00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Zechariah chapter 8, the 8th
chapter of Zechariah. Good to see you here this evening.
Good to be with you for another time around the Word of the Lord. And as we gather together, of
course, there is the consciousness of our great need of the Lord
to visit us and really come among us with power. And I trust you
have been praying for that. And even as the Word is being
preached, Pray that the Lord will be gracious to us and minister
to our hearts and visit our souls and give help as we consider
the message for tonight. So we'll keep our Bibles open
and we'll just bow in prayer again and ask the Lord's help
before we come to this passage. Father in heaven, we continue
before Thy throne of grace. We thank Thee for the way to
Thee by the blood of Jesus. Lord, we come always focusing
upon that new and living way, for we realize that in us there
is no good thing, we have no merit whatsoever, no righteousness
to plead. O Lord, we come depending fully
upon the righteousness of another. We thank Thee that the Lord is
our righteousness, and we pray, Father, that Thou wilt hear us
for His sake, and Thou wilt visit us tonight here In this time
that we spend in consideration of the Word, we pray for fresh
power. Lord, what we have known already
is not sufficient for now. We need Thee to come and breathe
on us again. And Lord, we pray that this will
be our portion at this very moment and right on through the time
that's given to the consideration of the Word of the Lord. Heavenly
Father, breathe on me, breathe on the people. Come down among
us, we pray. We ask, Lord, that Thou wilt
graciously come tonight and visit our souls and meet with us here
in this season around the Scriptures. Hear and answer prayer and bless
us, we pray in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. So, Zechariah
chapter 8, and we'll read part of the chapter. Just the closing
section, we'll refer to earlier parts as we look into the message,
but just to read from verse 18 down to verse 23. And the word
of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth,
and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall
be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts. therefore love the truth and
peace. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts,
It shall yet come to pass that there shall come people, and
the inhabitants of many cities, and the inhabitants of one city
shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before
the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts. I will go also, yea,
many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of
Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. Thus saith the
Lord of Hosts, In those days it shall come to pass that ten
men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even
shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying,
We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. And the Lord will bless the reading
of this His own precious Word. Now Zechariah, as far as his
person is concerned, was one of the post-exilic prophets,
namely those prophets who ministered to the Lord's people at the time
and afterwards in relation to the return from the captivity
and the exile in Babylon. And this means that in his day,
Zechariah's ministry was to the remnant, that company of people
who were called upon by the Lord to return to Jerusalem, called
upon by the Lord to rebuild God's house and restore the true worship
of the Lord. And in those three words, return
and rebuild and restore, we have summed up essentially the work
and the ministry of the remnant of God's people in every generation. The remnant is that company of
believers who may be regarded as spiritual pioneers. And I
know that in the history of our own denomination, we've often
focused on the thought of the remnant and on the concept of
the remnant as it's found throughout the Word of God. And certainly
we would have thought of ourselves to quite a degree as being a
remnant whom the Lord called out. brought out of the apostasy
of our days to pursue that vital work of rebuilding and seeing
the restoration of the things of God again, those precious
things that to such a degree have fallen away. And certainly,
therefore, the remnant's work is to see something of that done
after the spiritual desolation of a former generation. Therefore,
it is vital that the remnant are encouraged in their labor
for the Lord, what they're doing in their ministry and in their
work for Jesus Christ. And certainly this remnant people
who lived in those days represented by Zechariah were a people who
really needed to be encouraged. And therefore, Zechariah's ministry
was truly one of rich encouragement. The thrust of his ministry was
directed to give momentum to the work that had been allotted
to these people, that work of rebuilding. And as we think about
the ward and we think about what happened in these days, we certainly
know that literally and physically there was a rebuilding. There
was the rebuilding of the temple. You may remember the story of
how that magnificent building that Solomon had raised up for
the Lord, had been destroyed at the time of the captivity,
and now there's need for it to be rebuilt. And that did take place in these
days in which Zechariah lived and other men who were his contemporaries.
The temple, of course, was the center of the spiritual life
of the nation. It symbolized God's presence. Its whole system of worship was
directed toward presenting to the people the only way, the
one and only way of true approach to God, namely through the shed
blood of the appointed sacrifice. That really was the heart and
life of all that took place in the temple as it stood there
in Jerusalem after being rebuilt and the people came there to
bring their offerings and to meet with the Lord. They were
always reminded that the only way to God is upon the ground
of the blood and through the atoning sacrifice. And to the
end of the rebuilding of that temple, of course it was not
so magnificent, the second temple, as the one that Solomon had put
up, but to the end of the rebuilding of that temple by this remnant
people, Zechariah was sent by the Lord along with his colleague
Haggai to encourage these people and to help them in their work. If you turn back to Ezra just
for a moment, you'll see how these two men served the Lord
together. Back into that little book of
Ezra and into chapter 5 and also a verse or two in chapter 6. Ezra chapter 5, look at the first
two verses where we read these words, Then the prophets, Haggai
the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Ido prophesied unto the
Jews that were in Judah and in Jerusalem, in the name of the
God of Israel, even unto them. Then rose up Zerubbabel, the
son of Shealtiel, and Jashua the son of Josedach, and began
to build the house of God, which is at Jerusalem. And with them
were the prophets of God helping them." Those are very important
words. With them were the prophets of
God helping them. These prophets. were there to
help, they were there to encourage, they were there to give, as I
say, momentum to the work and enable the Lord's people to see
the whole focus that the Lord had set before them and see the
direction in which their work was to go. These men were there
to help them. It may even be that they lent
a hand in the physical labor. I wouldn't be surprised if that
thought was also contained in what it says there, then were
the prophets of God with them that were the prophets of God
helping them. Maybe physically involved as
well as preaching the Word and bringing God's truth. Then turn
to chapter 6 and look with me in that chapter as well and you'll
see what it says there in verse number 14. It says, The elders
of the Jews built it, and they prospered through the prophesying
of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Ido. And they built
it and finished it according to the commandment of the God
of Israel. Notice those words in this verse where it says that
through the prophesying, through the preaching, through the telling
forth of God's Word by these two prophets, the people prospered. And of course that's a very striking
little term there, they prospered. We're not told the full extent
of what that prosperity was, but we can We can think and we
can, as it were, imagine what it means. They would have prospered
spiritually in their own hearts, prospered with regard to their
input into the work of the Lord. They would have prospered in
the labor that they were carrying out. Here were people who prospered
under the preaching of the Word. And of course that should always
be the desire of any work, any true witness for Christ that
The preaching will cause the people to prosper and cause the
Lord's people to be encouraged and to grow in grace and to prosper
within their souls and to go on with God. And therefore, here
are men, including this man Zechariah, who were sent to encourage the
Lord's people and minister in such a way that they were a help
and they were a profit and they were a benefit to the saints
of God in those days. It's a marvelous thing when the
Lord raises up men like these two prophets who have a ministry
like that. It causes people to prosper within
their souls and to develop and grow in the things of God. Now
one of the messages brought by Zechariah is contained in the
verses before us here that we have read this evening, here
in Zechariah chapter 8. A close reading of this chapter,
in fact it doesn't even have to be a close reading in a sense,
but a close reading of this chapter will indicate that this message
has of course a prophetic significance. Speaking not only of the times
in which these men lived, that is the message as a whole here,
but of future days as well. Now it's not my purpose tonight
to deal with the prophetic significance of this passage, but what I want
to do is deal with it from a spiritual perspective because it is true
that the applications of God's Word are manifold, and there
are many senses that in which we can take the Word of God and
draw lessons from it and help from it, leaving aside its own
setting and its own prophetic meaning as it is in this chapter.
We can draw lessons from this chapter that are on another dimension
altogether. And that, of course, is in keeping
with the whole week that we are involved in here in this church
in Lisbon. We're dealing this week with
the subject of revival. And what we see here in these
verses that I've read with you this evening is applicable to
that very subject. In fact, the very verses here
are talking about revival. They are dealing with revival.
And they are showing to us some tremendous truths, I believe,
about that subject and about that theme. And I pray that tonight
the Lord will come and will help us as we deal with the passage
in that particular way. Spiritually speaking, this passage
tells us that when the Lord comes to bless His work with reviving
power, there will be certain signs and certain tokens of that
great work that He alone performs. I've already mentioned in the
setting here itself that the agenda of the remnant is to return
rebuild and restore. And in those very words, there
is truly the idea of a reviving. A reviving work is a work of
rebuilding. Maybe after desolation, after
times of decadence, that there is a rebuilding. It's also a
time of returning to the things that need to be cherished and
need to be pursued. It's a time as well of restoration,
and therefore we can certainly see the theme and the idea and
the concept of revival from that perspective. And we can say tonight
that, as already indicated this week in referring to these books
of Haggai, Zechariah, and even into Ezra at different times,
that God's Spirit was mightily at work in those days. Those
were days of great movings of God in their own right. Those were days of quickening
and revival as God moved. Remember what we saw on Sunday
night? In order to preserve His work alive. That's one of the
meanings of the word revive in the Old Testament. To preserve
His work alive. And the work of God, if we think
about the captivity and then the return and those particular
days in which these men lived, the work of God had sunk to a
very low ebb. And it needed the visitation
of God. It needed this reviving work
in order for it to be preserved alive, even to pave the way for
the coming of the Messiah. Because these prophets and the
work that was done then certainly paved the way for the first coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And as I've said already, there's
much in the book of Zechariah that has to do with the second
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore it's a marvelous
book and a wonderful book for our study. So we come tonight
to look at these verses where there is portrayed for us what
I want to call a revival scene. and maybe specifically refer
to it as a season unto the hand of the Lord when the remnant
of God's people are met with and stirred up and revived and
encouraged and the Lord does a work in their hearts. So let's
look at the passage as the Lord helps us tonight and draw some
lessons about revival from what we see right here. The first
thing I want to mention is the essence of revival, and it's
seen there in those closing words of verse 23. We will go with
you, and then underline these words, for we have heard that
God is with you. We have heard that God is with
you. Those words reveal to us something
of the essence of revival. You see, revival is the return
of God's presence to His people. God is with you. And as we think
about those words, they certainly would infer or imply that the
Lord's presence had been lost to quite a degree at some previous
point. But now the message comes, the
word goes out that God is with these people again. You see,
the Lord has returned. If you go back to the opening
part of the chapter, look at verse number 2. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy,
and I was jealous for her with great fury. Thus saith the Lord,
I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Words that signify a return of
the Lord, and a fresh moving of God. You see, the Lord's presence,
as I've said, had waned among these people, but now the Lord
comes again, just taking them and their day. You see, this
was a word for those people in their day and in their labor
and in their work. And while the words may have
significance for the future, yet we must not fail to see,
rather, that in those days, this meant something to these people.
The Lord says, I've come back. I have returned. If you go back
into the first chapter of Zechariah, you'll see the same words basically. Chapter 1 verse 16, Therefore
thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies, my
house shall be built in it. And again the Lord uses the language
here that indicates that having withdrawn his presence from his
people, he now returns to them. It does not mean, of course,
that the Lord had left them all together. He was with them even
in their captivity, but His presence had been withdrawn to some degree
at least. And they had lost the sense of
it and the consciousness of it. And they had been plunged into
a state of desolation in that whole period of the captivity.
But now there's the return. And along with the people returning,
the Lord says, I have returned as well. And the word went out,
and it's expressed in those marvelous terms at the end of verse 23.
We have heard that God is with you. Now let me say to you, dear
people, this evening, as we think about this statement, we have
heard that God is with you, and in it you have summed up the
essence of revival. Is it not true that you and I,
in our day and generation, would want that to happen, that it
would be said by those around us that we're going to go with
you. We want to be in your company.
We'll see more about that later. We want to be with you and in
your presence and in your company and in your meetings because
we've heard that God is with you, that the Lord has returned,
that He has come again among His people, that He has visited
His church, that He has manifested His presence once more in a very
real way in the midst of His people, His remnant people. Remember
that the loss of the conscious presence of the Lord is always
because of sin and disobedience. It can happen at an individual
level. There may be somebody here tonight and you have lost
as it were, the consciousness or the awareness of the presence
of God in your soul, in your life. Things are not the way
they used to be. You're not enjoying the Lord
as you used to do. You do not have that joy, that
gladness, that delight in your heart that always is there when
the Lord is near, and we know His touch, and we know His hand
upon us. We can lose that, brethren and
sisters, because of our carelessness, because of our worldliness, because
of our sin. We can lose the awareness of
the presence of God. Is that not what happened to
David as he himself makes very clear in the great penitential
Psalm, Psalm number 51, where he actually pleads with God along
these very terms that I am mentioning. Turn to Psalm 51 with me and
just look at those verses a moment or two, because they do bring
before us something of what I am saying here. Psalm 51 and the
verse number 11. Cast me not away from thy presence.
Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. He hadn't lost the Holy Spirit,
but he's not where he used to be or once was. And therefore
he says in verse 12, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He had lost much because of his
sin, obviously, his terrible sin at that period in his life. And now he gets before the Lord
and he wants back what he used to have. What about Samson? How greatly Samson lost out with
the Lord, and yet he wasn't even conscious of it at a certain
point. When we read Judges chapter 16,
verses 20 and 21, we're told that after he'd been shorn, he
said, I will go out and shake myself as on former occasions
And then there's the awful comment, he wished not that the Lord was
departed from him. He'd lost out with the Lord.
The Lord had withdrawn His presence. What about Mary and Joseph? As
an illustration, really, and it's a very vivid illustration.
You know the story when they went up to Jerusalem, and then
they're making their way back after the feast, and they're
caught up with the crowd. And they did not know at that
moment that the Lord, the young boy Jesus Christ was no longer
in the company or he was back at Jerusalem. But it says there
that they supposed that the Lord was there. I want an illustration
of the suppositions that so many of us make at times, that we've
got the same strength or the same power or the same enjoyment
of the Lord that we used to have, but it's just not so. Brethren
and sisters, at an individual level we can certainly lose out
in this way. And it's always because of sin.
It can happen at a congregational level. Again, I take you to the
Scriptures, and I want you to go to Ezekiel chapter 8. And look with me at a selection
of verses, beginning there, Ezekiel chapter 8, where you see this
very pattern affecting what we might call the congregation.
Ezekiel chapter 8, verse number 6, and it says, He said furthermore
unto me, the Lord speaking to Ezekiel, Son of man, seest thou
what they do? even the great abominations that
the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off
from my sanctuary." There had been great abominations brought
to the attention of Ezekiel and they had caused the Lord to withdraw
Himself to a certain degree, that I should go far off from
my sanctuary. In chapter 10 and verse number
4, then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub and stood
over the threshold of the house." Notice that, the Lord moves,
as it says here, from the cherub. You see, the glory of the Lord
came down in the temple where the cherubim were, over in the
mercy seat. And that's where he tabernacled,
that's where the glory appeared. And the Lord has already said
to Ezekiel in chapter 8, 6, that he's going to go far away from
his sanctuary. And now the departure begins,
as it were. And he moves from that point
above the cherub to the threshold of the house. And go a step farther,
go to verse 18. Then, chapter 10, verse 18, "...then
the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the
house, and stood over the cherubim." Then chapter 11, verse 23, "...and
the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and
stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city."
And there's a gradual departure. Notice that? The Lord gradually
moves away. As it were, little by little. He goes from this point to this
point and he lingers, then he moves on and he goes farther.
And that's what he had said to Ezekiel about going far off from
the sanctuary because of the abominations that were in the
very temple there in Jerusalem. You see, the captivity came and
the destruction descended on Jerusalem and on the temple in
that time. Because of the sin of the nation. Because of the sin of the congregation.
Let's make it specific. Because they were the visible
church of that day. And they had sinned against the
Lord. And the Lord began to withdraw. And move away. Move away. And when that happens,
then there is desolation. Turn to Joel. For a moment please. Joel chapter 2. In verse number
17, and we must tie these verses together.
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 the heathen
should rule over them. Wherefore should they say among
the people, Where is their God? Now when you read those words,
where is their God? Asked by the heathen. the unfair,
that even the ungodly can sense that the Lord is no longer with
His people. They ask the question, where
is He now? Because His people have lost
out with God, and they've lost His presence, and they've lost
all that He is to His people to such a degree. And the ungodly
mockingly ask the question, well, where is their God now? Oh, brethren
and sisters, I feel that these are very relevant words and very
appropriate words for our day because the ungodly could ask
the very same thing as so many of us. Maybe individually or
at congregational level we don't have in terms of what God is
to us what we used to have. And notice here the reference,
well, the priest, the minister of the Lord, Joel 2.17, need
to weep. You need to pray, you need to cry, spare thy people,
O Lord. But notice where they actually
weep, between the porch and the altar. That's very significant. I want you to go back now to
Ezekiel chapter 8, please, Ezekiel chapter 8, and look at verse
16. And he brought me into the inner
court of the Lord's house. And behold, at the door of the
temple of the Lord," listen carefully, brethren and sisters, between
the porch and the altar, the very same point, very same location,
between the porch and the altar were about five and twenty men
with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward
the east, and they worshipped the sun. In God's house, at that
very location between the porch and the altar, the greatest sin
was being practiced. And now in Joel, little wonder
that there's a cry, that there needs to be a weeping between
the porch and the altar, because that's precisely where the sin,
the awful sin had been committed. And the Lord is saying, is he
not? If we want to know Him again or see Him return among us again,
we need to get to the very spot where we lost out with Him or
where we failed Him or where we sinned against Him. Here it
is between the porch and the altar. That's where the damage
was done. That's where the Lord was grieved.
That's where the sin was committed. And now Joel, just bringing all
the verses together, he says that that's where we need to
get and pray. and weep before the Lord at the
very spot where all this has taken place in terms of what
drove the Lord away. And therefore, when we read these
words, which are setting before us the essence of revival, we
have heard that God is with you. We need to stop and think of
what they are saying in terms of the background and what led
up to this in the sense that God was not there. God had withdrawn
Himself for a time. And I warn you again, that is
such a reality. It can be such an awful reality
in an individual's life or a church's life. But we're seeing here that the
Lord does return. He returns mercifully, and He
manifests His presence again among His people because revival
is the return of the Lord's presence. That's what it is, in essence.
It's the return of the presence of the Lord among His people.
I must hurry here. It is also the return of God's
power. Because they say, we have heard
that God is with you, and when God is with His people, then
power will be their portion. You can't have God with you and
not know something of His power. Now, I haven't time tonight maybe
to say all I need to say, but for this to be the case, for
the return to see As we're trying to show
you what revival is, the return of the Lord's presence and the
return of the Lord's power, there needs to be repentance and brokenness
and confession of sin and getting right with God. And it may be
tonight that there's someone here and in your soul you feel
this. You've lost out, as I've said,
or the Lord is not as real to you as He used to be. You need
to get to the very point where there's confession, when there's
a weeping, when there's crying to God that He will have mercy
upon you and that you will be restored and renewed in your
own heart and mind and again begin to enjoy the presence of
the Lord with you and enjoy the power of the Lord in your life.
Brethren and sisters, is there not something here for us all
to consider very, very carefully and honestly before God? Here
is what revival is in essence, the return of the Lord. And if
ever there was a day when we needed that, this is it. I could
say more about the power of the Lord. This very chapter brings
before us some thoughts about what happens when the Lord returns
among His people. Just quickly notice them. Verse
3 again says, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst
of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem shall be called
a city of truth. and the mountain of the Lord
of Hosts, the holy mountain. Whenever the Lord returns and
His presence is restored and His power is known again, then
there's an elevation of truth and there is an elevation of
holiness. These things will be seen and
be very apparent again. Verse 4, Thus saith the Lord
of Hosts, There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the
streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand
for a very age." When you read Ezra, you will find that some
of those who had gone away in the captivity seventy years before
then came back along with a new generation. And to me, verse
4, in the sense that I'm looking at tonight, speaks of restoration. Those who formerly knew the things
of God and then lost out and now they've been brought back.
And then verse 5 talks about a new generation raising up.
Taking it that way. It says here the streets of the
city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets
thereof. Restoration, regeneration. When we have the presence and
the power of God and revival, both these things will take place.
There will be a restoring and there will be a regenerating
of the hearts of a whole new generation when raised up by
the Lord to serve God. And we should not think that
such a thing is impossible. Look at verse 6. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, if it be marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of
this people in these days, should it also be marvellous in mine
eyes, saith the Lord of hosts. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
behold, I will save my people. You see, when we think about
restoration and a great regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and
that is so desperately needed, we might say to ourselves, this
is too good to be true, or this is a thing incredible. But now,
my friend, it may seem incredible to us that such could ever happen,
but it's not incredible with God. It's not beyond the realm
of possibility because our God is the one who does these things
in a moment when He returns and He moves
and He visits and He appears again in His eyes. the essence
of revival. And then we look a little here
at the evidence of it, back in the end of chapter 8. Look this
time at verse 19, and the following few verses. Here's something
of the evidence of revival. Verse 19 says, Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, The fast of the fourth month, the fifth, the
seventh, the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and
gladness and cheerful feasts. therefore love the truth and
peace." Those words speak of a spiritual transformation, and
the verses that follow as well will come to them in a moment
or two. But there's a thought here that this is the evidence
of revival. Revival brings a transformation. It brings a change of the whole
landscape, spiritually speaking. It brings about a difference.
And right here, the deference and the transformation again,
they pertain to the lives and the experiences of the people
of God. When there's a reviving given
by the Holy Spirit, then there cannot but be this transformation
among saints as well as sinners. What are some of the indications
or the evidences of revival? Well, verse 19 is speaking, is
it not, of spiritual joy in the things of the Lord. It says there
that these fasts shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness. Let me say this to you, put it
this way. If you've ever been involved in a day of fasting,
I think you had one last Sunday, a day of waiting on God. Unless
it's a time of joy and gladness, it will be very tedious. The
flesh won't like it. The flesh won't want to be there.
And if you are in that mood or that frame where the flesh is
rebelling and you're not even wanting to be there, oh, I tell
you, it will not be a joyful experience. And yet so often
this was true of Israel. They went through their face
and their face in a perfunctory manner. It was all mundane. It was dead. There was no joy
about it. It was just a miserable experience. And you know so many of us You
can put on a show, go through what you might call the visible
steps and obey the outward ceremony, but there's a misery in our hearts
because we don't have the joy of the Lord. But when the Lord
comes again, then these experiences are completely changed and there
is this spiritual joy and gladness as these words in verse 19 tell
us. Turn to John 7 now just to tie in something over there that
will elaborate a little more on this as I talk about having
a spiritual joy in the things of God as opposed to the old
fleshly attitude where everything's miserable and barren and mundane
and there's no life and no joy in it whatsoever. John 7. Look
at verse 37. In the last day, that great day
of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst,
let him come on to me and drink. Now the feast that's in view
here is the Feast of Tabernacles. And at that feast, according
to what we learn from historians of that day, the Jews, to try
to put up a kind of a show, They had this practice of pouring
out water, some kind of a symbol, symbolic gesture that they were
really enjoying the feast. And that's the background of
what the Lord says. If any man thirst, let him come on to me
and drink. You see, their feast had become
a dead ceremony. There was no life in it. And
therefore the Lord says, if a man really thirsts, let him come
to me and drink. And then verse 38, he that believeth
in me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water. And then just these words, but
this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe in him
should receive. Verses 38 and 39 show What? They show a heart that is revived
by the Holy Ghost. And out of that heart there flow
rivers of living water. In the Bible, living water is
spoken of often. And living water in Scripture
is actually a symbol of the Spirit of God. And here the Lord uses
that very symbol. Out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water. And then John explains it. This spake he of
the Spirit. And here you have it. Living
water symbolic of the Holy Ghost. Living water is what? It's fresh
water. It's clean water. It's water
that revitalizes. It's water that quenches your
thirst. And the Holy Spirit does all of that. And when the Lord
comes among his people, he causes out of their hearts to flow these
rivers of living water. The heart bubbling up with joy
and gladness. That's the thought there. It
says out of his belly. That is out of his inward man.
Out of the heart of the believer who meets with the Lord. And
just think about it that way. If any man thirst, I'm saying
it this way tonight. Certainly here, it could refer
to the unconverted man. coming to the Lord and being
saved and in doing so receiving the Holy Ghost. For that's what
happens when you're saved. But just take it that other way.
The Christian who has suddenly been made aware and conscious
of his deadness and dryness and barrenness, and he gets to the
Lord, and he looks to the Lord again with a thirst in his soul,
and the Lord comes down anew upon him. And out of that man's
inward parts there flow the rivers of living water, bubbling up
in his soul. You know, the psalmist could
testify that he knew something of that. Psalm 45 verse 1, my
heart is inditing a good matter. And those words literally mean,
or read, my heart is bubbling up. Psalm 45 verse 1, my heart
is bubbling up. I speak of the things which I
have made touching the King. My tongue is the pen of a ready
writer. And the whole psalm is all about
Christ, of course. And here's the psalmist saying
that he has this great joy in the Lord. There's freshness,
there's joy, there's gladness in his soul. And that's how he
puts it. He says, my heart is bubbling
up. Or as it is in our translation,
like the pen of a ready writer. Because he's sitting down to
write about the things that have to do with the King. And as he
sits down to do that, his soul's just on fire. His soul is filled
with joy. His soul's bubbling up. Because
he's going to write about the Lord. And that means that when,
as we think about the evidence of revival and the Lord returns
among His people and there's this spiritual joy and there's
a transformation, oh then men and women, what will happen then
is that the services of the church of Jesus Christ, our worship
services, will be filled with joy, witnessing for the Lord
will be done with Get into the place of prayer. We're going
to see more of that in a moment or two. Ah, that will be a joyful thing
when the Lord moves again. So there is a spiritual joy in
the things of God. But there's also a hunger and
a thirst for the Lord. So look at these verses again
here. Go a little farther with me in
them. Verses 20 and 22 through to 22. They speak of this hunger and
thirst for the Lord. Verse 20, look at it. Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, it shall yet come to pass, that there shall
come people, and the inhabitants of many cities, and the inhabitants
of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to
pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts. I will
go also. Now, brethren and sisters, that
is what happens when the church of Jesus Christ is revived. The evidence is not only having
a joy in the things of God, but it's also having a hunger and
a thirst for those things and for more of it, and especially
as it is here, prayer. Now, renewed interest in prayer
and in the gatherings for prayer, that is always a token for good.
That is always a mark of reviving. Do you know tonight that as we
talk about revival, the Lord could visit, just take the free
church, the Lord could visit any one of our congregations
at this moment and cause this to happen. He could do it here
in Lisbon. It might happen purely on a local
basis. I've often read, and I'm sure
some of you have as well, of men of God who were part maybe
of a certain denomination. And in their local church, in
that particular ministry, at certain times God came down and
did wonderful things. And the rest of the denomination
maybe was untouched while God was moving there. That has happened
over and over again. And when that happens then in
that particular church, the evidence of revival is this renewal with
regard to prayer. And this is urgent prayer. Verse
21, let us go speedily to pray. Here are people who feel their
need to pray. There's no complacency here,
there's no indifference, there's no apathy. Here's an urgency.
Here is a people who've got a vision of the need all around them. And they say, let's go speedily.
We can't waste any time. We've got to get to the place
of prayer. The word speedily has other translations. And the
margin shows some of them. One of them is continually. Let
us go continually to pray. Is that not underlining urgency? The burden to go again and again
and again? A people who, as it were, they
can't get enough of meeting with the Lord and
pouring out their hearts. And then another way this word
can be translated, the word also means to go on or to proceed. in terms of constant motion. That ties in with the word continually,
but there's an interesting way in which it can be translated
in this other sense, to go on, to proceed, constant motion. And you know, this word is translated
over in the book of Jonah. I'll just tell you the reference,
you can look it up sometime. Jonah 1 verse 11, where it says, rot. W-R-O-U-G-H-T. And think about that, the sea
rot. What does that mean? It means there that the sea was
moving. It was in motion, constantly. in motion. Now in that situation
there it was detrimental to the boys in the boat. But the point
is there's the very same word as we have here that tells you
that speedily or continually or means to go on and be in motion. It's used there of the sea and
the motion of the sea or the movement of the sea. It's about
the sea running strongly. What can we say in light of that?
Oh, for a swell tide of this kind of prayer, urgent
prayer, when the church of Jesus Christ
is laying hold on God. You see, brothers and sisters,
When there's that urgency, it signifies that we have gained
a sense of need, our own needs. You can't afford to miss prayer. Now, certainly that is true for
private prayer. You can't afford to miss out
every day in prayer. But talking here about the church,
because it's talking about people coming together, the Lord's people
going to pray, you can't afford to miss the prayer meeting. Now,
it mustn't become a legalistic thing. It mustn't become a mere
duty. Oh, that we would catch what's
here, the urgency of it, and realize that for our own sakes,
and because of the needs of our own hearts, we can't afford to
miss the church prayer meeting. And may the Lord bring that upon
us. Because when that happens, and our prayer meetings start
to grow and multiply, it will be the evidence of a little reviving. I fear that in many cases the
prayer meetings are on the decline, and we need God to revive and
give urgency in the place of prayer. That urgency also reveals
a desire for the things of God beyond or so in contrast with
earthly things and material things and all those matters which may
have a legitimate place, but so often dominate our lives. And whenever God moves, then
things will be seen from a right perspective, and we'll have this
urgency about us. Yes, we need to work, we need
to run our homes and so forth, but those things, earthly things,
must not take precedence. Here is what must take precedence.
And you know, going with urgency to seek the Lord, you know what
that also signifies? It signifies faith in God. We can't wait to
get before the Lord, to lay hold on the Lord, maybe even with
excitement, thinking of what this God we do, or we serve,
is able to do. You know how often we quote in
prayer those great words in Ephesians 3.20? That the Lord is able to
do exceeding abundance. Above all that we ask or think."
And you know, those are tremendous words. You know what they're
really saying? The Lord is not limited by our
praying. That would be an awful thing
if He were, because so often our praying is full of doubt
and unbelief and so on. But the Lord's not limited by
our praying. The Lord is able to do exceeding abundantly above
what we ask or think. But then from another perspective,
even when we are praying with urgency and fervor and power,
still then the Lord's able to do exceeding abundantly above
prayers like that that are filled with fire and fervency and faith. And you know the greatest Proof
of that, that God does answer prayer in that manner, is actually
right there in the context. Because in the previous verse,
Paul talks about the dimensions of God's love, the length and
breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ. And then
he says, now on to Him, that is able to do exceedingly abundantly
above all that we ask or think. And brethren and sisters, if
you want to see the greatest demonstration of the fact that
God works above what we could ever ask or think, you go to
Calvary. You examine the love of God in
Christ. Who among us, who among fallen
men would ever have asked for that or thought of that? See, God works. not according to our limited
minds, but He works according to His own glorious purpose. And therefore, let us go urgently
because we have a great God. This is also unsolicited prayer. It says here, let us go. There's no coercion here. Nobody's arms have been twisted
up his back. There's a desire here. People say to each other,
let's get to the prayer meeting. And I would say to you tonight,
take those words and use them among yourselves and encourage
one another. Maybe there's a brother or sister
you've noticed is kind of not as keen. Try to help that brother
or that sister. Go to that person and say, Would
you like to come with me on Monday night to the prayer meeting?"
That's a very good way of applying this. But the thought here is
of prayer that's unsolicited in the sense of there's no call
for it, there's no coercion. It comes, as I was saying last
night, when we looked at Nehemiah 8 with regard to the gathering
of the people there, it was so spontaneous. And the same thought
is right here. people coming together to lay
hold on God, and nobody soliciting, pressurizing, coercing them. They want to be there. Unanimous
prayer as well, for it says here, let us go. Again, the thought
of one mind, and believers going in agreement to lay hold on God
and to seek His face. One stirring up and encouraging
the other. Let us go. And then at the end
of the verse it says, I will go also. I'll go too. I'm not urging you to go and
I have no intention of not going myself. No, that's not the way
it is. Let's all go and I'm going to be there too by the grace
of God. This is what we long to see. This is an evidence of
revival, isn't it? A fresh spiritual joy in the
things of God, a new hunger and thirst for the Lord, especially
in the place of prayer, the prayer meetings of the church. Spurgeon
once preached a famous sermon that's entitled only a prayer
meeting because he was Maybe being a little sarcastic, because
that's how some people looked on the prayer meeting. It's only
a prayer meeting. So Sturgeon took that as the title for his
sermon, and here's what he said as part of his sermon or message. We shall never see much change
for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting
occupies a higher place. in the esteem of Christians. I was reading as well with that
man, that mighty man John Howe, who was actually known, famous
you might say, for his intercessory gifts. Mighty man in prayer. And the story is told that in
his day there were prayer meetings all the time. under his ministry
for young and old, and people coming together, and men and
women, and laying hold on God, and there were prayer meetings
for the ministers and so on. And one occasion when Howe was
praying, he was praying with such power that he was sweating
profusely. And his wife came along. This
may seem a little amusing, but this is what happened. He was
wearing a wig, and his wife came along and took off his wig and
dried his brow and wiped away the sweat, and all the while
he kept on praying. Those little anecdotes from history
tell us, brethren and sisters, when the Holy Ghost comes down, unusual things happen. His wife
coming along to wipe the sweat off, even as He prayed. And then I must draw near now
to a close. What about the effect of revival? Look at verse 23 again. Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, in those days it shall come to pass that
ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations,
even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying,
We will go with you. for we have heard that God is
with you." When the Lord revives His people, you know what happens? When God revives His church,
then she has a spiritual attractiveness. Because here are people, we might
say the heathen, coming to the Jew and saying, we will go with
for we have heard that God is with you." Now just taking the
word Jew, we all are aware, and it's true to this very day, that
by and large the Jew is a despised person. If you take Christ himself,
he was a Jew, and the Lord was despised. So that the name Jew
has that connotation to it, in a very real sense. And it's indicative,
isn't it, of the situation that very often happens whenever the
Lord sends a move of the Spirit. Applying it this way, then those,
I mean God's people who were formerly despised and mocked
and people laughed at them, they suddenly take on a whole new
a whole new exterior in the sense that people now say to themselves,
those Christians have got something that we don't have. And we used
to despise them, but now we want to go and find out what's going
on. And that's a marvelous thing,
you know. Nobody likes to be despised. If we're all honest,
we will say that. We don't like anybody to dislike
us or despise us. But it does come with serving
Christ. It does come with standing for
the Lord and knowing the Lord and serving the Lord faithfully.
You're going to be despised by an ungodly world. But you know,
when revival comes, then the church takes on a whole, as we've
been saying, this transformation so much so that there's this
effect of she then having an attractiveness. And those who
are outside, outside the pale of the redeemed, those who watch
on and who see that change, then been moved themselves to say,
we will go with you now. We want to be in your company. We want to hear your preacher.
We want to go along to the gospel meeting because God is with you. Notice what it says there. They
take hold of the skirt of him as a Jew. And the skirt is, of
course, the hem of the garment. That's what it means. And what's
the significance of the hem of the garment? When you think of
the Jew, and I've already mentioned our Savior, when you think of
the times in the Gospels where you read of people coming to
touch the hem of His garment, the woman with the issue of blood,
and then even whole companies of people. And they came and
they touched the hem of his garment and were told that they were
healed of their sicknesses and so on. Now the hem of the garment,
taking the Lord Jesus Christ, the hem of the garment has a
symbolism. There's too much of that for me to try to deal with
all of it tonight, but Sometime read in the book of Numbers toward
the end of the book, and you will find that around the border
or the hem of the garment, the Jew had a ribbon of blue. And it was to remind him of heaven
and the Lord and to serve God. That was the significance of
it. And then you carry it over to Christ. And we think of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and who is He? He's the one who always had
the law of God in His heart. Always. And He's the one who
came and fulfilled that law, and honored that law, obeyed
that law, and then died under the curse of that law. And in
doing all that, He provides for men a finished work. Because the hem of the garment,
therefore, signifies the finished work. Even the garment itself
is the last part that's made, the finished, signifying the
finishing of the work. And they come when they lay hold
on the skirt of the Jew. And I believe we should not miss
that. Because whenever revival comes, people see that the church
of Jesus Christ has got a message. It's a message of the finished
work. The message of redemption. And they suddenly see the preciousness
of it and the value of it. And they want to come and enter
into the blessing of the finished work. That's revival. That's
the Holy Ghost at work. That's the effect of the moving
of the Spirit. I know that we would say those
days, when the Lord will visit the saints and visit sinners, And what we have seen here tonight
from this approach to this passage will indeed be realized and become
a very, very prominent and glorious experience when the Lord will come again
and the evidences of His coming will
be there. And the effect of it then will also be seen. Men and women, brethren and sisters,
it is this that we need desperately. We need the Lord. And may all
of us tonight who know Him, seek Him with all our hearts. Is there someone here tonight? And maybe perhaps more so in
the earlier part of this message, the Lord has spoken to your soul
and has reminded you this evening of having lost out, having grieved the Spirit, and you need to return. May you come and seek the Lord
afresh and know again joy and gladness, spiritual thirst, and
become useful again in the kingdom of Christ. Let's all just pray. Father in
heaven, fly Thy Word with power. Use it, we ask, for Thy glory.
Write upon our hearts and O God, we do pray that Thou wilt begin
to do these things, begin to move among us, individually,
collectively. Lord, give again Thy presence
and power to us. Return, O Lord. Return, O Holy
Dove, return. The evidence is there. May there
be all of what we have sought to see here tonight. Lord, all
around us, may the unconverted take note. Dear Father, move
with power. We pray in the Savior's name.
The Remnant Enjoying Revival
Series Tracing Revival in the Bible
| Sermon ID | 314131853273 |
| Duration | 1:11:25 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Bible Text | Zechariah 8:23 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.