2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Introduction
When I hear the word revival, I often think about the week-long meetings that are usually held in the fall. Most of the times, at least when I was growing up, a handful of people would come, and occasionally, if we were really blessed, one or two people would either come to the Lord or be convicted and turn their lives around. But this is not what true revival is. I don’t doubt that there have been many long revival meetings that have gone to turn churches around because I have seen those in person before. But what I mean by revival is the true turning of a church towards God and His will for the entire congregation.
As I was reading this week, I saw a funny story. An Anglican minister wrote to his bishop asking him to come and hold a ‘quiet day’ for the congregation. The bishop declined, and wrote back saying “your parish does not need a quiet day, it needs an earthquake!”
When we have a true revival, that’s what it is truly like. It’s ground shaking, prison breaking, boulder moving, rise up out of the grave moments! But how do we get that kind of revival? Let’s look at 2 Chronicles here. The books of Chronicles tell the story of God’s people, and particularly right here, Solomon’s Temple is being dedicated to God. God appears to Solomon and tells him that he will greatly bless the people of Israel if they will continue to seek him. But this is a big ‘if’ for God. He had seen the people turn away from Him so often, and knew that they would again. There is a prophecy at the end of this passage, saying that if the people turned away from God that he would tear the Temple down, and people would ask “why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?” People will answer ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them - that is why he brought all this disaster on them.” That is from verses 21 and 22, and we see that fulfilled, even through the tears of Jesus as he indeed the gates prior to his death and resurrection.
If
But let’s look at the IFs of revival. If we want true revival as a Christian, there is clear instruction in this passage. First, we must humble ourselves. We hear this a lot in church. Humble yourself. It’s sort of church speak, isn’t it? But how do we do that? It’s making sure that we aren’t prideful. Like we talked last week about Diotrephes, who put himself in the primary place instead of Jesus. It’s ensuring that we have the interests of others ahead of our own when it comes to serving God. Philippians 2:3-5 says just that: “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” Jesus himself said in Matthew 23:12 “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Paul wrote to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 11 about the sufferings, trials and tribulations that he had endured for Christ, but put it best in verse 30 when he wrote “if I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness”! He knew that through humbleness that true strength and true salvation was shown, and that God would favor it. When we put the interests of others ahead of ourselves, we are preparing the way for revival in our own lives.
After we humble ourselves, we enter into prayer. This is the kind of prayer that Jesus showed in the Garden, one that seeks the will of God. Praying for revival is a dangerous thing. It is submitting yourself to possible trials and tribulations. It’s submitting yourself to changes in your life. It’s submitting yourself to whatever God’s will is in your life, be it to move on from bad things, from things that you have enjoyed but you know are sinful, from hurt in your life. Praying for revival is praying that you will walk more like Jesus in your personal life. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. When we pray the kind of prayer that we should for revival, this is the result of it: we will have rejoicing, we will be able to give thanks in all circumstances.
Finally, we must be repentant. Why are we repentant? It is the first step to showing the humbleness towards the Lord, but it is also the call of the Christian to show their true faith. Jesus said himself in Matthew 4:17 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repentance is the act of showing that you are ready for true change, as well. When you became a Christian, what was the thing that you did to show that you were true to what you had pledged to God? It wasn’t baptism, it wasn’t even coming down the aisle to the front of the church. It was knowing that you had sin in your life, and that it separated you from fellowship with God. It was knowing that you needed to make amends for that, and that the only way that you could do it was through confessing those sins and believing that Jesus Christ was your savior. That is why repentance is necessary for true revival to start.
I will
But after you have made those preparations for true revival to start, how can we be sure that God will provide the revival? He makes three promises in 2 Chronicles 7:14. The first is that he will hear our prayers. Does this mean that God doesn’t always hear our prayers? He is always listening, for certain. But if we have not humbled ourselves, and we have not prepared ourselves to follow his will, then he will not listen to us. Have you ever known someone who always gossips falsehoods? Or who just spouts off crazy ideas all the time? You get to a point where that person is not someone you want to listen to. Sure, you hear them, but you just sort of filter is out and it becomes white noise. That’s what is meant here. If we are not sincere in our prayers, if we have not come to the throne in the right way, God is not going to listen to our pleas. 1 John 5:14-15 says “And this is the confidence that we have towards him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” We can have confidence that God will answer the prayers for revival if we are being sincere.
God gives a second promise: he will forgive. 1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Martin Luther, the great starter of the reformation said this about forgiveness from Christ. He wrote that “all people who are Christians and baptized have this power (of God’s forgiveness). In this way they praise Christ, and the words are put into their mouths, so that they can say, whenever they want and as often as it is necessary: “Look, dear man! God offers you His grace and forgives your sins. Be comforted, you sins have been forgiven. Only believe it and you surely have it.” This sound should not cease among Christians until the Last Day: “Your sins have been forgiven. Be cheerful and comforted!” A Christian always has such words in his mouth and publicly speaks the words in which sins are forgiven.” God will forgive our sins if we confess them to him, and will never remember them again. This is the next step towards revival in our lives.
The third promise that God makes is that he will heal their land. God punishes those who defy him. Look in the Old Testament and see how many times certain lands are put under because they did not acknowledge God as their one true God. Look and see just from the Exodus story what God did when Pharaoh defied God to not let his people go. But even more than the land, God will heal the life of the sinner when true revival comes. He promises that we will have reward eternal if we turn to Him. We will have a life that has no pain, no suffering, and no more death when we are with Him in heaven. Will we have suffering here on Earth? Absolutely. We are still under the sin curse here. And we cannot have a true, complete revival until we are in Heaven with Him! But we pray for that revival, and we pray for it so that we can walk closer to the Master.
True Revival
When we have done our preparation, and we have realized that God promises us these three things and will keep those promises, we then can realize what true revival truly is. And I’m going to shock you a little bit with first two things I’m going to share in this part. The first is this: true revival is not about evangelism. Now, you might be saying, but when we have revival, isn’t it about reaching out to the community and bringing them into fellowship with Christ? Absolutely those protracted meetings that we call revival is about evangelism. It is about reaching those that are lost for Christ. But TRUE revival is about the person, and it is about the change within you and within the church first.
The second is that true revival is not about emotionalism. I don’t know how much you know about the Great Awakening in America in the 18th and early 19th century. Now, it was a true revival awakening within our nation that perhaps will be replicated once again. We saw one like it in the 1950s, and I think that our country is primed for another one. But one hallmark of that Great Awakening was that there were many ‘ministers’ that preyed upon the emotions of people to try to get them to convert. They used emotional sensationalism to pull people towards Christ. This is not necessarily a bad thing to use the emotions of people to pull them in. But the sinfulness of that is that many times that is the only thing that has pulled them towards Christ. Now, we have to realize that there is always going to be emotion within our lives, and that Christianity pulls at our emotions. That is how God has wired us; we feel certain things in our emotions when we are talking about Jesus and what he has done for us in our lives. But emotionalISM, the use of emotions to control or convert, will lead to a faith that is not rooted in the revival of the life in Jesus Christ. That is one thing that I have against many churches, both traditional and modern, is that they are eschewing the meat of the Gospel and keeping people on the milk of the new birth. When we allow the emotions to overcome the truth, then true revival will not take root.
But there is hope. What true revival really is is emulation. It is the emulation of the life of Christ. It is being a suffering servant to others. That look, that lifestyle, is one that is humble, that is constantly in prayer, and is truly inviting revival to happen daily within the life of the Christian. Is it excelling in the obedience to God’s formula for the life of the Christian. Ephesians 5:1-2 says “therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” 1 Corinthians 11:1 has Paul stating this: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” We are to walk in the footsteps of Christ, all the way to the cross. We are to follow his example, and we are to humble ourselves, be prayerful, remember God’s promises, and to live a life that will welcome true revival into our lives every day. It is emulating the life of Christ that will lead to that true revival.
Conclusion
When we talk about revival, sometimes that light goes out a bit, or at least dims. I was reading this week about the story of the Salvation Army. In Nottingham England, there is a chapel where William Booth, founder of the salvation Army, was converted. A memorial tablet keeps fresh in recollection the fact that this notable friend of the friendless received his baptism of spiritual power. Naturally, the chapel has become a shrine of pilgrimage for Salvation Army leaders from around the world. One day an aged black man in uniform of the Army was found by the minister of the chapel standing with uplifted eyes before the tablet. “Can a man say his prayers here?” he asked. “Of course,” was the minister’s answer, “a man can say his prayers here.” The old Salvation Army officer went down on his knees and, lifting his hands before the tablet, prayed: “O God, do it again! Do it again!” That prayer is the touchstone of abiding reality in revival. The reproducible experiences concerning which men pray across the centuries, in all sorts of settings, “Do it again!” are vital for revival to truly happen. Let’s pray.
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