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Voddie Baucham - Revival and Reformation · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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  Speaker 1: My assignment tonight is to address the issue of revival
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  Speaker 1: and reformation. And these two things really do go hand
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  Speaker 1: in hand. We often see reformation as a result of revival.
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  Speaker 1: God reforming his church. We see revival coming and God
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  Speaker 1: using revival to cleanse his church and to grow his
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  Speaker 1: church and then to Reform is church. And what I
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  Speaker 1: want to do tonight is I want to look at
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  Speaker 1: a passage of Scripture that I believe traces this for us.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very familiar passage of Scripture, but it's one
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  Speaker 1: of those passages where we often sort of stop short
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  Speaker 1: and don't get the whole picture. It's in Psalm 51.
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  Speaker 1: In Psalm 51, there are, I believe, three major movements
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  Speaker 1: in this psalm. The one movement, obviously, is that of repentance, right?
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  Speaker 1: We see repentance there as clearly as anywhere else in
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  Speaker 1: the scriptures. But after we see repentance, we also see revival.
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  Speaker 1: We see repentance, and then in that second movement, we
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  Speaker 1: see revival. We'll get there. Probably the most famous verse here.
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  Speaker 1: We all know and have sung the chorus, right? Creating
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  Speaker 1: me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
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  Speaker 1: spirit unto me. Cast me not away from your presence,
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  Speaker 1: O Lord. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore
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  Speaker 1: unto me the joy of thy salvation. Right? We know that,
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  Speaker 1: and we've sung that chorus before. That is a sense
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  Speaker 1: of revival. But the part that we often miss is
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  Speaker 1: the last movement in the text. And that last movement
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  Speaker 1: in the text is where we see reformation. And we'll
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  Speaker 1: get there, but I want us to follow this train
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  Speaker 1: of thinking, this train of explanation and argument in this Psalm,
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  Speaker 1: in this prayer, if you will. Because I believe that
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  Speaker 1: all of those things are critical. They're crucial. The first, obviously, repentance.
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  Speaker 1: That is the core and root of who we are
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  Speaker 1: as Christians. It is the core and root of what
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  Speaker 1: it means to be a Christian, right? We come to
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  Speaker 1: Christ in repentance and faith. We turn from our sin
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  Speaker 1: and we turn to Christ. We repent. It's everything. It's
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  Speaker 1: the way we become Christians. And it's also what characterizes
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  Speaker 1: us the Christian life as we continue to be a
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  Speaker 1: repenting people. Amen? But then there's that second movement, that
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  Speaker 1: movement of revival, renewal. And that's seasonal, right? Repentance is
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  Speaker 1: the root. It's the core. Revival is not something you
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  Speaker 1: see all the time. Revival is not something you see
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  Speaker 1: every day. But there are times of revival and times
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  Speaker 1: of renewal. And we should pray for those. Amen? We
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  Speaker 1: should pray for those. In ourselves, in our church, in
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  Speaker 1: the broader context, in our community, in our country, around
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  Speaker 1: the world. We should pray for that. Amen? For those
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  Speaker 1: seasons when God sovereignly Moves in the lives of his
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  Speaker 1: people and extraordinarily moves in the lives of his people.
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  Speaker 1: And when he does so, he's calling his people to holiness.
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  Speaker 1: He's renewing his church, right? But he's also blessing the
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  Speaker 1: preaching of the gospel and growing his church. Again, in
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  Speaker 1: unusual and extraordinary ways. We should pray for that. And
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  Speaker 1: then there's that final phase that we'll look at and
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  Speaker 1: that we'll get to, that phase of reformation. And I
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  Speaker 1: think we'll see as we walk through this why and
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  Speaker 1: how that makes sense, and in particular, in this order.
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  Speaker 1: As we look at this psalm, my prayer for us
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  Speaker 1: tonight is that we would hear and interact with David's honest, God-ordained, life-altering,
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  Speaker 1: life-giving experience of repentance and revival and reformation. That this
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  Speaker 1: would not just be an academic exercise for us. My
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  Speaker 1: prayer is that You know, wouldn't it be amazing if
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  Speaker 1: God were kind enough to bring us to a conference
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  Speaker 1: on revival and we actually experience revival? Amen? Let's pray.
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  Speaker 1: Gracious God, our Heavenly Father, we bow before you. in
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  Speaker 1: anxious anticipation of what you will do through the preaching
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  Speaker 1: of your word. Grant us ears to hear. Speak to us,
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  Speaker 1: O Lord, clearly and powerfully through the word that you've
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  Speaker 1: so graciously provided and preserved for us. Would you make
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  Speaker 1: it alive and active in our hearts, in our minds,
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  Speaker 1: in our lives. I pray for those under the sound
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  Speaker 1: of my voice who are unconverted, who have not come
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  Speaker 1: to know you in the part of their sins, who
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  Speaker 1: are not found in Christ. I pray that today their
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  Speaker 1: eyes would be opened, the scales would be removed, and
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  Speaker 1: that you would call them to yourself. I pray for those, Father,
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  Speaker 1: whose passions have grown cold, that today you would stir
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  Speaker 1: up in them a desire for you, a desire for holiness,
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  Speaker 1: a desire for righteousness, a desire for obedience, a desire
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  Speaker 1: for fruitfulness. And Lord, for all of us, would you
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  Speaker 1: cause us to examine those areas in our lives that
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  Speaker 1: need reform? Do this, we pray. In Christ's name and
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  Speaker 1: for his sake, amen. In the first movement, we see
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  Speaker 1: this picture of repentance, and it is so incredibly important
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  Speaker 1: for us to see. Remember, David is writing this in
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  Speaker 1: response to his experience, not with Bathsheba, but with Nathan.
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  Speaker 1: He's responding to his sin being brought to him by
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  Speaker 1: the prophet. And you've got to see this in that context.
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  Speaker 1: You have to understand that David has been living his life.
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  Speaker 1: That David has been going through the motions. David has
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  Speaker 1: been being the king of God's people, Israel. David did
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  Speaker 1: not come to this place on his own. He was confronted.
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  Speaker 1: And when he was confronted, God just stopped him in
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  Speaker 1: his tracks. As the prophet goes on, Does a roundabout,
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  Speaker 1: you know, right? He throws a curve on him. Tells
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  Speaker 1: him a story about a man and the sheep and
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  Speaker 1: the guy who has many sheep and the guy who
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  Speaker 1: only has the one and the guy who took the
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  Speaker 1: sheep from the one, even though he had the many.
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  Speaker 1: And David is enraged by it. And it's not until
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  Speaker 1: Nathan looks at him and says, you are the man.
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  Speaker 1: David wants to go get, I'll go get, tell me
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  Speaker 1: who he is, I'll go get him. Can't be doing that.
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  Speaker 1: I can just imagine what it must have been like
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  Speaker 1: to stand there in front of him and to recognize
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  Speaker 1: in that moment, he has no idea. For whatever reason,
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  Speaker 1: he's been able to walk through life and not be
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  Speaker 1: absolutely crushed By the reality of what he's done. And
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  Speaker 1: then in a moment, he was. By God's grace. Amen?
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  Speaker 1: By God's grace. It was a horrible and painful experience.
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  Speaker 1: By God's grace. And so he comes to this place
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  Speaker 1: of repentance. And what's the great hindrance to revival? It's
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  Speaker 1: a lack of repentance. Ultimately, it's a lack of repentance.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a lack of repentance because we don't believe
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  Speaker 1: that we need to repent. Right? But here in those
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  Speaker 1: first two verses, he makes that clear. He erases that.
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  Speaker 1: He says, have mercy on me, O God, according to
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  Speaker 1: your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out
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  Speaker 1: my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse
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  Speaker 1: me from my sin. He knows that he's unclean. He
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  Speaker 1: knows that he's wrong. He knows that that he's unrighteous.
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  Speaker 1: In our day and age, we don't use these terms.
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  Speaker 1: We don't think like this. We don't say things like
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  Speaker 1: have mercy, blot out, cleanse, because we don't talk about sin.
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  Speaker 1: We make mistakes. If you made a mistake, what you
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  Speaker 1: need is another chance. Or if we don't make a mistake,
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  Speaker 1: we have a condition. I did that because I have
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  Speaker 1: a condition. If you have a condition, you need sympathy.
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  Speaker 1: Or we did it because we're under a curse. If
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  Speaker 1: one more person comes to me talking about a generational curse,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what I'll do. And so often, that's
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  Speaker 1: the way we respond. And it has become more and
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  Speaker 1: more common in our day. Everywhere we look, people talk
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  Speaker 1: about mistakes that they make. And it's not just I
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  Speaker 1: made a mistake. It's we all make mistakes. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: not only did I just make a mistake, but the
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  Speaker 1: mistake that I made is not even significant because we
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  Speaker 1: all make mistakes. That person is not saying have mercy
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  Speaker 1: on wash me, cleanse me, or I have a condition.
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  Speaker 1: I was born this way. Over the last several years,
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  Speaker 1: we have seen a movement within evangelicalism, a movement that
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  Speaker 1: is trying to convince us That the sin of homosexuality
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  Speaker 1: that God calls an abomination is actually something other than that.
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  Speaker 1: It's a condition. It's the way people are born, and
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  Speaker 1: it needs to be embraced. In fact, we need to
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  Speaker 1: brand people as so-called gay Christians. There's nothing wrong with it.
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  Speaker 1: They don't need to be washed. They don't need to
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  Speaker 1: be cleansed. They don't need mercy from God. They need
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  Speaker 1: understanding from you because you've been wrong to believe the
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  Speaker 1: Bible so narrowly all these years. And if that's the
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  Speaker 1: way that we think about ourselves and our sin, then
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  Speaker 1: we'll never come to repentance again. and will never experience revival.
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  Speaker 1: Why do you need revival if there's nothing wrong with
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  Speaker 1: what you did? If there's never anything wrong with what
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  Speaker 1: you do? Listen to this from Jeremiah Burroughs. I come
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  Speaker 1: back to this often because it just reminds me of
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  Speaker 1: how How insignificantly I think of sin. Not the people
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  Speaker 1: around me, not the culture at large, but just me.
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  Speaker 1: Listen to Burroughs. Oh, I see the angry countenance of
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  Speaker 1: an infinite God against me. whose eyes are a flaming
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  Speaker 1: fire looking with indignation upon me. I see a black
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  Speaker 1: dismal cloud of the displeasure of the Almighty hanging over me.
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  Speaker 1: I see a most hideous and dreadful sentence of wrath
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  Speaker 1: ready to fall upon me. I see woe, misery, and
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  Speaker 1: destruction pursuing me. I see blackness or darkness and desolation
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  Speaker 1: even surrounding me. I both see and feel the woeful
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  Speaker 1: accusation of a guilty conscience within me, condemning me, continually
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  Speaker 1: grating upon my soul and terrifying me with dreadful visions
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  Speaker 1: of eternal miseries to betide me. I see the chain
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  Speaker 1: of black guilt and horror on my soul that I
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  Speaker 1: carry with me wherever I go. I see the bottomless
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  Speaker 1: gulf of eternal horror and despair with the mouth of
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  Speaker 1: it wide open to swallow me up. Burroughs is not
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  Speaker 1: talking about making a mistake. Having a condition. Being under
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  Speaker 1: a curse. He's talking about sin. He's not talking about
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  Speaker 1: something that requires another chance, understanding, sympathy, or even deliverance
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  Speaker 1: from some kind of curse. Something that requires God to
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  Speaker 1: have mercy. Something that requires God to wash him thoroughly.
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  Speaker 1: And something that requires a cleansing prayer. We won't repent
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  Speaker 1: unless and until we recognize that this is the condition
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  Speaker 1: that we are in. Why? Verse three, for I know
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  Speaker 1: my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. It's sin.
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  Speaker 1: What I did was sin. transgression. I violated the law
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  Speaker 1: of God. And in verse four, against you and you
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  Speaker 1: only have I sinned and done what is evil in
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  Speaker 1: your sight so that you may be justified in your
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  Speaker 1: words and blameless in your judgment. Well, how do I
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  Speaker 1: know that it's sin? Because God says that it's sin.
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  Speaker 1: regardless of how people around me define what it is
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  Speaker 1: that I'm doing or engaging in, regardless of how people
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  Speaker 1: try to excuse it or make light of it, God
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  Speaker 1: is the one who is blameless in his judgment. God
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  Speaker 1: is the one who defines what is sinful and what
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  Speaker 1: is righteous. And he does so in an inerrant and
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  Speaker 1: infallible way. God does not need to be brought up
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  Speaker 1: to speed on the latest ideas in psychology. Against you
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  Speaker 1: and you only, I have sinned. God is the standard.
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  Speaker 1: And again, if we're not thinking about ourselves and our
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  Speaker 1: sin in this way, there's no need for repentance and
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  Speaker 1: there's no need for Revival. Verse five. So here's, look
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  Speaker 1: at the contrast here between four and five. Against you,
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  Speaker 1: you only have I sinned and done what is evil
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  Speaker 1: in your sight so that you may be justified in
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  Speaker 1: your words and blameless in your judgments. That's God, justified
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  Speaker 1: in his words and blameless in his judgments. My sin
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  Speaker 1: is exactly as you say. You are justified in your words.
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  Speaker 1: You are blameless in your judgment. I have no room
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  Speaker 1: to argue with you whatsoever as it relates to sin.
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  Speaker 1: And then look at verse five. Why? Because behold, I
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  Speaker 1: was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother
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  Speaker 1: conceived me. I'm a sinner. I don't see things rightly.
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  Speaker 1: I don't see myself clearly. I don't sit in judgment
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  Speaker 1: on you You sit in judgment, and your judgment is infallible.
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  Speaker 1: My judgment is completely fallible. When it comes to what
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  Speaker 1: is sin and what is righteousness, I have no room
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  Speaker 1: to speak. And you never make an error. Behold, you
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  Speaker 1: delight in truth and the inward being, And you teach
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  Speaker 1: me wisdom and the secret heart. You're the one who
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  Speaker 1: sets the standard, not me. Beautiful picture here. And we
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  Speaker 1: could go on and on about this picture of repentance.
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  Speaker 1: But we need to get to the second and this
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  Speaker 1: third movement. So there's the first one, this repentance. But
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  Speaker 1: then what do we do with this? What needs to
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  Speaker 1: happen now? He's acknowledging. he's confessing, he's turning away from
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  Speaker 1: his sin. Verse seven, here's the second movement. This is
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  Speaker 1: when we see this revival. And by the way, this
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  Speaker 1: is incredibly important because we don't need to just get
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  Speaker 1: bogged down. Don't hear me saying that, you know, Jeremiah
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  Speaker 1: Burroughs' words that I read It's the way that we
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  Speaker 1: need to walk around thinking about ourselves constantly. That the
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  Speaker 1: genuine and authentic Christian is the one who's always sort
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  Speaker 1: of walking around, woe is me, with the head hung down. No, no, no.
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  Speaker 1: He doesn't stay there. Amen? Purge me with hyssop and
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  Speaker 1: I shall be clean. Wash me. and I shall be
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  Speaker 1: whiter than snow. There's hope here. You purge me, and
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  Speaker 1: I'll be clean. You wash me, and I'll be whiter
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  Speaker 1: than snow. There's an answer. There's hope. Amen? But there's
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  Speaker 1: only an answer, and there's only hope when we acknowledge
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  Speaker 1: our sin. It's the only way. There's a great irony
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  Speaker 1: here because much of modern preaching is preaching that tries
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  Speaker 1: to get around sin and repentance so as not to
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  Speaker 1: offend people, so as not to cause people to look
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  Speaker 1: down upon us and think negatively about us. But that's
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  Speaker 1: like a surgeon who never pulls out his scalpel because
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  Speaker 1: he doesn't want people to be scared of it. The
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  Speaker 1: result is he never performs life-saving surgery. Purge me with hyssop,
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  Speaker 1: and I shall be clean. Right now, I'm not clean.
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  Speaker 1: I need to be. You purge me, though, and I'll
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  Speaker 1: be clean. You can make me clean. I'm acknowledging my sinfulness.
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  Speaker 1: I'm acknowledging my need, and I'm acknowledging the fact that
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  Speaker 1: you are my only hope. Wash me, and I'll be
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  Speaker 1: water than snow. That's what you can get to when
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  Speaker 1: there is genuine repentance. Let me hear joy and gladness.
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  Speaker 1: Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. I love
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  Speaker 1: that phrase. I love that phrase. Let me hear joy
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  Speaker 1: and gladness. You know, David wasn't hearing joy and gladness.
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  Speaker 1: He couldn't have been hearing joy and gladness not in
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  Speaker 1: his condition, not with this unconfessed sin. Can you imagine
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  Speaker 1: waking up every day with another man's, not just with
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  Speaker 1: another man's wife, but with another man's wife that you
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  Speaker 1: had killed? And you're the king of Israel, appointed by
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  Speaker 1: God himself to be the leader of God's people. That's
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  Speaker 1: why he says here, let me hear joy and gladness.
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  Speaker 1: You can't, you can't. And some of you, that's exactly
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  Speaker 1: where you are because you are mired in your sin.
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  Speaker 1: When you gather with the people of God and you
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  Speaker 1: hear the people of God rejoicing, when you hear the
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  Speaker 1: people of God singing the great hymns of the faith,
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  Speaker 1: when you hear the people of God extolling the virtues
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  Speaker 1: of our great God and being thankful for his forgiveness
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  Speaker 1: and for his mercy, you can't even hear the gladness.
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  Speaker 1: Because you're too busy looking around wondering who knows your secret.
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  Speaker 1: And who can see your hypocrisy? Let me hear joy
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  Speaker 1: and gladness. He needs revival. Let the bones that you
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  Speaker 1: have broken rejoice. It's amazing. Sin doesn't just affect your soul,
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  Speaker 1: it affects your body. What a turn of phrase. I
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  Speaker 1: feel like you've broken my bones. Like you've crushed me.
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  Speaker 1: I've been crushed under the weight of my sin. But
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  Speaker 1: not only can you wash me, not only can you
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  Speaker 1: cleanse me, but you can let me hear gladness again
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  Speaker 1: You can make my body right again. Hide your face
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  Speaker 1: from my sins. Blood out all my iniquities. Hide your
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  Speaker 1: face from my sins. Blood out all my iniquities. Why?
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  Speaker 1: Because this Bathsheba thing, that's not all. Amen? It's not all.
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  Speaker 1: David wasn't a sinner because... He did this one thing.
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  Speaker 1: He did this one thing because he's a sinner. Did
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  Speaker 1: you guess that? David wasn't a sinner because he did
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  Speaker 1: this one thing. He did this one thing because he's
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  Speaker 1: a sinner. This wasn't his only sin. You don't start
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  Speaker 1: out there. Hide your face from my sins. Hide your face.
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  Speaker 1: blot out all my iniquities. And then we get to
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  Speaker 1: this famous phrase. Here's the crescendo of this revival that
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  Speaker 1: he experiences. Create in me a clean heart, oh God.
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  Speaker 1: And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not
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  Speaker 1: away from your presence. Yes. Take not your Holy Spirit
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  Speaker 1: from me. He doesn't just want forgiveness. He wants God.
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  Speaker 1: He wants God. You ever, our children, our children are
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  Speaker 1: pictures of this. You know, you have a young child,
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  Speaker 1: and the young child, you know, does something, and you
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  Speaker 1: have to correct the child. And it's not just a
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  Speaker 1: small thing. It's a significant thing, and you have to
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  Speaker 1: correct the child. And as a godly parent, you correct
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  Speaker 1: the child, not with anger, but righteous, biblical, godly correction
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  Speaker 1: brought to the child. And after that correction is over,
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  Speaker 1: what does the child want? They want you. They want
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  Speaker 1: a hug. That's why this is just an aside. One
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  Speaker 1: of the worst things that we can do as parents
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  Speaker 1: is to use the relationship as punishment. That's extra. Use
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  Speaker 1: the correction as the punishment, not the relationship. Cast me
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  Speaker 1: not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit
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  Speaker 1: from me. God, I want you. Again, I'm not just
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  Speaker 1: here because I got caught. I'm not just here because
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  Speaker 1: I want men to think well of me. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: just here because I don't want to go to hell
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  Speaker 1: That's true. But beyond that, I want you. I want
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  Speaker 1: your presence. The indwelling presence of your spirit. Twelve, restore
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: with a willing spirit. By the way, God does this
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: in revival. He does this in revival. Now we get
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: to that third movement, and these things overlap a bit,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and this is what we want to look at and
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: really see. He says, then I will teach. By the way,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: don't miss this. In this repentance, in this revival, notice
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: that all the verbs are what God does. God washes.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: God cleanses. God purifies. God restores. God does that. David
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't come to God and say, God, I promise. God,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I'll do better. God, next time. God, I, God, I,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: he doesn't. He needs God to intervene. He needs God
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: to intervene. And genuine repentance is not about coming to
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: God and making a bargain. It's not about coming to God,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: making a promise. Genuine repentance is about coming to God
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  Speaker 1: with your hands empty, recognizing that there is nothing you
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: can do and nothing you can bring, that you are
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: utterly at the mercy of Almighty God, and that's your
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: only hope. That's it. That's it. It's not about bargaining. God,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: if you'll just get me out of this one, I
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: promise you I will. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: There's been none of that. Genuine revival is not about
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: what we can work men into. It's not about the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: promises that we can make. It's not about any of that.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And now look at verse 13. He says, then, after what?
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: after God has forgiven his sin, after God has created
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: this clean heart, after God has not cast him away,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: after God has restored the joy of his salvation, after
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: God has upheld him with a willing spirit, then I
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Remember those two things that we said happened in revival?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: One of them is this fruitfulness of the gospel. In fact,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: for the most part, when we talk about revivals historically,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that's what we talk about. We talk about these times,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: these periods, and these places where God has caused the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: gospel to bear much fruit. We talk about revivals on
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: campuses where dozens or hundreds of students have come to
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: faith in a short period of time. Or we talk
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: about revivals in churches or in cities where where hundreds
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: or even thousands of people have come to faith in
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: regions or in countries, right? The Welch revivals, the first
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: great awakening. Usually we talk about these in terms of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the fruitfulness of the gospel. Even when we talk about
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: other sort of more modern things like the Jesus movement
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: in the 60s and 70s, numbers of people coming to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: faith This is one of the things that God does
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: in revival. And that's one of the reasons that we
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: ought to have no shame in praying for revival. Amen?
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Our desire is for Christ to have the fullness of
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the reward for which he died. I want to see
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: people come to faith. I want God to pour out
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: his spirit. I want to see that. I want to
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: see preachers and preaching leaders ignited and fruitful. I want
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: to see the gospel going forth and sinners responding to it.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I want to see that. Then I'll teach transgressors your
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: ways and sinners will return to you. By the way,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: here's also the danger of in revival is that it
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: turns into revivalism, right? We have a passion and a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: desire for, because there's a ditch on both sides of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the road, right? There's a ditch on the one side
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of the road where we preach the gospel and we're
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: so afraid of manipulating people that there's no passion whatsoever
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: in our preaching. And then there's the ditch on the
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: other side of the road where we preach the gospel
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and shave off all of the edges of the gospel
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that might be offensive to people and that might be
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: a barrier to them responding so that the gospel that
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: we're preaching is no longer the gospel. Or worse yet,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: we find other means of manipulating people so that we
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: can see Numbers rise. That's not revival. That's not revival.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: There have been periods of great revival where we've seen
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the gospel bear much fruit and people come to faith
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: in incredible numbers, praise God. But there have also been
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: movements where we've seen churches grow to overflow where the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: gospel was not being faithfully preached. But methods of manipulation
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and man-pleasing have been tweaked just right. More on that tomorrow.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: But in genuine revival, We teach transgressors his ways and
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: sinners return to him. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, my lips and my
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: mouth will declare your praises. This is another thing that
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: we see often in revivals. Remember, it's not just God
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: pouring out his spirit on his people and the gospel
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: being fruitful and in terms of people coming to faith,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: but there is also this sense of God's people growing
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: in holiness and being ignited in their passions. And one
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: of the ways that that manifests itself is in our worship.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes when you see seasons of great revival and seasons
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: of great awakening, you also see seasons of great hymn writings.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: People like Fanny Crosby and Iris Sankey. When we sing,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: for example, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, oftentimes you
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: point out the fact that that hymn was born out
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: of the Reformation. It's the great clarion call of the Reformation,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: that great Reformation hymn. And oftentimes we see that. And
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: it's a glorious thing. It's wonderful to be able to
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: look through history and to be able to mark those
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: seasons when God poured out his spirit upon his people.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: And one of the results is these great hymns of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the faith that for generations we continue to sing to
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: be reminded of what God has done. But again, there's
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a ditch there. Because sometimes we then seek to manipulate
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the passions. And instead of praying and desiring for God
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: to pour out his spirit on his people, and for
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: people to come to repentance and experience genuine revival, and
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: for that to bear fruit in people's lives, instead, we
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: try to figure out what we can do to get
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: people to sing more experientially. You ever been there? You
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: ever been in one of those services where a song
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: becomes a mantra, right? And you just get on one
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: of the parts of the song, you just sing it
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again. Anybody come out of
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: charismatic circles, right? Anybody? Anybody? It's like we can't get
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: to the preaching until we've had one of those songs
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that stirs everything up, right? And the way it stirs
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: everything up is that you've got to get that right
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: key and that right tempo, and then you've got to
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: get that right repetition until you just wring all the
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: emotion out of the room. Then, then God's been there.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Can't say amen. You ought to say outage. But there
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: is a sense in which. In genuine revival, God ignites
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the passions of his people. But here's what I want
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: you to see. Verse 16. For you will not delight
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: be pleased with a burnt offering. It's going to seem
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: like David is contradicting this in just a few verses.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: But he's not. Hold on. The sacrifice. of God are
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: you will not despise. So it sounds like David just said,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: we're done with the sacrificial system because that's outward and
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: what God wants is inward. Verse 18, do good to
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Zion and your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: your altar. Wait, what? See, reformation, is not so much
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: about changing our practices. Sometimes, right? But reformation is more
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: often about changing our thinking, about changing our attitudes. Think
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: about this with me, if you will. I can't read
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: this Psalm without thinking about the temple in Jerusalem. And again,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the temple itself is no longer there. But the temple
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: mount is still there. And you can go up on
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the temple mount. And it's interesting when you're ascending up
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: to the temple mount and you're going up these stairs
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: that are contemplative stairs. In other words, the stairs are
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: not all spaced the same so that you can't just
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: walk up mindlessly. You have to walk, walk, walk, flat. Walk, walk, walk, flat.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Think about it. Outside of the temple, there are these mikvahs.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: These mikvahs are like baptistries because God's always been Baptist.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: And the mikvahs are there for ceremonial cleansing on the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: way up to the temple mount. And so you would
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: go through this cleansing. You ever wonder, right, how do
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: you preach the gospel there and how you see thousands
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: of people come to faith and you get these people baptized?
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Because the mikvahs, they're there, right? And so there's this
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: cleansing and there's this washing before you go up to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the temple. Where does this psalm start? with that cleansing
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and that washing. And there are these Psalms of Ascent
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that we sing as we're going up. And now he's
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: talking about these Psalms of Ascent. And ultimately, when you
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: get up there, there's these sacrifices that are being offered.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: But you see, before the king has experienced genuine repentance,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: and genuine revival, he would have gone through the motions
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and those sacrifices would have been empty and meaningless. Those
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: songs would have been empty and meaningless. dipping himself in
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the mikvah would have been empty and meaningless. He would
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: have known that when he came up and put on
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: these new clean clothes to go and worship God, that
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: he was still as filthy as he was before he
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: entered the water. That the words that were coming out
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: of his mouth when he was singing were empty and meaningless.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And the sacrifices that were being offered on his behalf
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: were absolutely useless because of the condition of his heart.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: When he's repented. When God has washed him and cleansed
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: him of his sin. When he has confessed it before God.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: And been forgiven by God. Now he goes to the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: same place that he went before. And when he is washed.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: It reminds him it's an outward picture of the inward
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: work that God has genuinely done in him. When he
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: sings the songs on his way up, they are no
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: longer just empty words. He's crying out to a God
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: who is there He's crying out to a God who
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: not only hears, but to a God who is present
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: with him, embracing him. And now when the sacrifice is offered,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: he recognizes now in that sacrifice the sins that he
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: has committed and the price that must be paid. This
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: reformation in his thinking changes everything. It changes everything. In
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the Protestant reformation, we didn't get a different, the gospels
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: are still the gospels, right? The word of God is
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: still the word of God. But now justification by faith
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Romans is Romans is Romans. It's always been Romans. But
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: when you unlock this door of justification by faith, Romans
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: is not just Romans anymore. Now Romans is Romans. You see,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: when we experience Genuine repentance. And God brings genuine revival.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: We now look back at everything that we do through
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: fresh new eyes. Sometimes that causes us to recognize that
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: we were doing things that we shouldn't have been doing.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it causes us to recognize that we weren't doing
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: things that we should have been doing. But it always
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: causes us to recognize that That we should never just
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: go through the motions. That we must think rightly about
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: all those things to which God calls us. And this
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: is true for you and me, beloved. It's even more
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: true because now we see more fully what David only
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: saw symbolically. David was walking up to this place where
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: he could see these sacrifices being offered, but these sacrifices
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: were only pointing forward to the ultimate sacrifice of David's
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: greater son. The once for all sacrifice of the Lord
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ on our behalf to cleanse us from our
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: sin our understanding of this is far greater. Our experience
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of this, far more significant because we now understand the
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: full picture of what it is that Christ has done
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: on our behalf through the cross. And beloved, my prayer
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: for you is that you get here. My prayer for
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: you is that you experience genuine repentance. Stop playing with sin.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: And I'm just going to go on and say it
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: because I know many of us are thinking it. How
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: many of us over the last however many minutes that
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: we've been together have been thinking about Steve Lawson? His
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: name's been on our minds. Friend, brother. But when you
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: think about Steve, is your thought, oh, I can't believe
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: he did that to us. Oh, I can't believe he
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: did that to his wife. Oh, I can't believe, is
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that your thought? My thought, my thought, my prayer is
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: that God would cause me to put him in this song. God,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: please bring him a prophet who will stand before him,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: open his eyes, speak the truth to him. God, please
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: break his heart over his sin. God, please bring him
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the genuine, authentic repentance of God, please, bring them to
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: genuine revival. God, please, bring them to genuine reformation. Not
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: woe is me because he was one of my favorites. No. No.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not. He, like us, is a sinner in need
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: of a savior. Our prayer for him, like our prayer
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for all of those in our lives and in our circles,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: ought to be that God would bring them to genuine repentance,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: that they would experience genuine revival, that they would experience
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: genuine reformation to the glory of God. Father, we do
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: thank you for your mercy, for the mercy of calling
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: us to repentance, for the mercy of allowing us to
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: see our sin as it really is. Grant by your
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: grace that we might walk in this repentance, that we
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: might yearn for genuine revival and that we might experience
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: true reformation. We pray this in Christ's name and for
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: his sake. Amen.