the
church had been put straight by scriptural confessions
and scriptural patterns of worship.
Yes, but the people were not yet reformed.
That's how they said it.
And so they prayed that the spiritual reality
of reformation in human lives might accompany the
outward aspect of reformation in the ordering of
the church.
In the 18th century, as we saw yesterday,
the phrase revival of religion began to be
used for this that was being sought.
And that's the phrase that we have inherited.
And when we use the term revival, well,
it's in that sense that we use it.
And it's in that sense that it's truly
been said that when the Lord Jesus comes
back, he should find the church planning world
evangelism and praying for revival.
Revival, I hinted rather than explained yesterday, is
a characteristic work of God in the same
way that regeneration, the regeneration of an individual,
is a characteristic work of God.
What I mean by that is that though
the details may vary from one instance to
another, we've heard Walter echoing Dr. Lloyd-Jones
who insists that not all revivals have all
the same phenomena, all the same trimmings and
trappings, shall I say, associated with them, yet
they all of them have the same reality
at their heart.
Just as when a person is born again,
his or her temperament is peculiar to him
or her, and that's going to mean that
some of the trimmings and trappings of that
individual experience will be peculiar to that individual.
But the heart of the matter, the essence
of the change, the series of new qualities
which mark out regeneration of the reality that
it is, those will be the same every
time.
The regenerate person will always trust Christ, always
repent of sin, always love the Lord, always
rejoice in Christ, always find emptiness in his
or her heart as soon as he or
she is seduced away from the Lord back
to the broken cisterns of sin.
It happens, and the regenerate backslider is thus
the most miserable person in the world.
Regeneration produces all these effects.
And revival has its own characteristic features which
are always there, whatever else is or isn't
there, and it's these characteristic features that are
there at the centre of the narrative in
Acts 2 through Acts 11, the narrative of
revival in Jerusalem at the beginning of the
Christian era, just as, in fact, they are
there in the briefer and less elaborate narratives
of revival at various times in the Old
Testament story.
And it's these central characteristics that are reflected
in the epistles of the New Testament.
Some of the things that apply here, that
appear here, we referred to yesterday.
For instance, the way in which those verses
at the centre of 1 Corinthians 14 show
that it was standard Christian experience in the
churches of those revival times for the presence
of God when his word was preached to
be such a powerful reality in experience that
folk wandering in from the streets felt it.
And indeed, in 1 Corinthians in general, what
one is seeing is the problems of overflowing
and uncontrolled spiritual life.
Paul is afraid that some of them are
not converted, but he knows that others of
them are.
And he's just distressed at the disorder that
they have allowed to come in when God's
spirit has been poured out on them with
such fullness.
And then I referred to 1 Thessalonians, where
Paul, by the way he writes, shows that
these people have matured in Christ in a
very remarkable way in a very short time.
And I said this illustrates the way in
which God speeds up his work in times
of revival.
Because remember, Paul was only there for less
than three weeks on the mission that produced
the Thessalonian church.
And I might have made reference to 1
Peter 1, verse 8, a text of which
Dr. Lloyd-Jones himself could never make enough.
He would quote it over and over.
It's Peter's reference to the fact that the
saints suffering pressure, the beginnings of persecution as
they were, rejoiced in the Lord whom though
they'd not seen, yet they loved.
They rejoiced in him, says Peter, with joy
unspeakable, unutterable joy, joy that has more in
it than you can put into words, and
joy that is full of glory.
The Greek literally says glorified joy.
And he would look round challengingly on congregations
and say, do you rejoice in the Lord
like that?
At times of revival the saints do.
And he was right.
The whole New Testament comes out of revival
conditions.
And we do well to realize that.
Or take, as yet another example of this
from the epistles, what Paul is found praying
that the Ephesian Christians will enjoy.
Here we are in Ephesians chapter 3, verse
16.
And Paul is praying for them.
And praying in words that I don't think
would ordinarily enter into our prayers.
Simply because they don't touch any realities that
have become part of our own experience.
But Paul uses these words because he's talking
out of his experience.
And he needs all these words to express
that quality of experience which he now wants
the Ephesians also to share.
So he prays that out of God's glorious
riches, verse 16, he may strengthen you, you
believers, with power through his Spirit in your
inner being so that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith and that you, being
rooted and established in love, may have power
together with all the saints to grasp how
wide and long and high and deep is
the love of Christ.
And to know this love that surpasses knowledge
that so you may be filled to the
measure of all the fullness of God.
What quality of experience lies behind words like
that?
And I did refer to Jonathan Edwards picking
up from 1 John the distinguishing marks of
a work of the Spirit of God in
a community where the Word of God comes
to be honoured as never before and the
Son of God loved as never before and
the truths of the Gospel taken seriously as
never before and eternal issues weighed as never
before and love of one Christian to another
overflows as never before then you know that
the Spirit of God has been at work
and that was revival.
This was Edwards thesis and he got all
his points as a matter of fact out
of the first six verses of 1 John
chapter 4 and as you know the whole
of 1 John is concerned to pinpoint real,
authentic, divine spiritual experience and distinguish it from
counterfeits of whatever kind.
Well, these things give substance, I believe, to
my claim that this characteristic work of God
in revival is reflected in the epistles and
passages like this give us a theological basis
for judging and discerning the essential characteristics of
revival in the revival narrative of Acts chapters
2 through 11.
But it must always be that way, by
the way, brethren.
I hope you're clear on that.
You judge Bible narratives by Bible doctrine.
You interpret Bible narratives by Bible doctrine.
Bible doctrine tells you what's good and bad,
right and wrong of God and not of
God in those narratives.
You need Bible doctrine in order to assess
them.
And that's even true of the revival narrative
of Acts 2 through 11.
And then I said, and this is the
point from which we proceed this morning, this
characteristic work of God in revival, I said,
is patterned out for us in Zechariah chapters
1 through 8.
Zechariah in the books is described as a
prophet of restoration.
I won't argue with the word.
I will simply say that if you like
to call God's work of revival restoration, that's
okay by me.
But it's really a total spiritual change wrought
by the power of God that Zechariah is
talking about from beginning to end.
And that's what I mean by revival.
And so revival shall be my word as
I move through these visions with you and
try to build up for you the pattern
which God is showing us here in this
material.
We look yesterday, remember, at verses 1 through
6 of Zechariah chapter 1, which is the
introductory prophecy moving us into the whole section.
And we saw that in those verses, God,
God the creator, God the redeemer, the God
of revival, God reveals three things really.
His anger.
Much is said about his anger with the
ancestors of those to whom Zechariah is speaking
now.
God had exhibited his anger by past judgments
on those folk.
Earlier prophets had summoned them to return to
him, just as Zechariah is now sent to
summon the folk of his day to return
to God.
And those Israelites of past days hadn't taken
their God seriously.
They hadn't listened to the word of rebuke.
They hadn't changed their ways.
So they come under judgment.
Judgment.
And, as I said, we have to ask
ourselves whether we today are taking seriously the
word of God the Lord against sin.
Against sin and unfaithfulness among his own people.
Those things bring judgment.
God give us ears to hear and God
change our churches before it's too late.
Then, alongside the anger of God revealed in
this passage, we saw God disclosing his appeal.
His appeal to the Jews of the year
of grace, 520 BC.
Appeal to them to return to him.
As their forefathers didn't.
But you return to me, says the Lord,
and I will return to you.
And we ended yesterday asking ourselves whether we've
yet learned to take that word seriously.
We weren't able to say as much as
I wish we could have said about what's
involved in backtracking.
Because that's what returning to God in repentance
really is.
It's backtracking in order to move away from.
Things that are displeasing God.
And move back into ways that rejoice his
heart.
If we had time, I would give you
an analysis in terms of returning first to
love of our neighbor.
The kind of honesty that reflects real concern
for the other person's well-being in our
own family, with our own spouses, with our
own children, with our own friends, with our
own fellow Christians in the church.
Love, you know, whether to neighbor or to
God, is a matter of seeking to make
the other person great.
And love of neighbor is a concern to
make our neighbor spiritually great, because that's the
only greatness that finally counts.
And it would begin with activity like that
which you have called for in Zechariah chapter
7, verses 8 through 10.
This is what the Lord Almighty says.
Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to
one another.
Don't oppress the widow or the fatherless, the
alien or the poor in your hearts.
Don't think evil of each other.
And it's said again in chapter 8, verses
16 and 17.
These are the things you are to do.
Speak the truth to each other.
Render true and sound judgment in your courts.
Don't plot evil against your neighbor.
Don't love to swear falsely.
I hate all this, declares the Lord.
That's where love to neighbor begins.
And with that, there must be a return
to love of God.
Love of God which gets us beyond the
rebuke issued in Zechariah chapter 7 to the
folk who came and asked him, asked the
prophet, whether they were to go on fasting
in the way that they had been doing
a long time because of the captivity.
The beginning of the prophet's answer in the
word of the Lord to their question is
to say, look at verse 4, verse 5,
ask all the people of the land and
the priests, when you fasted and mourned in
the fifth and seventh months, was it really
for me that you fasted?
First thing that Zechariah does is to nail
the formality of their religion.
They went through the motions, but their heart
was far from their God.
Again, we need to ask ourselves very seriously
and quietly before the Lord, is my heart
in the religious motions that I go through?
Is there love to God my Savior in
the outward forms of godliness that I follow?
It's already been said in this conference that
if the doctrine of God's sovereign grace has
taken root in your heart, you have more
to love God for, you have more knowledge
that should induce love to him within you
than any other sort of Christian in this
world.
The knowledge of God's grace does that if
you allow it to produce its proper fruit.
But brothers and sisters, there are such things
as carnal Calvinists just as there are such
things as carnal Arminians.
It's so terribly easy, in fact, to do
it.
Familiarity breeds content.
We can go through all the motions of
Calvinistic godliness and our hearts still be far
from the God of sovereign grace.
Do you love me, says the Lord.
And he presses that question on us as
part of his summons to return to him.
Do you love your neighbour?
Do you love me?
Love is the key word.
I have this against you, said God, said
the Lord, Lord Jesus, rather, from his throne
to the church at, where was it, Sardis,
wasn't it?
Revelation chapter 2, verses 4 and 5.
I have this against you.
You've left your first love.
Repent and do what you did at first.
Go back to the beginning and learn all
over again to love me because of who
I am and what I've done for you.
Love is the heart of Christianity.
Love and nothingness.
Well, this is God's appeal.
I wish I could say more about it.
I mustn't.
We saw it yesterday.
His anger expressed in past judgments.
His appeal for a present return to him
in love.
And his agenda hinted at in the words
of promise, the word of expectation for the
people, return to me and I will return
to you, says the Lord.
A promise of his future return in grace
and power.
From which the question comes to us, do
we take the hope of revival seriously?
Dr. Lloyd-Jones instructs us in the need
for revival which we have.
I think we can all agree with that.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones himself hoped for revival until
he died.
He is gone.
Just as the prophets are gone.
But we should still be hoping for revival.
Remember we said it.
Revival is a sovereign work of God.
He fixes the timetable.
The schedule is his, not ours to set.
But there's still hope.
Return to me, he says, and then you
may expect that in my good time, in
my own way, I will return to you.
I shall say more about that tomorrow so
I don't develop the thought now.
What we're going to do now is to
look through the series of visions which God
gave to the prophets in which the elements
of revival, the ingredients we might say, are
set before us in sequence in a very
wonderful analytical theology of this restoring work of
God which God promises, this restoring work to
which he refers us as his return to
his covenant people.
They're bewildering chapters.
They raise all kinds of questions.
I can't touch on all those questions.
They have in them many bits of symbolism
which I shan't be able to touch on
either.
They raise also for us the problem of
how we apply prophecies given in an Old
Testament situation and given therefore in Old Testament
terms to our own New Testament situation and
the realities of church life today.
Let me just say quickly what I think
the answer to that latter question is.
Here are the principles of interpretation which guide
me in my handling of these prophecies.
You ask where do I get them from?
Short answer is I get them from the
way in which the New Testament theologians handle
Old Testament prophecies first to last.
I'm walking on eggs here.
I may well be talking to folk who
disagree with me about some of the specific
applications of this to the book of Zechariah.
There are different schemes for interpreting biblical prophecy
as we know and they can't all of
them be right and I embrace only one
of them and reject the others.
So I have to walk on eggs.
But if we can agree to leave those
questions aside and just concentrate on getting New
Testament theology a New Testament theology of renewal
from this sequence of visions which exhibits the
pattern of renewal well we shall do well.
Here now are the principles which seem to
me the proper controls for our interpretation.
One.
God is the same.
The God of the Old Testament is the
God of the New Testament.
His character hasn't changed.
He still loves what the Old Testament tells
us He loves.
He still hates what the Old Testament says
that He hates.
He is triune.
He always was.
In these prophecies we are going to meet
that figure who pops up again and again
in the Old Testament.
The angel of Yahweh.
The angel of the Lord.
Rightly do Christian expositors understand the angel of
the Lord as a theophany.
A pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person
of the Godhead.
And this becomes plain when we see in
what connections the angel of the Lord appears.
You will very soon see that He appears
in connection with what we call mediation.
That is to say, the work of bringing
God's mercy as mercy to sinners who don't
deserve mercy.
Something has to happen if there is to
be mercy from God to sinners whose lives
evoke His wrath rather than anything else.
And what happens is called mediation.
And the mediator fulfills that ministry which means
that there is mercy from God to us.
Well, the angel of the Lord is found
in mediatorial contexts as we shall see.
It's there in chapter 1, it's there in
chapter 3 as well.
What I have to say by the way
about the Holy Spirit in Zechariah is being
reserved for tomorrow.
There are some things to say about the
Spirit also.
I've said, however, what I'm going to say
by way of introduction about Christ in Zechariah.
God then is the same.
He's the triune God as He was in
Old Testament times even though that truth wasn't
yet revealed.
He is most certainly the sovereign God and
we shall see this sequence of visions highlighting
His sovereignty.
And He is, let me make this point
before we go any further, the jealous God
of chapter 1, verse 14.
This is what the Lord Almighty says, I
am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion.
He's the jealous God of chapter 8, verse
2.
This is what the Lord Almighty says, I
am very jealous for Zion.
I am burning with jealousy for her.
He is the same God who in Exodus
chapter 34 and verse 14 announced Himself as
the God whose name is jealous.
What does that mean?
When we speak the word jealousy, it usually
signifies to our minds something rather unpleasant.
But there's a good jealousy as well as
a bad jealousy.
A lover who has taken his or her
spouse into covenant, in other words, a lover
married in a right and proper way, is
there after very jealous for the love of
his or her partner.
Married folk bear witness to that.
Of course it's so.
And if it wasn't so, there'd be doubt
as to whether you really love your spouse.
That's the pattern.
The God of all grace has taken us
into covenant with Him to be His bride.
He is now very jealous for the exclusive
affection of His own people.
And then He's bound up with something further.
He is very jealous also for His own
honour and praise and glory.
But the two things are bound together.
God enjoying the love of His people as
He blesses them.
Is God manifesting His glory?
God receiving praise and adoration from His people
as He blesses them?
Is God being praised as He desires to
be?
God's glory, God's praise for His revealed praiseworthiness
is His end, His goal, the thing that
He's always concerned about.
We know that.
We are Reformed Christians and Reformed Christians understand
this very well.
Well, that goal of God, His glory, is
something which He has bound up with the
glory of His own people.
He blessing them, they praising Him.
It's all part of a single end and
a single goal.
Don't set the two thoughts at odds with
each other.
They're not at odds with each other.
God in a wonderful way has blended them
together.
So He's jealous for His own praise.
He's jealous for the affection of His people.
He rejoices when His people love and praise
Him.
He rejoices when His name is glorified among
men.
God is jealous for these things.
And so His jealousy points both to His
purpose to bless His people as they love
and serve Him as well as pointing to
His zeal for His own honour and praise
from His people whom He blesses.
Hold the two things together and then you'll
understand.
This is the God of Zechariah 1-8.
The God who is jealous.
Jealous, He says verse 14 of chapter 1
again.
Jealous for Jerusalem and Zion.
Jealous to recapture the affection of His own
people.
Jealous because He is zealous to exalt His
people again.
Jealous because He looks for the day when
His people will praise Him as is His
view for the grace that He shows them.
All of that is bound up in the
phrase, I am jealous for Jerusalem and Zion.
That then is the God of Zechariah and
that's our God.
Principle number one in interpretation is that God
is the same.
Principle number two.
Godliness and ungodliness are the same.
Sin displeases God now as it displeased Him
then and repentance and faith and hope and
love and joy in communion with God.
Those things are the same whether it's Old
Testament or New.
Those things don't change.
The pattern of revival doesn't change either and
that's what I trust we're going to see.
God's work in quickening His people when they
need to be quickened remains the same whether
it's Old Testament or New Testament.
Here I invoke a principle which Reformed people
have sometimes called the continuous fulfillment of prophecy
as distinct from the specific fulfillment.
And I'm maintaining that here you've got a
pattern which is fulfilled over and over again
in God's blessing of His church and as
a pattern isn't linked to any one particular
set of circumstances even though it was given
in one particular set of circumstances in 520
B.C. Every time God revives His work
among His people this pattern is fulfilled again.
The fulfillment is continuous.
But now there are typical things in Zechariah
also and we better note what they are
before we go any further.
Jerusalem, the city in Palestine and its temple
which the people were struggling to rebuild in
Zechariah's day, these are typical realities.
Jerusalem and its temple Jerusalem and its temple
were the place of God's presence.
His manifested, His experienced presence, His presence enjoyed
and delighted in under Old Testament circumstances from
that standpoint, Jerusalem and the temple correspond to
the church viewed as a fellowship, a gathering
of people in whose midst the Lord shows
Himself through the preaching and ministry of His
Word.
That's the New Testament equivalent there.
Then the material prosperity which God promised to
earthly Jerusalem in these visions, that then was
the sign of His favour according to the
Old Testament order of things, but that was
typical of the spiritual blessings that God bestows
now on His people, and the heavenly inheritance
that's reserved in glory for all of us
who are His.
There again, therefore, you have a typical equivalent.
And then finally, Joshua, the high priest, and
Zerubbabel, the prince, the secular king, they appear
in these visions as joint mediators of God's
blessing, and joint leaders of God's people.
They're there as a pair, for instance, in
chapter 4, verse 14.
They are pictured by the two olive branches
supplying oil to the lampstand, which is the
church.
Again, we'll be thinking more of this tomorrow,
but just look at what is said in
verse 14.
These are the two who are anointed to
serve the Lord of all the earth.
That's Joshua and Zerubbabel.
They, however, in their duality, are typical of
one person, a mysterious person spoken of in
chapter 3, verse 8, and again chapter 6,
verses 12 and 13, a man whose name
is Labranch That's picking up Isaiah's and Jeremiah's
prophecies of the branch from the house of
David.
There's one coming whose name is Labranch, who
will unite in himself the ministry of both
high priest and king.
Well, we know who he is, and we
need not spend time scratching our heads over
the question.
The angel of the Lord also, the angel
of the Lord, is indeed a pre-incarnate
manifestation of him, and is there in the
prophecy also to point forward to him.
It's the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Saviour, of course, who is
being referred to in these predictions of the
branch, of whom both Joshua and Zerubbabel, in
their different ways, are prefigurings and foreshadowings.
There again you've got typology in the prophecy
of Zechariah.
I mention it simply so that we'll be
clear of it.
And we remember the historical situation, I trust,
into which Zechariah is speaking.
The people for two months, ever since Haggai
came and spoke to them, have been struggling
to get back to the work of erecting
the temple.
And now comes this word, through Zechariah, calling
for a complete spiritual renewal, a return to
God from the heart, which their working for
God hadn't yet brought about.
Because, as we said yesterday, doing things for
God is one matter.
It doesn't imply that you've yet returned to
the Lord from the heart, to love Him.
And it's into that situation, as I said,
that Zechariah speaks, and that God sends these
eight visions.
They're given to the prophet in one night.
There's an angel who interprets them to him.
Between them, they spell out God's agenda of
revival.
We can, of course, only zoom through them
quickly.
That's all that time allows, and that's all
that I'm going to attempt to do.
But take them as a sequence.
And I think you'll be amazed, as I
was years and years ago, when I suddenly
realized that this was revival, no less, is
the thing that Zechariah is delivering God's message
about.
Vision number one, chapter one, verses 7-17.
A vision of divine intercession.
Three parts.
Verses 8-11.
Information from angelic observers.
There's a man, verse 8, identified shortly as
the angel of the Lord, verse 11, riding
a red horse, and on that horse standing,
that is to say, the horse is stationary,
among the myrtle trees in a ravine.
The myrtle trees probably signify Israel.
There are messengers, other horses, pictured as other
horses, end of verse 9, whom the Lord,
look at verse 10, has sent to go
throughout the earth.
They report, verse 11, for the angel of
the Lord, who is standing among the myrtle
trees, and this is what they report, we've
gone throughout the earth and found the whole
world in rest and at peace, everything's quiet,
and Jerusalem is still in ruins and the
temple not built.
Now comes the second thing, verse 12, intercession
by the angel of the Lord.
The mediator does intercede for his people as
we know from Hebrews 7, verse 25, and
Romans 8, verse 34, and what a precious
truth that is.
The Son of God at the Father's right
hand in the power of His atoning work
and His mighty resurrection makes intercession for God's
own people.
Look at verse 12, the angel of the
Lord said, Lord Almighty, how long will you
withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns
of Judah with which you been angry these
70 years?
And here is the answer to the sovereign
intercession of the angel, verse 13, the Lord
spoke kind and comforting words to the angel
who talked with thee, Zechariah, and verses 14
through 17, now tell us what the message
was.
Information from angelic observers, intercession by the angel
of the Lord, and now the initiative of
the sovereign God.
The angel who was speaking to me said,
proclaim this word, this is what the Lord
Almighty, the sovereign Lord says, I'm very jealous
for Jerusalem and Zion, very angry with the
nations that feel secure and indeed are secure
in this quiet world.
I was only a little angry.
I used them as my executioners of judgment
against my people.
They added to the calamity.
They let out their malice against my people.
Now it's their turn for judgment, and it's
Israel's turn for renewed blessing.
So, this is what the Lord says, verse
16, I will return to Jerusalem with mercy,
and there my house will be rebuilt, and
the measuring line will be stretched out over
Jerusalem to measure its new dimensions as a
rebuilt and extended city.
Verse 17, my towns will again overflow with
prosperity.
The Lord will again comfort Zion with that
joy for himself that's unquenchable and unconquerable.
The Lord will again choose Jerusalem as the
place where he shows his glory in salvation
and blessing.
I am jealous.
I was angry.
I will return.
Those three phrases express it all.
And what do we learn from this?
What we learn from this first vision is
that revival flows from God's sovereign, merciful decision.
Revival comes when it comes because God is
jealous for his own people and for his
own glory.
As we said, we can't induce it.
We can't twist God's arm.
But there's hope of revival always because God
is jealous, is concerned for his glory, and
does love his people.
Thank God he does.
Where would we be otherwise?
But it's God's sovereign decision, you see, which
explains why God sent this message and gave
this help, actually, to Zerubbabel and company in
the year 520 B.C. and not in
the year 536 B.C. when they first
arrived.
It's this principle that explains why God sent
his blessing on the day of Pentecost, neither
before nor after.
I mean, the day when he poured out
his spirit was the day of Pentecost and
wasn't another day.
It's his sovereign decision.
And we must simply accept his sovereign decision
about the timing of spiritual revival.
That's the first thing which the first vision
teaches.
Revival is a matter of divine sovereignty.
Right.
Now look at the second vision.
This is verses 18 through 21 of Zechariah
chapter 1.
It's a vision of God overthrowing secular powers.
Just look at this.
There before me, verse 18, were four horns.
I asked the angel who was speaking to
me, what are these?
And he told me, these are the horns.
You know, in the Old Testament, a horn
is a symbol of a secular, military, human,
this worldly power.
These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel,
and Jerusalem.
Then, verse 20, the Lord showed me four
craftsmen.
Smeth was the older translation.
The Hebrew word means folk who work in
wood or stone or metal.
Demolition agents is the best way, I think,
to render the term here.
Four demolition agents, I asked, what are these
coming to do?
And the answer is there in the latter
part of verse 20, verse 21.
The craftsmen have come to terrify the four
horns and throw them down.
There the horns of the nations have lifted
up their horns against the land of Judah
to scatter its people, and the smeths have
come to terrify and throw them down.
What do we learn from that?
We learn, second principle, that revival means the
overcoming of hostile spiritual forces.
Forces against which the people of God have
thus far been impotent.
Forces which have run all over them.
Forces of secularity.
Forces of worthiness.
There's always opposition when revival begins, and regularly
there's been opposition to the gospel before revival
begins.
Up from the day of Pentecost onward, there
was opposition from those who had disposed of
Jesus Christ, and were not in the least
pleased, let's put it in minimal terms, they
were not in the least pleased that now
he should be proclaimed as risen and alive,
and all men called to repent of the
sin of putting him out of the way,
and to submit to his lordship henceforth.
And so the authorities were arrayed against Jesus'
followers, just as they'd been arrayed against Jesus
before.
There was opposition there.
Did you know that in England, before the
18th century awakening broke out, it was generally
agreed that Christianity was dead.
Hasn't that verdict got a modern sound?
We hear that kind of talk today.
It's a post-Christian society.
Christianity's dead.
We've got beyond it.
And the Lord raised up Whitefield, and Wesley,
and Daniel Rowland, and Howell Harris, and on
the other side of the Atlantic in a
similar situation, Jonathan Edwards and his colleagues.
God's arm is not shortened that he cannot
save.
But you see, there was hostile spiritual forces
there, forces of worldliness, treating Christianity as dead.
They spoke too soon.
And have you studied the East African revival
of our own time?
It broke out in the 1930s.
It's still going on.
It dies down, and then it flares up
again, like a forest fire.
It began in Rwanda.
It's spread all over East Africa now.
It prepared the people of God, toughened them
for the appalling convulsions that they've had to
go through politically and in terms of persecution.
You know about the Mau Mau thing some
25 years ago, or have you forgotten?
I hope you haven't.
The revival folks stood firm under persecution when
the Mau Mau folk were trying to get
them back to the tribal darkness of ethnic
witchdoctor type polytheism.
They wouldn't go.
Many of them lost their lives at that
time.
And then Uganda comes to East Africa for
this purpose.
It was the revival people who stood firm
in the days of Idi Amin.
If God hadn't quickened his people by revival
blessing in the 1930s and thereafter, where would
Christianity in East Africa be now?
Revival is often preparation for more battles with
hostile spiritual forces.
There's always opposition somewhere.
There always will be, as long as the
church is in this world.
So, here's principle number two.
Revival means God's overcoming of hostile spiritual forces,
forces that were there before, forces that will
raise their head again.
It's battle.
You can't have battle without casualties.
You can't have revival without strain and pain
and suffering for those who are in the
midst of the blessing.
Revival doesn't shield us from that.
Look at the story of the apostles suffering
arrest and imprisonment and hostility in Jerusalem in
those early days.
But they took it in stride.
Remember that prayer meeting in Acts chapter 4.
Now, Lord, behold, they're threatening.
And what?
Give us an out from Jerusalem so that
we can get away from it?
No, nothing like that.
Behold, they're threatening and grant that your servants
may, with great power, proclaim your word while
you show your power to heal in the
name of Jesus as God, you know, God
did heal through the name of Jesus in
the ministry of the apostles.
Hostility?
Yes.
And who won?
Well, spiritually, there's no question who won.
But was the battle hard and was the
suffering great?
And were guys like Stephen and others with
Stephen actually put to death by hostile spiritual
forces?
Yes, they were.
Revival means the overcoming of hostile spiritual forces,
but it occurs.
Nonetheless, there's no question whose is the victory
when God resolves to renew His work among
His people, and that's what we see in
this second vision.
Third vision.
Chapter 2, verses 1 through 13.
It's a vision of God transforming Jerusalem.
I just have to hold myself back here
because there is so much in this vision
that I'd like to dilate on that the
clock will ruin me if I don't hurry.
So let's say it's a vision of a
man with a measuring line in his hand,
says Zechariah, what's this man here to do?
End of verse 2, the angel who's explaining
all this to the prophet says, he's here
to measure Jerusalem and find out how wide
and how long it is.
And then a message is sent to Zechariah,
the young man of verse 4, Jerusalem is
going to be a city without walls because
of the great number of men and livestock
in it.
And I myself, verse 5, this is the
Lord speaking, I myself will be a wall
of fire around it, declares the Lord, and
I will be its glory within.
What's being said there?
Why?
That Jerusalem is going to be blessed with
population.
Verse 6 says that more of the exiles
are going to return.
Verse 11 says many nations will be joined
to the Lord in that day and will
become my people.
There's the picture of the evangelistic overflow once
again.
Folk will realize that God is with these
folk and they want what these folk have
got.
So they join themselves to these folk.
They share in the blessing God's given.
So the city is going to be populous.
The church is going to be expanded and
extended at revival times.
And prosperity will come.
In verse 4 it's pictured as the great
number of livestock.
Well, livestock was wealth and prosperity and livelihood
to folk in those days.
The spiritual prosperity of those who know that
their salvation is with Christ and their inheritance
is with Christ in glory, that's the New
Testament counterpart of that.
But real prosperity, my goodness yes, in revival
times everyone can say, thankfully it is well
with my soul.
In this earth I may be losing.
At the Father's right hand there's treasures and
pleasures forevermore and spiritually I'm rich.
There's prosperity there.
And there's protection for the church along with
the population, the increased numbers.
That's in verses 4 and 5 too.
Look at verse 5.
I myself will be a wall of fire
around the city, declares the Lord, just as
I will be its glory within.
Glory, that's the shekinah, that's the manifested presence,
and with that manifested presence is promised divine
protection.
This is God transforming Jerusalem.
Verse 10 calls God's people to the proper
reaction.
Shout and be glad, O daughter of Zion,
for I'm coming and I will live among
you, declares the Lord, and you'll know my
fellowship in your midst.
Shout, said Dr. Lloyd-Jones wisely and truly,
there'll be emotional expression, emotional overflow, if you
like, of the joy that's in the heart
of God's people when revival comes, they'll become
shouters before the Lord.
The early Methodists did, even the Calvinistic ones,
did you know that?
We aren't much of shouters before the Lord
these days because we've got very little to
shout about.
Some folk go in for shouting of course
as a kind of routine, but it's pretty
hollow.
But the kind of joy, the kind of
exuberance that comes to God's people when Christ
draws near to them again in revival, expresses
itself in very vigorous speech, very loud utterance,
shouts for joy become the natural and constant
accompaniment of the fellowship of God's church.
It's always been so.
And so this third vision gives us this
third truth.
Revival means a new experience of God's enriching
presence.
And you can see this in the Acts
narrative.
I'm going to skip this bit because the
clock is beating me as you can see
and I just want to finish my overview
of the visions, but study at your leisure
Acts 2 verses 42-47.
This is straight after the Pentecost sermon.
The new community is together in fellowship and
in joy.
It says, all was upon every soul.
You ask why?
Why?
Because the presence of the Lord was a
matter of experience in their midst.
They were together and they wanted to be
together.
You say, why?
And the answer is because it was in
their togetherness as they shared the word and
loved each other, that they found the Lord's
presence and enjoyed that glorious reality of communion
which was for them in truth the beginning
of heaven on earth.
You study those verses at your leisure.
That's revival life.
Acts 2 verses 42-47.
That's the new experience of God's enriching power.
A corporate thing?
Yes, most certainly that is part of the
pattern.
Next vision, chapter 3.
It's a vision of God cleansing Joshua.
Joshua, the high priest, appears standing before the
Lord.
Verse 1, and Satan stands at his right
hand to accuse him.
The Lord rebukes Satan, the accuser.
Says, you're not to accuse him.
But there was reason why Satan should accuse
Joshua and say out loud in Joshua's own
conscience that Joshua is not fit to stand
before the Lord because, look at verse 3,
Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he
stood before the angel.
What angel?
It's back to the opening words of verse
1.
It's the angel of the Lord, the mediator
in theophany before whom Joshua stands.
And the angel says to those who stood
before him, take off Joshua's filthy clothes.
And he says to Joshua, verse 4, see
I've taken away your sin and I'll put
rich garments on you.
And then he says, verse 5, put a
clean, oh sorry, then I said, this seems
to be the Lord for the moment speaking
in his own person, put a clean turban
on his head.
So they put a clean turban on his
head and they clothed him while the angel
of the Lord stood by.
What a transformation!
And now the Lord Almighty, verse 7, says
to Joshua, if you'll walk in my ways
and keep my commands, then you'll govern my
house and have charge in my court and
I will give you a place among those
standing here.
A place among the angels.
A place of permanent access.
A place of permanent acceptance in the presence
of the Lord.
Joshua, you'll remember, was a representative person.
The high priest had the names of all
the tribes on his breastplate.
Joshua represents the people, I believe, in this
vision.
And what's it a vision of?
Well, here's truth number 4.
This is what it is a vision of.
Revival means, as indeed we said yesterday, a
rediscovery of the blessing of justification.
Sin, guilt, defilement of conscience, gone.
All that uncleanness washed away by the blood
of Christ.
And henceforth, full acceptance and free access in
God's holy presence.
A place among the angels who stand before
Him.
That's justification in its double aspect.
Pardon of sin and acceptance of our presence.
This is what's being pictured here.
Didn't I say that justification is the central
revival doctrine?
And that this central doctrine of the gospel
is never loved so much as at revival
times just because at revival times people realize
so acutely how they need it.
God returns to Jerusalem.
Joshua, the high priest representing the people, is
overwhelmed with a sense of sin.
The sense of sin is dealt with in
the manner described through the ministry of the
angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate mediator.
It's justification by faith.
And revival means a rediscovery of justification.
Yes, I'm overrunning, so I must hurry on.
I have more to say here, but it
must be allowed to go.
Vision number five need not occupy us here
because I'm coming back to it tomorrow.
Let's simply say it's a vision of the
people of God pictured as a great candlestick
sustained and enabled to burn and burn and
keep on burning through oil from heaven.
And the truth being taught, the principle that's
here for us to learn, is that revival
means power, constant, sustained power from God's Holy
Spirit for life and service.
Sixth vision, chapter five, verses one through four,
it's a vision of God cursing the immoral
among his own people.
A flying scroll, an enormous flying scroll, thirty
feet long and fifteen feet wide, verse two,
moves across the face of the land like
one of those great banners which the little
planes pull, you know, for advertisement purposes nowadays.
But what's being advertised by this great flying
scroll, this great banner, is judgment on sinners.
This, verse three, is the curse that's going
out over the whole land.
According to what it says on one side,
every thief will be banished.
According to what it says on the other
side, everyone who swears falsely will be banished.
For the Lord Almighty declares, I will send
it out, and it will enter the house
of a thief, and the house of him
who swears falsely by my name, and it
will remain in his house and destroy it.
Now judgment begins at the house of God.
This is one of the things that happens
when revival comes.
Peter makes reference to that, you remember, in
the fourth chapter of his first letter.
Now judgment must begin at the house of
God.
There's always judgment when there's a visitation of
God in revival.
See it in the revival story of Acts.
You have heard of Ananias and Sapphira?
Need I say more?
They conspired to lie to the Spirit of
the Lord.
Peter puts their sin to them in just
those terms.
What happens?
Judgment falls, and they're both carried out dead.
It's an awesome thing to live in revival
times.
This kind of judgment was not limited to
Ananias and Sapphira.
It's part of the pattern.
Here it is.
So the sixth truth is revival means judgment
on the lawless and the hypocrites among God's
people.
That leads on to the seventh vision.
It's a vision of God removing wickedness from
his people.
It's a strange vision.
There's a great basket in which there sits
a woman.
The commentators primly say that the reason why
wickedness is pictured as a woman is that
the Hebrew for wickedness is a feminine noun
and there's no other reason and I hope
that we all have settled for that.
For what is said of the woman in
verse 8, you see it is this is
wickedness and once Zechariah's seen that the woman
is pushed back into the basket, a leg
cover is pushed down over the mouth of
the basket so that wickedness can't get out
and two women with the wind in their
wings like wings of storks verse 9 lift
up the basket and fly with it out
of the land.
What does this tell us?
It tells us that revival means the purging
out of sin from the lives of the
saints.
How's it done?
It's done actually through bringing them to repentance.
Repentance which in experience and I hope you
will allow me to say this in rather
unlovely language Repentance which is experience has an
enetic effect.
Folk feel they must forgive me, pick up
their sins.
Get them out of the system separate themselves
from them so that the sins are no
longer part of them so they vomit them
up.
Repentance in the New Testament is pictured in
more than one place as a violent thing.
When Jesus said in Matthew 11 and verse
12 from the days of John the Baptist
the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the
violence press into it grab hold of it
what he was talking about for sure is
the violence of this kind of repentance.
You see it exhibited in Christians in 2
Corinthians chapter 7 verses 7 and following.
Paul has written to these Christians at Corinth
to remember that their very disorderly lots have
been converted and are still living in revival
conditions Paul has written to them to rebuke
them for not having exercised church discipline in
a particular case.
And this is what he says about their
response to his letter.
Even if my letter caused you sorrow 2
Corinthians 7 I don't regret that.
I'm happy not because you were made sorry
but because your sorrow led you to repentance.
For you became sorrowful as God intended.
Your sorrow was godly sorrow which, verse 10,
brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves
no regret.
For, and now this is what I wanted
to call your attention to, verse 11 see
what this godly sorrow has produced in you.
What earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what
indignation what alarm, what longing what concern what
readiness, eagerness again would be a good translation
to see justice done.
That's quite a violent reaction, isn't it?
Well in times of repentance sorry, in times
of revival when rebuke for sin comes from
the Lord like this rebuke through Paul the
Apostle repentance is violent and folk are violent
with themselves to get the evil out of
their system they find it intolerable to retain
it as it were in their system this
is why they stand up in public and
confess it often in a very embarrassing way
but they feel they have to do that
in order to get it out of their
system you will know that this is one
of the constant features of revival times people
feel that they haven't got it out of
their system until they've confessed it publicly that's
the way of showing that between them and
it there's now a great gulf fixed and
they've finished with it and in Acts, as
a matter of fact where, as you've heard
me say more than once, ministry was being
carried on in revival blessing you've got at
least one very striking example of this the
occultists of Isis Acts chapter 19 verse 18
and following many of those who believed came
and openly confessed their evil deeds a number
who practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and
burned them publicly and when they calculated the
value of the scrolls the total came to
50,000 drachmas which was a great sum
of money they felt they had to do
it as a public gesture, you see that
they finished with all of this occult stuff
just as those who came and openly confessed
their evil deeds felt they had to do
it in order to get those evil deeds
finally out of their system the Spirit of
God come in power into human consciences that
prompts this action you see it all pictured
in the removal of wickedness from God's people
in Zechariah chapter 5 verses 5 through 11
the truth we're learning is that revival means
the purging out of sin which I had
time to tell you all the things that
I had here lined up concerning the extraordinary
moral transformation that movements of revival brought about
in situations where dishonesty had become, blasphemy had
become just standard as in the Welsh mines
in 1904 where the blasphemy down the pit
simply stopped as in the shipyards of Ulster,
in the Willie Nicholson revival in which the
man under whom I served in my first
ministerial post, as I told you was converted
they had to build new toolsheds would you
believe it, to accommodate all those tools from
the shipyards that had been knocked off by
men who now that they were converted knew
that they had to bring them back and
make restitution.
It's a wonderful thing when you see that
happening.
That's what's being pictured in the second half
of Zechariah 5.
And quickly on to finish, the eighth vision
is chapter 6 verses 1 through 8 God
displaying his sovereign lordship in the world.
The power of God is being highlighted through
all the details of the vision, it's rather
like the first vision actually, but there are
some significant changes.
Verse 1 Here come four chariots chariots are
emblems of power they come out from between
two mountains mountains of bronze there again you
have an emblem of power, an emblem of
fixity, this points to the fixity of God's
own empire over his world.
The gates as it were of his empire
are mountains of bronze.
Nothing can unseat him from his throne nothing
can overthrow his empire, the gates of bronze
themselves show it.
Out come the chariots and says Zechariah what
of these?
And the angel who's explaining it to him
says well, these verse 5 are the four
spirits or winds of heaven spirit ruach, Hebrew
word represents the power of God in action.
Whether it's winds or whether it's spirits in
the translation it's certainly the power of God
in action that's being pictured here.
And says the angel the chariot with the
black horse verse 6 is going towards the
north country where there's still judgment to be
inflicted and then the others go through different
parts of the earth.
Then verse 7 we are told that the
powerful horses were straining to go throughout the
earth they were powerful horses the thought of
God's power is being highlighted again by this
detail of the picture and they go throughout
the earth and then the angel explaining things
calls to Zechariah and says look, those going
towards the north country I say he, is
it it might be Yahweh, Jehovah himself, those
going towards the north country have given my
spirit, God's spirit rest in the land of
the north the commentators agree that the judgment
of God on the foes of Israel in
the north, Babylonia quite specifically that judgment's been
inflicted that's how the rest was given it's
a picture of divine victory divine victory over
those who previously rejoiced at being victors over
God's people power and victory is the focus
of this eighth vision and so the final
truth that we're taught here about revival is
that revival shows God to be still on
his throne the Lord victorious and that indeed
is how it is every time that God
visits his people to revive his work among
them and renew life among them it's a
demonstration of his sovereign lordship in sovereign grace
all of this, all these eight truths that
we've looked at together constitute the meaning of
God's return to his people for God to
return means all these things and this is
the hope these are the elements in the
hope of revival which is there for us
in Zechariah chapter 1 verse 3, return to
me says the Lord, to us today and
I will return to you says the Lord,
to us today you can see the spiritual
counterparts in the pattern I've tried to pinpoint
them this is the work of grace that
we too need in our situation and there
is hope of it let that hope make
us humble we can't do this, we have
to look to God to do it let
this hope make us holy the purging judgment
of God if and when he visits his
people in revival blessing is awesome and awful
to experience we would do well even now
to be praying search me O God show
me if there be any wicked way in
me teach me to put it away and
lead me in the way everlasting this hope
should make us prayerful that which we so
badly need and which only God can give
must be sought by earnest prayer, there is
no other way to seek it let this
hope make us patient God establishes the schedule
it's for us to wait on him until
he moves I finish with that rather abruptly,
I've already overshot my time rather grievously, but
you can see why having started this I
wanted to finish it I was thrilled when
I saw these things, I hope your hearts
are thrilled too, on from this tomorrow, God
bless us all we're glad that you have
heard this tape from the Southern Baptist Conference
on the Faith of the Founders I'd like
to say some things about what this conference
is, what it intends to do, upon what
principles it operates first of all, all who
hear these tapes need to realize that this
conference is not a political movement it has
no designs on seeking to run any candidate
for any office within any denomination it is
strictly a conference for personal edification of pastors,
elders deacons and members of Baptist churches it
is not a political movement of any kind
neither do we consider it a place for
airing negative and critical vendettas against other groups
we're quite aware that there's much that could
be said that could be said about pagans,
Turks Jews, atheists, Pelagians, semi-Pelagians Catholics, Arminians,
Moderates, Hyper-Calvinists and people of other theological
persuasions including ourselves that would not be favorable
but this conference is designed for a positive
presentation positive edification is our goal to embrace
the truth with such vigor that error must
of necessity fall what are we?
we are Southern Baptists we welcome people from
other denominations from other traditions we cherish the
fellowship that we have with them and we
feel that the doctrines around which this conference
centers are so broadly evangelical that many people
can enjoy them but our stated purpose is
to provide edification for people within Southern Baptist
life we affirm our Southern Baptist heritage and
desire to recapture it we affirm the fellowship
that is available in the network of all
Southern Baptist life in associations state conventions and
desire to sanctify it and we affirm the
conscientious involvement in a multiplicity of benevolences that
is characteristic of Southern Baptist life we desire
to reform it we affirm the task of
the foreign mission board, the home mission board
the brotherhood commission, the Sunday school board, the
Christian life commission all of these have good
and proper goals and assignments we desire to
see men within these who believe the gospel
and we desire these men to come there
not through political manipulation but through the individual
training of man so that God in his
providence may place people who are prepared in
those positions also what we are we are
Calvinistic we do not apologize for that we
believe that Calvinism is the gospel in its
purest expression we could rightly call it Paulinism
but what Christian would not call their doctrine
Pauline we could rightly call it Augustinianism but
Augustine developed his understanding of the doctrines of
grace in a context that was not so
aware of the necessity of the doctrine of
justification by faith and so we call it
Calvinism because not only does it have the
great Pauline and Augustinian doctrines of justification by
faith but it also sets these within the
context of imputed righteousness as our only standing
before God as set forth in the Reformation
doctrine of justification by faith and a third
thing we are in addition to being Southern
Baptist and Calvinistic we are experiential we do
not have the attitude of those guys out
there don't know this but our attitude hopefully
and prayerfully is this question has my mind
and my heart absorbed and is it being
molded by the reality of these doctrines and
it is in this context that we seek
to apply all the doctrines of grace we
are happy that you have listened to this
tape and pray that God may benefit you
in it and perhaps in its providence may
lead you to attend one of these conferences
God bless you