[6] OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT Isaiah 6:1-8, 2 Chronicles 7:14. Definition of revival. Put simply there are 2 main aspects of revival:

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1 [6] OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT Isaiah 6:1-8, 2 Chronicles 7:14 Definition of revival Put simply there are 2 main aspects of revival: Jonathan Edwards says that put simply, revival is God accelerating and intensifying his normal manner of work. The traditional way of Christian growth is gradual long term, lifetime, progressive. But revival is God s ordinary activity on steroids - more people, deeper impact, wider reach. Ordinary activity is: o Conviction of sin o Conversion to Christ o Assurance of salvation o Becoming like Christ Three things happen: 1. Sleepy Christians wake up 2. Nominal Christians already in the church get converted 3. Conscious, hard to reach non-christians get radically converted and come into the church a. Happens as a result of 1 and 2 because the church is beautified and empowered and purified b. You can have church growth without revival, but you can t have revival without church growth J.I. Packer a work of God by His Spirit through His word bringing the spiritually dead to living faith in Christ and renewing the inner life of Christians who have grown slack and sleepy Personal revival Isaiah 6:1-8 Revival first happens on a personal level in the hearts of Christians. As a Christian, you know that you are in need of revival if, when I talk about being on fire for God, you begin to reminisce. I remember when Calamity A loss, tragedy or disaster of some kind in the year that King Uzziah died (v 1) We are told that the King Uzziah has just died. He was a great and powerful king who began to reign when he was only 16, and sat on the throne for 52 years

2 He had a lot going for him he sought God, he was prosperous, he was a mighty warrior But like all the kings he was far from perfect. In fact later in his reign he lived in disobedience to God, and God punished him by afflicting him with leprosy until he died Regardless, in that day everything was centred around the king and with him gone there was a great void left Clarity There is a refocussing on God I saw the Lord (v 1) In the void there is a turning back to God How many people have been resistant and hard-hearted towards God and yet it is in the midst of loss and tragedy that they realise that what they once thought was their unmovable foundation was proved to be very fallible. As a result, they become open towards God Many people ask about the purpose of suffering and this is one of them. C.S. Lewis said, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience but shouts in our pains it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world So for Isaiah, now unable to look to his earthly king, he now turns his attention to God Conviction (v 5) Verse 5 Because of Isaiah s newfound perspective on and encounter of God, he was completely changed. His response wasn t to shout but to sob, because he recognised and became so aware of and overwhelmed by the sense of his sinfulness and unworthiness before the presence of God We hear him cry out: Woe is me I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips Any swagger or ego he may have had before is gone he is utterly helpless One of the most important evidences of a genuine revival among the people of God is a deep, uncomfortable and at times overwhelming conviction of sin and a growing passion for holiness. The things that were once tolerated or ignored suddenly become intolerable. In times of revival, people en masse weep over their sin and are consumed with a desire to consecrate their lives to the Lord Cleansing (v. 6-7) Cleansing, healing and renewal in verses 6-7 The seraphim brought a coal to Isaiah, which came from the brazen altar where the sacrifices had been offered. And as the coal touches Isaiah s lips it says that they were cleansed your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for (v 7)

3 The conviction that we feel is not left unresolved for God grants us afresh His forgiveness and grace. He renews and restores us spiritually This prepares us for the next aspect of personal revival, which is Calling (v. 8a) Having been CONVICTED of his sin and CLEANSED from its guilt, Isaiah is now being CALLED to serve God Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? God is asking for volunteers. God is looking for people to send to tell others of the precious truth of Jesus Christ. God is also looking for those who will represent him! Stirring from sleepy, complacent Christianity a call to arms Commitment (v. 8b) I m in a response to the call in joyful obedience In revival there is an intensified evangelistic zeal and a deepened love for the lost. The church no longer exists for its own good but rather begins to look outwards and sees the mission of God that is yet to be accomplished This is not just about conversion but also about social justice, because God s agenda isn t just to have people believe in him but to have the earth entirely renewed. Accordingly, alongside a resurgence in passion for non-christians to be reached with the gospel, there is a renewed concern for the poor, widowed, orphaned, homeless and hungry Here I am, send me! o Having been changed and cleansed, Isaiah was now ready to fully commit his life to the service of God o In saying here I am Isaiah is essentially putting himself forward, presenting himself as a sacrifice as it were. Volunteering as a tribute Corporate revival 2 Chronicles 7:14 Revival has a multiplying, spill over effect from individual, to church, to community to the world Context The book begins with King Solomon taking the reigns from King David. His big project is to build a temple for Yahweh and a huge temple for himself In chapter 6 Solomon delivers a grand prayer and dedication speech and asks God to hear from heaven and bless the temple. This is a particularly powerful and sobering prayer because the

4 nation of Israel was in a state of disarray. God s people had been in exile and the temple lay in ruins, and so Solomon was praying and longing for restoration, i.e. revival Humility We don t like talking about this one, but one of the greatest obstacles to revival is human pride The original Hebrew word kana means to bend the knee, to bend down low, to bring under, to subdue We are good just the way things are pride nothing quenches the work of the Spirit more Mass scale humility Prayerfulness All great revivals began with God stirring His people to pray specifically for and about revivals o Biblical examples of revival prayer Psalm 85:6, Habakkuk 3:2 o It is God s will through his wonderful grace, that the prayers of his saints should be one of the great principal means of carrying on the designs of Christ s kingdom in the world. When God has something very great to accomplish for his church, it is his will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of his people (Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts on Revival) Not just ordinary but extraordinary prayer, which is not just for our own needs but the needs of the kingdom at large Arguably one of the greatest revivals that the US has ever seen took place 150 years ago between 1857 and 1859, and unlike some other revivals this one had nothing to do with big personalities or big preachers. o At noon on 23 September 1857, a tall, middle-aged businessman by the name of Jeremiah C. Lanphier climbed the creaking stairs to the third story of an old church building in the heart of lower New York City. He entered an empty room, pulled out his pocked watch and sat down to wait. He had put a sign outside the church that read Prayer Meeting from 12 to 1 o clock stop 5, 10 or 20 minutes, or the whole hour, as your time admits o He waited 10 minutes, then ten more. The minute hand of his watch pointed to 12:30 when at last he hard a step on the stairs. One man came in, then another and another until there were six. After a few minutes of prayer the meeting was dismissed with the decision that another meeting would be held the following Wednesday o That small meeting was in no way extraordinary. But what Lanphier did not realise at the time is that that small, 6-person prayer meeting in an old church building would spark a nationwide revival that would sweep an estimated one million people in the kingdom of God

5 o 20 came to his second meeting and 40 to the following week. On the following Wednesday 14 October 1857 the nation was struck by the worst financial panic in its history. Banks closed, men were out of work and families went hungry o Within a short time, the prayer meeting had taken over the entire building with crowds of over 3,000. Lawyers and physicians, merchants and clerks, bankers and brokers, manufacturers and mechanics, porters and messenger boys they all came in droves. It got so full that they had to make a rule that people could only stay and pray for 5 minutes so that everybody could have an opportunity o And then the fire began to spread. There were reports of a similar thing going on in Canada, in which were converted in a few days. And then in Pittsburg, Cincinnati and all over o Within 6 months, 10,000 businessmen (out of a population of 800k) were gathering daily in NYC for prayer. By January 1858 there were at least 20 other prayer meetings going full tilt in the city. o The revival rolled on into 1859 and 1860 and was only stopped by the American Civil War. At its highest point, it was estimated that 50,000 people a week were being converted from across the nation. This makes it one of the most intense and fastest-spreading of the great revivals So how about you? Are you praying for revival? o When did you last hear anyone praying for revival, praying that God might open the windows of heaven and pour out his Spirit? When did you last pray for that yourself? I suggest seriously that we are neglecting this almost entirely when God sends revival he can do more in a single day than in fifty years of all our organization. That is the verdict of sheer history which emerges clearly from the long story of the Church. (Martin Lloyd- Jones) Seek God s face What does it mean to seek God s face? o Non verbal communication Gen Y WSJ article dated September had the headline: Why Gen-Y can t read nonverbal cues In it the journalist discusses how given the rate of social media interaction that Gen Y and later have, anthropologists and psychologists are noticing that increasingly so they are unable to read non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, hand gestures etc. Non face to face communication is extremely limited and ultimately not personal What does this mean in a corporate sense?

6 o o Quite commonly, revival involves a recovery or rediscovery or a neglected aspect of God s heart/character. Seeking God s face means seeing Him for who he truly is In fact, all of the major historical revivals have involved this. Examples: The Reformation, released through Martin Luther, restored the truth that Jesus Christ is the only means of Salvation The First Great Awakening, released through John Wesley, restored the truth that the Church needs to fulfil the Great Commission The Pentecostal Revival, released through William Seymour at Azusa Street, restored the truth about the baptism, infilling, indwelling and empowering of the Holy Spirit The Father Heart Revival, released in Toronto, restored the truth that we need to experience the love of God the Father and enjoy intimacy with Him Repentance As per above, the Holy Spirit convicts of sin although this time not just on a personal level but on a much wider scale the sins of a church, community, nation etc. You might want to discuss in your connect group what some of these corporate sins may be for us as a church, community, culture, country Hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land Forgive their sin Revival involves mass conversions non Christians become Christians on an unprecedented scale. Examples: o First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 40s some 300k o Second Great Awakening during the early 19 th century some 500k o Fulton St Prayer Revival ( ) 1m o Welsh revival Evan Roberts, a young theology student in his mid-twenties, believed for 100k and it happened in 5 months o Korea in k o Billy Graham in the 1950s US population grew 28% but Protestant church membership grew 63% Heal their land But it is more than just people becoming Christians the impact of revival has far-reaching effects such that the land is transformed. And this is always God s intention not just that there d be more

7 believers but that all of creation would be renewed - your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Examples: o In , converted owners of gambling dens made them available for prayer meetings. The chief of police in Atlanta Georgia said that crime was so reduced that he didn t require half of his force o In 1859 in Northern Ireland the sale of alcohol went into steep decline. 1 district had 9 pubs, 2 of which shut down because their owners became Christians. Another shut due to lack of business. The remaining 6 pubs sold less alcohol in 1860 combine than 1 used to sell on its own o As a result of the Welsh Revival in 1904, Judges close their courts between because no cases came to them Work in the coal mines were disrupted because the pit ponies didn t know how to respond to the commands given them, which were no longer peppered with swear words Example of revival: Haiti 7.3 magnitude earthquake 12 January 2010 at 16:53 Because the earthquake struck the most populated area of the country the death toll was horrendous, with between ,000 people dead 300,000+ injured 1.5 million initially displaced 90% of the town s buildings had been destroyed, the education system had totally collapsed with more than 1,300 schools and 50 healthcare facilities being destroyed Already dire situation in the country which made the recovery process even more difficult than it needed to be serious lack of construction (with no building codes at all in the country, dysfunctional governmental, military and education systems, a history of slavery, revolution, debt, deforestation, corruption, exploitation and violence But what you may not know from the media is that while all of this was happening there was another undercurrent Show video What now? Realise that young people have always been instrumental in revivals

8 Jesus Himself began His ministry at about 30 years of age, and the disciples who followed Jesus ranged from about From this ragtag bunch of young leaders Jesus established a movement that would turn the world upside down Reformation (1500s) John Calvin converted at 25 and within a year had completed the first draft of his book Institutes of the Christian Religion, a book commonly regarded as the single-most influential theological book in church history Great Awakening (1700s) George Whitfield was one of the greatest preachers and he began preaching at 21, often speaking to crowds of over 30,000 with no amplification Welsh Revival of 1904 Evan Roberts who God spoke to about 100k converts he was a 26 year old college student at the time In the 1880s, an unprecedented missionary enterprise known as the Student Volunteer Movement came into being, which became one of the most successful missionary-recruiting organisations of all time. It saw more than 20,000 serving in overseas missions in half a century. American college students set the pace in this era of spiritual advance What will be said of the young people of this generation? That we responded in radical obedience of and dedication to the mission of God on the earth? Or that they devoted their lives fully to the purposes of hashtagging and Snapchatting and accumulating pointless trinkets and toys? Have a bigger vision You ve heard my heart last week and you know that I want us more than anything to love our church here at Epping. But I also want you to realise that we are a part of a much bigger beast. I m doing what I m doing because I believe that it is part of God s greater plan for citywide renewal and revival. Think bigger! Not just higher attendance here but transformation and renewal in every realm and sphere of society That video of Haiti could you dare to dream that that could ever happen here in Sydney? God is looking and waiting for people who are willing to dream crazy dreams like that Yearn for this and pray for this! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has Margaret Mead o Imagine what God could do through a small group of hungry people here in Epping desperate for revival Pray with our eyes open see the city in which God has called us for such a time as this not a coincidence