Phill Carlos Archbold

Sermon Text

Revive Us Again

Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? (Psalm 85:6).

The text is a short prayer, but volumes of meaning are wrapped up in it. God, give us tonight to pray it from the very depths of our hearts! It is a prayer for God's people: "Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?" David does not pray about conditions or circumstances, that these may be changed, but he prays for people, for God's people. "Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?" For David had learned the lesson far back in that olden time, that if there be any deep, great work of grace wrought for the world that is lost, then such work of grace will begin in the hearts of God's people. It is true and does not need to be argued that, when God's people are right, things always go well with His work, and when God's people are wrong, things go badly with His work.

It is a lesson that comes down to us through all generations, that, going before any great, deep work of grace, God's people have waited before Him in confession of sin, in supplication for His grace, in the humbling of their hearts, in the submission of their wills to him, that He might do for them and with them according to His holy will. That is surely the lesson that comes down to us touching God's work and people all through the generations. There is no such thing, Brethren, as any great, deep far-reaching work of grace anywhere, if God's people do not experientially know the mighty means of prayer touching such work of grace. All history as it touches God's people and His work in the world is the confirmation of this statement. When Israel down in Egypt prayed after the right fashion, it was then that delivery came.

In the days of Nehemiah, when God's work had run down, and when Nehemiah, with the faithful ones about him, waited about God for its reviving and its rebuilding, when they prayed after the right fashion, the walls of God's house went up again. It was so in the days of good King Josiah. The thing that pre-eminently characterized the revival for the glory of God in his time was the right waiting before God of His people. And surely the one marvelous thing about that incomparable meeting on the Day of Pentecost, the influence of which kept on in such wondrous fashion for a generation, surely the one marvelous thing about that meeting, from the human viewpoint was, that for 10 days God's people just prayed. For 10 long days they tarried in the quiet place, away from the crowd, waiting, with one accord, for power from on high. When will we learn the lesson, brethren, that it is time gained in all respects if we give ourselves very, very much to the blessed exercise of prayer in carrying on God's work in the world? For my part, I do not believe that in any of these "revivals" or "special meetings" that we have that God is honored in them, or that people are really regenerated in them, if going through them and before them and after them there is not the moving of the hearts of God's people in prayer.

When will we rightly lay such great matter to heart? It is fundamental to the real success of all God-saving effort. And you yourselves are the witnesses that I speak the truth tonight. In your own Christian experiences, out from the past, even as I talk, there come to you memories of the occasions when you were specially blessed of God in the winning of souls. Those mighty spiritual blessings that came to you; those days of the right hand of God; those days when you saw His might Spirit pierce the hearts of sinful men and bring them down, those were the times when your own hearts were empty of their sufficiency, and when with a cry to God from the deepest depths of the soul, you besought Him to arise and plead His own cause, and save lost sinners for whom Christ died. You yourselves, I say, are witnesses to that same significant truth. When you have had special power with men to win them to God, it was always when you had power with God. And men do not have power with God–it is a thing unknown in His spiritual kingdom–if they be not men of prayer, men of real intercession, men who know the meaning of the secret place where alone they look into the King's face until He speaks His message to them. There is no such thing as power to win lost men to God if His people do not pray.

You yourselves, I say, are witnesses to that great fact. The times when you have had power with men so that they could not resist your appeals, so that you saw their faces humbled before you, and you saw the conquest of the soul go on before your very eyes, those were the times when you were in touch with the great King, when your soul had conscious fellowship with Him, when you took hold of Him and felt that you were one with Him. Men who come to realize that experience, do so through the gracious medium of prayer.

"The burden of the Lord," when that is upon them, then it is that men know the burden of prayer. O brethren, this light, easy, tearless, hop, skip, and jump method in the matchless work of turning men to God IS NOT the New Testament way. If men are turned to Almighty God in any blessed fashion, then the people of God know about it, and there is a cry to Him, the deepest cry of their hearts is heard, that lost sinners may be saved. God's people always cry like that if any mighty movement of His Spirit and His living grace is felt among the people.

Will we make this prayer in our text personal tonight? That is the crucial point I must ask you to face. "Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people here may rejoice in thee?" Do we wish for it to be personal? I am going to ask you that direct question, and I am going to ask you to answer it, and I beseech you to answer it in sincerity and truth. Is this our prayer tonight? For let us know full well that each one of us shall be a HELPER or a HINDRANCE in this proposed work. All along we are one of these two things in Christ's work. I speak to Christians. I speak to those who have named Christ's name, who know and profess His cause to love. We are one of these two things in Christ's work. We are either HELPERS of HINDERERS in the message of salvation to the perishing around us.

Who hinders Christ's work? First of all, the idle Christian hinders His work. Christians are not made to be idle. They are not made to be dumb. They are not made for their lips to be sealed so that they give forth no testimony to the dying around them. Christians are made to be busy. Christians are left in the world to be active, to be active for Jesus Christ. The idle Christian, then, hinders the cause of God in the earth. If you are idle, you are hindering somewhere the advance of the great kingdom of God. Call to mind those solemn words of Jesus: "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." What does your heart say to that? Jesus cursed the fig tree because it was idle. It ought to have borne fruit, and it did not. The idle Christian hinders God's work.

The Christian not right with God hinders His work, and this is a matter of unspeakable gravity, if only we rightly knew it. If he is not right in his outward conduct, we can see how that hinders God's work. But, brethren, what wounds the Lord Jesus Christ receives in the house of His friends, His real friends, from men who do love Him; men who, if they were crowded to the wall, would die for Him! And yet what wounds He receives at the hands of such men fall many a time by their inconsistent words and their inconsistent works. How we hinder the cause of Jesus Christ ourselves!

We need not trouble so much about the attacks of some blatant infidel out yonder, who rails against the Bible. That is not the supreme trouble at all, but the trouble supreme to the advancement of our Lord's kingdom in this world is with the people of His kingdom, with those who love it, and who are of it, and yet whose lives do not harmonize with it. THERE is our supreme trouble. If we are saying wrong things, or if we are doing wrong things; if, in our lives, inconsistencies may be seen; if there is marked worldliness, and if we fall so far short of the characteristics of what a Christian ought to have, so that men about us believe that our religion is just a theory and not the dominating passion of our lives, then are we hindering the cause of Christ to a very sad degree.

Nor is that all. We hinder the cause of Christ, oh, so sadly, even though outwardly all may seem to be well with us, if inwardly it is not well with us. I do not know of any thought for the Christian more terribly serious than this–that the secret condition of his heart, which condition his wife does not know, cannot know–nor his most intimate earthly companion; which condition is known only to him and to God, the secret condition of his heart, is helping men in this city heavenward, or turning them hellward. The secret condition of your heart, a condition where no other eye can look, save One, that secret condition is now helping, or dragging them down, even as we sit in this convention center tonight.

If a man's heart be right with God, then one prayer prayed from such a heart will have more power with God and with men than a thousand years of praying if the heart is all wrong with God. No wonder, then, that David prayed: "O God, restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation." Not salvation, mind you. He had that, but he prayed, "Give me back again the joy of Thy salvation, and then I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and then sinners shall be converted unto God." When a man is right with God, then there is power in his praying. When a man is right with God, he may lock the heavens, as did Elijah or, like him, he may unlock them.

Mind you, it is the supplication of a "righteous" man that avails much. So the secret condition of our hearts is helping now, or hindering now, these appointed meetings, and will help or hinder them all along. If there is one picture in the Bible more than another that is solemn in the extreme, it is the picture of Achan's secret sin and the doom that followed in Joshua's army, which sin was known only to himself and to God, until Achan was searched and exposed. O brethren, I would this night rather be nailed up in my coffin and buried alive than to go through these meetings with my heart all wrong, and my soul out of harmony with God; for I will either help or I will hinder others. Death were preferable infinitely than that a man should go on as a Christian, himself hindering salvation, himself hindering the blessed current of life that comes from God to man. Death were preferable to that. But every Christian is one of these two things–a hinderer or a helper. He is a channel through which God is pleased to send His grace and blessings to lost men, or he is a clog to stop up that channel.

Is this text our prayer tonight? "Revive us again"–do we pray it? Know this: God has a blessing for us here, if–if what? God has a blessing for us here, if only we wish it sufficiently. There is a recipe for soulwinning effort given back yonder in the seventh chapter of 2 Chronicles, the observance of which never fails: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land." Don't you see it? The observance of that recipe never fails and never will. We shall have here a great blessing, brethren, if we will faithfully live out the truth of this one verse.

It's happening all around us. We are living in the midst of a spiritual awakening, and stale religion is being replaced by vibrant faith. Unfortunately, many church people haven't noticed the trend because it looks foreign to them. If dead religion could attract the unchurched masses, then the United States would certainly be in much better shape today. Unfortunately, the world perceives the institutional church as irrelevant.

We can't reclaim our Judeo-Christian heritage if all we have to offer is the shallow religosity of the past. We must have vibrant New Testament faith that offers relevant answers to the masses of people who are starved for reality.

If we expect our faith to make a difference, we must change our attitudes and restructure our priorities. But I am not pessimistic about the future. In fact, I'm excited about what the Church of the Brethren will be like in the 21st century because I see God already at work to transform us, if we but follow his recipe. As revival happens, as we obey God's voice and seek to humble ourselves and as we pray, this will be the picture of the church of Jesus Christ as we get deeper into the new millennium:

1. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL REJECT LIFELESS RELIGION

I believe the next generation will not tolerate a Christianity that is not wholly authentic. There will simply not be time or effort invested in churches or institutions that sounds and look shallow. A hunger for a real individual and corporate spiritual life will become the driving force of this generation.

The next generation will simply stop attending, and the church will be left with a docile, obedient, but shrinking older crowd with no generation to pass anything on to. But in the midst of this crisis, the next generation will discover what it truly means to know Jesus.

2. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL REDISCOVER THE JOY OF HEARING GOD'S VOICE

I believe God's people in the coming days will once again learn to be sensitive to His voice–and it will transform the church as we know it.

3. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL BE UNIQUELY MOBILIZED FOR CROSS-CULTURAL EVANGELISM

We will be learning from our brothers and sisters everywhere: loving, worshiping, involving, and praying for each other.

4. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL CARE MORE ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS THAN PROGRAMS OR ORGANIZATIONS.

How did Jesus say the world would know we were His disciples? Was it through our well-financed ministries? Through supernatural signs? Through influence on secular governments?

All of these things are necessary. But Jesus said the world would know we were His disciples by the quality of life evidenced in the community of the redeemed.

The world, including the church, is full of hurting people, many of whom have never had a healthy context for personal growth and healing. The natural tendency of hurting people is to keep walls of self-defense in place. Unfortunately, most of our church structures accommodate those walls.

The world is a desert wasteland, void of the water of relationships. The modern American church has been mostly a mirage that has created hope but yielded disappointment. May we dig deeply into the bedrock of His love until the water of community gushes forth and releases streams in the desert.

5. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL UNLEASH THE POWER OF CREATIVITY

I believe this generation will rise up with new anointing and authority in the creative domain. It will bring forth anointed sounds and sights that will glorify God and draw men to Jesus. Casting off the restraints of the spirit of religion, a torrent of creative power will break through the dam of fear and brittle dryness.

6. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL PLACE NEW IMPORTANCE ON RECONCILIATION

This generation will kneel in humility, asking the Father to "forgive our sin and heal our land." Compassion will well up in our souls as we ask the Lord to bring healing to the wounds caused by racism, classism, and social injustice.

7. CHRISTIANS IN THE 21st CENTURY WILL EMBRACE THE CONCEPT OF THE "CITY CHURCH"

God loves the city. Jesus Christ loves the city and he died for persons in the cities all over the world. It will take Christians everywhere to win the whole city to the Lord.

8. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL GIVE EXTRAVAGANTLY TO THE POOR

Remember that Jesus did not give the disciples going-away presents. He joined them in the Last Supper. It is important to recognize that we need to bring the poor, sick, and lost into our lives instead of isolating them as well as their problems.

9. THE 21st CENTURY CHURCH WILL WORSHIP WITH ABANDON

Let's be honest: We have been stifled in the expression of our worship because we have allowed our culture to dictate to us what is appropriate. But that will change in the coming days.

Are we going to be satisfied if Christ's people are not revived? The they will not be. Are we going to be satisfied if men all about us are not convicted of sin and by divine power turned to Christ? Can we be satisfied if that result does not come? Then it will not come! Any preacher who can complacently preach on, month in and month out, and year in and year out, without seeing men converted; who can preach on through all that and eat heartily and sleep soundly, will not see many converts under his ministry. I tell you, it is a life and death business in which we are engaged. Any church that can sit with folded hands and be satisfied if men are not turned to God, will not have men added to her. Do we wish to be revived? We shall have a great turning to God here, if we wish it enough.

Christians are to remember that teaching school is incidental; practicing medicine is incidental; pleading law is incidental; being a farmer is incidental. All these things are but mere incidents in the life that you are left here to live. The supreme thing for which you live is to point men to Christ. Shall I talk to you about your responsibility? That is indeed a solemn question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" The answer must be that I am his keeper to the limit of my ability to help him. And by just letting him alone; by simple neglect, I may become my brother's spiritual murderer."

Do you wish for God to revive you and His church and His people here just as He wishes to do it? Do you wish Him to send you that quickening of conscience, that renewal of strength, that restoring of the joy of salvation, that will help you to do what He asks at your hands? Do you wish that? Do you wish a revival here, just like He wishes it? What say your hearts?

Revival is not a game of chance. You have heard the specific conditions that must be met if revival is to come and if we want a visit of the Holy Spirit.

Remember that:

1. God is more disposed to me on admitted emptiness (a sign of humility) than on presumed fullness.
2. Faith and hunger can hasten a move of God.
3. Repentance ranks higher in Heaven than reputation. In spite of the fact that Nazareth was the home of Jesus, it was Nineveh that God called the "Great City." He was not using the same measuring stick we do. Future potential is more important than past history. What does this tell us? Some churches, some denominations would not have a revival even if Jesus himself were the evangelist, while others could be set aflame by a few passing words from a reluctant process. Revival in our churches and cities has nothing to do with who does the preaching or who sings. The fires of revival ignite when the spark of God lands in the dry tinderbox of hungry, open hearts marked by true repentance.

"Wilt Thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in Thee?"

Hallelujah! Thine the glory,
Hallelujah! Amen!
Hallelujah! Thine the glory,
Revive us again.