Well, at this time, it's my privilege to have Pastor David Vaughn come forward. We had a wonderful introduction, probably the best of all introductions in the past hour, as we saw the work of God in France. And what a delight. I believe we have that recorded. I come up on sermon audio. We do. And so those of you who were not here, I would make it a point to see it. It's wonderfully encouraging. David, please come at this time and bring forth the word of God. If you would hold open before you, Micah, chapter seven. I come before you as one who ministers in the Western world, a missionary in the West, the ungodly West, yet come back to my own country. which is in a great spiritual slide, as you well know. And here we are, the people of God with our armor on. And we are part of a great and eternally weighty battle, aren't we? We really are. Every one of us, every day. And it counts. The Lord has important things for us to learn in his word. And I can't think of a passage of scripture that is more pertinent to our present situation than Micah 7. And I would like to show you why as we go along. But before I do that, let me just remind you that in the New Testament, we find that speaking of the Old Testament, Paul says these things took place as examples for us. These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction. They happened to them, but they were written down for us. Very interesting way of speaking. But they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. The end of the ages being the time of the Messiah, the days of the church. And then something similar in First Peter, where we read that the prophets of old carefully inquired and searched Inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories, it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you. And the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, and that's a reference to the Old Testament. And so there are things for us, especially for us, more for us than for the Old Testament saints and the Old Testament scriptures. It's absolutely amazing. And at one point in the sermon, I'm going to have to convince you of that concerning Micah 7, but not yet, because the whole first part, you will see that it corresponds so closely to the United States and to France and the West in our day that you'll have no problem saying, well, this is us. Certainly what comes will apply to us. So let's just begin. There are four things. that we want to take our time before God calmly and consider in this moment together. First of all, that often in church history, there is a need for revival. Now, hold on just a minute. Revival. I want to explain what I mean. I simply mean that there are times when there is a need for a special, exceptional outpouring of God's spirit on his people. Sometimes it's because the church is in decline. Sometimes it's not. Do you remember Acts chapter four? The church is in the new flesh of its beginning and doing well. And yet a persecution comes which presents such danger to the church that some of the believers raise their voices together and quote Psalm 2 and pray to God and Lord be with us and help us to announce the gospel to these people. And the scripture says the house where they were praying was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. It's after Pentecost. It's after Pentecost sometime. And yet here is an extraordinary because not every house is shaken. When we pray, here's something that's given that's not ordinary, that's different, that's exceptional, a pouring out of the spirit to meet a special need in situation. And sometimes the church gets into a situation where whether by outward persecution or by inward decline, where we need God to do something of a restoring, strengthening work in our midst. And I would like to convince you that we are in such a time now, but we'll look at the passage, for certainly it is only God's word that can direct us in such a way. So there is a need for revival. That's the first thing that we'll look at. Secondly, there is a reason for revival. There is a reason that throughout church histories, church history, there have been seasons and times of God's restoring and strengthening the church and in significant and exceptional ways. Thirdly, there is a certain character of this, this reviving or restoring work of God. There's a character of revival. And fourthly, there's a special way that Christians seek revival and a very enlightening passage given to us by God to show us what is that way. So here we go. First of all, the need of revival. There are times in church history where the enemies of God seem to prevail in some great measure against the church. Look at verse one and two in this verse, and I want to. Describe for you what those times are like when the enemy's power is great and when the church is weakened relatively and relationship to the world. The first thing that we see is that when this happens, the number of godly dwindle in the land. Think about America today. And let's read verses one and two. Woe is me, says Zion, for it's Zion speaking, the people of God speaking by one voice. For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned. Well, what is this image about? You go out into the vineyard. We know about all that in France. And you look and and the gleaning has already happened and the gathering has already happened. It's an image that there are no more godly left in the land, hardly. And look at this. There is no cluster to eat, no first ripe fig that my soul desires. The godly have perished from the earth and there is no one upright among mankind. That's the first thing that we see, and certainly in America, this is something that's happening before our eyes in the last 30, 40 or more years. The number of godly in the land dwindling and the number of people that have nothing to do, have no contact with the gospel grow. are growing in the West and all over the West and have been for some time, though perhaps there is a turning. Maybe it's even starting to happen now. Maybe we're going to be caught somewhere in the middle of this passage, but it's important for us to understand it all. The second characteristic, we find it in verses three and four. When there is spiritual decline in the land, common grace itself becomes hard to detect in the life of believers, unbelievers. Notice that we read at the end of verse two. They all lay lie and wait for blood. Now, that's extreme when there's a lot of common grace. Violence is not so great in the land, but each hunts the other the other with a net. Their hands are on what is evil to do. to do it well, the prince and the judge asked for a bride and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul. And thus they weave it together. The best of them is like a briar and the most upright because there's not much common grace, the most upright, like a thorn hedge. The day of your watchman, of your punishment has come. Now their confusion is at time. It's a judging time, says Micah. The third thing that we notice, and certainly what I've said about common grace is true in our land, we have but to look to what happened this weekend with the massacre and the sort of things that are happening over and over again in our land and how common grace is diminishing and how the typical character of the non-Christian person is becoming so much more rooted in gross forms of ungodliness. in sexual perversion that's out in the day, out in the light that never would have been before. And this is all over the land and all over the West. But we see in verse five and six that when spiritual decline comes, there's a polarization between believers and unbelievers. What I mean by that is that the difference between us becomes so much greater. And people are saying today that there are two Americas, aren't there? But more and more, there's just there's two poles that are now so different in their thinking. And we read in verses five and six, this very thing. Now, you have to remember, I'm not we're not talking about a text. We're talking about something that happened in the eighth century that Michael was just saying, this is what it's like here. It wasn't always like this, but this is what it's like just before the exile, when a great spiritual decline is set in and the judgment of God is at the door. We read in verses five and six about this polarization. Put no trust in a neighbor. Have no confidence in a friend. Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms, from your wife. For the son treats the father with contempt. The daughter rises up against her mother. The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law is a man's enemies or the men of his own house. And so that we see that in a situation where normally natural, natural ties like family ties would keep us from being on opposite sides of things. It's no longer the case. There's a great polarization between the man of faith and the unbeliever in his own household. And this is exactly what we're seeing happen in America and in all the West. Michael's just describing to us the sort of the situation that we have been coming to more and more in the last couple of decades. The last characteristic of these times where there's a need of God's restoring work in the land is in verse 10. Let's just skip down to it. I'll come back. But when the church is predicting it, that it will be restored and says, then my enemy will see and shame will cover her who said to me during the spiritual decline, where is the Lord your God? You see, when spiritual decline sets in, unbelievers become very bold and arrogant. in speaking against all thought of the existence of God. Now, when, for you who are older, when in your lifetime have you ever seen the likes of a Richard Dawkins arise in the West? And it's become such an epidemic that they got a name for it now. The New Atheism. There are so many books that have come out boldly and with incredible arrogance. They're sacrilegious. Attacking the thought that God exists with all the vehemence and hatred imaginable that they've had to give a name to it. Go on Google and try yourself. Just put the new atheism. Or go on Amazon.com and click on one of Richard Dawkins books and see all the others that are like it that have come out. She who said to me, where is your God? I would like to illustrate the different points this morning, where am I? It is just about morning in France this evening from an experience in the 1920s and 30s in France in a region called the Drome region. One of these for this point that I've just mentioned about the enemies of God becoming bold and saying, where is your God? I'll begin here. In the 1920s, there was a pitiful, pitiful state in the parishes, what they called the parishes in the south of France and the region of the drone. They weren't just asleep. They were abandoned. So much so that when the revival came, they had to take picks and shovels to be able to even open up the doors of the Protestant temples. They had not been used in so long. In the city of the town of Vaulevent, there'd been no worship service for 16 years. And the doors of the temple were covered with brambles and rubble. Parishes had no pastors. No one wanted to go to the church. They're very arrogant. And people in that region were saying to go to Protestant churches because it was it was a Protestant region at one time. But they said to go to these churches, you either have to be an apostle or a lunatic. And men were very bold to say these sorts of things. In one place, a man who was part of the revival said that, I often heard Edward Champendale, who also was one of the revivalists, tell what state his parish was in the vin sobre. Now, vin sobre literally means sober wine. Go and figure that one out. But anyway, he came fresh from the Geneva Seminary. The pastor who had preceded him had been a Catholic priest, and then he'd become a Protestant pastor. But while he was at the parish in Vincennes, in this time of spiritual decline, he became an alcoholic and the parishioners loved to get him drunk. And there was no lack of wine in Vincennes to do it. They laughed at him as he would stumble back to the manse. And they said this. Our pastor has made a round trip voyage. He went from Rome to the gospel and from the gospel to Rome. The enemies of God have a lot of fun making fun of the people of God and the things of God. Well, let's go on. That's the first point, the character of spiritual decline when there's a need for revival. Secondly, better news, there is a reason for revival in church history, and that reason is found in God. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to skip to the end of the passage, but perhaps you want to know where it goes so you can know why I can skip to the end. If you look and run your eyes over verses seven to nine, you will see Zion talking and in an amazing response to the time of decline, saying, don't rejoice over me, my enemy, verse eight, when I fall, I'll rise. And then after that, in verses 10 to 17, we see the prediction of the revival that will come. And for example, in verses 12, we say in that day, they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, from Egypt to the river, from sea to sea, from mountain to mountain. And we find that in verse 16, the nations will see and be ashamed of all their might. They'll lay their hands on their mouth. Their ears will be deaf. And at the end of verse 17, they'll come trembling out of their strongholds and they'll turn in dread to the Lord our God. So we see this great revival that God promises to bring just before the exile. He says it won't always stay this way. I'm going to do something great. But at the end of the chapter. The prophet now explains why the revival will come, why Israel, the Old Testament people of God, will not simply languish and die and disappear in exile. And he explains it this way, starting in verse 18. Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression for the remnant of his heritage. Notice, first of all, the reason is God himself, who is like you, such a hardening God. He does not retain his anger forever. Because he delights in steadfast love. This is what he's like. He does not love chastising his people and delivering them over to the power of the enemy. He is such a God that he loves to pardon. He loves to restore his people. And he says now the revival hasn't come yet. And yet Micah says with great certainty, he will again have compassion on us. How can he say that? It's because of what God is like. He will again have compassion on us and he will tread down our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham. As you have sworn to our fathers from days of old, I want to point out to you two more things. I've pointed out one. I said that the reason for the reviving of God's people is in God's character himself. What a gracious and faithfully restoring, reviving God we have. But the second thing notice is that he's not talking about that he is a pardoning God to pagans. He's talking about God's people. Look there in verse 18. Excuse me. Who is a part? He was a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance. The remnant is the believing. I'm thinking in French, it's the believing remnant, it's just those that are left when God judges all the the the real ungodly initial and sweeps them away. Now, often we sing, I think it's William Kalper. Is it William Kalper? William Williams has a has a song based on this passage. Is that right? Who is a pardoning God like thee? Who has grace so rich and free? And it's based on these verses. I don't know about you, but perhaps sometimes we sing it thinking of how God converts sinners. But the good news for us is that scripture teaches us here in this passage so appropriate to us. That God is a pardoning God for his people. He is a restoring God. Now, isn't that very interesting? The last thing that we need to understand is in the last phrase or in the last verse. Why is he like this or why? Why will he do this? You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham as you have sworn to our fathers from days of old. It's referring to Deuteronomy chapter 30, I believe it is, where God says, even if you disobey me and I've cast you out into exile far away, yet I shall bring you back into the land and I will make you prosper even more than your fathers. And I will circumcise your hearts to love the Lord your God. You see, right in the covenant, right in the law covenant, God says, I swear to you that I will be a restoring God to you, even if I have to chastise you and thrust you out of my land so far because you've been so bad. Yet I shall not abandon you, my dear people. I will restore you. And I have sworn that it will be so. That's in the old covenant and the new is better. Peter, Peter. Three times you shall deny me, but I have prayed for you in the midst of your sin. So there's a reason for revival in God. The third point is the character of revival. We're going to go through this quickly, and I want to talk to you about the Drome and about France a little bit more. But first of all, let's look at some characteristics of the thing we should be asking God for in verse 10. We find out that when God revises church and I'll come back to the verses seven to nine and how the church seeks revival at the end. But we're going to look at the character of the revival first. Verse 10, when God restores his people, there is a total reversal in the balance of power. Then my enemy will see and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the Lord your God? My eyes will look upon her. Now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets. And God tells us there's a there's a time when he reverses the power, reverses the situation. Those of you who have a few years on you remember the cartoon Popeye the Sailor Man. I don't know if it's still watched by the young people, but you remember what happens in every episode. Yes, Paul Brutus, he got the better of Popeye. And something happened like he threw about 50 tree trunks on him and Popeye's lying underneath about 50 trees. We never can figure out how he survives it, but he did. Unfortunately, his arms sticking out and there's that can of spinach, right? That just happened to get squeezed out there and he stretches and he gets that spinach and he pops it into his mouth. And what happens? He gets this strength. He's restored. And there's this complete reversal. of the balance of power between Popeye and Sailor Man. Now, the reason for this need of this tremendous, extraordinary strengthening is that if he just got back normal strength, you can't get out from underneath 50 tree trunks with normal strength. It wouldn't do. You need something special. And there are times in the lives of the church when the balance of power between the world and the church is such that we need God to give us seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Now. Yeah, I think I'll just go ahead and finish the character of the revival and then we'll talk about the way to seek it. And I want to try to convince you that this passage does speak to us, because there might be a reason for some of you to think that I'm misapplying this passage to our time. But we'll get there. Verses 11 to 13, in times of restoration or revival, there's an unprecedented growth in the church and the kingdom of God grows and certainly is a missionary minded church. You should be, or churches, you should be interested in this. Now, yes, what's happening in this passage is that God is talking about Israel, first of all, the exile, judgment and the restoration time is what? The restoration to come. Well, it's the times of the Messiah he's predicting, right? And so we look at it and we see in verse 11 to 13, A day for the building of your walls, and that day the boundary shall be far extended. The kingdom of God will go way beyond Israel when the Messiah comes. And that day they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt and from Egypt to the river, from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. When did that happen? Well, in the times of the New Testament, didn't it? And notice that Egypt and Assyria were two of the greatest enemies of Israel during history. It would be like saying that the Taliban will come to you. That's exactly what it would mean in that context. But the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants for the fruit of their deeds. It's sort of a way of saying outside of Zion, there'll be no peace and no security. When God comes and refreshes this church. So there is unprecedented growth in America in 1832, Gardner Springs spoke of his experience in the revival that lasted about 25 years in America, about 25 years, and. He said, from the moment I entered university in 1800 until 1825, there was a series of uninterrupted heavenly visitations spread throughout different parts of the land. During this period of 25 years, there was not one sole month where you could not point to some village, city or theological school and say, look what God has wrought. And Edward Griffin was able to say in 1799 about that revival, I could stand at the door of my house in New Hartford and count 50 or 60 contiguous congregations. Young people, that means congregations that are in towns that touch each other. And he says, I could stand and see 50 or 60 contiguous congregations spread out in one field of divine wonders. Divine wonders, hundreds and hundreds of people, the pastors couldn't couldn't get away from the unconverted flocking. And they would say, I've seen more people this month than in my 30 years of ministry who are coming to me and saying, I've got to be converted. This is the power of God, the restoring and reviving power of God. Now, let me do a little quiz here before I go on and say another thing or two about the character of revival. And then we finish about how to seek revival. I still got you. You still here? OK, now you tell me when this happened. Princeton, a survey taken among the student body. The result is there are only two Christians in the student body and only five who do not belong to what they've called the filthy speech movement. Princeton, still a chapel going on, can you believe that? But the president opens the Bible. Did you hear about it? Opens the Bible and a pack of playing cards falls out because some of the students have taken a knife or scissors and they've cut a hole in the pages of the Bible and put playing cards in. Same period of time, Williams College, the students hold a mock Lord's Supper to make fun of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, do you know when that happened? The 1980s, 1990s. No, it was the 1790s, just before a great awakening that swept our country. You see, there have been times like ours before, and God has changed everything. So we see again the character revival in verses 14 to 15, and the fact that there is a recovery of what's been lost. Notice these interesting verses. It says in these verses, shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land. Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in days of old, as in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt. I will show them marvelous things. Now, Bashan and Gilead were two places that were among the first two that God's people made theirs in the conquest. When they came into Israel and began to take over the land, Bashan and Gilead were two of the first places where they could put their animals to graze, and two of the first places that they lost. as the territory began to shrink and God chastised his people before he sent them into exile. And so it's a way of saying, God, we've lost so much because of sin and spiritual decline. Give us back, give us back all that we had in those days that were days of good. Isn't it a wonderful thing that God says to us that we can pray in that way? And in revival also in verses 16 and 17, There is a sobering effect upon the unconverted and an effect upon converted and unconverted in which these people just see the greatness of God and have a great fear of of the centrality of God, the supremacy of God, the reality of God. Let's look at those verses 16 and 17. The nation shall see and be ashamed of all their might. They shall lay their hands on their mouths. That's a verse that we sometimes use in prayer. I know I do. Oh, God, work in such a way that men will lay their hands on their mouths and say, I did not know there was such a living God. Their ears shall be deaf, they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth, talking about how they're humbled and humiliated. They shall come trembling out of their strongholds and turn in dread to the Lord, our God, and they shall be in fear of you. God will be great and God will be first. Jonathan Edwards described Northampton during the revival days in the 1740s in this way. He said the town seemed to be full of the presence of God. A loose, careless person could scarcely be found in the whole neighborhood. And if there was anyone, it would be spoken of as a strange thing. And he said that the observers that knew the situation best said that you could probably have taken bags of gold and silver and plumped them out on the street and left them there and no one would have touched them. So great was the fear of God upon the people, converted and unconverted, that God was in this place. Well, France in the 1920s. The revival came where it was least expected. There was a parish, which had had no pastor for years, called La Notte Chalonson. That's a mouthful. No pastor wanted to go there, so they finally managed to get an evangelist trained by the Salvation Army, whose name was Victor Bordigoni. And he started a daily prayer meeting. He tells of the events in this way. He said one Saturday night during the summer of 1922, a few people had come together, having decided to do so for a few weeks to pray for revival in our parish. We were pleading for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, knowing that it is not in man's power to produce a revival, but it must come from the power of God. The response to the prayers of that night was not long in coming. The next day in a town called Estabre, which only has about 22 inhabitants, And this is where the revival started. Amazing that God would work in this strange way. It was a Sunday. They were having Sunday morning worship and a lady stood up during the sermon, interrupted the pastor and made a sign that she wanted to say something. And trembling, she turned to the handful of people present and said to them timidly, you know me. Up until now, I have lived. For my herd of goats, my farm and my picodon, which is a kind of French cheese. But now I have understood God is not satisfied with what I am. God is not satisfied. She had the sense of God's greatness and demand. From now on, I want to live for him. The rest will have to come after. And she sat down weeping. The pastor tried to give a hymn. No one sang. So he gave a call and a number came up and obviously moved and wanting to repent. And the motto spread throughout the whole area as a revival came and the motto was God first. God first. Now, let me quote you what someone said in describing it. God first, not a God of human religion you use to serve you, but a God who demands to be served, not a God of easiness, comfort and easily satisfied with nothing and thankful for the little that you give him, but a great sovereign God, a holy God to whom we owe all. to whom we give all, who becomes the very reason for living, the center, the passion of life, a God who is God. It's amazing. And he goes on to say this. At the heart of the revival, do I need to say it? God, not man, not man's sufferings that need to be comforted, not man's anguish when faced with death that need hope, not man's difficulties in life that call for a solution or deliverance. Not man's need for spirituality, which long for a promise from on high or a source of hope. No, no. From the start in the drone, it was the sovereignty of God, the greatness of God, the holiness of God, the demands of God and the revival spread throughout the presence of the peasants of this region and the midst of the most harassed time of the year. In the first five weeks, there were 100 conversions. And I'm talking about a mountainous region where a village is separated from village and nobody to this day knows how the revival fell and conversions were coming and all of these villages, which which weren't even in contact with one another. And some of the people said they're abolishing religion. And they were right, because revival meant that God had come down and was changing the orientation of their lives, which was so horizontal. Wasn't it? For them, religion had been touching rituals, vague traditions, vague formulas in their subconscious. But now it was God who had come down and said, I am not satisfied with what you are, but I am a loving and restoring God who will make you what I want you to be. So 100 conversions in the first five weeks and the revival continued for years. For several years, there were conversions and conversions, among them the small and the great Jean Cadier, who became a famous university professor and only died about 10 years ago and who wrote the famous biography translated from French into English about John Calvin called The Man God Mastered that Jean Cadier produced in the revival of the 1920s in the Drone. Well, as I said, there was a powerful wave bringing conversion. It was the it was a time of the lavender harvest. And in the drone, the lavender harvest means the people get up really early. They've got to harvest the lavender really quickly before it's too late. You have to wait a certain time. It's not ready. And then you have to work really long days. They got home exhausted and they went right to the temples with their picks and their shovels and their whitewash and began to restore the houses of God. In one place, they'd finished pretty much. And one man said, something's missing. And he ran over and grabbed a bucket of white paint and he painted up above the door of the front door of the church. Glory to God. And another place. There was a little cafe and it was closed and a plaque had been put on it, closed for reason of conversion. In another town, the young people were now meeting together for prayer and they'd written the mayor of the town to ask that the annual youth ball be canceled. And in the minutes of the city council, you can read today that it said the young people, I quote, the young people had decided to no longer dance. At least dance those sort of dances that they were dancing. Well, that's the character of revival. Sometimes it comes in such a great tsunami, doesn't it? And sometimes it comes as a soft whisper of God, but people are being converted and converted and a change is happening and growing. And sometimes we're not even aware of how great it is and what's happening. And yet God is a restoring God and a pardoning God and. Now, I need to convince you before the last point that this applies to us. Now, you might be saying, well, this this was about the exile and the Old Testament people of God and then the coming of the messianic times. How can I apply that to us now? Can I really believe that God still a restoring God, that we should beseech him for this sort of a thing and wait upon him? One mistake that we make in interpreting scripture is sometimes we forget that the Old Testament prophets almost always had a tendency to compress things that would happen over a period of time in diverse ways and manners. And when they looked at it from far away, it looked like one event at one at one time to them, didn't it? And we're taught by the by the scholars that when you look at mountains from really far away, two mountains look like they're touching each other. And when you come up to them, they're miles and miles apart. And this is the way it is with the Old Testament prophecy. When we read this prophecy about this revival and the nations coming into Syria and Egypt and all of this, we have the impression of one time of revival, maybe that happened right after Pentecost in the first century, maybe up to the third century. And then that was Micah 7. Thank you, Lord. That was great that that happened. Too bad it can't happen again. But the truth is that this prophecy is a prophecy of the Messianic times. It's something that happens that has happened all through church history in seasons and diverse times with ups and downs of the church in which the church often resembles Zion before the exile. We see it in the churches in Asia that there's decline in some places and and a promise of revival and and turn to me and I will come into you and you will suck with me and we see it in church history. Simply, you can't get away from the fact that the sort of things that this passage is talking about have happened all through church history. But it's happened in waves and seasons, and this is perhaps why in Acts 3 and verse 20 and preaching the gospel to the Jews who knew these prophecies and expected this sort of thing to happen. I think it's Peter says this. He says in verse 19 of chapter three, repent, therefore, to the Jews and turn again that your sins may be blotted out that times of refreshing. And unfortunately, it's not a good translation because it's a very specific word. It's the word seasons that always means seasons. Now, what's a season? A season is a certain long period of days. that reoccurs, that comes back a season, right? It's a period that happened. And then it's plural in the text seasons. There will be recurring periods of time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. That's exactly what the text says. Now, the author could have said a day of refreshing. But he chose to say seasons, there will be different seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. And this is simply what's happened. This is simply what's happened in church history. So I would simply tell you, we are in Micah 7. It's not over yet, brethren. God has not changed. And the expanding of the borders is happening right now. There's been a great revival in China over the last 30, 40 years. And everything, you know, I was doing I was doing a Bible study in Aix-en-Provence a couple of years ago. I've been going down there to get ready for the church plant, preaching to a small group. Had an Algerian there, converted Muslim. He'd been converted for four years. Finished the Bible study on Micah 7. And he said to me, you know, I go home to Algeria quite frequently to share the gospel and everything you said about revival from that passage. That's what's going on right now in Algeria. And people are saying that in Algeria there are so many Muslims coming to Christ that the imams are getting extremely worried about it. We're not through yet with Micah 7, brothers and sisters, we're there. So now let's finish up by looking quickly, I promise you, at how it is that you and I are to respond to the spiritual decline in the West today. There is a surprising way of responding, a gospel way of responding, and we read first in verse seven. Having described how terrible it is, Zion says in verse seven, But as for me, I will look To the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. And so the first thing that we see in the response is that we must look to God alone as our help in this time of spiritual decline in the United States and in the West. But as for me, every church in this place must say over and over with a persistent heart. But as for us, we will look to the Lord, our God, the God of our salvation. We will not look to schemes. We will not look to strategies. We will not look to human manipulation. We will turn our faces to heaven and look to the Lord our God. The second thing we see in verse eight. In verse eight. Rejoice not over me, my enemy, when I fall or though I have fallen, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness or other translations, though I sit in the darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. It's quite amazing, the revival hasn't come, there's a spiritual decline, and in this case, Zion is is very much responsible because in the next verse, she says, I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I sinned against him. And yet she has such optimism. That right in the midst of this terrible situation, she says, don't rejoice over me, my enemy, though I've fallen, I will rise, though I'm sitting in darkness. The Lord is going to be a light for me. That is absolutely contrary to the flesh, isn't it? What's our natural tendency today in America when we look around? Well, maybe the pessimistic, the most pessimistic of Of all millennialists are right. We're just going to go down and down and down and then the Lord will come. I'm not worried about that. I know my responsibility is just what's clearly revealed that I must do in spiritual decline, and I have it here. And I know that the church here responds in such optimism, and I think we do, too. Hopeless repenting. Hopeless praying for recovery will do no good. God calls us to imitate Zion and say, in effect, as if to the enemy, our spiritual enemy, don't rejoice over me. You don't know my God and his grace and power, though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light for me. And surely we do need this, don't we? The next thing in our response as we must bear God's chastisements with meekness and patience as we wait for revival. In that verse 9, we read, I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. We must take our part of the responsibility for the state of Western culture in the United States. Yes. Oh, yes, we must. I had a friend who came home from the United States, came home to France. He lives in France. He loves America. He's he's American and French, but he loves America. And he came home and he said to me, I think America is the only country that revolves around shopping, entertainment and eating. Well, the people of God are different. The people of God are different. But the sin of the culture gets into us, too, doesn't it? How heavenly minded have we been? How much a part lies upon us? And there is a sense in which part of our responsibility in this day is a very special response in which we say to God, I will bear your indignation. I will bear your chastising hand. I will say you are right to do as you do in America today. You are right. I will bear I will not be frustrated with the Lord God for the way things are. I will bear the indignation of the Lord for I have sinned against him until. That means I'll wait until until. And what if it doesn't happen in your generation? Well, some of the men who prayed for a generation for revival in the 17 and 1800s in this country didn't see it. I know of one great preacher, the revival hit the year after his death and prayed all his life. Well, praise God, he saw it from heaven. But I will bear the indignation of the Lord. Are you there? Are you bearing the indignation of the Lord or are you just frustrated? God, I'm a victim of something. Why is this happening to us? No, we need to humble ourselves before God and God is pleased with that. And the last part of our response is in verses nine and 10, the last part of verse nine and verse 10. This is the end. Until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. Now, notice he takes up a legal language, the language of the courts. all throughout what follows until he pleads my cause as if he was an advocate and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I shall look upon his vindication or more literally, it says, I will look upon his righteousness, his saving righteousness. Now, what does this all mean? It means that every recovery of the people of God, every restoring of the church and reviving of the church comes from the source of our advocate and his righteousness and his blood. Every blessing is blood bought and every revival is blood stained, blood stained. There is no pleading anything in us, brethren. and saying, God, give us revival because we. We wait until he rises. And the picture is of the Lord Jesus Christ and the advocate of God's people rising now and saying now and what does an advocate do? An advocate in the real sense, our modern lawyers are a bit different, but an advocate identifies with your case and makes it his own. He makes his your problem, his problem, and he throws everything that he has, all virtue and argument and all reason that could overturn things in your favor. He throws all that he has over on your side. And the picture is that the Lord Jesus in church history. Rises. Sovereignly at certain points and all of his glorious righteousness. And he pleads. And the scripture says that we need to learn to pray unto God and to wait unto God in this hope until he pleads our cause and executes judgment for us, brings us out into the light, and we shall look upon his righteousness. We shall look upon all the effects and the impact of the saving righteousness of Christ. Because you see, when the advocate rises, all eyes are on him. And the question is, what can he do? What can he do? It becomes a question of the glory of the Lord of Lords. Is he able to restore and revive his church in the midst of a wicked 21st century sinful culture? And we know indeed that he is. Shouldn't we be in the place of Zion? Is there one sentiment, one feeling or one plea that we should not be taking up? Has God not shown us where we should be in this day, saying, but as for me, I shall look unto the Lord my God. Saying with optimism, don't rejoice over me, my enemy, though I've fallen, I shall rise. saying that I will bear the indignation of the Lord and be patient and say that God is right in his way with America or France and waiting upon the Savior to save us as he saved us at the beginning. Right. Nothing in my hands to bring only to the cross, I claim. I think I'm to pray, so I would love to do that. Let's pray together. Our great and mighty God, it is you first. All things exist for you. You are God. We were made for you. You want something out of us. You want all to be yours and for you. And we pray that you would have mercy upon us and forgive us for the million ways in which we have been sinful and contributed to the spiritual decline in the West as your church. We pray, Lord, that we might be found looking to you now and to you along with optimism. We rejoice in you that you are a pardoning God and none is like you, that you do not retain anger forever, for you delight in steadfast love and you will tread our iniquities under your feet. We thank you that all through church history, there has come a time when the Savior has risen and pled the cause of his church and given reviving power. And we pray that it would be so in our day for your namesake. We pray in this place that America and that all the West and the world would see days of your rising to extend the borders, to make Assyria and Egypt come trembling, to make men who are your enemies see that you are the Lord your God so that we put our hand on our mouth and say, Oh, the living God is there. How we pray. that we might be able to bless you and praise you for such grace, for it is yours and such power, for you do exert it. We bless your name for Jesus' sake. Amen.