Psalm 32 - Marks of a Revival

I'm sure there are more than a few of us in this room this morning that identify with the person in that drama today. It is not easy to honestly admit sin and take responsibility for our failure. It's just not easy to do that. And yet as we're going to see this morning, it is one of the greatest keys to getting right with God and to seeing God move in a very special, powerful way in our midst, in our lives, in our church, in our town, in our area. Just a brief study of church history will show you that there have been times like that when God moved in remarkable ways, in powerful ways, and lives were transformed. Whole churches were turned upside down. Whole areas were affected. Cities and towns were revolutionized by the gospel and by the power of the Word of God and repenting of people even at times whole nations were affected by these great works of God that we've come to call revival. Certainly, that was true in the 1500s and the great reformation that swept through Europe. It was also true in the first great awakening in the United States and also in England in the 1730s and 40s. It was true in the second great awakening in our country. In the late 1790s, early 1800s, it was also true with the preaching of Charles Finney throughout the northeast in the 1820s. And it was true in the layman's prayer revival in 1857 and 1858 when God moved in a powerful way by his spirit starting with six people in a prayer meeting in New York City and sweeping across the whole country. Now those who studied the subject of revivals would say that probably our country has not seen another one since that time. There would be those who would argue that there was revival under Moody or Sunday or even Billy Graham in the late 1940s and early 1950s and there were some remarkable things happening at all of those times but not with the nationwide scope that some of the earlier revivals had. What tended to happen at the end of the 1800s is that people began to substitute programs, began to try to program and formulate and bring about revival by staging it or scheduling it. And so what did we do? We started scheduling revival meetings. Now some of those times God did move in a powerful way in churches and communities. But more often than not, those just became regularly scheduled twice a year events in churches. And there was no real work of God being done because what we thought was that the revival meeting is supposed to be what God uses to do His work. When in reality God can move at any time when His people meet the heart conditions for Him to move. It doesn't take especially scheduled series of meetings to do that. And that's what Psalm 32 talks about. As we work our way through 15 favorite Psalms in this series on Sunday morning, I want to look this morning at Psalm 32, which describes a personal revival in the heart and life of David. Now most would say that this Psalm was written after David had repented of his sin, had confessed his sin of adultery and ensuing follow up with Bathsheba. And it was probably coming out of that where David was heavy under conviction and God brought him back to himself that I think this Psalm was written. So it deals with personal revival. It deals with what has to happen in the heart and the life of a person for God to really move in powerful ways. I believe that revival is a sovereign work of God. Sometimes He just chooses to move among a nation or a people or a church in mighty ways that we can't explain. But I do also believe that God's people must meet certain heart conditions for that to take place. In fact, we cannot plan schedule prompt, generate mechanically bring revival. We can't do any of that. But I'll guarantee you this, we will not see revival unless we meet these heart conditions. What are they? Well, there are four of them in Psalm 32. The first one, the most important one, is conviction about sin. David deals with that in the first five verses of the Psalm. Conviction about sin. And we're going to spend the most of our time proportionately in this message on this point because this is the most important if we don't start here, nothing else happens. We don't get to base two if we don't start with base one here with conviction about sin. Now what David does is he first of all describes the blessing of forgiveness in verses one and two. We just look at those verses and see how blessed this is, what a great description this is of the blessing of forgiveness. He says, blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered, blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. Now what David does first of all to draw such a distinct and sharp contrast is he describes our sin in three different ways. Then he describes God's forgiveness in three different ways. And so to put those in sharp relief, to put those in sharp contrast and really describe for us the blessedness of forgiveness, the blessing of forgiveness. Look at what he says about our sin. He first of all calls it transgressions. See the word there in verse one? The word literally means rebellion. It means disloyalty. It has to do with breaking loose from restraints. It has to do with tearing away from God, resisting holiness and godly commands in his word. It has to do with pulling away from God. That's transgression. And then he uses a second word. It's translated in the NIV sin. It's a word which literally means to miss the mark. It's a word which has to do with the target being set up and for whatever reason you miss it. Now the target God has set for us is his word. Whenever we deviate in any way from the standards of God's word, we sin. We miss the mark. We are not on target with our lives. So that's the second way that sin is seen. The third way that sin is seen in verse two, again the NIV translates it with the word sin. It's actually the word iniquity. It's a different Hebrew word. The word for iniquity. And iniquity means to twist or pervert or distort. Now that has two thrusts to it. That word does. First of all, it describes sin itself as a twisting, a distortion of what God intends for us, a perversion of the right way. But it also describes the result on our character. Whenever we are guilty of transgression and sin, the result is we become twisted. We become distorted out of what God intended for us. And so to magnify the awfulness of our sin, David says sin can be described in these three ways. A transgression, a rebellion disloyal that God resisting him. It can be described as sin which is missing the mark. It can be described as iniquity which is twisting, perverting what God intended for us. That's the terrible nature of our sin. Now in sharp contrast to that is the greatness of God's forgiveness. And he uses three words to describe that as well. Notice them. Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven. That's a very interesting word. It's actually the Hebrew word Nassam which means to lift up or to carry away. The idea is of the huge guilt and the burden that presses us down from our sin. God lifts that up and takes it away. And that happens at the cross. Now Jesus is the one who carries away the sin of the world, the lamb who takes away the sin of the world, carries lifts up our burden of sin from us. John Bunyan in his great masterful work Pilgrim's progress pictures it as Pilgrim walking up the hill to the cross. And he's bowed over with this huge burden on his back. Just like a terrible hundred pound sack on his back. And he kneels at the foot of the cross. And when he prays to receive Christ the burden rolls off of his back. That's the idea here. God forgives us when we come to the cross and we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior. God lifts from us. He carries away that huge burden of guilt that we've carried around because of our sin. So that's one way he forgives us. The second word for his forgiveness in verse 1, whose sins are covered. Now the idea here is not to cover it so you can kind of do away with it and not realize it's there. The idea here is covering something that is distasteful to us. We've taken a good look at it. We've seen it. It's distasteful. It's something you don't want in public view. So you cover it. You know that's exactly another picture of what Jesus did for us at the cross. When he died for us so that our sins would be forgiven, he covered our sins so that when God looks at us now, there is a covering over us as sinners and he does not see us as sinners anymore from his holiness. He looks down and he sees the covering of the blood of Christ. Our sins are out of his view. They are distasteful to him but he has covered them with the blood of Christ and he will never bring them up again. He will never remove that cover. That's the blessed thing about forgiveness. Our sins are covered. The third thing about forgiveness that he says is in verse 2, blessed is the man who sinned the Lord does not count against him. Does not count against him. It's both a legal term and a financial term. The word was used in both ways. In other words, when God forgives our sin, it's like record keeping in heaven. Like you take the record books, the financial books and you got all these debts listed on them, all these bills that you owe and God marks paid on that bill. And on the next line, pay, it's paid, it's paid. It's like he wipes off the record, all of the debt. Our sins are not counted against us anymore. It's also a legal term which means that all the charges are dropped. All the just charges that God had against us because of our sin, they're dropped. They're thrown out of court because Jesus has already borne the penalty for all of those things. A grandmother was with her granddaughter at a state fair or something like that where they had these old planes that would go up and blow out the smoke and form letters. You ever seen that before? Were they kind of writing across the sky? Little girl was looking at that and what she noticed was, she was amazed by the words that were being spelled out by this plane. But then she noticed that the first letters were starting to fade, kind of drift away into the sky. She looked at that for a minute and she said, well, I guess Jesus has an eraser. But you know what? There's wisdom in those words because he does have an eraser. He wipes off the record books in heaven, off of the legal records in heaven. Our debt, our sin, he cancels it out. That's what forgiveness is and no wonder when you see the greatness of our sin and then you see the graciousness of God's forgiveness, no wonder David can say, bless it as the man who sins are forgiven. What is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him? The word blessed the same word we saw back in Psalm 1 which means a confident peace and joy of being right with God and knowing that things are taken care of. Just that sense of well-being, of rightness that you know everything is taken care of between you and God. Sin no longer stands between you. It's no longer in the way. I think maybe I've told you before about the little boy out on the farm who one time was throwing rocks at some of the family geese and he hit one, hit one hard enough to kill it. And he was immediately overcome with shame thinking, oh man, I'm in trouble now. When mom finds out about this, dad finds out I'm in trouble. So he thought, you know, we got 25 geese or so. They won't notice if one is gone. They won't even know. So he buried it. Well, his sister saw him. She came up to him later and she said, I saw what you did. If you don't offer to wash the dishes tonight, I'll tell mama what happened. So sure enough, after supper, he jumps right in there, offers to wash the dishes. He goes in and washes the dishes. The next day, he said to his sister, sis, it's your time to do the dishes tonight. And she said, don't forget what I can do to you. And he looked back at her, he said, no, you can't. I went to mama and told her everything and she forgave me. And I'm free. That's exactly the blessedness of being forgiven. You see, when God rolls our sin away, takes it off the record books in heaven, covers it over with the blood of Jesus Christ, lifts the burden off of us, then yes, blessed, free is the person whose sin is forgiven, whose sins are covered, whose sins are not counted against them anymore. That's the blessedness of forgiveness. But you see, the problem is sometimes even after we've been forgiven, after we've been saved, after our sins have been put away, sometimes we, as Christians, become disobedient to God, and we get enamored with this world that's out here, that attracts us and entices us and we begin to stray away from the Lord. We find ourselves in sin again. That's exactly what happened to David. And he's wise writing this Psalm. Because even though David was a man after God's own heart, he fell into deep sin. And when he was in that time in his life, when he was living in sin and he was not getting it right with God, what he describes for us is found in verses 3 and 4. It's the agony of conviction. Oh, there's the blessing of forgiveness, yes, but there's the agony of conviction if you're not really dealing with sin properly, even as a Christian, if you're not confessing sin. Look at this agony that David went through in verse 3. He says, when I kept silent, that's talking about when I did not deal right with my sin, when I did not honestly confess it, when I kept it inside, tried to cover it up myself, when I kept silent, notice what happened to him in verse 3. He says, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. And when he's talking about his bones wasting away, he's talking about his whole physical structure. He's simply talking about the fact that his body was racked with pain all day long. Now, there's an interesting relationship between our emotional well-being, our spiritual well-being and our physical well-being. There can be at times a relationship between your spiritual life, your walk with God and where you are physically. There sometimes can be a relationship between sin and sickness. Now please be careful with that. Please don't go out of here today and say, oh, John said, if you're sick, you're a sinner, you're got sin in your life. No, I'd be as bad as Job's friends if I was that way. Not all personal illness is caused by personal sin. In the bigger picture, all illness, everything destructive in this life was brought into this world as a result of the curse that came because of sin. But I'll tell you this, sometimes illness is a result of sin. You fold. Sometimes it's a chastening of God for our sin. That's what Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11. Look at these verses where Paul said, for anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgment on himself, that is why many among you are weak and sick and the number of you have fallen asleep. Paul was talking about their abuse of the Lord's Supper and bringing sin, unconfessed sin, boldly right into the Lord's Supper service and not recognizing the discontinuity there between those two. He said, because you're doing that, some of you are sick, some of you are weak and some of you have even died, not some of the ones he was writing to had died, but some people in the church had actually died because of their sin. Now again, be careful with that, not all personal sins because or personal illnesses because of personal sin, but sometimes illness can come as a chastening from God. And then sometimes illness simply comes because of the heavy load of guilt and anxiety and tension that we're under because we're not dealing with sin properly and it's weighing on us and it has physical effects. So what I would say, and I think what David is saying is if there is physical problems, our physical problems in your life, at least check to make sure that there's no unconfessed sin. And if you've taken care of that, then there are probably other reasons for that physical illness. You need to go see a doctor, but at least one of the options we should, one of the basis we should cover is am I not dealing with sin properly? Take care of that and then make sure you take care of the other things as well. David said, I had physical symptoms because of my sin. Secondly, there was spiritual or emotional agony. Look at verse four, emotional agony. For day and night, your hand was heavy on me. That's talking about emotional agony. The hand of God's conviction was heavy on him. He was guilty and he felt it and there was a sense of God's disapproval that weighed on him and led him to the heaviness, heaviness of depression. Again, sometimes emotional symptoms are a result of being out of sorts with God. Again not all emotional illness, not all depression even is caused by sin, but sometimes depression can be related to not dealing properly with sin. So at least consider that as an option when you're getting treatments. At least consider the fact that you may need to confess sin and get some things right with God. That's the way guilt works when we're not dealing with sin properly. So David said there were physical symptoms, there were emotional symptoms, but here's the biggest one. There were spiritual symptoms as well of this agony of conviction. Look at the end of verse four. He says, my strength was sat as in the heat of summer. In other words, there's no strength left, there's no vitality left. And most Bible commentators believe he's talking about his spiritual vitality. I mean there was just nothing left spiritually. Everything that fed his heart for God was drying up. And you know when you are not dealing with sin, when you're not being honest about sin in your life, it's exactly what happens. Everything in you spiritually dries up. You lose your passion for the things of God. You no longer want to be with the people of God. You stop coming to church, you stop reading your Bible, you stop praying, you lose your passion and zeal for worship. All of that dries up. What a contrast to the godly person who's really got a heart for God that we saw back in Psalm 1 and verse 3. Just look at the way of contrast at this verse again. Psalm 1 3. He is like, speaking of a godly man. He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither whatever he does prosperous. Now the godly person is spiritually vibrant, focused in on the ward and his word and prayer and living for Christ, a person who's not dealing properly with sin. It's going to be all dried up spiritually. The passion, the focus, the zeal is gone. That's what happens when you don't confess sin. You are wrapped with agony, the agony of conviction. September 22, 1998, something very unusual happened in Kansas City. A man turned himself in for a crime he had committed 19 years earlier. His name was James Crocker. But that time he was living in Virginia. Back in 1979 he had been on a three day LSD high, had met a young lady at a convenience store, and a number of things happened and he ended up killing her. There were very few clues of the crime and so the police never did solve it and it was getting colder and colder all the time and there was no hope that they would ever solve that case. In the meantime James Crocker had gotten saved a few years after that. He joined the church, started going to church, met a young lady there. They got married in 1988, 1986 I believe it wasn't. They had several, they had a couple of children. But in 1998 he had explained all of his past to his wife in 1998 they came to a consensus that he needed to admit what he had done. So he boarded a flight in Virginia where he was living, flew to Kansas City where a prearranged meeting with prosecutors took place. The man's in jail today will not be eligible for parole till 2008. The prosecutor said I've never seen anything like it. What would cause him and to risk so much? We would have never have solved that case if he hadn't come forward and admitted it. What would make him and risk so much? And Crocker said it was hard to leave my kids and wife behind but I knew it was the right thing to do. What would make him and risk so much? And take responsibility for his actions. You know what it was? It was the agony of conviction. That's what it was. God's hand was heavy on him and he said I can't take this any longer. I have got to deal with this. And so he admitted he confessed his sin and he's now paying the penalty that society demands for that particular crime. You see the agony of conviction can be so strong that you feel like life is no longer worth living. My friend, if you are out of sorts with God, if you are out of fellowship with God, if they're sin in your life that you're not dealing with properly and you're feeling the heavy hand of God's conviction on you today, the only way, only way to be released from that is to what I'm going to talk about next for just a moment. The release of conviction. The release of confession. That's the only way. How you move from the agony of conviction to the blessing of forgiveness. The only way to move from one to the other is through the release of confession. And David says in verse 5, that's what got me. Verse 5, he said, then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Now, once again, David uses three words to describe his confession. He says, I acknowledged my sin, which means to openly admit. Then he says, I did not cover up my iniquity. In other words, I quit trying to cover it over. I just pulled back the mask and said, God, here it is. I'm going to be honest about it. And then he says, I confess my sin. I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, which means to say the same thing about sin that God says about sin, to admit it, to be upfront, to be honest. There is a tremendous emphasis in all three of these words on honesty, being sincere in your confession of sin. I go back to verse 2 where David says, this blessing that comes from forgiveness right at the end of the verse comes only to those in whose spirit is no deceit. And as long as we keep trying to deceive others, cover up things, act like we've not done anything wrong, try to just whitewash our sin as long as we do that, then we are not going to experience the blessing of forgiveness. We've got to be honest, got to be honest about our sin. I read about a guy named Arthur who had had a real serious disagreement with his wife one night. And it was pretty bad. It got pretty ugly. They had gone to bed and he was still lying there awake. And after a little while he turned to his wife and whispered, are you asleep? No response. He waited a couple more minutes. Are you asleep? Still no response. He did it a couple more times and when he was assured that she was sound asleep, he said, OK, I admit I was wrong. That doesn't work. That doesn't count for confession. You got to be honest about it, honest enough to pull back the masks and say, I honestly admit my wrong. But there's also a great emphasis in these words, not only on honesty, but on willingness to admit and confess sin. It's not because you're forced to, it's not because you got caught. It's not because you regret the consequences. It's not because you're tricked into it. But you willingly come before God and say, I admit myself to be a sinner. Now I know I've sinned and I need to get things right with God. It was not too long ago a police line up in Los Angeles where they had a man had committed a burglary and robbed some money from a lady and they had this line up. There were six or eight shady characters that they put up. They were hoping the victim of the crime would be able to pick out the guy who had done it. And so the police gave these instructions to these six or eight guys who run the line up. I want each of you to say, give me all your money or I'll shoot. And one guy blurted out, that's not what I said. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he did confess his sin anyway. That's not the kind of confession David's talking about. We don't confess because we're tricked into it. We're kind of led into it. We get caught or anything like that. We come before God honestly and willingly and say, I acknowledge my sin. I'm not going to cover it anymore. I confess my sin to you. Now my friend, true revival, true moving of God never comes unless there is strong conviction that is backed up by honest and willing confession of sin. Now there are three other marks of revival that we're just going to take a few minutes on because nothing else will happen. None of this will happen unless there comes an honest dealing with sin. But when that happens, then the second mark of revival in verses six and seven is prayer. And notice the call to prayer in verse six. David gives us this call to prayer. He says, therefore led everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found. After his own experience of having been met by God in his time of prayer as he honestly confessed his sin, now he wants others to join with him in prayer. And the kind of prayer he's talking about is a prayer for mercy, a prayer of confession. He's saying, boy, I can't believe the relief and the blessing of having my sins forgiven. Come on, we need to all be praying this way. And that's what he means when he says, let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found. That expression has troubled some people. Is it that God plays hide and seek with us? Is it that God sometimes hides from us or will not answer us or doesn't want to be available to us? It's not at all what he's saying. In the context, the expression while he may be found is tied into our willingness and honesty about confession. The point is this, as long as we hide sin, God's not available. The psalmist said in Psalm 66, 18, if I regard aiquity in my heart, you will not hear me. God will not hear. God will not bless. God will not move. His spirit power when his people are not willing to be honest about sin. That's the time in which he is found when we come clean with him about sin. Look at these two verses. This is what God promises in Psalm 145 and verse 18, the Lord is near to all who call on him, and notice this proviso, to all who call on him in truth. For really honest about our sin, we're honest with him about our lives than God's near. Not like he's hiding. He's available. He's near. But we've got to meet the qualification. James said much the same thing. And James, chapter 4 and verse 8, when he said, come near to God and he will come near to you. What does it mean to come near to God? He goes on to explain. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded. You see, if we deal with sin honestly and willingly, we are drawing near to God. And when we do that, he promises to draw near to us. He is available to us. He is there for us in those times of confession. So call upon him while he is near, while he may be found, and he may be found when you come to him honestly in confession and repentance. That's where he may be found. Now that's the call to prayer. The answer to prayer in verses 6 and 7 is this, surely when the mighty waters rise, that they will not reach him. You are my hiding place. You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Just look at all that that God says you'll do. The waters will not reach us. You're my hiding place. You'll protect me. You'll surround me. The idea is God will protect. God will, God will hide. God will keep us. Please understand that does not mean that we will not face trouble. David faced plenty of that. Even when he was walking with God, he faced plenty of trouble. He's not saying we'll never face trouble. What he is saying is that that trouble will not devastate us. God will hide us, protect us through that trouble, through that trial, and we will come out victorious. We will come out surrounded with songs of deliverance. What a great picture. That's what will happen to us. You know, those who have studied the great layman's prayer revival, I mentioned earlier in 1857, 1858, tremendous move of the Spirit of God. It just, reading that is just remarkable to sit chill bumps all over you to read what God was doing. Many who study that from a historical perspective, who also believe that God is the author of history, many believe that God was preparing our nation for what would happen three years later, when the Civil War started. And there are those who sincerely believe, and I would agree that if it had not been for what God did in 1857 and 1858, which actually spilled over into both union and southern armies, there were great revivals among soldiers. If it had not been for that, our nation might not have survived the Civil War. We might have been irreparably divided, irreparably devastated as a nation, had not God intervened three years before and swept across this country with revival. God doesn't promise to keep us out of trouble. Civil War still happened. God doesn't promise to keep us out of it. He does promise he will bring us through. He will bring us through. That's what he's saying here. The answer to prayer. Prayer is always, always, a key element, a key mark of any revival. One of the greatest, most fascinating studies I ever did was to trace the role of prayer through all of the great awakenings and revivals that America has ever seen. It will absolutely blow your mind to see that the element of prayer, as you trace it through all of those. Even the great revival meetings of Finney in the 1820s, people thought Finney was such a great preacher. He was a good preacher. But you know what really brought revival in Finney Crusades? A man by the name of Daniel Nash would precede him into whatever town he was going to preach in. Three days ahead he would go rent a room, find anybody else in town that would not pray with him and give himself to unceasing prayer for three days before Finney ever came to town. It's no mistake that after Daniel Nash died, Finney left that kind of ministry when into the pastorate later became president of Oberlin College. But he could no longer do it without his right hand prayer warrior. You see every time God has moved in mighty ways, it started with prayer. David says one of the marks of revival is prayer. Third mark of revival is sensitivity to God. Sensitivity to God. He talks about this in verses eight and nine. Verse eight, he gives us God's promise to us. This is what God promises to do. Look at verse eight. He says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you. God really makes two promises there. One is kind of the formal instruction and teaching type thing. God says, I'll do that. I'll teach you the way you should live, the way you should go. But then there's the more come along side you and counsel you and watch over you with my eye. I'll do that too. I think maybe the best way I can illustrate that is with a parent who's trying to teach something to a child, a son or a daughter. Those of us who have had teenagers who have reached that magical age of sixteen know what it's like to teach our children to drive. And there's a certain amount of verbal instruction you can give them. You know, there's the book they can read and all of that. But it takes getting out in a car and you sitting in the passenger seat and saying, put the brake on. Don't drive so fast. Don't turn yet. All of that. That's part of what it takes to teach someone to drive. And what you're doing is in addition to the formal instruction, you're sitting alongside them counseling them as they go through the situation. No, this is not what you want to do. You want to look out for this. You want to watch for that. And watching over them as they do it. It's the same thing you guys do when you teach your sons to hunt and to handle a gun. There are certain things you tell them. And then there are certain things when you take them out of the woods, you watch them to make sure what they're doing. You help them understand, counsel them, what's right and wrong. Same thing you ladies do when you teach your daughters to cook. You know, there are certain things you can tell them, but there are certain things you have to be in the kitchen with them and say, no, no, it takes a little bit more of that. You have to go out and do this a little bit. Push that this way, those kinds of things. Now that's what God promises to do for us. I'll teach you and instruct you, He says, but also I'll counsel you and watch over you. I promise to do that. I'll show you the way to live, but then I'll walk alongside you and counsel you. No, it's not quite like that. You need to do this. No, this is the path you need to take. Watch out about that. He promises to do that. But our response to Him is very critical. Verse 9. Our response, He says, do not be like the horse or the mule which have no understanding, but must be controlled by bit and bridal or they will not come to you. What He's saying is God has promised. He will teach us and He will guide us and counsel us. But our response is important too. Our response is that we must be sensitive to what He's teaching us and to the checks and warnings He gives us along the way. He says, don't be like a horse or a mule. You know, animals don't have the kind of understanding that He talks about in verse 9. The Hebrew word for understanding means moral perception. The ability to look at a situation and know what's right and wrong to do. Animals don't have that capability. They have instinct that they go by and they can be trained by humans. But they don't have the ability to look at something and say, this is morally appropriate for me to do. I think I'll do that, all right? This is morally inappropriate. I'm not going to do that. And so what God is saying is don't be like a dumb animal that just lives by instinct or has to be prodded or held back by a bit and bridal. Rushing too far ahead like a horse or stubbornly lagging back like a mule. Don't be like a dumb animal like. Be sensitive to God. As He teaches you and instructs you, be eager to do what He says. Be anxious to live in the way He wants you to go. Be sensitive to Him. So sensitivity to God is absolutely critical. In every revival you will find people who were willing to do whatever God said to do. Even if it didn't make sense at the time, they were sensitive to what God was telling them to do. The last mark of revival, and it's really the result of the other three, is joy. You know, when you know that you've gotten your sins right with God and sin is confessed and you're living for Christ, there's nothing between you and the Lord and when you're seeking the Lord in prayer, when you're being sensitive to what He's teaching you and how He's guiding you. When all that happens, man, joy floods in. And that's exactly what He's saying in verses 10 and 11. The reason for joy in verse 10, many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him. Person who continues in His wicked ways, rebelling against God, sinning, not dealing properly with sin. Many are the woes. Hebrew word literally means pain and suffering. Pain and suffering. Continue to be heaped up on the person who resists God and says, I'm going to go my way. But when you get things right with God like we've seen in this Psalm, then the Lord's unfailing love surrounds you. You're enmeshed with it. You're immersed in it. It is all around you. God's unfailing love. And there's no better way to live than to live with that conscious presence of God's love. You got your choice. You can live with all kinds of woe, pain and suffering. The way other transgressor is hard, Solomon said, or you can live with sense of God's unfailing love surrounding you and encompassing you as you walk through life. The reason for joy is the great difference in those two lifestyles, but notice the response of joy in verse 11. He says, rejoice in the Lord and be glad. You write just saying, all you who are upright in heart. The response of joy is this, rejoice. And that's not a worked up contrived happiness, even though you don't feel like it. That's not that. This is a natural overflow of joy when things are right with God. And you know, things are right with God. And you just can't help but sense that deep, sense that deep-seated peace and contentment and rightness with God. That's joy. And then he says, be glad. That's just, you know, don't get mad, get glad. You remember that? Don't get mad. Don't stay out of sorts with God. Get glad. Be a person of a glad heart, a joyful heart. And then he says, sing. The Hebrew word literally means to shout. It does have to do with worship. But you know, Jewish people worship exuberantly. They worship joyfully. And so what he's saying is when there's joy in your heart, it can't help but find some expression as you praise God. Praise him joyfully. Sing. Shout out your praises to the Lord. He's saying, you who are pure in heart. Now this, my friend, is what revival looks like. This is what revival looks like. It's not a program. It's not a special series of meetings that we schedule at a certain time. God may see fit to use those sometimes. But that's not revival. Revival is a heart condition when people get honest about sin and willingly, honestly confess it. Revival is when people are in prayer seeking God. Revival is when people are sensitive to the moving of God, the teaching and the instruction of the Lord, the guidance of the Lord, revival is when all of that culminates in just a joy that must sing to the Lord. That's what revival looks like. Heard about a guy who was actually happened in 1996. A guy out in Arkansas, it was a pastor of a church out there. And he decided the church needed a revival. The church was kind of split about some things. And so he decided the church needed a real revival, real move of God. So you know what he did? He decided he was going to do something to try to spur a revival. He burned the church down. Seriously, he did. He burned the church down. He thought, well, that'll unify everybody, you know, and they'll come together to really, you know, project of, we've got to build a new church and all. Well, it didn't start a revival that landed him in jail. For Arson. Now the church is worse off than it was before, more split than it was before. The point of that is you don't manufacture revival. You don't program it, you don't schedule it. It's a sovereign work of God. When God shows up, but I'll guarantee you this, God will not move in powerful ways without us meeting the heart conditions of conviction of sin, honest confession of it. Prayer, earnest prayer to seek God's face. Of knowing that things are right with Him and knowing that we're sensitive to His direction, that will result in the joy of knowing that God is at work. That's what revival looks like. That's pray. Father, we want to see you move and we cannot program that. We cannot twist your arm to do that. Lord, we know that you want to move among your people. You want to move in this area, in this nation. But your people, we, all of us, including me, beginning with me, need to get right with you. Honestly, confess sin. Pray. Be sensitive to you. And experience the joy of seeing you work. God, would you work in our midst? Help us to begin by being honest about sin. In Jesus' name, amen.