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Silver Street Mission

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Restoring life

II Chr 6: 32 – 7:10

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 02 Jul, 2006

I HAVE had one driving force since I arrived here over 20 years ago. It is revival. I can’t say that I have been successful in fostering revival, but I can say that I have always kept it in view.

The day I started here, 4 Feb 1984, I chose a hymn for my induction service to express my purpose. It was Charles Wesley’s great hymn,

O Thou who camest from above

The pure celestial fire to impart

Kindle a blaze of sacred love

On the mean altar of my heart.

The next evening, I began preaching on 1 Corinthians. I aimed to challenge everyone to see that God manifests his presence and power if we are brought back into unity of faith, unity of love, unity of righteousness and unity of purpose in Christ.

Before we ended the series, the church was cast into deep conflict. We didn’t emerge for nine years. What could have been a chance for revival became a fight for survival.

Yet I still kept my aim as far as I could.

Then, around 1990, though we were still struggling, I refocused. I spoke again about revival. I urged us to pray for revival. Now we pray nearly every week, “Lord, send a revival on Marrickville! Wherever Jesus is proclaimed as Lord, may he rule over hearts and restore the faith of those who meet.” The words change: the meaning is the same.

We don’t judge people for disagreeing with us; we pray that the Holy Spirit will do his mighty, life–changing work in all our hearts.

May that revival begin with us!

So we will look at revival as a new beginning. Our church is in a period of new beginning, but we are not yet revived. I could have talked today about Josiah cleansing the Temple in preparation for revival, or about the Lord’s revival messages to all the churches in Revelation. But we will start with Solomon's times, because that, too, is a revival message.

This revival in the nation of Israel was at a time of new beginnings: of new beginnings in prayer, of new beginnings in worship and of new beginnings in community.

I have been fascinated with revival for years. Did you hear me say that at our combined time of worship with the other churches on Pentecost Sunday?

I first heard of revival long before I became a Christian. I was still in primary school. Our weekly scripture teacher was sick. Mr Weismann, one of the teachers, took our class.

He asked us, all us little Methodists, if we knew how the Methodists started. We didn’t. So he told us about John Wesley and about the Methodist revivals and about how people fell to the floor when Wesley preached, because they were so struck by the need to change their lives.

The tale caught my attention. I asked my mother, and she told me more.

When I became a Christian, I read Wesley’s Journals, and gained a clearer view of what is possible when God is in control.

I first saw revival at Beach Mission in Eden.

In the first few years, our mission was relatively successful. We always saw conversions. Some were quite dramatic.

Then we had a year when nothing went right. We tried just as hard, we did all the right things, but no one responded.

We met about it.

We noted bad relationships between some of the team members. One of the girls was quite hurt by teasing. There was a lack of respectful talk.

We were confronted, we repented, and suddenly the mission took off. In our final few days we saw more conversions than we had in any ten day mission up until that time.

When God’s Spirit gets a chance to work, he does mighty deeds and Jesus is glorified.

The story of Israel in the days of Solomon’s temple is a story of revival.

The people left Egypt with great hope, but they wandered aimlessly instead of entering the land to which they were bound.

They crossed Jordan in absolute excitement, but they failed to establish themselves in the land as God had told them to.

For about 300 years, they dragged the old meeting tent around the country, but they had no permanent place for worship. They were believers, but they believed at a low level. There was no sense of God’s presence or his glory or his mighty power in the midst of his people.

King Saul failed God very early. He was never a contender to build God’s temple.

David was a warrior, with too much blood on his hands to build a permanent place.

Solomon was the man — not perfect, but available. God used him to build a place for himself.

When the Temple was finally opened and dedicated, the glory of the Lord filled the place and poured out over the assembly. Revival came to the people that day!

And in our times, it is the Lord whose glory shone out on the Mountain of transfiguration who brings the glory of God with him!

BEGINNING IN PRAYER

The first thing we see is that this revival began in prayer, because that day was a day of prayer.

Solomon prayed,

^{2CH 6:40} “Now, my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

⁴¹ “Now arise, O LORD God, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.

May your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, may your saints rejoice in your goodness.

⁴² O LORD God, do not reject your anointed one.

Remember the great love promised to David your servant.”

There was a lot more to his prayer.

He prayed for the outsiders and the outcast. He said,

^6:32 “As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm--when he comes and prays toward this temple, ³³ then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

This was a prayer of mission, a prayer that all nations would know the name of the Lord and fear him and know that he is the God of Israel.

Would revival come more rapidly if God’s people cultivated a passion in prayer for the people of the world? Would a desire for the salvation of the nations lead us more quickly to that place where God blesses those who share his own heart of love?

Then Solomon prayed for battle success.

^{2CH 6:34} “When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to you toward this city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name, ³⁵ then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.

For Israel, that was a very real war–prayer. They were surrounded by enemies; they needed protection. Victory for Israel’s armies was vital to Israel’s survival.

Today, we also need to gain victory in the battles. Why tackle soft targets? Why battle symptoms, and neglect causes? Take the battle to the heartland! Tackle the forces that seek to destroy God’s work!

I read good advice in a Catholic book many years ago — when we seek God’s blessing, always resist the devil in Jesus’ name, because the devil loves to counterfeit.

As we seek God’s blessing in revival, we should always pray for victory in the battle against the world, the flesh and the devil.

Then Solomon got to the heart of prayer: he asked for forgiveness when the nation repents.

^{2CH 6:36} “When they sin against you--for there is no one who does not sin--and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near; ³⁷ and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, `We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly’; ³⁸ and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and toward the temple I have built for your Name; ³⁹ then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you.

By praying that prayer, he was already beginning to confront the constant need all people everywhere have for repentance.

Revival won’t come without repentance, because revival means giving up our personal goals and ambitions in favour of the plans and purposes of God. Sin is about putting our goals and ambitions above God’s.

The Solomonic revival began in prayer.

BEGINNING IN WORSHIP

But the revival was also a time of new beginnings in worship.

2CH 7:4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD. ⁵ And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the people dedicated the temple of God. ⁶ The priests took their positions, as did the Levites with the LORD’s musical instruments, which King David had made for praising the LORD and which were used when he gave thanks, saying, “His love endures forever.” Opposite the Levites, the priests blew their trumpets, and all the Israelites were standing.

Of course, this formal part of worship actually began after the revival began.

The point is that worship is a response to God. They gave because God had given.

The people had experienced God’s presence and, because he had given his presence to them, they gave joyfully to him.

Here is where the true worship began:

^7:1 When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. ² The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it. ³ When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying,

“He is good;

his love endures forever.”

When revival comes, when God manifests his presence and his people give themselves over to him, their regular, everyday giving that we all do morphs into that life–transforming engagement with God that revival is about. Day by day we give time, efforts, perhaps gifts of money. Suddenly God breaks into the picture and the whole thing moves into a different dimension. It is transformed and restored to full life again.

Worship begins with willingness. Jesus reveals to us what it is all about:

^{Phil 2:5} ...being in very nature God,

[he] did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

^2:7 but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

^2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself

and became obedient to death--

even death on a cross!

I think that partly explains why Anglicans and Presbyterians have had a fairly good record of revivals — they have a systematic approach to formal worship, so they are ready for the kind of worship that sustains a revival.

The beginnings of revival are in worship, because God loves a cheerful giver, and because his plan is that we should

...present [our] bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our rational worship,

as Paul writes to the Romans.

BEGINNING IN COMMUNITY

The final key to revival in our passage is that revival begins in community.

Community forms most truly when people cease being merely nice to each other, and deal with their differences; when they abandon personal interests and goals and adopt the goals and interests of the group.

We perhaps don’t see that process in our account, but we do see its results.

When the people met with God, they couldn't do their own thing any more. God became their focus, because,

² The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it. ³ When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshipped...

There was an element of brokenness as they laid all on the altar for the God who is good, and who loved them.

We also see that

^{2CH 7:8} ...Solomon observed the festival at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him — a vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt. ⁹ On the eighth day they held an assembly, for they had celebrated the dedication of the altar for seven days and the festival for seven days more. ¹⁰ On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their homes, joyful and glad in heart for the good things the LORD had done for David and Solomon and for his people Israel.

If ever there was a community celebration of God in Israel, this was certainly one of the best examples.

If we want revival, we will need to make it a major goal in prayer. If we want revival, we need to work on our worship. And, if we want revival, we will have to build community around Jesus our Lord.

Let’s do it — never cease seeking revival!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)