Supposed that means I'm on and my microphone's on very good. I am Dan Henley and my wife Beth is here with me, raise your hand there Beth. We are from Palm Bay, Florida, and Jim invited me to come and fill the pulpit here for three Sunday. So get used to me a little bit, and I'll try to get used to you over the next few weeks. By the way, judging from the number of people I see fanning themselves, I'm thinking maybe I'm not the only one who thinks it's a little warm. Is it a little warm? Can y'all control that or is that up to the seminary? You can't control it. We're guck. Okay. Then we'll make the best of it very well. But I do want to get used to this place, because not only will I be here three consecutive Sundays, but in six days, I'll be performing my son's wedding right here. He gets married next Saturday at 430 right here in this building. You're all invited for that. My son's name is Andrew Henley. I'm Dan Henley. My wife is Beth. My son is married at Sherlyn, who might think a number of you probably know they're both students here at RTS. So we look forward to that. So I have a very busy weekend, next weekend, coming and doing a wedding and coming back the next day and being with you. Given three Sundays, by the way, let me give you a little background on who I am. I'm from O'Cala, Florida, grew up there. But my wife and I, we were in Reform Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, or as I call it RTS classic. It came out of there in 1982. I was 24 years old and became pastor of the little church in Melbourne, Florida, Covenant, Presbyteria and Church. That was the name of our church. And I was pastor there for over 24 years. We moved to Palm Bay in 1986. We had a wonderful time with ministry there. I'm presently unemployed looking for God's next assignment for me. And if you could pray for us for God's leading in our lives. And if you know of any opportunities that would seem to fit, let us know about that. That's why I'm free and available for Jim to call on for these Sundays that he is unable to be with you. Having three weeks, I thought I'd try to do something that was sort of built upon one another. And so we're going to look together at Psalm 119. Now, I like to use a scripture sheet. It's in your bulletin. It's a little long, yellow sheet that Hannah created for me. It has all the scriptures we're going to look at in our study of God's Word today. On the flip side, there's an outline that may help you track with me. And as you study Psalm 119, most of you are familiar with it, I expect, you know, it's the longest chapter by far in the scriptures, 176, very rich verses. I remember going off in a vacation one time. And I took with me a book to read. It was a book by Matthew Bridges, a commentary on Psalm 119. The book itself, the commentary on Psalm 119, was 500 pages long, the commentary on one chapter of the Psalms, but this is not a normal chapter for sure. Now it's the kind of chapter that if you were to study it verse by verse, it would take a very long time, and you would find yourself repeating things over and over again. There are several critical themes that emerge from a study of Psalm 119. And so over the time I have with you, I want to lead us in a look at just three of those. I've isolated six. We're going to look at just three themes from Psalm 119. And today we're going to look at the theme of revival. Next week we're going to look at resolution, and then the week after that, at affliction. But our theme this morning comes primarily from four verses. I've already given it away. I meant to have you see if you can figure it out from the verses, but look at those together with me. The first of those, Psalm 119, verse 25, my soul cleaves to the dust, revive me according to your word, then verse 37. And away my eyes from looking at vanity and revive me in your ways, verse 40. Behold I long for your precepts, revive me through your righteousness. And then finally verse 88, revive me according to your loving kindness so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth. And if you were listening to me at all before, as I read the scriptures, you know our theme for today, is that of revival. In the contemporary church, revival is a huge theme. If you were to Google the word revival, it would bring up dozens, no, it would bring up hundreds of websites devoted to this theme. Books and sermons are frequently written and preached on this subject of revival. But you know the word revival isn't found very often in the scriptures, at least not as much as you would expect, given its popularity in the contemporary church. But where it is found is in Psalm 119. Half of the references to the word revival found in your Bible, at least in the New American Standard translation, which is what I'm accustomed to, half of those words are found, half of the use of the term revival is found in this one chapter. And whereas we normally use the word revival to speak of a great, corporate move of God, the term in scripture, more often than not, has in view something more personal, has in view personal revival. And our Psalm, there is this off-mentioned prayer for God to revive me. Similar to Psalm 119 is Psalm 143, where David writes this in verse 11, for the sake of your name, O Lord, revive me in your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble. So our outline today begins with the subject of the meaning of revival. And our first question is, what is this personal revival or reviving? Now, if you grew up Southern Baptist, any former Southern Baptist here, few of us, if you grew up Southern Baptist like me, you know all about revivals, don't you? I mean, a revival is a period of a week, maybe 10 days, in which you have church every night, usually you have a guest preacher come in and preach. And during a revival, some folks get saved, lots of folks rededicate their lives. And when I grew up, that's how I thought about revival. But that has only slight resemblance to what is envisioned by this term in the scriptures. David, and we think David wrote Psalm 119, it doesn't say exactly, but it's writing is so similar to the other Davidic Psalms, that's the expectancy. David is not asking for a week of meetings when he asked that God would revive him. He's petitioning God for a special work of grace in his soul. And whereas the Baptist revival usually envisions a campaign for evangelism, what is in view here is a work of God in someone who is already walking in faith. The prefix of the word revive is, of course, read. And you know, that means again, and then if you ever took any Spanish at all, you know that the word revive or vive means live or life. And so to revive means simply to restore life and energy and vitality to something that once was, but now is not. When it comes to the special work of God in souls, I prefer the word awakening as a better term to refer to what God does in an unbeliever, to give them some spiritual vision and perception of the kingdom. And I believe the word revive is more appropriate to use with respect to Christians, to be revived, revived. You first have to be vived, right? You have to be alive at one point in order to be made alive or refreshed and renewed again. The context for revival is that of a converted man or woman in which or in whom there has been some kind of negative change, some kind of loss of energy, passion, motivation. You ever lost any of that stuff? I'm sure you have, and I know I have. As I thought about what revival seeks to restore to a life, for some reason, a word that came to my mind was the word zest, zest. Many of us think about zest and we think of soap, absolutely. But the soap was so called to suggest that somehow it has properties that will energize you. Zest, it's a great word. I like words that have z's in them, not many of those out there, but I like z words. You remember zest tabs? Zest tabs? I multiply them. I don't know if they make zest tabs anymore. I don't know. But my mother, who's 85 and lives alone in Ocal, my mother is heavily into contesting. That is, she enters sweepstakes. And she wins. She's won a half dozen cars, probably 25 trips over her lifetime. I could go on and on telling you stories about the various things my mother's won. Many times she just wins by the sheer volume of her entries. Other times she wins due to skill. She was a national chicken cooking champion in 1963, for instance. But one time she entered a contest, sponsored by the zest tab vitamin company. And it was a contest to name the dog, name a dog contest. She submitted the name zest tabulous. And that cute zest tabulous. And she won. I doubt if this was first prize, but she did win. And our prize from that contest was we got sent to us a registered pure bread poodle. We named the dog. We got the dog. The dog showed up, shipped to us by train in a crate, half dead, and full of worms. But we pumped it full of good stuff. The dog recovered and became a wonderful pet that we named spunky, not zest tabulous. Who would name their dog zest tabulous? Zesty, maybe, but not zest tabulous. But I like the word zest. Now, do you remember a time in your life when your soul had more zest than you have now? Especially when your spiritual life was energized and dynamic. Many of us can think of a time such as that. Don't you want that back in your life? You may not have known quite as much back then, but man, oh man, you were carried along by the wins of the spirit. And it was great, but something changed. How sad. There was an old caudard couple that was going for a drive out in the country when Mrs. Codger looked at Mr. Codger and said, Paul, you remember the old days how we go for a drive and we've sit and snuggle real close while we drove? Paul thought about that for a moment. Look back at his wife and said, I ain't moved. Good point. There's how I apply it. If the passion has waned, if there is greater felt distance between you and your Savior, who moved? It was not him. God ain't moved. But us, we drift, we wander prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. We let the fire die out in our souls. We grow cold and dead and we need reviving. Now, this condition of need, it's not unusual for the believer. This is common. This is normal. The guy who portrays the Christian life as 80 years of flying with the spiritual eagles is out of his mind. It just is not like that. It wasn't for the apostles. It hasn't been for the greatest saints in the history of the church. Some of the Lord's choices have gone through those seasons that they call the dark night of the soul. It is normal to find the warmth of your faith waning and waxing. It is normal for us to go through dry periods, but it is also normal not to like them, not to want them to last, but to want them instead to be over. And so the people of God have called out for personal revival. They have said so often, revive me according to your loving kindness. And because God does hear that prayer, they also have come to say, he restoreeth my soul. Thankfully, God does not leave us in that dry, lifeless condition. He revives, he restores, and he fills our hearts anew with his joy. Now, we've seen what this reviving is. Let's look next at the subject of the agent of revival. The agent of revival. And the question here is, who does it? Who does it? This work of reviving. And the answer is obviously, God does it. The Lord does this. We cannot do this by ourselves. We are dependent on him. He restores our souls. He renews us with a steadfast spirit. That's why the desire for revival is expressed in prayer to God. Revival is a prayer, not a formula. It's a prayer, not a system. I can't come here and give you three easy steps to revival. No, no, some would oversimplify it that way. Don't buy it. Revival is God given. It is dispensed according to his timing, his wisdom, his plan. So to obtain it, you have to go to God. Look at me in your scripture. See, during your Bible, it's Psalm 85, verse six, for an example, Psalm 85, four, first of all, restore us O God of our salvation and cause your indignation toward us to cease. Now, verse six, will you not yourself, will you not yourself revive us again? That your people may rejoice in you. Where does the burden for revival lie? We put it to him. We don't look at the pastor with expectations that he will bring revival. We don't look at the president and expect that he will somehow decree it. We don't go to our doctor and request a prescription for it. We pray because if it comes, it comes from the Lord. Thirdly now, we approach the subject of the means of revival. And the question here is, how may we promote it? There's a fine balance to maintain on this. Some would completely stop at my previous point having said that revival, personal or corporate revival is up to God, they say no more. And that is somewhat deceiving. When I say that something is up to God, I by no means mean to imply that therefore you have nothing to do with it. I am saying that you can't do it by yourself. No one, I certainly cannot guarantee by your conduct that you're going to experience revival. If you do something or other, that God will respond to what you do by reviving you. But I'm not saying that there aren't things that can be done that make a real difference. God has told us in His word that certain behaviors will likely lead to revival and certain behaviors will certainly lead us away from it. He tells us often that he resisted the proud, but gives grace to whom? The humble Isaiah 57, 15, for thus says the high and exalted one who lives forever whose name is holy, I dwell on a high and holy place and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. All right then. If you want revival, what posture do you take? What attitude do you seek to maintain towards the Lord? Not haughtiness. No, no. Instead you get low, you humble yourself, you talk to God about your sin and about your failure and about your desperate need. I appreciated the prayer of the brother this morning that we would have a desire to have a desire. What's the famous verse about revival so often quoted, especially about national awakening? Second Chronicle 714. If my people who are called by my name will what? Humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. Then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Humbling yourself is not a mechanical means for revival but it is a movement of soul that precedes revival. Another thing you can do to promote personal revival is to put yourself in a context that will make it likely. Put yourself secondly I would say in contact with the word of God. Oh these are radical ideas, prayer and the word wherever you had, wherever you ever heard messages on those things, but those things my friend are fundamental and critical and they pertain well to revival. The word of God is powerful. It is sharp like a sword. It shatters hard things like a hammer. It is the power of God for salvation. It is the means of our rebirth. Psalm 119 verse 93. I will never forget your precepts for by them. By them you have revived me. You hear that? Referring to God's precepts is word by them. You have revived me and remember verse 25 where it says revive me according to your word. When you put yourself around the word of God it is like handing, handing God a revival one that he can wave over you and lift you out of your spiritual pit. When we read about national revivals and scripture, guess what brought them about? God did it of course. The tool he uses this is word. In second Kings 22 we read about the reign of Josiah King and Judah and about how during his days the high priest discovered in the temple the scriptures, the law of God. It's amazing isn't it to consider. They discovered it. They had been lost. They discovered the word of God in the temple and when he read it revival came in Jerusalem. One of the greatest revivals in all of history occurred during the post-exilic era in Nehemiah 8. We read about how this revival was led by Ezra and it came to pass during the opening of the word of God, Nehemiah 8.8. They read from the book from the law of God translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. Then Nehemiah who was the governor and Ezra the priest and scribe and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep for all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law. What was it that broke through their stony hearts? It was the word of God. It was the opening up of that word to their understanding. Now am I guaranteeing that if you go to church and hear a sermon that you're going to experience personal revival, no I'm not. But I am saying that your attention to the word will promote that possibility and your negligence of the word will promote pretty much guaranteed. It's not going to happen for you. If you want revival, stay around those things that promote spiritual health, that promote revival. Sadly there's a tendency during times of spiritual drought to do what? Well that's when we stay away. That's when we stay home. That's when we separate ourselves from the means of grace. We don't feel like going to church so we don't go. We don't feel like having devotions. So we skipped them. I love what Luther said about prayer. He said when you feel like praying, take advantage of that and pray. And he said when you don't feel like praying, well that's the time you most need to pray. So pray then as well. Prayer by the way is the third thing and in a way the first thing you do to promote revival. When I was a young man 18, 19 years old I was handed a cassette tape by a preacher named Leonard Ravenhill. Just out of curiosity, how many of you know that name Leonard Ravenhill? A few of you. He's one of the most incredible preachers I've ever heard. And this particular sermon, probably the most memorable one in my entire life, I'd have to say of one sermon changed me more than any other. It would be a sermon. He preached that I heard as a college student and it was called the price of revival. The price of revival as he described it was persevering, fervent, prayer to our God. You call out to God for a fresh touch from heaven. Humble yourself under his mighty hand. Get around the word of God and then pray. Pray, that's how we promote revival in ourselves and in others. Okay, onto our fourth consideration. Our fourth subject is the time of revival or the time for revival. The question here, when should we seek revival? Well, you don't seek revival when you're moving in the joy of the Lord. Do you? I mean, that would be pointless. Revival is needed in two contexts. The first time or in two times. The first time is in a time of affliction. We cannot help it affliction drags us down. Drags us down. We need special grace to cope with it and so in our text, Psalm 119, verse 107, we read this, I am exceedingly afflicted. Revive me according to your word. Revive me, O Lord, according to your word, I am exceedingly afflicted. A passage that fits the last point and this one is verse 50 of Psalm 119, this is my comfort in my affliction that your word has revived me. Psalmist has hope of revival in the midst of his pain. That's the direction in which to look when suffering toward a future joy in the Lord. Isaiah chapter 6, come. Let us return to the Lord. For he has torn us, but he will heal us. He has wounded us, but he will bandage us. He will revive us after two days. He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before him.
See us, Lewis, as God cries out to us in our pains. You go into a time of affliction. I've had a pretty cushy life to say the truth. Things have gone pretty well for me for the most part. But this last year, oh, just October of last year, I cried more than I'd cried in the previous 49 years put together. This is for me and for my wife, been a season, a period of pain and affliction unlike any I've ever known in my life. You know what everybody says to me? God is going to use this in your life and you know that's the right message. A lot of times I find myself saying to God, Lord, if you've got some good things on the other side of this pain, worth all this pain. It must be really good. What's out there waiting? But God says he brings us into things like this. He brings us into seasons of affliction, not to abandon us, but to test us and to purify us and ultimately to revive us and to bring us out of that affliction, more alive in his spirit than ever before. And so in the midst of our pain, let's call on our gracious Lord to do a lasting, solid work in our souls. One of the reasons the Lord takes us down is to get us looking up. Right after the great catastrophe on 9-11 and the destruction of the twin towers, there was a prayer written by Max LeCato that became very well known at that time. And in that prayer, he said of the terrorist that they sought to bring our country to its knees and succeeded. But they had no idea that we would kneel before God and no idea what God can do. I thought, well, that's a good thought, but oh dear friend, how I wish that we had done it as a nation for more than a week or two. I pray that our nation and her distress, presently in whatever distress may be down the road, will find herself kneeling before God and with some measure of perseverance, calling out for revival and finding it. But certainly, certainly you do that. You do that. By the grace of the Almighty, our trials are turned to gold and when our suffering gives way to spiritual renewal. Second occasion, calling for revival is the time of spiritual drought, whether it's company by affliction or not, spiritual drought. When our souls are parched and barren and nothing seems to have flavor, when I told you earlier that such times as these are fairly normal, I did not at all mean that we should be content to remain in them. The point is not to panic. I simply said they're normal, so you won't panic and start thinking that you must not be genuine because you lack the emotions that you know you ought to have. But do call on the Lord from that place of barrenness and call on him with passion. Let your indifference arouse you. Let your apathy stir you. Let your pride humble you. I heard John Piper recently discussing the question of feelings and obedience. Feelings and obedience. He asked the question what we should do when we don't feel like obeying. How would you answer that question? When you don't feel like obeying, then you should blank. Well some would say obey anyway. Piper didn't agree with that. And I think he's right or at least he has a point. The answer to the equation is not to disobey. No, no, but the answer is to stop and confess to God your lack of holy desire to repent of it and plead for grace to have a holy want to. If I don't feel like praying I don't just pray anyway. I confess to God my sorry spiritual state and seek his mercy to deliver me from it. If at the time of the offering this morning you didn't want to give you don't just give anyway you confess your bad attitude to the Lord and seek mercy. You don't wait for the feelings to do what is right but you don't just live and endure the lack of godly affection. Scripture says God loves a cheerful giver and the implication to me is that he has other dispositions towards people with different attitudes about it. Friend, it is wrong to be content. It is wrong to be content with a passionless faith. We are commanded by God to rejoice in him. Often as a parent I've given my kids instructions to which they've responded by saying but I don't want to do that to which I responded typically. I'm not asking you to want to do it but you know what? God does ask us to want to do it. I want to say Lord does not fear. You ought to be pleased with me just grit my teeth and doing it but he says to do it with joy. Cheerfully. Well he can command it but he'd better help me with that project. That feeling is not something I can work on. You can't work it up. It comes from the Lord but it must come. It must come if we're to know real Christian living and so we pray. We pray with earnestness. We pray with expectancy. We pray for God to come and pour forth an abundance of water to refresh us and revive us. That passage we read from Nehemiah chapter 8 is from the same story that contains those famous words where we read the joy of the Lord is your strength. You know what it's like? Do you know what it's like to have the joy of the Lord? Be your strength. I do. I do and I know what it's like to live without the strength of that joy. Not to walk in that joy and there's a world of difference. God's calling on us to live in the strength of His joy and if we're not that's a time for revival my friend. Don't wait until you are backsliding. Don't wait until you're drunk on the street somewhere to get serious about this issue of the affections of your heart. Call on God when the motivation slip. Call on God when their godly emotions aren't there. Watch the time for revival. I bet for most of you the time is now. Finally we look at the subject of the fruits of revival. The question here is what will result and the answer is supplied to us in the 88th verse look there again. Revive me according to your loving kindness so that there's the result the purpose clause so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth. You see revival is unto something. It's not just a stirring up of emotion that ends at the altar of a church or at the end of a box of wet clean access. Revival is unto a lifestyle of obedience and if that doesn't result then it isn't really revival. Whatever the manifestations or emotions of a particular spiritual movement the test is in the living of it. Does this movement win people to greater devotion greater obedience greater fruitfulness and the 19th century revivals under Charles Finney and Rochester hope it's okay to say something nice about Charles Finney and reform seminary but in the revivals under Finney in of state New York the newspapers report of how the bars in the community of Rochester were closing down because so many people's lives had been transformed had been changed that they were abandoning the bars for something much better. The revival in Wales about 120 years ago God was so moving among the people that the local shipyard which employed so many of them took out an ad in the paper asking their employees not to bring back to the to the ship building yard anymore stolen materials because they were too busy processing all the stolen goods that repentment and women were returning to where they'd stolen that's revival that is where revival must lead change tarts change defections change behavior revive me according to your loving kindness so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth well I don't know about you but I I preach myself up so quite an appetite not for food but for a fresh move of God in my soul for revival in my soul do you share it desire if so could you say amen if so could you lift your hand and say yes Lord put me down for that I'm ready for revival and let's follow the Psalmist to seek and watch and and yearn for revival and that means we look to Christ I mean that's where we always have to look at he has life in himself he is life and he is the only one who has life to spare so let's go to him and prepare ourselves to sit with him around his table join with me our gracious powerful good Savior we are indeed people prone to wonder prone to leave the God that that we love that we have loved
Lord we are prone to grow cold and dead and stale so many of us have to confess that's really where we are this morning at least it's where we were when we walked in the doors this morning Lord but you have taken us to a place in your word that gives us examples of what it means to cry out to you as our older brother David has done and so we join him now that man after your own heart and we say revive us Lord according to your righteousness according to your word we need desperately a fresh touch of your holy spirit in our lives so use your word here are prayers use your people of God to stir us up that we might be shaken and new that we might walk in the joy in the strength of the joy of the Lord once again and to that end we ask you Savior we we've already sung turn your eyes upon Jesus that's what we would do now Lord turn our eyes upon you that the things of earth those things that grab for our attention and drag us down and wait our souls that they would become strangely dim strangely light strangely insignificant to us as we see again your beauty and your grace thrill us by your presence among us today and as we come and sit at your table together Lord may the things represented be alive to our spirits so that we might be refreshed and renewed and revived according to your kindness for these mercies we call out to you in hope in Jesus name amen