Psalm 85, in your copy of God's Word. Verse 6 will be our sermon text, but I'll read the entirety of the psalm for context. Psalm 85, beginning with its title. To the chief musician, a psalm for the sons of Korah. Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land, thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin. Selah. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt thou be angry with us forever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee. Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints, but let them not turn again to folly. Surely His salvation is nigh them that fear Him, that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good, and our land shall yield her increase. righteousness shall go before Him and shall set us in the way of His steps. Amen. May God bless the reading of His Word in such a rich and precious psalm. It's a shame that we can't consider the entirety of it tonight, and we'll focus mostly on verse 6 tonight. But as we come into our communion season, we'll pick up the theme at the prayer meeting of revival. And as we consider historically our land, this land here in America, especially in Virginia, this has been a land greatly blessed of the Lord. But it has not been our form of government that has been its greatest blessing, but it has been the revival of evangelical religion. such that it is still the dominant strain of Christianity in America, though it is on the decline certainly both in purity and in numbers. But America's great blessing in many ways was evangelical, spirit-filled, heart-filled religion. This is what distinguishes America from many parts of the world. Certainly, even today, there is a greater evangelical sense in America than in Europe. A lot of this was the effect of the 18th century and the Great Awakening before the Revolutionary War. God came down to us. Though many of our leaders were not evangelical, our citizens became so. And it really started with very small meetings, maybe even like here. You think of meetings in Hanover, you think of Virginia, and men who didn't even have a minister, but had a copy of the scriptures, and then find the Westminster Confession of Faith, and they check what is found in the Bible and in the doctrine of the church against what they are hearing in the state churches. Things like Anglicanism, where baptismal regeneration is taught, but not ye must be born again. And they see that these things don't match up. And they call out to God for revival. They call out to God that he would even send men, ministers, to come and preach. God sends men, men like Whitefield. God sends men, Presbyterian ministers raised up, who were dissenters, nonconformists, because they couldn't, they were not Anglicans, so they couldn't preach in the state churches. And God sends men. to them and revival breaks out. You know, not much different when I think of the history of this congregation. Many of the core members of the core families were crying out to God for experimental religion, for experimental preaching, not cold dead orthodoxy and God sends you a presbytery. And it's these kinds of cries to God that he richly answers. When men, women, and children cry out to God, saying, God, thou art our portion. Send pourings out from heaven of blessings. Send the Spirit. God revives his people in the face of coldness, formalism, antinomianism, legalism. Evangelical awakenings come. And so what we desire is what our forefathers were greatly blessed to receive, where so many of them wrote of days of heaven on the earth when sin, and this is what days of heaven on the earth are like, sin becomes bitter, Christ becomes sweet. That's what it's like when hearts are enlivened to the things of God and are no longer cold, even as our brothers have preached, not preached, prayed tonight. that we wouldn't do things even just out of mere duty. Duty is good, but we would do duty out of a heart to God. And if the Lord has done it for our land before, he may well do it for us again, because children, you know this, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, right? So we come to verse six in our psalm, and when you think of the plea, there's this one word, there are two words that are key, critical, but, wilt thou not revive us again? Say that word again. When we lean on the works of the Lord that he has done in times past, and we see our coldness, we see our deadness, we see a lack of power, we stress that word again. Will you do what you have already done? Will you do it once more? That's where we attach our hopes. We remember, even as Samuel, right? Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. Meaning that even today, even this week, he may do the same work again that he has done in times past. And we must say, oh ye of little faith, if we, even in this small gathering tonight, would ever believe that he cannot do it or would not do it for us. And when we come to the communion table, we want what verse six pleads for. Wilt thou not revive us? We want our souls revived, that by the Spirit poured out through the ordinary means of grace, we would receive fresh effusions of the Holy Ghost through the Father and Son's love, and that he might even have that pour out into our communities, not just our families, but even to our community. But at the very least, at the very least, we are praying and hoping for that he would revive our own souls when we come to communion, personal and congregational revival as well. So let's continue to pray for such a work in our soul and in our congregation this week. And one of the things that we need to develop as a congregation and as a people, once again, is this idea that we need to labor in prayer. We need to labor in prayer. That's something that is far from us, right? If we want the blessings of God in this way, we need to labor. We need to labor hard. The prayer meeting is, again, sort of a barometer of just how far revival is from us. We consider that in the preaching on the prayer meeting weeks or months ago. But it is certainly the case that God expects his people to labor in prayer. You remember, I don't know if you remember, children, Epaphras was a man of the spirit, Colossians 4.12. Paul commends the man saying he always laboring faithfully for you in prayers. You see that labor language. Paul asked the Romans that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. There's a striving, there's a laboring. And of course, you know this verse from James 5, 16, that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. We need to labor much in prayer, and we need to labor much in prayer for these kinds of matters, spiritual blessings, to be as Jacob, wrestling with the Lord, saying, I will not let go until you give me the blessing. We are to have a holy zeal to prosecute our case with God as the psalmist does. Wilt thou not revive us again? So this week, as you prepare, as we prepare, We need to labor much in prayer to ask God to come down and meet us. And we ought to be zealous in that way, devoting much time in private, in our closets, as families, that the Lord would revive our souls and that he might use the ordinance of the Lord's Supper to this blessed end. Well, if we are to labor fervently in prayer for revival, we are to also know what revival is. As the scripture says, children, we must pray with the understanding, right? So we want to consider the theme of revival tonight in the prayer meeting. Three heads. First will be the definition of revival. Second, the effects of revival. And third, the posture for revival. So the definition of revival, the effects of revival, and the posture for revival will begin with the definition So as I said, revival is the theme of the 85th Psalm. You think of its central verse, verse 6, pleads with God, wilt thou not revive us again? Now, contextually, historically, there is some debate over when this psalm was penned, whether it was David in anticipation, or it was for the exiles who returned from the captivity in Babylon. I think most commentators in our stream would see this as for the exiles coming back from Babylon. In any case, the meaning is the same. But I think that it adds clarity when we think of it as for the exiles. Because as you know, the Lord did a mighty work in releasing his people from the Babylonian captivity. He kept his promise, that thing that seemed implausible, impossible, He moved the heart of Cyrus, a pagan king, to release his people. And that's possible for God only. It wasn't because God's people were masterful politicians, but it was because God did a mighty work and kept his promise. And we remember that, that all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ. Not a single one will fall to the floor. What he has promised, we are persuaded, like Abraham, he is able to perform and will perform. An encouragement for us in our own day, undoubtedly. Yet there was something terribly amiss with God's people. I believe before I relocated here, I preached to you out of Haggai once. And you remember how God's people were so cold to God. His dwelling place was left unfinished. And they were so concerned with building their own houses, and they left the house of God in ruins, and they pursued sin and idolatry and worldliness. And the Lord's chastening hand came upon them." God's Spirit then, in this 85th Psalm, moves some of his people to pray for revival, because that was their great and most pressing need. And they saw something here in verse 12, right? The land had not yielded. her increase. But you notice they didn't do what so many of our people do today. They didn't connect it to something like global warming, weather patterns, things like that. Not at all. They saw that it wasn't the Earth's temperature that was the problem, it was their spiritual temperature. They were hot for sin and cold towards God and they saw The displeasure of God in verse four, turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger towards us to cease. They saw that God was wroth with them. Are we so sensible? Our land is not yielding her increase, is it? Neither materially nor spiritually. Rampant inflation, if you just want to look at material things, rampant inflation, carrying of a monetary debt impossible to pay off, murdering future generations that could be used to labor, killing them off in the womb. We call on strange and foreign gods. Our leaders do. Calamities with our weather and fires and natural disasters. Is this because of an increase in CO2 emissions? No. Why do we not see the provocations of the Almighty? in any of this. There is a moral, there is a spiritual problem when blood is shed, when men are given over to depravity, and yet the church itself is often insensible to it. That's a spiritual problem. Now, that much, as even a brother prayed earlier, many Christians will agree on when we look at what is happening out there. But there is a deeper issue that many Christians are blind to, which is us. Our churches are not so spiritually vibrant, or especially holy. Often it's the church that is a den of iniquity. There's little power of the Holy Ghost shown amongst us, true power, not fake miracles, false speaking in tongues, and so on. but the power of regeneration, the expulsive power of new affections, as Chalmers would call it, the conviction of sin, the seeking of the mercies of the Lord, the power to live for the Lord, to mortify sin, to grow in newness of life, to be spiritually exercised. Little power. The gospel proclamation seems to bear little fruit when the gospel is proclaimed. And the problem is that a spirit of slumber has come upon the church where we don't even recognize these things and seek the Lord to reverse these things. That's one of the biggest problems here. Yet what has God shown us the remedy or the prescription to these things in 2 Chronicles 7, 14. You know, so many people know the verse, yet how many exercise it? If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. How does the healing come? It comes when God's people humble themselves. when God's people say, God have mercy on me, a sinner. Here are my sins, Lord. Here are our sins. When we are the ones in our churches who are weeping cut to the heart that we are great sinners and cry out to the Lord, when we turn from our wicked ways, then, he says, there will be healing. Then there will be revival of religion. And the psalmist knew this principle, and he cried out to the Lord. Wilt thou not revive us again? So we're in need of revival as a nation and as a church, but let's know and use this word revival in a biblical manner. So this is a bit of a didactic portion tonight, because as you know, sad to say, there's much distortion of the word revival in our time, such that many modern reformed people will shy away from the idea altogether. Why is that? Because in their mind, when they think of revival, they're thinking of lunacy. You think of the man who puts up the sign on his tent and says, revival here tomorrow. And there's all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to happen the next day in that place. People jumping up and down, rolling on the floor, and all kinds of other things, maybe snake handling. And that's what people now have in their mind when they think of the word revival. That is not the biblical definition. Those are manipulative meetings with all kinds of ungodly, unbiblical practices. And men think that they can manufacture a revival with the right performance. This is a remnant of Phineism, where with the right kind of music, with the right kind of pressure exerted psychologically on a person, you can produce a result. And so that's what these so-called revivals have become. But revival is the work of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God only. And that's why the psalmist says, will thou not revive us again? He goes to God knowing that the power to be revived is in him and not in man. It's not the work of a manipulative man on a stage like this. It is the sovereign work of God. And because we don't understand that, many modern Reformed have shied away from asking God for biblical revival. I would even ask you to consider outside of maybe churches like ours, how many times have you heard a minister say, we need to pray that the Lord would revive? I'm speaking in Reformed churches now. I dare say most of us have never even heard it preached. And we go on being satisfied in our churches with lukewarm religion. But as I mentioned in our introduction, Presbyterians in America were once very interested in the revival of religion, and the Lord blessed us. Our heritage is not of cold, dead orthodoxy, but of vibrant, spirit-filled, experimental religion rooted and grounded in the Bible and sound orthodoxy and confessionalism. We pursue orthodoxy so that we pursue the true God. That's why we pursue orthodoxy. And so we've considered negatively then what revival is not. It is not emotional manipulation. So what is it then? Well, the Hebrew word for revive in our text signifies revival from a grievous sickness. So this word is used when one is sick and at the point of death, reviving them out of that condition. Children, think of CPR. We say we hope we can revive this person, right? Can you use CPR on a dead person? You can't. CPR can only be used on one who is not yet dead to try to revive them. And so the subjects of a revival are those who have some spiritual life, because you cannot revive the dead, as we thought about CPR. And that's why in Psalm 85, it's the believer who cries out saying, revive us again. And that word is used in scripture, fittingly so, to speak not only of bodily revival, but also of the soul's revival, which gets us closer to understanding what biblical revival is. Now, we considered the patriarch Jacob, didn't we? In Genesis 42, we find Jacob bereaved, his spirit is crushed. He said to his sons, me have ye bereaved of my children. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away. And he says famously, all these things are against me. Now you think about how low his spirit was at that point. You can think of a man who's sorrowful even to the point of death. He's lost. His son, and he thinks he's about to lose another one, the one that was so beloved of his beloved wife. And he's at the point where his soul is kind of to the point of death. But then later, we read in Genesis 45, 27, in our Old Testament reading, that as Jacob's heart was faint, that it was feeble, when he heard of his son Joseph being alive, what did we read? the spirit of Jacob, their father, revived. It's as though life came to him. You can think, have you ever been in a situation like that? You've had bad news for such a long time. I'm just even thinking naturally, not even spiritually. But then you get some good news and suddenly there's a leap in your step again. And though you were on the ground miserable, Maybe you'd been without work for some time and suddenly the phone rings and they say, can you start as soon as possible? And your spirit is alive. And one day you had thought, how am I going to pay the bills tomorrow? How am I going to put food on the table? Then the phone call comes and suddenly life has come back to you. Well, that's how it was for Jacob. And that's what it is like when we are revived spiritually. The dullness, The mourning, the spiritual lethargy are lifted away. It's as though scales fall off of our eyes and spiritual vitality comes to us personally and to the Christian church. Spurgeon defined revival like this in a Sword and Trowel article, speaking of spiritual revival. To be revived is a blessing which can only be enjoyed by those who have some degree of life. Those who have no spiritual life are not and cannot be, in the strictest sense of the term, the subjects of a revival. Many blessings may come to the unconverted in consequence of a revival among Christians, but the revival itself has to do only with those who already possess spiritual life. There must be vitality in some degree before there can be a quickening of vitality, or in other words, a revival. Now that definition is very helpful and very biblical as it helps us consider the sacrament that is before us. The sacrament is for those who have spiritual life. Right? It's for those of us here who have spiritual life. And so what we're asking for is this day, this day in prayer, and this week in prayer, is that when we come to the Lord's Supper, that the Lord may revive us. that he may remove all the hindrances to serving him, to adoring him, to loving him, to following him, that we would be made more and more alive to the things of God, to remove the apathy and dullness and give us grace to exercise ourselves before the Lord, to quicken what is disease, to strengthen the new man made after Christ and put to death more and more the old man. so that we would live as those alive to Christ and dead to sin. Isn't that the language of revival? Being alive to Christ and dead to sin. It's a joyous thing, isn't it? If we were more and more alive to Christ and more and more dead to sin. And that's what the reviving of our soul will do. Because in revival, God comes down to give us quickening grace. A visitation from the Lord is what we're after. In the 80th Psalm, its 14th verse, we pray, Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven and behold and visit this vine. Visit this portion of thy vineyard. This is a blessed prayer for this week, isn't it? Psalm 80, verse 14. Look down from heaven. Look down from thy throne. and behold us, behold our condition, and visit us by thy spirit, and revive us. You know, he is always with us. This is a thing that we need to get straight. When we think of this kind of language in the scripture, sometimes people get confused. And they say, in fact, they decry this kind of language, even though it's scriptural, eminently so. They'll say, well, God is always with us. But God pours himself out in different degrees and in different ways. God is amongst all people at all times, every place, every time. There's not a place where God is not. We know that. But his presence is different in different places. In hell, children, his presence is one of pouring out wrath and justice. In heaven, he pours out blessing. And he also does that in degrees. such that we find a foretaste of hell on those who have been given to their depravity, but not the fullness of it. And we find the blessings of heaven in different degrees and different measures amongst those who are sanctified to be the Lord's. And we're asking for a greater and greater pouring out of his blessed presence, of his sanctifying work in us when we ask for revival. We want heaven in our bosom and greater manifestations of his grace. We want to say something like this, we want to be visited in a greater degree. So let's put all these things together and say that in revival, God comes down to bring spiritual vitality to his people, and he does so through his ordinary means of grace. We're not expecting God to work outside of the means that he has appointed, right? And especially, as you heard this last Lord's Day, it seems fitting that revivals are so often connected to the Lord's Supper. This is the ordinance, isn't it, by which he feeds us by his body and blood, spiritual vitality in a heightened way. It's the one that shows us so clearly he is the vine and we are the branches. And so can't we plead this week? Visit us. Visit, behold this vine and come and visit us and pour out thy grace to us. Well, that we might do so with more fervency, this is sort of, you know, you always have the stick and the carrot, right? Here's the carrot, as we consider the effect of revival. Because revival does not just stop with the church, it overflows. It overflows into communities. Verse 9 says, that glory may dwell in our land. Right? That's what's been seen in biblical revivals, like in the Great Awakening. God's glory dwelling in our land. Think about this, children. Ichabod is the glory has departed. The presence of the Lord is not with his people. But it's the opposite. It's the dwelling of glory in our land that happens in revival. And what's the biblical word for that? Emmanuel. God with us. Jesus Christ come down to visit us. And what does the presence of the Almighty bring to a community? It's what we see in Scripture. It's not folly and foolishness, but communities that are gripped with a sense of the holiness of God, of His majesty, with the conviction of sin that we are sinners and have offended God, and are turning to Christ in faith and repentance. And that again distinguishes revivalism, which is fake, from true revival. When God comes down, he cuts our hearts. That's what he does. You think about, again, the Great Awakening. Jonathan Edwards, right? What is the title of his sermon? Is it Your Best Life Now? Or is it Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God? where he preaches, powerfully blessed by the Lord, that we are all dangling over the precipice of hell for our sins. We're like that spider over the furnace, ready at any moment to be cast into the flames of eternal wrath. And the Spirit comes and blesses his congregation and others with a sense of their sin, that unless they flee to Christ, they will perish. That is the effect of the Spirit of God, who is called the Holy Spirit on a place. Children, remember what Jesus Christ said the Holy Spirit would do in John 16, verse 8. He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Right, if we are praying for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, that is his work. And that's how you know it's not a counterfeit work. When men and women are crying and weeping over their sin, whether in the heart or externally from the heart, where even the converted are gripped with a greater sense of God's holiness. That's what we need as a people. We don't just know or learn that God is holy once and then walk away from that truth. We are to feel it every day of our life, that this one is holy. And if we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit in great degree, you will know it, you will feel it. Sin will become abominable, even the least of it, to you. That's what it means to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, to be as Daniel in Daniel 9, grieving, over sin. To us belongs confusion of face, to examine our lives honestly before the word of God and see that we have been great sinners, even as converted people. We mourn our sin and we see that it has crucified Christ, but also our mourning turns to joy when we know that there is a Redeemer. who was given out of the love of God, that though our sins are great, it just causes us to run to Jesus with more fervency every day when we know the holiness of God, doesn't it? As our Psalm says, wilt thou not revive us again? Why? That thy people may rejoice in thee. And the preoccupations of the people are also turned. In revival, God is on the mind. even of communities. He's our everything. It's not sports games. It's not the latest Netflix series. It is God on the mind. The joy of his people is God himself, that thy people may rejoice in thee. In the Christian church, what is first and foremost on the minds of our people today? You could hazard a guess. Educated guess might be even something important, like the election. It could be something trivial, like movies or games. But in a revival, God is elevated. He is the topic and He is the theme. He is first and foremost on everyone's minds. They don't neglect their regular duties, but who comes first and where is first place found in the soul? It is God. And when you read of biblical true revivals, children, maybe this is something you can seek for yourself and pray this week. Even the children are affected. It's always heartwarming, you read accounts of biblical revivals, you'll hear after the church service, the children going outside, they sit down together, but instead of playing games, they're talking about God. They're talking about the Lord. That's something I think that you can cultivate and ask for children. Let's go speak about the sermon. Let's go speak about what we heard in the preached Word. When God's Spirit comes into a community, even the littlest ones are left moved. And there is a sense of the weight and joy of eternity, and there is a palpable love for Christ. Christ is on the mind and the heart and they glory in the cross. The Psalms are sung, people pray in their homes daily, the Word is stored up in the heart, idolatry is put away just as it was in Acts 19. Do you think if a community is revived, pornographers will be in business? No. Absolutely not. You won't even need a law passed. The laws will be passed in revival. You won't even need a law passed because nobody will buy their stuff and look at it. People will, from the heart, want to see things put away, just as in Acts 19, getting rid of their curious arts and all their evil works as the Word of God prevailed. Sin becomes abhorrent, and it even causes us to have a physical reaction to it, to wretch. And when there is revival, though there is a principle of life, there is also a principle of death. We become more and more dead to sin. And we love that. More dead to self, more dead to the world. And you can tell if the Lord is starting a work of reviving your soul, or maybe he's been continuing something he's begun in you, if you long for these things. If you long for these things, you desire these things, and you say, yes, it would be my joy if I would be dead to sin, and if I would be alive more and more to the things of God, and I would be more and more alive to Christ, that He would be on my heart, He would be on my mind, and even the very thought of my sin would cause me to vomit. And if that is where you are tonight, maybe the Lord is doing a great work in reviving your spirit And if that's where you want to be tonight, pray. Pray like this. This is the effect of glory dwelling in our land. Benjamin Franklin, he observed the Great Awakening and he wrote this in his autobiography. Quote, it was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants from being thoughtless or indifferent about religion. It seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening, listen to this, church, without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street. Benjamin Franklin saying, it's as though the whole world is turning religious, and if I walk down the street, I'm hearing the psalms of David being sung by families. Should we not long for that? Think about what our neighborhoods are like. And could you imagine if God would revive his church? It would outflow into our communities, and you would hear the Psalms being sung. The Lord has done this. Benjamin Franklin is a testimony to it. Can't he not revive us again? And so for your encouragement, The Lord may bring such a revival to our own souls even at this time, at this present moment, especially in a communion season where we come under an intense use of His ordinances. But we come in faith and with desire for it. Couldn't we long for such a thing as we read in the scripture and we know in history, that the Lord would revive our souls and then he would bless our church, our families, our communities. We need to pray such meaningful prayers. God's people used to. You know, what did Knox pray? He said, give me Scotland ere I die. We need to pray such things for Virginia, for the United States, for our own neighborhoods. that the Lord would take the people here and give them Christ. Well, for our last heading, as time gets away from us, the posture for revival. I will be brief here. A reminder again, we can't manufacture revival. It is the work of the sovereign God, not of man. Again, wilt thou not revive us? Again, the psalmist knows it. We're going to sing it, and we ought to pray it. Yet the Lord, as we all know, works through means. Biblical revival comes through the right use of his ordinances by faith, word, prayer, sacrament. And what is it we're going to plunge ourselves into these next few days, leading up to the Lord's table? Word, prayer, and then sacrament. But what we do is we rely not on the ordinances, but on the Holy Spirit who blesses them. That the Lord communicates Himself through them is where our faith goes. And so we go to use these ordinances. We don't come to this prayer meeting just because we believe we have to, right? That if we check off the box, maybe good things will happen for us. We come here by faith dependent on God that He will bless this means. And that He might do a great work in us. And when God's people begin to devote themselves to the ordinary means of grace, earnestly in faith, not coldly, it is a sign that a revival of religion may be at hand. We've spoken about this concerning the prayer meeting, how few come. Well, what we want is when we come to the prayer meeting, not seeing this as an obligation, but as a desire. We want to be here. We should want to be here. In that case, we might have a sense that our souls are being revived. When we eagerly anticipate the services for the supper, not because it's a ceremony, but because we want God to visit us, to sanctify us, to set us apart for himself all the more, to communicate his love to us, to make us more like himself, then perhaps there is a sense that our souls are being revived. You know, regardless of what happens with our congregation at the table or our community, what you ought to desire is a personal revival of your own spirit as you use these ordinances this week. At my last charge, I remember hearing more than once from different people saying something like this, that they had come from a spiritual stupor, and they said when the Lord revived them under the ordinances, the regular ordinances, preached word, the sacrament, they would say something like this, I feel born again again. That's what revival is like. It's like I feel born again again. Personal revival. God can do that to you. You must have faith. And if you don't think that He can or He will, you need to pray, Lord, increase my faith. I need this reviving work. But we also do pray corporately for our congregation. Revive us, right, is what the text says. Revive us. Let's not be satisfied even with personal revival, let's ask for more familial revival. Let us pray for our families if we have families. Especially if there are any in our family, whether they be us or our children, who are lukewarm to the things of God. Let us pray for our denomination, for like-minded brethren, the church, national revival. And in the seeking of revival, And this is the kind of thing that we'll close in consideration as it leads to tomorrow night. There is a posture to be adopted, and it is humility. That is, contrition of sin and repentance for it are necessary. You heard from James 4 on the Lord's Day. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. As better men have said, the way up is down, the way that we are lifted up by the Lord is by ourselves humbling ourselves. That is what you heard in 2 Chronicles 7. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and will heal their land. And the folly that we would have is to say that must be speaking of somebody else and not of me. No, this is the time for us to humble ourselves as we come to the Lord's table. This is the time to turn from our own wicked ways, our own wicked thoughts, our own wicked doings, and to resolve by God's grace that we are going to put them away, that I will draw nigh to God, I will cleanse my hands, I will purify my heart by His Spirit, and I will be afflicted and I will mourn, as in 2 Corinthians 7, over my sin. My laughter over all the things that I take delight in in this world will be turned to mourning over my sin. You know, that sort of sense of satisfaction with where we are and what we are needs to be gone as we approach God. And so in our psalm in verse 4, the people prayed, Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger towards us to cease. Turn us. Now, there's a wonderful note there, isn't there? Now, turn us signifies repentance, just so we're clear. That's what repentance is. In the original language, you could translate that repent. But even in that prayer, isn't it lovely? It's the work of God. We're crying to him to turn us. You cannot drum up the work of God yourself. You have failed, haven't you, when you have tried yourself. But you ask the Lord, turn my heart. That's a scary prayer to the flesh, isn't it? That's a scary prayer. And sometimes we sort of pray it half-heartedly, because we know if he turns our heart, he's going to turn us away from things that we really like, sin, the world, the things that gratify our flesh, but we must pray that wholeheartedly. Whatever it is that the Lord will cause to come into our life, this denial of self, turning away from sin, turning away from worldliness, we must throw ourselves into it. A wholehearted prayer, come what may, and then trust he will grant your crave and go and do what the Lord calls you to. So let's pray for the Lord's work on our hearts tonight to cause us to repent so that tomorrow when we hear the word of God, the theme will be repentance. We may be pierced by that work. But what a thing it would be if you and I would pray tonight saying, turn us, cause us to be receptive to what the word shows me tomorrow. so that I would be ready to repent of whatever it is the Lord shows in my heart to the aim and the end that you would revive us again. Malachi 3.7 has one of the wonderful promises in the Bible, return unto me and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. The word return is the Hebrew word repent. Repent unto me and I will return unto you. So if we desire the Lord to visit us, we must humble ourselves, contrition over our sin. The session has not appointed a day of fasting. If you wish to fast, which is a sign of contrition over your sin, as you say that I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food and I will humble myself before God, he may very well revive you. So the means to revival is this posture of humility and the use of the ordinary means of grace. Verse 8 is especially poignant. I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace unto His people and to His saints, but let them not turn again to folly. That's something to search out in our hearts as well, right? the gospel message so much, I have heard the Lord speak peace to me, and yet I have turned to folly." Have we so gotten mired in folly? You know, I recently heard of a Christian that another session is dealing with. who says something like this, the person is under the threat of church discipline, censure for really gross sins, and their response showing the hardness of their heart is, I know God has forgiven me of this sin. And they're not seeking after new obedience. What's the big deal? God has forgiven me of this heinous sin. There's only one unforgivable sin, and I haven't committed that, and so I'm okay with the Lord. Well, I would say if that's your mentality, don't presume you're okay with the Lord. That comes from a hard heart, a seared conscience. That's playing with fire. That is deadness in the soul. But true repentance leads to contrition and new obedience. So let's look at those places in our life where we constantly confess to God, right, I've done this, I've done this, but we don't seek after new obedience. Let's humble ourselves and ask for His grace to deal with those matters. And so tomorrow night, the theme will be repentance and we'll hear what God has to say about our love for the world in particular. And you might want to begin that work tonight to look at how you might love the world in ways that has pushed out the love of Christ so that you and I might humble ourselves before God anything that has come before the Lord and the love of God. And tomorrow in worship, we may hear the Lord speak to us that we might repent of our sin. He will, as he always does, speak peace to us through the gospel, but we must resolve not to return to our folly. Why do we do so? Why do we even care about these things? Well, it's because we want the better thing than our sin. You know, few understand that. even Christians, but there's something better than sin, and that's the Lord Himself. You say, and I must say, if sin is a hindrance, a barrier to nearness with the Lord Jesus Christ, let me cast sin out of my heart as Abraham cast out Hagar. Let me do it. If sin is a barrier to nearness with the Lord, my sin, which ought to have no place in my heart, the fleeting pleasures it gives me, so treacherous and deceitful, I say out it must go, I must mourn that I ever gave it shelter. Because as Moses said, the reproaches of Christ are far better than a season with sin. Until that becomes our equation, we can't believe that the Lord would start to revive us. But for Christ to be our all in all, I hope tonight that is somewhere in your soul, that you would say, let the world go, let sin go, let father and mother go if they are a hindrance to my walk with him, but give me Jesus so that we would cry out to God on our knees, Isaiah 64, oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down and deal with all these barriers, and he might answer. Well, we end on this note of hope. The psalmist was a hopeful man, and we are to be as well as we conclude. We will conclude with the singing of this portion of the psalm, verses 9 to 13. Listen to how many times he uses the word sure or surely. Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth. and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good, and our land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps. That's how we pray. That the Lord will do it. That's where our faith is. That righteousness shall go before his presence And he shall set us in the way of his steps, that glory would dwell in our land, that truth would spring out of the earth. Righteousness shall look down from heaven and the Lord shall give what is good. And of course, as we think of this as a time before the cross, you see the cross in all of this, righteousness and peace, kissing each other, mercy and truth met together. the Lord pouring himself out, that glory may dwell amongst us. The Lord shall do these things. But we must labor in prayer and humiliation, even as men like Epaphras and Paul strove. So let's be hopeful, even as we prepare tomorrow in repentance, asking God, wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee. That we would have Psalm 16 on the earth, in thy presence is fullness of joy. What he has done in times past, he will do again. That's a beautiful word. We opened with it, we close with it. What he has done, he will do again. And we sing then this psalm. Is that not why this psalm is in the psalm book? If he would not do it again. Well, may the Lord bless our prayers in this direction, and may he bless the preaching of his word, and give us a heart for revival. Amen. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Stand if able. O God of our salvation, turn us. Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee? Convict us of our sin, O God. Humble us. Cause us to be revived. We seek that thou wouldst come down. We labor in prayer, and we will labor in prayer, to secure the blessings of the Lord. Give us a heart like Jacob had, to wrestle with thee, to labor with thee in prayer, that we would not go until Thou hast blessed us. We seek that Thou wouldst come down. Visit this vine, O Lord. Is it not time for Thee to come down? We need Thee. We need Thy Spirit poured out. This is dry, thirsty, parched land. We pant after Thee. Thou art our portion. Thou art the strength of our heart, and without Thee we have nothing. All we have is sin, and all we have is misery. And so, Father, forgive us of our many trespasses. We are but dust before the Almighty, and we have done that which is not convenient, that which is not good. We have exercised our religion in vain, as we heard last Lord's Day. We have too often been too cold to Thee. We have not had God on the mind. We call ourselves Christians, and yet so often Thou art far from our thoughts. How far the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord our God with all of our soul, all of our heart, all of our strength, all of our mind. Where is that in us, O Lord? So turn us, O God, We need thy work in our heart, because who can turn our heart but thee? And we pray, even perhaps hesitant to believe that thou might be beginning a work of revival in our souls this night. And we pray that thou wouldst do it, that we would go to bed tonight with God on our mind and not the things of this world, that we would mourn our sin, and we would prepare to meet with Thee again tomorrow. And that would be our great anticipation, that even as it has been in times past where we might have a dinner date after work, and anticipate that all the day, doing our job with that on our mind, that instead, tomorrow, what would be on our mind, even as we go about our daily labors, would be the Lord and meeting with Thee. We cry out to Thee, O Lord, that Thou wouldst do these things, even to our children, that we would see our children's children basking in the glow of the Almighty. And so we leave these things before Thee, knowing we will take them up again tomorrow. Bless Thy people who have come here tonight, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let us sing the last portion of the psalm, verses six through 13. We've considered verse 6, that in thee may thy people joy, wilt thou not us revive? Show us thy mercy, Lord, to us do thy salvation give. Let us sing with the understanding. Verses 6 through 13, the tune is Saint Flavian.