God Wants To Give Revival

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “God Wants To Give Revival” (Malachi 3:6-12 and Genesis 22:16-18). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel:

God wants to give us revival – that’s today’s theme; and this message shines through in today’s two readings: the first one coming from the final part of the Book of Malachi, as we bid farewell to that prophet; and the second taken from the story of Abraham, who almost sacrificed his son Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. I hope revival is constantly on the minds of all our churchgoers – because a church without revival is a stagnating church. The early church’s life and soul were characterized by perpetual revival – because revival is nothing less than the felt presence of Jesus Christ in His church. Revival is Jesus!

The first thing that strikes me, when I look at the passage from Malachi, is that the Lord is addressing His own chosen people: the people of Israel. He’s not attacking pagan nations – He’s laying into the “descendants of Jacob”. Already at the very beginning, He has this sobering comment to make: “Thank your lucky stars that I don’t change My mind – or else you would all be destroyed. What He’s saying is that “You Israelites are always disobeying Me – and it’s only because I’m long-suffering and patient with you that I haven’t wiped you off the face of the earth”. His meaning is that the Israelites are bad stewards – bad servants of the Lord – because they disobey Him so much. They fail to obey His instructions.

And they cheat Him, by keeping the tithes and offerings to themselves. Instead of surrendering to the Lord, they don’t trust Him with anything, preferring to “withhold” things from Him (the word “tithes” here is just a symbol for anything we withhold from God. Despite being favoured by God, they are so stained with sin that it’s almost their instinct to go their own way and invent their own principles, instead of respecting God’s. They are victims of their “self life” – which is the complete opposite of the “Christ life”, and effectively shuts it out. And that’s still how it is today. My “self” is more important to me than anything else.

Notice that God is addressing His own people! That also means He’s addressing me and you: Christians! He’s not addressing the unsaved! Never think of the Old Testament as just a history book. When God criticizes and condemns the Israelites, He’s actually criticizing and condemning us: the “new Israel”. What does He say? He says: “I want to give you so many blessings! I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great, you won’t have room to take it in!” This isn’t about crops at all – it’s about revival! “Try Me”, says God; “put Me to the test!” “You will receive from Me in abundance – and others will call you blessed, for your church will be such a delight! But you must return to Me first, and I will return to you”.

Now here’s a crucial sentence. God says: “But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’”. That, dear Friends, is what we so often think as churchgoers. “We’re Christians – so the revival must start with the non-Christians: the millions of them ‘out there’”. Wrong! Revivals never start with non-Christians. They always start with Christians first – God’s people. It’s we who need to be revived. We are the ones who must return to God.

A long-term Christian worshipper said to me last week: “My faith is getting weaker, because of some circumstances that have happened”. People lose their passion – their first love. They’re no longer on fire for the Lord. No enthusiasm; no excitement; maybe no more love for God. We all need reviving; because otherwise the outside world will not come to church, and will also not come to Christ, if there is no Holy Spirit, but just habit and tradition.

My question is: “Why do we lose our faith in the first place?” The answer is: Because we no longer believe in God’s promises. Our self life has become disobedient. We say: “God doesn’t work in my life”. But the truth is that we have stopped surrendering to Him.

In this [i.e. last] week’s newsletter, I included a story about one of the great spiritual writers of the last century. As a young pastor, he had no success in seeing revival in his church. But he noticed that one of his parishioners – a humble old blacksmith – was constantly seeing his prayers answered! And the blacksmith showed him his secret. When he prayed, he had his Bible open, and he simply believed all the promises of God – and always got answers! He had learnt to ask God in simple faith – like Sister Harrietta was telling us last week in her testimony – and the Lord responded. There’s a beautiful couple of verses in John 14:13-14, where Jesus says: “You can ask for anything in My name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it!”

Do we have the faith to be obedient and believe in God’s promises, like a child – even in difficult circumstances? Do we believe that those circumstances were actually given to us by God? Or do we retreat into our self life and say: “No, it can’t be true. It doesn’t work according to my logic, my reason”. And we stop “tithing”, as it were, and say: “My reason tells me I’m wasting my money, my time, my skills, and other ways in which I could help others, and also God’s church”. And so we disobey God. No revival. Because we don’t surrender ourselves to the Lord.

God asked Abraham to sacrifice his own son. Abraham could have said: “Are You kidding? You’re a crazy God!” He could have retreated into his self life, disobeying God’s instructions, and following his own logic. But God was only testing him. And Abraham passed the test. He withheld nothing from the Lord – not even his own son. He was totally obedient to God. And the result? It’s in our opening verse: “Because you have obeyed Me, and have not withheld even your only son, I will certainly bless you!” And Abraham became the ancestor of countless generations of God-fearing descendants.

But, you see, God went even further than Abraham – because God did sacrifice His one and only Son. He didn’t withhold anything – for us! For you and Me! So that what? “So that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life”. AND revival! We can never equal that! But we can be totally obedient to the Lord – and experience every blessing He’ll ever want to give us. God does want to give us revival – ever so badly. Amen.