to the Song of Solomon, I have
a constant, constant, I am never fervent, warmth of heart, devotion,
I mean, burning devotion. I think, you know, I'll sit down
here and I sit, languishing, crying again that he would come.
Hardest thing on this earth, it's him, except God speak. But
the hardest thing on this earth to get and from us, from men
is to consecrate yourself. And once that's done, hardest
to keep your hearts. And I guess that's the way it's
gonna be as we live in this body of flesh. So tonight I want to
talk to you about revival. Not the silly nonsense that goes.
Folks hang a sign out and say we're having revival this week.
You can just about mark it down. Revival not something we conjure
up revival not a special series of meetings you have when you
get folks to Revival is the moving of God's Spirit upon him wherein
he stirs up again those Shall I say passions and stirs up again
the commitment and consecration of our souls to the Lord Jesus
Christ. A revival is not suddenly just
a burst of power upon the church, but rather it is a stirring of
the souls of God's elect, which sometimes comes gradually and
sometimes comes over a period of time. But certainly it is
much more than just a mere temporary emotional stirring. with each
fresh revelation of Christ, with each fresh embrace of His arms,
with each fresh kiss with the kisses of His mouth, the believer
is more and more drawn to Him and consecrated to Him. True
revival, then, is the communion and fellowship of Christ with
His people. It comes by degrees, by the gradual
manifestations and knowledge of our blessed Savior. Let's
look at verses 8 through 15, and let me show you four things
in this text of Scripture concerning this matter of revival. You know
what I'm talking about. Drawing of your heart again to
Christ, fresh and new. First in verses 8 and 9, If we
are to be turned to our Lord, whether you're talking about
a sinner being turned to Him in the initial work of grace,
or whether you're talking about our hearts that have been languishing
being turned in fresh devotion and fresh consecration, if we
are to be turned to the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus must first
graciously, and here we see Him coming, The bride speaks and
says, the voice of my beloved. Behold, he cometh leaping upon
the mountains, skipping upon those. My beloved is like a roe
or a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall. He looketh forth at the windows,
showing himself through the lattice. It is our responsibility to seek
the Lord, indeed. It is our responsibility to call
on him. It certainly is. It is our responsibility
to worship him, to come to him, to follow him. And yet the fact
is we never will seek him. We never will call on him. We
never will follow him. We never will come to him. We
never will worship him until first he comes to us, seeks us
and calls us by his grace. If he turns us, we shall be turned.
If he calls us, we will run after him. Here the Bible speaks of
the bride rejoicing in the approach of Christ her beloved. First
she hears him speak. It is the voice of my beloved.
It is Christ calling to his church, calling to tell us that he's
coming. No one but Christ can speak to the heart. No voice
but His can make the heart burn for Him. So we who are His sheep
hear His voice, and hearing His voice, we know we are His sheep.
It is the voice of my beloved. He speaks to us through the preaching
of the gospel. We have a terrible tendency to
make too much of preachers or too little of them. But preachers
are God's messengers. And if God speaks to you, he'll
speak to you through the voice of a man declaring the gospel
of his grace to you. It is the voice of my beloved. He speaks to us through his word
by his spirit. And it takes more than the voice
of a man. It takes the power of God to speak to a man's heart.
Oh, but if God speaks, if God speaks through your heart by
his word, we gather in the house of God and we rejoice. It's been our privilege for years
now to meet together and enjoy the blessed privilege of God
speaking through her. But as he speaks to the congregation
of his saints, call of his saints personally. Now, then she hears
him speak, and the next she sees him coming. Behold, the eye of
faith looks always for Christ. The eye of faith always anticipates
him. Now, this certainly is true and
applicable with regard to the coming of Christ in his first
advent. For the Old Testament saints,
Abraham and others rejoiced to see his day and were glad they
saw his day, believing the record God had given concerning him.
anticipating the coming accomplishment of redemption, the coming accomplishment
of salvation, the coming accomplishment of God's purpose, all by the
Lord Jesus. And so the Church of God in the
Old Testament speaks and says, Behold, He cometh. But the passage
is certainly true. and applicable with regard to
you and I speaking today as believers looking to him as we look to
him to come to him come to us when we come into this house
when we come together around his table when we come to worship
him when we call upon his name he's coming the lord's coming
we're we're going to the church now oh that's we're going to
the house of he coming to meet us behold he coming i can hardly
wait behold he coming The Lord Jesus, as he comes, the scripture
declares, he said, Lo, I come. And faith responds, saying, Behold,
he cometh. That's true today as we look
for him in Greece. It's true as we look for him in his glorious
second advent. But particularly I return to
what I said earlier. It refers to his glorious first
advent when he came to accomplish for us that redemption of our
souls by the sacrifice of himself. Look how he comes. This is how
he came when he came to us. This is how he comes to minister. He comes cheerfully with great
speed. He came leaping and skipping
over the mountains like a deer. As a rule, our young heart, as
one pleased with the work set before him, our Lord's heart
was set on the work of redemption for us. He said, I set my face
like that. He said, I have a baptism to be baptized with and behold,
I'm straightened until it be accomplished. The Lord Jesus
was not compelled to come here. He came here with gladness in
his heart to redeem our souls. So great was his love for us.
He is not compelled to come to us that day and skipping over
the mountains. The Lord Jesus came to remove
the difficulties that lay in the way of our salvation and
to triumph over our enemies. He came leaping over the mountains. You can almost see the picture. The poetic language that's used
here is poetic language, but it falls short of describing
that which was truly being declared. The Lord Jesus comes leaping
and skipping over the mountains with joy, alacrity, and speed,
so that he comes to overcome all the mountains that stand
between us and him. He's the only one. We stand here
and see nothing but the wall of our indifference, the barriers
that stand between us and God, and there's nothing we can do
to remove them. He brings them down. The Lord
Jesus Christ, when He came the first time, came suddenly, soon
after the promise was given. Looked to me like a long time.
The Jewish people, those believers among them who were anticipating
His coming, And they heard the promise of God and they weighed
in and folks began to mock and say he's not coming. He made
the promise four days later. You see, with God, a thousand
years in one day. How is that applicable? He's
never pushed. He's never in a bind. He's never
uneasy. The Lord said, I'm coming. And
four days later, he was here. And you seem to cry forever.
And you think, my God, will he never come? No, the promise,
Terry, waits for us as well. In due season, Christ shall appear. He appeared in due season at
the appointed time when God had ordained it, when he came to
redeem us. He appeared in due season at the appointed time
when he came to save us. He will come in due time at the
appointed time, at the appointed time in due season to carry us
up to glory. This is true then with regarding
to all those things. And when our Lord Jesus comes
to revive and refresh his people, He graciously reveals himself
to us. Look at this. He standeth behind
our wall. He looketh forth at the window,
showing himself through the lattice. This was the condition of the
church in the Old Testament. Christ was with them. Now, I'm
convinced they saw him a whole lot more clearly than most folks
think they saw him. I'm convinced Noah was not some ignoramus with
regard to the things of God. He knew God. Abraham was not
uninstructed in things of God. He walked with God. Enoch walked
with God. But they saw through a glass
darkly. They saw him only through the types and shadows and ceremonies
and pictures of the law and through the prophecies that were given
concerning him. They saw just as though he stood
behind the wall and they could see the shadow. They could just
they could just see that he was there, but not not very clearly
or distinctly. The same thing is true in a sense
with us as long as we're in this flesh. We have the word of God
and we have our Lord Jesus revealed in the fullness of his redemptive
grace and glory in the book of God. And yet, even with this
word from God, as the apostle said, we see through a glass.
We don't see anything as we ought to. I've been meditating a little
bit on that statement I made to you this morning out of with
regard to Exodus 3, 6, when our Lord turns to that passage. to declare the doctrine of the
resurrection of the dead. And our Lord Jesus, when he quotes
that passage, he's giving us the real sense of it. Now, he
knows what it means, because he's the one who said it. And
he said, I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. And you
look at that, and you look at it, and it seems true with regard
to all things. Oh, Bobby, we haven't even, we've
not even Some of us talk about getting out in deep, deep water.
We're in a wading pool. I expect we'll stay in a wading
pool till we leave the world. We see through a glass darkly. Particularly,
these words describe our condition as believers when we're under
a cloud. The Lord Jesus is always near,
but sometimes he's out of sight. He doesn't reveal himself to
the wall that stands between us is the wall that our hands
have erected. I'm looking at Sammy, this bad
boy. The Lord will never, such as I never imagined could be
done. And the Lord Jesus stands behind
the wall, like one waiting, willing, ready, anxious. A young couple,
two young lovers, a man and his bride. for the first time embraced
one another and enjoyed the blessed privileges of that conjugal union
between a man and his wife as God has ordained it. And then
that glimmer, everything is cold. Just suddenly, unprepared, unexpected,
a wall, a barrier stands between him and the husband who has been
offended by the coldness of his wife, of her coldness and indifference. Or if the shoe's on the other
foot, the wife does. But here's the picture. He comes
and bids us call on him, we say later. He bids us come to him,
we'll say in a little while. He bids us give ourselves to
him, we say, well, give me time. And we shut the door against
him. And the master, you have it in Revelation 320. He stands
at the door of the church, not physically, not literally, but
spiritually. He stands at the door of disassembly. Anybody here, June 14th, 1998,
anybody in there will open the door. He says, I will. If he didn't, he'd never be.
He says, I will love them for mine anger already turned away. He graciously looks in at the
windows and shows himself through the lattices to comfort. to break
us. I tried to picture that this
afternoon, looking over the passage. The king has brought his bride
into his chamber, and it's a well-adorned chamber. And she's harshly spoken
to him, harshly dealt with him with negligence and coldness,
has pushed him aside after all his grace and mercy. But in the
chamber he's built especially for her. and the staircases and
latticework. And he stands behind the wall
of the latticework so that he's seen under the staircase. He
stands and shows himself through the window. That's the picture.
Our Lord Jesus makes himself known to us as the word is read
and prayer is uttered. Back in the study, Paul read,
and as he read, the Lord spoke. When James read Psalm 39, as
he read, the Lord showed himself. He comes and brings the word
through the mouth of his servant in the preaching of the gospel
and shows himself through the lattices, through the windows.
He shows himself through the songs of praise that we sing,
through the bread and wine of his supper. He shows himself
to us. Now, secondly, once our master
has come to us and revealed himself to us, causing our hearts to
burn for him. Listen to how he lovingly called.
He came and he showed himself, thighs up, below the winter. The rain is over and gone. The
flowers appear on the earth. The time of the singing birds
has come. The voice of the turtle or the
turtle dove is heard in our land. The fig tree put it forth her
green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good
smell. Arise, my love, my fair one,
would to God. Let us be like Samuel and say,
let us be like Isaiah and say, here am I, send me. Like Abraham
and just said, here I am. You called, here I am. In all
our frames and circumstances, Christ's love toward us is always
unchanged. Here she speaks of the time of
her languishing and her neglect. My fair one. Sometimes he chastens
us, yes. Sometimes he hides his face from
us. But his chastenings and his hidings of his face are the chastenings
of his loving heart for us. He calls us his love, his fair
one. Our Lord's love for us, you see,
never Oh, thank you, your love for me. My soul through many
changes goes. His love, no variation. In his
eyes, we're always fair and lovely because he made us so. He calls
for us to arise and come away with him. Arise from the bed
of slothful indifference. Come away from your carnal amusements
and worldly care. Come away to me and with me.
And then the Lord Jesus presses our hearts. Oh, our long, hard,
bitter winters will not last forever. That snow laying out
on the parking lot here. Look at that thing and you think,
well, thank God it's not going to be. It's going to leave soon.
And flowers will be cropping up everywhere. The trees will
begin to put out their buds. The plants will begin to spring
up in part. And flower, the songbirds will
be heard again, lest it be his When the Lord Jesus comes, when
the time of fruitfulness comes may apply to the first coming
of our Lord Jesus when he came to redeem his people. It certainly
applies to the coming of him in grace and mercy when he would
come to bring life and salvation to chosen sinners. Certainly
it applies to this night to revive our souls. And then thirdly,
our all-glorious Christ. He says in verse 14, O my dove,
my dove that art in the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places
of the stairs, let me see thy countenance. Let me hear thy
voice. The Lord Jesus says, now, you
may, during this time of languishing, wonder about this. And he says,
Oh, how I love to do this. Let us, therefore, come forward.
He loves to hear the voice of the penitent heart. He loves
to hear the voice of the sinner in need of mercy. He loves to
hear your voice. He loves to see our face, declares
our face because he made it. He wants to see our faces turned.
He wants to hear our voices calling upon him. And thus with him in
the True love is not a public spectacle of passion. It cheapens
you, cheapens the passion. The believer and his love for
Christ doesn't know. We don't try to show off in front
of all. We don't even make any effort at it. But the believer
finds his and the Lord Jesus communes with his bride. Now
then, he draws us after him. He causes us, Lindsay, to and
now while we're near, not usually a big thing. Been married for
years, some of you, but y'all been married for a while. Not
often have you, not often. They might always come over the
same. Now look at the administrator.
Take us the foxes and chew up the vines. They spoil the vines,
for our vines have tender grains. This is a charge to every believer.
Our master tells us to suppress our sinful nature, the evils
of our nature. Those things which seem in our
own eyes to be perhaps insignificant are not insignificant at all.
They're like little foxes, and they would destroy the vine in
Christ's kingdom. Paul deals with them continually,
anger, wrath, malice, slander, gossip, by a little child. Those little foxes that destroy
the peace of God's church must be taken out of the way. Was
he talking about the little fox of doctrinal error? Of the little
fox of schism and division? Take away the foxes. See that
you do. This is the peculiar responsibility
that the Lord lays on our shoulders. Let us How gracious God individually,
my soul man, how gracious he's been to me. Let us now cherish
and guard the privilege.