Full Transcript

Good to see you here this morning. I am seeing so many faces, they’re very nice faces, but I don’t recognize them. They’re new faces. Which means that my face is new, and I hope you think it’s nice too since you’re going to be looking at me for awhile. How great it is to see a full house in God’s house.

I don’t know if anybody warned you if you’re new around here. We have this book, and we open it up and we read it, and those of us that are really crazy, the radicals around here, we actually have given this book the right to define what we believe. I know, it’s weird. And not only that, but we give the book the right to determine how we behave. Radical concept. Everybody does that with something. Some people say, “Well, common sense is going to define what I believe and determine how I behave.” Or some people say, “Well, my mom or my grandmother…” Some people say, “Well, what I learned in college or that professor…” Everybody gives something the right to define what you believe and determine how you behave.

And so I don’t know if anybody warned you or not, but this is Harvest BIBLE Chapel. We’re not real subtle around here okay? So every time we meet together, at some point in the service, somebody that’s standing up here says, “Open your Bible.” So it’s my time to do that. Now watch what the crazy people do when I say that.

Open your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 36. It’s the last chapter in 2 Chronicles. This is the sixth week in a six-part series that we’ve entitled “Awakenings.” And we’ve been studying the times in history, biblical history and even American history when God has done something amazing to awaken his people.

Now, the book of 2 Chronicles that we’re reading, it is like a roller coaster at Cedar Point. It is highs and lows, and it’s just the history of God’s people – chronicles for us of seasons of incredible awakening and seasons of incredible sin, and God’s reaction to all of that. And so, we’re coming to the last hill, going down the last slope of this roller coaster. We’re going to find out how it ends today.

I’ve entitled the message today, “Living As Awakened People in a Sleepy Land.” All right? We’ve been learning this bible verse that I’ve actually challenged you to memorize. Does anybody think you’re close to memorizing this verse? What’s the reference? Habakkuk. Who has ever memorized a verse in Habakkuk? But Habakkuk 3:2, if you know it. Even if you don’t know it, I’ll let you cheat this morning.

Let’s all say it together. Here’s our prayer for an awakening: “O Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” That is the prayer of a person that realizes we need an awakening. Is there anybody here that feels like we need an awakening?

Anybody feel like you need that in your marriage, in your family, or even personally? Anybody feel like we need an awakening in America? Yeah, we need that. So we’re praying this prayer. And the great thing is, this prayer, it remembers what God has done in times past. That’s why we’re studying a book that’s thousands of years old. Because what God does today, he is still doing what he’s done in the past, he’s still doing today.

And there’s a pattern, there’s a cycle for the way that this thing works. And we’ve been studying it. Here’s the pattern in 2 Chronicles and here’s the pattern in American history. When God’s people are in worship and on mission, we are up and to the right. That is right where we’re supposed to be: following Jesus, giving God’s word the right to define what we believe, to determine how we behave.

But there are seasons when we get a little sleepy, a little groggy. And we begin to forget God, and we begin to ignore God’s word, and that puts us in a season of decline. That inevitably invites the discipline and the judgment of God. And so that’s the low point.

If we are wise, when we sense the oppression, and when we sense the judgment and we sense the difficulty, we will cry up to God and he will send revival in the church among his people, and we believe that will spill over outside the church to touch and awaken the community. That’s the pattern we’ve been studying, and we see it in American history and we see it in biblical history all the time.

Now I want you to confess something this morning. I want to know. Who are the people in the room right now, who are the people that are notorious for having trouble waking up? Who are those people? Confession in church. Any parents want to nominate your children? Okay? Any children want to nominate your parents, okay?

I actually saw this happen this past week. I had a few days when I got to see my mother in Oklahoma this week. She’s seventy-two years old, and one of the things that I did for her is I updated her cell phone. I updated to a flip phone. Which would give you a clue as to what the old phone looked like, okay? So I updated it.

She said, “I could use a flip phone.” So I spent hours going down to the store, calling customer service, programming the phone. And because it’s a flip phone, I put in all of her contacts. Do you remember how you used to do that on a flip phone? You know 333-522-6444, you know? You had to get the letters in there that way.

So I spent hours doing this on Tuesday night. And after about four hours of working with this thing, it was ready to go, and I trained her how to use it. And we practiced, and I called her on my phone. “Can you call me?” And we did all this. She’s seventy-two years old. And so it was late, it was about 11 o’clock, I was tired, I was worn out.

I went to bed, and my mom was still kind of wired. She’s not been sleeping well, and it’s been a hard time for her. And so, she had some prescription sleeping pills and I was like, “Mom, just take a pill. Get a good night’s sleep and we’ll get up tomorrow and we’ll have a great day.” And so she took one-quarter of a sleeping pill. And it put her to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up; she was passed out asleep in the chair. And I just kind of left her alone there. After a couple hours, she got up and went to the bed. And she slept for another couple hours. It was like eleven o’clock, she finally wakes up and says, you know she’s kind of stumbling around a little bit and she said, “I just don’t feel good. I don’t feel like I’m awake. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna get awake. I took one of these pills. I just need a cup of coffee.”

So she went in the kitchen, she fixed a cup of coffee, she brought it in and she sat down in her chair. And her cell phone was there, so she picked it up, and promptly dropped it into the cup of coffee. And if you’ve ever had one of those events where you see something about to happen and you’re just like, “Nooooooooo…..” Trying to grab it. So she baptized her cell phone.

It was a bad day, okay? Sleepy people make bad decisions. Sleepy people are dangerous people. And we’re people who are awakened, living in a sleepy land, where people are making some really bad decisions.

And so we’ve studied this pattern here. And so the most famous awakening verse in all the Bible is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14. It says, “If my people…” these are God’s people. This is a verse not written to the world, not written to unbelievers, it was written to the church, written to God’s people. “If my people who are called by my name…” will do four things: humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then God promises to do three things: to hear from heaven, forgive our sin and heal our land.

And so we’ve looked at four different kings in 2 Chronicles: a king who humbled himself, that was Rehoboam in chapter 12. And yet that’s all he did. He didn’t go much further than that. He didn’t seek God’s face, he didn’t turn. So we looked at a king who prayed. That was Jehoshaphat in chapter 20, and he prayed that prayer. Do you remember what he prayed? “Lord, we do not know what to do…” so? “…Our eyes are on you.” When you don’t know what to do that’s a good prayer for you to pray.

And then we looked at a king that sought God’s face. Do you remember who that was? Josiah in chapter 34. And then last week we looked at a king that turned. He repented. He found the pivot point of revival, right? He turned his back on sin, turned his face toward God. Sin is when we turn our face toward sin and our back on God, so we’ve got to turn. And God promises that if we do that, then we will experience an awakening.

So today, I just want to look at these last three words of this verse. “…Heal their land.” Let’s talk about what that means a little bit. Because we’re so familiar with this verse, I sometimes don’t think we stop long enough to consider the words. If we are God’s people, the question is: what is our land?

Do Christians have some dirt that belongs to them? Back when this verse was written it was written to God’s people who actually had a promised land to them. It was actually talking about dirt. But if we say that this verse still applies to us, then the question is: what is our land?

First of all, I want you to understand that our land is not the United States of America. As much as we love our country, pledge allegiance, Christians don’t own America. Do you understand that? We don’t have property rights in America. Christians don’t have geopolitical boundaries. There’s Christians in America, there’s Christians even in Texas, and in other foreign countries. There are Christians there. And we don’t have a spot on the planet that belongs to us, right? We’re not bound by geopolitical boundaries. We don’t have a language. We don’t have a currency. We don’t have a president, a supreme court, or a king. We do have King Jesus, but not a person on the planet who’s a king. So what is our land?

Let’s try to figure that out by looking at this verse. 1 Peter 2:9-11 says this, “But you…” speaking to God’s people, “a chosen race…” Not an ethnic race because there are all kinds of ethnicities – from every tribe and tongue and nation come the people of God. But you’re chosen because we have a common Father. God Almighty is our Father. And we are brothers and sisters, we are a chosen race.

We’re a “royal priesthood…” Which means that we have access to God; direct access to God, and the family treasure.  We’re a priesthood. You don’t have to go through a man to get your sin forgiven or your prayer answered. You go straight to God. We’re a royal priesthood.

And we are “a holy nation…” Not America. God calls us his nation. He is our king. And he says, we are “a people for his own possession…” That means that God has purchased us. Of all the people in the world, he purchased us for his own possession. And by the way, he paid a very high price for you and me. The blood of his own Son. That means that you are valued by God far beyond what you’re actually worth. You are people of God’s own possession.

“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” And “I urge you…”, here’s another description “as sojourners…” Do you know what a sojourner is? A sojourner is a temporary resident in a land to which he does not belong. You and I as Christians are living in a land to which we do not belong. We’re just passing through.

And we are citizens of a country that we have yet to visit. He says you’re sojourners. And then look at this word, you’re “exiles.” Do you know what an exile is? We’re about to see it in the Old Testament, but he applies that to us. An exile is someone who has been removed and stripped from all of his rights and living under political oppression from a foreign ruler as a servant or a slave. That’s who God says you are.

And in that situation, here’s what he tells you to do: “abstain from the passions of the flesh.” Am I the only one that has any passion? Do you have any passions of the flesh? Passions of the flesh which wage war against you. Do you know what that means? No matter how you’re oriented, no matter who you’re attracted to, no matter what you think you’re wanting, there are boundaries on what God wants you to feed yourself. He wants you to guard your appetites.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession, you’re sojourners, and you’re exiles. So the question is: what’s the land that God’s promises to heal? The land can simply be summed up as this: it is the territory that we have influence over. And on Friday, we lost some territory in the land which we are now living as sojourners and exiles in.

And so, we need to understand that as a people, our land is sick. God says that if we’ll do those four things, he will heal our land. So the question is: if our land is the territory that we influence, what does the healing look like? Does it mean the dirt is sick? Does is mean the people are sick? Does it mean the nation is sick? What does it mean?

Well, I think it’s very simple that we can understand, that the land which we occupy is spiritually diseased. It has an infection. And there are symptoms that crop up from time to time that indicate for us that we are living in a land that is spiritually sick.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday to legalize gay marriage was simply the latest symptom of the spiritual disease that’s in the land. When did this land get sick? It’s always kind of had a cough and a cold I think, but somewhere around the time that Trent Griffith was born, everything started going in the toilet. I’m telling you what. I was born in 1967.

Does anybody here remember 1967? Some of you were around, but you don’t remember it because you were smoking stuff and drinking stuff. I mean, it’s a bad time back in the Sixties. And I’ve kind of studied the history books. Its like sometime around the time I was born, everything started to get really sick. That’s when divorce laws were relaxed, that’s when adultery became kind of part of the culture, that’s when pornography started to become the wallpaper of our society. And that’s when homosexuality began to be tolerated. And then in the 80’s kind of accepted, and then in the 90’s encouraged. And here we are in 2015, and now it’s promoted and legalized.

And while that’s been going on, Christians who, if they were not believed, were at least respected. And then we got into the 90’s and it was almost as if we were tolerated. But then we got into the 2000’s and here we are today. We’re seen as a threat, and dangerous to the culture. All of that is symptomatic of the spiritual disease that we have, and our heart is that God would once again send an awakening to which he would heal our land.

So, how should we as God’s people respond to what happened on Friday with the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage? I want to suggest to you four things:

 

1. We will not panic or fear.

 

Stop freaking out like somehow God died on Friday afternoon. God is still on his throne. The Supreme Court is not supreme. And the President is not sovereign. God still reigns. God hasn’t lost an ounce of his power. The Supreme Court did not design, invent or define marriage. Therefore, it has no right to redefine it or terminate it or change its conditions. Marriage is an invention and a design by God.

Now, what happened on Friday certainly may lead to those of us who are God’s people being marginalized and labeled, and possibly even punished for what we believe. But that is to be expected when we are sojourners and exiles living in a land to which we don’t belong. As a matter of fact, what happened on Friday could be good news for the Church. Because the Church was born in political oppression. And it thrives under persecution.

Do you know what happens when opposition comes to God’s people? It has a purging effect on the Church. Do you know what that means? Those who refuse to pay any price for being a Christ-follower will eventually quit acting like they’re following. Those people who refuse to take the Bible seriously and let God define what they believe and determine how they will behave, they’ll eventually stop showing up. And they’ll eventually be exposed as Christians in name only. You know what that means? We will be fewer, but we will be truer as a church to believe what we say we believe.

Here’s the second thing:

 

2. We will affirm what God says in the Bible about marriage and sexuality.

 

In case you were wondering, nothing that goes on around here is going to change. The message is not going to change. Our confidence in God’s word is not going to change. We are going to teach what the Bible says about marriage and sexuality. And if you’re not a Christian, we’re so glad you came today. I hope you have a learner’s heart. Maybe you’re just wondering about “Who are these crazy Christians and what do they believe?” Can I just tell you what the Bible says about marriage and sexuality?

First of all, realize that the Bible actually begins with a wedding. And the Bible ends with a wedding. The Bible is a holy book that tells about a holy God who sent his holy Son to die on a cross, to absorb the sin of unholy people who can now be filled with the Holy Spirit to live holy lives. That’s the story of the Bible.

The story is a wedding story. It’s a marriage story. It’s about a Father who sends a Son to win a bride so that they can produce spiritual sons and daughters of God. Marriage is not an insignificant teaching in the Bible. As a matter of fact, the Bible says if you want to understand the Gospel, look at a marriage. Because the way that a bride responds to the love and tenderness and grace of a loving husband is the way that the Church responds to the love and the leading of Jesus Christ. Jesus is called the Bridegroom in Scripture and the Church is called the bride. It’s the mystery of the Gospel. And that is what the Bible teaches.

The Bible tells us that marriage is designed by God. It’s defined by God in Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Malachi 2. And in Matthew 19, Jesus taught on marriage and affirmed everything that was in the Old Testament, including the fact that marriage is to be between one man and one woman for one lifetime. That one man and that one woman have complimentary roles that are essential to the oneness in the marriage. The marriage will not thrive and the children that are raised in that home will not thrive the way that God wants them to unless both husband and wife are fulfilling their complimentary role in the home.

The Bible tells us that marriage is the safest place to grow godly children, Malachi 2:15. And marriage reflects the mystery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And God is so serious about marriage, he wants us to protect it. And so he’s put boundaries around it that govern our sexuality. And so because God loves marriage so much, he loves your marriage so much, he loves your children so much, he loves the future generations so much, he has said don’t violate the sexual standards. Keep your sexuality between that one man, one woman, one lifetime relationship, and it will go well for you.

And so therefore, the Bible has some things to say about pornography and about lust and about pre-marital sex and extra-marital sex, and homosexuality. He calls all of that sin. Sin that the Bible says can be forgiven and cleansed if a person will repent and believe the gospel.

So what is marriage? Marriage is a holy covenant initiated by God, and conditioned on an irrevocable promise to pursue oneness with an imperfect person of the opposite sex for a lifetime for the glory of God. That’s what the Bible teaches about marriage. And we are going to affirm it at Harvest Bible Chapel as God’s authority over our lives. We’ll allow what the Bible teaches to define what we believe about marriage.

Unfortunately in our culture, everything I just said somehow sounds hateful to people that have ignored God’s definition of marriage. We don’t say that because we’re hateful. We say that because we love God, we love His word, and we actually love people that don’t even believe the way that we believe.

That’s why:

 

3. We will not be silent, but we will not be screamers.

 

Amen? We’re not going to be hateful about what we believe. What we’re going to do is we’re going to stand for what’s right. And we’re going to understand that if you are wrong in the way that you are right, you’re wrong even if you’re right.

We can be right about marriage and wrong about everything else that matters. We’re going to get it right. So we’ve got to be constantly trying to go for a balance between conviction and compassion as we share our message. And we understand that those who disagree with us are not our enemy. They are the victim of our enemy. And we were once the victim of our enemy. And God set us free. It’s our job. We are on a rescue mission to get those people that disagree and don’t believe what God has said to understand that the safest place to live is under the authority of God’s word.

And so, we’re going to humbly remember that we too once disbelieved what God said and were rebellious in ignoring what God has said. And so what we will do is we will become a place that will welcome everyone that has a learner’s heart, no matter how entrapped or entangled they are in any sin. This is the place for those people to come. We will not be silent, but we will not be screamers.

 

4. We will be a refugee camp for those ravaged by the sexual revolution.

 

The sad part about what happened on Friday is so many people feel like they finally got what will give them happiness, satisfaction and joy. And what we know as Bible-believing Christians is, despite everything I said about marriage, God did not design marriage, heterosexual or homosexual, to meet the deepest longings of your heart. Those longings and those cravings you have are for Jesus. They’re just misdirected.

So when those people who involve themselves outside the boundaries that God has set for marriage, when those people are finally bloodied and beaten and bruised by all of that sin they’ve involved themselves in, we will be a refugee camp for those people to come and experience the grace and the love offered by Jesus Christ in forgiveness. We’ll be a place where repentant people can find a new start and a new beginning through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s how we’re going to respond. Can I get an “amen”?

So, how does God heal a land? I want to give you three things. First of all:

 

• God persistently sends a messenger. (2 Chr. 36:15-16)

 

In 2 Chronicles 36, let me catch you up to speed before we dive into it here. As we said earlier, 2 Chronicles is a roller coaster ride. It’s up and it’s down. It’s high points with God and it’s low points in sin. And the last king that we studied here in the book was Josiah in chapter 34. Do you remember him? He sought God’s face. He became king when he was eight. He began to seek God’s face when he was sixteen. At twenty, he was doing an incredible work of reform and purging the land, and God was using him to send an awakening in that country.

Well, in chapter 35, Josiah made a dumb decision. He got involved in a fight he shouldn’t have been involved in, and he got killed in the fight. You get to chapter 36, and it all starts going downhill again. And they start to decline and they start to sin. It invites the discipline and the judgment of God. Rapid succession.

He gives us four kings that are so worthless and evil, he doesn’t even give us a whole lot of detail. And finally we get to chapter 36:15, and I want you to notice the condition of the land. “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people…” If you’re not a believer, if you’ve never studied the Bible and you have an idea that God is somehow not compassionate and gracious, would you just look at that verse? God loved these people so much, he was so compassionate, he gave them opportunity after opportunity to hear the message, believe the message, respond to the message and divert his judgment. But it says here in verse 15 because he had compassion on his people and “…on his dwelling place…” Verse 16, “But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people…”

Stop right there. Now, everything we just read has happened over and over and over throughout the book of 2 Chronicles. The people sin, it invites the wrath of God, God sends the wrath of God, they cry up, the repent and they get back on track. But I want you to notice the last phrase of verse 16. “…Until, there was no remedy.”

The spiritual disease that had infected that land was so great, there was no remedy this time. Now, that should have been the end of the Bible. That verse should have been the last one. It goes on and describes for us what had happened when God sent his wrath. This is what happened. I’ll let you know.

So God’s people, they were called Israel or Judah, a divided kingdom, and God sent his wrath through another country that invaded Israel/Judah. It was the nation of Babylon. And this is what they did when they showed up in the land. It says in verse 17 that they killed their young men. It says down in verse 19 that they burned the house of God, they broke down the wall, they burned its palaces with fire, destroyed all of its precious vessels. Then in verse 20, their religious freedom got taken away. They “took into…”, what’s that word? “…exile.” Have you heard that word yet? Exile. They were taken out of their land and transported to the land of Babylon under political oppression, and they were stripped of all of their religious rights. For seventy years.

And again, that should have been the end of the Bible. Because there was no remedy for God’s people. But then I want you to look at verse 22. “Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia…” Who is Cyrus? He’s king of Persia. Where’s Persia? This is what happened. Babylon had invaded and ransacked Israel and Judah. Seventy years later, Persia comes along and defeats Babylon. And what they find in Babylon are some exiles left over from Judah and Israel.

And King Cyrus notices these people and I want you to see what God did through the most unlikely source of an awakening. “…The first year of King Cyrus, the King of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up…” Underline those two words, stirred up. Stirred up “…the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia.” He was a pagan king. He was a godless king, and yet God used a godless king to stir up his people.

“He made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing…” And this is what the writing said, “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me…’” Underline the words given me. He “…has given me all the kingdoms of the earth…” You know what that means? That all authority is assigned by God. Every king, every president, every Supreme Court justice has been given authority by God.

“…And he has charged me…” Underline that. So God has stirred him. Can you imagine the spoon that God would have used to stir the heart of a godless king? He stirs him, he’s given him authority, and then thirdly, he charges him to do something that he has no choice but to do. God is still in the business of stirring kings, giving kings authority, and charging them to do something, whatever he wants them to do.

And what did he charge them to do? “He has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.” And this is what he invites people to do. “Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. [And] Let him go…” What’s the last word of the book? “…up.” It’s been a roller coaster ride. And yet when we thought it was in the tank, when we thought they were at the lowest point, God stirs the heart of a king, he gives him authority and he charges him to spark awakening, and then sends out the invitation.

Now, it had been seventy years. You know what that means? The mommies and the daddies that were taken captive into Babylon had babies and those babies had grown up now. Maybe they’re ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years old. They had never seen Israel. They’d never seen the temple. They’d never heard the word of God. And yet through the mouth of Cyrus, he invites them to go back to be with God. He invites them to go up and be with God and establish worship once again.

Let me ask you a question: if you were part of that generation, how would you have RSVP’d to Cyrus? Think about it. Would you have been too absorbed by the Babylonian culture to go back and worship this God of your fathers? Would you have been so bitter for God allowing you to live under political oppression, to believe that somehow this was a good God that you would want to worship? And yet there was, we’re going to hear this word in a minute, there was a remnant that chose to go up and seek the face of God. To turn from their wicked ways. To pray. And to humble themselves.

And that’s what we see next. Sometimes God persistently sends a messenger. Sometimes:

 

• God occasionally stirs a king. (2 Chr. 36:22-23)

 

In Proverbs 21:1, the Scripture reminds us that the heart of every king is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord and he turns it wherever he wants it to go.

Anybody have a garden? You have a garden at home? You have to water your garden? So you have to get the hose, and you have to turn on the nozzle, and you pick up the hose, and you walk over to the petunias or whatever it is you grow in your garden, and you water that. And after they have been sufficiently hydrated, you see the tomatoes, and you’re like (turns the imaginary hose). How much effort does it take you to do that? Is that a hard thing for you?

No. To turn a stream of water, it is not hard for God to turn a king’s heart either. The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. And he can turn the king’s heart any way he wants it to go. I was praying along with many of you that God would turn the heart of nine kings on the Supreme Court, that they would rule in favor of God’s definition of marriage. And yet, it was one king short. Sometimes, occasionally God stirs the heart of a king and sometimes God makes us wait seventy years before he raises up a king. Either way, it is not a hard thing for God to stir the heart of a king.

Here’s the third way that God heals his land:

 

• God always revives a remnant. (Ezra 9:7-9)

 

So we finished 2 Chronicles 36. Aren’t you glad you finished a whole book? So what’s next? What’s the next book? Let’s look across the page. What is it? What’s the book? Ezra. What’s in Ezra? Let me tell you about Ezra, okay? Ezra is the sequel to 2 Chronicles. And I want to teach you something about the Bible. You can impress your friends with this later. Okay?

Do you see the last two verses of 2 Chronicles? Do you remember we read those earlier about King Cyrus? Do you see those two verses? I want you to look at verses 2 and 3 of chapter 1 of Ezra. Do you see those? Anything look familiar? Verses 2 and 3 of chapter 1 of Ezra are identical to the last two verses of 2 Chronicles. The story continues.

And let me tell you the way it continues. We’re not going to take time to read it all, but let me tell you. The people did go up. A remnant did go up, and they rebuilt the temple, and they rebuilt the altar, and they rebuilt the place of worship. And when they finally got back there, they celebrated. And they worshipped God with all of their heart. There was opposition when they got there. So the work stopped for a while, but it restarted again, and God ensured that the temple would be dedicated as the place of worship. Worship was restored.

And then we finally get to chapter 8 and Ezra comes on the scene. And Ezra is a Bible teacher. He’s familiar with the law of God. We don’t exactly know how he knew. Seventy years. Maybe he had a secret copy of God’s bible. And he knew the law. So he went up and began to teach all those construction workers there that were restoring the temple. And they were so overwhelmed with God’s word, they were living in wonderful harmony with one another. Until we get to chapter 9.

And I want you to look down at verse 6. Ezra 9:6. Ezra prays a prayer. This is what it says, “O my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities…” What? Iniquities? I thought we were on a high slope. “…Our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt.” What is he talking about? I thought everything was fine and dandy? I thought they experienced an awakening?

What was this great guilt? What was he ashamed of? Let me tell you what it was. When the people started settling down there in Jerusalem, after the temple was dedicated, do you know what they started to do? They started to mess with God’s definition of marriage. Look in verse 2. “For they…” speaking of some men, they “…have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.” The sin was not interracial marriage. The sin was interfaith marriage. It was faithlessness to believe God’s boundaries on marriage.

And so after this great awakening and this spiritual high, all of a sudden a spiritual disease hits the land related to what they believed about marriage. And they began to step out of bounds. And Ezra was such a man of God, he tore his clothes and he fell on his knees and he wept over the spiritual sickness that had once again infected the people.

And so he’s grieving. But now look down in verse 8. “But now for a brief moment…” Think about that. There is a small window of opportunity for awakening. And Ezra sees it. He says there is a brief moment “…favor has been shown by the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant.” Do you see the remnant? What do you think of when you think of the word “remnant”?

A remnant is that which remains after someone has tried to remove it. A remnant is a residue. Do you know what you and I are? If you are part of the awakened people, you and I are the residue living in a land of sleepy people. As much as they tried to push us to the side, as much as they try to pretend we don’t exist, it’s like a residue you can’t get off your hands. We’re still around bugging people. We’re still around calling them to repent.

You and I, I trust, you are a part…I believe that what God is doing at Harvest Bible Chapel Granger is raising up a remnant, just like he did in the days of Ezra. He said, “God has been faithful “…to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold…” What are we holding onto? What does a remnant hold onto? It doesn’t hold onto political rights. It doesn’t hold onto hope in the government. It has a secure hold, notice, “within the holy place…”

We’re holding on securely to the authority and the sovereignty of God. That’s what we’re holding onto. “..that our God may brighten our eyes.” The darker the skies, the brighter our eyes appear in the darkness. We’re the residue. We lift up our eyes to the hills. From where does our help come? It comes from the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth. We don’t lift up our eyes, our eyes are not brightened by a political decisions. Our eyes are brightened by what we know is coming in the future. That king Jesus reigns supremely over all.

So he brightens our eyes and “…grant us…” – love this, “…a little reviving…” It might not be all the reviving we want. It might not be a big tent revival. But just a little reviving. A few people who are true to God as a residue can experience a little reviving. Does that mean he restores our religious freedom and people start listening to us and we get Supreme Court justices that are Christians? Is that what it means? Look at it. “…a little reviving in our slavery.”

You talk about no religious freedom? These people were slaves. And yet God had chosen a remnant, a small group of people to experience a little reviving. Verse 9, “For we are slaves. Yet our God has no forsaken us in our slavery…”

God is still committed to his people. God is faithful to his people. We have hope. We are the people of God. And we are indestructible until God is finished with us. We are the remnant. And it said, he “…has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and in Jerusalem.”

God has not forsaken us. No matter what’s going on in your life. No matter what kind of punishment may be coming in the future. God is not finished. And do you understand that you are in a holy place? Where a holy God is doing holy things despite what is happening in our culture? There is a little reviving. There is a little healing of the land going on at Harvest Bible Chapel Granger.

You say, “What’s the evidence of that?” How many of you were here last Sunday in the 11 o’clock service? Do you remember what happened at the end of the service? So let me tell you the story. There’s this couple, if you weren’t here. Their names are Colin and Julie. First time I met Colin and Julie, they were sitting right back here on a Friday night. We were hosting the Art of Marriage marriage conference. And they were here to soak all that in and to learn, and they had visions actually of getting married. They said, “We’re not married yet.”

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Julie actually applied for a secretary position we had open in the church. And she came in, and we noticed that Colin and Julie had the same address. They were living together. And so, we called them in, and Pastor Matt sat down across from them and very lovingly, and very boldly said, “You’re living together. Do you understand that’s not God’s way to do this? You’re in sin. And you need to repent. And you’ve got basically three options: you can break up, you can stay together but one of you move out, or you can get married. And we can get that done like now. We can just do that.”

And so this is what they did. In a week’s time, they went down and got a marriage license. They showed up last Sunday and they were going to have a little marriage ceremony in Ben’s office. When I heard about it, I was like, “No way, we’re doing that right up here.” So, at the end of the service, we had the bride come right down here and we had bridesmaids and we had Pastor Ben there, and they recited vows to one another. “’Til death do you part. You may kiss the bride.”

A little reviving in the midst of a dark generation. God’s not finished with his people. And he’s not changing his definition of marriage. And we’re going to sink our roots deep into the word of God. He has not forsaken us. Not for a moment has he forsaken us.