Good to see everyone. What a blessing it is to be back after having a week off. You know, that's hard. It's hard on the Lord's people. You say, well, it was easy. At least we didn't have to drive in the snow. But we do miss one another. And it's always good to come back together and rejoice to see smiling faces and sharing the fellowship that we have. So again, I probably am not the normal person, but I love Sunday mornings. I love to be with the Lord's people. It's a great joy. If you would turn with me in your copy of the scriptures, we're still in Habakkuk, but we moved into chapter three. So all the way back in the Old Testament today, if you would turn with me to Habakkuk chapter three, and we'll be looking at the first two verses of Habakkuk's prayer today. So all the way back again, and to the latter parts of the Old Testament, Habakkuk chapter three, I'll be reading A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet on Shig Yonah. Oh, Lord, I have heard your speech and was afraid. Oh, Lord, revive your work in the midst of years. In the midst of years, make it known in wrath. Remember mercy. Let's pray together, Father, as we come before you. We open up just a part of our worship service with a ministry of the Word. We pray together that our hearts would be kindled and focused upon you in sincerity and in reverence as we lift up our thoughts to you, encourage our hearts and minds and these things that you have for us today. Revive us again, Lord, in accordance with your will and by the power of your So here we have the very end of a long book, which will be spread out into three sermons. So we're taking this chapter in three parts. Habakkuk comes to the end of God's conversation with him, and he ends with a prayer. As he prays, his prayer really has three sections. First, he prays about revival. God, revive your work in the midst of years. Then he continues on, if you were to read further, the praise and remembrance of God's power. So he spends time in prayer, praying that God would do his work like he has of old, which we'll talk about today. And then his prayer proceeds into contemplating God and his attributes, his power, the things that he has done in the past. And then at the very end of the book, he concedes. He has this concession moment where he yields to God in his heart and he submits to him. He accepts what God is doing and he rejoices in it. So three parts to his prayer, the prayer for revival, contemplation on God's attributes and his power, and then a concession or a yielding to God. And today we're looking at the first where the prophet is praying about revival. The Lord has had his word. He has spoken at this point. The woes of judgment were given the other week. We talked about that. Remember that God judges sin. Now, it may be that he judges it in the temporary, in this lifetime. Sin is judged often in this lifetime. There's a judgment for sin, which is an eternal judgment, which is one that offers an eternal conscious punishment for the wicked. There's a type of judgment that is substitutionary where Christ, in his mediatorial work on the cross, takes our punishment for sin in his stead and upon himself. But the end game is this. God will deal with sin. It will either be through the work of Christ that it's dealt with, or it will be dealt with in the eternal state. He will deal with sin. Habakkuk is still wrestling through it, and now he begins this prayer. His prayer is a prayer where he cries out to God. He looks and he prays for a revival of God's work, a revival of the things that God has done, even in the midst of judgment. You know, we have no power to order God to do a revival. And we'll talk a lot about that today. God is not obliged to do what we ask him to do when we want him to do it. All right. There's no recipe that guarantees if you do these steps, God is going to send this thing called a revival. There's no recipe, no formula. But with revival, there are some things that always do accompany it. And that one thing primarily is prayer. And we're going to talk about the prayer of revival today, this first part with prayer. Revival is always accompanied by prayer. Such prayer is proper at all times. And it's certainly compounded and expedient in times of revival. Habakkuk's prayer starts with a petition for prayer itself. Look at verse one here as we're jumping into this passage. Here we read The introduction, a prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet. This is the Old Testament word for prayer. There are different words used through the Bible. And we understand that the language of the Old Testament is a little different than the language of the new. But yet there's a lot of overlap and there are ideas that come. This is a Hebrew word for prayer. If you were to pronounce it in English, it would be tefillah. It comes from the idea of petitioning God. It conveyed the idea of judgment originally, but in its root, it means supplication and intercession. Used 70 times in the Old Testament, sometimes individuals would cry out to the Lord. Remember when Hannah was praying, she was doing this word, tefillah. She was praying to God fervently. In bitterness of soul, she prayed. This is that Hebrew word, and the Lord She prayed to him and she wept in anguish. Sometimes it is an expression, this type of prayer, of individual communion with God. David uses it in Psalm 39. He asks God to hear his prayer. Again, this word, this idea. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry. So sometimes it's a personal prayer. Sometimes it would be a prayer that was a intercessory prayer that a king would give, like Solomon when he petitioned to God at the dedication of the temple. He prayed out as he had built the temple, and he was dedicating, and he said, Yet regard the prayer of your servant in his supplication, O Lord my God, and listen to the cry in prayer which your servant is praying before you today. Solomon used this same idea, this prayer. Sometimes it was a lament. In Psalms, we often see this word used as such. Psalm 102, The prayer of the afflicted when he's overwhelmed is this idea that we see of prayer. Again, mentioned 70 times in the Old Testament is this word tefillah. A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and pours out his heart before the Lord. There are prayers of worship and thanksgiving. Nehemiah cries out to the Lord and rejoices at the rebuilding. Remember, Nehemiah was the wall and Ezra was the temple. and so on and so forth. In the New Testament, just like in the Old Testament, prayer is central to what we do. We are constantly praying, Paul says over and over again. In one verse, he says, Rejoice in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. We are encouraged to pray without ceasing. We're encouraged to pray always in Ephesians. with prayer and supplication in the spirit, watching and there unto all perseverance and supplications for all saints. Paul continues, he says, Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known unto God. Christians were also called to pray and watch with Thanksgiving and first Thessalonians rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. We mentioned that. So prayer is this continual part of this kind of building a case for prayer. Prayer was a part of the Old Testament. It was something that's mentioned all the time. Cry out to the Lord, just like they cried out to the Lord. You know this, right? Experientially as a Christian, you understand that communion with God through prayer is a proper part of our Christian life. Sometimes it's more structured than others. Sometimes in this case, Habakkuk is writing out a prayer in scripted poetry, and it's recorded for those who come afterwards. Prayer is an important part of. Our spiritual walk, just like it was for these great giants of the faith in the Old Testament. We are to pray in prayer is the beginning of this this plea for any type of revival. All right now. We can't dictate the terms of a revival happening. We haven't even defined what a revival is yet, which we will. We can't say to God, this has to occur at this particular time. But as Christians, we're always praying to this end. We're praying that God would manifest himself in a greater way. We're seeking his kingdom and his righteousness. We want to see God's works, as they were done of old, poured out on his people. And we pray to that end. We read the stories in the Bible and we say, boy, wouldn't it be nice to see God do that work here? Or we read stories of old that are true historical narratives of God's work amongst his people. And we say, Lord, would you do your work among your people like you did back then? So revival always has this component of prayer. Habakkuk's prayer is a very structured prayer. He says it, he's the prayer of Habakkuk the prophet on Shigyonoth. I don't even know quite how to pronounce that. I looked that up many times, you know, on the tools that we have out there, and that's about the best I'm going to do. And there's not a whole lot written on understanding what Habakkuk was actually saying there. What is he saying on Shigyonoth? The best we can understand is this was some type of poetic structure or musical structure. And Habakkuk's praying to God, but as he's writing this out, he's doing it in a way that refers to a style that was irregular or passionate or highly emotional. We're not sure exactly. It's related to Psalm seven, the only other use of this word, this structure is in Psalm seven, where David's crying out to God for protection from this person called Cush, the Benjamite. I don't even know who that is. I think it's Saul. So David's crying out to God to protect him from a person who's an evil man chasing after him. He's crying out for God, whom whom he trusts to save him. And so this particular structure for this prayer is is is something that they would have known quite well. But we've lost it. We don't even know. And I've looked and I seriously dug quite deeply into this. What in the world is he talking about here? And even the rabbinical tradition, they're not quite sure what they meant by this, but they knew it was some sort of structure to the prayer. The prayer itself, this type of structure, we do know was highly emotional. But I wanted to make a point here. And this point is that worship doesn't have to be in the context of purely spontaneous occurrences. There's a push in modern evangelicalism to construct a service for worship which has in it massive open gaps where people can then kind of just chime in and dictate the order and structure of a worship service. There's a tremendous push for this for other reasons. Sometimes in order to maybe make an environment where they can have certain manifestations occur of maybe tongues or something like that, they're trying to push for this particular structure. But there seems to be a consensus amongst a lot of people that in order for true worship to be there, any type of liturgical structure is taboo. Almost like it's quenching it. If you have some type of liturgy where you read through the Apostle's Creed or you pray with a benediction or you sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs that are glorifying to God and reverential that somehow you're stifling the spirit because you're not allowing this creative spontaneous thing that could happen. All right. Did you know that that is so contradictory to the entirety of Scripture? All through the Old Testament, when David was writing his psalms, he was writing them for worship. He was writing them for structured worship. We should be able to read through Scripture. And rejoice in it. When Tom reads the Apostles Creed and he's he leads a lot of our liturgy. What is your heart saying? I'm saying, Lord, I'm rejoicing in these truths that the church holds to. I worship God through that. All right. It's not that spontaneity is a bad thing or that God cannot work with that. It's just that for the most part. When worship services were designed and all through the scripture, they had some sort of an order to them. Right now, it can be very refreshing once in a while to have a testimony. Or a word from somebody, and there can be very refreshing things, and God can work in spontaneity. It's just that he's going to do his work, OK? The spontaneous structure isn't the thing that makes God work. I think my point is is being made here. There was order to the worship. You probably haven't spent as much time as I have in services and church structures where there's a tremendous pressure against order. It's very discouraging. And there are a lot of things you end up putting out fires all the time because there'll be untruths that are spoken, you know, in the congregation, ideas that are put out there. And it's like, oh, that's just not true. And according to the word of God. And so there's a wrestling match that goes on. So the first thing is that revival always has prayer behind it. And the worship and prayer of revival doesn't have to be some type of spontaneous thing. It can be based on the teaching and preaching of the word of God. It can have structure. It can have like when we sing our hymns here, we I mean, that was that last time. I didn't know the melody, but that was beautiful. That was a beautiful hymn. I learned it by about the third verse today. And I listened to Tom. I hear him sing and I'm like, OK, but that was a beautiful hymn. It was gorgeous. The words were rich. Just rich. So. Prayer for revival, obviously, it's It doesn't need to be in this again, this this purely spontaneous. Those those things are not wrong in and of themselves, but structured worship is not a bad thing. Notice this, the prayer for revival. This is coming from Habakkuk emerges from hearing the word of the Lord. Look at verse two here. He cries out, Oh, Lord, when you see the capital L-O-R-D, you know that that is what? That's a Tetragrammaton. That's Jehovah. The four consonants, Yahweh, Jehovah, it's the covenant name for God. This is the big one, right? The big name for God. He says, Oh, Lord, I've heard your speech. And was afraid. A couple of words in there, you can see it right off, he says, Oh, Lord, I have heard your speech or your report. He uses that word, we call it the Shema. The Shema, I have heard your word. The Shema is a central declaration of faith in Judaism. It's a word that he uses for here, here. Using here in a different way there. Shema is a central declaration of faith in Judaism, rooted in Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9. It affirms oneness of God and the commitment to love him with all of one's heart, soul, and strength. The Shema begins with the phrase, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. It emphasizes the belief in the single, indivisible God. It's recited daily by observant Jews as an expression of devotion. and covenantal relationship with God, serving as a declaration of faith and a call to live according to God's commandments. He uses that verb here. It's the verb used in the same sense as this shema, this this this vocalization of a Jewish person's faith. And it's a word that it's not just I hear it. It's I hear it. It's sunk into me. And something is going to happen, and action has to occur. This is what he means. Hear, O Israel. It's like, you know, we've got all these coaches. You're sitting there, and you're talking on the bench to your team. And you go through a play, and everyone's like, nodding their head. Did you understand what I just said? And they're like, no, I didn't. You know, you wake them up, right? You've got to understand it, because you're going to go out and do it here in just a second, right? You're going to run that play, and you've got to listen. That's what here means. It's a word that is not just merely passive hearing, but hearing with comprehension and response. I've heard your tidings, Habakkuk says. Not just auditory perception, but a deep awareness. Habakkuk is not merely recalling God's work, but is pleading for it to be actively manifested again. He's heard the report. Faith comes by hearing, this is in the New Covenant, right? The New Testament. Hearing by the word of God, right? You know that. A person doesn't come to faith without hearing God's word. But genuine hearing has a response of genuine faith. Is that correct? It is. When we really hear, in the Shema sense, it affects in a faith that is genuine. James says this, if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away and immediately forgets what kind of a man he was. That's being a doer and not a hearer and not a doer. So that the hearing of faith is not just auditory. It's active, right? It's engaging. And that's what he's saying here. He's saying, oh, Lord, I've heard your speech. I've heard your words. I've heard your words. And he responds. The prayer of revival begins with not only the hearing of faith, but it continues with the fear of the Lord. Look at the text. He says, Oh, Lord, I've heard your speech, and I was afraid. Oh, Lord, I was afraid. Heard your words. Hearing leads to awe. When we hear the voice of God through his word, it leads to awe. It leads to reverence. It evokes fear of transformation. This is not a slavish fear of God. Are you a slave to sin? You have a fear of God. You don't need that fear. If you're under the bondage of sin, you have a slavish view of God. He's not your beloved in the sense, but the fear of God from a Christian is a fear that's an awe. It's awesome. It's great. It doesn't mean that you're you're inclined to serve him any less. You're deeply moved and filled with awe at this fear. But the hearing of faith leads to awe. What was that word? Let me see here. I think I have it. I could be translated, I am alarmed, almost, is how the Hebrew could be translated. I'm alarmed. I'm alarmed. The people heard and trembled. Exodus 15, 14 says they heard the word and they trembled. The nations heard and were afraid. Habakkuk's hearing is not just about knowledge. It compels an internal and fearful recognition of God's power. It compels that. So the prayer for revival begins with the fear of the Lord. The prayer for revival continues here as a prayer to see God revive his work in the midst of years. Look at the text here. Says, oh Lord, this is verse two. I've heard your speech and was afraid. Oh Lord, revive your work in the midst of years. In the midst of years. The phrase revive your work indicates Habakkuk's desire to see God's mighty acts made manifest. The work of God, past and future, has been revealed. It's been clearly manifest. These things didn't happen in secret. They were open. all the glorious things that God had done. Habakkuk prays that they be realized. What does he mean, revive your work of old? Well, he's going to go into it a little bit in the next week, where he talks about these great acts of God. But in the mind of the prophet, no doubt he goes back to Moses and Joshua. He sees the great things God has done in taking them out of the bondage of Egypt and the conquest of Canaan. the triumph of Joshua, the cycle of the judges, but he sees God's power, Gideon, the hall of faith, if you will, Hebrews 11. Habakkuk sees the work of God. He might even be looking at a recent work. He might be thinking of Josiah, just a few years behind. Josiah had great reforms. You could almost call it a revival. where Judah turned back to the living God. He's praying for these things. He remembers God doing a great work. He remembers from the scripture. He probably even saw things in his lifetime. For God was doing a great work amongst his people. And he cries out, he says, in the midst. In the midst, O Lord. In the midst of years, remember your work. In the middle of downward turn in judgment, pull the great work of revival. Now, sometimes we get caught up in doom and gloom, or all the different things going on in the world around us, right? We see these things and we say, oh, it's getting worse, or maybe it's getting better. I think those things are traps. Throughout all the ages of the Christian faith, there ought to be a cry for God to do a great work of revival. It's not predicated on what might be. Somebody might say, oh, the world is just so bad. Sometimes we get in our little echo chambers, and we hang out with some of the, I'm not talking elders in the church here, sometimes older gentlemen, and we're talking, they're older Christians, and we look at the younger generation, and we think, What's he doing here, you know? Wait a minute. Probably doing a lot more. Where sin did abound, grace did much more abound. In the depths of sin, God displays his mercy. Sometimes we get caught to think that he is not able to do a great work. But he is. Don't get caught up in looking at the events around us. in ways that keep us from doing the job we've been sent here to do. The Lord said this, he said, occupy till I come. Keep busy for me until I come again. Do the work of God. If it gets bad out in society, there could be times where there's greater apostasy, and there are. And there can be times where God does a great work. We cannot rule that out in this day and age. God is able to revive his work in the midst of years. Habakkuk isn't giving up, is he? He said, oh, I know you're going to judge. The Chaldeans are coming. I'm still praying that you would do a work of revival. Now, what is revival? I want to talk a little bit about modern history, even in our scope of things. By modern, I'm talking the early 1700s in colonial America. In 1730 through 1740, there was an amazing event that occurred in Massachusetts under the great preaching of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield. And it was called the Great Awakening. It was a powerful event where God did an extraordinary work, where he called many to himself. Jonathan Edwards was a pastor at that time. He was in a little Baptist or not a Baptist church. That was not what he was in. He was in a congregational church in Northampton, Massachusetts, and he was a faithful preacher of God's word. During that time, there was a powerful and extraordinary work of God's sovereign grace. It brought about a widespread spiritual renewal, conviction of sin and genuine conversion. The reason I'm bringing this up is because it's a historical event. There's more fresh on our minds, right? This is something that we can look to because we realize this did occur geographically very close to us and historically in the time frame close to us. Jonathan Edwards was a preacher, again, in Massachusetts. His understanding of revival was shaped by his firsthand experiences of the Great Awakening. And he was a prolific writer. So he wrote narrative after narrative about what happened. This happened in the 1730s and 1740s in colonial America in Massachusetts is where it began. If you ever want to read about this, it's transcribed in works that he wrote, such as a faithful narrative of the surprising work of God and the distinguishing marks of a work of the Holy Spirit of God. Jonathan Edwards saw revival as a sovereign work of God. He emphasized that it's not a human-engineered thing, but a divine outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It occurs when God in his timing moves powerfully, leading many to deep conviction of sin and to saving faith in Christ. No, it's a sovereign work. God does this and the Holy Spirit is poured out in a special way. Revival begins, obviously we've talked with prayer today, right? There's prayer, but with an awareness of sin, People experience a deep sense of guilt before a holy God. But the conviction doesn't leave it there. It steers them to the need for the work of regeneration. We can talk about sin. And we can put men under conviction and women under conviction. But the solution to that is, of course, that there must be a work in the heart. It is the work of being born again. It is the Spirit's work, the supernatural act of God where He brings a person to spiritual life. When revival takes place, supposedly without the work of regeneration or the new birth, it is not a revival. And a lot of times you'll hear stories of this. There was a group on some college campus last year having some long, prolonged, whatever it was, revival. They're singing songs forever. For days, they locked themselves in. If it doesn't accompany the work of regeneration, God's work in the soul, it's not a revival. You know what it is? It's just an appeasement of man to make him feel better about his sin, which hasn't been dealt with in terms of Christ. And this is happening. The conviction leads to repentance and faith. Changed heart. When God gets a hold of you and he changes, when he brings you to life, you've got a changed heart. You're a new creature. The old things start to pass away. All things become new. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Jonathan Edwards saw revival as a spirit of God moving in an extraordinary way to awaken sinners and renew believers. He argued that the work of the spirit was evident in genuine transformation, not just outward emotion and enthusiasm. He looked at he's so interesting that because he was able to observe this happen. And then there were so many people who were naysayers. They said, Oh, you know what? This isn't truly God's work. Or there were individuals who criticized what was happening. Or there were those who had, you know, all different opinions on it. And he he took it in stride. He didn't say everything that happened was of God. But here's how we can tell if it really is. When there's a true work of the spirit, there'll be a greater love for Christ. That was one of his first points. There's increased reverence for the scripture. The word of God is important. One of our elders was sharing in the membership class that they went to a church last week and nobody had their Bible. Nobody has a scripture. People don't take the Bible to church. Why would you do that? Why should we talk about the Bible anymore? Because it's the word of God. It's the source of what we we gain the truth. It's the spirit's work of truth. It's his sword that he uses. So Edwards says there's a greater love for Christ, increased reverence for the scripture, deep humility and repentance, growth and holiness and love for others. And. There are excesses, of course, but we'll talk about that. He saw that And at least in Northampton and New England, there was a great effect on society. But, you know, we don't try to change society from the outside. There's a big push in the church to do that. It takes these platforms and it says, let's push social justice. But God says something different. You know what he says? Transformation of the heart, transformation of the heart, not outward conformity to these social parameters. Let God do a work in the heart. He transforms society, but because of the love of Christ through his people and his church. Oh, there is always a need for discernment, but there were great things that happened. For Edwards, revival was an extraordinary movement of God marked by deep conviction of sin, true repentance, love for Christ, and a lasting transformation, which had built into it the work of regeneration. So I want to I want to just take a minute and contrast that. So, again, this is a bit of a history lesson. This happened in the 1730s and 1740s. There was a great work of God. But about 100 years later. There was another work that started to roll and it had a different champion. And I want to read some things from this individual's idea of what revival was. And I want you to just compare it for a moment and think about how different it really is from what the scripture teaches that a true work of the spirit is. Now, I'm careful as I knock down and when I talk about another writer in a negative way or another person, I have reason to do this because I've read his work. I'm going to talk about Charles Finney briefly, OK? And probably some of you have read his work on the revivals of religion. I've gone through it myself and read through it. I have a firsthand account. So I'm going to kind of talk about this, because Vinny's thoughts, if you're in evangelical churches. You have no idea how much he impacts the way the evangelical, the fundamentalist church thinks today. And I just want to kind of lay some things out there for you. I've heard so many pastors speak of these great preachers, and then they'll throw Finney out there. And I'm like, really? Really? Do you know what he really taught and believed? OK? So I think it's important, because it's really the opposite of what Edwards believed and how the work of the First Great Awakening occurred. Now, this doesn't mean that everything that happened through Finney was bad. I just want to, in your minds, just to hear me out here. Phinney, in his book and his many writings, argued that revival is not a miracle. Revival is not a miracle, nor is it something that depends on a special move of God. Instead, it is a predictable effect. It is a cause and effect relationship. Is this clear? So I'm trying to see my losing people. My eyesight's not so good anymore, so I can't tell if you're sleeping anymore. So I'm just going to go on, OK? Is that all right? All right. Finney believed that it was predictable. Here's a quote from him. A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means. In other words, if you do these things, this is the result that's going to happen. Now, by the way, This is not too far from the modern church. There are philosophies in the church growth movement that really mimic this. But let me go on. In other words, if the right methods, preaching, and conditions were used, revival would naturally follow. He outlined this, and again, he outlined specific methods to create revival, including protracted meetings, extended evangelistic services, He created something called the anxious seat. The anxious seat. This was a precursor to something called the altar call. This is where people were pressured to make a public decision for Christ and come forward in a way that was very similar to maybe what you've experienced in the altar call. This wasn't something that was historically there. This wasn't there. This was created. Do you understand that this is something brought in? Instead of God doing a work, it's like, hey, let's bring in these methods, these mechanisms. And maybe if we do these things, this will happen. Let me go on. Direct confrontational preaching on sin and repentance. He was an attorney. He believed that some of my kids, I think, could be great attorneys because, boy, they argue really well. But I get a little bit better than them. I'm a little bit better. But anyway, that's a long story short. But he was an attorney. So he felt like, listen. I can convince you to make a decision for Christ no matter what. He looked at it that way. OK. Emotional appeals to provoke immediate response. Right. And there's some element to this where there's I believe there's a time where, you know, you've probably done this before where you've directly confronted somebody and, you know, you're their friend of yours. I had a friend who was steeped in philosophy. And I remember just turning to him after talking. And I said, you know, when you're a Christian someday, he's going to do a good work in you. I just felt like saying to him at that time, you're not a Christian. You might think you are. You need to believe on Christ. There are times where there is direct confrontation. But this was the belief that this type of confrontation would always produce the result. OK? Emotional appeals. But he believed, most importantly, this is the thing that the failure to see revival was due to human negligence, not God's sovereignty, that if revival wasn't happening, then the problem was with. Preaching church. OK. That's where it pushed it back. He also rejected historical views, unlike Edwards, who saw a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. Finney rejected the doctrine of total depravity. God's calling his work of the effectual call. He rejected all that. He taught that humans. Within themselves had the natural ability to repent and to choose and that revival depended on stirring up the right emotional and moral conditions. So I'm trying to be very clear. I'm laying something out here that you probably know this. I know Pastor Dickey over the years and other pastors have probably taught on this. He saw revival as a duty, not a blessing. He believed that it was not just possible to produce a revival, but it was a duty. He saw spiritual decline as a sign that the church had failed in its revival method implementation. That was the problem. And basically, he guaranteed that there would be a revival. But this is not the truth of the word of God. Revival is not something that we can make happen. We can't prescribe it to happen. It's a work of God. It's a supernatural work. But notice Habakkuk is praying for it. He's crying out to the Lord. He says, Oh, Lord, I've heard your speech and was afraid. Oh, Lord, revive your work. Do the work in the midst of the years, in the midst of years. Make it known in wrath. Remember, mercy, make it known. Show your mercy in the midst of all this decline. all the things in the world that seem so horrible, that seem so bad. Did you know you can make an argument that we're in judgment right now in a sense? If you look at Romans chapter 1, and you go through the decline where God turns over a people, it starts out and he turns them over for immorality, and he turns them over for another immorality, and then Finally, he turns the society over. And if you read the list of sins at the end of Romans, Chapter one, it is society today. It looks just like where we're at. But think of Habakkuk in the midst of years. In the middle of it all, he's praying that God would do a work. He hasn't given up as you can see him as he's coming to. He's praying, Oh, Lord, do your work. By the way, God has always done this. He bestowed mercy in the midst of great trial. In a few years, God would call great men of faith like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And they would be men who would give a testimony of his virtue to the whole Babylonian world. God was doing a work. God is calling a people to himself. The historical narrative of the Great Awakening in Northampton is profound. In the surprising work of Jonathan Edwards, where he says, he calls it the surprising work of God, he describes a mighty working, and I wanted to read some actual anecdotal references to that, if you would, if you'd just give me a little more time. Never does, by the way, Edwards ever describe revival as speaking in tongues. Did you know that that was never a part of the Great Awakening? Look through all the literature. That was not a part of what happened in the Great Awakening. Instead, he focused on deep conviction of sin, intense emotional experiences, and transformation in people's lives. Many people experience an overwhelming sense of their sinfulness before God. on hearing the word. Listen to his quote. Many have had their convictions attended with an extraordinary sense of their own littleness and vileness. With an exceeding mean and contemptuous opinion of themselves. Some felt that their sins were too great to be forgiven and some felt into despair. before experiencing the relief of God's grace. Here's another quote from Edwards. He says, some have had such a sense of the displeasure of God and the great danger they were in of being eternally undone that they have been exceedingly overwhelmed and have been made to tremble and quake and have been brought into distressing agonies of the soul. We talked about this this morning in our membership class. You know, we don't target emotional responses. It's not what we're looking for. When we contemplate the things of the Spirit of God and the glory and the excellency of Christ in the depths of our sin, it cannot help but to stir the deepest response of the soul. It's not a surprise that there were great emotional responses to the depths of sin. There were sudden dramatic conversions that Edwards talked about. Here's a quote, he says, there have been such instances of persons who have had such a sense of the glory of God and the excellency of Christ, that the nature and life have seemed almost to sink under it. Some were overcome with joy in the same way. Here's another quote, it says, their souls have been filled with a continual ravishing sense of the excellency of Christ. and they have lost all concern about their own good. Some were reacting physically. There were persons who had their strength taken away with a deep sense of the glorious excellency of Christ and their own littleness and vileness. People sometimes felt so overwhelmed that they collapsed. Some have even been so overcome with the sense of the dying love of Christ and the sight of His Excellency that they've been forced to cry out loud voices. The revival led to lasting changes. This wasn't just getting a response from people, and then everybody goes on and they live their life. There were lasting changes. The fruit of the Spirit was evident. The genuine work of conversion was there. They often called the revivals of Finney, all the places where he had been, they called it the burnt over district. Because of how many times they had services where they kept calling people forward and calling people forward and seeing response after response after response. And the conviction was not something that stuck. because it wasn't the work necessarily of God. And I'm sure there were some who were truly born again. I understand that. The revival led to lasting changes. Here's Edwards. He says, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God. It was never so full of love, nor so full of joy. People became more serious about their faith and more loving toward one another. Edwards says, never, I believe, was so much done in so short a space of time. many persons changed in so extraordinary a manner. Again, the reason I'm reading these to you is because this is a historic narrative of God's work of grace, not too far removed from our lifetimes. God is able to do a sovereign work. It's not something we can prescribe. We can't make it happen. We can't say, oh, we're going to plan a revival, and it's going to happen. God does his work in his way, in his time. But it always has in it that deep work of regeneration and lasting change. What was not present, by the way, was the speaking in tongues. What was not present was chaotic and uncontrolled behavior. Edwards saw the experience as intense, but reverent. If you do the work of God, you're going to come to some intense experiences. I tell you, those ladies in the prison where the gospel is right there and their sin is right in front of them. There are intense experiences, but it's not something that takes people into areas that are chaotic and crazy. It's reverential, and that's where you steer it. If you're working with somebody under the deep conviction of sin, you steer them to the glory of God. Don't be surprised, though, when people are broken on account of sin. Don't be surprised. In the midst of years, Habakkuk cries out, revive your work. This was his prayer. I suppose we have the same prayer, don't we? Do you? I do. I look at this when I pray, Lord, do you work of your kingdom? I do pray this. I'm not looking for some type of experiential thing. I'm looking for him to do his work. And where does his work start? Where does it start? It starts right with us, right? Now here's the psalm, as he says, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Revive your work in the midst of the years, the prophet prays. And we should be praying, revive your work in me. Revive your work in me. Steadfastness, prophet's prayer for revival. Thank you for listening this morning. As we had a bit of a history lesson, may God bless the word of God in our lives, we just, let's pray. We thank you, Father, that as we compare and contrast sometimes the things that are taught, and we see styles and methods. Remember, we're just dealing with men. Whether it was Finney or Edwards, whatever work was done, it's gotta be your work, Lord. When you call people to yourself, it's your work, it's your word, it's your power. We pray, Lord, that we would be those who live and operate in the love of God, that that love would grow. So we pray, like Edward said, that that would be a glowing response of the Christian church. We love you with whole hearts, that that love and grace would grow with one another. We just pray, Father, and we thank you for your holy word. Thank you for the prophet Habakkuk, who lived so long ago. Thank you that these words are still relevant to us today. We pray your blessing in the name of Jesus, amen.