Thank you, Bill. Let's open our
Bibles to the book of Habakkuk this evening, the little book
of Habakkuk. And if you would, find chapter
3. The little book of Habakkuk, chapter
3. We began this morning to deal
with the subject of revival of the truth. That's what we would ask of God,
that He would bring about revival of the gospel of His grace, that
He would use poor preachers like unto
myself as we preach the gospel and that he would stir the hearts
of his people to seek his face and bring us once again to rejoice
in our God that he would be our glory that all of our souls would
make our boast in the Lord. He's the author of our salvation.
He's the origin of salvation and He is the finisher of salvation. We wouldn't have any interest
in the gospel of Christ Jesus were it not for God's everlasting
purpose of grace toward us. All that you know about the Gospel
of Christ, the faith that you have, the love that you have
in your heart for the Word of God of the Lord as He's revealed
Himself in the Scriptures, it's all due to His grace that was
given to you in the Lord Jesus Christ, even before God made
the world. You see everything that happens
to us during our lifetime. And I'm not just, I'm not talking
about physical things, although it's true physically, but I'm
talking about spiritual things. All the spiritual mercies that
we are blessed with in our lives are due to God's willing to bless
us and having blessed us already in the Lord Jesus before He ever
made the world. There's nothing new under the
sun. And I'll tell you, God's grace to us is old. His mercies
are ancient. And indeed, we do come to realization
of them, but it's that which we enjoy right now. We enjoy
salvation. And I hope you enjoy the assurance
of your salvation, that everything's all right between you and God.
And I'll tell you, if everything is all right between you and
God, it's only because of who Christ is and what He did for
you. He made things right. The Scripture
says, He made our peace by the blood of His cross. There's nothing in us, there's
nothing we've done. It's all what He's done for us. And that which I desire, and
I know that those of you who have a love of the Lord, in your
heart of hearts, the love of God has been shed abroad in your
heart by the Spirit of God. That which you long for, for
yourself and for our assembly, is that God would revive us again. I know this, you can't force
God to bring about revival. Habakkuk, he sought God's face
about reviving his people. He says here in chapter 3 of
Habakkuk, the second verse, O Lord, O Jehovah, O God our Savior. I tell you, better make sure,
number one, you know who you're talking to. This is the God of
our salvation. This is Jehovah, the everlasting
covenant God. Oh, I'm so thankful for the covenant.
David said in 2 Samuel concerning the covenant of grace, he said,
this is all my salvation right here. That's all my hope. That's all my peace right there
in that covenant of grace. If you think you can get some
kind of assurance of your relationship with God based on how you feel
or what you do or even the measure of your faith, you're badly mistaken.
It's when God brings us to rest in what He's already done for
us. That's when we'll have some peace.
Habakkuk says, O Lord, O God my Savior, I've heard Thy speech,
I've heard the report. And I have too. I've heard the
report. I've heard the record. I've heard
the good news. And he says, I was afraid. I
had a fear of God in my heart. And then he says, Oh Lord, revive
thy work in the midst of the years. Whose work is it? It's
God's work. This is not our work. This is
not my church. It's not your church. It's His
church. Revive thy work, he says. Revive thy work in the midst
of the years. In the midst of the years make
known. Make known yourself to us. In
other words, what He's asking for, Lord, may there be a revelation
of Yourself to us. Reveal to us Your glory once
again, as You did in days of old. He says, in wrath, remember mercy. In other words, Lord, all we
deserve is wrath, All we deserve is the anger of the Lord because
of our sinfulness. And those of us who are His people,
we rejoice in His grace, but we know in and of ourselves the only wages that we deserve
is death. Isn't it wonderful that we don't
reap the wages for our sins? But we reap the reward of the
faithfulness of Christ Jesus. That's grace right there. But
this is what Habakkuk recognizes. It's the Lord who must do the
work and you can't force Him to work. If He doesn't do the
work, it just won't be done. No work will be done. You can't force Him to do His
work. But I'll tell you something else, if he begins to work, you
can't stop him either. Not all the powers of hell itself,
not Satan and all of his demonic forces all together can forbid
or prevent God from doing his work. We seek for the Lord to revive
us again. Revive us again. On this subject of revival, do you know who the Lord uses
in bringing about revival? He uses just ordinary instruments
like you and me. poor preachers of the gospel.
It isn't a poor gospel. It's a rich gospel. But those
whom he uses are just sinners, saved by his grace, like you,
Alan, standing up to preach the gospel, and like me, just poor
instruments. But I tell you, in the hands
of God, He can use even us, even me, even this poor instrument
right here. He can even use me to speak to
your heart. Isn't that amazing? And that's
how God operates. That's the work that He does.
We've been talking about the apostolic fathers, the men that
our Lord called to be His apostles. Ordinary men. Most of them uneducated. As far
as we know, none of them were educated very much. Matthew is
a publican. But the other fishermen and farmers. And in themselves, they were
nothing. They were nobody. They were nobody. But look what God did with them. Look how He used them. After
our Lord Jesus gave Himself a ransom for us, and after He ascended
back to heaven, after a few days of waiting for the gift of the
Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father, that waited ten days,
the Spirit of God was given, and these eleven ordinary men,
soon, another man would join that apostolic group, the Apostle
Paul. Those men, a dozen men, and he
was the only one, the Apostle Paul, he's the only one who was
educated and brought up under the Word of God, though it was
false religion. He's the only one in education. But the Lord used these ordinary
instruments to send forth the Gospel into
the world. And I told my class again this
morning, they preached to multitudes, the Lord saved people, and then
out of that He called various men to preach the Gospel. They
went out preaching the Gospel, and under their ministry the
Lord saved a lot of other people, and right on down the line until
finally we heard a preacher. We heard a preacher. And that
which we know That which we have learned is a result of God using
just an ordinary vessel, just an ordinary instrument, a man
who by nature, men who by nature were nothing of themselves but
in the hands of God. Vessels of mercy, full of the
Word of God, full of the good news and God empowers His men
and the word of the gospel goes forth as God is magnified and
Christ Jesus is set forth in His beauties and in His glory
and His blood is proclaimed, His righteousness is proclaimed
and the Lord uses poor old instruments like me and He speaks to sinners
like you in a saving way. Isn't that amazing? Absolutely amazing. I read a
story a couple of weeks ago. This was the man who was a concert
master of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the one, he's
the first, you know, the concert master. He's the first chair
of the violin, right? He plays first violin. He's a
concert master. And it was advertised in a newspaper
that this man, the concert master, on the night when the London
Philharmonic Orchestra would be playing various songs, have a concert,
that this man would be, this concert master, he would be presenting
music on a very rare Stradivarius violin, worth back in those days,
they gave it in English pounds, but converted over to English
dollars, worth $20,000. This was several years ago. They advertised it in the newspaper. Well, it is said that night,
multitudes of people came to hear the London Philharmonic
Orchestra, and specifically this concert master on this rare Stradivarius
violin. And the man who was emceeing
it, he introduced the violinist, the concert master. And he came
out and it was absolute silence throughout the hall. And the
man put his violin up to his chin and he took the bow and
he began to play. And it's said that he played
so beautifully, people began to weep. And when he finished his song,
everybody gave him a standing ovation. And then he took that violin
and threw it down on the floor and stepped on it, absolutely
destroyed it. And everybody was aghast. And then the emcee walked out
and said, don't be disturbed. That was not the $20,000 Stradivarius. That was a $20 violin picked
up at the used punk store. He said now he will take the
$20,000 Stradivarius and play a song on that. And once again,
they were brought to tears. And then the man who was seeing
it came out and he said, ladies and gentlemen, this just goes
to show you, it isn't the instrument. It's the master. It's the artist. And I'm going to tell you something.
It isn't the instrument that God uses. It's the master himself. It's the master himself. And
he uses ordinary people like you and me in the cause of Christ
Jesus to set forth the gospel. And as he uses us, it may be,
it may be that he will bring about revival. And I don't know
how widespread The revival might be if he's pleased to send it.
That's up to God. As I said this morning from Revelation
chapter 7, or chapter 11 rather, I do believe, I do believe that
before our Lord Jesus comes the second time, there's going to
be another revival. There will be a revival of the
truth. The witnesses, that is the church of our Lord Jesus,
Lies in the streets like two dead witnesses. The gospel that
oft times seems to be stamped out and just looks like there
just hardly is anybody who believes the word of the gospel anymore.
But then the Lord revives His servant. He revives His work. Sometimes He just revives one. Those of you who believe the
gospel. Don't you desire in your soul
for God to revive you? That's what I ask. That's what
I ask for me. And we can't stir it up. It's
not an emotional thing. It's not about, well, let's all
come down here and let's all get down on our knees and pray
that the Lord would send revival. We pray where we are. But it
isn't a big show. It isn't a mass gathering down
at a so-called altar, which there is no altar in a church. Our
altar's in glory. Our altar's somebody. Christ
Jesus the Lord. But the Lord just speaks in an
unusual way, a gracious way. And these old cold hearts of
ours, He just warms them up. Wouldn't that be wonderful? He just makes us once again to
rejoice in Him more than we've ever done before. I don't know much about revival.
I said this morning, revival doesn't come about by preaching
on revival. I know it comes about by preaching
the gospel of Christ Jesus. If God ever does anything unusual
to me and you, it'll be through the preaching of the gospel of
Christ Jesus. But I do know this, when God
sends revival, it's always associated with several things. Number one,
it's always associated with a return to the Word of God. It's always
associated with a return to the Word of God. This is basic, this
is fundamental, and it's absolutely required. Here's the problem
of religion today. Preachers and churches have gotten
away from the Scriptures. You know that's true and I know
it's true too. It's time for preachers and churches
to get back to the Word of God. Look with me in 2 Kings 22. Let me show you this passage
of Scripture. 2 Kings chapter 22. This is an interesting story
in the life of King Josiah. He was very, very young when
he became king of the southern kingdom. You know at this time,
of course, the kingdom of Israel had divided in two. There was
the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. King Josiah
was king of the southern kingdom, that is Judah. The Northern Kingdom,
as you know, and I've said it before, and you've heard other
preachers say it as well, the Northern Kingdom, after the division,
after the death of Solomon, the Northern Kingdom never had a
godly king. They never had anybody to lead
them in the worship of God. I tell you, pity the country
who has an ungodly ruler. Pity the country. who has a man
up there at the head, turning the ship of the country, so to
speak, who hates God. That was the Northern Kingdom.
They never had anybody, never had a king that feared the Lord.
On the other hand, the Southern Kingdom did. They had several,
but they also had some ungodly men. This man Josiah. He's only eight years old when
he began to reign. Can you imagine that? Eight years
old. His granddaddy Manasseh, he was
a vile and ungodly man. He brought more idolatry into
the land of Judah than any king that preceded him. And though
he was an object of God's mercy, he was one of those rescued as
it were almost at the last minute. God saved him by His grace. But
he didn't have an opportunity to undo all the damage that he
had done. And when Manasseh died, his son
Ammon was just as vile as his daddy was. And God killed him. And his young son Josiah took
the throne of Judah. And when he had reigned for 18
years, he felt led of the Lord to rebuild,
to reconstruct, that's not it either, to kind of redo, there
should be a restoration, better word, a restoration of Solomon's
temple. It was in need of great repair. Idols had been set up there by
his grandfather, Manasseh. And his father, of course, went
along with all the idolatry. And then they just let the Solomon's
Temple, it was just in real disrepair. You know, it's kind of like a
church building. You let it fall down. If you
don't keep it up, it's falling down. That's the way it was with
the temple. You know, grass growing up, nobody cutting the grass
and all that kind of stuff. And King Josiah, he took an interest. He said, we've got to change
this. And so he sent out the Levites and he said, go out and
collect money from the people because I'm hiring all these
workers. And they're going to work on
the temple and bring it back. Going to fix it up again. Going
to paint and, you know, rotten boards, they're going to be replaced
and all that sort of thing. And so he ordered that to be
done. And he said, now these men have
got to be paid. So he ordered Levites to collect
the funds from people. Well, then he sent word to his
secretary. His secretary was a man by the
name of Chaffin. His secretary was also a scribe,
copied the scriptures. He called for him. He said, Chaffin,
I want you to go. I want you to go over to the
temple. And let's make sure that these
workers are getting paid a fair wage. make sure they're getting
their money. So Shaphan, he goes over to the
temple, and there he meets up with a man by the name of Hilkiah. Hilkiah was the high priest. And he tells him, he says, you
know, the king wants to make sure these workers are paid.
And so he talked to him about that. And then, so Hilkiah, he
said, these things are being taken care of. And Hilkiah said,
we're doing all the repair work. Tell the king we're doing what
he wanted us to do. But he said this in verse 8,
ok? 2 Kings 22.8. And Hilkiah the high priest,
he said unto Shaphan the scribe, that is, when we were going through
and cleaning out the rubbish and the clutter, We came on a
book. I found the book of the law in
the house of the Lord. In other words, I found the Word
of God. I found the Word of God. I don't know where it was. It
was just put back in there and other stuff put on top of it. Nobody had seen it for years. And he gave the book to Shaphan.
And he read it. He said, I've got to take this
to the king. And he took the word of God. He took the word
of God. And he goes back to King Josiah. Look at verse 9. He brought the
King word again. He said, Thy servants have gathered
the money that was found in the house, because they brought all
the money in, put it in the treasury boxes. But those Levites, they
didn't count it. He said, Now it's been delivered
into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight
of the house of the Lord. So King just wants you to know
the workers have been paid. But he said, you know, King,
while this work was being done, you know, Hilkiah, the high priest,
he gave me a book that he found. And Shaphan read the book before
the king. And verse 11 says, And it came
to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the
law, that he rent his clothes. And I'll stop right there for now. It would appear neither
Hilkiah, the high priest, he's one who's in charge of going
into the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement
and sprinkling the blood one time on the mercy seat and seven
times before the mercy seat. This is a man who ought to have
known where the Word of God was and read it every day. But he
was shocked. I found the book. And here's
not only Hilkiah the high priest, he hadn't been reading the Scriptures,
neither had this man Shaphan who's a scribe. But there's somebody
else that hadn't been reading the Word of God either. That's
the king. He hadn't been reading it either.
Now hold your place right here. I want you to look over to Deuteronomy
chapter 17. Let me just show you this Scripture. Deuteronomy chapter 17. These
are the laws that God gave concerning the duties of a new king. Now look at Deuteronomy chapter
17, look at verse 18. You got it? Deuteronomy 17, verse 18. And it shall be, because
these are instructions to a new king, it shall be when he sitteth
upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him, that
is a scribe, shall write him Copy of the law of this law in
a book out of that which is before the priests of the Levites that
is The king had a scribe chafin is described to Josiah over there
in second Kings We read that in chapter 22 And his job was,
whenever King Josiah took the throne, he was supposed to take
the Word of God, the Word of God that had thus far been written,
and make a copy of it by writing it, and then giving it to the
king. Giving it to King Josiah. And
look at verse 19. And it shall be with him, and
he shall read it therein all the days of his life. And he'd
never read it at all. that he may learn to fear the
Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes,
to do them that his heart, his heart be not lifted up above
his brethren, that he'd feel like he's better than everybody
else. No, he's just a sinner too. He needs the mercy and the
grace of God. The King does just like everybody
else. That his heart wouldn't be filled
with arrogance and pride. And then that he turn not aside
from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, to the end
that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children
in the midst of Israel. Go back then to 2 Kings 22. So,
nobody's been reading the Word of God. Nobody! Not the high priest, not the
scribe, not the king. There was a negligence of the
word of God. A negligence of the word of God.
And in verse 11, it came to pass when the king heard the word
of the book of the law, he just rent his clothes. That's a sign
of extreme sorrow and grief. I have neglected the word of
God. Oh, God, is there mercy for us? We've neglected Your Word. That's
what King Josiah is saying. And that's what's happened today,
don't you see? We've neglected the Word of God. We've got other stuff. We've
got Sunday School literature. We've got this. We've got that. We've got other books. We've
got other things that people bring to the pulpit, but they
don't bring the Word of God. If you ever go to any other church,
most churches, there are a few that still bring their Bibles
to the church services, but most churches don't. People don't
do that anymore. Don't do that anymore. The Word
of God is neglected. It's a closed book. People are
ignorant of the Scriptures. Here's what Chafin and Hilkiah
and Josiah, this is what they all discovered. We have found
the Word of God that we have neglected all these years. Josiah had been ruling 18 years. Verse 3 tells you that. In the
18th year of his reign. He'd been reigning 18 years and
the Bible hadn't even been seen in the kingdom. Isn't that something?
In the palace. Here's the king of Judah. Judah. Messiah's coming through Judah. The Redeemer. The Savior, all
those sacrifices point to Him. They're all set forth in the
book. But the book of God had been closed up and put away,
dust covered it, stuff piled on top of it. Somebody the other day, I said,
don't ever put anything on top of the Word of God. I don't put
anything on top. I don't put a song book on top
of the Word of God. Nothing. Nothing. Folks up in
Michigan, they said years ago they had an old preacher come
preach for them. And he took the Bible and laid
it down. And then he stepped up on top
of the Bible and he said, I stand on the Word of God. I just shudder
at that sort of thing. This is a special book. Don't
you understand? And I know you do and I do, but
we need to understand it even more. This is God's Word to us. This is all God's got to say.
This is the totality of His revealed will! His will of purpose! His will of salvation! It's all
right here in this book! And we keep it closed? Closed? Do you keep it closed at your
house? Can it be I'm talking to somebody
who doesn't open the book of God at home? How can you expect
God to speak and revive you when the Word of God is closed? We will know revival is coming
when we have a renewed interest in the Scriptures. God's going
to do something. But I tell you, He will do it
through the Scriptures, through the Word of God. Through the
Word of God. Find out what the Bible says.
You see, where did Josiah, where did Shaphan, where did Hilkiah,
where did they go wrong? They went wrong the same place
we've gone wrong. Neglected God's Word. Neglected God's Word. And look
what he says in verse 13. Well, first of all, in verse
number 12, the king commanded Hilkiah, the priest, and Ahicham,
the son of Shaphan, and Achbor, the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan,
the scribe, and Asahiah, a servant of the king, saying, go inquire
of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah. concerning
the words of this book that is found. For great is the wrath
of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have
not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according
to all that is written concerning us. So Hilkiah the priest, and
Ahicham, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah went unto Huldah
the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tikva, the son of
Horus, keeper of the wardrobe, and as she dwelt in Jerusalem
in the college, they communed with her. And she said unto them,
thus saith the Lord of Israel, tell the man that sent you to
me. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I bring evil on this place, and
on the inhabitants thereof. Even all the words of this book
the king of Judah hath read, because God said, They've forsaken
me. They've forsaken me. They burn
incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger
with all the works of their hands. Therefore my wrath shall be kindled
against this place, and shall not be quenched. You tell the
King of Judah, which sent you to inquire of the Lord. Thus
shall you say to him, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, as touching
the words which thou hast heard. because thy heart was tender
and you humbled yourself before the Lord. When thou heardest
what I spake against this place and against the inhabitants thereof,
that they should become a desolation and a curse, thou hast rent thy
clothes and wept before me. God says, I've heard him. Tell him I've heard him. Oh, preacher, what should we
do? I tell you, we better seek God's face in repentance and
restore the Word of God to that primary place that it deserves. Open this book and find out what
God has to say. It's time to open the Bible and
find out what God says about Himself, of His sovereignty. of His justice, of His grace,
of His love. Find out who God is. You're not
going to find out who God is just staring up at the heavens
or taking a walk through the woods. Well, it's so beautiful
out there and I commune with nature. You might commune with
nature, but you're not communing with God unless you're going
through His Word. You've got to get in the book.
God tells us about Himself. It's in this book He tells us
about ourselves. about our sinfulness, about our
depravity, about our ungodliness. I tell you, it's time to open
up the book and find out what God says about me, what He says
about you. And it's time to open up this
book and find out what God says about His Son, Christ Jesus,
and His work of redemption. This time of the year, most of
this country and a good bit of the world focuses upon a baby
born in Bethlehem's manger 2,000 years ago, but they don't have
any idea who it was. Don't have any idea really who
it quite came. Oh, they say he was a good man,
a miracle worker. I don't want any of you to get
National Geographic, but December issue, In Search of the Real
Jesus. I've got 62 different pictures
of Jesus as He's been depicted down through the years in search
of the real Jesus. And this one guy said, a social
reformer. A social reformer. A religious
jihadist. That's what one said. They don't
have a clue. You know what they are? Educated
fools. Ever learning. Never come to
knowledge of the truth. That's what men of this world
are, and that's what you'd be except for the grace of God.
You'd be an educated fool. They don't know who Christ Jesus
is because they don't look in the Word. They don't look in
the book. You want to find out who Christ
is? Look in this book. You want to find out His identity,
that He's God and man? Look in the book. You want to
find out why He came into this world? He came to save His people
from their sins. That's the reason His name is
Jesus. You want to find out what He did? He died on a cross that
God might be just and justify ungodly sinners like you and
me. He can do it in a righteous way, in a just way. He made our
peace by the blood of His cross. You can't make peace with God.
He did. That's what this book says. Get
in the book. Get in the book. And this book
will tell you something about the experience of salvation.
We're born again in the Spirit of God. dead and trespassing
sin. And don't listen to these religious
spiritual quacks who say believe on Jesus and get born again.
Well, they don't know anything about the new birth, otherwise
they wouldn't say stupid stuff like that. Oh, pray that God would send
forth His Spirit bringing about new life. establishing life within
us. Take away that heart of stone,
that old hard, calloused heart. Take it away and give me a heart
of flesh, a heart of faith, a heart that loves Christ Jesus. A heart that make us to be like
David. God said he's a man after my
own heart. You know why he's a man after
God's own heart? Because God gave him that heart,
that's why. It wasn't anything in David that
he has done, it's because of the grace of God given to David. Revival. Revival. And it'll start right here. Getting
back to the book. Years ago, we used to hear a
broadcast, Back to the Bible. Y'all ever hear it? Back to the
Bible, that's what it's called. I think it's out of Chicago.
If I'm not mistaken, I may be wrong about that. And back in
those days, I didn't even know what the gospel was, so I don't
even know what they preached. I doubt if they preached very
much. But they sure had a good title to their program, Back
to the Bible. And I don't know whether God
will do anything for you or not. Don't know whether He'll do anything
for my poor cold heart or not. I'll tell you this, He's not
going to do anything for sure until we get back to the Bible. Get back to the Word of God.
What happens when God sends revival? We get back to the Word of God.
And I'll just give you this real quick. There will be a destruction
of idols. I guarantee you that. Whenever
there is a Revival sent by God, there'll be a destruction of
idols. Go back to 2 Kings 18 and I'll
give you this and we'll quit. Maybe I'll just finish this Wednesday.
I just keep on carrying it on. But look at 2 Kings 18. Here's
a man, he's the king, his name is Hezekiah. Guess what? He's the great-grandfather of
Josiah. Josiah's daddy was Ammon, Ammon's
daddy was Manasseh, Manasseh's daddy was Hezekiah. 2 Kings chapter 18 verse 1, And
it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea, The son of Elah,
king of Israel. That's the northern kingdom now. I know it's kind of hard to get
confused with all these names, but it's King Hoshea, the son
of Elah. We're talking about the northern
kingdom there. But during that time, during his reign, down
south, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, he began to reign. Verse 2, 25 years old he was
when he began to reign and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abbi, the
daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right
in the sight of the Lord according to all that David his father
did. Well, what did he do? He removed
the high places with all the idolatry. He broke the images. He cut down the groves. The groves,
they had like, kind of like rest stops. You know, like we go down
the interstate and you have a rest stop, pull over there and you
can rest, go to the restroom, get some refreshments. You can
just take a nap in your vehicle if you want to. You see all the
18 wheelers, they stop there and spend all night, right? Well,
back in those days, they kind of had rest stops. They had rest
stops along the main roads. Probably had nice palm trees
and kind of an oasis. He pulled over there. Well, here's
what they had when they pulled over to a rest stop. They had
all these idles, these groves, these groves, and he'd go sit
under a grove of trees in the shade, and worship your idol."
That's what that was. Boy, Hezekiah, he just cut down
the groves. He cut down all the trees, destroyed
all the gods, and he break in pieces the brazen serpent that
Moses had made. For unto those days the children
of Israel did burn incense to it, and he called it Nehushtan. which literally means a worthless
piece of brass. He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel, so that after Him was none like Him among all the kings
of Judah, nor any that were before Him. I tell you, when God sends
revival, you'll destroy your idols. You'll destroy your idols. What is an idol? Anything and everything that
men regard in their hearts more than or even equal to the Lord
of Glory. That's an idol. And an idol can
be your job, it can be money, it can be your husband, it can
be your wife, it can be a child. It can be anything. Anything
that you love and adore equal to or more than the Lord your
God. And I'll tell you what, it's not good to love something
more than you love the Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul.
Don't you put anything before the Lord God. Because if you
do, that's an idol. That's an idol. And you know
and I know, come on now, let's just be honest, we're by nature
idolaters and we can still slip into idolatry real easy, can't
we? You know that's true. But when God sends a revival,
the idols, that's when the groves are coming down. That's when
the brazen serpent of Moses' day, all those religious relics,
you know, all in pictures of Jesus. All those necklaces and earrings
got crosses on them. And you say, hey, this is nehushtan. It's just a worthless piece of
silver or brass. I'm going to get rid of this.
Get rid of it. Idolatry is any visible representation
of God. I give you this. Moses is up receiving the law
of God from the Lord. Joshua went with him, part of
the way. And the people of Israel, they
went to Aaron and said, man, make us some gods like the Egyptians. You know, they saw their gods.
We can't see our god. David said, God's in the heavens.
He's done whatsoever is pleased. Yeah, but we can't see him. We
need a visible representation of God. That's what they said.
Aaron said, well, take off your bracelets and earrings and bring
it all to me. And he melted them down and he
made a golden calf. And he said, these be thy gods,
O Israel. And they worshiped that golden
calf. Oh, thank you, Lord, for bringing us out of Egypt. Bow
down to that golden calf. Moses up on the mountain. Joshua
said, Moses, I think they're going to war. I think they're
having a war down there. Moses said, no, that's not the
sound of war. That's a celebration. They were
having a party. And he went down, they was having
a party, a religious party. You don't play games with God.
Dancing around the golden calf. And he took that golden calf,
he was hot. Preachers get upset about idolatry,
and everybody ought to. He came down and he took that
golden calf, he melted it down and when it hardened, he ground
it to pieces, to fine powder, sprinkled it on the water and
said, drink that all of you. Get you a cup and drink that.
It's idolatry. He said, this is an awful thing
you all have done. You've rendered to an idol the
glory and the worship that's due to God alone. He said, and I'm going to ask
you this, who's on the Lord's side? And the Levites said, we are.
And in my mind, I'm thinking most everybody else is running
for their life. But there was some stout-hearted,
rebellious souls that stayed there. And Moses said, if you're
on the Lord's side, step over here. And some ran to their tents
and they pulled the flap in. We've done an awful thing. But
there's a bunch of folks, 3,000, that stood firm. He ain't going to tell us what
to do. Moses said to those Levites, strap on your swords. You see
those people right there? That's the enemy. Kill them! That tough, isn't it? Idolatry
is an awful thing. It's an awful thing. Be done
with your gods. Honor the Lord! Exalt Christ
Jesus! I tell you what, those things
are associated with true revival. True revival. Lord, revive Thy
work. Revive Thy work. Let's pray. Our Father, as we come to the
close of another day of worship, We so desire to be revived in
our hearts and in our souls. And Lord, we repent as it were
in sackcloth and ashes. Like King Josiah, we rent our
clothes. We've neglected the word of the
Lord to our soul's jeopardy. Oh God, forgive us. Forgive us. And all these, I'll
rip them from our hearts. Oh, that we might love Christ
supremely. Love the Word of God. Love the
Gospel of your free grace. Lord, help us not to neglect
the Scriptures. We open the Word of God here.
Help us to open the Word of God in our homes. Daily reading the
Scriptures. Don't let us be like Josiah and
the kings who preceded him. The Book of God was neglected.
And that cost him dearly. And it'll cost us too. I pray
that you'll convince us of the necessity of opening the Word
of God, see what you have to say. And Lord, what you have
to say settles the matter. And we bow to the authority of
this book. Bless us all, Lord, would you?
Please, for Jesus' sake. Amen.