1.     We had a good week and I am thankful for those who came out and supported the meetings.

2.     More and more I am convinced of our desperate need for revival.

3.     When I say “our need” for revival, I mean my need and your need.  I mean our church needs revival.  Our country needs revival.

4.     America is in bad shape today because America’s churches are in bad shape.

5.     We need revival.   Psalm 85:6 says, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?”

6.     Habakkuk 3:2 says, “O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.”

7.     Leonard Ravenhill said, “The only reason we don’t have revival is because we are willing to live without it!”

8.     Leonard Ravenhill was right.  Too many Christians are content living on a low spiritual plane.  They are cold as ice but it does not seem to bother them.  They are carnal but they think they are OK. 

9.     They are backslidden but their backsliding has been very gradual and so they are not aware of their condition.   They need revival.

10. What is revival?  Revival has been defined as the powerful, spiritual manifestation of the presence of God, which leads believers to a restoration of the Spirit-filled life for holiness and service.  Revival leads unbelievers to a conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment for salvation (from “Preach the Word Ministries” web site).

11. Revival always starts with believers.  First believers need to get right with God, and then the unsaved take notice and are brought under conviction. 

12. The unsaved come to Christ after Christians are revived.  So we have to start with Christians first.  If Christians get right with God we will certainly see more souls saved.  Notice – “If my people…” (II Chron. 7:14).

13. I would like to speak this morning on “Hindrances to Revival.”  We will look at various hindrances, focusing primarily on these three:

1. PRIDE
2. PRAYERLESSNESS
3. STUBBORN REFUSAL TO REPENT

I. PRIDE (“shall humble themselves”)

1.     The flesh is proud.  We will never see a revival till Christians humble themselves.  

2.     Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

3.     Proverbs 29:23 says, “A man’s pride shall bring him low.”

4.     Both James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5 say, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”

5.     Some of the preaching was very pointed this past week.  Some people were convicted and they humbly came forward to get things right.  Others were too proud to humble themselves.  In fact, some people avoid revival meetings because they know the preaching will be very pointed.

6.     Charles Finney wrote, “It is almost always the case in a revival, that a part of the church will be too proud or too worldly to take any part in the work.”

7.     Jonathan Goforth said, “If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned.”  We should pray and ask the Lord if there is some idol still enthroned in our heart – hindering revival, hindering our testimony, hindering souls from being saved, hindering the backslidden from being restored, hindering the blessings of God, and hindering God’s work from advancing.

8.     It was two years ago that our friend John Van Gelderen preached, “Give it up!” 

II. PRAYERLESSNESS (“and pray”)

1.     Everywhere I go I hear the same thing – the midweek prayer meeting has the smallest attendance of all the church services.

2.     Acts 12:12 says, “where many were gathered together praying.”  “Many” – not a few, not just the faithful, dedicated church members, but “many.”

3.     Acts 4:31 says, “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.  And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.”

4.     A. T. Pierson once said, “There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.”

5.     Leonard Ravenhill said, “If weak in prayer, we are weak everywhere,” and “A sinning man stops praying, a praying man stops sinning.”

6.     Our Lord said to His disciples, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41).

7.     Our Lord said in Luke 18:1, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”

8.     Our Lord said in Luke 22:40, “Pray that ye enter not into temptation.”

9.     First Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Pray without ceasing.”

10. James 5:16 says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

III. STUBBORN REFUSAL TO REPENT (“and turn from their wicked ways”).

1.     More and more I am convinced that we will not see more souls saved till we first see Christians get right with God.

2.     First Peter 4:17 and 18 says, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?  And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”

3.     Revival is needed when Christians have left their first love.  To the church at Ephesus, our Lord said, “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love” (Rev. 2:4).

4.     There are Christians who used to come out every night for revival meetings, but now they stay home.  They have left their first love.

5.     There are Christians who used to read their Bible every day but not now.  They have left their first love.

6.     Many Christians are weak because they are discouraged.  As we were reminded the other night, discouragement is a sin.

7.     Jonah was discouraged.  He told the LORD, “It is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:8).  Jonah was wrong.  He needed to repent.  He preached repentance to the people of Nineveh, and they repented.  But Jonah himself needed to repent.

8.     Elijah was discouraged.   God gave Elijah a great victory up on Mount Carmel, but then Elijah ran from Jezebel. 

9.     Elijah ran off into wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and the Bible says, “he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers” (I Kings 19:4).

10. But Elijah was wrong.  He needed revival.  And God did revive him.  If great prophets like Jonah and Elijah could get discouraged, you and I can get discouraged. 

11. The devil often uses discouragement to get things off track, but I am convinced his favorite method for ruining a church and misleading a Christian is worldliness.

12. When Christians are worldly-minded, and mind the things of this world, and have become engrossed with worldly things – they need to repent of their worldliness.   They need revival.

13. Romans 12:2 says Christians are not to be conformed to this world, but unfortunately many Christians are conformed to this world, and they stubbornly refuse to do anything about it.

14. Bro. Gillmore said he preached against Hollywood movies in a big independent Baptist church and was told not to do that anymore.  That church needs revival.

15. Charles Finney said that revival “is needed when Christians are in reproach in consequence of their worldly-mindedness.” He noted that when professed Christians become worldly-minded, and lose their zeal for Christ and become zealous about worldly matters, it is always noticed by the unsaved.

16. At least twice this week, Bro. Gillmore referred to Lot’s worldly testimony in Sodom and Gomorrah.  When Lot tried to warn his family members that God’s judgment was coming, they did not take him seriously.

17. Lost sinners have no respect for worldly church members.   If we are not right with God the world will see that.  Do you remember what the prophet Nathan said to King David?

18. Nathan said, “Thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme” (II Samuel 12:14).

CONCLUSION:

1.    In 1857, a man named Jeremiah C. Lanphier announced that there would be a prayer meeting at his church on Wednesday, September 23^rd at 12 noon.  His church was the Fulton Street Dutch Reformed Church in downtown Manhattan.

2.    Although handbills and posters had widely advertised this prayer meeting, no one showed up at noon.  Mr. Lanphier was not a pastor, but a layman active in house-to-house visitation. (By the way, when was the last time you heard of house-to-house visitation from a Dutch Reformed church?)   Anyway, Mr. Lanphier waited and at 12:30 one man arrived.  When the meeting ended at 1:00 p.m., six people were present.

3.    Twenty people came the following Wednesday and forty the next, at which time they agreed to begin meeting on a daily basis.

4.    Within a few months, the church was packed out and unable to accommodate the huge crowds that were coming every day for prayer.

5.    By this time twenty other noontime prayer meetings were being held throughout NYC on a daily basis.  Shopkeepers were putting up signs on their front doors that said: “CLOSED – BE BACK AFTER THE PRAYER MEETING.”

6.    The police and fire departments opened their buildings for prayer services; the Music Hall did likewise.  Numerous other churches were overflowing with praying businessmen.

7.    Stories of conversions appeared on the front pages of daily newspapers, such as the New York Tribune, and soon the revival spread out to Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta.

8.    It has been estimated that during that two-year revival, perhaps as many as one million souls were saved.  Saloons were converted into prayer halls; bartenders and grocers rolled out their barrels of beer and wine and poured the dirty swill down the sewers.

9.    The Atlanta police force had to lay off half of its’ policemen because of reduced crime.

10. The revival spread to our armed services.  Four Christian sailors among the one thousand crew members on the warship North Carolina, docked right here in New York’s harbor, began to pray.  The other sailors began to mock them but were soon brought under conviction.  Many repented and got right with God.  Preachers had to come on board the ship from the shore to help reap the harvest.

11. This great revival then moved across the Atlantic Ocean into Northern Ireland and even into the south of Ireland. 

12. Can God do it again?  Certainly!  Will God do it again?  No one can say for sure.  But if it is going to happen, it will take men and women who mean business to get on their knees and pray.