well 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
fills over my heart. My soul is barren and empty again. And I sat, 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 and 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
going to 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 about mark it down,
that's not going to happen. Revival is not something we conjure
up, revival is 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. A revival is not suddenly just
a burst of power upon the church, but rather it is a 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
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 hill. My beloved is like a roe
where 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 the 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. We gather in the house of God
in the He speaks to the 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 his coming. 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 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 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'm hardly
well. 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 him. Our Lord's
heart was set on the work of redemption for us. He said, I
set my faith like a fan. 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 the earth. And, well, he's the only one
who can overcome that. He's the only one. We stand here
and see nothing but the mountains. 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's a thousand years. How is that applicable? He dwells
in the leisure of eternity and in the peace of total solitude. So he never gets in the air. 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? No, the promised day awaits for
you. 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. And 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, Abraham was not uninstructed
in things of God. He walked with God. Enoch walked
with God. But they saw through a glass
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 door.
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 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
Jephthah. And you look at that, look at
it, look at it. And now you begin to see a little
of what the passage is, a little. And the same thing's true with
regard to all things concerning God our Savior. Oh, probably
we haven't even skimmed the surface of that. We've not even... Somebody talks 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 this world. We see through
a glass darkroom. Particularly, these words describe
our condition as believers. we're under a cloud. The Lord
Jesus is always near, but sometimes he's out of sight. He doesn't
reveal himself to our hearts. The wall that stands between
us is the wall that our hands have erected. Look at this, Sammy has baptized
you, and you 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 God. 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 just finished saying, I do, and they've
gone to their honeymoon, and they just, for the first time,
embraced one another, 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's 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 let him die. Arthur,
she was on the other foot, the wife was. But here's the picture. We've shut the door against him.
We've, he comes and we just call on him, we say, He bids us come
to him. We'll stay a little while. He
bids us give ourselves to him. We say, well, give me time. And
we shut the door again. And the master stands behind
our wall and he mocks. You haven't Revelation preached,
will you? 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 14,
1998. Anybody in there will open the
door to me. I'll come in to him and suck
with him and heal him." He says, I will heal the Dachshund. If he didn't, he'd never be healed.
He says, I will love them 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 And 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 sees 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 and will come to his heart. In fact, in his study,
Paul read that passage in 2 Peter And as he read, the Lord spoke
plainly to me, to you. James read Psalm 39. As he read,
the Lord showed him that. He comes and brings the word
through the mouth of his servant in the preaching of the gospel
and shows himself. He's a Latter-day Saint. When
does he? 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
out. Listen to this. He came, 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
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, and
come away. Wood to God. We were to his Lord. Let us be like Samuel
and say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant here am I. Let us be
like Isaiah and say, Here am I, send me! Like Abraham who
just said, 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 darling. 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 dies. O thank you, blessed son of God. Your love for me is in no way
dependent upon me. What? 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 in 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 winner is Oh, our long, hard, bitter winters
will not last forever. They will pass away. They will
pass away. That snow laying out in the parking
lot here, we were snowbound for nearly a week in this weather.
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. 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. Lest it be this way, 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, Oh my dog, my dove that are in the crests
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 coming. The Lord Jesus says now, that
you may, during this time of languishing and coldness wonder
about this, but nothing's changed. You're still in the cusp of the
rock. And he says, your face just as
lovely as ever, your voice. Oh, how I love to hear you talk. Except for retail. Let me hear
you talk. 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. He
declares that our face is come there, 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 in the sky. I'll talk to you young people
a little bit. I see the opportunity. True love is not a public spectacle. public spectacle of passion that
cheapens you, cheapens your passion, cheapens everything. The believer
and his love for Christ doesn't make a public spectacle of his
love for Christ. Oh no, we don't try to show off
in front of God. 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. And the Lord Jesus communes with
his bride to redeem 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 here. He draws us after
him. He causes us, ladies and gentlemen,
to come near him. And now while we're here, it's
to be careful. Be careful. Be careful about
little things. That's what it gets you. Now
here's the big thing. You men and women, been married
for years, some of you, please don't raise your hands. I don't
want y'all getting in trouble like Lindsay did before. Y'all been married
for a while? Not often. Have you ever had
any quarrel over any thing there? Not often. They might always
come over the silliest little thing. 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 turned to gold. 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, slander, gossip. I don't like
that. He's 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. When
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. 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.