The Path to Personal Revival — E.A. Johnston

Psalm 24 and the Path to Personal Revival

Today we're going to be in the book of Psalms, friends, and you can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 24 now. We shall first read it, and then we will apply some aspects of this wonderful psalm to our lives in regard to what I call the path to personal revival.

David’s Songs of Victory and Deliverance

If you are familiar with the Psalms, you know that when David experienced a victory from God or a deliverance by God, his heart would burst forth in praises to his maker. Psalm 18 is a wonderful song of victory.

Psalm 27 is a prayer of praise for God's delivery. He writes, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And in Psalm 24, it's about the King of glory, and this King of glory is our focus today.

Reading the Psalm of the King of Glory

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His holy word. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, who shall stand in his holy place.

He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob, Selah. Lift up ye heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory?

The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up ye heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, the Lord of hosts.

He is the King of glory, Selah. What we see from this power-packed psalm of praise that David pens it, as he is jubilantly reflecting on his victory in battle, in the capture of the city of Zion, in the moving of the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, David begins his psalm with the acknowledgement of God's sovereignty and majesty in creation, then he moves on to certain conditions which must be met in order to ascend into this hill of the Lord, this mountain of the Lord, and this is our focus this morning, friends.

Psalm 24 as a Pattern for Personal Revival

I believe Psalm 24 lays out for us a perfect pattern for revival. It has all the elements of revival. We live in a day of the Laodicean church age where the church is in the grip of spiritual authority.

We go through the motions each Sunday as we play church. We meet more out of duty than true heartfelt devotion to our Lord. We're neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, our eyes, for the most part, are dry when we pray.

We need a fire under us to rouse us out of our spiritual declension, and personal revival is the solution to our present dilemma, and this little psalm shows us the path to personal revival. First, we encounter a question, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place, with the emphasis on the who, for not everyone can gain entry here into this holy place where the king of glory resides.

I've been in meetings where if you felt the power of God mighty in the sanctuary for the king of glory had stepped in through revival, his majesty, his authority, his manifest presence took over the meeting, and the people were bowed down, so that's what we're looking for.

We're looking for an encounter with this Lord, this king of glory, and we encounter this question here in Psalm 24 on the who, who may ascend into the hill, who shall stand in that holy place, and immediately we have an answer.

Clean Hands and Right Relationships

We see in verse four, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart. Clean hands speak of our dealings with our fellow man. This represents the horizontal plane of our life. Have we wronged another? Have we lied to someone?

Have we stolen anything from someone? This must be made right, friends, before we can go any further up the hill. To my shame, I remember years ago playing racquetball with a man from Sunday school class at church where I was the teacher, and I lied to him.

He asked me where I graduated college. Well, at the time, I was a college dropout, but I was too embarrassed to admit it, so I lied to this man. I gave him the name of a school and name of a graduation date, and all that week, I felt terrible under such conviction of sin.

Here, I had lied to him, and not only that, I was his Sunday school teacher. I had a higher accountability because of that, and I lied to him. Well, I made sure to get to church early the next week, and I cornered him in the hallway before class, and I confessed my lie to him and asked him for his forgiveness.

Well, he was deeply disappointed in me, but he said he forgave me, although he never came back to that class after that. But I had to make that sin right in my life before I could go further with God.

So it may be confessing a lie you told to someone, or it may be restitution that needs to be made to make a crooked thing straight again. I am reminded of a story told by Duncan Campbell of the Lewis Revival in Scotland.

Restitution as Evidence of Revival

He said he was preaching in a church when, in the middle of his sermon, an elder stood up and left abruptly. The man didn't come back to the meetings for several days, and Duncan Campbell thought he had offended the man with something he said in his sermon.

Well, after three days, the elder returned to the church and sought Duncan Campbell after the evening message. He went up to him and he said, I am sorry I left so abruptly from the meeting the other day, but while you were preaching, I heard a little dog bark.

Duncan Campbell replied, I heard no little dog bark. Oh, yes, said the man. While you were preaching, I distinctly heard a little dog bark, and I had to go take care of it. You see, years ago, when I was just a lad, I stole an expensive puppy from a neighboring farm, a hunting dog, and I took it to another village and sold it to a farmer for a hefty profit.

It's been my secret all these years. But while you were preaching, I heard that little dog bark, so I got up and left to go find the farm where I had years ago stolen their dog, and the man who owned the farm had died.

But his daughter now lived there, and I told her my story, and I asked for her forgiveness, and I gave her the money for the puppy, plus all these years' interest from the bank, and I made her take it.

Then the next day, I went to the neighboring village to seek out the farmer to whom I had sold the dog to. Well, the farmer had exchanged hands through the years, and it took me a whole other day of research, going about the village, knocking on doors, asking people where I could find the family who once owned that farm.

Well, I finally located a near relation and confessed my crime to him and gave him the money for the price of the dog, plus interest through the years, and made him take it. And I returned to church this evening with a heart full of God and praise.

A Pure Heart Before God

Well, that man had experienced revival because he made restitution for his sins. So this aspect of clean hands speaks of the horizontal plane in our life, of our dear feelings with our fellow man. Next, in our text, friends, we see the mention of a pure heart.

Well, this speaks of our relationship to God on the vertical plane of our life. Am I in an intimate love relationship with Jesus? Or is there a sin issue in my life that I need to deal with, but I refuse to give to him?

Well, this must be dealt with before we can ascend any further up into the hill of the Lord or even stand in His holy place. Our vertical relationship with God must be right, as seen in Amos 3 .3. Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

Well, of course not. It has to be made right. Now, picture in your mind, friends, this horizontal plane with my arms outstretched, representing my dealings with my fellow man. And then my arms go straight up above my head to represent my vertical relationship to God.

And when these two planes, the vertical and the horizontal, are within balance in my life, they form a cross. So we have the answer to our question, who may ascend? And it is the one with the clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully.

He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation. So who is this King of Glory, the Lord of Hosts? He is the King of Glory. Let us pray.