Lord Do It Again
Notes
Transcript
Read Psalm 85:1-7
Read Psalm 85:1-7
1 Lord, thou hast been Favourable unto thy land: Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. 2 Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, Thou hast covered all their sin. Selah. 3 Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. 4 Turn us, O God of our salvation, And cause thine anger toward us to cease. 5 Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? 6 Wilt thou not revive us again: That thy people may rejoice in thee? 7 Shew us thy mercy, O Lord, And grant us thy salvation.
Look especially at Psalm 85:6
6 Wilt thou not revive us again: That thy people may rejoice in thee?
This idea of “revive us again” speaks of it having happened in the past and is now the Psalmist discerns it is time for it to happen again.
I don’t know about you - but I sense that in my life, in our church in your life it’s time to be revived again.
“Lord do it again” has been my prayer recently.
That’s what I want to preach and hopefully confer the burden to you as well -
Lord we need revived again
The Psalmist begins by recounting times in the past when Revival came
Psalm 85:1 - “Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob” That means you restored or revived them.
Look at Psalm 85:3 the Psalmist recounts how God in the past had taken away His wrath in the previous verse He has covered their sin forgiven their iniquity - He had revived them
Now in Psalm 85:6 the Psalmist pleads with God “Lord do it again!” “Wilt Thou not revive us again.
Notice first of all the source of reviving is God - “Wilt THOU not revive again”
Duncan Campbell tells an interesting and somewhat humorous story about a convert of the Welsh Revival. It was the custom to work in shifts in those days. There were three main shifts and those who weren’t at work would have a prayer meeting those who had been saved in the revival. They would meet pray for half an hour and then go on to their shift.
Tom Williams a convert who later became a preacher from the Welsh Revival met at one of those prayer meetings. As they began to pray the Holy Spirit moved on them.
Now it was also custom in that day that if you didn’t show for work - someone else was waiting around to take your place and your job could be lost.
As they began to pray the Spirit began to move and they prayed and God moved and that prayer meeting that was supposed to be 30 minutes stretched into an hour then two hours then three and when the Spirit lifted and the dust had settled it had gone on for 240 hours for ten days they had prayed and been in the presence of the Lord.
Tom knew his job was probably gone - as he went into the mill where he worked and the foreman told him the manager was waiting for him in his office.
Tom who was a little man according to Campbell, wen into the office, with dread waiting to hear that he had lost his job and could just go on home. He was shaking with nervousness, what would he tell his wife? what would his family do?
He stepped in the office and there was the manager - but before the manager could say anything Tom said the Spirit came on him and before he knew what happened he had caught hold of the manager and threw him to the ground, and told him he was going to hell if he didn’t repent of his sins and give his heart to the Lord.
The manager was terrified and said, “Tommy go back to your job, leave me alone, go back to your job. Tom never lost his job, and he also won his first convert the manager was so moved by the Spirit that he got saved.
Please don’t go throwing your managers around - but oh how we need the Holy Spirit’s moving on us and through us again in the public.
Not making a scene - but letting Jesus be seen.
Lord do it again!!!
Revival - it can be expressed as giving of new life, by God, to His people where there is real or apparent death.
Revival - it is God coming to the aid of His sick church
Revival - it is Christians rising to joyous obedience and intense faith.
Revival results in - victory in place of melancholy; overflowing joy instead of pessimism; God really being first; a natural outflow of grace, compassion and concern for the world; prayer becoming the breath of the Christians and atmosphere of the Church.
(Rev. Leonard Sankey, A Concluding Statement About Revival, Convention Herald Jan/ Feb 2004 p3
Robert J. Morgan tells of American’s Twin Revivals
He points out how the great awakening preceded the American Revolution. He says, “It could be argued that these two revivals did as much spiritually to change our nation as anything that happened politically.”
We sometimes look at the early days of America as spiritual but if you read history you will find there was a scourge of wickedness and sin that swept those early days. The Puritans and Pilgrims as spiritual as they were, their lasting effect soon wore off as people gegan to migrate in the early and mid 70’s.
But then God moved in answer to prayer and hungry hearts - as Jonathan Edwards stood and read his famous sermon -”Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” and revival swept across those early colonies and things changed people changed, hearts were saved
Lord do it again - how we need it again “Wilt thou not revive us again” we can pray along with the Psalmist
But as America began it’s Westward expansion sin, wickedness, lawlessness began to take over agian. Thomas Paine’s anti-christian ravings demoralized the church/
One writer of that time John Marshall worried that the church had gone too far to be redeemed.
But God moved again and while the Second Great awakening is harder to pin point to a particular moment there was several things that began to take place.
Thee was a tremendous revival at a college Morgan tells it like this:
Revival that was kindled by students at Virginia Hampton Sydney College Dr. J, Edwin Orr whom I once had the opportunity of hearing and of meeting and who is the great Authority on revivals for the last generation. Tells the story of this particular College, in his book campus aflame, a student at Hampton Sydney name, Kari Allen had embraced Iced in September of 1787. Another student William Hill began secretly reading a book by Joseph Elaine, a wonderful little classic book called, Elaine's alarm to the unconverted. He kept it locked up in his trunk and his room, one day, a third student James Blyth found him reading this book and just seeing him reading it. Caused him to break out him. Sobs, Blythe came under deep conviction and was converted these. Three students became the nucleus of Revival. They met secretly for prayer and a thick forest about a mile from the college. And one day, they determined that they would meet the next Saturday on the campus itself. They intended to do it. Secretly as Hill later, recounted procuring, a room to ourselves. We locked our door. And we commenced are prayer meeting. Although we sang and prayed with suppressed voices, not wishing that. It should be known what we were about. We were over her.
By some of the students it was noised about through every room in the college and soon a noisy mob was raised which collected in the hallway before our door and began to thump at the door and whoop, and swear. And threaten thing chance. We had to cease and to Bear the ridicule and abuse of this noisy Riot, which could not be quiet and until two of the professor's intervened and ordered us all to our rooms and formation of this. Right was given to the school's president. Aunt. Robert Blair Smith, who demanded to know the cause of the riot and who were the leaders of it? Some of the prominent leaders who were against us step forward and said that there were some of us students who had shut ourselves up in one of the rooms of the college and began singing and praying and carrying on like methodists and they were determined to break it up. He'll continued, the president's eyes filled with tears and after a short pause, he said,
And has it come to this? Is it possible? Some of my students are under religious Impressions. Some of my students are determined to serve their Savior. And is it possible that there are such Monsters of iniquity in this college that they would dare to set themselves against these things? Then turning to the Christians Smith, said I Rejoice my young friends that you have taken the stand. You have you I shall not be interrupted in your meetings for the future your appointment. Next Saturday afternoon. Shall be in my office and I shall be with you.
Well, a sense of conviction swept over the school and the next week. The president's office was filled with praying students, Revival overspread the campus at penetrated into Virginia and it's spread through many churches and schools,
Then is was around the same time when the “Campmeeting” was birthed Cane Ridge and others and God began a mighty work that has lasted even till today. Many were swept into the Kingdom of God.
Morgan says we wouldn’t be the country we are today if it wasn’t for these two great moves of God -
Then he makes the suggestion and prayer - isn’t it time for another? Time for a fresh revival?
I pray along with the Psalmist “Wilt thou not revive us again?” Lord do it again!!!
Revival and blessing come to the church when we stop looking at a picture of God and look at God Himself! Revival comes when, no longer satisfied to know about a God in history, we meet the conditions of finding Him in living, personal experience.
Conversely, revival cannot come if we are far removed from God. It cannot come if, instead of hearing His voice, we are content with only an echo!1
1 A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Mornings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008).
it was the 1940’s or so when there was a professor who was in England his name was professor or Orr he taught theology at a university there he decided to take some of his theology students on a field trip to visit some of the historical places in England that have some sort of theological significance
he took him to many religious sites some that had been very strategic in the building up of the church and in the Christian faith and one of the places that they visited was the Epworth rectory which would have been the home the living place the study place of John Wesley
John Wesley would study he would teach he would preach he would pray that revival would spread out not only in England but he prayed for it here in our country that would revival would break out he and others like him ushered in by prayer some of the great revivals that swept through in a way that has made the history books that we still look back on now and recognize the fire of God's Spirit that spread during that time period it's because guys many of them like John Wesley were on their knees praying that God would move
so these theology students went and they visited this rectory this house where he lived and they went in the kitchen professor or showed them all where John Wesley would have eaten his lunch and his dinners where he would have cooked where he would have lived his life there
took tnem into the study where John Wesley would have studied these theology students were enamored because of course some of the old books that John Wesley would have studied from that he had written in some of those notes they had preserved they were still there on the desk and on the bookshelves and so the theology students were feeling them the spines of those books just enjoying the richness of this history
and then professor Orr walked the students up to the second floor where the most intimate quarters of John Wesley would have been his bedroom walked in the bedroom and the students began to file around the bed in a tiny space in that bedroom and as they all files into the room one of them noticed as they got around the far side of the bed that there were two small patches well-worn patches in the carpet fibers of the floor they were right next to each other and they were beside the bed and he he asked his professor about those patches that were worn right there beside the bed and professor or explained that it is said that those two patches were the actual places were every single morning not for a minute or two but several hours on end John Wesley would plant his knees right beside his bed and he had prayed so long and so hard for revival that his knee had knees had actually imprinted themselves onto the floor that the carpet fibers were were worn as he prayed for revival
so the students stood in there for a moment and after a few moments they left the room they went downstairs they all got on the bus to go to the next location professor or stood at the front of the bus counted the students to make sure everybody was there and he realized one was missing
he walked back into the house went into the kitchen to look for the student nobody was there went into the study to look for the student nobody was there walked up the stairs into the bedroom and he could just see across the other side of the bed the head and shoulders of a student who had planted his knees down in those well-worn patches on the floor and he could hear the student praying do it again Lord Lord would you do it again and would you do it again with me
professor Orr walked around the side of the bed he put his hand on the the shoulder of the student and he said it's time to go
and rising from his knees Billy Graham went and joined the rest of the students on the bus that day and then God did it again
I think we know the rest of that story...
Now we don’t have to go to England, we don’t have to go to Epworth Rectory and climb the stairs and put our knees in those imprints in the floor - because God isn’t just in that place - God is here - right here this morning - would you pray along with the Psalmist:
“Wilt thou not revive us again”
DO it again Lord!!! Lord do it again!!! Do it in me!!!
Thou canst fill me, gracious Spirit,
Tho' I cannot tell Thee how.
But I need Thee, greatly need Thee;
Come, oh, come, and fill me now!
-- E. H. Stokes