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Aug 12, 2012

A Prayer for Revival

Passage: Psalms 85:1-13

Preacher: John Repsold

Category: Christian Walk

Keywords: revival, renewal, seeking god, prayer, church

Summary:

Following up on last week's message on the need for revival, this message looks at how we can be praying for revival. From the pen/lips of some people who knew the vital importance of God's reviving work (Sons of Korah), this Psalm gives us direction about how to seek God in prayer for the revival we need.

Detail:

A Prayer for Revival

Psalm 85

August 12, 2012

 

Intro: Life seems to come in waves!  Sometimes those waves break over your head and seem to push you under the water for a while. 

I’ve been noticing both in the lives of many of you in the congregation and in my own experience, there is a real need for a refreshing and renewing work of God.  Just as no one has to tell you that you should long for a drink of cold water/iced tea on a hot summer day, so our souls intuitively know when we are parched and barren.  We know that what we really need is a cool, refreshing drink of spiritual refreshment that really only a work of God can bring. 

 

ILL:  My experience this week of running along the lake road at CDA, seeing beautiful homes, with beautiful scenery, on a beautiful day, yet feeling very empty and troubled.  I was reminded again of the truth Solomon discovered that all the external luxuries and abundance of this world are still not what our souls really crave. As human beings we’re made with a hunger even in the midst of abundance for God’s fresh and ongoing work in us.

 

That’s what today’s text of Scripture is all about:  what can we do to call out for God’s renewing work when we feel so very un-renewed?  For some answers, let’s go to Psalm 85 today.

 

BACKDROP

WHO wrote a particular section of Scripture is not always that critical when it comes to reading the Bible.  In fact, some books of the Bible we don’t even know for sure who wrote them. 

            But Psalm 85 is one chapter where it is important to know WHO wrote this Psalm.  The header to this Psalm simply says, “For the director of music.  Of the Sons of Korah.  A Psalm.” 

 

Just WHO were those “sons of Korah”?  The name Korah is connected with one of the more ugly moments in Israel’s life with God.  Numbers 16 tells us the story of Korah:

  • Levites (250) led by Korah who were not part of the priesthood.
  • They decided it was time for a change of leadership and rebelled against Aaron and Moses by claiming that they were just as much priests as Aaron was, just as holy as Moses. 
  • Moses gave them a night to think about it and told them that the next day they were all to appear before the Tabernacle of God’s presence with censers full of incense and fire.  If Moses and Aaron were not God-appointed, then God would tell the whole assembly there.  But if Korah and his 250 followers were wrong about everyone being a priest and equally holy, then God would reveal that. 

Guess what happened?

  • Moses told them that if Korah and the 250 men with him died a natural death, God wasn’t the one who had sent him to lead his people.  BUT if they died an unnatural death, then they would be the one’s who were wrong and had treated the Lord with contempt by claiming they knew better how to approach God. 
  • “As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with heir households…and possessions.”  (Nu. 16:31-32)

So they were swallowed by the earth…alive.  End of story…or so we would think, right?  Not quite.  There must have been a few of Korah’s descendants that didn’t buy the lie and drink the Cool-Aid. 

 

By the time you get to the book of Psalms, some of Korah’s descendants are still serving as Levites in the presence of the Lord at the Temple in Jerusalem.  I’m guessing that they were probably one of the more humble groups of servers in the Temple.  They knew through the family stories that must have been passed down through the centuries that their presence at the Temple…their very existence in life…was due, not to God’s holiness and hatred of sin, but to his grace and goodness despite the sin of their forefathers.  True to God’s standard not to put children to death for the sins of their fathers (Deut 24:16), these now Temple musicians, composers and poets were the very product of God’s grace in the midst of judgment hundreds of years before. 

 

APP:  That story mirrors the grace of God which Jarrod pointed out to us last week in the story of Hezekiah who followed his father, the horribly wicked king Asa.  One generation’s failures do not have to be the next generations undoing.  They can be the next generation’s springboard for renewal.

 

NOTE:  In case you haven’t noticed, the Boomers, my generation, has failed miserably. As we discussed in groups last week, my generation…and much of the current generation…is worshipping all kinds of false gods—gods of “reproductive health”, of money, of power, of politics, of materialism, of greed, of addictions, of convenience, of ease, of secular humanism and a hundred other gods that will only lead us to death and destruction. 

BUT that doesn’t have to be this generation’s legacy.  (And I’m greatly ENCOURAGED to see a fresh heart for spiritual revival in a much broader group of God’s people in a more passionate way than ever happened with Boomers & Busters.

 

[PRAY for this next generation.]

 

So, back to Psalm 85.  The composers of these lyrics and this ancient music understood what was at stake in revival.  They understood what the cost of status-quo spiritual was.  They understood how deadly it all could be unless God renewed his people.  This may be why they were the ones who could cry out for a fresh work of God with the greatest conviction.

 

APP:  Have you come from a family tree that seems to have been struck by the lightning of sin?  Branches are broken, people are scattered all over the place?  You have no “godly heritage.”  Maybe you’re the first even remotely “godly” thing to branch out of your family in years?  Then YOU are probably the kind of person God wants to use to bring some fresh songs of renewal and spiritual revival into God’s family. 

 

So let’s look at what a prayer for revival involves for people who are hungry for God’s renewing work.  I won’t lay out the whole argument for prayer as a part of the revival process.  But I can safely say that just about every time in the Bible and in the history of the Church where God pours out spiritual revival and renewal, prayer by someone or some group of God’s people has always present, usually leading up to and into a revival.  We saw that last week with Hezekiah and Isaiah—their prayers protected all of Jerusalem being besieged by the Assyrians. 

 

Psalm 85 is one of the few places in the whole Bible where the term “revive” and “renew” is actually used.  And there are 4 clear practices to revival prayer in this song. 

1.)  The first one is this:  remember what God has already done in the past—yours and all of God’s people.

 

There are 6 verbs used in the first 3 verses of Psalm 85 that focus on what God has done.  They come in couplets of 2.

Vs. 1—God has already “showed favor” to the place where his people lived—Israel…and “restored the fortunes of Jacob.” 

Revival prayer must recognize what God has already done in the past that produced blessing among God’s people. 

            This is why church history can be SO important.  This is why knowing as much as we can about what God is doing across the world in our day is so important.  When God’s people are in a state of need or lethargy or spiritual apathy, we need to be able to look at what God has and is doing to bring His church to life. 

 

ILL:  Church History:  the Moravian movement—Count Zinzendorf (27, also the average age of the entire community) and Herenhut, Germany.  The small community of believers was threatened with division and break-up through backbiting, divergent theology and critical hearts.  Zinzendorf began to pray and called others to prayer and commitment.  At Herrnhut, Zinzendorf visited all the adult members of the deeply divided community. He drew up a covenant calling upon them 'to seek out and emphasise the points in which they agreed' rather than stressing their differences.

On 12 May 1727 they all signed an agreement to dedicate their lives, as he dedicated his, to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Moravian revival of 1727 was thus preceded and then sustained by extraordinary praying. A spirit of grace, unity and supplications grew among them. On 16 July the Count poured out his soul in a prayer accompanied with a flood of tears. This prayer produced an extraordinary effect. The whole community began praying as never before. On 22 July many of the community covenanted together on their own accord to meet often to pour out their hearts in prayer and hymns.

On 5 August the Count spent the whole night in prayer with about twelve or fourteen others following a large meeting for prayer at midnight where great emotion prevailed. On Sunday, 10 August, Pastor Rothe, while leading the service at Herrnhut, was overwhelmed by the power of the Lord about noon. He sank down into the dust before God. So did the whole congregation. They continued till midnight in prayer and singing, weeping and praying.

On Wednesday, 13 August 1727, the Holy Spirit was poured out on them all. Their prayers were answered in ways far beyond anyone's expectations. Many of them decided to set aside certain times for continued earnest prayer.

It was a 24-hour/day prayer practice that lasted for 100 years.  In the first 25 years, that band of Moravians sent out over 100 missionaries all over the world (in a day when missionaries were virtually unknown). John Wesley, traveling to the U.S. nearly a decade later, was converted to Christ when he observed the peace and life of some Moravian missionaries on board his ship as it encountered a storm.

 

Current reality:  China’s spiritual awakening today. 

 

When we read stories like this, doesn’t something in our hearts cry out and say, “Lord, you DID do this!  You have showed favor like this to this nation and this city and this people.  We believe you can do that in our nation, our city, our church, my life.”

 

Vs. 1b—“You restored the fortunes of Jacob.”  We are people who need to see that even though God’s people were disciplined and had their “fortunes” taken away, that he is a God who restores.  This isn’t simply “going back to the way it used to be.”  God is not the god of the dead but of the living.  And if you are alive, then you are always experiencing something NEW, not old, dead and gone. 

            We cannot allow ourselves to think that revival simply means bringing back what we miss about the past.  It may involve some similar components—places, names, heritages, etc.  But the “fortunes,” the things that make us whole and filled up as the people of God, will be different in each generation. 

            So let’s think for a moment about WHAT God might restore in the “fortunes of” his people, the church, today? 

[Ask for input:  new believers, spirit of evangelism, holiness of living, etc.]

 

3rd & 4th verbs used in remembering what God has already done in the past regarding revival is in vs. 2—“You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins.” 

 

The Sons of Korah knew that God was not obligated to forgive or cover all sins.  Their forefathers had died in unrepentant sin.  ONLY those sins that the people of God recognized and turned from were forgiven and covered.  Those they persisted in were disciplined and punished. 

            As we saw last week, the sin issues must always be dealt with first or our quest for God’s renewing work will fail.  Here is one area where our responsibility differs from the story of Hezekiah last week.  He was king over the people of God.  It was effectively to be a theocracy that was governed by God through the Law and leaders God would appoint.  So when reform was necessary, the leaders just needed to recognize it, own it, decree it and carry it out.  Not so easy on a societal level today. 

            But that is not what God is asking for.  He’s focused on the individual and his church today.  Recognizing and then repenting of our sins is what allows us to know God’s forgiveness and “covering” of our sins. 

 

Then the last 2 verbs:  “You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger.”  In God’s dealing with Israel, his wrath did burn and his fierce anger did get poured out on the wayward and stubbornly sinful people. 

            But the miracle today is that the church, the redeemed of God, are never mentioned in the N.T. as being the object of God’s wrath and anger over sin. (See I Thess. 5:9)  Why is that? 

            Because of the cross of Christ.  (Rm. 5:9—“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”)    God’s wrath and anger over our sin did get poured out…on His own Son, at the cross of Calvary.  We are already the people for whom God has “set aside all [his] wrath and turned from [his] fierce anger.” 

APP:  That may be hard for some of you who knew nothing but an angry, explosive parent as a child.  Your mind may invent a God who always responds angrily to your missteps.  But that’s not our Heavenly Father.  

 

So an essential part of praying that will bring revival is a memory that recalls God’s favor, his forgiveness and his mercy (not giving us what we deserve—anger and wrath). 

 

SINGING & Reading:  brief thanksgivings for what God has done in the past.

 

Vss. 4-7 are the next part of revival praying.  (Read.)

The “salvation” talked about here is not eternal, spiritual salvation that saves from hell.  This Psalm is calling on

God to save his people from their temporal, earthly trials and national disgrace. 

This is an important distinction in revival praying.  We’re not pleading with God for spiritual, eternal salvation.  He’s already promised and given us that by faith in Jesus Christ.  We’re crying out to him to save us from an unrevived state, from a life of joylessness, from a failure to feel at the experiential level the “unfailing love” of God. 

 

Vs. 4 reminds me of being a parent.  “Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.”   Just as a parent’s anger over their child’s disobedience is not to go on and on and on, so God’s displeasure that brings divine discipline doesn’t go on and on.  Healthy parents give “time-outs”, not “days” or “months”-out!  So does God. 

            Clearly the questions asked in vs. 5 call for a rhetorical “NO” response.  God is never “angry forever” nor does he “prolong his anger through all generations.”

 

It is because of this that the Sons of Korah could ask God to revive them and show them his unfailing love.  The result will always be people who rejoice in God.  That has always been one of the fruits of genuine revival.  While Jonathan Edwards famous sermon “Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God” led parishioners in the pews to fall to the floor wailing in agony over their sins or dig their fingernails into the wood of the pews they were gripping, the revival did not stay there.  Edwards goes on to recount the great JOY that followed in the First Great Awakening as repentant people experienced a fresh encounter and connection with God’s love on the other side of repentance. 

 

[Jonathan Edwards wife was overcome for hours with such joy at the presence of God that she could not even move and had to be propped up.  See http://www.crosstheveil.com/jonathan-edwards-first-great-awakening/]

 

Joyful worship and praise is the outflow of revival, not the cause.  A lack of joy in our hearts personally and sometimes as the church is simply a sign that we need a fresh awakening and renewing in the “steadfast love” of God.  Too often we may look to something like musical worship to give us joy.  While it may move our hearts and help us feel the love of God, if it doesn’t bring us into the loving arms of God, it will be very temporary.  It is the love of God that is the power source for joy in life.

 

When you don’t feel or see or experience the love of someone you love, how do you feel?  (Depressed, downcast, discouraged, etc.) 

Conversely, when you really feel and are loved by someone, what happens to your heart and emotional state?  (Happy!)  That’s what romance does to people!  And that’s what experiencing God’s love does to our hearts.

 

ILL:   (Story of wedding of Matthew & Emily—her story of how she came to Jesus when was hurt and angry with God about a romantic break-up with another boyfriend.  God answered her very clearly in the moment, “Emily, human love will fail you.  What you need is to come to me.”  She did…and the result was 4 hours of crying, not about the breakup, but because of JOY at the overwhelming experience of God’s love. 

 

[SONGS about the love of God?]

 

The third part of this prayer for revival is an appeal for the glorious presence of God among His people, vss. 8-9.

“I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints—but let them not return to folly. Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.

 

Revival is all about the presence of God.  We tend to think of revival as all of its results like people confessing their sins, people making restitution for their crimes, people being radically saved and transformed, delivered from addictions, marriages healed, families made whole.  There are often whole-society changes if the revival spreads into an awakening in the culture.  Crime drops, divorce rates drop, workers become more productive and honest, incarceration rates drop, judges and police don’t have enough work, bars close, etc. 

 

But none of that happens unless we experience in a deeper way the presence of God. 

That’s one reason why we have as our theme here at Mosaic—Experiencing the heart of God in the heart of the city.  That’s really a prayer, not a statement of fact.  IF we will experience God’s heart in this place, then the heart of this city will also be changed.  But if we don’t, if God’s glory--the experiential, visible presence of God—is not experienced among us, then we’ll be a church but not one that is truly experiencing revival.  In New Testament terminology, revival happens when the church is “filled” with the Holy Spirit as a whole.

  • Eph. 5:18—the admonition to “be filled” is plural and the result is people who are speaking to each other in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (worship, no?).
  • Acts 4—the result of a church “filled with the Holy Spirit” is that we go all over sharing about Jesus and what he’s done in and for us.  Additionally, the church experiences a church life that is amazing. 

 

These Sons of Korah knew, according to vs. 8, that experiencing the glory of God always requires that we “listen to what God the Lord will say.” 

Just as in friendship or marriage where we need to develop the skill of listening, so with God. 

ILL:  Men, do you ever hear your wife saying, “Dear, are you listening?”   I’ve heard from other men that their wives say that. J  I, of course, never have that problem when I’m watching TV or working on the computer.  J   Husbands may “hear” their wife’s voice somewhere back there in the reaches of our brains, but it takes that question, “Are you listening?” to really pull us out of a technology induced stupor, right? J

So with God, we may “hear” his voice in nature or his Word or something we read or the comment of a brother or sister in Christ.  But real listening means we not only cultivate the ability to hear what God is saying; we also develop the muscle to obey and order our life according to what He is indicating. 

 

APP:  How do you “listen” to God?  When and how do you “hear” the voice of the Holy Spirit? 

(Spiritual disciplines.)

 

This is truly another hallmark or precursor of spiritual revival:  listening to what God is saying. We should be asking God to help us hear his voice every day and in as many ways as possible. 

  • Before I read the Bible in the morning, I will pause and ask God to speak and give me ears to hear.
  • When we gather for a Bible study, worship service, prayer time, etc.

 

The psalm talks about God’s promise of peace to his people, his saints IF we will not “return to folly.”  A heart at peace is one of the most elusive conditions of the human experience.  The Hebrew term for “peace” here is shalom.  It’s not the narrow quietness of heart that we think of.  God’s shalom is a feast of all that He will do for his people materially, physically, socially, spiritually, and psychologically.  It is peace with both an inner and outer component—peace of heart internally and peace (or at least a cessation of hostilities) with those around you.

 

That’s why conflict among the people of God is a sure sign that the glory of God is not dwelling among us.  People living in right and renewed relationship with God will not have that hard of a time living peacefully with each other. This is why revival is SO important for not just churches but for godly marriages, godly families and godly friendships. 

 

I particularly love the last line of verse 9—“…that his [God’s] glory may dwell in our land.”  What a great prayer!  For the people of Israel, that had a national sense to it—God’s glory evident and resident among the residents of the Promised Land.  God no longer promises that to nation-states.  But he does promise that to His people worldwide now.  He promises it to His church when we are a revived people. 

APP:  Let’s make that our prayer on a daily basis:  “Lord, please make us your people among whom your glory dwells.”  There is nothing as life-changing or transforming as the glory of the presence of God himself.  It gives light where there is darkness, peace where there is insecurity, joy where there is sadness.  It fills us up where we find ourselves and our best efforts empty. 

 

That’s one of the most wonderful things I am looking forward to in heaven—being in a place 24/7 where the glory of God dwells.  God’s glory is all the greatness of every aspect of his amazing nature displayed visibly. 

            That’s why I LOVE to be out in nature.  That’s why I can’t get enough of backpacking or hiking the beauty of the Pacific Northwest or the reefs of some other part of the world.  When I sit and gaze at the towering beauty of mountains that were formed by the finger of God, it does something to me.  It makes God seem big and my problems small.  It makes Him seem supremely beautiful and things of this world that tempt me seem terribly irrelevant and plain.

“God, please show us your glory.  Please make your glory supremely desirable to us.  Please cause your glory to dwell among us.” 

 

The closing paragraph speaks mostly of what God does for a revived people and somewhat of what we are to do for our God of revival.

Vss. 10-12—“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.  Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.  The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.” 

            Set in the original context of a revived Israel, what the psalmist knows is that God’s blessings will come together with the land of his blessing.  His everlasting love (hesed) will meet with the “faithfulness that springs forth from the earth.” 

There was, in the days of the Old Covenant, a combining of God’s divine love with the very land itself.  When the people of God lived rightly/righteously, the land itself was made fruitful. The “land” itself “yielded its harvest.” 

 

So what is the principle we can apply to a revived people of God today?  It is certainly not beyond God’s ability to make my garden grow better and produce more food when my heart is spiritually revived.  Nor is it beyond his ability to bless your business with more sales and higher revenues.  But nowhere in the New Testament do I find that “health and wealth” are the primary way God “gives what is good.”  God certainly can and does from time to time.  But more N.T. scriptures warn of the dangers of wealth and prosperity.  More than just about anything else, that kind of blessing usually ends up turning our hearts away from the living God.

So what kind of “harvest” does God bring to a spiritually revived people?  Notice the things this Psalm points to:  love and faithfulness, righteousness and peace. 

This is akin to the 100-fold harvest that Jesus spoke of in the parable of the soils/sower in Luke 8. A multiplicity of things can render the soil of our hearts, of God’s people, of a church, unfruitful. 

But “good soil” that has depth, has moisture, has an absence of weeds—that soil “yields its harvest.”  The same things that keep God’s people from spiritual revival are the same things that render the Word of God unfruitful.

  • Satan’s work to make our hearts hard and stony.
  • Lack of depth in the way we embrace the word of God. 
  • The cares of this world that fill up our schedules, our calendars and our hearts.

 

One final thing from this text.  Notice how much of the work of revival is God’s work.

  • He causes love and faithfulness to meet.  He pours out his love and faithfulness on us so that they meet in a reviving work of renewal. 
  • Just as “faithfulness springs forth from the earth” when God’s love pours down, so he will cause faithfulness in our hearts to spring up when his great love sinks into the soil of our souls. 
  • He is the one who “gives what is good” and causes our own hearts to yield the harvest of righteousness they were made for.

 

The harvest talked about is all the amazing fruits of revival that our hearts long for.