When Revival Comes

I love Don Whitney for a lot of reasons. I love Don Whitney because he's a Southern Baptist who has a high view of God's Word. I love Don Whitney because he's a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I had all the different things about Don, what he's done and and what he's written, but I just thought I'd summarize them just with a few quick points. I love Don Whitney because he loves the church. I love men and women who love God's local church.

I love Don because his books are incredibly easy to read yet dense with theological weight. I have all his books, at least the ones I know that are published. But I especially love Don because he has been a pastor and been in pastoral ministry for 24 years and he doesn't come across as some professor with just theories.

He understands the Lord, the shepherd, and the Lord's sheep. It's a privilege really for me to call him friend and Don I just want to say on behalf of the church thank you for ministering to us and we love the word and we love God and his servants and so please come and minister to us.

Thank you Mike and I echo his.

Statement, you should have been here Friday night and Saturday. Physician, heal thyself. Thank you Bible and Turn to Acts chapter 2 and as you are I bring greetings to you from Dr. Al Mohler, my boss, Dr. Russell Moore at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and I'm grateful for the friends that God has given me in this church.

Delighted to have had your pastor as our doctoral student and gave him his doctor's degree on that sunny day in May last year. We're delighted he is teaching for us at our extension here in the Boston area.

That's why he was unable to be here. He was teaching at one of our 16 extension centers that we have at Southern Seminary. So we're honored, pleased to have him teaching on our behalf. Thank you for sharing him with us and allowing him to do that and I thank you for your hospitality as I've been here.

Many encouraging responses. It's not often I go and preach and teach at a place where I get so many good encouraging responses like the one that was just a moment ago but unsolicited as people come and are grateful for the Lord's work and so that really means a lot to me.

This is my second time here. It was about four and a half years ago. A lot of things have happened since I was here in my life since then but I am delighted to be back. I hope it's not four and a half years before the next time.

Revival and Reformation: What They Are and Why They Matter

I have a rather unusual goal for my life. I long to see God-given reformation and revival and to be used to God in spreading those. Now reformation is what we, by the Spirit of God, can do. Revival is what God alone can do.

When I speak to students I say, you know, the Bible says give attention to the public reading of Scripture, as you did this morning from 2 Chronicles 6. It says to give attention to the public reading of Scripture.

If your church does not do that you can bring about that reformation this Sunday. Simply add Scripture reading. You can do that but revival is what the Lord alone can do. That often through the reforms that he's guided us to he brings an unusual, an extraordinary blessing upon the ordinary means of pastoral ministry.

By revival, of course, I remind you that this is not a series of meetings called revival. It's not something we schedule in advance or announce in advance. It's unfortunate that in many quarters of the church the word revival has come to refer to a meeting of Christians rather than a moving of God.

But what I mean by revival is a rather rare thing in the church in America in the last 150 years and even when God has moved in some unusual and powerful ways it has not been as widespread as it was in our nation's history in the 1700s and 1800s.

Which means that despite the occasional times that many of us could testify about where we were at a particular church service or a particular series of meetings over a number of days where God did an unusual work and we saw things we'd never seen before nor since as God in such a concentrated way seemed to do such a powerful work.

It is almost certain that no one in this room, myself included, has ever seen what I'm referring to today when I use the word revival. We have heard about it, we have read about it and what I have read and heard is so remarkable that if it weren't for these first-hand accounts I would not believe it because it tends to go so far beyond any other encounter with the Lord we've had that it's just almost incredible.

What I mean this morning by revival really is the closest thing to heaven on earth. That's a phrase we sometimes use, heaven on earth. If heaven is our going up to God the nearest thing to heaven on earth would be God comes down to us right?

The nearest thing to heaven on earth would be that when the Lord answers the prayer we might pray using the words of Isaiah, oh that you would rend the heavens and come down as fire causes the water to boil and so forth.

We pray God's spirit would come down upon us in such a way that it would be evident that God is at work in unusual, unusual ways. The best account of revival in the Bible is Acts chapter 2. 10 days prior to the event recorded here the resurrected Jesus Christ has ascended back to heaven.

120 of his disciples have been assembled and praying together in an upper room in Jerusalem and if the one they show us when you tour Jerusalem is indeed the one where they met some of you probably been there.

It's approximately the size of one half of this room. So we have I guess this morning probably some, if you take about two-thirds of the number of people in this room today and put them all in one half of the room that's what it would have been like for 10 days as they were praying for the Lord to come down and they were doing that in obedience to the Lord's command that they gather in Jerusalem and pray.

The tenth day of this gathering was Pentecost, one of the major Jewish holidays. A day when Jews from all over the Mediterranean world, in fact, would have closed up their shops, left their homes in the care of their neighbors and made their way to Jerusalem for this annual celebration.

But on this Pentecost, the Spirit of God came and came upon every believer in Christ gifting them for some sort of ministry, burdening them with the passion to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now since that morning, every born-again believer in Christ is inhabited by the Spirit of God and gifted for service from the first moment of faith forever.

But this was the first time that the Spirit of God had ever come in such power on all believers. And in some ways, let's make clear that Pentecost is unique. There will never be another Pentecost, just as there will never be another incarnation, another crucifixion, another resurrection for the Savior.

There will never be another Pentecost. Despite how the Lord may move in response to prayers for revival in spite of what he may do as he culminates the ages, there will never be another Pentecost in exactly the same way.

But in other ways, Pentecost is a template for what every true revival will be like. Every powerful moving of the Holy Spirit will follow some of the examples of Pentecost. And that's the perspective I want us to see Acts chapter 2 from today.

I am convinced, as I will make plain at the end, that we have good reason to believe we may see revival in our lifetime. But when revival does come, when the Spirit of God does move in ways unlike we have ever seen before, how will we be able to evaluate what we've seen, what we see, and say, yes, that is a moving of the Spirit of God?

How will we discern the true from the counterfeit? Satan doesn't counterfeit that which is not valuable. Just as counterfeiters don't counterfeit nickels, they counterfeit $20 bills, $50 bills, the same way Satan doesn't counterfeit those, you know, things we might consider ordinary and minor, but rather great movings of the Spirit of God.

That's always been the case. In fact, you could argue that's what brought an end to the first great awakening that originated here in this state. But how will we discern? That's important to know even now.

There are people now who preach that we are in the midst of a great revival and have been for some time in America now. Well, if so, God save us from revival. But how will we know? How will we keep from being deceived that certain fervor is revival?

Well, I want to give you four characteristics from Acts chapter 2, all beginning this way. When revival comes, it's the theme of the message. First of all, when revival comes, we won't be able to stop telling of the mighty deeds of God.

We won't be able to stop telling of the mighty deeds of God. I take this from the first 11 verses, particularly verses 4 and 11 in Acts chapter 2. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place in this upper room.

And suddenly, there came from heaven a noise, like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributing themselves and rested on each one of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now, there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.

And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were bewildered because they were each one hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and marveled, saying, Why are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya, round Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.

So the Spirit of God came down in these tongues of fire, distributing and resting themselves on each one of them, and it set their tongues on fire. Now, what is often the focus of this passage is the nature of these tongues.

It's very evident in this passage that these tongues are known languages because these people come together and they hear these people talking. Perhaps by this time they've spilled out into the street.

But nevertheless, you've got these Jews from all over the Mediterranean world, people who were native Jews, but born somewhere else in the Mediterranean Basin. And so they had this local language of where they were born.

And they hear these people who are Galileans speaking in these different languages. Here are these Arabs and they hear them speaking in their language. And here are these people from Rome and they hear them speaking in Latin and different languages and they're saying, we don't understand this.

So it's clear that they were known languages. But what is often overlooked in this controversy is what they were saying when they were speaking in these tongues. Verse 11 says, we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.

And when revival comes, when the Spirit of God comes powerfully on a people, that's one of the ways you know you're unable to stop speaking of the mighty deeds of God. As I've said, I've never seen revival.

You would have to convince me that anyone in this room has. Perhaps there's some people from other nations who have seen God move in what we would call revival in a limited way. But I have not seen it.

But I have seen an occasional just glimpse of one or two of these things. And in this one in particular, I would illustrate this way. When I was pastoring in the Chicago area for 15 years, we became convinced it was God's will for us to build a place of worship.

We'd been meeting in what had been originally designed to be the Fellowship Hall. We had been in there for some 20 something years. We believed it was God's will for us to build a place of worship, but it was also God's will for us to do that without going in debt because we would have though we were giving like something like 28 to missions.

We would have instantly been putting more in interest on the building loan than all missionary causes combined. And we didn't believe that was God's will for us to do that. So we were committed to the idea of building without debt, which means pay as you go and we were going to do most of the work ourselves and with volunteers from Southern Baptist churches, many of whom do this as a ministry of their church.

That's just their regular mission trips every year. They send these teams to help churches build buildings debt-free. And so we had no millionaires in the church. We had no way of saying, well, if this comes together and if that guy comes through and if everyone averages this much giving and so forth, we can pull it off.

We just had no way of knowing that. But we did have to have enough money to build what? So we had to gather money so we know what to plan for. I mean, are we going to build a Sears metal shed, you know, the size of this?

Are we going to build a Crystal Cathedral? What are we going to build? We don't know until we get enough money put together. And we wanted to be able to build in such a way that we could finish it off, at least externally, and have it where we could occupy it.

It may not be finished. We might have concrete floors and metal chairs, but we'd have heat. We'd get a certificate of occupancy. We could use it. Well, we, at that time, thought we needed $350 ,000. We eventually needed $450 ,000 for this building because basically we're just paying for materials costs.

But we had started raising money in 1989. And by now, this is 1992. Our people were tired of raising money, frankly, especially with having nothing to show for it. And so we were going to have one final great day of giving, we call it, March 22, 1992, in which we were going to ask people once more to sacrifice and give.

And then from that, we hoped to immediately begin breaking ground in the spring. And so the Sunday morning came. And I remember coming up Park Street and turning left onto Butterfield Road. The snow was falling.

That Sunday morning came, and so did the snow. And I remember making that left turn to go to church and the back end of the car swerving and almost going into the ditch. And simultaneously, I remember thinking, Lord, you've got the wrong day.

We don't need snow today. We need everybody to be there today. Well, we needed at least $50 ,000 that day to, again, at least make it where we could occupy it. To the world, to the outside, it would look finished.

We could use it on the inside. I knew if we had another $50 ,000, we could do the carpeting, the pews, the final touches, and so forth. But I had not had the courage to mention that kind of figure to our people.

Only with the deacon chairman, the Wednesday night before, as we had prayed, I had mentioned that, and later he said, you know, you would have been crazy to mention that amount of money at that time. But I still have that Sunday morning where people came, gave an offering at the end of the service, went down the hall to eat a meal while the money was being counted.

I still have the slip of paper where I was told the Lord had provided that day $99 ,000. I explained what I had just said to you. A man went down the hall, wrote a check for $1 ,000. We walked out of there that day with $100 ,000.

That man said, you know, I felt like I ought to do that during the service, but I thought, no, I'm just getting caught up in the momentum of the day and so forth. When he heard the story, he wrote the check that meant we walked out with $100 ,000.

Well, we drove home, got out of the car, crossed the street from us, lived in an unconverted family. He was outside. I went over and said, I have to tell you what God did in our midst today and told him about that.

Came back to the house, unlocked the door, there's our cat Solomon. I said, Solomon, you're not going to believe this. In all your kitty life, you've never heard anything like this. I went past the cat, right to the telephone, picked up the phone and started calling family members in other states and said, you're not going to believe what God has done in our midst today.

We came back on Sunday night and I said, how many of you were compelled to tell someone what God did in your very midst today? And nearly everyone raised their hand. Flesh and blood could not contain what God had done in our own midst.

God had done something too powerful not to talk about it. We could not, not talk about it. That's what it's like when revival comes. Like in Acts chapter 2, we are unable to stop speaking of the mighty deeds of God.

We are compelled to speak because God has done something so powerful, so wonderful. Now, when revival has an impact over large areas of the country, great numbers of unconverted people are swept into the churches.

These have often been called, as you know, great awakenings. During the first great awakening, which came in two waves in the 1730s and early 1740s, Jonathan Edwards from over in Northampton wrote of how passionately people in this state wanted to tell others of the work of God and of the gospel so they'd be converted also.

He said, persons, after their own conversion, have commonly expressed an exceeding great desire for the conversion of others. Some have thought they should be willing to die for the conversion of any soul, though one of the meanest of their fellow creatures are the worst of their enemies.

And many, indeed, have been in great distress with desires and longings for it. Who's your worst enemy? Who's the person, when you hear their name or you hear their voice, your stomach begins to churn?

Now, imagine yourself being willing to die to see that person come to Christ. You say, Don, you don't understand what they've done. No, you've never seen revival. In revival, we become like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.

You remember her story. She had had five husbands. She's living with a man who wasn't her husband. She comes out to the well where Jesus is resting at noonday because the other woman would come out in the cool of the day.

She was ashamed. It was expelled from their social circle. So she came out by herself to get water. And she encounters Jesus. And apparently, in that encounter, she's converted. She leaves the water pot and goes back into the city.

And the Bible explicitly says she went to the men of the city to tell them about Jesus. Now, it was an improper thing in that culture and at that time for a woman to approach a man and begin a conversation with him, lest it be misconstrued by the man or by people who are watching.

But on the other hand, everyone in town already knew what kind of woman this was. And it may be that she went to the men precisely because these men have come secretly to her in the past. But the most remarkable thing is not that.

It's her message. She says, come see a man who told me all the things that I have done. Now, think about that. How would you respond to that message? How would you respond, Mike, if I came up and said, I've just met the most amazing man.

He just told me every sin I've ever committed in my whole life. Come here, I want you to meet him too. No thanks. Especially if that invitation came from someone with whom you had committed sin, perhaps.

And yet they go. They go with her. And they see her tears and she doesn't care that they see her tears. She is shouting this in the streets. Why? Because it's just so remarkable. This is the most amazing fellow.

He must be psychic or something. I don't know. He knows all about me. Isn't this astonishing? You want to come meet this very interesting man? No, that wasn't it. It wasn't because he had so supernaturally exposed the sins of her past.

It was that he had removed them. And she didn't care who heard about her past. She didn't care about her tears. And she didn't care about all of these things as long as she could talk about the mighty deeds of God.

And we become like that woman in Revival. We don't care who knows about our sins or our past as long as we can tell them how Jesus has delivered us from them. And in Revival, we see the same kind of response that this woman saw.

Despite the danger of having their sins exposed, it says in verse 42 of John chapter 4, they wanted to know more about Jesus. They went out and they came back saying to her, It's no longer because of what you say that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world.

What a remarkable story. That's what it's like when Revival comes. Like that woman at the well. Like those in Edwards Day. We cannot stop speaking the mighty deeds of God. The work of God is so powerful that our flesh and blood cannot contain it.

And that's the way it will be for you. Though you are the most shy, retiring person in the church. One who, by the Spirit of God, wants to tell people about Jesus. And you often are prompted that you ought to witness in this or that situation.

But you almost never do so for fear of saying the wrong thing or because you're so shy. Even you find yourself unable to stop speaking of the mighty deeds of God. You say, Don, you don't know me. You don't know what a reluctant witness I am.

No, you've never seen Revival. When Revival comes, we cannot stop speaking of the mighty deeds of God. Second, when Revival comes, there will be a renewed emphasis upon Jesus. And a recovery of the Gospel.

A renewed emphasis upon Jesus. A recovery of the Gospel. I take this from Peter's sermon. And I want to begin dipping in in chapter 2 there, verse 22. And down through verse 36. And what I want to point out is just in his sermon how often he refers to Jesus.

Notice this. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus, the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him. In your midst, just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.

And God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says of him, and he gives this prophecy from David about Jesus. And then verse 31, speaking of David there, he looked ahead in this prophecy and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh suffer this decay.

This Jesus, God raised up again to which we are all witnesses. Verse 36, therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him, both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

That's what it's like when revival comes. There is a renewed emphasis upon Jesus and a recovery of the gospel. The message of the church is no longer focused on success or self-esteem or coping or politics or family or doing good or keeping rules or avoiding rules or anything else is not the primary message anymore.

The message becomes Jesus. And there's a recovery of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And brothers and sisters, we need that today. Let me illustrate how we need that. That even in a church, it would be at the top of churches where the Bible is preached, the gospel is preached.

Suppose I distributed each one here a sheet of paper. And in doing so, I said, how many times do you think you've heard the gospel in your life? Those of you who have been in church all of your life, some might say, roll your eyes and say, probably thousands of times.

And that's probably true. And then I would say, being a professing Christian, you had to understand it in order to believe it. When you became a Christian, right? Right. Write it down for me, would you?

On that sheet of paper you have, just write, think of a paragraph, write the gospel in a paragraph. My pastoral experience is a great number of people would freeze. And I would say, now, wait a minute, didn't you just tell me you've heard the gospel thousands of times?

And that you had to understand it to believe it. You can't be a Christian without believing the gospel. And you can't believe it without understanding it. So you understood it well enough to believe it.

And you've heard it thousands of times, right? Just write it down. And remember, the gospel is not, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. If you're going to write that, that's not the right answer.

That's not the gospel. That's the appropriate response to the gospel. That's what you should do after you hear the gospel. What is the gospel? What is the one message by which we are made right with God?

What is the one message apart from which we will not go to heaven? Are you clear on that one message? If you're not, how in the world are we going to communicate? If we can't do this in the friendly confines of our local church, how in the world can we do this out in the world?

How is it possible for someone in the conflict of the world to share the gospel with someone if right in our own church? We can't even write it down. Folks, if there's one message in the world we must be clear on, it's the gospel.

It's more important to be clear on that than your social security number, than any computer password, than anything else. You won't go to heaven without understanding the gospel. What is the gospel? Sadly, my supposition is there would be a huge percentage of people in this church who would have to admit, I don't think I could clearly write the gospel.

And folks, if in this church that would be so, what is it like in most of the churches? When revival comes, there is a renewed emphasis upon Jesus. There's a recovery of the gospel. And we need that. The gospel and the message centered around Jesus.

This is our unique message. Never teach a Sunday school lesson that would not offend someone in a Jewish synagogue. Never teach your children merely character and morals apart from relating it to Christ, lest you make little Pharisees out of them.

It is the centrality of Christ in our message that makes us Christians. A Christian preacher is someone who regularly preaches Christ. A Christian Sunday school teacher is someone who declares Christ in teaching the Bible.

A Christian parent is one who relates everything to Christ to their children. So you don't just teach them good morals and character, but this is part of what a Christian does. This is how we honor Christ.

The Apostle Paul, in his preaching, no matter what he preached on, he was never more than an arm's length away from the gospel. Everything was related to Christ. He could speak on something as mundane as relationships in the home.

Everyday life in the home. And we ought to also, because it's in the Bible. But when he would talk about that, he'd say, Husbands, love your wives. How, Paul? As Christ loved the church. Everything related to Christ.

Over and over he said things like this, We proclaim Him. We do not preach ourselves, he said, But Christ Jesus as Lord. Over and over he made those kinds of statements. And throughout the New Testament, it's filled with phrases like, In Christ.

Of Christ. For Christ. Through Christ. By Christ. To the glory of Christ. Christ was the example. He was the reason. It was his authority. Everything, for Paul, was related to Christ and it ought to be that way for us.

That alone is what makes us unique in the world. That is the uniqueness of the Christian message. It's a message about Christ. And we must recover that. And we're always on the danger of losing that. It is easy to preach the text, Pastor, and not preach Christ.

If you preached on the text this morning that you read, He is not mentioned specifically in that passage. We have to be intentional of seeing the Bible as a Christocentric book. So Sunday school teachers, regardless of the topic, regardless of the text, Families and family devotions and teaching your children, Always relate it to Christ.

That was Peter's example in this passage. He was preaching Christ. And when revival comes, this gospel of Jesus Christ is recovered. And it becomes a solemn message as it was for Peter there in verse 40.

And with many other words. This wasn't all that he preached. With many other words, he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them saying, Be saved from this perverse generation. That wasn't a message that was filled with smiles throughout, As you might hear on television.

Some smiling teddy bear you want to come up and hug after every sermon. Sometimes it is that way. I think it is one of the reasons why so many turn to such a man on television. He is the only man who ever speaks of the things of God with a sense of hope And like he is happy about it.

But this was a solemn message. When we are preaching Christ, we are dealing with the four last things. Death, judgment, heaven and hell. And they are real. And that is nothing to joke about. So we don't see the gospel anymore as a message of something that needs to be propped up.

Needs entertainment to attract interest to it. It is a solemn message. But we will have when the spirit of God comes like this, A new confidence in the message of the gospel. And no reliance on our methods of communicating it.

That we realize the power of God is in the gospel. Not in the methods of communicating the gospel. 1 Corinthians 1 .17, Paul says something very interesting. When he said, Christ did not send me to baptize.

Now we get our doctrine of baptism from Paul. Paul taught baptism. What he means is, he didn't just send me around to immerse people. And whether I said anything or not, all I had to do was immerse them and thereby they are saved.

They are going to heaven. No, that is not what he sent me to do. But to preach the gospel. Notice the next word, not. He did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not. He sent me to preach the gospel, but not in certain ways.

He sent me to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech. That the cross of Christ should not be made void. If that phrase were not in the bible, I would not think it possible to make the cross of Christ void.

But the cross of Christ can be made void by preaching the gospel the wrong way. He sent me to preach the gospel, not in certain ways. Because there are certain ways of communicating the gospel that void the gospel of its power.

There is a phrase that many of us have used. There is a grain of truth in it. When we talk about, well, we don't want to change the message, we just want to change the methods. Well, this verse teaches us there are some methods that don't change the message, but void it of its power.

For instance, I could tattoo John 3 .16 on my chest. The message would never change, would it? The unchanging message of the gospel. But that method would trivialize and debase the gospel. So, any method that calls attention to itself and not the message is the wrong method.

If people walk out remembering the method and not the message, it's the wrong method. And when revival comes, we have this new confidence in the message. That if we will simply and plainly communicate the message, God's spirit will empower that.

And the message does not need to be propped up or doesn't need entertainment to attract interest in it. Because as Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it, the gospel is the power of God and the salvation.

Everyone who believes. It's the gospel. Not how you communicate the gospel, it's the power of God and the salvation. It is the gospel, not what you do after you preach the gospel, that's the power of God and the salvation.

It is the gospel that is the power of God and the salvation. Which is why we must be clear on it, first of all, for ourselves and for our families and for others, of course. And when revival comes, we understand this.

We seek to renew this centrality of Christ in our preaching and teaching and discipleship and parenting. Centrality on the gospel. We realize it is crucial to know the gospel. Teach the gospel to your children so that they can repeat it and understand it clearly even if they haven't believed it yet.

Make sure that they know this one message by which we are made right with God. That our God who created us is the one whose laws we have repeatedly and willingly broken. And by doing so, we are under the righteous wrath of God.