Revive Us Again?

I grew up in a small-town Baptist church. And when I say that, I mean I literally grew up in that church. My dad was the pastor. We lived two blocks away. If there was anything going on, I was at the church. If there were chairs and tables to be set up or taken down, we were doing it. My daddy and “the three boys” and maybe some others who would show up. I grew up in that church. We spent time playing in the neighborhood, but the church was in the neighborhood, too. So that was my life.

Some of my fondest memories, twice a year, once in the spring, once in the fall, we would have revival services. And we'd have an evangelist or another pastor from somewhere else who would come and preach. And sometimes we'd have a guest music person. And it was just a wonderful time. Most of the time, whoever was preaching would stay at our house. And we'd have great fellowship with these people. I learned some Spanish from a missionary to Colombia. There were other things. But just a lot of wonderful times doing this. It was great.

My favorite thing about the revivals was that we had morning services. They were short, which I liked, because I was a kid. They would bring hot donuts, and we'd have donuts and hot chocolate after the short service in the morning. I loved it. When I was in third grade, I ate a dozen donuts one morning. About two hours later, I went home sick from school. A dozen donuts is not good on a nine-year-old stomach. So, you know, we live and learn.

But there were other things that we did. We did what we called cottage prayer meetings. We would meet in people's homes, probably a dozen people in each home for pretty much every night leading up to revival. And we would have these cottage prayer meetings, and we would pray for revival. We would pray for an anointing from God. We would pray that He would do something in us and in our church. We would pray a lot for revival. We'd sing the great old hymns about revival. We'd sing things like, “Lord, send a revival and let it begin in me.” My favorite was:

Revive us again,

Fill each heart with thy love,

May each soul be rekindled with fire from above.

Hallelujah, thine the glory,

Hallelujah, amen.

Hallelujah, thine the glory,

Revive us again.

 

God's spirit would move. People's hearts would be stirred. Lost people would be saved. Christians would devote themselves to be better Christians for God. Beautiful, beautiful memories. And ALL WRONG.

Now, before you jump on me for saying it was wrong, I'm not saying that what we did was wrong. I'm not saying that I was taught wrong. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with any of that. What was wrong was my perception of what was going on and what was supposed to happen. I told you, donuts, you know. I was focused on revival because revival was donuts. But that was wrong.

There are a lot of things I didn't understand that I'm still trying to learn and understand. And hopefully I'll never stop learning and growing and understanding. But let me give you one example. That song above says, “May each soul be rekindled with fire from above.” Now, in my young mind,  what could I relate that to? There was Acts chapter 2, where it says, “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”

If you’re old enough, you will remember that people used to go to concerts back in the “old days” (like the 60s and 70s) and they'd bring a cigarette lighter and they'd light their lighter and it was a thing. They don't let us do that kind of stuff anymore, because fire codes and whatever. But that was one of my pictures of what this fire at Pentecost must have been like. Here were the disciples in this room and there was a little flame flickering over their heads. Another one, you remember the cartoons where when somebody had a bright idea and they'd put a light bulb above their head? I loved it. That was another kind of picture. So I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to be rekindled so there's going to be a little light bulb over my head that's going to illuminate me and light me up and let me be a light for Jesus, right? So that's kind of where my mind was in those days. I'm just going to be a little light for Jesus and let my little light shine. Well, those things, again, obviously are all wrong.

As I've looked at God's Word over the last few years, I’ve built a list of verses on this thought, but God's fire is nothing like that. My picture, my image was incredibly weak. It just wasn't right.

Here's a list of verses. I’m just going to give you the list.

• Exodus 24:17

• Deuteronomy 4:24

• Deuteronomy 9:3

• Psalm 18:8

• Isaiah 29:6

• Isaiah 30:27

• Isaiah 30:30

• Isaiah 33:14

• Hebrews 12:29

 

These scriptures describe God as a CONSUMING fire. Consuming fire means whatever gets burned up gets burned up, right? God's not a little cigarette lighter. God's a consuming fire, and all those verses talk about it. But let me give you just one scripture by way of contrast. And this one's a little different from all of those that say God is a consuming fire.

God's about to call Moses and make Moses his prophet. And he's going to call Moses to deliver the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Moses at this point is a shepherd and he's up on the mountain with his sheep and he sees something odd. It tells us in Exodus 3, “Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. So, Moses thought, I have to go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn't the bush burning up?” God is a consuming fire. When Moses saw something strange, a fire that wasn't consuming, he said, “Hey, this is special. I've got to go check it out.”

Sometimes God's consuming fire is a terrible thing, fearsome and terrible. Let's look at some examples.

In Genesis 19, Abraham's nephew Lot has been living in Sodom and Gomorrah, and it's a horrible place. Sin filled it in a way that we’re beginning to understand. We couldn't picture a place as terrible when I was growing up, but I'm beginning to think I understand. Sodom and Gomorrah was a terrible place, and God said, “I'm going to go destroy it.” And Abraham tried to talk him out of it, mostly because Lot was there. Well, finally, Abraham says, “Okay, God, do your thing.” But God sends an angel and tells Lot to get his family out, because Lot is a righteous man, and he's going to destroy it. So, Lot and his family leave.

Genesis 19 says, “Then out of the sky, the Lord rained burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah. He demolished these cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew on the ground.”

God threw burning sulfur down and completely wiped it out. If you're familiar with the Dead Sea, it's talked about a good bit in the Bible. It's in Israel. Nothing can grow there because the water is so bad. It's just terrible. But they have found, looking at satellite images and sonar images, there is what appears to be a city under the Dead Sea. Could be Sodom and Gomorrah? Nobody really knows where it was. Could be. It could be that God devastated it so bad that to this day, there's a huge lake that nothing can grow in. We do know that God's consuming fire totally destroyed it and everything around it.

Early on in the Exodus story, the children of Israel have left slavery. They've headed out of Egypt, and they've started out, and about three million of them are out in the desert, and we're told in Numbers 11, “Now the people began complaining openly before the Lord about hardship. When the Lord heard, His anger burned, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down.”

I think this fire must have started out on the edge of the camp and started working its way across, and the people were so scared. They said, “Moses, don't let God consume us.” Kind of interesting. They should have just said, “God, please don't.” But they didn't say that. They turned to Moses instead.

Another early Exodus story. There were three men, Korah and Dathan and Abiram, and they decided that Moses and Aaron weren't really fit for leadership. They figured they ought to be the leaders. So, they set up a revolt, and they got a bunch of people behind them, and they said, “We're going to kick Moses and Aaron out, and we're going to be in charge of Israel.”

Well, Moses said, “Okay, we'll set up a test.” Basically, it's the I'll get on this side of the line, and you get on that side of the line, and we'll let God decide. So, it tells us in Numbers 16, “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, all Korah's people and all their possessions. They went down alive into Sheol with all that belonged to them. The earth closed over them, and they vanished from the assembly.” Sheol is the place of death. It's a Hebrew word for death. They went alive into the grave. The earth swallowed them and covered them alive.

But, we're talking about fire. So, where's the fire? Well, these guys had recruited 250 men to be priests for them when they became the leaders. And those men were preparing and planning to be the priests for Israel. They were going to set up their own worship thing. Verse 35 says, “Fire also came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were presenting the incense.” They were behind the leaders of the rebellion, doing the sacrifice thing, pretending to be priests, and God consumed them with fire. They had fire burning incense, and God said, “I’ll show you real fire.”

Later on, God gave Moses and Aaron the proper rules and procedures for offering sacrifices to God. They presented their sacrifices to God, and then in Leviticus 10, the first two verses say, “Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his own firepan, put fire in it, placed incense on it, and presented  unauthorized fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them to do. Then fire came from the Lord and burned them to death before the Lord.”

When I was a kid, we would talk about somebody, usually an adult, when they were really serious about something, and we would say, “He don't play.” I had a coach. Coach didn't play! That's kind of what Moses says to Aaron here. In the very next verse, right after Aaron's sons have been burned up by God, Moses says, “This is what the Lord meant when he said, ‘I will show my holiness to those who are near me, and I will reveal my glory before all the people.’ But Aaron remained silent.” What's he going to do? Take up for his boys at this point? I don't think so. Aaron remained silent.

Moses was basically telling Aaron, who was the priest, “When it comes to holiness, God don't play. Don't play with that. It's serious.”

If we stop there, that's a pretty scary picture. If you ain't right, God's going to destroy you with fire. But we're not going to stop there. There are some other pictures of God's consuming fire that I'm going to show you.

Just before Nadab and Abihu were killed, Aaron presented the proper offering to God. In Leviticus 9, it says that after they had killed the animals for the sacrifice and put them on the altar, “Moses and Aaron entered the tent of meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Fire came from the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell facedown on the ground.” They had seen God's fire before in other things; they had seen it out in the wilderness, but when God came down and consumed the sacrifice animals, they fell on their faces. They were just completely amazed and devastated.

Let’s look at another one. In the book of Judges, the Angel of the Lord goes to Gideon and he says, "You're going to be the leader of all Israel." Gideon says, "Whoa, you don't know what you're talking about. I am the least in my family and my family is the least in my tribe and my tribe is the least in Israel. I can't do that."

Gideon says, “Let me get a meal together." Then in Judges 6, it says, “The angel of God said to him, ‘Take the meat with the unleavened bread and put it on this stone and pour the broth over it.’ And he did so. The Angel of the Lord extended the tip of his staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and unleavened bread. Fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.”

This time the fire didn't come down; this time it came up. But again, the sacrifice was there and God took it. God consumed it.

One of the favorite stories in the whole Old Testament is Elijah and the prophets of Baal. I love this story. Elijah is in a bad way because he's in the kingdom that's led by Ahab and Jezebel. And they are seriously bad people. And they're worshiping Baal and they've got all these priests. Elijah says, "Let's set up a challenge out in the desert. You bring your 400 priests and you can do a sacrifice and I'll come and I'll do a sacrifice and let's see what happens."

Now Elijah, a guy with a sense of humor, says, "Y'all go first." Right? Because you want to know what you're competing against. I don't think that's why Elijah did it; I think he just wanted to show them. And if he had gone first, there would have been nothing left. He tells these prophets of Baal, "Build your altar, put your animal on it, and then pray to your God and let's see what happens." So, they do. They dance and they sing and they pray and nothing happens. They dance harder and they pray harder and they sing louder and nothing happens. So Elijah decides to taunt them a little bit. He says, "Maybe your God's tired. Maybe he's resting. Maybe you should just be louder and wake him up. Maybe he's in the restroom and you just need to wait till he gets out." Again, nothing happens, of course. All this has gone on for hours. All these prophets praying for their God to do something and nothing happens.

Then Elijah puts his sacrifice on the altar and he says, "Dig a pit around it." And they dig a pit. And then he says, "Now pour water over it and keep pouring water over it and keep pouring water over it." At this point, they've been in a drought for three years. And Elijah's saying, "Pour out gallons and gallons of water on the ground. Just pour out the water." Can you imagine how people felt after three years with no rain? And Elijah's saying, "Just pour out all that water on the ground." But they do it. Elijah prays. And we have in 1 Kings, “Then Yahweh's fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell face down and said, Yahweh, he is God. Yahweh, he is God.”

God consumed not just the sacrifice, but everything around it. God actually dug a hole with the fire. He showed them He was God.

Another example. King David wanted to build a temple for God. It was something he always wanted to do. He had designed it. He had it all drawn up, ready to go. God told David, “You're not going to build my temple. You've been a man of war. You've done what I wanted.” God said David was a man after his own heart. David had done what God wanted, but he was a man of war. God said, “Your son is going to build my temple. He will be a man of peace.” Solomon, the next king, would build a temple. The name Solomon, just as a little side note, is a derivative of Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace. So God said, the man of war would not build His temple. The man of peace, Solomon, would build His temple. They took David's plans and Solomon built the temple. It took seven years to build the temple. And they say it was incredibly glorious.

They get ready to start worshiping in the temple, and they call all of Israel together. Solomon speaks to the people. He prays for the people. And then we get to the time of the sacrifice. And 2 Chronicles 7 says, “When Solomon finished praying, fire descended from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.”

Wow. The glory of the Lord filled the temple. The temple was already glorious. It just got so much more glorious, beyond imagination.

That's a lot of cool history, right? What's that got to do with revival? Well, first, in those last examples that I gave you, the people never lit those fires. They just prayed. God lit the fire. It was God's fire. It was not human fire. It was God's fire. We also see from the ones before, sometimes God's consuming fire is used as punishment. Sometimes it's used in our worship. They offered sacrifices, and God consumed it. So, it could be either. But in all of these cases, it's a consuming fire. This is not a little fire. This is a consuming fire, whether it's bad for people or good for people. God is a consuming fire. He's not a little cigarette lighter or a light bulb. God is a consuming fire.

I now believe when we saw Acts chapter 2 before, and we talked about it at Pentecost, and it talked about the tongues of fire over their heads, the verse says there was a sound like the blowing of a violent wind. I wonder if that wasn't the roaring of the flames that were over the disciples' heads. A cigarette lighter won't do that. But God put His fire over them, and the roar that sounded like a violent wind could have been the flames. But there's more. And this is where it gets personal for me. This is where this is all comes together for me.

When I was a little kid in church, they started out teaching us little verses. We learned, “God is love.” And that's a good verse to start with. We learned lots of little verses. The first big verse that I remember learning and memorizing, and I worked on it for a long time because it was a hard one, was Romans chapter 12. I'm going to give you this one in the King James Version, because that's the way I learned it. It's kind of beautiful in its language. I memorized, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

A good preacher could do a sermon series on those two verses. There is so much packed in there. What I want us to look at right now is two words: Living sacrifice.

Now, when I was a kid and I would look at that and I'd see living sacrifice. I saw that as kind of, “Okay, Larry needs to be a good boy for Jesus.” And yeah, at that stage of my life, I think that's what it meant to me to be a living sacrifice, is to be a good boy for Jesus. But we've seen that sacrifices are consumed.

In Revelation chapter 3. Jesus is speaking to the different churches in Asia, and he says to the church at Laodicea, “I know your works, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were cold or hot. So, because you're lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth.” God doesn't want lukewarm. And that word vomit in other translations, it's translated spew or other similar words. God says, “If you're going to be lukewarm, I'm going to vomit you away from me. I'm going to spew you as far away from me as I can get you.” Because he doesn't want lukewarm.

That gives me a bit of struggle. God hates lukewarm. He said so. Give me hot or cold. James 1:8 says, “An indecisive man is unstable in all his ways.” I don't want to be lukewarm. I'm sick of being lukewarm. God wants us hot or cold because he can deal with those. If we're just going to be half-hearted, then he's going to get rid of us.

But I also like to be in control. I don't like being in charge. I don't want to be in charge, but I do like to be in control. I just don't like being out of control.  Can you see the difference?

So, I want to present myself as a living sacrifice to God. But that means asking Him to consume me. That means giving him 100% and I have nothing held back.

Now, the thought of giving myself to God should not frighten me, but it does because, as I said before, I like to be in control. And I know that I'm not in control if I give 100% of myself to God. I mean, what's God going to do to me if I tell him to do whatever he wants? I don't know. I’d kind of like an option first. You know, give me some choices. The thought of asking God to consume me and saying, “I'm going to give you everything,” that scares me to death because I want to have at least a little bit of control.

Part of me wants to pray, “Father, Yahweh, revive me, consume me.” Part of me wants to pray, “Okay, God, show me what you want done and I'll get it done.”

Debbie has commented at times over the years that sometimes she has said, “Okay God, I see where you're going with this, I'll take it from here.” I want to do the same thing. I want to say, “Oh, okay. I get it. I get it. I'll take care of it from here. I'm in control.” I can't be that way if I’m going to let God consume me as a living sacrifice.

A couple of years ago we were visiting in Texas with some dear friends. My friend Curt is one of my heroes in ministry. He was one of our kids' children's pastors. Curt is an amazing man. And I just love the man to death. I really do. Before church, we were sitting with him and his wife, waiting for church to start, and he asked me, “What's God been showing you lately?” I went through all of this in about a one minute version.

Curt said, “Elijah did not ask God to consume the sacrifice.”

After church, I went back and looked at all four of those stories where God consumed the sacrifice. And you know what I found? Not once did any of them ask God to consume the sacrifice. Not once.

- Moses and Aaron in Leviticus, they asked God to bless the people. And God consumed the sacrifice.

- Gideon asked for a sign that God was with him. And God consumed the sacrifice.

- Elijah didn't ask God to take the sacrifice. Elijah prayed, “Today let it be known that you are God in Israel.” And God did. Yes, he consumed the sacrifice. But he showed all the people that he was God.

- And with Solomon, when they got ready to dedicate the temple, he prayed. If you go look in 2 Chronicles,  Solomon prayed this really long prayer. At the very end, he concluded his prayer by asking God to come and fill His temple. And if you remember, that's what God did. He consumed the sacrifice. And then God filled the temple.

So rather than asking God to revive me, rather than asking God to consume me (which scares me), maybe my prayer needs to be, “Lord, bless me,” like Moses and Aaron said. Maybe my prayer needs to be like Gideon, “Show me that you're with me.” Maybe it needs to be like Elijah, who said, “Show me that you're God.” And maybe my prayer should be like Solomon, “Fill me.”

The sacrifice will come. God consuming me, he can do that. But I don't have to ask him to consume me. I have these other things I can ask.

Can you pray those same things:

1.     “Lord, bless me.”

2.     “Lord, show me that you're with me.”

3.     “Lord, show me that you're God.”

                  4.    “Lord, fill me.”