Psalm 85. Psalm 85. If you have your Bible there with you, you can turn to Psalm 85. And we are going to talk tonight about such a cool topic and such a needed topic. It's like the Lord in his providence gave us a sermon on revival a few weeks before the election. And then next week, we get to hear another sermon about revival, because the next psalm is all about that too. And then the week after that, all about how God has all power to bring new birth. We need to hear these great things. Psalm 85, wonderful psalm of the sons of Korah. Follow with me as I read, beginning in verse 1. Oh Lord, you have shown favor to your land. You restored the captivity of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people. You covered all their sin, Selah. You withdrew all your fury. You turned away from your burning anger. Restore us, O God, of our salvation, and cause your indignation toward us to cease. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not yourself revive us again so that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your loving kindness, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will say, for he will speak peace to his people, to his godly ones. But let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Loving kindness and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth and righteousness looks down from heaven. Indeed, the Lord will give what is good and our land will yield its produce. Righteousness will go before him and he will make and will make his footsteps into a way. We desperately need a revival. We desperately need revival. And as we read earlier from Isaiah, may the Lord rend the heavens and come down. May he rend the heavens and come down. I was reading an article by J.I. Packer this week. I don't know of a man who's written more on the topic of revival solidly in the Reformed faith than J.I. Packer. J.I. Packer said, what is the only hope to overcome the secularism of our day? What is the only hope to overcome the apostasy and the great sinfulness of our day? Here's the answer that J.I. Packer gives. A God-sent revival. That's what we need. That's what our nation needs. That's the only hope that we have. But we pray for revival, we talk about revival, we read about revival. Maybe we need to define what revival is. You see there, J.I. Packer continues in your notes. He said, it is God accelerating and intensifying and extending the work of grace that goes on in every Christian's life. can sometimes be overshadowed and somewhat smothered by the impact of other forces, meaning it reaches out to the unbelieving world and the city and society and so on. Joel Beek, he gives a good definition. He says, revival is a significant spiritual awakening that renews the individual believer. It invigorates the church and it impacts society at large. It is, I love this, an extraordinary move of the Holy Spirit, leading to the conversion of many. It leads to the repentance of believers and the subsequent transformation of communities. Our good friend Al Baker has also written quite a bit on revival. He said, without earnest prayer and without humbling ourselves before God, brethren, we will never expect to see revival, but we have to seek the face of God. What does it mean to seek the face of God? You know, the Hebrew word for seeking the face of God means searching out, striving after, inquiring. Al Baker continues, to seek God's face begins with a heartfelt desperation, a hunger and a thirst for holiness, a zeal for the glory of God and the salvation and sanctification of sinners. There will be fervency and persistence and earnestness in prayer that will surely translate into longer times with God than you previously experienced before. Well, how long? How long do we have to pray and meet with God? Al Baker says, I don't know. It will vary from person to person. But what about it, my friends? Al Baker says, will you seek God for revival? Will you pray for revival? Brethren, if I could give an honest, humble plea to all of us. We can all benefit from this tonight. We can all grow from this tonight. And Psalm 85 will help you and it'll help me and guide us into praying for revival. Now, Psalm 85 was written by the sons of Korah. It almost sounds like one of those post-exilic Psalms, meaning it was written after the people of Israel were exiled to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar took them away for 70 years. Then they come back to their land and they say, oh Lord, restore what was once here. Rebuild us, bring us back to yourself. They pray, they plead, they beg for God's revival. They're begging for a divine awakening. And isn't it great to know that we serve God, the Holy Spirit, who loves to do that work? We serve the great God who is able to do this work. Look in your Bible. Let me just point out three of the prayers. There's a lot in here, but let me point out three. Look at verse four. Restore us, O God. Did you see that? Restore us, God. Do that work, O God of our salvation. Look at verse 6. Will you not yourself revive us again? Lord, I want you to revive us so that we, your people, may rejoice in you. Look at verse 7. Look at how it begins. Show us your covenant love, O Lord. Grant us your salvation. I mean, these are desperate prayers from the people of God. Al Baker writes, surely you agree with me that we must have revival or our nation will continue running rapidly toward a judgment like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Much of what is going on in our nation is earthly, natural, and demonic, according to James 4.15. But we have to go farther. Yeah, we need revival. I think we all acknowledge that. We need revival. But we will not see revival unless we pray. And we will not pray as we ought until we have the intolerable burden. Until we're sick of the status quo. I don't want to be comfortable anymore with the way things are. It's almost like a holy discontentment, if I can use that word. Lord, we want more of you. We want more of your power. We want the church to grow. We want more zeal. We want more missionaries. We want more evangelists. We're not happy with where things are now. We want more. We want more. Psalm 85 really helps with that. Psalm 85 gives us an example of urgent prayers for revival. Let's walk through it together, and I hope to remind you of the gospel. I hope to call all of us to pray for revival and then to look to Christ as well as our great giver of life and joy and peace. Okay, the first prayer. Here's the first example God gives. Number one, God, you forgave us. It all begins in verses one to three by looking to the past, remembering and recollecting and reflecting on the past. Kind of like forget none of his benefits. Remember what God has done? I mean, we'd do well to do that. Laying in bed tonight, what has the Lord done for my soul? Reflect on that. That's what they're doing right here as they're beginning their prayers. They are remembering. They are reflecting. They know that God has given them great mercy. Look at verse one. Oh Lord, you have showed favor to your land. You have restored the captivity of Jacob. I mean, these are hope-filled, comforting, truth-preaching verses. God, you've shown favor to us. What do you mean? What are the details? Check this out. Look at verse two. You forgave the iniquity. The word forgive is one of the greatest words John Bunyan wrote the Pilgrim's Progress, in large part the whole conversion event with Christian, when the burden was lifted off of him, is in large part derived from this concept of forgiveness. Because the word in verse 2 for forgive means that God lifts the burden off. You're weighed down with the burden of your sin, and God, in amazing power and grace, when you come to the cross like Christian did, and that burden was lifted off. God, you have done that. You've forgiven all of our iniquity. And then the end of verse two, you have covered all of their sin. It's a word for atonement. You've covered. You have put a covering over all of my iniquity so that you're hiding my sin from your eyes. And if that wasn't enough, the flip side of all of that is verse three. In two different ways, He says, you withdrew all of your fury and you turned away from your burning anger. I mean, this is reflecting, God, look at what you've done. You've lifted my sin off of me. You have covered all of my iniquities. You have satisfied your anger. You have appeased your burning wrath. As one writer put it, When you and I think of forgiveness in the Bible, it always includes the withdrawal of judgment. Some people on a college campus might say, God forgives everybody. But what about God's anger? They don't want to hear that. But when we rightly understand forgiveness, it means that God's judgment and his anger is turned away. I love the theology here and the great wisdom of God. Verse 2 is all about atonement. God covers our sin. Verse 3 is all about propitiation, God's anger. appeased. It's the same concept that we read about in the book of Romans when we speak about justification in Christ. Listen to this, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Is that you today? Are you blessed? Are you forgiven? Are you happy? Are you overjoyed by saying, all of my sin is You remember on what God has done. You remember and reflect on what Christ has done. Blessed is the man who has been forgiven by the Lord. Maybe tonight you can reflect. You can reflect on this opening heading. God, you've forgiven us. This is what you've done. We as a church can say that. God, look at what you've done to us. You've forgiven us as the people of God. If you're here tonight and God has not brought you into his loving fold, he offers a full forgiveness. Your sin, the burden of your sin, can be rolled away, as the hymn says, only by you trusting in the Lord Jesus and him alone. But that's how they begin praying. They begin praying by saying, God, you have forgiven us. after you reflect, now they call upon God for revival. Look at number two in your outline. God, oh, revive us. Revive us. I love how James Alexander put it. In order to have a mighty revival, what we especially need is for the whole church to be down on its knees before God. Past redemptions should make our cravings great. We know what God can do. He did it to me. He's done it to you. He's done it to us. We know he can do it again. We know he's able. In Revival, look at verse 4 and following. Let's just examine a little bit of how they pray. Verse 4, Restore us, O God, of our salvation. Cause your indignation toward us to cease. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? You know, when you pray for revival and God brings revival, often the Bible teaches and the history of the church also shows God brings revival in times of great hardship. Times of great hardship. Like the prayer in verse 5. Are you gonna be angry with us forever? Lord, we need you. We're desperate for you. We need an awakening. I mean, the Reformation. We could go all through church history. The Reformation. The gospel was there, but it was all but lost. except by a faithful remnant that had the gospel. And yet in comes a monk, Martin Luther, right? Preaching the word, writing the word, teaching and preaching and declaring the gospel, and God uses him. Great revival. Whitefield comes on the scene for the Great Awakening in the 18th century, all across the ungodly and the pagan Atlantic seacoast, and God saves many. God often brings revival in times of great hardship. And we're living in times that would qualify for that. Next in your outline, revival always is the work of God alone. Look at verse 6. Will you not yourself revive us again? Will you, like you, yourself, oh God, An evangelist can't create a revival. A good feeling can't create a revival. A missionary can't create a revival. A tent meeting can't create a revival. You know, we can't have a sign that says revival this Friday, you know, seven o'clock. God, God alone is the sovereign giver of revival. Now, in the Bible, we know that he uses means, and we know that there are ways that God works in bringing about revival, but we know that God alone is the one who brings the revival. In your outline, look at number three. It always produces gladness and joy in God. Verse six, will you not yourself revive us so that your people may rejoice in you? Don't, don't miss that. Revival, hear this. before it reaches the pagan unbelievers, in a true revival it does, but before it goes there, God's people are stirred. more than the status quo, more than church attending, more than just kind of doing a few things in the busyness of life for God. God awakens the people so that there is an overwhelming gladness, an overwhelming joy, an overwhelming sensitivity to sin, and a pursuit and hunger after God, so that the result is that it just bleeds out to the whole community. People are affected. Then in your outline, number four, what happens in revival? It always manifests covenant love. Verse seven, show us your loving kindness, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. What do you mean love? What do you mean show us your love? Let me help understand what the sons of Korah are saying. Show us the divine love that comes from God. Reveal that. We want fresh expressions. We want fresh glimpses. We want to see more of the greatness of God's love. But also, we want to have love for God. A true revival will result in love for God. And then a true revival will also bring a love for holiness. and a love for the lost in gospel proclamation. I suppose if we were to take our Bible right here in verses four to seven, and we sort of look at this prayer, oh God, revive us, here's what it means. When God brings revival, it means that God's people, hear this, are no longer self-absorbed, we are God-absorbed. We don't want to be a self-absorbed church, we want to be a God-absorbed church. Here's how J.I. Packer flushes that out. Revival always includes a profound awareness of your own sinfulness. It leads to deep repentance and heartfelt embrace of the glorified and loving and pardoning Christ. A church that has revival is full of life and joy and power in the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit of God comes upon His own people, there is fellowship with Christ that is brought to the center of our worship and devotion. The glorified Christ is known and shown and loved and served and exalted. We want that. We need that. We desire that. So J.I. Packer continues, when the divine power of God comes upon the preachers of the gospel, and by the way, there's no revival without the preaching of the gospel, but when divine power comes upon the preacher, hear this, it is a power that has nothing to do with the man's natural abilities. It has nothing to do with the guy up front or the man or the woman who's praying and begging the Lord and sharing the gospel. It has nothing to do with the natural abilities. It's all the almighty power of God at work upon a weak vessel used by him. But in times of revival, God also acts in a quick, in a speedy way. His work accelerates, we might say. Truth will spread. People are born again. People are growing in Christ with amazing rapidity. It's not like one person getting saved in a baptism here, and then a year later, somebody getting saved in a baptism there. I mean, it's hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands, the work of God. It's the work of God at a rapid pace. Let me give you an example. Maybe you've heard of the Welsh Revival. It's just a fun, fun story to read about. It was in 1904, 1905 in the country of Wales, and God began this amazing revival that lasted for decades with one man. A week? young, youthful man named Evan Roberts. So he was a seminary student, studied the Word, he went back home to his family, and he was invited to preach at a church. He was the seminary student here, so they invited him to preach. He began to do a circuit of preaching at churches. He had a simple four-point outline. It's often called the outline that brought the Welsh Revival. Four points. Really simple. Point number one in his sermon. We must confess our sin. Point one. Point two. We must repent of our sin. Now, confessing is agreeing with God. Repentance is forsaking that sin. Okay? Point number three. We have to trust Christ alone for our salvation. That's our only hope. Christ alone. And then point four in Evan Roberts's sermons, number four, we must surrender to the Holy Spirit and tell everyone that Jesus is Lord. I mean, just tell everybody. Now, God used a young seminary student He wasn't the smartest. He wasn't the most gifted. He wasn't the oldest. He wasn't the wisest. God used a man of prayer and a man who preached the Word in such a way, get this, that a couple of years later from that revival, I mean, historians are all over this, documenting it, that it is said that there were a hundred thousand people who were converted through the preaching and the impact of Evan Roberts and the work of the Holy Spirit in revival. In fact, 10 years later, one biographer said, 10 years later, not a biographer, a church historian said, 10 years later, most of those who had gotten saved were still members of churches. I mean, they're still walking with the Lord. That's what God does in a real revival. So what does that mean? Never underestimate the power of God to work a revival among his people. And never underestimate the power of God to use young people, to use single people, to use praying people for his glory. I love the account of George Whitefield. He preached the word with great power. He preached the word with great zeal. He would often stomp at the pulpit and he would hit the pulpit and he would be sweating as he was preaching and revivals were given by the Lord through his preaching, and through the gospel, he preached the ruin of sin, and the redemption in Christ, and the regeneration found in the Spirit of God, and it is said that there were dozens of pastors that said, I got converted hearing Whitefield preach. I mean, he preached to thousands and tens of thousands of people. God used him. What is our hope? It's our scripture. God, revive us. God, do this work in your people. Let's, let's come back to it. Look in your outline here. Number three, God bring great order. I'm thankful that God put this in the psalm because you can look all around and say, man, there is no order around us. No order. The reason I use that word order is because the word righteousness in the Hebrew concept can be thought of as order. It can also be thought of as order. There are promises here and in the future of a great order. Check it out. Verse eight. I will hear what God the Lord will say. He will speak peace to his people, to his godly ones, but let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him." And what we're about to read here in the next couple of verses are like a waterfall of peaceful showers. It's like all the streams of all these verses here all intersect in the Messiah. They all point to the work of Messiah. Look at verse 10. Loving kindness and truth have met together. That's what John said in John chapter 1. He is full of grace and truth. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth. Righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield the produce. What are the sons of Korah saying? They are looking for the fulfillment and the future in the kingdom of God. God's love and truth meet together where? In Christ. Righteousness and peace came together where? At Calvary. Truth and righteousness will span the whole earth. I like how John Calvin said it. He said in verse 10, the four virtues here, love, truth, righteousness, and peace are the cardinal virtues of the kingdom of Christ. That's what He's looking ahead to. We don't see it now, but we're looking ahead to that. We don't see it in our day, but we're looking ahead to that hope. What a Savior. What a Savior that God is our righteousness. Christ is our peace. He is our love. He is our truth. Brethren, if I can just say it simply, the only hope for our world The only hope for the order of our world is Jesus Christ. That's it. His kingdom, His glory, His beauty, His crown. He is the Lamb of God. And this is a prayer. This is how the sons of Korah are praying. They're begging God for revival. They're begging God to bring a work in reviving the people so that they will rejoice in God and it will impact many. And they're longing for that day when there will be order. Order. But there's a question, though. I think I put this in your outline at the bottom. Why do we often not pray for revival? I think it's a legitimate question that we should ask. I put these here because it's kind of the fruit of my own thinking and honestly the confession of my own heart, right? Number one, we're often too comfortable. I'm comfortable the way things are. Number two, We're too busy. I mean, when God brings a revival, let's just say it's going to interrupt everything. It just interrupts. I mean, when there's thousands of people and hundreds of people that are converted and they got to be baptized, they got to be discipled, they need to be mentored. I mean, that's labor, that's work, that's discipleship, that's like all hands on deck. We can be too comfortable, we can be too busy. Third, I've not seen it happen. And maybe there are little ways in which God has been working. You think of the Jesus movement, perhaps in the 1970s or so, that could legitimately perhaps be a work of God in that way. But sometimes we don't pray for revival because I just haven't seen that change. I haven't seen it with my own eyes. Number four, we don't pray for revival perhaps because we're ill-taught. Not a sin, just haven't been taught to pray for it. Number five, we may not pray for revival because, well, we just might be against change. No, no, no, no, no. We've always done it this way. No, we like having a small church and doing it this way and having an uninterrupted plan and program. But God's ways are not our ways, right? And his agenda is not according to our agenda. So let me draw this to a close by saying this. Church family, God is willing to bring revival. He's willing to bring revival. God is able to bring revival. He is Savior. He is the transformer of the hearts of men. Do we believe that God can convert thousands and thousands and thousands of people? Sure. Jonah is true. day of Pentecost is true. The Reformation that just swept through Europe happened. The Great Awakening, both across the Atlantic and here in the colonies, happened. We pray for God to bring revival. He's given his gospel. He's given the Spirit of God. And he said, open your mouth wide and I'll fill it. He can save. He can visit us. He can He can bring this great work. You know, I think of the lamb who will receive the reward of his sufferings. Don't you think it would be great if there were more around the throne that came to that throne by means of a heaven-sent revival, in part because of men and women praying. Pray for God to do that work. Charles Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon gives a final exhortation. Let me just read, I think you have it there in your notes. If not, I'll read it slowly. But Spurgeon said, oh, men and brethren, What would my heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would go home and pray for a revival of religion? Men whose faith is large enough and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions. That God would appear among us and that God would do wondrous things here as in the times of former generations. God is able. And we have a sample prayer right here. When we don't know how to pray for revival, let's go down to our knees and open up the Word and pray for God to do this great work. Amen? Father, thank you for the clarity and the authority and the inerrancy of your word. And Lord, we humbly ask that you would work in our hearts, God. We humbly ask that you would stir all of our hearts, every one of us, even the boys and girls, from the youngest to the oldest, that we would pray for revival. We pray and ask that you would come and visit us that you would rend the heavens and come down, that you would magnify your great name. Thank you for this word. Thank you for this psalm. Thank you now for this time of prayer. In Jesus' name.