me, if you will, to the Song
of Solomon, chapter 2. I have a constant, constant struggle
in my soul. I am never, it seems never able to Stand
before God with any fervent zeal, warmth of heart, devotion, I mean burning devotion
for any length of time at all. The Lord comes and reveals himself
to me and I think, you know, I'll sit down here now and bask
in the sunlight of his grace for many days and soon Coldness
deals over my heart and my soul is Barren and empty again, and
I set languishing Crying again that he would come and make himself
known to me Hardest thing on this earth. It's impossible except
God speak except God work But the hardest thing on this earth
to get from you and from us, from men and women, is to get
you to come to Christ, to trust Him, to love Him, to consecrate
yourself to Him with a willing heart. And once that's done,
the hardest thing on this earth is to keep yourselves in the
love of God, to keep your hearts fresh in love with the Son of
God. And I guess that's the way it's
gonna be as long as we live in this world, as long as we live
in this body of flesh. So tonight I want to talk to
you about revival, not the silly nonsense that goes on in the
name of religion. Folks hang a sign out and say
we're having revival this week, you can just mark it down, that's
not gonna happen. Revival's not something we conjure
up, revival's not a special series of meetings you have when you
get folks to start coming and joining the church. Revival is
the moving of God's Spirit upon a man's soul, wherein he stirs
up again those, shall I say, passions of the believing heart
for Christ, stirs up again the commitment and consecration of
our souls to the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. The 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 to Him in fresh devotion and fresh consecration,
if we are to be turned to the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus must
first graciously come to us. And here we see Him coming to
His people. The bride speaks and says, the
voice of my beloved. Behold, he cometh leaping upon
the mountains, skipping upon the hills. 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 through these lips, if God speaks through
these lips, he'll speak to your heart by his word. And he speaks
to us personally. We gather in the house of God
and he speaks to his saints collectively. We rejoice. It's been our privilege
in this place for years now to meet together and enjoy the blessed
privilege of God speaking through his word to our hearts. But as
he speaks to the congregation of his saints collectively, he
speaks to each of his saints personally. Now then, she hears
him speak, and the next, she sees him coming. Behold, he cometh. Do you see that? 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 and 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 us when we come into His 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 going
to the church now. Oh, that's... We're going to
the house of God. The Lord's coming. He's coming
to meet us. Behold, he cometh. I can hardly
wait. Behold, he cometh. 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 grace. 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 redeem us. This is how he comes to minister
to us graciously. This is how he comes the second
time. He comes cheerfully with great speed. He came leaping
and skipping over the mountains like a deer, as a roe, our young
heart, as one pleased with the work set before it. Our Lord's
heart was set on the work of redemption for us. He said, I
set my face like a plant. 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 now. He comes with joy, leaping
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. And Merle, he's the only one
who'll overcome them. He's the only one. We stand here
and see nothing but the mountains of our sins, the wall of our
indifference, the barriers that stand between us and God, and
there's nothing we can do to remove them. But He comes, and
He just skips over them. He brings them down. The Lord
Jesus Christ, when He came the first time, came suddenly, soon
after the promise was given. I know folks say, well, it looked
to me like a long time. The Jewish people, those believers
among them who were anticipating His coming, they heard the promise
of God and they waited and waited and waited and waited and waited. And folks began to mock and say,
He's not coming. He's not coming. But it was just
a short time. He made the promise four days
later He was here. You see, with God a thousand years in one day
and one day is a thousand years. How is that applicable? He dwells
in the leisure of eternity and in the peace of total sovereignty. So he never gets in a hurry.
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 the Lord says to you, I'm
coming. I'll come to you. And you seem to cry forever.
And you think, my God, will he never come? Though the promised
tarry, wait for it, he'll come. He'll come. And he's coming soon
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 season to revive us. And he will come
at the appointed time in due season to carry us up to glory
as well. This is true then with regarding
to all those things. Now when our Lord Jesus comes
to revive and refresh his people, he graciously reveals himself
to our hearts. Look at this. He standeth behind
our wall. He looketh forth at the windows,
showing himself through the lattice. This was the condition of the
church in the Old Testament. Christ was with them. but they
didn't see him very clearly. 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 the 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
see that he was there, but 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 darkly.
We don't see anything as we ought to see it. And we don't see anything
as we're going to see it. 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, you look
at it, look at it. And now you begin to see a little of what
the passage means, a little. And the same thing's true with
regard to all things concerning God our Savior. Oh, Bobby, we
haven't even skimmed the surface of this thing. We've not even,
somebody talked about getting out in deep, deep water. We're
in a wading pool. I expect we'll stay in a wading
pool until we leave this 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. It doesn't reveal himself to
our hearts. The wall that stands between
us is the wall that our hands have erected. I'm looking at
Sammy, just baptized you, and you'll see what I'm talking about
soon. The Lord will never build a wall
between you and Him. He'll never do it. But you will. Oh, with our hands we build the
wall of sin to separate between us and our God. Indifference
and neglect, coldness of heart, such as I never imagined could
be done. And the Lord Jesus stands behind
the wall. like one waiting, willing, ready,
anxious to be reconciled. A young couple, two young lovers,
a man and his bride, they've just finished saying I do and
they've gone to their honeymoon and they've just 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 woman or that man
says or does something that just, everything cold. Suddenly, just
suddenly, unprepared, unexpected, a wall, a barrier stands between
them. And the husband, who has been
offended by the coldness of his wife, stands behind the wall
of her coldness and indifference. anxious to be reconciled. Or
if the shoe's on the other foot, the wife does. But here's the
picture. We've shut the door against him. 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 stands behind our wall. And he knocks. You have it in Revelation 3.20.
He stands at the door of the church, not physically, not literally,
but spiritually. He stands at the door of this
assembly and he says, if anybody in there, anybody here, June
14th, 1998, anybody in there will open the door to me. I'll come into him and sup with
him and he with me. He says, I will heal their backsliding. If he didn't, he'd never be healed.
He says, I will love them freely. And here's the reason why. For
mine anger is turned away. It's already turned away. He
graciously looks in at the windows and shows himself through the
lattices to comfort to break us, to make us open to him. 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 when we come to his house. Back in the study, Paul read
that passage in 2 Peter. And as he read, the Lord spoke
plainly to me. Did he? 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 calls us. Listen to
this. He came and he showed himself,
my beloved spoke. And he said to me, listen, rise
up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter
is past. The rain is over and gone. The
flowers appear on the earth. The time of the singing birds
is 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,
and come away. Wood to God. we were keenly sensitive to his
voice. Let us be like Samuel and say,
speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth thee. Let us be like
Isaiah and say, hear him, I, send me, like Abraham, and just
simply say, Lord, 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. And he comes and says, my love,
my fair one, my dove. Sometimes he chastens us, yes.
Sometimes he hides his face from us, yes. 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 varies. Oh, thank you, blessed Son of
God. Your love for me is in no way
dependent upon me. My soul through many changes
goes. His love, no variation knows. 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 to come. The winter is past. Oh, our long, hard, bitter winters
will not last forever. They will pass away. They will
pass away. That snow laying out on the parking
lot here, we were snowbound for nearly a week this winter. Look
at that thing and you think, well, thank God it's not going
to be here for long. 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 and bud and flower. The songbirds will be heard again.
Blessed be his name. Winter will not last long. When
the Lord Jesus comes, winter is over. The time of fruitfulness
comes. Certainly this 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. when he comes to revive
our souls. And then thirdly, our all-glorious
Christ communes with his believing people. 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, for thy
voice is sweet. Thy countenance is comely." The Lord Jesus says, now, you
may, during this time of languishing and coldness, wonder about this,
but nothing's changed. You're still in the clasps of
the rocks. And he says, your face, just
as lovely as ever. Your voice. Oh, how I love to
hear your voice. It's unbelievable, isn't it?
Except for His grace. Let me hear your voice. Let us
therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. He loves to
hear your voice. 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 that our face is comely, beautiful,
because he made it so. He wants to see our faces turned
toward him. He wants to hear our voices calling
upon him. He wants to commune with us and
us with him in the secret places of the stairs. I'll talk to you
young people a little bit. I seize the opportunity. True
love is not a public spectacle. A public spectacle of passion,
it cheapens you, cheapens the passion, cheapens everything.
The believer and his love for Christ doesn't make a public
spectacle of his love for Christ. We don't try to show off in front
of folks. We don't even make any effort at it. But the believer
finds his closet in the secret stairs, and there he communes
with his master, his redeemer, and his love. And the Lord Jesus
communes with his bride, his redeemed, and his love. Now then,
he gives us a warning in verse 15. The Lord comes, he speaks, he
makes himself known, He communes with us. He draws us after him. He causes us, Lindsay, to come
near him. And now while we're near, he
said, be careful. Be careful. Be careful about
little things. That's what'll get you. Not usually
big things. You men and women, been married
for years, some of you, Please don't raise your hands. I don't
want y'all to get in trouble like Lindsay did this morning, but y'all been
married for a while. Not often have you ever had any
quarrel over any big thing. Not often. They might always
come over the silliest little things. Now look at the admonition
he gives in verse 15. Take us the foxes, the little
foxes. They sneak in. and chew up the
vines. They spoil the vines, for our
vines have tender grapes. 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, peevishness, you know. I don't like that. Like a little
child. He said, put those things away.
Neglect, neglect one another. Those little foxes that destroy
the peace of God's church must be taken out of the way. Whether
you talk about the little fox of doctrinal error or 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 cherish him. Cherish Him. He's been so gracious
to us. Oh, how gracious God has been
to us individually. My soul, what He's done for me. How gracious He's been to this
assembly. Let us now cherish our relationship
with Him and guard the privilege of worshiping and walking with
the Son of God in the sweet fellowship of faith in Him. Amen.