Revival!

Ezekiel 36:37 – 37:24

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 01 Jun, 2008

LAST WEEK some great things were happening. But we still need revival, as I said last Sunday. Let’s keep this topic before us, because it is what we really need above all else.

Without revival we will die. Without revival, the people of our district and of our nation will never see life. People come to faith in Christ because they catch faith from people of faith.

How can I preach revival? I need it as much as you do. It is the blind leading the blind. But we trust in a God who gives sight to the blind! He will restore us sight and life and health if we truly desire it, if we learn to long for it, if we want it so much we can taste it.

There have been many revivals in history. The early books of the Bible tell how Israel lost God’s blessing when they disobeyed, and how the blessing was restored when they turned back to God. That‘s revival.

Jesus was a revivalist to Israel’s lost sheep.

The coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples at Pentecost was a foretaste of revival.

The messages to the churches in Revelation are revival messages.

Revival broke out in central Turkey under the presbyter, Montanus, around 155 AD.

The monastic movement was partly a revival movement, as the early church became more worldly and needed restored passion.

In the 1100s, Waldo, a merchant from Lyons, led a revival which launched the Waldensian Church in Italy.

St Francis was a revivalist; Savonarola, too.

There were revival–like aspects to Luther’s early ministry. The Anabaptists began in a flurry of revival–like manifestations.

There were the Baptists around 1605 and again in the 1640s. There were the Quakers in the 1640s. There was revival in America and in Germany in the early 1700s.

People fell to the ground shouting for God’s mercy in the Methodist revivals in England throughout the second half of the 18th Century.

There were more revivals in the 1840s and 1850s in Ireland and in New South Wales and in Western Australia.

Then there was revival again in the US around 1900, in Wales around 1902 and in Sweden around 1905.

Recently, revival–like movements have touched some of the traditional churches — Catholic, Coptic, Assyrian, Serbian.

Don’t forget about the revivals in the Solomon Islands and in Bayer River and in Bougainville in the 1960s.

We haven’t even begun to talk about the Toronto Blessing, or the Wheaton College movement in 1992.

God is a God who revives his people.

The old promise holds true today:

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.

God longs to revive his fallen, weak people!

Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones is clearly a revival vision. God answered when Israel cried out: “Lord, restore our fortunes!”

  ^{EZEK 36:37} “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Once again I will yield to the plea of the house of Israel and do this for them: I will make their people as numerous as sheep, ³⁸ as numerous as the flocks for offerings at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts. So will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

God yields to Israel’s plea, and promises to make their people as numerous as sheep. It is a promise of national fruitfulness.

When revival comes to the Church, then Christians become numerous. The backslidden come with singing to Zion; the fallen walk and leap and praise God; the scattered are regathered.

God restores his people so that we will know that he is the LORD.

But understand that vision: a vision of restored life for dead people.

It has three parts: the reuniting of the dry bones, the reclothing of the skeletons and the reanimation of the corpses.

Without Christ, we lose life. In revival, God restores life to Christians who are near death.

Reuniting the bones

Just outside the city of York in northern England, there is a small bridge on the highway. In fact, you might miss it if you weren’t looking. A simple sign says Stamford Bridge.

In the year 1066, King Harold Godwinsson defeated an invading Danish army there after force–marching his army from London.

Harold’s army was outnumbered by the Danes, and the Danes were well–established in York.

But Harold took the Danes by surprise, and defeated them. One English soldier stationed himself under the bridge with a spear, thrusting it up through the gaps in the bridge timbers, killing Danes as they ran overhead.

Of the thousands of Danes, only three boatloads escaped to go back to Denmark. The rest were killed.

Even today, farmers dig up the bones as they plough their paddocks — bones identifiable as Danish from the armour they find. There were too many to bury: they rotted where they fell, until the earth covered them.

What Ezekiel saw was like a heap of bones from the Stamford Bridge slaughter. There was no possible chance of restoration of life. There was no groaning survivor under a heap of the dead: these bones are dry, sun–bleached, rain–washed, snow–scoured.

But God knows that life is possible.

He commands Ezekiel,

 ^{EZEK 37:4} Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, `Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ “

What is impossible for man is possible for God.

But it is not a mere matter of waiting for God to act. He commands Ezekiel: “You act, and I will act.”

Faith is like that. We hear God speak, we trust and obey, and we await God’s response.

This message specially comes to Ezekiel. It is his job to tell the dry bones of Israel, “God will restore us to life!”

That is my job, too. God will restore us to life. Do you feel you are dry bones? Do you feel that there is no more hope? Hear the word of the Lord! He will reunite the divided. He will reclothe the skeletons. He will make breath enter you: the breath of the Holy Spirit. He will restore life to you! He will do it, so that you and I will know that he is the LORD.

I have experienced two incidents of revival.

One was very quiet, just repentance and restoration of broken fellowship within our beach mission team. Yet, overnight, we were changed from being the least effective mission since Scripture Union started at Eden in Southern NSW, to being the most effective in terms of conversion. And all of that was in our last three days at the town.

The other was much more dramatic. The youth leaders at a Beth Shan weekend convention got themselves right with God. Suddenly there was a great ingathering of our young people! Within moments of the last of the adult leaders getting right with God, they came running, wanting to know the Lord,

We knew — both times, we knew — that God is the LORD.

^{PSA 133:1} How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity...

Unity is the first step to revival.

In response to the prophecy, the bones come together. It is as God said, bones reunited then skeletons reclothed.

Reclothing the skeletons

The second phase of restoration is the reclothing in flesh of the skeletons.

Have you seen the remains of a dead animal on the side of the road? Often scavengers tear away the fur and remove the most edible flesh. For a time, you have the bones still joined by tendons and gristle. Finally, that, too, is consumed.

In the first stage of restoration, the bones are joined by tendons and gristle, That is a great improvement, because the right bones for the right bodies are rejoined.

But we need flesh, we need skin.

You might know the song,

You’ve got to have skin
All you really need is skin,
Skin is what is, that when you’re inside it
It helps keep your insides in
All you really need is skin.

We need a bit more than skin, but we do need our bones encased in living tissue.

Skin is how we interact with the world.

You know how important our Sunday morning hugs are. Some of you don’t experience hugs Monday to Saturday. You know how much it means in a shop where the assistant touches your arm and says, “I can help you with that.” You know that this is between you and that assistant. You know how the patient rallies at the touch of a caring nurse.

These dry bones can never be full, functioning humans without flesh and skin. They need to move beyond mere mechanical connexion of their bones.

Ezekiel sees that process underway.

As he writes,

 ^{EZEK 37:7} So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

They have everything physical that they need for restored life, but they are not yet alive.

Last week, I said we have to return to our roots, go back to where we began with Christ, and do the works we did at first.

Revival requires determination.

There has long been an argument between English revivalists and American revivalists.

In the UK in the 1850s and around 1900 revivals happened apparently spontaneously. English revivalists emphasise God’s sovereign actions. They say, “Pray for revival, but you can do little more to make it happen.”

On the other hand, that trained lawyer and eloquent preacher, Charles Grandison Finney, dominated the revivals in the US. He said, “Revival will come if you follow clearly laid out Biblical principles.” He had a lot of success. He introduced many features of mass evangelism which are still in use today.

I used to side with the English pattern, but I think we need a bit of both.

Finney gets the bones together and shows us how to be covered with flesh.

But only God’s sovereign act can take us through the next step.

We must do everything we can. We might be dead bones, but let us put those bones where they can reunite easily. Let us build the relationships. And then let us stand still and wait expectantly for our God to breathe the breath of the Spirit into our hearts.

As Jesus says,

Wait in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from above.

He was speaking of the Holy Spirit and the life he brings to those who are dead in trespasses and sins — life through faith in Jesus who died and rose again for us.

Re–animating the corpses.

It is all very well to have everything in place. It is all very well to be joined together again and to be covered with flesh. It is all very well to relate well to others.

But we have to go one step further. Without an animating breath, we remain mere corpses.

If you have seen the dead, you know that some have horrifying injuries. Some have bullet wounds or the marks of beatings. Others have bruises from the fatal crash. And some are wasted to skin–covered bones.

But some of the saddest are the ones who look perfectly well, as though they were sleeping. Only a forensic pathologist can tell you what carried them off.

You feel that a good shake will waken them, and they will sit up and stretch and be ready to go again.

And that is how these dead bodies were. Everything in place, nothing working.

We certainly need to put everything in its right place. That is what Finney taught. We need bodies ready to go.

But it takes a sovereign act of God to send his breath into them to restore them to life.

As Ezekiel records,

^{EZEK 37:9} Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ “ ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army.

For the restoration of the bodies, Ezekiel had to prophesy to the bones; for the reanimation of the spirits, he had to prophesy to the breath, to the presence of the Spirit.

Maybe I spend too much time talking about God’s plan to revive us and not enough time inviting the Spirit to do his reviving work!

We have many things in the right place — but we don’t yet have revival.

Now is the time to look for that reviving breath.

Conclusion

We could think of ourselves as the slain. We have suffered loss of hope, we have suffered loss of strength, we have suffered loss of resources, we have suffered internal and external stresses and attacks. We have been nearly picked clean, like an abandoned corpse along the highway.

But we have no cause to stay dead. We can come back to life.

I have prophesied to you, as one pile of dead bones speaking to another, but I have told you to hear the word of the Lord. I have told you that these bones can rise again.

What is left? Only to prophesy to the Spirit.

John Wimber made it a practice when he preached, to invite the Holy Spirit to come among the people and minister his life to them. Isn’t that what Ezekiel did?

“...prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ “

You have heard God’s word. You have been getting ready. Holy Spirit, come today, breathe into us, who are slain, and make us live.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2007. 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.)