Thank you for taking the time to listen to one of the recent sermons preached at Wilton Baptist Church. It is our desire as a church to strive together in building a faith, family, and future that honors and glorifies our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If we can be a help to you in any way, please visit our website at wiltonbaptistchurch.com. That is a truth that I think so many times we forget about. We start to try to get things done on our own, we forget about the Lord, and that's when we get ourselves into trouble most of the time. You will take your Bibles this morning, turn to Psalm 85, the 85th Psalm. As we look into God's word and look at this idea of the hope of revival. You know, if I were to faint this morning or to stop breathing, If my heart for some odd reason were to stop pumping, my hope is that out of the people who I know here, who have been trained, that they would at least do something to try to revive me. But however, if there was something that were to happen to my body and they were not able to revive me, it would be fatal, obviously, to my existence. My normal state, as you hopefully would agree, would be upright as yours would be. Breathing, heart pumping, all of these things. And a departure from the normal means that something is wrong. In our spiritual lives, many times though, I think that we allow ourselves to sometimes fall into not being upright, breathing, heart pumping. Again, we're getting to the spiritual aspect of it. And we just let that slide. We're like the guy who says, you know what, nothing's wrong. I don't need to see the doctor. Many of us guys can be stubborn in that kind of way. But you know, there are people today who have put in their medical power of attorney, those kinds of things, this kind of phrase, do not resuscitate. Before that became popular, many times people would put that in their last will and testament. And basically they were saying that if something were to happen to them, their wish was that those medical professionals would not try to revive them. As we look at this idea of revival, and as I look at our country, and I look at our state that we're in, I fear though that many Christians today have put that phrase, that slogan, do not resuscitate on their spiritual heart. Their attitude toward the Lord is, you know what? Just leave me the way I am. I'm okay, I don't need you to tell me what's wrong and what's right. I'm fine, I don't need anything. And here we see a passage of scripture from people who have gone astray from the Lord. God has chastised them and now they're coming back and they're realizing that just a change of geography or a change of this or a change of that doesn't truly change their heart. They realize that they need this idea of revival. If you found your place in God's word and you're physically able, would you join me in standing out of respect for God's word as we read Psalm 85? We'll start in verse 1, read all the way down to verse 13. The Bible says, Thou hast been favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. Selah. Thou hast taken away all Thy wrath. Thou hast turned Thyself from the fierceness of Thine anger. Turn us, O God, of our salvation, and cause Thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt Thou be angry with us forever? Wilt Thou draw out Thine anger to all generations? Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee? Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace unto His people and to His saints. But let them not turn again to folly. Surely His salvation is nigh them that fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good and our land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps. Let's pray this morning. God, we thank you this morning for your word. We thank you for the freedom that we have in our country to be able to come and to be able to worship freely. And God, as we open your word and we examine it this morning, I pray that your word would speak truth as you promised it would. I pray that you would anoint my heart, my lips, my mind, and Lord, I pray that the message that you have for each one here this morning would come forth with power and with clarity. Lord, I admit that I am a weak vessel that needs you in this morning. As we heard in our morning Sunday school hour, Lord, I ask for your filling and I ask for your power. Lord, may you speak to each heart and life here this morning, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for running God's word, you may be seated. As we look at the landscape of our country this morning, I think we realize in the landscape of our churches that the greatest need this morning in our church is not for mere money or mere members or mere buildings. We don't need more programs. We don't need more things on the calendar. We really don't even need more missions or more evangelism. You see, because if the greatest need in our church today is really met, those things that are truly of a need in those other areas will be met. I truly believe that the greatest need in American Christianity today is that of true heartfelt repentance, of true Holy Ghost revival. And that revival is not just a harvest of lost souls, although that will normally happen as you look about seasons of revival that have happened in the past. Those things will spring out of that. No, revival is not just a tent meeting and visiting speakers. It's not just sawdust aisles. Revival is true change. Revival is turning from that and making new what was once new before. As we look at our situation in our country, I think we can all agree that there's a desperate need of revival. Our nation literally is dying in its trespasses and its sins. And the reason I believe is because the churches and the Christians in this country have fallen asleep. They've let this, we've let our life and our light shine, not shine, excuse me. We've lost this Christian essence of a country that God has given us. And the people of our country have really been, I would say this, spiritually impotent. The fires of devotion are burning low and the joy of the Lord is all but gone. There's a consistent lack of disobedience or a consistent lack of obedience to the will of God in the hearts of many Christians today. Because we have failed to check and to stand up for the ungodliness that is flooding into our country and into our land, wickedness is continuing to grow. And like a weed, it is growing with undying proportions. Vance Havner once said of revival, he said, it is a work of God's spirit among his own people. What we call revival is simply New Testament Christianity, the saints getting back to normal. If revival is truly that, if revival is truly us as Christians getting back to normal, the problem is we've let normal become what shouldn't be too long. We need to get back as Christians in America to being something probably more different than what normal is. If we were to look ourselves square into the eye, look ourselves in the mirror this morning and truly evaluate our lives as we come into this month before what we term revival services, and you were to honestly open your heart, have you let things slide? As Vance Havner said, have you let that thing that was once normal become different? Do you need to turn back and call normal what God calls normal? Do you truly need revival? Isn't it true that most churches today no longer have an impact on our communities the way God intended them to? We've forsaken our first love. We've turned from God. We've turned from his word. We're not in his word. We don't know his word. We're more focused on our own self-indulgence and the way that we want to live our lives rather than what God would have. As you think about it, our personal interests, our pleasures, our business, our material possessions, even our families can come before God. We've totally changed in our country who gets first priority. It's well, you know, I mean, they'll understand if I'm not there, they'll understand, God will understand. And we look at Christianity, we look at really our church attendance and our church participation is just kind of a, eh, whatever I feel like. We could kind of get the idea of, you know, licking our finger, putting it and seeing which way the wind's turning as to which way I feel. We tended to be more self-sufficient and independent rather than the song we just heard, Lord, I need you. And I would suggest to you that if we were to look at our lives and to look at our churches in America, we would definitely say, yes, we as a church, and I'd say that as a big American church in that kind of a sense, we need revival desperately. But the problem is we're okay with wanting revival for others to see it, but many times we don't wanna have it in our own lives. We have declined to the point that there's a desperate need of revival. We've drifted slowly and unknowingly. I might've told you this story before, but... When we were in Charleston, I used to like to go with some friends, and we would go deep-sea fishing quite often. Now, for us, deep-sea fishing probably isn't what you would typically see, and maybe what you've experienced deep-sea fishing, and the idea that, you know, you get a big boat, and you charter this boat, and you go out, all these kind of things. We knew a couple spots, and we had a little GPS that we could at least get. We had about a 19- to 20-foot boat, nothing huge, but it was good enough to get us where we needed to go on the water. And we had a spot about five miles out offshore that we would go and we would it was a not a natural reef. It was actually where they sunk quite a few different boats. And it was kind of a manmade reef that you could go fishing for. So we would enjoy every once in a while when the weather was nice to go out. And so having a smaller boat, we chose to obviously go when the seas were hopefully a little more calm. We could get it where they were. Seas were made two to three feet. That's getting a little bit pushing it for us to be comfortable, especially if somebody is a little seasick. So we got out one day. Seas were actually supposed to be pretty calm. I think they were only supposed to be one to two feet, not a big deal. And we charted out and we headed out. We got out there and it wasn't long before the wind started to kick up. The sea started to kick up and we were literally going like this as we were, you know, trying to fish and you're trying to do this. And it just didn't become a fun day. We decided that we were going to come back into the harbor, and in the harbor there was a pretty deep spot that we had heard about. We couldn't quite, it was hard to find sometimes, so we decided to try that. Tried that, it didn't work. So we decided finally we'd go back to the intercoastal waterway. There was a couple spots that we could fish. And we would try for that. We got in there and we hit the first cast that we threw out. One of the friends caught a three-foot bull shark. And we were ecstatic. We thought this was the coolest thing. And at first we were going to throw the thing back in, but then we thought, no, we've never had something like this. So we decided in our dumb stupidity, we were going to try to save this thing. And then later find out that the sharks do something and they basically like let the blood go out and it ruins everything. And so what we had high hopes on, we had this bloody mess in the thing later. But we caught this thing. So we were excited. We were stoked. We actually caught something big. It was something substantial. And so we were sitting there for a little longer. We kept fishing. And all of a sudden, the guy whose boat it was hooked onto something huge. We thought it was the catch. I mean, we had just caught this three foot shark. So we thought, man, there just has to be something else bigger in this waters. And we were all set for it. We were all focused on it. In fact, he was reeling it in. And of course we had a net, but it wasn't close enough that it would get to the surface where we could scoop down and get this thing. But you'd see it every once in a while, it would kind of come to the surface and it would glitter. And we thought, man, this must be like, I mean, like huge fish. None of us were paying attention to the back of our boat. None of us were paying attention really to any of the surroundings that were happening. Slowly but surely, we had begun to drift, we didn't realize. So much so that when one of us turned around, the guy who caught the three-foot shark, happened to look behind us, we were less than five feet from running into someone's private dock. baffled, trying to figure out what we were doing, I run to the front, I grab this fishing pole from the guy whose boat it is, so he can jump behind the wheel, start the boat up, move us a little bit, and we can try to continue to figure out what's going on. Well, as we do, we realize that some things are going weird with this fish, and I'm going, what's happening? The fish is like behind us, and it's just, it's not coming anymore. So we decided, you know what? Something's a little odd. Let's go ahead and let's pull up the anchor. As we pulled up the anchor, we slowly began to realize that the line on the fishing rod became a lot less slack. And there was a lot more, and it came a lot quicker. And as we pulled the fishing line and we pulled the anchor rope, we realized that somehow, we don't know how, to this day, he caught the anchor. And that is our infamous story of catching the anchor fish. I tell you that story because we were so focused on what we thought was so important that what was really important, what was taking us off course and almost got us into major trouble. And as you think about that, I believe that's a lot of times, if we're not careful as Christians, we can get so focused on something that we think is so great, but it's really not of God, that we get ourselves off culture, we get ourselves off focus, we get ourselves off what we really should be doing, and we get ourselves into a spot that is bad. We look at our nation again and we see the moral depravity. We see the drugs and the alcohol, the pornography, the materialism that is running rampant. And we say, God, you've got to step in and you've got to do something. But again, it's not the sin of America that's jeopardizing our country. It's the sin of a church. It's not the halls of Congress. It's not a reprobate society like Hollywood. It's the Christians in this country who have not stood up and not said, you know what, we're not going to compromise. We're not going to be half-hearted. We're not going to be backslidden. We're going to call black, black and white, white. We're not going to switch them. We're going to call wrong, wrong and right, right. And we're not going to take a step away from the word of God and what it should be. And while I'm not saying that there aren't exceptions in this country, as a whole, many of us have done that. And as I said, many of us want to see revival. We want to witness revival. We want revival to take place even in our church. But personally, I ask you this morning, are you individually willing for God to send revival to your heart? Revival has to start with an individual person. Revival has never swept whatever country it is, wherever it's gone. It's never swept by just starting with a huge mass of people. Many times it's begun with one to two to three people who have determined they're going to do something for God. As you look at revival and you see what God can do and God can still send revival and we still have hope for revival. It began many times with prayer and people getting right with God and saying, God, you change me. and then change others around me. This morning, I want us to look at three keys from this passage to having revival in our lives. God can still send revival. I hope you believe that. And by giving you that whole introduction of doom and gloom in a way, I'm not saying that to say that we are without hope and God can't do anything. No, because God is still God. God can still send revival. I think back to stories like Jonah, and I think back to an empire like Assyria, where God said, you know what, Jonah, you go, and if those people will repent, I will send mercy and I will hold my judgment. Those people were wicked people. If you read what the Assyrians would do and how they would torture their captives and all these kind of things, you would get a sick stomach hearing what they would do to these people. But those people repented and God said, you know what? I will stay my judgment. I will send mercy. And I truly believe that if America were to turn back to God, that God would do the same exact thing. But it has to begin in our churches. It has to begin with us. So how do we see revival in our lives? And how do we see revival in our churches, in our country? This morning, we'll see three things. Number one, we have to begin by remembering God's faithfulness. remembering God's faithfulness. In verses 1-3, we see an account where the psalmist is going back and he's recounting and remembering what has happened before. You see, most likely, as most scholars believe, this psalm was written after the children of Israel coming back into the land after their 70 years of captivity in the land of Babylon. Babylon had captured the children of Israel three different times. They had come and they had attacked the city and they had all been taken captive and that 70 years had transpired and they had been allowed to come back. And we read in Ezra and other books of men like Zerubbabel. We read about Joshua the high priest and Ezra the scribe who came back with the children of Israel. We read how God protected these people as they came back and they traveled the long journey. But what we see is that they were not just because they came back, they weren't just ready to obey God. As we read throughout other books of the Bible and we read about what had happened, they weren't the kindest to each other, but they were willing to make a new start. And as we see here in this passage, they began to remember what they had heard about what God had done in the past. The Scottish preacher George Morrison said about remembering God's faithfulness and remembering this in our lives as we see revival. He said the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings. You see, it's a sin, yes, to fall and to get away from God, but it's not okay for us to stay in that situation. We have to remember where we've fallen from and turn around and start a new beginning. You know, as we think about our country, our country was founded upon Christian principles and upon Christian beliefs. We had a good past. We need to remember our past, not in looking at it and go, wow, look at the old days and just, you know, moan and cry and those kinds of things. No, we need to remember the past and realize where we've come from and where we should continue to head. For those of us who know Christ as our Savior, we should remember the past and the idea of remembering our captivity, remembering what sin had us in. Remembering that Satan had, before we accepted Christ, Satan had a hold on our lives, and he had a desire to ruin us. But by the blood of Jesus Christ, he took care of that. He covered our sin. And we remember the past. These people who the psalmist is writing to, and who would be singing this psalm, are remembering, and they're needing encouragement, because really, when you think about what had happened, what they came back to, Babylon, as I said, had destroyed the city. They had nothing left. The walls were destroyed. The temple was burnt. Their houses were gone. When they came back, it wasn't like they were coming back to a nice area. It was all developed and ready for them to move into. And it wasn't long before discouragement had started to come in. And the people, the leaders, had to remind them, not of the past, just what was happening before, but remind them of what they came from. To remind them of what the freedom that they had now to be able to worship. The freedom that God had given them. Remember why God had put them into captivity. Remember the sins of their fathers. And remember why they had been put into that kind of a situation. They had to be reminded that, you know what? we need to remember the faithfulness of our God. According to the book of Judges, seven different nations had been sent throughout just the book of Judges to chastise God's people. And many times as we look at our lives as Christians, we're many times like just the children of Israel in that book where we fail God and then we repent and God brings us back. You know, each time God gave the children of Israel a fresh start. No matter where we are, no matter where we've fallen from, God will give us a fresh start. And God will give us that if we remember the past, but we also need to remember his forgiveness. In verse two, we see that the psalmist says that thou has forgiven the iniquity of thy people and has covered all their sins. When you think about this, who can forgive like God? God, who we see is slow to anger, who is kind, who is merciful, He is begging us to come back to Him in repentance. We read verses in the New Testament, like 1 John 1.9, that if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. And when we look at this verse, we need to understand one thing. This isn't a request for forgiveness in the idea of pardoning from iniquity. It's not a request for what we would say today would be a request for salvation. It's a request to bring back what once was. It's a request to say, God, would you in your mercy restore to me what you once have given me? Today, we need to rest in the forgiveness of sin, not as a license to sin, but as a license to do what God would have us do in our lives. The song is entitled, Once For All, and the song says, free from the law, oh, happy condition. Jesus hath bled and there is remission, cursed by the law and bruised by the fall. Christ hath redeemed us once for all. But many times I think we sing that first phrase like this in our hearts. Free from the law, oh, happy condition. Send all I want with Jesus' permission. You see, we need to remember the past. Remember what we were saved from. Remember what God has done in giving us new life. Remember the cross. Remember his forgiveness. Remember what he's done in our lives. Because when I believe, when we begin to remember God's faithfulness, that will start to lead us into a heart of repentance. As we enter this month before our revival meetings, and as we begin, hopefully, you'll begin to seek revival already in your heart. Remember what God has done in the past. Remember our past before Christ. Remember His forgiveness once we've accepted Him as Savior. And allow that to begin to change our hearts. So we see, number one, that we need to remember God's faithfulness if we are to enter in and to see this true revival. But number two, we need to repent in humility. repent in humility. Jeremiah 29, Jeremiah told the people. He warned them what would happen if they continued in their ways. And God was right in giving them this punishment. He gave them the 70 years. But God promised them, even in the time of Jeremiah, He said, I will send judgment, but there will be a time when I will send a mercy. And these people who are coming back, who are reciting this and are saying this and are remembering this, are beginning to now thank God for what He's done. As I look through this psalm, I think a little bit about how it was sung. Now, again, many times we read the psalms and there's nothing wrong with getting a context of why it was written, what was written, but we forget that I think a lot of times they were a song. They were literally sung. They were sung by the Jews in worship. And so go with me in your mind to maybe what might've happened in performing this. I think this gave me a little bit better as I began to try to dive into it and dig into it. It gave me a little bit better of a perspective. I look at the first three verses as kind of like what we had this morning, the choir. The choir singing to the congregation and the reminding them, remember who God is, remember the past, remember what has happened. But these next three verses or four verses, four, five, six, and seven, Are the congregation responding to that? It's the congregation's response. It's the psalmist's response in a heart by saying, you know what? Because of God's past, because of what he's done in the past, I need to look at my life and I need to repent in humility. As I mentioned earlier, they had to realize that they needed to return. They needed a restoration. They had seen physically that they had been restored, but now they realized that they needed something more than that, and that need was for a repentance in their heart. We see that they had here, in their situation, they had a need to repent. God had taken them away, and now He was bringing them back. but they still needed to repent. Just because God was faithful in his promise didn't mean that their heart didn't need to be stirred once again. And oftentimes we try to turn ourselves or we might try to say, you know what? I know that I need to repent, but many times I don't think we're willing to do what we really need to and repenting in humility. We'll tell God, I'm sorry, but do we really mean it? We tell our children this all the time, actions speak louder than words. And we'll tell God, God, I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have, you know, that was wrong, all these kinds of things. But yet we don't change our behavior and we expect that God somehow doesn't see, doesn't know. We kind of, we don't live, I think, in what we say we believe. We say God is all knowing. He knows my heart, but yet we live like, oh, you know, God will understand, it's okay. We live saying, you know what, God is all, He can see everything, He's everywhere at once, but yet we do whatever we want. We perform whatever actions we want, we live however we want. And we're not willing to truly look at our lives and say there's a true need for repentance and then be willing to actually repent. I think pastor must have passed on whatever he has, I feel like I can't get something caught out of my throat, so I'm sorry My voice seems raspy today. I'm trying to get it gone without it being weird to you. So we have the need for repentance, but we also see the need for revival. In repenting and humility, there has to be a need that we see that, you know what, I've got to repent. But we also have to see this need as they saw in chapter six, or verse six, excuse me, a need for revival. This verse is the key really to our text this morning. As the psalmist says, wilt thou not revive us? Notice the next word, again. What I think we should get out of this, and I hope you understand from this, is that there should be a revival again. Why do we have revival services once a year? Is it just to put something in the calendar? I hope that's not what you think it's all about. It's because we, as a church, realize that there's a time that we need to set aside in our lives to examine our lives, to ask God for a renewal, a reviving, a turning back again to Him in areas that we might have let slip. That's what this psalmist is saying, revive us again. Not do it once, not do it the first time, no, do it again. These people have realized that this is going to happen over and over. He says, notice though, revive us again, why? That thy people may rejoice in thee. Revival isn't something so that we can just weep and mourn and be sad. Now granted, there should be that in this repentance. But the end goal of this is not for us to just wallow in our self-pity and wallow in these things. Our goal should be that we are now joyous again because we have the joy of the Lord in our heart. David said in Psalm 51, God, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Why did he say that? He said, God, restore it again because he had sinned. Because he had been pointed out that there was sin in his life, and he realized it, and he said, you know what, God, I need to get that sin right with you. And he said, God, restore to me again that joy of salvation. And I think that's what we see here in Psalm 85, verse six. We see that we need to have that restoration. And the story is told of a man named Robert Rakes, who had experienced this personal revival in his own life. So much so that as he began to walk around his city and his community, he saw a group of little children in the street. He started noticing them and it was near where he worked and so he started to express concern for their welfare. One of the people who lived around there told him that if he were to pass by that same street on Sunday, he would be shocked to see the crowds of children just literally milling about. Rakes began to immediately feel a burden for these children, and he determined that he was going to try to come up with a remedy to the situation. Robert Rakes, just a ordinary, normal guy, doesn't necessarily do anything different than what you and I would be. He decided to try to make a difference, and he started what was the first known Sunday school for children. This man who didn't really think he was doing anything major across the globe, began something that now has encircled the globe. And children of all ages have been impacted because of this one man deciding he was going to do something for children. Because he had a revival in his heart and he decided he was going to do something about it and trying to see others come to know Christ. What I want you to see in this, as we look at this need for revival and we look at this idea of we have to have revival in our lives, is understanding this fact. that revival has to first of all start in our hearts before it can start in anyone else's. We must remember God's faith from us, but it also, we must repent in humility. There's gotta be a hope that can spring from it. One commentator wrote this, a genuine revival without joy in the Lord is as impossible as spring without flowers or dawn without light. Spiritual indecision results in inevitably a loss of joy. That fellowship is broken with God. And we can't rejoice if we have unconfessed sin in our life. So that rejoy needs to come about through revival. It needs to come about through repentance. So we have, remember God's faithfulness, repent and humility. Number three, restoration is promised. If we will follow through these first two things, God promises, I will send the revival. I will restore unto you, as David said, that joy of the salvation. You see, after confession, after repentance, then comes restoration. Then comes revival. then spiritual growth can truly happen. How is restoration promised? Number one, letter A, there's a commitment to God's ways. There's a commitment to God's ways. Part of revival, again, is turning from that which way which we were going and turning toward God's way again. It's saying, you know what? I'm going to turn from what I think is right, what I want to do, where I'm going, and I'm going to turn again to God's ways, and I'm going to be committed to what it is. It's a willingness to hear God's Word, and not just hear it, but to do it, as James says. Be you doers of the Word and not hearers only. You see, God in His ultimate loving care and wisdom will be stern in His rebuke to us. But when we turn and we obey and we turn and we yield our wills and we commit our way to God, God has promised that he is gentle and he is compassionate. You see here in verses eight through 13, a God that is totally different than what we see in verses one through three. Why is that? God who will hear, a God who will heal the land. He will give in verse 10, mercy and truth and righteousness and peace and all in truth, all of these virtues that we see of God, why? Because the people have turned, they've repented. Can we have revival in our hearts? Of course we can. But part of it is committing our ways to the Lord. Saying, God, you know what? I'm willing to follow you no matter what. Yesterday in our Summer Spectacular, we had a great message on that. And if you see these signs up here, they're not because we're trying to encourage you to buy Pepsi or Coke or, you know, just in the middle of the service, just get thirsty. I left them up because I wanted you to see a little bit of a glimpse of what we had yesterday. In spite of the rain and those kind of things, we had about 45 teenagers who showed up and we cleared this auditorium. It looked nothing like this. It literally was openness. The chairs were all against the wall and we played all kinds of fun things inside. But what I wanted to get you to understand from that yesterday and what we heard was a message in the afternoon about surrendering our all to Christ. And the person that was speaking said this, and I liked his little equation. I'll see if any of the teenagers can help me and remember what he talked about. There was a need, right? Remember the need? Remember the equation? There was a plus. What was the next part? Remember? Surrender. Very good. Surrender equals Abundance very good. See they do remember they were listening. See I proved to you they can listen All right so he was talking about the little boy in his lunch and the feeding of the 5,000 and I thought about this as I was thinking about and I already had in my mind what I was going to be preaching on today I thought you know, that's a perfect example for the adults a need we need revival and But the revival cannot happen until we're willing to surrender. The key part is us. We've got to surrender. And once there's the need, we see it, we know it. Once we are surrendered, then God can give the abundance. We want this huge revival. We want this big thing to happen, but we're not willing to do this one thing in the middle. It's simple math. One plus one equals two. Without this one in the middle, you're not getting two. You've got to have the second part of the equation. And so as we understand this and we understand that restoration is promised, yes, God will revive us, but we have to be committed to his ways. Last thing I want you to see this morning is there is a path to deliverance. Verses 10 through 13 show us the blessings that God will give. Now again, this was to the nation of Israel, this was the nation of Israel, but I think we can draw application as we look at this to our own lives. We see here, he says, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good and our land shall yield her increase. As we close and we think about this, what I want you to realize is that the path to deliverance, once revival has happened, once we're committing our way to God, the path for deliverance will include others, and that's where others will join in with us. You see, here he's giving the illustration of the land. And what he's basically saying is that because these children of Israel have turned back to God and they're willing to follow God, the land will be blessed because of it. God will bless them because of that. Now, I'm not saying that he's granting, you know, exactly what some people would say, health, wealth and prosperity and all those kinds of things. But I do believe that God will honor his promise. And the fact that David said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor a seed baking bread. We might not be abundantly wealthy and you might not have millions upon millions of dollars, but it doesn't mean that God hasn't promised that he will deliver for what he's promised. So let me ask you in conclusion, How's the last year been for you spiritually? As we come to the next revival, have you slipped in a certain area of your life? There is a God in heaven who is asking you to come back. There's a God in heaven who is asking you to be revived and he wants you to walk again in obedience. We will experience revival. You and me individually in our homes, in our churches, it can be done if we will be willing. to do these three things, to remember God's faithfulness, to repent in humility. Restoration is promised if we do those first two things. Are you willing to grow in your walk with God this next year? Do you really want revival? Do you really want change? Do you really want to live a different life? I challenge you in the next few weeks, as we begin to lead up to revival, to pray. Use this psalm as a prayer, to pray over it, to repent of sin in our lives and literally go before God and plead for His favor. Closing illustration, I'll give a man asked an Indian one time how he could see revival happen. And the Indian simply told him, you need to go out in the middle of the desert. You need to draw a circle around you. And you didn't ask God to send a revival to that circle. You know, I think that's what we need to look at this morning in our lives. God, let's draw a circle right around us. Let's not look at the person down the aisle. Let's not look at our spouse. Let's not look at our children. Let's not look at anybody else. God, me. And begin that revival with me. Dr. Andrew Murray said this. A revived church is the only hope for a dying world. And a dying church, I mean, excuse me, a revived church is only a revived church through revived people. This morning, will you be willing to remember God's faithfulness, repent in humility, and allow restoration to happen? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word this morning. Thank you that it is forever settled in heaven. God, we thank you that you have promised to send revival if we will just but seek for it. Lord, you've given us a prescription for it. And God, in a few weeks as our church has a speaker in and as we desire to have revival meetings, God, I pray that you'd help our hearts to be set toward revival. I pray that you would help us to be in line with your Holy Spirit. Lord, that our hearts would be ready and receptive to what you'd have for us. Lord, before these meetings ever hit, I pray that our hearts would already be in a spirit of revival. God, don't just let us wait for that day, but let us be ready already, prepared vessels. I pray that you'd help each one here to be willing to commit to pray for these meetings and ask God to send a personal revival to their heart and their life. With heads bowed and eyes closed this morning, Maybe you'd say today, Pastor Betts, you know what? I can't say that I understand or I can even experience that revival because I've never honestly accepted Christ as my savior. There's never been a time, I've heard you talk about this renewing again and those kinds of things, but there's never been a time and place in my life where I've bowed my heart before God and said, God, I know I'm a sinner. God, I know there's no way that I can save myself. There's never been a time where you've surrendered your life fully to God in that way. If that's you today, I don't want to embarrass you. I don't want to call you out. I simply want to pray for you. And I want to ask you if you'd be willing in a second, as we have what we call an invitation, a time where Christians will come forward and pray that if you're willing to, just to have someone sit down and show you from the word of God, how you can know for sure that you have a home in heaven. If you've never done that before, if you say, Pastor Betts, would you just pray for me? I don't know for sure that if I died today, that I would awake in a place called heaven. Would you just raise your hand, just quickly put it up and right back down. Anyone at all this morning? All right, Christians, let me ask you, do you desire revival in your heart? We've seen two steps this morning that lead to a third restoration. Are you willing to remember God's faithfulness? How many of you would say this morning, Pastor Betz, I have failed to remember what God has done in my life. I need to get back to remembering where I once was. I need to remember what he once saved me from. I need to remember his goodness in my life. You would say, Pastor Betz, would you pray for me this morning that I would remember his faithfulness? Amen. And many of you might also say, you know what? There'd been an area in my life that I need to repent in. May not be something huge, but it's something that I know is not right with God. And with an uplifted hand this morning, would you say, Pastor Betts, just pray that before these revival meetings, that God would help me and that I would get this area right in my life. Just with an uplifted hand, if that's you saying, I need to repent, there's something in my life that I need to get right with God. Amen. This morning as we have our invitation, either in your seat or the altars here are open. If you can come and kneel and you can pray, I ask you this morning to come. As we stand to our feet, with our heads bowed and eyes closed, the pianist will play. If you've raised your hand about one of these items and you need to speak with God, again, either in your seat or here at the altar, would you come forward and would you do business with God? Would you talk to Him? Would you allow Him to do the work that He's asked you to do in your life this morning? Thank you. so so Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to be in your house this morning. Lord, we thank you for the challenge from your word. I pray that you'd help us to go out of here a changed people, that we would go out of here ready to serve you and ready to be right with you so that we might affect those that we are around. Lord, we thank you for this time in your house today. We praise you for it. In Jesus name. Amen. Just a few things to remind you of. that you'll see quite a few announcements in our bulletin. But we've had quite a few people help us out with the spring, the summertime cleanup. There's a list in the lobby. There's only a couple of things left. And if I can, I'm going to put a pledge out and a request out. I am not the most handy of people. I do my best. I can cut grass. I can do those kind of things. But building things is not my forte. And I have two nice, beautiful banners that are sitting out here. They're four by six, and they're meant to be out by the road so that people driving by will see those and be willing to hopefully send their kids to Vacation Bible School. But they're not doing any good sitting right by my office. So this is my request. I will get the materials for you. My thinking is a four by six piece of plywood and just put some two by fours behind it and prop it up so that we can put it out by the road. If you're able or willing or any order to say, you know what? I'm not the best either, but I'm willing to help. Would you see me as you leave today? And I will be glad to get you that. I'd like to get that done tomorrow or by the latest Tuesday so that can be out because we have Vacation Bible School coming up on next Sunday. So if you can help with that, please see myself as you leave. But there are a couple more things. There's some things up in our spring area and then also at the waterfall that need to be done. So if you can help out with those areas, that would be a great help. Which leads me into our next announcement. The Vacation Bible School is coming up next. Sunday night through the following Friday night. And so there are some flyers out in the lobby. If you'd like to take some of these to invite some of your neighbors or some young people that you know, or if there's a place that you know you could put one of these flyers. These are meant to go in a business or something of that nature that you could hang up. There's quite a few of those out there as well. There's some suggestions beside them of places that you could hang them if you'd like to look for that. Things like stewards or Panera or Dairy Hoss or different things like that that you could hang those things in. If you could help us out by taking some of those and passing those out. But most importantly, if you say, I can't do any of that, pray. Pray that God would do a work and that we would see many young people come, that we would see young people saved through that ministry. What's next? I'm at a loss. There we go. I don't remember what's up on the slides. We also have the Wilton Baptist Bible Institute that's starting in a couple more weeks. It's a great opportunity for you to learn more about God's Word. It takes you in-depth study of each book of the Bible, as well as going through some major doctrines. So if you're interested in that, you can see my wife or myself. We can get you more information. But that'll be starting here coming up in the next couple weeks. It's on Thursday nights from 6 o'clock until 9 o'clock, and it runs for about 17 weeks of the semester. and you can learn a lot from that. Tonight, we'll continue with our volleyball and cornhole. If you wanna bring some clothes to change into, have some time of fellowship out afterwards, and we'll put the cornhole out, and then you have also time to play volleyball. So plan on staying for that. And then tonight also, we do have the Lord's Supper, and we'll be taking part in that. So make sure that your heart is ready for that as we come tonight. All right, I'm gonna lead us to start us in our song, and then we'll let you finish the song as we sing today so I can get to the back. What a day, glorious day that will be. Let's sing it out as we are dismissed this morning. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave so so you