Date: April 12, 1998
Bible Text: Psalm 85:1-6 | Roger Voegtlin
Series: Transcribed Sermons
Bible Text: Psalm 85:1-6 | Preacher: Roger Voegtlin | Series: Transcribed Sermons
Many have been stirred in their personal lives toward revival, and I have seen some sparks and some fire in that way; but so many more need it. People really think that it is a “church thing.” They think they can be swept along in it, and that is not true. I would just stress to you, without revival you will be destroyed.
College student, you are anxious to get out there and prove yourself in full-time Christian service; but without revival you will be destroyed. We will hear about it, we will weep, and it will break our hearts. But it will happen because you are depending on your ability instead of God’s power. And so it is in every phase of life.
I’m going to preach tonight on why God’s people need revival. Please turn to Psalm 85:6. Here we see the purpose of revival. In answer to why, the psalmist’s reply is, “...that thy people may rejoice in thee.” Before we dig into the text, I would like to look at the context. The first three verses have the writer looking back at a previous revival. In verses 1-3 it says, “LORD, thou hast been favourable 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. Selah. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.” He’s recalling a time when God delivered Israel from captivity, forgave the iniquity of His people, and restrained His anger. Now in the next verses the Psalmist sees the possibility of a great revival to spread across the land in the future; but he knew that there were divine principles, and that is what I want to preach about to- night. There were principles that determined spiritual revival. Whenever a people are preparing for revival, there are certain things they must do.
The central message of this Psalm is to answer the question, “Why do God’s people need revival?” I have a three-part answer. The first is that we need revival to restrain the righteous anger of God. It’s not that He “blows His stack” as we might, but it’s a righteous anger. He would be wrong if He didn’t become angry. So we need revival to restrain the righteous anger of God. Verses 4 and 5 say, “Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?” They had allowed their country to go to the devil, just as we have. And he’s asking, “Will it go on forever? Will it ever end?” Praise God that we can have individual revival. Praise God that we can have churchwide revival.
Verse 6 is our text, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” It’s easy to see in verses 4 and 5 that God reveals His anger to those living in an unrevived state, in a state of coldness, a state of sin. “Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” We see an unrevived state here, and the word that sticks out to me in this passage is “iniquity.” Verse
2, “Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin.” Iniquity is wickedness.
It’s sad, but the devil lies to us, and we always reason that our sin is not as wicked as other people’s. It’s sad that iniquity can be found in the heart of most Christian men and women. Every Christian has two natures, as we know. An old nature and a new one. If he’s living in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, then the new nature is dominant, and the old nature is dormant. But on the other hand, if he’s living in an unrevived state, this wickedness shows itself. Oh, it can be hid- den to some extent, but it shows itself in all forms of iniquity. Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked...” Oh, if I could get this point across! The heart, your heart, is deceitful, and it will convince you that you are okay. I’ve seen people through the years live in the most wicked of sin, and their deceitful heart convinces them it’s okay. There are people sitting here right now in wicked sin, and you are convincing yourself. “Well, here he goes again.” Preaching like this means nothing to you. Our iniquity and our wickedness will explain away God’s demands for our lives so that we can continue in sin.
In Psalm 66:18 the psalmist says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Now is that hard? Can you understand it? We’re all sinners. But if I make excuses for sin in my heart, if I regard it, if I say, “I’m okay here, here, here, and here,” the Lord will not hear me. What does that mean? That means you are a failure. That means you have no guidance. That means you have no strength. That means you cannot have, and it is impossible for you to have, victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we try to overlook any sin in our lives, God stops listening. That ought to make us shake! It ought to make us quake! God stops listening.
We wonder why our service isn’t blessed. We wonder why our prayers aren’t answered. We wonder why our lives are so dull and barren. We wonder why we don’t enjoy the Christian life. Other people talk about enjoying and loving God, and we say, “I guess I’m made different.” No, it’s because we have explained away God’s commandments for us. We don’t deny it in theology, but we deny it in our personal lives. You see, people go into the most wicked sin and make excuses for it. “Well, I’ll just switch churches.” They are living in adultery and say, “I’ll just go where it is convenient.” They go into the most wicked sin and make excuses for it.
The Apostle John tells us that sin is the transgression of the law. That’s easy enough, isn’t it? Sin is doing anything this Book says not to do. And yet, more and more in the day we live, people will blatantly go against this Book. I challenge anybody to show me where a person should get a divorce except for any reason but continual, unrepentant, adultery. Then how can a person who calls himself a Bible-believing Chris- tian do it? How can it happen without being blinded by sin? Sin is the transgression of the law. There are people in this room who will be guilty of being a thief. There are people in this room who will be guilty of being a liar. They explain away God’s demands; and when they do it, it’s easy to disobey them and to say, “In my case, it’s different.”
Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Yet there are people who are not here tonight—the people I want to hit aren’t here! “I’ve got to be at the relative’s house because I’m going to witness to him.” It is sin. Now, the sinner will say, “Oh, that’s just his opinion.” No, you better take your scissors and cut Hebrews 10:25 out. I Corinthians 4:2 tells us that it is required of all Christians to be faithful. Yet some who think they are such good Christians are so unreliable. Whether it’s as a Sunday School teacher, or a singer, or whether we give you a work project, we know from your testimony it will not be done right. We are required to be faithful.
I Thessalonians 4:7 clearly shows us that we are to live holy lives. Yet what do we do? We disagree with man. I touched on that just a couple of minutes ago. “I don’t agree with the preacher; that’s his opinion.” So many Christians live a double standard. They want to look a certain way before man, but in reality, they are not that way at all. In their heart of hearts they know they are nothing but phonies, acting as though they believe the Bible, but living something else completely. Lying means nothing. Do you understand that when you lie you are almost always guilty of more than one sin? You’re lying to cover up a sin. That’s why we al- ways made lying such an important thing in our home. You don’t get by with sin without lying. But people lie to the place where they just live a lie.
Others will rob God, not willing to really work for Him, not even trying to win souls. “Oh, I wouldn’t be in anything but an independent, fundamental, soul- winning Baptist church. I think we ought to win more souls.” But what are YOU doing?
This is the thing that completely confuses me. It is sad to see Christian couples who do nothing to develop their marriage. They don’t do anything to develop their children. They don’t do anything! I don’t see how that can be. That is saying, “I don’t love them.” If there’s anything I can say, and I don’t mean it bragging, it’s that I was possessed with trying to develop my kids—from character training to whatever it might be. Spiritual training. I was possessed with it, and we all ought to be. Dads, you just let your marriage go. You just let your kids go. You are going completely contrary to the Bible. Listen to me, when I look in the faces of men and women who mock God when He’s where a person should get a divorce except for any reason but continual, unrepentant, adultery. Then how can a person who calls himself a Bible-believing Chris- tian do it? How can it happen without being blinded by sin? Sin is the transgression of the law. There are people in this room who will be guilty of being a thief. There are people in this room who will be guilty of being a liar. They explain away God’s demands; and when they do it, it’s easy to disobey them and to say, “In my case, it’s different.”
Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Yet there are people who are not here tonight—the people I want to hit aren’t here! “I’ve got to be at the relative’s house because I’m going to witness to him.” It is sin. Now, the sinner will say, “Oh, that’s just his opinion.” No, you better take your scissors and cut Hebrews 10:25 out. I Corinthians 4:2 tells us that it is required of all Christians to be faithful. Yet some who think they are such good Christians are so unreliable. Whether it’s as a Sunday School teacher, or a singer, or whether we give you a work project, we know from your testimony it will not be done right. We are required to be faithful.
I Thessalonians 4:7 clearly shows us that we are to live holy lives. Yet what do we do? We disagree with man. I touched on that just a couple of minutes ago. “I don’t agree with the preacher; that’s his opinion.” So many Christians live a double standard. They want to look a certain way before man, but in reality, they are not that way at all. In their heart of hearts they know they are nothing but phonies, acting as though they believe the Bible, but living something else completely. Lying means nothing. Do you understand that when you lie you are almost always guilty of more than one sin? You’re lying to cover up a sin. That’s why we al- ways made lying such an important thing in our home. You don’t get by with sin without lying. But people lie to the place where they just live a lie.
Others will rob God, not willing to really work for Him, not even trying to win souls. “Oh, I wouldn’t be in anything but an independent, fundamental, soul- winning Baptist church. I think we ought to win more souls.” But what are YOU doing?
This is the thing that completely confuses me. It is sad to see Christian couples who do nothing to develop their marriage. They don’t do anything to develop their children. They don’t do anything! I don’t see how that can be. That is saying, “I don’t love them.” If there’s anything I can say, and I don’t mean it bragging, it’s that I was possessed with trying to develop my kids—from character training to whatever it might be. Spiritual training. I was possessed with it, and we all ought to be. Dads, you just let your marriage go. You just let your kids go. You are going completely contrary to the Bible. Listen to me, when I look in the faces of men and women who mock God when He’s speaking to them about their sin, I understand why His righteous anger is revealed from Heaven. In fact, I know it’s coming, and it scares me. God can’t condemn sin in the sinner and condone it in a saint. That is what Peter means in I Peter 4:17 where he says “... that judgment must begin at the house of God....”
We forget. I’m the same way. I get so mad at Bill Clinton and his wicked sin and how he’s leading the country into debauchery. Or I get so mad at the pornographers or the drug dealers, or whatever it might be. We look at the wickedness of the world, but we forget that He paid for us with His shed blood. They have not accepted Him. There is no pretense there. He paid for us! We are bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus Christ. We have no right to rail on Bill Clinton unless we are living the life we should. That’s why we see God, in Revelation 2, walking among the candlesticks, the churches. His eyes are burning like fire, because He sees iniquity and sin.
Look at the Bible, and you will see He has a high standard for us. It’s not the preacher’s standard, it’s not the church’s standard, it’s not your standard. You’ve only got one standard if you are a Christian, it’s this standard—the Bible standard. Again in Psalm
93:5 the psalmist says, “Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, forever.” Holiness should be seen in this church. I Peter 1:16, “...Be ye holy; for I am holy.” That is God’s standard. Are you holy? You say, “Nobody can be.” Yes, you can be. Are you holy? He wouldn’t tell us to be holy if we couldn’t be. I Thessalonians 4:7, “For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.” We’ve got to see our sin and repent.
We always stress that the unsaved need to repent. If an unsaved person doesn’t repent, he’ll never get to heaven. He’s got to see his sins and repent of those sins, or he’ll never get to heaven. Just as surely, if you don’t see your sins as a Christian, you will never be right with God. It’s probably the hardest thing for us to do because we have been raised, and it’s just human nature, to hide our sin in order to look good. We’ve got to tear the veneer off and say, “Oh, God, I am not holy; I’ve got this sin and it’s wickedness. I hate it!” Unless we repent, God will never smile on us.
Keep your finger there in Psalm and turn to the last book of the Bible, Revelation 2:5, “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent...” Remember where you once were). “...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 thou repent.” I know what this is talking about, but it also refers to you and me if we don’t come to the place where we see our sins and admit our sins. If we don’t repent of our sins, He’s going to pull the old candlestick out. That doesn’t mean you are going to go to hell, but your life is going to be destroyed as long as you live on this earth. Your usefulness will be over. You say, “Do you believe that?” I believe it as much as I am breathing. And the longer I preach, the more I believe it.
Revelation 2:16, “Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” Revelation 3:3, “Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Revelation 3:19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” The idea is sincerity. Revival is needed to restrain the righteous anger of God. The devil tells us we can handle our sins. “I’ve handled it so far.” Don’t mix up getting by with the mercy of God. Don’t take it for granted. It won’t continue forever. “I can handle it.” Think of those tornadoes down south that just ripped everything in their pathway. Think of a hurricane. Think of a volcano. Think about God and God’s power. You can’t get by. You can’t. You can’t handle it.
But secondly, not only is revival needed to restrain the righteous anger of God but to restore the aware- ness of God. Sit there and be honest with yourself; talk to yourself a little bit. Admit it. We hide our sins from others. We act as if there is no God. We say we have no sin, but if only we would be honest with ourselves. Tonight if only you would get alone with God and say, “God, reveal to me, show me what I wouldn’t want on the screen up here.” We’ve got to have the revelation of God restored in our life. Psalm 85:6-8, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.”
Someone described revival as a person or a church saturated with the presence of God. It’s a good definition. When you are revived, there is nothing important to you but God. Your business will fall to second or fifth place. You’ll make sure that you run your business exactly the way God would have you. You’ll be sure that your business, your job, won’t get in the way of God. To some people, a sport is more important, whether it’s a college basketball team, IU, the Bulls, or the Cubs. When you are right with God, none of those things is important. You will thank God for your home, but it’s not important. You’ll thank God for His goodness, whether it’s clothing, or a car, or whatever God has given to you, a job, but they are not important. Nothing is important but God’s will for our lives.
Revival is not some emotion. It’s not a worked-up excitement but an invasion from heaven that brings an awareness of God. God just comes into our life, and He becomes real. That’s why I keep on saying, “Pray for revival.” You can’t work it up! You wonder why you’re cold? You need revival!
We see a showing of His grace in verse 7, “Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.” In revival, we are guaranteed victory through grace. Go back to Romans 6:14, “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Study that verse a little bit. It’s not the law; you’re not trying to grit your teeth. You are under grace. This is what God wants for all Christians, but we must be right with God. And if we have an aware- ness of God, we will also hear His voice more clearly. Psalm 85:8 says, “I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.” We will hear what the Lord speaks. The Bible won’t be dull in revival. You won’t come to church out of necessity. You will thrill to the preaching. It’s as though we hear God say, “Be still, and know that I am God...”
We want revival to restore the awareness of God, to restrain His anger, and then thirdly, to reveal the activities of God. We want to see Him work in our lives. Verses 9-13, “Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.”
God is seen as being very active from Genesis to Revelation. He’s not sleeping on His throne. Jesus said in John 5:17, “...My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” He’s a working God; He’s active all over the world, even right now. A way that a Christian can see that he is not right with Him is if he does not see God honestly actively working through him. If you don’t see God working through you, you are not right with God. We should see it even when we’re having troubles and battles. The more we do for God, the more battles we’ll have.
Sometimes the devil says to me, “Back off. You are getting too old for these battles. It’s too much; you can’t handle them.” I want to say again, if we’re moving forward for God as a church, as an individual, we will have battles. But if you are right with God, you will have a reality of victory in your life. You won’t get down. You won’t be all depressed. When revival comes, the veil is lifted, and we see God in action. And many times we see Him working in the very areas we saw nothing but defeat.
There was an old reservoir in the hills that sup- plied a village with water. It was fed as most are with the mountain stream, then it overflowed and continued down the mountain as a stream again. Nothing special. It flowed past boulders and under foot bridges. But one day, some cracks were seen in the reservoir wall. Those cracks grew quickly until the reservoir wall broke down, and a wall of water came rushing down the mountain, carrying along those boulders, crushing the bridges, tearing down homes, and uprooting trees. This had been just a simple stream that was nice to have a picnic next to. Nobody paid much attention to it until the wall broke down and it became a rushing torrent. Then people said, “Wow! Look at this!” That’s what happens in revival.
God is at work today as a stream. When He is seen in revival, He’s like rushing water, just boiling over everything before Him. We can see God active today in a couple ways at least. First in Psalm 85:9 we see His saving activity, “Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him...” He’s saving men all around the world right now. We saw souls saved right here this morning, and we praise God for it. There were souls saved in junior church. We see souls saved in the nursing homes and in all our ministries. Souls are saved by our graduates and our missionaries in Wales, Africa, Mexico, and all over. But the salvation experiences seem like a stream compared to what is needed. When revival comes, the tens become hundreds, and the hundreds become thousands, and the thousands become tens of thousands. When revival comes, it’s out of control. We read about the great movements in England in years gone by and in America and Wales. We see those examples. It’s like flood water, completely out of control. I don’t know if God wants that, but I know He wants revival in our lives. I know He wants revival in our church.
And next, there’s sanctifying activity. We see the activities in revival. We see these in our personal lives. Look at verse 10, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” God wants us to see this. Turn to Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteous- ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” You see, we as Christians, want God’s blessings. We call God’s blessings a job, food, drink, clothes, our family cared for. God is good, and that’s part of it. But “...the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” That’s what we need revealed. Our eyes are opened, and we see things we’ve never seen before.
When widespread revival comes to a country, it’s seen even among the unsaved. I don’t know if you’ve ever read much from a secular viewpoint on revival, but I have stumbled across some accounts. Unsaved reporters and historians will talk about revivals. Now they don’t look at it in the same way as we would, and their emphasis is not on the same thing. F. D. Morgan, a great preacher, said that, “There has never been a great religious revival without social reform.” Did you know that the abolition of slavery followed a revival? Did you know that the end of child labor resulted from a revival? Your secular writers will tell you that. I think you do know that the YMCA, the Salvation Army, and various mission groups stemmed from revival. A historian, Samuel Green, wrote that the whole temper of the English people was changed after the revival. You can see it in history.
Revival is seen in your material life. It has amazed me how it is seen in money and things. Verse 12 says, “Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.” Now this is talking about a national revival in Israel, but the most prosperous periods of English and American history are associated directly with revival. It has amazed me how people will get right with God and all of a sudden God blesses them financially. You wonder why our budget is doing so well? It’s right here. Some people have gotten right with God. It amazes me how a person will be fighting God, going through the motions trying to look good, and all of a sudden he gets his heart right with God, and suddenly he either gets more money, or God helps him. God stretches it, or God gives you more.
Verse 13, “Righteousness shall go before him, and shall set us in the way of his steps.” When God goes through the land in revival, He lays out a pathway. Proverbs 14:34, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” He lays out the path of righteousness. On the other hand, when we don’t follow, we perish. We may not be dead physically, but spiritually we’re dead. We’re destroyed. Keep your eyes open. Have enough brains to look around. It ought to scare you to death. Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keep- eth the law, happy is he.” Do you want God’s blessing? You better get to the place where your life is revived.
So why seek revival? The answer is simple, but it’s necessary. First of all, to restrain the anger of God. Don’t you even care about your children? I know some of you live like you don’t. You don’t lift your little finger to make your kids be what they ought to be. Don’t you care? Don’t you understand that the devil has blinded you? And they are going to reap what you sow? The Bible says that clearly. Then, to restore the awareness of God. You are sensitive to God. You are sensitive to souls. You are sensitive to sin. You are sensitive to financial needs. Third, to reveal His activity. Won’t you pray with me, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?”
In 1890, James Gilmore of Monrovia wrote an old college friend. “You say you want reviving. Go direct to God and ask it right out, and you’ll get it.” That’s basically how you do it. I’m not saying it happens overnight. You say you want revival, go to God and ask for it. You’ll get it if you are serious, if you will respond to His direction. Evan Roberts, who was so greatly used in the 1904 revival in Wales, bowed himself over a church pew and prayed, “God, bend me.” God answered that prayer, and Evan Roberts influenced the whole country for God. Why don’t you ask for revival in your life? Let’s not worry about the country at this point.
Let’s not worry about churchwide revival at this point. Let’s worry about us, individually. Why don’t you prepare to be broken in repentance and bent to meet God’s conviction? Why don’t you take the time that is needed? Pray with the psalmist, “Wilt thou not revive us again?” Don’t you think you need it? Pride comes before the fall. You who have never taken the time are saying by your actions that you just don’t really believe in revival. I beg of you, believe or be destroyed. I’m not saying it will happen tomorrow. The saddest thing about a pastor’s life is getting that phone call. You hear the crying on the other end, and you know another life has been destroyed. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times. Or, somebody just disappears. They don’t even want to face their pas- tor. Another life is destroyed. Isn’t it better to take the time and the effort and pray, “Wilt thou not revive us again?”
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