Setting Our Sails for Revival — E.A. Johnston

The Church’s Compromise and the Nation’s Darkness

The day pastors quit preaching truth and began preaching to please people, that's when the nation went to hell in a handbasket. When the church becomes like the world and it compromises the gospel message, then there is just darkness everywhere.

People are wandering around in the dark today and they have no light because the church has utterly failed to proclaim the true gospel of the Son of God. It's darkness, darkness everywhere. And when you see dark clouds gathering on the horizon and you know a bad storm is coming, and all you have to do, friends, to see what kind of storm is approaching this country today is to observe the signs all around us.

We're receiving threats from our enemies that we as Americans will soon be drowning in our own blood. We don't even take that threat seriously. And don't you think for a skinny minute, friends, that those terrorists are not already here in our country because we have open borders.

They are already here planning their attacks. They're just buying their time until they receive their signal to attack. And what makes matters worse is that a dirty bomb, a suitcase bomb, could wipe out 100 ,000 people in any of our major cities.

Moral Decay and the Church’s Failure

In our nation today, we're living in an epoch unlike it ever before in history. We're observing the crumbling of a society all around us through the moral decay of a nation. From the top down to the bottom, America is rotten.

And a rotten country is no good to anybody. All a rotten country does is infect other countries with its own decay. Our nation has legislated God right out of this country. And to be a follower of Jesus today is to be looked upon as a troublemaker and one who is intolerant towards the rights of others.

Our young people today are a godless generation of whose behavior would make the ancient Romans blush. They're sunk in sin. They're exchanging nude pictures of themselves with one another. And when they dance, they grind on one another like animals.

They experiment with bisexuality like it's no big deal. And when they're not high on drugs and booze, the only care they have is where their next thrill is going to come from. And where is the church in all of this?

As sound asleep at the wheel, the church has become like the society it failed to reach. The church is nothing more than a large corporation intent on expanding its own borders. Most pastors are so out of touch with the heart of God that they are now referring to Jesus as a rapper.

They call him JC. Their new mantra is, just let JC into your heart and you will go to heaven. Really? If you believe that, friends, you will surely perish in a burning hell. Listen, brother pastor, the Lord Jesus Christ is not a rapper.

He is a risen Lord who sits on a heavenly throne. And if you treat him casually, he will treat you the same way when you stand before him. And he declares, away from me, I never knew you. Listen, friends, you cannot count on the church today to give you any real spiritual direction because the blind are leaving the blind.

And they go off into a ditch themselves. The church itself is sunk in apathy and indifference to a world going to hell around them. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And there is hope if we follow the biblical pattern for turning back to the God of the Bible.

Revival as God’s Sovereign Work

Only a heaven sent revival will keep this nation from utter ruin and destruction. And only a heaven sent revival will wake up a slumbering church. We will examine today how to prepare for revival individually, corporately, and nationally.

And although I began this message with gloom and doom, I have a message of hope for us today. A message of hope, friends. My message is entitled, Setting Ourselves for Revival. And my text is found in the book of 1 Samuel, in chapter 7.

You may turn in your Bibles there now. We will be in verses 3 through 7. We need a message of hope today in this hopeless world. For this world is nothing more than a sunk vessel that's broken up upon the rocks and fallen apart.

But there's hope in the blessed hope, the Lord Jesus Christ. And God is a God of revival, friends. We just need to learn how to approach Him to seek revival in our day. Revival is a sovereign work of grace.

We cannot produce it or make it happen with money and manpower. Revival is not an evangelistic crusade where there's loud music, loud preaching, and loud praying. That's not revival. Revival is a sovereign move of grace sent from heaven above, and only God can send it.

I want to read you what my late mentor, Dr. Stephen F. Oldford, wrote in the foreword to my first book on revival called, Realities of Revival. What he wrote is pertinent to our study today. These are his words.

The sovereign work of God and the responsibility of man in revival are beautifully balanced and blended. Reading the book through for myself, I was forcefully reminded of an expository sermon on revival.

I heard from the lips of the great Dr. G. Campbell Morgan during my theological studies in London, England, many years ago. What the doctor had to say has helped me to understand how God and man come together in this holy business of praying down revival from heaven.

Let me paraphrase what I heard and remember. Revival is a sovereign work of God, Jesus declared. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.

So is everyone who is born or revived of the Spirit. Only God can command the revival wind, but we must set ourselves to catch that wind. When God blows, there you have it. We cannot produce revival, but we can ready ourselves to receive it when it comes.

It takes all we have and all that we can do, and God is always faithful to fulfill his promise to breathe on us from the four winds as seen in Ezekiel chapter 37. Well friends, I want to look at this aspect now of how we can set ourselves personally for revival, how we can set ourselves corporately for revival, and how we can set ourselves nationally for revival.

Israel’s Defeat and the Pattern of Return

For we desperately need revival in our day, or we're sunk. Let us read this passage from 1 Samuel and see the pattern laid out here for returning back unto God. Our passage deals with the catastrophe of how Israel sinned against God by bringing the ark into battle and mistaking a physical thing for God's presence and favor.

The ark was subsequently captured, and Israel suffered defeat at the hands of the Philistines. It was a horrible disaster for the people of God. Four thousand men were killed on the spot, and even worse, the holy relic was taken captive by God's enemies.

The people of God were trusting in the wrong resources because sin was in their camp. But God, in his mercy through his prophet Samuel, calls the people of God back to him and gives them a pattern for seeking his face and favor.

I will begin reading in verse 3. And may the God of revival bless the reading of his holy word. And Samuel spake unto the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and ashtoreth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

Then the children of Israel did put away Philem, and Ashtoreth, and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray for you unto the Lord. And they gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord.

And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah. And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines.

And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering, holy unto the Lord.

And Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord heard him. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomforted them, and they were smitten before Israel.

And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them until they came under Bathcar. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shan, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron even unto Gath.

And the coast thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the Philistines, and there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. Here in this power-packed passage from 1 Samuel, we see what's necessary to turn a people back to God, and how God answered the sincere repentance of His people by showing them favor and demonstrating His power over their enemies.

Repentance and a Complete Break with Sin

I want us to pay attention to the example found in our passage today, whereby we must do the same, and turn our hearts away from our sins, and repent toward God, and seek Him in earnest, and would sacrifice with our whole hearts by serving Him only.

And in doing so, set ourselves for God to turn and have mercy upon us today, and act on our behalf by pouring out His grace in revival and a national awakening, and to heal our land. Well, friends, let us look at what's required on our part before God can do His part in this matter of revival.

There must be a return back to God through repentance by turning from our sins and turning to God. There must be a complete break with sin, friends. The idols, the strange gods must be put away. Number two, the return must be a complete surrender of a whole heart.

God will not honor a divided heart, half set on Him and half set on the world. You cannot have a close walk with God, friend, and play footsie with the world. God doesn't want half-hearted service. The text in verse four declares that the people serve the Lord only.

Preparing the Heart Through Fasting and Prayer

Number three, there must be a prepared heart. Look how the people prepared themselves by fasting and prayer. In verse six, it speaks of how the people gathered together and drew water and poured it before the Lord.

This signifies pouring out of their hearts in repentance before God. Number four, the spiritual leaders must gather the people together and weep over the sins of the land and lead the people of God in true repentance and reformation.

We see in verse nine how Samuel cried unto the Lord and offered Him a sacrifice. I can't stress this enough, friends. Listen, the main reason the church in America is not seeing revival today is because of the prideful pastors who refuse to bow their neck and turn from their wicked ways and humble themselves before God and gather the people of God together in the sanctuary of God to pray and fast and seek His face for revival in our day.

Spiritual Leaders Calling the People to Repentance

In the book of Joel, it was the ministers of God who led the people of God to seek the face of God. Joel 2 .17 declares, Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach that he then should rule over them.

Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? Then will the Lord be jealous for His land and pity His people. And in the preceding verse in Joel, we see the pattern for the people of God in preparing their own hearts to seek and return to God.

Therefore also now saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God.

For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. There is sacrifice involved in seeing revival, friends. You cannot approach God lightly or casually.

You must be willing to spend evenings on your face before God in sackcloth and ashes, so to speak, in humility before God, in importunate, desperate prayer. When one studies historical revivals, there's always a common thread running through them in its desperate, prevalent prayer by the people of God, accompanied by sound doctrinal preaching from the ministers of God.

Sound Doctrine and the True Gospel

So much hinges on how much we preach today and on how we preach today. You can't hope to see revival, friends, with a perverted, watered-down gospel message proclaimed from the pulpits in the land. There must be a change in the heart of the people as they turn from their sins and turn back to God, and there must be a change in the message proclaimed by the messengers of God.

Truth must be preached, not a false gospel, but truth. That man is a sinner, a guilty rebel who's broken the holy law of God, and that man deserves punishment for his crime against the sovereign because the sentencing of the law must be carried out, and that unless you repent, you will all likewise perish in a burning, everlasting place of misery and torment called hell, and that God is the author of salvation and not man, that you must have saving faith, and only God can give it to you.

The biggest crime of the church in America today is that she has taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of man. A person must be awakened to their lost condition and convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and be a subject of mercy and grace through a regenerated heart and only a safe sinner who has his sins washed in the blood and who is born from above will make it into God's perfect heaven.

The Challenge to Prepare for Revival

So we have a pattern for revival found here in 1 Samuel, a clear description of how to set our hearts towards God and set ourselves to receive the revival winds when they begin to blow. The big question is, will we do it?

Will we do it? Will the ministers of God lead the people of God back to God and in the process turn this nation back to God? Or will pride win the day? With what is going on in our country and the instability all around us, I am shocked at the apathy on the part of the church in regard to praying and preparing for revival.

In my book on revival, I have a chapter entitled, Asleep in a Hailstorm, and in that chapter I state that the church is asleep in the midst of a storm all around us. Only I wrote that over a decade ago.

It's gotten much worse since then. I will close out this message, friends, with some of my quotes from that chapter on revival, on what's necessary today from our spiritual leaders, and I pray that we do it.

Brokenness, Consecration, and Holy Power

Instead of professionalism, what we need today is brokenness before Him. Instead of memorized prayers, heart cries. Instead of dry doctrine with no heart, wet eyes and a broken heart. Instead of pride backed by academic degrees, humility upon our knees.

Instead of new buildings and more ball fields, street preaching on corners and mission fields. Instead of easy believism during gospel invitations, we need repentance and consecration. Instead of living to please self and enjoy life, die unto self and live in the crucified life.

Instead of preaching with no power, incarnate preaching with holy ghost power. Will we do it, friends? Will we do it? If we don't, we're sunk and the nation is ruined.