Requirements for Revival Part 2

You're never going to get out of death.

You're never going to solve that problem because money is not your problem. Dr. Tony Evans says what we need isn't finding more cash, it's feeling more convicted. Until God heals and God reverses that thing, there will be no change. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Who wouldn't want revival, a fresh start in our relationship with God? New enthusiasm, new energy, more of the Lord's power in our lives. Well today, Dr. Evans explains that there are some requirements for revival and spells out how we can meet them.

Let's join him. 2nd Chronicles chapter 7, particularly verse 14, which we'll get to in a moment, has become the standard prescription for revival, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. This series is for those who need to be restored. Solomon has built the temple for the Lord. He says, God, this is built for you.

This is your house. And that leads us to this issue of revival beginning with verse 12. The Lord appears to Solomon in night and says to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. Verse 13, if I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people.

All right? Here we have the reason why revival is needed. Revival is needed because God is no longer working for his people. God is working against his people. So what you have to determine is whether the things I am going through are things that God has set up against me. Every negative thing that happens is not God working against you. Some things happen because sin is in the world and it's just there, or there are other evil people. But there are some things, and more than we would care to admit, that happens where God is working against us because we have departed from him. When God is working against you, it is because there has been a spiritual decline that has gone unaddressed. The second thing, coupled with that thing, is that the circumstances not only never change, but they keep getting worse. Now, Job's circumstances got worse, but he was not in a state of spiritual decline.

Therefore, it was a test. But when there is a state of spiritual decline with an increase, that no matter what you do, things don't get better, then you have to seriously raise the question whether I'm not dealing with circumstances, whether I'm dealing with judgment. Because unless the spiritual gets addressed, then God will not reverse how he is relating to us. So we must connect our problems with spiritual issues, either judgment and discipline or trials that he brings to take us further and develop us further. Now, then God gives how to turn it around, revival. How we can turn it around.

I would like to submit to us today that there are many things in our lives we can turn around. He says in verse 14, when I've done all this negative stuff to make life miserable, and my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. One of our problems when we want things changed in our circumstance is we don't necessarily want God, but we want what God can do for us. We want his benefit.

We want his help. We want his deliverance, but we don't want him. He says in verse 19, but if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you and go and serve other gods and worship them. Verse 22, and they will say, because they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them, therefore he has brought all this adversity on them.

The reason why he has to tell them to seek my face is because they're seeking all these other folks' face too. It's called idolatry. Idolatry is when you add other gods to the true God. Whenever you go outside of the true God to get your needs met, you have now adopted an idol. So an idol can be an occupation, it can be money, an idol can be a person, an idol can be any unauthorized location. God says if you want revival, you must seek my face, meaning don't seek the face of idols. In other words, don't go outside of me.

Here it is. The moment you go outside of me, you cancel me. So a lot of us are praying to a god that we cancel out by either lack of humility or failure to seek a relationship, his face.

Then he says, turn from your wicked ways. These were the actions that the idols freed them up to do. One of the reasons people like idols is idols can't do nothing to you. Idols free you up.

Idols let you do your thing. The true God doesn't, so people like idols because that way they can still use the name God without having to be accountable to God because the idol's not going to do anything. The idol's just going to let you do your thing because, you know, it's a false god, so it really can't do anything. He says, but if you turn from your wicked way, the way God cites our wickedness is by bringing us its consequences. The problem is when we don't see that the consequence is tied to the wickedness, and therefore the wickedness goes unaddressed. So what God does is He brings negative circumstances until we get the message. He says, until you address what He calls the wicked way, that is your course of life independent of Me. This involves two things. It involves acknowledgement and then action.

Acknowledgement. You must agree with God that the way is wicked. Unless you agree with God that the way is wicked. It's not a mistake. It's not a bad habit.

It's not your personality. Uh-uh. No, no, no. That's not the agreement. You must agree that the course of action that you are on, whatever the problem or the addiction is, unless the issue is addressed, that this thing we are dealing with is not only a bad habit, a mistake, and something else I shouldn't be doing, it is wickedness and an affront to God.

Until that agreement has been made, then the transforming action will not be taken. As long as I can lessen it to be something less than a wicked way, as long as I can call it, you know, just being human, as long as I can call it, you know, everybody struggles, as long as I can call it, you know, everybody has their issues, as long as I can lighten the weight of it, then I'm not calling it what God calls it. And when I don't call it what God calls it, I have not freed God to address it. And that's the problem with a lot of 12-step programs. A lot of 12-step programs want you to feel okay. But before you can feel okay, you need to feel really bad.

Really, really bad. Because until you feel really, really bad, that is, until you feel like God feels about it, then God is not free to address it. He says, turn from your wicked ways. It starts with an acknowledgement followed up by an action.

Turn, turn, turn from your wicked ways. There must be a reversing of the course, a new course of action set in motion. That's why accountability is so important, because accountability holds you responsible for the change of direction.

It's one thing to talk. It's another thing to be accountable for your actions. That's why you'll see them throwing their idols away. They don't just say, I'm not gonna worship idols anymore.

There is an actual picking them up or throwing them away. Or in the case of the high places in Scripture, they would tear down the false altars. In other words, there was going to be an action. If you can't point to an action of turning that's tied to your recognition of the wicked way, then you have not responded to the wicked way. You've just had a discussion about the wicked way. When there is an action associated with it, you have now freed God up to do three things.

You have freed God up to do three things. All of this is in verse 14. He says, when these people humble themselves and pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked way, number one, I will hear from heaven. I will hear from heaven.

So why do you need to know that? Because just because you're talking doesn't mean God's listening. Ooh, did you follow that? He says, I won't hear until they've humbled and prayed, sought my face, turned from my wicked way. Then I will hear. Therefore, a lot of our prayers are hitting the ceiling and bouncing back. They're not even making it to heaven, which is why they're not being answered. Heaven never heard it. And I don't mean heaven doesn't know it.

God knows everything. It's heaven's not paying attention to it. You're talking, and you might be talking for hours, but you're talking because you have not taken the prescription. You're like me saying, my tooth hurt, my tooth hurt, my tooth hurt. Oh, my tooth hurt. Oh, I shouldn't have eaten that candy. It's making my tooth hurt worse.

Oh, I shouldn't have eaten that sugar. It's making my tooth hurt worse. Oh, my tooth hurt, my tooth hurt. I got a prescription here, but I'm going around talking about my tooth hurt, my tooth hurt.

I'm going and asking you for advice. What do you do when your teeth hurt? I'm doing all this stuff because my tooth hurt, my tooth. Now, the doctor has written me a prescription. He said, if you have a problem with your teeth, I have solved your, until I take that prescription to the pharmacy for them to fill it, and I take it, I'm making a lot of noise that the solution is not hearing because I have not acted in concert with the prescription. He says, if you want heaven to hear and to change the scenario, you've got to take the prescription. And he says this prescription will allow him to hear from heaven. When he hears from heaven, he gives benefit number two.

First of all, he's now listening to you. Benefit number two is I will forgive their sin. There is nothing like the feeling of having your slate wiped clean. Have you ever used a calculator, punched in the wrong number, and then pushed clear?

Guess what you get to do? Start all over again. What God does when the prescription has been taken is hear from heaven and punches clear on the calculator of your life so that that sin is no longer an impediment to his answer, response, or interaction with you. He has now been freed up to pay attention to you because the thing that is getting in the way has now been addressed. It doesn't mean you still don't struggle.

It doesn't mean that you still don't have problems. But it means that you have tangibly demonstrated your seriousness by your action and not by your discussion. And how does the healing happen once the obstacles are out of the way? Dr. Evans will tell us when he returns with part two of today's message. As we're learning, revival is a new birth, a new beginning, something many of us need and the subject of Tony's current teaching series, Revive Us Again. This two-volume collection will teach you how to fan the flames of faith, not just in your own life, but in your family, your church, and even in our country.

And all 14 messages in this set, both on CD and instant digital download, will be yours with our thanks when you make a donation to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. Along with them, we'll include a special limited-time extra, his brand-new book, God Himself. In it, he explains that most of us don't stop often enough to consider who God really is and why we worship him. So this book is a journey through his attributes, revealing aspects of the Lord's nature and character that'll probably surprise you. In a marriage, intimacy grows as spouses get to know each other.

The same is true in our relationship with God. So don't wait. Make your donation online at tonyevans.org and let us send you this double resource package as our investment in your growth. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or reach out to our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 for some in-person help.

That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat our contact information later on after part two of today's lesson and this. Whether you're facing a decision or a dilemma, it's smart to ask, what would Jesus do? But first you have to know what Jesus did and what God has to say about the situations you face. Well, if building your biblical foundation is your goal, the help you need is as close as your computer or mobile device thanks to the Tony Evans Training Center. It's packed with online courses covering core concepts of the faith and in-depth Scripture studies you can work through any time you want at any pace you want. Along the way, you'll explore key teachings and learn how to apply them in real-world situations. There's lots of exclusive content from Tony to keep you interested and motivated and an online forum where you can ask questions, get answers and collaborate with other students.

It's almost like having a seminary on your smartphone. Visit TonyEvans.org today and connect with the Tony Evans Training Center where you can explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. He will hear from Evan, he will forgive your sin and then he gives the third thing. He says, and heal their land. Wait a minute, why does their land need healing? Because verse 12 and 13 says, I jacked it up. I messed it up. It needs healing and only I can heal it because I'm the one who messed it up.

I sent the pestilence, I sent the drought, I sent the circumstances. Here it is, when revival occurs, heaven pays attention, the sins of God's people are forgiven and you know you're in the middle of a revival because now healing is occurring in the lives of God's people and even overflowing, the Bible says, into the broader world. The problem is that many of us need, watch this, spiritual healing to take place so that we see its visible repercussions.

Watch this. Some of us need financial healing. That's a physical thing, money, finances. But if it's due to spiritual decline and God is not gonna bring healing because every time you pay something off, he gonna let something else break down.

Every time you try to fix something up, he's gonna let it break through. There's gonna be, the interest just keeps piling up no matter how much overtime you make because there's spiritual decline, you don't understand. You're never gonna get out of debt.

You're never gonna solve that problem because money is not your problem. God jacking you up is your problem and until God heals and God reverses that thing, then there will be no change. In your relationship, if you are refusing to fulfill your biblical role as a husband, biblical role as a wife, refusing to confess your sin in that role, then all of the vacations in the world and all of the nice birthday presents and anniversaries, that's not gonna fix anything because the spiritual issue was never addressed. Unless the spiritual issue is addressed, the healing and the stuff you are feeling and that's messing with you, you won't ever see take place. He says, I will bring healing to their situation.

Don't misunderstand me. The land was the thermometer in the Old Testament of the degree of the people's compliance with God. It was their physical land, the land of Israel. The reason why Israel is in conflict today and will continue to be in conflict is that it refuses to submit to God's son and therefore the land stays in conflict. While what is true of the land in the Old Testament is true of the life in the New Testament. There are certain things you have to go to for God for yourself, okay, because you're God's house and you have things you need Him to do in your land called your life.

There are other things you could never get by yourself. One of the reasons why God wants individual temples to also participate in the collective temple called the church is that if you have an eight-cylinder need but you're a four-cylinder saint, you need to pick up four more cylinders. See, if you have an eight-cylinder need but you're a four-cylinder saint, you don't have the power on your own to get the extra energy you need to get where you need to go. So that's why the Bible says, that's why in Acts chapter 12, I believe it is, the Bible says Peter was in prison. He couldn't get out and the church gathered together to pray and when the church gathered together to pray, it says angels intervened and shook Peter loose out of the prison through an earthquake that broke off his shackles. It says because the people of God added more cylinders to the situation. So there are some things you can get on your own but there are other things you can't get on your own because it's bigger than you. That's why you need the body of Christ.

Let me tell you something else. If you are unwilling to go to bat for another saint that has a need, then don't be surprised that God doesn't respond to you when you have yours because you are so selfish that I'm only gonna use the church when I have a need but I'm not gonna be part of the church to battle when somebody else has a need. Then don't be surprised that God turns you down because you think you're an only child in the family of God. No, no, it's our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. So the issue today for revival is to follow the prescription because the doctor knows what works.

Because the doctor knows what works. It means coming to God on his terms and listen, listen, don't try to punk God. Don't come shucking and jiving and operating up there in the ethereal realm where the Holy Ghost don't even know what you're talking about.

You're just so vague. You know how we do in the morning? We step on the scale. We step on the scale. Why do we step on the scale? Because the scale tells us what we weigh. But a lot of us don't wanna deal with what the scale's gonna say. So what we do is we don't step on it right. We step on it leaning to the side or we let it start below the zero sort of show lost weight as somehow shucking and jiving and punking the scale is gonna change the reality of how much we've eaten and how fat we really are.

You got to let the scale tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God so you can deal with reality. Don't be punking God. Don't be talking about, oh bless Heavenly Father way up in heaven.

We praise your name and you're a great God and you're so high. We can't get over you so low. We can't get under you so wide.

We can't get around it. You're a bombing Gilead. You're a bright morning star.

You're the rose of Sharon. You punking God. Say God I'm jacked up, messed up.

Here's the line A, B, C and D and I need you to intervene in my situation and revive me again. Stop punking God because he know when you're trying to mess with his head. Come clean so that he can begin to heal the life and transform the life and so he can revive us again. Dr. Tony Evans talking about what we need to do to make way for revival in our lives and if you could use some help figuring out where to start with God's plan of renewal for you visit tonyevans.org and click on the link that says Jesus. There Dr. Evans offers a quick explanation of how you can find God's forgiveness for everything you've ever done wrong and be 100% sure that you have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ. Check it out today. Again that's tonyevans.org.

Stay with us. What if the church led the way towards racial reconciliation? What if God's people routinely offered the gospel as the remedy to the hatred that plagues our society? What if the loudest voice for truth and love and justice came from those across racial lines who professed Jesus as Lord?

The answer is that nothing would be able to stop the advancement of God's kingdom. That's the call Dr. Tony Evans issues in his book Oneness Embraced. Get your copy of Oneness Embraced today. As always the place to go for details is tonyevans.org and while you're there don't forget to take advantage of the special resource package I told you about earlier. The two volume audio collection called Revive Us Again which includes the message you heard today plus Tony's brand new book God Himself that explores the Lord's nature and character one attribute at a time. These powerful resources will be yours as our thank you gift when you visit tonyevans.org and make a contribution in support of Tony's work here on the radio and around the world. You can also let one of our resource team members assist you day or night by calling 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. When you get on the highway you're going where the highway goes unless you make a conscious choice to change course. On Monday Dr. Evans will explain how to tell when you're on the wrong road and talk about what it takes to make a U-turn. I hope you'll join us for that. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.