We Can Have Revival!
Acts 4:31
2 Timothy 3:2-3:

"People will be selfish, greedy, boastful, and conceited; they will be insulting,
disobedient to parents, ungrateful, and irreligious; they will be unkind, merciless,
slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good; they will be treacherous,
reckless and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God;
they will hold to the outward form of our religion, but reject its real power
."

Crimes of violence blanket the country.
Waves of lawlessness, wickedness, violence, and senseless bombings,
and killings are reaching horrible heights.
The abuse of sex is rampant.
Such abuse brings misery and wrecks families.
Sexual disease is an epidemic and a national disgrace.

America is saturated with drink and drugs.
Liquor is pure poison.
It is like a rattlesnake in the nursery.
It is like a mad dog on a child's playground.

Drink has drained more blood; dug more graves; plunged more people into bankruptcy;
slain more children; wrecked more lives; dishonored more young people;
broken more hearts; blasted more futures; driven more to suicide;
than any other poisoned scourge that ever swept its death-dealing waves across the world.

Materialism has become our national idolatry. God is ignored and His Word is neglected.
Attendance at church services is sporadic and sparse.

WE NEED A REVIVAL!

But let's be clear - what is revival? WE NEED REVIVAL!

WE NEED A REVIVAL OF GRATITUDE!

We have been chosen of God, nurtured with His loving care, and yet we behave
as though we have never appreciated those blessings.
We should be grateful for those recoveries from sickness - when, like Hezekiah,
we have had months and even years added to our lives. We should be grateful for His help in all those times of crisis.
We should especially be grateful because God loved us and sent His Son
to give His life for us that we might live.
He took away our sins and our death and gave us life everlasting.
For this we should always be grateful!

We need a revival of gratitude!

WE NEED A REVIVAL OF JOY!

It is little wonder that the world does not care to identify with a joyless religion.
We have settled into a sameness that contents itself with form and ritual.
We act bored with our spiritual journey.
Spiritual zest and enthusiasm are gone in the life of too many Christians.
When asked to do some Christian service, they beg to be excused.

Dr. Vance Havner says," They go to a ball game and yell like a Comanche Indian.
They whoop, holler, and go wild with excitement and enthusiasm.
But at church if they say 'Amen' they are called fanatics. "


This indispensable ingredient -- joy -- which has always characterized Christianity
is fading from the religious scene.
There will be no recovery of joy until there is the removal of sin and the renewal of spirit.
Only then will joy come.
Pray that God will give us a revival that would free many from the binding power of sin.
Sin, which mars the body, distorts moral development, perverts the sense of righteousness,
disables the conscience, splits the personality, stifles the life, endangers society,
grieves the heart of God, and destroys the soul.

Pray that God will give us a revival to lift us from the dust of the earth,
and walk again before the Lord in the land of the living.

WE NEED A REVIVAL OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!
Today, churches seem more concerned about losing their members, their prestige, etc.,
than they are about losing the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Then, it is time for us to cry out for a fresh experience with God!
There is no recorded revival in history without the obvious manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

Yet, we continue programs that deny the necessity of the Spirit.
We teach lessons, sing songs, and preach sermons that are void of supernatural inspiration and content.
Most of our religious activity is only the work of the world moved over into the church on Sunday.
It's the same power that people see all week in regular routine;
it merely wears different clothes and holds a hymnal.

People need to see God at work!
And they cannot and will not without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit of God.
We need to draw a circle around us and pray that God will start a revival within that circle.
And we should stay in that circle until God sends revival!

We should not want to do anything without the Holy Spirit.
O, Holy Spirit, breathe on me -- break me -- fill me -- use me!

WE NEED A REVIVAL OF CONCERN FOR THE LOST!
People without Christ are lost!
They will spend an eternity in hell without Christ!
We must witness to them of their need of Christ as their Savior and their only hope!

We need a new attitude of witnessing which becomes every Christians' responsibility, everyday, everywhere!
A new attitude of witnessing will result in a witnessing of attitude itself.
That attitude will be constructive and loving.
People need to know we care!

When this happens, people on the outside will become curious to know the strange power
existing inside the redemptive fellowship.
We must be willing to risk!
We must be ready to sacrifice our time!
Eternal souls are in the balance!

Some years ago a ship had gone down off the coast of England.
Life-boats had unloaded the survivors upon the beach.

Someone asked, "Did you rescue everyone?"
The captain replied, "All but one man.
Our boats were filled until one person would have sent all to the bottom of the ocean.
If there is a man who will help me man a boat, we will go back and try to rescue him
."

John Holden stepped out and volunteered, " I'll go with you."

John Holden's mother put her arms about his neck and cried, " John, you can't go.
Your father went down in the sea four years ago, and a year ago your brother went to sea,
and we have not heard from him.
John, you are all I have left.
You can't go
!"

John reached up and took his mother's arms from around his neck and crawled into the life-boat.
They battled against the waves, the wind , and the storm;
but finally arrived at the wreckage and found the man.

They pulled him into the life-boat and started back toward the shore.

As soon as they were close enough to hear; someone called out, " Did you get your man?"
John Holden cupped his hands and yelled back to them,
" Yes, and tell mother, it's my brother, Will! "

It's your brother and your friends out on the storm - tossed sea of sin.
Unless we man the life-boats, they will go down to the depths of eternity forever and ever
without God and without hope!

THERE IS NO TIME TO DELAY!
IT COULD BE NOW OR NEVER!

" Throw out the Life-Line across the dark wave,
There is brother whom someone should save;
Somebody's brother! O who then, will dare
To throw out the Life-Line, his peril to share?

Throw out the Life-Line with hands quick and strong:
Why do you tarry, why linger so long?
See! He is sinking; O hasten today -
And out with the Life-Boat! Away, then away!

Soon will the season of rescue be o'er,
Soon will they drift to eternity's shore;
Haste then, my brother, no time for delay,
But throw out the Life-Line and save them today
."

When the Holy Spirit controls us, we will be constrained, compelled to go after the lost.
Personal evangelism is the priority of our day.
We must witness!

When we cease to believe that people without Christ are lost,
and when we cease to individually urge them to come to Christ --- the glory will depart from us!
The church that ceases to be evangelistic will soon cease to exist.

NOW THE BIG QUESTION!
CAN WE HAVE REVIVAL?
THEN WE WILL HAVE A REVIVAL!

We can have an old-fashion revival if we pay the old-fashion price for it.
THAT PRICE IS PRAYER!

God help us to pray for a church-warming, backslider-reclaiming, soul-saving,
God-honoring, Christ-crowning revival of real religion!

GOD, START IT HERE IN ME!

Acts 4:31: " And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken;
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness.
"

Sermon By Dr. Harold L. White


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