Full Transcript

This morning we’re starting a new series entitled “Awakenings” and so much of what we just saw on that video is the thrust of what we’ll be studying over the course of the next several weeks. Let me invite you to open your Bibles to a very obscure part of it. We should have Bible drill this morning to see the first person who can find the book of Habakkuk. Go!

Oh, you guys have already seen. You cheated! You looked in the bulletin. You knew it was coming and some of you have iPhones. You don’t even know where Habakkuk is. You just told Siri to find it for you. It’s somewhere right in there. It’s about 2/3 of the way through. If you are very smart, you will open to the Table of Contents and realize it’s on page 1224. Okay?

So that’s where we’re going to be in a just moment. Let me tell you why we’re starting this series. We have cleared the church calendar, we’ve shifted the preaching calendar even, to start this series because I believe that God is doing something of an awakening here in Indiana. Many of you have heard about Revive Indiana, and it’s coming to South Bend. God did an amazing work in the Elkhart/Goshen area a couple of months ago. That team is coming here. We are partnering with other churches.

This is a multi-church, multi-ethnic, cross-denominational movement that we’re leaning into. How many of you a couple of weeks ago were here when we launched that on that Sunday night? We‘re going to lean into this, and so I really think it’s important for us to see what biblical and historical revival really looks like.

So this morning, we’re just going to look at one verse. Can you handle one verse? One verse which will provoke three prayers and give us seven evidences of genuine and biblical, historical revival. So that’s where we’re going this morning.

Speaking of Revive Indiana, I want to let you know, it starts tonight at 7 pm. It’s not here at Harvest Bible Chapel. It’s going to be hosted by Christian Center, a church on the south side of town. I encourage you to be there for that. Tuesday, at noon, we’re hosting the noontime prayer gathering and feeding folks for that. And then, it will be all through the week. But then on Wednesday night, I need your help.

Many of you said, “Trent if there is anything I could ever do to help you, let me know.” All right. This is like the only time I’m calling in that favor, okay? Wednesday night, I need your help because I have promised, I’ve committed our church to serve the rest of the community in childcare on Wednesday night. At 7 pm, at Christian center, I need you to be a part of the childcare army that’s going to take care of all the children.

And in order for you to let me know you’re going to be a part of that, there’s a card in your bulletin. Put your name on that, give us your email address and then at the end of the service as you’re walking out the doors, the ushers will be there. I need you to hand this card to them. I need over 60 volunteers, okay? Andrea and I cannot handle all the children. They are going to show up, and so join us on that Wednesday night, 7 pm. Help me with childcare and then participate in the other nights as we can.

So let’s talk about what an awakening looks like. I was really rocked by this verse. Many of you know, that for fifteen years, my family and I were involved in revival ministry through Life Action Ministries, which means that we lived in a travel trailer. We parked it on church parking lots. Had services at a particular church every night of the week, twice on Sundays, all day on Saturday, and we did that for fifteen years. We started that with no children, we ended it with four. We just had the children where they showed up. So we’ve got one from South Carolina, and one from Tennessee, and a couple from Michigan. We just didn’t stop. We just kept going.

We did that because of the burden that God put on our heart for a great awakening, a revival among his people, which would result in a spiritual awakening in our country among people who have yet to hear. So that’s what we were involved in, and so when we started the church, it was really an extension of that burden. That God would do something locally here in our town that would be a wave of his movement among his people. It would be an awakening.

And I really believe that’s what has happened in six years, going from thirteen to thirteen hundred, really has been a work of an awakening. Many of you could share stories. We hear stories in that baptistery almost every week about an awakening, a revival, a coming to faith, an initial surrendering to the Lordship of Christ. All of that is evidence of the work of God among us.

And yet, it would be tragic for us to think that we don’t need an awakening. That somehow revival is for somebody else. And so this week, we’re just going to pray for the other churches. Some of you ladies, I’m really going to pray that my husband meets God in revival, because he needs an awakening. And some of us, our children, boy if God could just get hold of our children. Some of the children are praying, “Like, if God could just get a hold of our parents.” Listen, the moment we think we don’t need revival is the moment God will withdraw and command his blessing somewhere else. And so, we’re leaning in and we want to ask God, “God, would you awaken me during this season?”

So, what are we talking about? Let’s look at it here in Habakkuk 3:2. Many of the principles I’m going to share with you today, I’ve actually shared in over 300 churches as we traveled and did revival ministry. And yet I’ve never shared them with you. So we’re going to look at some of those today. And yet I don’t want to be guilty of just pulling out a file folder and giving you some stale stuff. This is a verse that I’ve never preached before. And I looked at it early in the week, and it has rocked my world. And I want to lean into it, and I want to invite you to lean into it as well.

This is what it says in Habakkuk 3:2. It says, “Oh Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear.” I know that has a period at the end of it, but when I read it, I just kind of see a question right there. I’ve heard the report of you and your work, but do I fear? When I hear that report? “In the midst of the years, revive it…” There’s our word. “…In the midst of the years, make it known; in wrath remember mercy.”

So, Habakkuk was a prophet. And we don’t know a whole lot about Habakkuk. He just kind of takes up about three pages in our Bibles. And yet, he was a man that God raised up to speak to the moral and spiritual decline that was happening among God’s people. These people once were faithful people that worshiped God and God alone. And yet they had strayed into compromise and apathy and gotten their eyes off of God, and began to worship other things, and their love had grown cold. They’re sin had become great. And any time that happens, do you know what God does? He raises up a prophet.

And Habakkuk was the prophet to speak into the nation of ancient Israel, God’s people at this time. And this was his prayer. He said, “Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work. Do I fear?” That’s a prayer that you and I need to pray. We need to become aware of the work of God.

So here’s the first prayer we’re going to pray. The prayer is this:

 

Awaken me to the revival history before me.

 

Are you aware of the work that God has done in biblical times and even in American history that has been a work of revival? I’ve looked at different translations of this verse. The translation that I preach out of is the English Standard Version of the Bible. It’s a great translation, but it’s not the only translation. I looked it up and it says, “I have heard of your fame…” in the New International Version. I’ve heard of your fame. I love that. “…I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.” The Message, which is a looser translation, kind of a paraphrase, it says this. “God, I’ve heard what our ancestors say about you, and I’m stopped in my tracks, down on my knees.”

When was the last time you were so overwhelmed with the work of God that it brought you to your knees? Wanting more of the work of God. What is the work that he’s talking about here? I’ve heard of the report of you, your work. What God’s greatest work as a work of revival? It is simply: God commanding a life where he sees only death. God does that initially when we come to faith, when he awakens our faith to Christ, and we surrender to the Lordship of Christ. At that initial point of salvation.

But even at seasons during our individual lives, and certainly collectively, as nations and communities and families and even churches; there is a time, a season, where God must do a work of revival. And he’s done that in so many places. God does a work to reverse the work of man. When man works evil, God works revival. God has worked to rescue men from the enslaving power of sin.

God does a work of revival when he breathes life into cold, lifeless, religion that’s become stale, and like a formula. That’s what God does in seasons of revival. God works to bring life where there is death. Have you heard? Have you heard? Habakkuk had heard. Have you heard the reports? Maybe you haven’t heard? Maybe you’re new to all this and God needs to do his initial work in you to begin with.

But God has done a great work. Have you heard? He spoke and created the worlds out of nothing. And then he formed and fashioned a man out of the dust of the earth, and that man lay motionless and lifeless until God breathed life into that man. And that man became a family. That family became a nation. The nation was ancient Israel and they were enslaved in ancient Egypt. And God began to work to deliver his people, to rescue his people.

And so, he raised up a man, Moses. And he confronted a man, Pharaoh, and said, “Let my people go.” And God parted the Red Sea, and God delivered his people as a work of revival. And throughout the pages of our Bibles, and throughout the pages of our history books, we see God at work. Have you heard of the revival history? And we need to become aware, because it is the awareness of what God has done in the past that gives us hope for what God could do in the future. God could do a work of revival. And that’s what we’re praying for. Awaken me to the revival history before me. I love the way the NIV says it. It says, “I’ve heard of your fame.”

On Monday, I was invited to go over to Chicago to be a part of a movie. I don’t know if you knew this or not, but Harvest Bible Chapel is making a movie. If you were here on Good Friday, we saw the “Once We Were Slaves” short film. That was produced by Harvest Bible Chapel. If you were here a couple years ago at Christmas, we showed “The Ride.” It was about the taxi cab driver. Those are short films.

Well, it has come time now, for Harvest to make its first full-length, in theaters, motion picture. And shooting is going on this week. And they called me to be a part of it. They must have heard that in the ninth grade, I was drama student of the year. And I had the lead role in the school play thirty years ago as a senior in high school. And so obviously, they wanted me to be a part of this. And so actually, they’d asked a bunch of Harvest Senior Pastors if they wanted to play a little cameo.

And there was this boardroom scene, and so they had us strategically positioned at this board table, and they seated me way down on the end of the board table. Which I was very disappointed about because I just thought, “All the action is going to be down there. And I’m just going to be kind of like wallpaper in the film.”

But when the action started rolling, the lead actress actually came into the room and she sat down right in the chair next to me. And she had all the lines. So clearly, she needed motivation and that’s why they put me there – to be her motivation.

And, I didn’t know who this lady was and so I introduced myself. “Hey, I’m Trent and I’m a pastor over at Harvest Granger.” And she said, “Hi.” And she didn’t ask me for my autograph or anything. And I said, “Well, are you a member here at Harvest?”

And she said, “No, I live in Los Angeles.” And I’m like, “Oh. Like, she’s a real actress.” But I didn’t know her, so I said, “Well, have you been in other movies that I would know about?” And she said, her name is Angela Johnson, and she said, “Well, I’ve been in a couple movies. I was in Mom’s Night Out.”

And it turns out though, that she’s really famous for what she’s done. She’s a stand-up comic and her name is Angela Johnson, but she’s created this character that she does called Bonquiqui. Anybody ever see Bonquiqui? Yeah, so that’s Bonquiqui right there. And clearly as you can see, I’m her motivation in that film.

So, anyway, I was in the presence of someone famous and did not know it. And it was amazing how my attitude changed, after I realized I was in the presence of someone famous. I’m like, “Well, oh, I’ve got to, you know, gotta make sure that I’m doing this right here. I don’t want the famous person thinking I’m a dork.”

So anyway, here’s the sad reality though. So many people live their lives unaware that they are in the presence of someone famous. Do you see what the verse says? He says, “I have heard of your fame.” Have you heard? Have you forgotten the famous acts of God, what he has done in revival history?

What is revival? We need to answer the question here at the beginning of this series.  What is revival? I think first of all, we need to realize what revival is not. First of all, revival is not evangelism. Okay? I remember when I was a youth pastor in Arkansas, we brought in a special speaker and we wanted to try to get as many kids to come to know the Lord as we possibly could in a short amount of time. And so I bought $1200 worth of pizza, which insured that every kid within a thirty-mile radius showed up. And at the end of that night, there were hundreds of teenagers that had raised their hand, prayed a prayer, signed a card, and said, “Yeah, I believe in Jesus.”

And yet, the result of that was actually minimal on what happened following that. Those kids didn’t show up in church. Those kids didn’t live their lives any differently. And I realized that you can have a lot of pizza and a lot of decisions without having a genuine work of God take place. So revival is not evangelism.

Secondly, revival is not excitement. You can get a charismatic speaker that engages you and tells great stories and even tells you about some amazing things and yet that’s not an indication that God is doing a work of revival.

Revival is not an experience. A lot of times, “revivals” are coincided with a lot of stories of visions and dreams and pew-hopping and people rolling down the aisles and laughing and barking like a dog and foaming at the mouth and being bopped in the head and slain in the spirit. All those different things. It’s like, “Is that a revival? Is that really what biblical and historical revival looks like?” That’s not revival.

Revival is not evangelism. It’s not excitement. It’s not an experience. So what is revival? Well, at its very core, to revive means to bring back to life. Right? Now listen. Revival is something that a person who is not a Christian cannot experience. A person who has never surrendered to Christ doesn’t need revival. They need “vival”. “Revival” is for those who have already come to Christ. It’s people who have surrendered to Christ. These are Christians who have declined in their passion for God.

So revival is a re-awakening of passions that have been lost. Revival, we like to say a lot of times, is an extraordinary work of God. It’s not the ordinary work of God. God is always at work. But there are seasons that God works in extraordinary ways. And it produces extraordinary results.

Things happen like husbands loving their wives, and wives respecting their husbands. And teenagers responding to the authority of their parents. And people actually taking things back that they have stolen and making restitution. And confession of sin that has been hidden. And a new passion for prayer. All these things are things that God does in extraordinary ways.

The best definition of revival I’ve ever heard comes from John Piper, a pastor in Minnesota. And he says it like this, “Revival is a sovereign work of God to awaken his people with fresh intensity to the truth and the glory of God. He awakens us to the ugliness of sin, the horror of hell, the preciousness of Christ’s atoning work, the wonder of salvation by grace through faith, the urgency of holiness and witness, and the sweetness of worship with God’s people.”

That’s the kind of Christianity that we all long for. The question is, have you heard of it? Does it bring you to your knees when that kind of intensity is missing? Does it drive you to pray, “Lord, awaken me to what once was so intense and so passionate in my soul.”

I’m kind of a product of revival. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I never went to church before the age of 14, 15. And then I became a teenager and I found out that youth groups have things like pizza parties and Six Flags trips and girls. And I’m like, “Revive me. All right? I’m a candidate. Whatever.” And so I started going to church. But then it was shortly after that I began to hear the gospel in ways that started to rock my world. And I learned that Jesus died on a cross, in my place, for my sin, and I’m like, “If he did that for me, there’s absolutely nothing I’m not going to do for him.” And so I gave my life to Christ. And my life has never been the same.

Around that same time, God was doing a work of revival in our church. And God was awakening people, and people were responding to the gospel in ways that were really extraordinary. On the day that I got baptized, I got baptized with seventy-one other people. In a church of about 700 people. And God was doing an accelerating work in that church. And God was changing our perspectives.

And I remember just finding people responding to the authority of God’s word in a way that was just unusual. And then God put me on the road trying to be a carrier of that virus. And now, here I am, planting a church and trying to infect you so that you’ll be a carrier of that kind of virus, that nominal Christianity would be totally unacceptable to us. But something that is at the heart, our soul that drives us from the inside out – awaken me, once again to the revival history, the works of God that are extraordinary among his people.

There was a generation that had seen the work of God. But Judges 2 tells us that there was a generation that had not communicated the works of God. Judges 2:10 says, “And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers.” Do you know what that means? Gathered to their fathers? Dead. Easy translation right there, okay?

There’s a generation that’s dead. Gone. In the grave. Next. Who’s next? Here’s the next generation. “And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that the Lord had done for Israel.” Part of our problem is thinking that the kind of Christianity that we see around us that is stale and cold and lifeless and so hard to get people to respond to, we think that’s normal. That’s not normal. That is abnormal. What we saw earlier is normal. That’s normal. And that’s what we want to get back to in seasons of revival. Awaken me to the revival history before me.

Here’s the second prayer we can pray:

 

Awaken me to the spiritual emergency around me.

 

I could spend a lot of time telling you about the moral decline. There’s hatred in the streets. There’s bitterness in families. There’s divorce. There’s abortion. There’s pornography. There’s unbridled sexuality. All you have to do is turn on the news to see that basically every news broadcast is broadcasting a spiritual emergency going on in our country.

And the root of all of it is the fact that we have forsaken God. Habakkuk said it this way: “In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known…” What’s he talking about? He’s talking about his years. It’s been years since we’ve seen that kind of work of God.

As a matter of fact, it’s been about 158 years since America has seen its last national spiritual awakening. We’re going to find out what happened in that spiritual awakening a little later. I like the way the NIV says it. “Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known…”

“Do among us…” The Message says, “…what you did among them. Work among us as you worked among them.” God, I am not content to live with subpar experiences with you. God, I want to know you. I want to see happen in my day what I read about happening in days gone by. That’s part of our prayer.

Part of revival history is knowing how God works in revival. If we charted it, it would look like this. If you studies the pages of Scripture. If you look in the pages of your history book, what you find that what is normal is that the church is to be on mission in worship with God. Where there is no barrier between us and him, we are living passionately, pursuing the holiness of Christ. And it’s affecting how we live. That’s normal.

But what happens is, in seasons, we begin to lose our passion for Christ. We begin to compromise. We fall in love with other idols. We believe other things will satisfy, and we go into a season of decline. Do you know what happens after that? Discipline and judgment. Anybody ever had a spanking from God? That gotdrop your attention and redirected your course of action?

God does that individually; he also does that with people, churches, nations. And there are nations that no longer exist because they went into decline and did not respond to the loving discipline of the hand of God. Now just think about this. Where is America on this chart? Are we in the upper right hand corner? Are we at a 3 o’clock position? I believe we’re headed into the bottom right quadrant of that chart.

Here’s the good news. When God begins to bring judgment, his people begin to cry up. You say, “You mean cry out?” No. Cry up. We come back to the Lord and acknowledge in desperation. We’ve lost our passion. We’ve lost our holiness. We do not have the influence we once had. And there is a tidal wave of sin coming over us. God, we are desperate. We need your help. We’re longing for your word to be once again restored in our lives. And we begin to confess our sin. And then God brings revival. A new work. A new life in the church.

And what he does among his people spills over into the community, into awakening. And all of a sudden when we’re out talking to other people about this passion we have for Jesus, all of a sudden, they’re looking at us like, “Tell me more about that.” Not because of the persuasiveness of our words but because of the persuasiveness of our lives. They say, “I don’t know what you have, but I’m interested.”

And all of a sudden we’ve got influences in places we never had before. Not because of a lack of information, but because of a lack of authenticity in our lives. And that puts us right back where we should be, in worship and on mission with God. You see that cycle in every revival story in Scripture. You see it in American history. We’re going to look at some of those stories as we move through this.

What’s happening today? I noticed an article came out this week. The Pew Research Institute came out with a report on American Christianity and guess what they discovered? Christianity is dying. Does that shock anybody? Does that shock you? This is what they found. They found that five years ago, seventy-eight percent of people in America identified themselves as Christians. Okay?

Now, when somebody tells you they’re a Christian, not everybody that says they’re a Christian is a Christian? A lot of times when people say, “I’m a Christian” what they mean is “I’m an American” or “I’m not Muslim. I’m not a Mormon. I must be a Christian.” Not everybody that says they’re a Christian is a Christian. But five years ago, seventy-eight percent of people in America said, “I’m a Christian.”

Today, seventy-one percent of people. So a 7% decrease in five years. And they said, “Well, there you go. Christianity is dying.” But they went a little further into their research. And do you know what they discovered? That people that actually believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God, people that actually have had a conversion experience, surrendered their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and are not ashamed to tell people about it, people that are actually in Bible-preaching, gospel-centered churches, those people in America are actually growing in number.

So do you know what that shows? Nominal Christians and churches that do not believe in the Lordship of Christ and the authority of his word, those churches are dying. And good riddance to those churches. And those nominal Christians. But in the heart of people that God has called, there is a work of revival going on, and I believe that we’re a part of that. And so we need to awaken to the spiritual emergency that drives us to the heart of God. And God always has a remnant.

Here’s the third prayer that we can pray:

 

Awaken me to the severe mercy in front of me.

 

What’s coming? Look at the last part of this verse. “…In wrath, remember mercy.” Does it surprise you to see those two words in the same sentence? Wrath and mercy? The Message says it this way, “As you bring judgment, as surely you must, remember mercy.” God must punish sin. Because God is too holy to overlook it.

And so when judgment comes, do you understand that judgment is actually a mercy gift from God? When God is finished with a nation, he simply steps back and withdraws and leaves that nation to itself. But when God loves enough and has enough mercy to bring pain, corrective pain, that’s when he’s trying to get our attention.

Do you think it’s too late for America to experience revival? Think it’s too late? Look at this verse in Jeremiah 18:7-8. He says, “If I at any time…” I love that, at any time. Even 2015? Any time? “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it…” Do you know that God, at times, has plucked up, broken down and destroyed entire people groups? Because of their disobedience to him?

And God even at times will use more ungodly people to destroy less ungodly people? That’s revival history. And yet, if God announces he’s going to pluck up, break down, and destroy. This verse says, “…if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.” And so, there’s still time for you and I and this church and our community, this nation, to repent so that God will relent of the disaster that he had planned.

So what does it look like? What would happen if revival would take place in our country? There’s seven things that historically you can find in every great awakening. Here’s the first one:

 

• When revival comes God’s word will be exalted and authoritative over man’s experience.

 

Revival, at its very essence, is obedience to the word of God. And yet so many times we don’t think this book is sufficient. We’re out there seeking a vision or a dream or a prophetic utterance or a “word” from God. Listen, if we were more familiar with “the” Word of God, we would be less interested in “a” word from God. God has spoken in his word. Revival at its very essence is a return to the authority of God’s word.

Here’s another one:

 

• There will be intense conviction of sin leading to repentance.

 

What does the Holy Spirit do in revival? We get a lot of reports about the activity of the Holy Spirit. Do you know what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do when he is doing his greatest work? He told us in John 16. He, the Holy Spirit, “…when he comes he will convict the world concerning sin…righteousness…judgment.”

The Holy Spirit begins to put his finger on things you otherwise would rationalize, justify, minimize, blame others for. But in seasons of revival, God intensifies the convicting work of the Holy Spirit personally, to where you are, and the little things that you have made compromises in. Little things that don’t seem near as big, things that you have covered for years, all of a sudden become very uncomfortable for you to live with.

And the Holy Spirit begins to bring conviction even in the little things. All of a sudden, every impure motive, every desire for self-exaltation, every carefully concealed lustful thought, every exaggeration, every withheld act of love, every hidden agenda for revenge, every forsaken family responsibility, every act of disloyalty, every hypocrisy in my life all of a sudden is seen with a new horror.

And motivated by the sense that that sin is dragging me further and further away from a holy God, I call out to him and I say, “Awaken me. Bring me back. Do what only you can do. Purge me from this sin that is destroying my intimacy.” That’s what the Holy Spirit does in seasons of revival. He convicts. And he brings us to repentance. That is the sign of genuine revival.

 

• Humility and brokenness will be evident.

 

Humility is an attitude that says, “I cannot do anything without God. I can’t love my wife without God. I can’t raise my children without God. I cannot respond to my parents without God. I can’t do my work without God. I can’t keep a good attitude without God. I can’t stop looking at pornography without God.” The humility that says, “I am utterly dependent upon a work of God.” That’s humility.

And then brokenness is the shattering of a person’s self-will so that every response is under the will of God. A daily breaking. Not being wounded, but being broken, so that I respond every time God speaks to me in his word. That’s brokenness that’s always evident in revival.

 

• There will be deliberate acts of reconciliation and restitution.

 

That means that what God is doing in our lives vertically, is going to spill over into our lives relationally. All of a sudden you can’t remain bitter and unforgiving toward the person that hurt you. All of a sudden that person that you wronged, cheated from, stole from, that person that you were belligerent to, that person that you slandered and gossiped about. Now all of a sudden, you can’t live with yourself. You’ve got to make that relationship right.

All of a sudden husbands and wives are at a different level of intimacy. There’s so many times that people come for marriage counseling. And we do marriage counseling, and we’ll give you counsel. But so many times I want to say, “You don’t need counseling. You need revival. You just need to repent and do the things you already know to do.”

And so you come to me for counseling, and I’ll just tell you, “Repent.” I mean, it makes short counseling sessions. I’m a horrible counselor because I just think, “You know what you’re supposed to do. It’s not a lack of information. You just won’t obey.” And yet in seasons of revival, all of a sudden, you find a new motivation to do what you know you’re supposed to do.

Years ago, when Andrea and I were traveling in Life Action, we were scheduled to go to a church in Birmingham, Alabama. And about a week before we got there, the pastor had called our headquarters and said, “I want to cancel the meeting.” And we inquired why, and he said, “Well, I’ll be honest with you. My wife and I are hopelessly estranged and she’s filed for divorce. She’s living on the opposite end of our house. She’s not attended church in eight months. And with my marriage in that situation, I just don’t think it would be right to enter into a season of revival.”

And we said, “Oh. Well, have we got a bargain for you. What we would like for you to do is attend a revival meeting where one of our other teams are in Dallas, Texas.” And so this man later told us, he packed the car. He and his wife drove from Birmingham, Alabama to Dallas, Texas and during that twelve-hour trip, they didn’t speak a word to each other. They got to Dallas, they checked in two separate hotel rooms, and we began the meeting. And I’ll never forget the first time I saw them. They were sitting right over here in this section about halfway back.

They were sitting right next to each other, but in the middle of the message, the wife stood up and walked out. She went around the foyer and she came in another door and she sat down right over there. She later told us. She said, “I just knew that I wouldn’t hear anything from God if I was sitting next to him.” I think she was afraid God was going to strike him dead and she wanted to get out of the way.

So night after night, they started to come and they heard God’s word, and there were prayers going up, and they had agreed to listen. And without any counsel, without really any involvement, about the tenth night of that meeting, that pastor gulped real hard and courageously went up to his wife in the foyer and asked her out for a date. They went to a local restaurant, and during that time, he took out a list that he had made of thirty-one specific things that he had done to dishonor, to belittle, to discredit and to hurt his wife.

Number one at the top of the list was that he had loved the bride of Christ, the Church, to a greater degree than he loved his own bride. That’s called idolatry. Jesus is doing just fine loving his own bride, right? And so God’s called husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church. And he listed that as the number one thing that for twenty-five years he had put his ministry ahead of his ministry to his wife.

And item-by-item, he began to list those off thorough tears. And with a brand-new brokenness, he looked at her at the end of that list and said, “Will you please forgive me?” She later told us. She said, “That was the first time in twenty-five years I’ve ever seen brokenness in my husband.” Humility and brokenness.

That began a process for them. That was about fifteen years ago. That husband and wife are still together and they are still experiencing an extraordinary work of God. They don’t have a perfect marriage. They would be the first ones to tell you that. But it was something that God did to renew and to restore and to revive something that once was there. He brought life into a dead marriage. And he can do it for you. And he can bring life into dead churches. And he can bring life into dead nations, if we will cooperate with the Spirit.

 

• There will be a growing interest in prayer.

 

Instead of the pastor having to guilt you into a prayer meeting, it will be the place you will want to be, because the presence of God is so rich. And all of a sudden those prayers are being answered, and you’re seeing the answers to those prayers. Who wouldn’t want to be in that environment?

 

• Joy will be pure and overflowing.

 

Does it surprise you that joy is part of revival? It is. Psalm 85:6 says, “Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you?” When God beings to revive his work, it brings joy to his people.

Let me read to you the front page headline of the Denver Post dated January 20. Here’s what it says. “Entire City Pauses for Prayer. At the high tide of business as the soul rises above sordid thoughts. Remarkable outburst of the gospel sentiment provoked by revival caused a hush to spread over the population while noonday [prayer] meetings draw congregations unprecedented in numbers.” Denver Post, front page headline, January 20, 1905. “For two hours at midday all of Denver was held in a spell…The marts of trade were deserted between two and noon this afternoon, and all worldly affairs were forgotten, and the entire city was given over to the meditation of higher things. The spirit of the Almighty pervaded every nook. Going to and coming from the great meetings, the thousands of men and women radiated this Spirit which felled them, and the clear Colorado sunshine was made brighter by the reflected glow of the light of God shining from happy faces.”

Happy faces. Happy Christians! Who would have thought that you could be a Christian and be happy? In seasons of revival, that’s what God does. “Seldom has such a remarkable sight been witnessed–an entire city, in the middle of a busy week day, bowing before the throne of heaven and asking and receiving the blessings of the King of the universe.”

Have you heard? Have you heard what God does in revival? Do you long for him to do it again in our day? What if next Sunday morning you opened the front page of the South Bend Tribune to find out that God was doing today what he did over a hundred years ago in Denver? Would you be a part of it?

Here’s the last thing:

 

• Evangelism and missions will flourish.

 

You say, “Trent, I thought you said evangelism was not revival.” Oh, its not. But guess what happens when God revives his church? It spills over so that we no longer are in love with ourselves. We’re concerned about those who don’t know Christ. And we get over the fear of rejection and we go out boldly to share the Good news of Jesus with others because it has made such an impact on us.

And as a result of the new purity in our lives and the new passion in our lives, they see something in us they’ve never seen. A church that is actually different. A church that has power. A church that is holy. And something that this lost world wants, and they believe.

So, I heard that this is like the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of South Bend. I heard something about that. And yet it’s been over one hundred and fifty years since the last national spiritual awakening and revival. Do you know? Have you heard? Did you hear?

I want you to notice what happened in 1857 when one man got serious about seeking God for an awakening in his community. Watch this. (Video plays.) “The United States, 1857. Slavery, rebellion, rumors of war. In three years, Americans would turn on each other and make history. But in 1857, New York City, history, the kind textbooks don’t mention, was already happening. The date was September 23. A Christian layman named Jeremiah Lanphier held his first ever businessman’s prayer meting in Lower Manhattan. It was not, by all accounts, a rousing success. He passed out flyers for weeks. Six men attended. Two weeks later, the stock market crashed. Thousands of families lost all they had, and one of the greatest spiritual awakenings the world has ever seen began. Week by week, Jeremiah Lanphier’s tiny lunch-hour prayer meeting grew larger and larger. By December, his six men had become ten thousand men, and they met not every week, but every day. The New York newspapers took notice, and when word spread to other cities, spontaneous revival broke out across the country. In Cleveland and St. Louis, thousands of people packed downtown churches and theaters. Three times each day just to pray. In Chicago, churches had to have waiting lists for people wanting to teach Sunday School. And all across America, pastors were baptizing twenty thousand new believers every week. The revival eventually spread around the world. In England, entire towns were converted. Some towns disbanded t heir police force because of a lack of crime. And so many people came to Christ, churches had to hold services outside just to accommodate the crowds. The world had seen nothing like it before or since. Global revival. God started it with one man. It changed the course of history and now, in today’s world, people need to know. Can history repeat itself? Can it happen again?”

What do you think? (Congregation applauds.) The next great awakening is going to start somewhere. Why not South Bend, Indiana? Why not Harvest Bible Chapel? Why not your family? Why not you? Do you believe that God could do such a work that we would just disband police departments? Because there’s no crime? Do you believe that that is even possible in our day? It’s going to start with one person.

There’s really not a whole lot you can do for the nation. There’s not a whole lot you can do for South Bend. There’s not a whole lot I can even do for this church. Until God starts it in me. And so this is the way we’re going to end this service. I’m going to invite you, those of you that would have a desire to do so, just to leave your seat. We’re going to open up the altar down here and we’re just going to fill it up with people that would be willing to pray those three prayers. “Lord, awaken me to the revival history before me. Awaken me to the spiritual emergency going on around me. And awaken me to the severe mercy in front of me.”

If that’s your heart, I want to invite you to come. I want you to just fill up this altar and fill up the throne room of God with our prayers, asking God to do it again in our day. Let’s stand together and I want to invite you to come. If you’re physically able and you have a desire to do so, join us up here at the altar. C’mon. Let’s pray.

You can feel free to stay there at your seats. Some of you might just want to kneel there at your seat. You’re welcome to do that. You can stand. You can find a place just there in the aisle if we’re running out of space. It’s not our posture, it’s really the posture of our heart that’s important. Let’s just bow our heads and let me just lead you there.

What has God said to you in this message? Are there areas of compromise? Are there areas of disobedience? Is there a lack of faith? Have you given up hope on your marriage or on your kids? Listen, don’t pray for anybody else. Just ask God to awaken you to the revival history. Just tell him. Say, “Lord, you’ve done it before. Do it again. Let it start in me.” Why don’t you tell him you’re not content with your level of obedience? You’re not content with your level of passion and love for him and his word.

Here’s the second prayer. “Awaken me to the spiritual emergency around me.” Would you ask God to give you a burden, a grief over the lack of holiness? The lack of passion for God in our culture?

And here’s the third prayer. “Awaken me to the severe mercy in front of me.” Would you just tell the Lord? Say, “Lord, we deserve judgment and yet we know you’re a God of mercy. You poured out your judgment upon Jesus Christ on that cross so that you could show mercy to dirty, rotten sinners like us.”

Lord, you see your people. You hear our prayers. God, we acknowledge that we’ve strayed so far from the course. We’ve allowed greed and materialism, lust and selfishness to become idols in our own heart. God, we want to go on record that we acknowledge that we need an awakening. Father, I pray that as we come to you, God you would find our hearts teachable, moldable. Ready to obey. God, give us a burden to pray. Give us a burden to get outside of our self-love and our fear of rejection to get the gospel to places where it’s needed most. God, would you use this church as a light? You’ve been so kind to us, to give us your presence, your grace, your word. We are well taught, and God, I pray that we would act upon what we’ve been storing away in our hearts, in our minds.

God, would you revive our church? Would you revive our culture? Would you revive our marriages? Would you send a great awakening to us that would spill over into this community so that you once again would be made famous? We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.