Hopefully tonight, and that's my prayer, that we could all be in a place where we could say, Lord, we're ready. Lord, we've had enough. Enough's enough. We're tired of worship that's not really worship at all. Songs that doesn't have any praise for Him. May we be sick and tired of the world. and sick and tired of the world's idea of Christianity and what it's to be. But sometimes I want to tell you, the world's idea of Christianity is a better idea than what we have of our own self as Christians. Really, the world knows what a Christian ought to be. They'll tell you. You know what? You go to the world, you go to a drunk, and he'll tell you the places a Christian ought not be or things they ought not do. But maybe I hope that's our prayer tonight. Now, I want us to take our Bibles and turn to 2 Chronicles 7 tonight. 2 Chronicles 7 tonight, I want to preach a message and maybe preparation for revival entitled, What to do if you don't want revival. What to do if you don't want revival. Let's read what the Bible says in 2 Chronicles 7. We're going to look at verses 1 through 4, and then we're going to look at verses 12 through 15. The Bible says, Now when Solomon had made an end of the praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not even enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement and worshiped and praised the Lord saying, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. Now let's go over to verse number 12. and read through verse number 15. And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among the people, 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 I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their land. Now my eyes shall be opened, and my ears attend unto the prayer that is made in this place. Let us pray. Darren, if our Lord just thank you and praise you for another day of life you've given me. Lord God, I thank you for your goodness to everyone that's here tonight. Lord, we just took another breath and we have that breath because you gave that breath to us. And God, I pray that you'll add the blessing to the reading of your word. Holy Spirit, I pray that you'll fill me. and use me as a preacher of the Word of God for a few moments tonight. May the words that I say not be my words, may they be your words. And may you work in the hearts and lives of me and each individual in this place. And God, may we have such a desire when we leave this place that we want revival. Maybe revival may even start right here tonight in this place where we're at. We don't have to wait for a certain time or a certain meeting. We can experience revival tonight. And God, I pray that you'll revive us. Revive us again, dear God, because we need it. And because we need God, we need You more than ever, dear Lord. And we just praise You tonight for Your goodness to us. In Jesus' precious name, Amen. Alright, we're looking here at 2 Chronicles. We're here at verse number 1, and we see that it is Solomon. He has been building the temple for 7 years. It took him 13 years to build his house, and he'd been working on the temple of God for 7 years. And right now in verse number 1, he is giving a prayer of dedication. They are dedicating this temple to God. And Solomon begins to pray. Solomon prays, and what happens? The fire comes down. Aren't you thankful that we serve a God that is alive and well? We serve a powerful God. Now, we see Solomon here dedicating this temple, dedicating this place, and the fire came down, and that fire consumed the sacrifices, consumed the burnt offering, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. I want to tell you, you will not find a better phrase to describe revival than what we find here in verse number one. And the glory of the Lord filled the house. Now, I want to tell you, we need revival. When we come next week to our revival meeting, I hope that it's not going to be said, you know what? Man, that was some great preaching. Man, that was some great singing. Man, that was a great crowd. Man, what an offering we took up. But may we leave this place, amen, where the glory of God was strong in that place. Now, that's where we'll experience some revival, when the glory of God shows up, when God steps down in a place, lives begin to be changed, and we're stirred once again. How many of you in here tonight would agree that we need to be stirred for the glory of God? God, help us tonight. to want that, to want to experience revival in our own lives. I want to tell you, it's no fun just being humdrum. It's no fun being cold and indifferent. It's no fun not feeling God's presence in your life. God, please show up. Lord, send us some revival. We need revival, because you know what? One reason is time is running out. Time is running out. You know what? We ought to be excited, because we've got an urgent message that we must deliver to people. You know what? Yeah, sometimes we do have to pre-charge. Sometimes we've got to say some hard things, but you know what? There's children over in Iraq and Iran, They're five years old. They're taking them in. They're training them. They're trying to get them. And by the time they're age 20, they're willing to take their own lives, give it up for a false God. I want to tell you, they're aggressive. We better be aggressive because we have the truth. They've been delivered a lie. Hey, we need revival because time is running out. God help us to experience revival. Revival in the Bible. The glory of the Lord filled the house. When revival comes, we will not leave the church building saying anything other than, man, the glory of God was in that place. But let me urgently tell you something. It says in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 16, ye are the temple of God, the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now, I want to tell you, I'm longing for a corporate revival, but I'm longing more for a personal revival. Now, just as that temple was filled that day, that temple was filled, and the glory of God was in that place, the preacher boys couldn't even get in. It says the priest couldn't even enter the building because of the glory of God. You know who was preaching that day? It was God doing the preaching. But this says that we are the temple of God. And God lives inside of us. And how many of us would agree we need personal revival? Wow. Man, the glory of God ought to be evident in our life. When people see us, you know what? They ought to say, man, there's something different about them. Man, God's got His touch point. God lives in that person. Wow. The glory of God needs to be evident in our own lives. We have a revival taking place here Chronicles chapter 7, verse number 1. Like I said, verse number 2, the priest can't even go in because the glory of the God was shown around about him. This revival was taking place in the middle of an apostasy and an idol worship of that day. I want to tell you, we're in the middle of apostasy and idol worship today. We are involved. We're in some bad times. And I want to tell you, we need revival because we need a stirring of God's Holy Spirit and we need God's power upon our lives. Hey, it's not too late. You know what? If revival is not possible, I might as well quit, I might as well shut the door tonight, lock it up, and never come back. I want to tell you, revival is possible. God is in the revival business. Don't let some preacher get on some television or some radio and tell you revival is not possible today. Hey, revival is possible, and we see here how it is possible tonight in our reading. Hey, if God's people, that's you and me, If God's people will humble themselves, if God's people will pray, if God's people will seek His face, if God's people will turn from their wicked ways, we can experience revival. See, the problem is not so much what's going on out there in the world, the problem is what's going on in the church house today. If we're going to experience revival, we're going to have to get a good cleansing and get it right with God. Man, God help us, man. I don't know about you guys, but I'm just in the mood to preach tonight. God's dealt with my heart today. God's worked on my own life today. And man, I want us to have revival more than anything. I need revival. If you look at verse number 12 and 13, we see this revival was taking place after seven years of labor, but it would be short-lived. In verses 12 through 13, God was saying, You better not take my longsuffering, and you better not take my grace, and you better not take my mercy for granted, or I will remove my hand of blessing and put on you my hand of judgment. We see there in verse number 13, it says, If I shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send peasants among the people, In verse number 12, it says, And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. But then in verse number 13, he says, If something changes, I might have to put my hand upon this place. You know what? This was their livelihood. This was their well-being. These were farmers here. Hey, you don't want no locusts around. Hey, you don't want things that are going to destroy your economy. He says, If I take my hand of blessing away from them, But thank God, we see number 14, if that does happen, hey, there's a remedy. There's a remedy if, my people, if it happens, there was something that they could do. You know what? America today has experienced some great blessings of God. America is great only because God is great. But I want to tell you, America is hurting today. America needs revival. And this if right here, if this happens, if this happens, right here it is. God says if it happens, there's something you can do. See, the problem is with revival today in the hearts and lives of people, this is it right here. People truly do not want revival. Now, I pray that we do want it, but can you ask yourself that question tonight? Do you want revival? Do you want revival? Now, when we think about revival, what's going to happen? Well, the glory of God is going to step in. The glory of God is going to change some lives. There's going to be a stirring. Hey, do you want revival? Do you want to live for Him? Do you want to go forward in the power of God? I want to tell you, when you experience revival, there will be some changes that will take place. The question is, do you want revival? Well, if you're here tonight and you say, well, no, you know what, really, I don't want revival. Now, let's not forget what it says in verse 1. It says that fire came down and it burned up that burnt offering and all the sacrifices. How many of us know there's some things that we need to take probably in our own lives. If we're going to experience revival, we need to throw them in a pile and we need to burn them up. Because we do it, hey, it's just things keeping us from God. Some sacrifices and things we need to do away with. That's why we don't want revival, because we don't wanna sacrifice the things that we like so well. That's gotta hold on to us sometimes. And you may be sitting here nice and, no, pastor, really, I'm gonna be honest with yourself, I don't want revival. I don't want revival. Well, if that's you tonight, I'm gonna preach a message to you. I'm gonna preach a message to you. What to do if you don't want revival. What to do if you don't want revival? Well, first of all, we see here in verse number 14, it says, if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves. If you're in here tonight and you don't want revival, be proud. Be proud. A person that is a proud person cannot, will not in no way in this world experience revival. Be proud. And we live in a time today that we're so proud. I'm telling you what, I'm proud to be an American, but we got a lot of proud Americans, if you know what I mean. We think that we can do anything. We can accomplish whatever we're gonna accomplish. We can defeat this. We can do this and do that. And we just don't think we need God. Even as fathers today, we think that we can be the dad that we need to be without the help of God. As mothers today, we think we can be the mothers we need to be without the help of God. As young people today, we think we can be the young people we need to be without the help of God. But the truth of the matter is, we need God. Be proud! You won't experience revival. Be proud! You won't experience revival. Proverbs 16, verse 18 says, Pride goeth before destruction and a halting spirit before a fall. I want to tell you that pride, that's an ugly thing. You want to know why over a 75% divorce rate today? It's called P-R-I-D-E. You want to know why churches are splitting today? Every time there is a church split, you know what it's called? P-R-I-D-E. You want to know why people are fighting and fussing all over and why we're in a mess we are in America today? P-R-I-D-E. D.E. Pride. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 13 verse number 10, gives us the reason for all this. Only by pride cometh contention. Only by pride cometh contention. You know why we got a lot of fighting and fussing and bickering in this? You know why? Because of pride. Hey, I want to tell you, Matt, I know you're getting ready to get married for too long. You better get a hold on pride because pride will tear your home apart. Hey, I want to tell you, pride will tear churches apart. Sometimes we get puffed up. Oh, look at what we've done. Look at what we've accomplished. I'll tell you what, we're just right all the time. We're just so prideful. And I want to tell you, through pride cometh contention. And when contention gets there, it tears things completely apart. John 5, 5 says, Jesus said this, for without me ye can do nothing. Without me, ye can do nothing. You know what, we have a lot of pastors today, and I'm all for education, but they go to college, and they're told, you do it this way, you do that that way, and they think they can even pastor a church because they think they've been educated enough to do whatever they have to do, and they don't need God. I want to tell you, we still need God because without Jesus, we can do nothing. Same way as a mom and dad. The same way as somebody on the workforce. You can't do nothing without Christ. Hey, be prideful. You will not have revival. Secondly, we see here in this verse, it says, If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray. If you don't want revival, be prayerless. Be prayerless. And if anybody wants to buy me something for pastor appreciation, buy me a set of these markers, because I'm running out of them. All of them are getting pretty dry. I've been using these things so much. Be prayerless. Daniel chapter 6 and verse number 10, there had been a decree that was told that nobody was to be able to go and pray like Daniel had been praying, and everything was going on. He's going to have to bow and all this. And it says in Daniel chapter 6 and verse number 10, it said he opened his window and he prayed. Hey, any person that's been used of God in a great and mighty way has been a person of prayer. You don't want to experience revival? Well, keep your pride and be prayerless. Hey, the Bible tells us that we ought to humble ourselves and pray. Jeremiah 33, verse 3 tells us that, "...call unto Me, and I will show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not." Now, I want to tell you, we're praying for revival. We're praying for some great and mighty things. They call unto me, and I will show you some great and mighty things which thou knowest not. In other words, you pray, you ask God, He's going to blow your mind with what all He's going to do. Great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Well, Pastor, why are we not seeing great and mighty things today? Why have I not seen great and mighty things in my life? Well, you know what James 4, verse 4 tells us this, Ye have not because ye ask not. You have not because you ask not. Simple as that. It tells us in Matthew 7, verses 7-9, it says, Ask, seek, knock, and the doors shall be opened unto you. Man, what are you battling against? What are you fighting against? What's in your life that's holding you back? Hey, what is it? Is it pride? Are you prayerless? You want the victory over something in your life? You want what God wants for you? Do you really want revival in your own personal life? Boy, we're gonna have to spend some time on our knees and some time in prayer. The disciples asked Jesus, teach me how to pray. You ever thought about that? You know, the disciples, they had been with him. They'd seen him turn the water into wine. They'd seen him give sight to the blind, heal the crippled. They'd seen him do all kinds of different miracles. Hey, they'd seen him throw out over 2,000 demons out of the crazy man of Kadera. And yet this is what they asked, Lord, teach us how to pray. They didn't say, teach me how to preach, teach me how to teach Sunday school, teach me how to do this and how to do miracles and all these things we've seen. They said, teach me how to pray. Do you understand these disciples were just ignorant backwoods rednecks, most of them. How did God ever use them? Lord, teach us how to pray. Lord, teach us how to pray. They had been with Jesus Christ long enough. They knew anything ever great that happened, any miracle that happened, it was first saturated in prayer. Think about this. Jesus Christ getting ready to go to the cross of Calvary and He's in the garden and He prays. Great drops of blood came out as He prayed. He was in agony. One of the greatest works that had ever been done on the cross of Calvary, yet He spent time in prayer. They knew that what they needed was time with the Lord in prayer. And there was power in prayer. Man, sometimes we look at prayer nonchalantly. We think, well, we go to bed at night and we say, well, now I lay my head down to sleep, pray to the Lord, my soul to keep. And we say, well, I've had my prayer time. I wanna tell you that stinks. That stinks in the nostrils of God. I'm talking about prayer tonight. Hey, you want revival? Remain prayerless. If you don't want revival, be proud. Be proud. And if you don't want revival, tonight we see another thing in this verse. It says not only to humble yourself, not only to pray, but it says, they'll seek my face. Yeah, they'll seek my face. Well, if you don't want revival tonight, let me tell you, don't only be Proud. Don't only be prayerless, but be preoccupied. I don't know if I spelt that right or not out of my head. Preoccupied. Preoccupied. I want to tell you, I think we're getting right down, right down to where the rubber meets the road tonight. If you don't remember Revival, don't be preoccupied. It says there, it says, seek my face. If my people, when you would think that God's people would be seeking his face, but here he says, no, you don't have to seek my face. They need to know me. It takes time to seek God's face. We've got so many things going on today. We've got the little league baseball. We've got the football. We've got everything else. We've got sports. We've got hunting. We've got fishing. We've got this. We've got NASCAR. We've got everything else. We are so busy, so preoccupied that we don't have time to seek God's face. God help us to seek His face. Not to be proud, to humble ourselves. Hey, not to be prayerless, to pray and to seek God's face. Man, I stink at this. I get preoccupied all the time. Man, I get so many things coming into my life, and I get so busy, and so busy doing this, and so busy doing that, that I don't take time to seek God's face. Well, if I'm going to have spiritual and personal revival, I'm going to have to seek God. I'm going to have to spend some time on my knees. I'm going to have to spend some time in this book. I'm going to have to spend some time in the house of God. I'm going to have to spend some time under some good teaching, some good preaching. I'm going to have to spend some time seeking God's face. God help us. I mean there's been times in our lives that we go through things and there's times when we truly seek God and man we see him work in our lives and it's like amazing and then let things get a little better and what's the next thing we do? We forget God. Lord, help us to remember what it was like to be in a revived spirit. Yeah, the conditions might've been very bad. The conditions might've been very sad that we were in, but we had revival. God is meeting with us. We were seeking God's face. And man, what a work he was doing in our lives. Man, our conversations wasn't very long, no matter who we were talking to, they turned to spiritual things. Man, let me tell you what God's doing for me. Or let me ask you, what do I need to do in this area? I need some help. Can you show me or tell me? We look for spiritual counsel. And we was willing to give spiritual counsel. You know what? Sometimes it's sad that Christians will go days without even talking about anything spiritual. I want to tell you, when you start seeking His face, it's going to be on your lips. It's going to be in your heart. Oh, be preoccupied. Yeah, get busy. I know there's things we've got to do, but I want to tell you, we are really good at throwing a whole lot of things in before God. And what I've studied, what this is, is idol worship. Anything that we put before God. Anything that's more important to us. Hey, you want revival? You can't be preoccupied. If you don't want revival, be preoccupied. Matthew 6.33 says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. In 2 Timothy 2.4 it says, No man that wars entangled himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him that has chosen him to be a soldier. Man, we get so entangled. I want to tell you, I am convicted tonight. God help us, we can't be preoccupied. Preoccupied and the world's passing by, they're dying and going to hell, we're preoccupied. We're busy, busy, busy. Man, we've taught our children, you know what? We just serve God when it's convenient. If you let something else come in, we're not gonna be in the church house tonight. We gotta go do that. We're not gonna give God first place. We're gonna say, God, you take the second place. You take a back seat to this baseball game. You take a back seat to this football game. You take a back seat to hunting and fishing. You take a back seat to all this. I wanna tell you, that is being preoccupied and not seeking God's face. You can be preoccupied and you won't experience the revival. And then lastly, We see what it says in the last part of that verse. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. Well, if you don't want revival, be perversed. No, preacher, I'm not a pervert. I don't sit in there and watch porn all day long. I'm not cheating on my wife. Preacher, I'm not a perverse person. I want to tell you, we need to start looking at sin for what it is. When God deals with our hearts, hey, we humble ourselves, we pray, we seek His place. He shows us our sin and we continue to wallow in that sin. We continue to have that sin unless we are perverse and we will not experience revival. Repentance is not only for the sinner or the unsaved. Repentance is for God's people too. We have allowed things to creep into our lives that we know don't please God, and we've held on to it. We might even come to a place that we've humbled ourselves. We might come to a place that we've prayed, and we might come to a place that we've seeked God, but God pointed those things out to us and we held on. Revival was coming. Revival was on the way. But because we chose. Love our sin. Maybe gossip. Oh yeah. Maybe you got a tongue here in Roanoke. Bitterness. Unforgiveness. Backbiting. Diversity. Ooh, it says God hates people that divide the brethren. Oh, we can't let go of it! Well, I want to tell you, if you don't want revival, be perversed. Hold on to it. Hold on to it. Hold on to it. In essence, what you're saying, Lord, I love my sin more than I love you. I tell you what, we get too busy, preoccupied. We get too busy for God, we'll have a God that's too busy to send us revival. Tell you what, we have sin in our life, we have a God that cannot send us revival. Things that we know, you know, you may, honestly. I don't know. I don't know why the Lord put this message on my heart tonight. I don't know why it's such urgency. I know it's for me, but there may be somebody sitting in this room tonight. There's somebody that you've got hard feelings against, and you've got outs against. I want to tell you, God's leaning on your heart right now to go make that thing right. And if you choose not to make it right, you'll not experience revival. Some of the greatest revival meetings, some of the sparks that spark revival meetings, people getting up even in the middle of a service and making some things right with each other. Remember the verse that says, you go to the altar, it says, you were willing to give it all to the Lord, your gifts, but he says, you remember you have aught with your brother, he says, leave your gift at the altar and go make things right. Because really what it is, God's not pleased with it and God's not approved with it because there's sin in the camp. I know I've been preaching very hard tonight. It's a little unusual for a Wednesday night. But I want revival. Do you want revival? I've just given you some things tonight, four things. If you don't want it, just keep doing it. Be proud, be prayerless, be preoccupied with the things of this world, and be perverse. But I want to tell you, you don't have to. If you want it, humble yourself, pray, seek God, turn from your wicked ways, and then you'll hear from heaven and He'll heal our land. That land may be different places and different patches of land and different areas in your life. That land may be the land of your home. That land may be a land of another relationship. Also, it could be the land in which we live in. If my people, if my people. He ain't saying, oh, all them ungodly, unsaved people, they would all get saved and get right with God. No, he says, if my people. Revival is for the saved. Revival is for God's children. If you want revival tonight, and we've seen the truth in the Word of God, would you be willing to come up with me tonight and pray for revival? Pray for revival first of all in your own life, Also for revival right here at First Baptist Church in this community we live in, Newcastle, Virginia. That's why I'm giving the invitation tonight. If you would, just join me in prayer. You pray out loud if you want to, just spend some time at the altar, bringing our sacrifices, laying them up on the altar, and letting God have it, and asking him for revival.