Title: Preparations in Advance of Revival
Bible Book: Joel 2 : 12-17
Author: Rex Johnson
Subject: Revival Preparation; Serious about God
Objective:
Joel 2:12-17
Anything that ends in success began with preparation. Before any team can win a championship, they must prepare for it. Preparing means you are willing to put forth the time and effort to achieve the goal, this is always required in order to win.
As Christians, the idea in our passage today of preparation is a great example for us. It takes a lot of work, dedication, sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears to be successful, and to complete the task of being champions for Christ as a church. Many times I think we get complacent, relaxed, or just think its going to happen without us having to put in any extra time or effort in seeing REVIVAL come to our church.
There is an old saying that states, “YOU WILL ONLY GET OUT OF SOMETHING WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT.”
I’m ready for “Revival,” but I’m not one who believes that we can set Revival on a schedule. It becomes a routine when we a church has a revival at the same time, year after year. In that case the meaning of Revival loses its effectiveness and it just becomes another meeting on the church annual schedule.
We must prepare for a genuine “Revival” to take place. Preparation begins with “US.” This raises three critical questions:
HOW WILL WE PREPARE?
WHEN WILL WE PREPARE?
ARE WE WILLING TO PREPARE?
Here in the book of Joel there are several scriptures that help prepare for revival, so I would like to focus today on chapter 2. This prophecy regards the end time prior to the occurrence of the Battle of Armageddon. It is directed towards the Israelite people and shows us that there will be a time prior to the second return of Christ, when the Israelite people will realize that Christ is who He said He was, will repent of their wrongs, regret the crucifixion, and turn to Christ in faith.
The prophecy tells of a great famine, where the people will be truly desperate. While these verses may not seem to relate in terms of revival, I believe we can draw some things from this that will genuinely help us prepare to experience a successful revival in our church fellowship. So let’s investigate the words from the prophet Joel.
1. Return to God with All Your Heart
Let me ask you if you still treat your spouse the same now as you did when you first started dating? Hey guys, do you bring her flowers, buy her diamonds or gold, opening the door for her, pull back her chair at the supper table for her to be seated? Ladies, do you prepare his favorite meals, take off his shoes after a long day, hold his hand when walking together or snuggle up close on the couch when watching a movie? Have your habits changed any?
Let’s apply this thought to our relationship with God. Returning to God with all your heart means getting back in a relationship with him where you were when you first became a Christian. It means to return to your First Love - your love for Jesus!
John writes about this in the book of Revelation. Note Revelation 2:4-5…
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”
Our relationship with Jesus must be passionate again. We must get back to the time in life where we are excited about Jesus. This means not just going through routines and rituals, that is doing the same old things over and over, but it involves rediscovering anew our first love!
Jesus desires and is looking for those who give their WHOLE hearts to Him. He wants our entire attention. He does not and will not accept a partial devotion, that’s why he told the church that He would spew them out of His mouth, because they were neither cold nor hot but were merely lukewarm.
2. Return to the Lord with Fasting
We are called to give Jesus our full attention, and that means that He will not bless those who simply go through the motions - who just do “the same ole, same ole!”
In our passage today we note that He calls on His people to return to Him by fasting. It’s likely that some of us don’t even know what fasting is. So, what is fasting? Just to put it plain language, fasting speaks of sacrifice In order to get close to God.
Most of the time we use food as a fast, but it’s not necessarily food that is a major sacrifice. One can fast by giving up anything that you enjoy and that takes up time in your day. Things like …
Talking on the telephone
Watching TV
Taking Naps
Reading fiction Books
Hobbies
Staring at your computer or smart device for hours
Looking at Facebook, TikTok or other websites.
Fasting means removing something daily that we enjoy doing so that we can spend more time with God - in prayer and in His Word.
Fasting is sacrificing something we enjoy and using that time to spend talking with God. Our daily habits, including food, mean a lot to us, so the reason the Lord said to fast was to get our minds in tune with him and out of the world that has distracted us.
3. Return to the Lord with Weeping
We are to pour out our inner souls before the Lord. When something causes us to cry, it has touched our soul. Not only does it express our emotions, but it shows our humbleness. It’s hard for the Lord to work on a Christian with a hard heart. Weeping causes us to become humble and is almost always an expression of cleansing before God.
4. Return to the Lord with Mourning
Mourning is the act of showing sorrow. God is looking for us to review our weak service, our poor witness and other failures, and to show sorrow before Him because of them. Do we really express before God how sorrowful we really are? Do we actually think we can hide anything from him?
If someone comes up to you and asks for forgiveness, you can tell if they are sincere or not, well God does the same thing. He knows if we are genuinely sorry for our sins. Mourning shows that we are sincere in our sorrows for not being who intends us to be.
5. Return to the Lord by Rending Your Hearts and Not Your Garments
Back in the day of Joel the believers in God would tear their garments to express how sorrowful they were when they repented. God told them that He was not looking for torn cloths, but rather He was looking for broken hearts. Are our hearts broken enough that we will repent and get busy with seeking true God-sent revival in our lives?
6. Return to the Lord by Sounding the Alarm
It’s time for the church to blow the trumpet, it’s time that we sound the alarm and call the people together for true revival. In our scripture we find the people who were sounding the alarm to stop the locust from continuing to devour their crops. Surely we can see in our land, our families, and our lives that we are being devoured. We need REVIVAL in our country, in our land, right here in our own backyard, even in each heart!
Conclusion
We can signify our call to the Lord, and he will hear us.
It’s time we call the people together.
The people
The elders
The children/babies
Even the bride and groom
I stand today as the shepherd of this church and say, let’s prepare our hearts, our souls, and our minds for “Revival” to sweep across this church body first, and then across our community, and then across our nation, and our World.
