Revival, The Return of God to His People

Your main goal should not be the blessing you're looking for.

That's the fruit of what you're after. Dr. Tony Evans says we're often too likely to put the gift ahead of the giver. Folk want their blessing, but they don't necessarily want the God who blessed them, because when they get their blessing, you don't see them no more. 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. Crying out to God for revival can seem very spiritual, but today Dr. Evans explains why there's something we should want even more desperately.

Let's join him. 1 Samuel 7 is the story of Israel turning back to God. It's a story about revival. Fundamentally, revival is God's return in His manifest presence to His people. This is a story coming out of a time of great pain. The book of the Judges, where every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Everybody had their own idea. It says the word of the Lord was rare in those days. God wasn't doing much talking. God wasn't saying much to people. And that's because there was a great breach, a great distance between God and His people, because of their constant rebellion against Him.

Through a series of events, the ark was returned to Israel. And what that meant symbolically was that the presence of God had now returned. God was now in the neighborhood again. For 20 years, they had been needing to hear a word from God. Then Samuel, verse 3, spoke to all the house of Israel.

It applied to everybody listening to the sermon. If you return to the Lord with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the Asherah from among you, and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve Him alone, He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines. There are a bunch of folk in here today who are having trouble with the Philistines. A Philistine is an enemy. It's anything out there that keeps you captured, trapped, tricked, travailed.

It's that thing that won't leave you alone. You see, because when you read the story, the Philistines keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back, oppressing them. There are people here today living under oppression because the Philistines won't leave you alone. Life has grabbed you by the throat and is jerking you around. And you are lamenting, you are crying out that God does something.

But you're not getting a word back. The presence of God has arrived. The problem is not that God is not near.

The problem is the people are far. He says, Samuel spoke to the house of Israel if you return to the Lord. God has already returned to you. The ark is here. If you return to the Lord, you say, but I have returned. I'm in church.

That's like saying I'm near the ark. Let's define what he means by return. He says, you must return to the Lord. And how must you do it?

Here it is. Remove the foreign gods and the Asherah from among you and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve him alone. Then he will deliver you.

Now, wait a minute. In verse 2, we just saw they were lamenting after the Lord. They were crying, weeping, wailing. So evidently, tears are not enough.

They were sad, but it's not enough. Getting emotional about your need for God is nice, but it's not enough. He says you must return to God. And the way you return to God, he says, is by removing the idols.

That raises the question, because I know somebody here thinking, well, that doesn't apply to us. Well, let's define an idol. An idol is an unauthorized source to meet your needs. The moment you go to a, watch this now, an unauthorized source, something God has not approved, to address a need in your life, the Philistines, but you go to an unauthorized source to do it, you have brought another god into the equation. Many of us will cancel God's deliverance of the Philistines because we're going to keep another god in the equation.

That cancels him. He says you are to serve the Lord your God alone, and then you get the blessing. He will deliver you. Your main goal should not be the blessing you're looking for.

Now, the blessing is important. The deliverance from the Philistines, whatever that is, that's important, and you want that. But that's not what you're after.

That's the fruit of what you're after. He says if you return to the Lord, then the Lord will deliver you. Now, here's what most people want. They want the deliverance without the return. When Israel was delivered from Egypt, you know, that's deliverance, he said I'm going to take you to a land flowing with milk and honey.

You know, we call that their destiny. But there's a great statement made, and you don't have to turn there, but in Exodus chapter 5 verse 1, here's the statement that's made. Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh, and they make the statement. They said, God told us to tell you to let His people go. And then He says this, watch this, that they may worship Me in the wilderness. Amen, now. I thought we were going to let God's people go so they could get to the Promised Land.

Not yet. Before they get to Canaan, and after they leave Egypt, we're going to develop them in the wilderness. And the way we're going to develop them in the wilderness is I'm going to put them in a situation to learn to put me first, to learn to trust me, to learn to walk with me, so that when they get to the Promised Land, they won't forget me. See, the problem today is folk want God to give them their blessing, but they don't necessarily want the God who blessed them. And you know that's true, because when they get their blessing, you don't see them no more. Because now they really got what they were looking for, and they weren't looking for God.

They were looking for His deliverance. So the sons of Israel, verse 4, removed the Baals and the Asherah and served the Lord alone. Baal and Asherah.

That's like a husband and wife God team. They were the fertility gods. Because they didn't just have idols to have idols. They had idols because they were hoping those idols would do something. In other words, they didn't fully trust God, so they brought in some just-in-case gods. The people made a decision that day to return to the Lord, which meant removing the idols.

Any unauthorized person, place, or thing that you use to meet needs in your life, even if the needs are legitimate. Okay, so they did what God asked. They had a solemn assembly because they called them all together. Samuel says in verse 5, Gather all of Israel to Mizpah. That was the place of gathering for revival and renewal.

And I will pray to the Lord for you. They gathered to Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord. And here it is, fasted on that day and said, We have sinned against the Lord. How did they sin against the Lord? By including other gods. That's how they sinned. They reflected itself in a lot of actions of sin, but the essence of sin was they were looking outside of the true God to meet their needs by bringing in other gods.

And Samuel judged, he made a judgment on the sons of Israel at Mizpah. So now they're right before the Lord. They have returned to the Lord with fasting. They've given up a craving of the body.

Why? Because they were so desperate for God. They were willing to give up food or television or whatever it happens to be that will keep you from, listen, an unhurried time in God's presence. Have you ever noticed how rushed it is when you try to spend time with God? You ever notice that? Have you ever noticed how it gets interrupted? How you get distracted?

You met well when you got started, but it didn't last long. There's a reason for that. The reason for the interruptions and the distractions is because of how powerful it is.

And I'll show you how. Look, he says, when they gathered together, to get all this stuff straight, verse 7, Now when the Philistines heard that the sons of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the Lord of the Philistines went up against Israel, and when the sons of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. When the Israel got serious, trouble came. There was a disruption taking place. Here they are, serious about getting right with God, and now the enemy is trying to disrupt it.

Why? Because the enemy knows how powerful it is. When the people of God get serious about God to return to God, he's up against something now.

He's up against the fight of his life. The Bible says the devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. We are needing deliverance in various ways, all of us, by God. And the enemy wants to disrupt. He is going to seek ways to distract, to disrupt, to mess up an unhurried time in God's presence.

Why? Because he knows what that will produce. It will produce the deliverance you've been looking for for 20 years. One of the ways you'll know that your solemn assembly connected is prayers get answered. You're not just praying some vague prayer with some vague meaning.

No, prayers got answered. It says, and the Lord heard him. After 20 years, the Lord heard him.

Why? Because the people have returned to the Lord by getting rid of illegitimate acts that were designed to meet needs apart from God. So the Lord answered him. Now Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, verse 10, and the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but... Somebody say but.

But the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day against the Philistines and confused them so that they were routed before Israel. When Dr. Evans continues our message in just a moment, he'll talk about the spiritual lessons we can learn from the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Stay with us. There are songs about togetherness standing side by side, united. We hear a lot about unity, but no one really knows what unity truly is or the power of oneness in Christ united. In his guided prayers and new devotional book, Stronger Together, Weak or Apart, powerful prayers to unite us in love. Dr. Tony Evans shows you how unity is key to spiritual victory and how standing with others in prayer leads to a stronger and impactful life and nation. Find out more about Stronger Together, Weak or Apart at TonyEvans.org.

TonyEvans.org. This great collection of spiritually empowering prayers and devotions will teach you how to come together with fellow believers and overcome envy, fear, doubt, isolation, worry, and more. We want to help you win the battle over division and experience what real Christian fellowship is all about. So for a limited time, we're packaging a copy of Stronger Together, Weak or Apart, along with the 14 full-length messages in Tony's current two-volume teaching collection, Turning a Nation to God, and making them all available as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to help support Tony's work here on the radio and around the world. Without your assistance, this ministry wouldn't be possible, so we're excited for this chance to support you as you support us. Visit TonyEvans.org or call us at 1-800-800-3222 and make the arrangements before this special offer runs out. That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that information for you after part two of today's message.

Here's Dr. Evans. Tell God what you want Him to do, because they cried out to the Lord, save us from the Philistines. So they told God what they wanted God to do, but let me tell you what you don't want to tell God how to do it. The way God does what He does is unpredictable.

Who would have thunk it that God would cause thunder up in the heavens to be so loud, to be so boisterous, that it would cause havoc in the Philistine army and confuse them? God's got some confusion that He wants to cause to the problem that's been messing with you. But how He's going to do it, you don't know. God has a million ways to hit the same bullseye. Tell Him what you want, but leave Him alone about how He does it, because His ways are not your ways. His thoughts are not your thoughts.

As high as the heavens are above the earth, that's how different He is than you. You simply return to the Lord, tell Him about the deliverance you desire, and then let Him in His own inimical way come down and invade the situation and cause havoc to hell. It says, and when Israel went out, verse 11, to Mizpah, they pursued the Philistines. They ran after the enemy. All the other time the enemy was coming and battling them. They were playing defense.

Wouldn't it be nice for you to have the ball on your side of the line and you play offense? You say, come on, come on, okay, come on, come on, let's get it on, let's run. Like David, it says he ran to go lie.

Why? Because he understood the battle is the Lord's, it's not mine. He understood that he positioned himself so that he could take the offense against the problem and go get it rather than it get them, and they pursued them. They set up a stone, they called it Ebeneezer. That means the Lord has helped us. I believe at the end of this year, somebody going to testify, the Lord helped us. The Lord didn't help me. The Lord didn't come through for me. The Lord has blessed me, but I just didn't get the blessing from the Lord. I met the Lord of the blessing.

You're going to be able to testify, and here's the sweet part. Look, the cities, verse 14, which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel. From Ekron even to Gath, and Israel delivered their territory from the land of the Philistines, so there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. Blessing number one is the blessing you asked for. He said, deliver me or deliver us from the Philistines. God created this thunder, confused the enemy, and delivered them from the Philistine.

Now that's the blessing you asked for. But when you read verse 14, they got bonus blessing, because it says they got what they didn't ask for. It says God not only delivered them from the Philistines, but went historical on them. Verse 14 says God went back and got back the territory that had been lost years earlier and taken over by the enemy. Here's the good news when you return to God.

He'll not only answer your prayer, but he'll go historical on you. He'll go back and give you Joel chapter 2, which says he can give you back the years that the locust have taken away. Some of us have lost months and days and weeks and years. We've gone from this situation to that situation. We've missed opportunity and benefits, and we wish we could turn back the hands of time. But you can't turn back the hands of time. But what you can do is let God go back, grab time, and bring it back up here and restore what was stolen from you. It says he will give you back the territory that the enemy has stolen. That's good news that I can get what I asked for and I can get what I lost.

That's good news. He says return to me and I will return to you. Y'all remember Jack and the Beanstalk? Let me remind you, we grew up learning about Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack was a little poor boy who lived with his poor mama who was a widow in a little cottage. Jack had a cow. A paddler came along and offered to exchange the cow for some beans. Jack makes the exchange and trades off his cow, which they use for milk for beans. Jack plants the beans. The bean becomes this incredible beanstalk that rises from the ground, goes through the clouds into the heavens.

Jack sees this stalk go up that high and he doesn't understand how that bean could get that big and grow that tall. He had to climb the beanstalk. Jack begins to climb the beanstalk, goes through the clouds because it's so high, gets to the top of the beanstalk and there's a castle.

How can there be a castle at the top of a beanstalk? The fairy comes along and says to him, this castle used to belong to a knight and his wife and they had a little baby boy. But a giant came along, killed the knight, making the mother a widow and she had to be relocated with her baby boy.

And that baby boy is you, Jack. That mother is the widow of the knight. He said that the giant took everything that belonged to the knight and his widow and the baby boy and kept it for himself in this castle. Jack said, you mean everything in this castle is mine? Everything in this castle belongs to me?

He said yes, but it's in the hands of the enemy. It's in the hands of the giant. Jack snuck inside the castle and he saw a hen that laid golden eggs. Jack said, that's my hen laying them golden eggs. Now the giant sensed something was wrong. He said, FIFA, fo-fo.

I hear the blood of an Englishman. He said, whether living or whether dead, I'll grind his bones into bread. But he couldn't find Jack because Jack had hidden. When the giant went to sleep, Jack stole the hen, walked down the beanstalk and took the hen to the mother. The next day, Jack went up there again, saw the giant counting bags of money.

Jack said, that's my money. Jack waited until the giant went to sleep, took all his money back, came down the tree, gave it to his mother. Jack went back up the next day and Jack just kept grabbing stuff that the enemy had stolen and brought it back down and gave it to his mother. The last time Jack went up, Jack walked into the castle and the giant saw him. The giant came after him. Jack ran, got on the beanstalk, hurried down the beanstalk. The giant was coming after him. Jack took an ax, chopped the bottom of the beanstalk. The beanstalk fell over. The giant broke his neck.

The giant was dead and everything that the enemy had stolen was now recovered back to Jack, all because there was a beanstalk that had been planted that grew up. The Bible says in John 15, 5, Jesus says, I am the true vine. If you learn to climb up on Jesus who came down to earth and went up to heaven so you could have back what the enemy has stolen away from you, if you stop staying on earth and make your way up to the heavens, you'll discover that the enemy has your stuff up there, but you now live in heavenly places so you can go up there and get it.

You can say to the enemy, FIFA fo fo. I got the power of the only begotten son. You can make your claim to what the enemy has stolen from you.

God is calling you to return to him so he can give you back what the enemy has taken. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about how we can restore and refresh our relationship with God in a message from his two-volume series, Turning a Nation to God. This 14-lesson collection would be great to use with your small group or Bible study or just to review on your own. You can request it online at tonyevans.org or call us at 1-800-800-3222 and one of our team members will help you make arrangements to get a copy. And remember, as a special bonus, we'll send along a copy of Tony's powerful devotional book I told you about earlier, Stronger Together, Weaker Apart, as our gift when you include a contribution to help support Tony's work on this station and around the world. Don't wait, this special package of resources will only be available for a limited time, so visit us today at tonyevans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 where team members are always on hand to help with your requests. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Have you ever tried to get your point across to someone who simply wasn't paying attention? On Monday, Dr. Evans will talk about how God experiences that kind of frustration with us. I hope you'll be back with us. 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.