Revive Us - Part 1 of 2

The Baptist Bible Hour now comes to you under the direction of Elder Lacerre Bradley, Jr. O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise, Thou the resolve my God and King, Thou triumphs of His grace. This is Lacerre Bradley, Jr. inviting you to stay tuned for another message of God's sovereign grace. O'er the jubilee it's sounding, all the joyful news is come, Free salvation is proclaimed, in and through God's holy Son. Now we have come, pay redemption, through the big and lowly Lamb. Glory, honour and salvation, Christ the Lord is come to reign. Now that each one sees from wandering, Come and follow Christ away. We shall all receive our blessing, Give from Him we do not strain.

O the moment we neglected, Yet the Lord forgives again. Glory, honour and salvation, Christ the Lord is come to reign. Come, let us run on praise with patience, Looking unto Christ the way, Who doth live and reign for ever, With His Father and our God. He is worthy to be praised, He is our exalted King. Glory, honour and salvation, Christ the Lord is come to reign. Come, dear children, praise your Jesus, Praise Him, praise Him evermore. May His reign come now constrain us, So His great name we'll adore. O, when let us join together, Here's one first name to proclaim. Glory, honour and salvation, Christ the Lord is come to reign. I want to thank each of you who have written to us recently and indicated that you pray for this work, and I want to thank you for your support.

We depend on that to be able to keep the program on all these stations. I hope that others of you will take time to write. Our address is Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. And I encourage you to visit our website at BaptistBibleHour.org. There you can find both our Sunday and daily broadcasts and the Baptist Witness.

And there you can also make a donation for your convenience. Thank you again for your help and ask for your prayers and support. May the Lord bless you. In reading Psalm 85, we find in the sixth verse a request, a prayer that we want to consider today. Psalm 85 verse 6, Wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? What does it mean to revive us?

To revive is to refresh, to restore, to kindle a fire that is almost extinguished, to nourish up. Now, many think of a revival as being a protracted meeting in which there is a concentrated evangelistic effort. Many churches will announce we're going to have a revival at such and such a date. Well, they may have a meeting, but you don't know that it's going to be a revival unless the Lord is pleased to send down His grace and the blessing and presence of His Spirit and indeed revive the hearts of His people. In years gone by, many of those revival meetings were scheduled for two and three weeks. I preached at some of them in years gone by and in some they met twice a day, morning and night, for two to three weeks. Can you imagine in the busy rush life that people have today to announce we're going to have services here for the next three weeks and they're going to be twice a day and we expect all of you to attend.

Times have definitely changed, haven't they? Well, we read of the Welsh revival and the great awakening that had an impact on thousands of people, but as we think about this request, this prayer, wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee. Let's think about the need of revival, the need of revival. Verse one of this psalm, the people were looking back on blessings enjoyed. For thou hast been favorable unto thy land, thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob, thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin, Siva. They were looking back at wonderful blessings God had bestowed upon them.

They had returned from the Babylonian captivity, they'd been there for seventy years. Now they've come back, but they recognize that there are still some problems. While they have been richly blessed, there is still something of a spiritual coldness. Things are not like they ought to be and so they're asking wilt thou not revive us again. So the need of revival is recognized when we're able to recall better days.

Look back to more prosperous times. Give thanks for those blessings, but recognize that we desire once again to see the outpouring of God's Spirit in a powerful way that we might enjoy once more the kinds of blessings that we've seen in the past. There have been more prosperous days among our churches. In the year 1803, there were 628 baptisms in the churches that belong to the Cahookie Association in North Carolina.

At a later time, the number of baptisms dropped one year to fewer than 400. They said this is time to call for a season of special prayer. They were concerned that they were not seeing more conversions, more baptisms, and so those churches met and prayed that God would again pour out His Spirit upon them and bless that there would be an end gathering. Psalm 44 verse 1, we have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days, in their times of old. So as we read and sometimes hear from one who expresses the blessings that they enjoyed in times past, it makes us realize our need for revival. The need for revival is there when zeal has declined and love has faded.

Titus chapter 2 verse 14 says, speaking of our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. How would you describe your zeal today? What is the level of your zeal in the service of God? Are you excited about it?

Are you focused on it? Are you praying for God to use you to open doors of opportunity where you might witness and minister to others? Did you pray for the services today? Maybe you were having a struggle getting things together and felt a bit of frustration trying to be here on time and we appreciate the fact you're here, but did you think about praying for the service?

Did you think about praying for it in the middle of the week that God would bless when we'd come together, to bless the singing of the hymns that would not just be the repetition of words and notes but that we would sing with joy praising the greatness of our God? Did you pray for someone that you know is struggling? Did you pray for someone to be converted? Revelation chapter 2 verse 4, I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. This is a letter sent from Jesus Christ, the head of the church, speaking to one of his churches and saying thou hast left thy first love. There was a time when you were first converted. Your heart was filled with love for Jesus Christ. You felt love for others, but he says you've left that first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thy repent.

You see, this is no small matter. You can't just say casually, well I'll have to admit my love is not what it once was. I don't have the burning desire in my heart to serve the Lord, to be active in his kingdom. He says this matter is of such serious consequence that unless you repent I will come and remove the candlestick.

He's speaking to a church, a church is made up of individuals so it's a message to each of us individually. And it's a message to our church that if we lose our first love, our zeal is not what it ought to be, the day could come that the candlestick would be removed. Was there a time in your life when you felt closer to the Lord than you do at the present? And indeed you stand in need of revival. Have you lost the joy of his service?

Has it become a burdensome task? When you think about coming to church, you think, well I need to be there, I know it's my duty, but don't come, somebody's going to be asking me why, so I guess I better go. Or do you look forward to the day, to be in the house of God? You're excited about hearing his word. You're praying that the Lord will give the message that you need to hear and so you're there to get the answer to your prayer.

Do you have joy in his service? There's a need of revival when struggling with discouragement. You feel that your prayers have not been answered.

How many times we all struggle with that? You pray about something, you feel like it would be God honoring for that prayer to be answered. You pray over a period of time and after a while you say, my prayers are of no use.

I might as well give up praying. You're discouraged maybe because a child is going down the wrong path. What a heartbreaking experience for parents when a child goes astray.

You've tried to teach them, you've tried to give them the right direction. Their heart becomes hard, they become rebellious. You may be weary of conflict, it may be a conflict in your marriage, a conflict at work, a conflict with people that have been your friends, a conflict with people even in the church with whom you may disagree on a point. It's time for revival when you're weary of conflict. It's time for revival when church attendance is down and there are few conversions.

There's a need for revival when there is a decline of whatever sort it might be. You may be discouraged because your witness seems to be ineffective. You hear messages about how we ought to be evangelistic, how we ought to be speaking to others and you make the attempt and there is no positive response and you become discouraged. But 1 Corinthians chapter 15 in the 58th verse says, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Notice those two words, steadfast, unmovable.

Even though you're discouraged, even though you may feel that your efforts are not fruitful, you don't give up. That's what this text says, don't give up, be steadfast, be unmovable, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And then there's need for revival when sin has broken your fellowship with the Lord. Psalm 51 verse 9, David prayed, Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. David had committed a terrible sin. It committed adultery.

He'd planned the death of Bathsheba's husband, thinking that this would cover his tracks. For an extended period of time he was in deep agony, spoke of it as though his mouth became dry and he felt that his bones were broken. And then one day the prophet comes and confronts him and says, Thou art the man. And then David writes that 51st Psalm in praise and he acknowledges his sin, Hide thy face from my sins.

It says, I was shaken in iniquity, in sin my mother conceived me. I've been a sinner all my life, but my sin has manifested itself in a horrible way. I am guilty, I confess, I acknowledge, Lord, that I have sinned against thee and I need thy forgiveness.

David's sin was great, but he repented and he was forgiven. No matter what the sin is, no matter how great, how horrendous, or how it may seem to be small in your eyes, sin is sin. Sin must be acknowledged, sin must be confessed, it must be repented of, it must be turned away from. Your sin may be like David's.

It may be a battle with the lust of the flesh. Your fellowship with the Lord has been disrupted because of the material that you read or the pictures that you look at or the places you go or the conversations you have or the people with whom you associate. When sin has broken your fellowship with the Lord, it's time for an awakening, it's time for repentance, it's time for an acknowledgement, Lord, I have sinned. Give me grace to overcome.

Not only do I pray for forgiveness, for cleansing, but I pray that you'll give me grace to be on a new path, that I'll be refreshed and enlivened. It may be that your sin is anger. Ephesians chapter 4 tells us to put away anger.

Don't just tone it down, put it away. Do not let anger dominate your life, do not let it fester within you. It may be the sin of bitterness. Bitterness is described as a root that springs up and defiles many.

Oh, it can hide itself from the deep recesses of your heart so that you hardly are aware that it's there or at least don't want to admit it. But what a sin. It affects your fellowship with the Lord. It affects your fellowship with other people. Can be disruptive in a marriage, it can be disruptive among friendships, it can be disruptive in a church.

Can all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor be put away from you, with all malice be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Your sin might even be the use of foul language. I've seen that this is sometimes a temptation for young people, particularly young boys.

Want to prove to their friends that they're tough. They can use strong language, it's foul language, it's sinful. It may be pride. It may be that you look on others and you see their sin and oh my, you feel like you're so much higher than they are. Just to say that God resisteth the proud. I don't know about you but I don't want to go through life feeling that God is resisting me.

I need him, I need his help, I need his fellowship. Let us pray Lord, search our hearts, try me, make me to know what's within me, if indeed there is pride there, help me to see it, help me to confess it, help me to humble myself before the Lord. Maybe a critical spirit in your pride, you're ready to point out the faults and failings of others. If you don't verbalize it, you at least think about it.

You're very critical of them. Maybe a failure to forgive. When sin has broken your fellowship with the Lord, there is need for revival. Then let's think about the prayer for revival.

First of all, it must be a prayer of confession. We need mercy. Verse 7 of Psalm 85 says, show us mercy O Lord and grant us thy salvation. What do we need? We don't want to be repaid on the basis of our sin.

We don't want to get what we deserve. We need mercy. We come to the mercy seat.

We're encouraged to come. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16 says to come boldly to the throne of grace that we may, what? Obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So we have to come humbly to our God acknowledging, I am a sinner. I've fallen terribly short of what I should be. My actions have not been right. Some of my thoughts have been impure. My attitude has not been what it should have been.

My motive has not been right. I confess it Lord, I come asking for mercy. Sins and failures must be confessed. And then it must be a prayer of dependence upon God. Notice in the words of our text, will not thou revive us? We can confess our sin, by the grace of God we can turn from it. But only God can revive us.

Revival is not something that you work up. It's something that God sends down. It's something that we need to pray for. But it must come from God. Will not thou revive us again? We're weak, but He can revive us no matter how cold we seem to be, how desolate our state may be, how far from the Lord we may have wondered, He can revive us. Psalm 119 verse 25 says, My soul cleaveth unto the dust.

There's a confession. Is that not true of us all? That in our human nature we tend to cleave to the dust. We go down rather than up.

We go to that which is unprofitable. We go to that which is unclean. My soul cleaveth to the dust. Quicken thou me according to thy word. Enliven me, revive me, wake me up, Lord.

Help me to be where I ought to be in thy service. We live in a difficult day, but He can revive us. It's interesting to me when I read the messages of preachers that lived a hundred and two hundred years ago. We think back to some of those times as being days when there was a great stirring of the Spirit of God and the people in general showed more respect for God and His Word, but over and over again those ministers will speak of what a difficult day they're living in, of how indifferent people are, about how multitudes fail to come to God's house. So it doesn't matter what the time and day and era that we're living in, there are challenges. Yes, there is a growing resentment in America today against the truth of Christianity. All kinds of criticisms and slurring remarks are made. And you may be criticized because of your Christian testimony, because of your stand.

There may be people that you work with, people in your extended family that will criticize you. And we have difficult times that we face, but we're trusting in our God to revive us. O Holy Spirit, lead us be brave, we need thy guidance all through the day, if thou wilt teach us to know thy ways, we follow gladly and sing thy praise. May we take to our lips the words of the psalmist and pray, revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee.

And the difference when the Spirit of God moves in power, when there is conviction of sin, when there is joy found as that sinner comes to repentance and finds his hope in Jesus Christ the Savior. I hope that you will write us in until next week at this same time. May the Lord richly bless you all. O Holy Spirit, lead us to the day, thy will we come.

Come, gracious spirit, of thy today, Hindu with love, almighty one, O help us now to say, Thy will be done. Comfort of all hearts, hear us, we pray, Give us thy strength from day to day. The Baptist Bible Hour has come to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. Address all mail to The Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. That's The Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. Peace will be ours, and joy abide. Thy peace will be ours, and joy abide.