New Beginnings - by Dr. Larry Halsey - Click here to listen to this sermon (mp3 file)
                                              Nehemiah 8:1-10

A German mayor of yesteryear had the distinct honor of receiving to his small town a visit from the Holy Roman Emperor himself. The mayor was embarrassed, however, because he was unable to perform the traditional 21-gun salute.

He apologized to the emperor profusely: 

      “Sire,” he said, “there are three reasons why we were unable to provide a
       21-gun salute.  The first is that we have no gunpowder…”

       “My dear Lord Mayor,” the emperor interrupted, “I think you might
         spare  me the other two reasons, since the first is clearly
         sufficient.”
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The emperor recognized that there was nothing more basic to the occasion than a supply of gunpowder; and without it, nothing else really mattered.

In Nehemiah chapter 8, we are confronted with something that really matters.  Without this one ingredient, we are like the little boy standing on a street corner with his mother, who watched a very rotund man step up on 
scales nearby.

What the man, nor the boy knew is that the scales was out of order. He  deposited his coin, and the large dial spiked to 75 pounds and stopped.

The little boy examined the man from head to toe; looked at the dial and exclaimed, “Look mother, there is a hollow man.”

After seven months of planning, and 60 days of building amid intense heat and grinding opposition, the wall is now miraculously complete. The gates have been set…the enemies are chagrined; for the first time in over a century, one could walk down the streets of the Holy City without fear of death, robbery or injury.

A restored wall meant unprecedented economic opportunity. But Nehemiah’s mission is not complete. For he knew what the people knew— There is something even more vital, more non-negotiable than security, peace and prosperity…  They desperately needed spiritual revival; something on the inside, something that gave all their material blessings purpose and joy…
They needed a vibrant, soul-satisfying, life-directing relationship with the Living God!

The history of revival is one of the most thrilling subjects in Scripture and Church history.  The term “revival” means different things to different people.
For decades, in the mountains and through the south, “revival” has meant a series of meetings at church, marked by soul-stirring music, powerful preaching, designed to bring non-believers to Christ. 

If you were saved in the 1960a, 70s and 80s, you most likely were saved in a revival, as I was, at age 12.

As effective as revival was in winning people to Christ in that era, “revival” is not about lost people, it’s a work of God in the hearts of believers, and in churches.

J. I. Packer defines revival as…

       “A visitation from God which brings to life Christians who have been
        sleeping and restores a deep sense of God’s near presence and
        holiness. All this ushers in a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise
        of heart in repentance, praise, and love with an evangelistic overflow.”

Stephen Olford writes…

       “Revival is that strange, sovereign work of God in which He visits the
        people—restoring, reanimating, and releasing them into the fullness of
        His blessing. Such a divine intervention will issue in evangelism, though,
        in the first instance, it is a work of God in the church and among
        individual believers.”

Concerning individual, personal revival,  Warren Wiersbe notes,

       “Revival is taking off the mask.”
       “Revival is getting back to reality.”

My friend Harold Vaughn says, “Revival is waking up to who is living inside of
        you.”

An effective, spirit-filled, life lived for Jesus demands periodic, personal revival.  The Psalmist prayed, “Lord, will you not revive us again, that our hearts may rejoice in you.”

A guy went to prayer meeting every week; every week he would pray the same thing: “Fill me, Jesus. Fill me, Jesus.” But his family, friends and church family knew him to be a cranky, crabby, judgmental cuss. Prayer meeting after prayer meeting it was the same, but he never changed…cranky, crotchety, crass…Finally, in one service he stood up and said, “Fill me, Jesus! Fill me, Jesus!

Somebody in the back yelled, “Don’t fill him, Jesus! He leaks!”

That’s the human condition. As a believer you live with incredible pressure. From the outside, there is a wicked, immoral culture; on the inside there is an unredeemed nature, called “the old nature.”

You and I must have revival because with our best intensions, and best efforts—we leak.  There is a principle of science in the physical world that says, “Everything tends downward”; I see it in the mirror, I see it on the parking lot; even the sun is burning out.

Since the Fall, it is also true in the spiritual world. G. K. Chesterton, that saucy, English essayist of yesterday, once observed,
  
       “There have been at least five times in history, when the faith has from all
        appearances gone to the dogs. In each of these five cease, it was the
        dog that died.”

God sent a fresh breath of revival!

God visiting his people has saved nations.  Listen to this blip from history (Erwin Lutzer):

       “Eighteenth century Britain was in such a sad state of decline that
       Parliament had to be dismissed in the middle of the day because so
       many of its members were in a drunken stupor. Children were
       abandoned to die and immorality was rampant.  The knowledge of God
       had all but faded from view. Mercifully, God reversed that trend through
       the preaching of John Wesley and George Whitfield. Some historians
       believe that it was the revival that spared Britain the bloody fate of
        France, torn by violent revolution.”

In his dynamic book, “Seven Men Who Rule The World From The Grave,” (they include Marx, Dewey, Darwin, and Freud), Dave Breeze has a chapter about Darwin and his doctrine of evolution.   Look at these charts:

The first one has the caption, “What the scientist thinks he sees in viewing history.”  Evolution will bring a perfect humanity, a perfect world—utopia.

The second chart shows, “What the scientist really sees.”  Just one brief moment in time.

The third chart’s caption reads, “The actual course of history as it has transpired and will unfold. (The biblical interpretation of history and the future.)

The 4th chart presents an anomaly, an exception:  The caption reads, “the exception to cultural deterioration—Christian cultural impact.”  That’s not just the presence of a church, but a revived church—salt and light!

A question I’m sometimes asked is, “What about America? Where are we headed?”   Are you aware that America was born in the aftermath of revival?  The revolution of the 1770s, was preceded by the Great Awakening of the 1740s. 

According to one projection,  by 2025 (in less than 20 years), there will be more Moslems than bible-believing Christians.  Twenty years is a generation. 

If I understand the flow of history, our beloved nation is headed for dictatorship. Unless God revives his church (and thereby saves the nation), things will continue to deteriorate morally and ethically to the point, that common civility, long-held institutions, and yes, the family, will fall into anarchy, and people, in desperation, will demand someone to step forward who can enforce laws that will bring order out of chaos; sense out of moral and civil insanity.

Will that man be anti-Christ, history’s last dictator? I don’t know.

This was written by Professor Alexander Tyler around the time our nation as born:

       “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can
       only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves excessive
       gratuities from the public treasury.  From that moment on the majority
       always votes for candidates promising the most benefits from the
       treasury, with the result that a democracy collapses over loose fiscal
       policy, always followed by dictatorship.”  (CS, “Come Before Winter,”
       502)

The history of Israel shows that people elect to public office leaders who are a reflection of them.  Was Bill Clinton really any different morally, than the rank and file of Americans, and what is shown on television every evening?

It is a stunning fact of history that the average age of the world’s great civilizations has been approximately two hundred years.  According to that reckoning, America may be living on borrowed time.

Recent reports say that there is American is currently experiencing a surge of atheism; Several books on the New York Times “Best Seller’s List” are pro- atheism.

A church once caught on fire.  The entire neighborhood poured into the streets to watch it burn.  Present among them was the town atheist. He was infamous for his unbelief and his cynical remarks about the church.  As he stood with others, there happened to be a church member standing near him.

       “What are you doing here?” she asked.  “I never thought I’d see you at
        church.”

        ”You’ll have to excuse me,” the atheist replied, “But I’ve never seen a
         church on first before.”

A church (and a Christian) on fire spiritually, is a might weapon in God’s hand!  The $64.00 question is: 

“How does revival come?
“How is revival born?” 

The bible and history bears out, as I pointed out, revival is a work of the sovereign God.

I saw a sign on the marquee on a little Pentecostal church in Wyoming County that read, “The winds of Pentecost are blowing again.”   No, that only happened once; God did it.  You can’t whip up revival! 

So much of “Christian” TV today is little more than the wizard from Oz, pulling levers from behind a curtain, producing a poor substitute for smoke, noise and lightening.
 
There are some 7 or 8 revivals in Scripture, none is more dynamic, impacting or glorious this one at the Water Gate.   One historian says that it set Israel on a course that lasted 400 years, until the Messiah appeared!

Scholar Walter C. Kaiser notes:

        “[This is] one of the most joyful and spectacular celebrations of the
         work of God known in the Old Testament.”

Although revival is a gracious gift from God, there are conditions that you find when (and where) revival occurs.  It’s sometimes difficult to identify if these “factors” precipitate revival (humanly) or are themselves the result of revival.

There are three non-negotiables present in the Water Gate Revival; you find these the elements in ALL revivals in Scripture and history.

1. The Confession of Sin—Vv 9, 11

    Verse 9—“For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law.”

The spring after I arrived at Bible college, God visited the campus with revival. All night prayer meetings broke out; chapel services scheduled for one hour, continued two to three hours; class were cancelled.  It was marked by students confessing sin to God; getting right with other people.

About three years ago, there was a refreshing again.  The church that operates the school broadcasts its church services live.  A scheduled three-day revival services went more than two weeks, and truckers out on I-75 heard the messages, whipped off the interstate, found the church and came down the aisles at the end of the services…

The people at the wall became so sick of their sin that they cried out to God!

2. A Return To God’s Word—Vv 1-6

3. A Renewal of Worship—V6

    What marked their worship?  Intellect, emotion (they lifted their hands!—
    Couldn’t have been a Baptist crowd [or just maybe it was]) and volition
    (decision).  That’s next Sunday.

Verse 1— is the key.  (Read)  

Revival begins with fervent desire for a fresh visit from heaven upon your soul. …When you are so sick of the way you are living; …when you become so discontent with the sameness and tameness of your spiritual walk that you begin to seek the Lord.

…When desire becomes, in the words of Jacob, a “Lord, I will not let you go
   until you bless me” longing of your heart and your focus.

Make A Wish Foundation is one of America’s most unique charities. Founded in 1983, it is an organization of extraordinary people that seeks to grant wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses.

It’s website touts, “150,602 wishes granted, one every 41 minutes.”

In 2006,

*53 asked for a trip to Disney World.
*5 ask for a vacation in Hawaii
*4 asked to meet a celebrity
*8 asked for a shopping spree
*3 asked for a cruise
*3 asked for playground equipment
*3 asked for a computer
*7 asked for other travel

Think of that!  All you have to do is make a wish.

Imagine that the sovereign God of the universe granted you the same opportunity—A divine blank check!  What would you wish for?

If your answer is: 

”I wish for a closer walk with the Lord in 2007 than ever before.”
”I want more than anything to know the Lord better.”
”I wish, before anything else, that the Lord with stir my heart anew with a
      sense of his love, his grace and his purpose for me.”
”Above everything else I could ask for, my first desire that God would use me
      this coming year to bring glory to Him…Through my influence, my service,
      my witness to others.”

If that’s your answer:  YOU are a candidate for revival!

Let’s bow our heads.  I’ve not talked about resolutions this morning; we’ve talked about revival.  Maybe someone would say, “Pastor, the truth is, my number one desire is not spiritual at all.  I’m really quite content with where I am spiritually headed into a new year.”

Well, would you ask God to bring circumstances into your life this year that will cause you to see your need for His presence in a new way?

”A church on fire.”  Oh, I long for that, as many of your do!  Let’s let that be our prayer as a church family, for 2007.