Reviving True Reverence

0:00:00     Hey, we’re starting a series today called the Mandate of Honor, and we’re going to talk about how to revive true reverence. You get this and get it good, because it’ll change your life, and God will be nearer in your life than he ever has before. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another more faith, more life podcast. This is a podcast that’s going to start a series called the Mandate of Honor. And if there was ever a subject that I would recommend, you really hear every podcast from now on until we go through this series.

0:00:29     It is absolutely life changing. If you will learn to do this, what I’m going to teach in the next few podcasts, it will be life changing. It will open the heavens to you. It’ll activate more of the power of God and presence of God and love of God, and just noticing God, notice, just noticing God, which is pretty spectacular. That’s his presence, right? Okay, so let’s start on it today, the mandate of honor.

0:00:53     And back up to the word revival, because revival means a lot of things to a lot of people growing up. Traditional. Traditional. Some of the traditional denominations would have a revival in the fall, and they have a revival in the spring, and they would invite a special speaker who might start Sunday morning, might go Sunday morning, Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, maybe even go to Wednesday night. This is along probably traditional churches. They don’t know if they do that anymore.

0:01:20     And then it’s over and the guy leaves town, and we try to get. And the purpose most of the time was to try to get people born again. That was it. And you try to get more people in the kingdom and try to grow the church a little bit. Okay, so, but true revival can’t be that true revival, which people say, we need revival in our churches today, but it’s not about spiritual growth even. I mean, it’s not about church growth.

0:01:43     Numbers, sometimes numbers do come. It’s not about that. It’s not about spiritual gifts, it’s not about miracles. Even though these are good things to have, they’re kind of secondary. And so what happens is when people want revival, they say, my church needs revival. Our country needs revival. You know, and if revival is going to come, you know, it’s got to come through the churches, or at least through Christians that are involved in churches somehow.

0:02:07     And so a lot of times then they focus on just more lively services, more preaching, and they. And now the modern, more revivals. They want to go extended more or less traditional revivals. They don’t want to go one week. They’re hoping to go weeks at a time, several days a week. And that’s good. But in it, though, they will get church growth or we’ll just. Then they’ll advertise, you’ve got to come to our revival. Healings are taking place every night, or there’s miracles taking place.

0:02:39     And that’s good too, all of that. But it’s secondary to what I want  teach you today, because a primary purpose of a revival. Now, a revival means some. It means church has gone half dead. It’s not totally dead. There’s some good things going on. But the zeal, the joy, the power of God, the presence of God, that is noticeable, right? Noticeable presence. We can say, you know, you hear people say, God’s in the house, but then nothing changes, nothing happens.

0:03:12     No emotion at all like that. I was laughing one time. I heard a lineup of people that all said, you know, and he said, I died and went to heaven. And then I was sent back because God must have something for me to do. And that’s about as excited as he was. I went to heaven and then I came back and God’s got something for me to do. And it was so joyous and it was so pretty and it was so beautiful. I go, like, what?

0:03:41     You died, went to heaven, talked to Jesus, maybe saw the throne, I don’t know what. All the beauty, all the flowers, they talk about all the lights, everything. And you come back and you’re no more excited than that than you are every other Sunday. Nothing. I mean, it’s just the same old you. Let’s think about that one. Right? Okay. So when we say revive, it means we’re coming alive. From that. We’re bringing back to life the half dead and into full life. All right, but what is being restored?

0:04:12     When you start and say, we want revival, what are we after? Some people say it’s all about souls. It’s all about getting people saved, partly. Oh, it’s all about the worship, you know, or the music. Or louder, longer, emotional. I think it’s just emotional. Some people think it’s emotionalism, which it could be, but it’s not supposed to be. But somebody could make it that. Okay, how about this? This is powerful, and it’ll work every time.

0:04:41     The primary purpose of revival is to restore honor to God’s name, showing his holiness through our lives. Restoring God’s honor to his name. Why is that important? Think about the name of God. How many times is it a cuss word? How many times is Jesus used as a negative or a swear word? If they call it that, I guess that’s what some people call it. I don’t know what you call it. Doesn’t seem like one to me. It’s just the name of Jesus. But anyway, that, and his name is profaned like that.

0:05:11     And so get this, in the book of Ezekiel 36 22, this is what God says. It is not for your sake, o house of Israel, that I’m going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name. See, you see his motive, you see what’s behind the action of God. And we see like, well, my church is dead, we don’t see any action. Somebody said, I don’t believe miracles are for today. And I half believe it because I haven’t seen one, ever seen one.

0:05:40     You see, it activates God. He says the reason I do this is to restore honor to my name. Now if you go to most churches today, though, what do you hear? The reason? He’s going to do something, if he does anything, even just slightly feeling the presence of God or the love of God, he’s doing it for you. He’s doing, oh, God’s doing it for me. God’s showing his love for me. I went to church and man did I feel his love for me.

0:06:10     And then he did something good. He healed somebody over there. Oh, he did that cause he wanted to help that person. But we leave out totally the motivation of God taking action. And so he’s looking for people that know how to take action, to cause God to take action. And then the purpose he says, is to honor my name, is why I’m doing, and what he’s going to do, by the way, he’s going to bring them back to their land, he’s going to restore them, he’s going to bless them, he’s in all these great things he’s going to do and it’s not for them.

0:06:44     Oh, who can preach that? It’s not for them, it’s not about them, it’s for him. He’s doing great things, as it says, for the sake of his name. Now you want to turn your spiritual life around. Maybe you’re not a big church attender. You say, I go, don’t get too much out of it, I’d like to get closer to God. Or maybe you’re a pastor, a leader, maybe you have a prayer group, I don’t know what you got, but if you want to increase the activity of God, then go to what motivates God, and that is to restore honor to him and his name by showing holiness, which is separation, separating ourselves to him, you know, holy people aren’t necessarily always perfect people.

0:07:29     They should be a lot better, right? They should be the most perfect people. But holiness means I’ve separated myself to God’s activity, to God’s will. I’m going to put God’s will first. I’m going to put the kingdom of God first. And so holiness is to separate from other things. God’s holy. Cause he’s separate from evil. He’s separate from lies, right? He’s separate from evil and wickedness. Okay. So a lot of people, though, when they think revival, this is for me personally, personal enhancement, it’s personally to make me feel better.

0:08:06     Yeah, yeah, you get all that. But you know what? I’ve seen them come and I’ve seen them go and die out, and I’ve seen people make fools of themselves trying to make God do something. You know, I was in a service once, and supposedly God, I was supposed to speak that night. But the first, they had their music and praise and worship and all that stuff. And then they tried to make something happen. And a lady, she was laughing and moving around, and she grabbed a huge electric extension cord, was what? It was an electric extension cord. And, you know, the prongs are on one end like that, and they stick out, right?

0:08:42     She grabbed that extension cord and started running around the church and poking people with it, like. Like there’s electricity in that extension cord. And the people would just jump and holler and laugh and fall and fall to the ground. And that does no honor to God, because God doesn’t need an extension cord, right? He is electrical all by himself, and you don’t need one either. You’re electrical in the power of God, in the presence of God. For you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So true. Revival is a humbling experience.

0:09:20     It’s not a party. It’s more of a war than a party. Anyway, it can be fun. It’s fun to walk with God. It’s fun to have weights and burdens and things lifted off of you. But the intention is, it’s a humbling experience where we lessen, go less of us and more of him. We exalt him. We magnify him. You know how when a magnifying glass makes something, you can hold it up and make something bigger? So we magnify the Lord. We make him bigger in the eyes of people.

0:09:54     We want you to come to revive church. You know why? Because I want to make God bigger in your eyes for his glory, his name and his. And who he is. So we have to turn. True revival then is a mandate to honor. But it’s reviving true reverence. What are we reviving? Well, this is not the only thing we’re reviving, but the main thing we start with is knowing God wants to move in our churches and even in our nation.

0:10:22     Spill over from our churches is God’s way. He wants to do it. Sometimes the churches won’t budge. So he’s got to go outside a church or get a different organization or whatever. But his goal has always been clear back in the Old Testament and New Testament is the assembly of the people, the church that is called to assemble them. Now spill over in revival. Power spill over out inside the church. People come inside the church to be discipled because you disciple discipleship is not something done outside of church, though it can be.

0:10:59     But outside the church, discipleship, like in a prayer group or having coffee with somebody and disciple and pray with them is great. But it can take the place of a discipled, dedicated, revived congregation that go to church to be discipled and to bring honor to his name. Right? And so true revival then is reviving the honor of God. And then we begin to look at our churches today and we look at our families today. We look at people going to church. Let’s make it real elementary, okay?

0:11:32     So if you go to church with your family and you stand there and the songs keep going and you’re singing and you look at your watch, and then a couple minutes later you look at it again, people look at their watch. Yeah. To see what time it is. But I noticed in church they look at their watch to see how soon this is going to be over so they can go do something else more important that’s dishonorable. Looking at your watch is not dishonorable. But if you’re looking at it. Cause you want to see how soon this is going to be over, what does God think of that? I just can’t wait to get out of here, you know? And sometimes religion has gone overboard with the way we dress. You know, make it all about clothes.

0:12:13     They’ll make religion about what you eat and what you drink and how you dress. However, there was something wonderful when I was a kid going to church, Nazarene church. And every Saturday night I get my shoes out, my church shoes, and I’d polish them up. I’d sit in front of the tv, shine them up. Cause I’m going to wear my shiny shoes to church. That’s just trying to do something for God. Anything. Anything for God.

0:12:41     And then you go in churches today, now what do you got? First thing you got, every kid in the place has a toy or coloring book or play on their phones or teenagers texting on their phones. Well, can they text during school? If they go to public school and they go to the classroom, does the teacher say, hey, if you want to study, fine. But you know, if you don’t just play on your phone, it’s okay? No, sometimes they take the phone away, right? Because.

0:13:08     Because they want you to say, school is really important. School is really important. You don’t play on your phone first grade or second grade. You don’t come with coloring books. You might color, but we color when we all supposed to color. Other. We’re going to learn letters, you know, we’re going to learn something because it’s important. So when you start bringing the toys out and the coloring books out and all the stuff out in church for children, what are you saying?

0:13:31     Kids, this is not important. And reviving the honor to God’s name is not that important. So it’s dishonorable. It’s dishonorable. Kids just lollygag. They, you know, I have my own kids in church. Have any of my kids ever fallen asleep in church? Yeah, some, especially when they were younger, but not too often because the goal was to get them to participate just like I do. Just like dad, just like grandpa.

0:13:58     Let’s join in. Cause you know what? What I’m doing is honorable and I want you to copy what I’m doing is honorable. And then they say, well, I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel God. I don’t feel the presence. You will. The Hebrew fathers taught their children like this, do it and then you’ll feel it. You don’t. The Greeks said, wait till you feel it and then have a party at the Hebrew dads. The Israelite dads say, no, do what’s right, love God.

0:14:27     And eventually you’ll feel that love, worship God and you’ll feel worship, you’ll feel God, you’ll know God, you’ll draw near to God because our goal is to revive his name and restore God’s honor. That’s the very first thing we want to do. If we’re wanting to restore works or we want to restore miracles, good, too. But people get off all of a sudden they get off on miracles, right? And they get off of the person Jesus. They get off of the person God, which is, we want you to feel good, God. We want you to be honored, God, what am I doing that’s dishonorable? And what can I do in this service as a leader, what can I change to be more honorable to you and restore your honor? And that’s true revival and the beginning of it. And then you don’t get off on signs and wonders and miracles, although we want those, we need those.

0:15:11     But if you get off on those and you start glorifying those, then we’re off. And let’s see how much time I got here. Okay, listen to this. We’ll end in a minute. I’ve been to a lot of services, and especially overseas. Nah, some here, too, where we have truly demonized people, not just people with hurt feelings who feel like the devil’s kicking them around. That can happen, too, but that’s not being demonized.

0:15:35     Like demonized. And I’ve seen many of them, and I’ve seen them in other churches and I’ve seen other preachers try to cast them out and they make a show of it. So they bring the demonized person in front of everybody and stop everything else while everybody turns into an audience and watches. Let’s watch this preacher. Maybe he can kick the devil out of this guy. No, sir. I never make a show of God’s activity. I make a show of God.

0:16:03     I honor God. What can I do? What do I do to honor God? To cast it out would be honorable. Yeah, I’m not going to turn it into showtime. We’re going to go over here where nobody’s looking, and free this lady or this man up, and maybe we’ll tell the story later and honor him that way. But we’re not going to turn into a show of showing how I cast out devils, how I’m powerful. I’m the anointed one of God. Watch me cast out a devil or free somebody. You know, I don’t like that show stuff.

0:16:27     That’s why I like just a moving prayer, just a blast of prayer that honors God. And, you know, by the time you get done praying, healing, everybody’s praying for healing. You don’t know who got, got the healing. Who’s the one that was gifted and we don’t know. The whole body prayed for healing, and God gets the glory. Isn’t that wonderful? And we don’t go like, oh, look at that person, look at that. Oh, we all got ministries, we all got gifts. We all got the power of God when we join together. So that’s my first lesson. You want to, you want something, you want something from God’s activity.

0:16:59     You want to see God will motivate God. He says, I’m not doing things for you. I’m doing things for my great name. Oh, that shows how backwards we have been. You start looking for ways in your life that you dishonor God and ways you can honor God and take action, and you’ll start turning your life around and God will be nearer than he’s ever been before. So thanks for listening. Today on the reviving true reverence from the new series, the mandate of honor. If you don’t have the book, if they only knew. If you only knew. A guide to the clueless generation. You can get it right now. It’s still free to download. I don’t know why, but you can buy it, too, so you can have it if you have hard copy. It’s being spread around again. It’s going to go again now through some political circles, and you need to make sure you get it, too. Till next time. Bye.