Revival Come (Week 1)

Amen.

Good morning.

I'm Forrest Coleman, lead pastor here at Multiply.

If you're new here, welcome.

Glad that you're here.

Myself and many others began the work of Multiply Church about a year and a half ago.

We're glad that you're here today as we jump into this new series, Revival Come.

Who remembers early this year in February the revival outpouring that happened at Asbury in February this year?

And um I got to be a part of uh the revival services three times because uh I went and served as an usher.

And uh there's a picture here that actually I took, and I took several pictures of uh my time while I was there serving as an usher.

And um I can tell you this there were tons of people who were pouring into the Asbury Revival.

You remember this time.

Uh, we don't I don't even know exactly how many people they were making the guessment, but night after night after night, people were driving into this little town of Wilmore to come and experience what God was doing there on the campus.

And the line it wrapped all around the campus multiple days, and you could imagine being the person who once somebody has waited hours in line to get in, to be the one that is uh receiving them to find a seat.

Now, this was like uh something that you know, as soon as somebody got up, I was calling for somebody to sit down, and uh it was like this ongoing process of me standing, walking in the aisles, having people sit down, and there were people who were coming from far and wide.

I'll never forget this.

I was standing in the back, and there was a group of five people who uh they were bringing up and they're uh from another country, and there was no seats.

And the other usher said, This family has come from the Himalayan mountains to come and worship.

Can you please find them a seat?

I'm like, get these people out of here.

Y'all have been here for a while, y'all need to leave because these folks have come all the way from the mountain, down the mountain to come here, all the way to Wilmore to experience what God was doing.

It was crazy.

And I I I think about that time and I think about revival.

And and as I was preparing for this series way back then and thinking about us uh speaking of this in October, and I thought we're either at that point when we begin to speak about this, we have either seen a worldwide revival from this, or we have not.

Either way, we need to talk about what God has done and what he wants to do.

See, over the years uh in American life, where's been different times and seasons of revival, starting all the way back with the Great Awakening in the 1730s, with the likes of uh of George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards and the preaching that came across our country, the sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God that that sparked in our nation and lull and lull out of a sleep of spiritual malaise into a fire of revival.

And this happened again at the second Great Awakening that we'll take a look at in the weeks to come.

Think about over across uh the ocean, the Welsh Revival to come, then over in California, the Azusa Street Revival a hundred years ago.

And there's been these different moments in history where God has done a specific outpouring.

Now we also think about this word revival, and I don't know about you, but me growing up in church when I was young, uh, revival uh in churches I was growing up was just that like whatever church down the street was gonna have multiple services through the week, and they were gonna invite some guest person to come in, and they're gonna have revival.

And that's all I thought about revival is gonna take a long time, there's gonna be a bunch of things, the person's gonna preach, and they're gonna preach, and then they give invitation, and then they give another invitation for the people who didn't respond to the first invitation.

You don't know what I'm talking about if you're up in the context of what revival have been, and basically of saying, like, hey, we're gonna throw a revival, and but we know that there's a difference from us just saying, like, hey, we're gonna have a revival versus God pouring out his spirit spirit on us.

And we experienced something similar to that in the beginning of this year in Asbury.

This outpouring, was it a revival?

Was it an outpouring?

That's for other people who are more qualified in these studies to figure out than me.

But all I know is this is that I want us to continue to see God's spirit move.

I want us to continue to see people come to faith in Jesus.

And I've experienced Asbury's revival and a few years ago, I experienced something that really kind of changed the way I looked at revival and look at these outpouring moments.

Back in 2012, uh during my time in Somerset, there was a a time of a youth revival that lasted a few days.

And it began with some teenagers in our community in concert with Fellowship of Christian athletes, but really just this handful of teenagers who decided that they wanted to pray for their friends to come to know Jesus.

And this small group of teenagers began to meet north of town in a barn on Sunday nights and pray for God to move in the life of their friends.

There are times where God wants to specifically use an individual person or a group of people to make a big difference.

Maybe for you, you're here today and God wants for you to make a big difference.

God is waiting for you and asking for you to take a stand for him, not in an angry, not in a stand in a challenging, but a stand in faithfulness, a stand in grace and truth, maybe in your workplace.

Maybe among the friends that you have, or the people who are in your class.

That God would call you for you to take a step into prayer and to deeply and intentionally pray for God to move in the people that are around you.

See, it was John Wesley who said, God does nothing apart from prayer and everything through it.

These teenagers that got together and began to pray for their friends, standing in the gap and standing up and asking the Lord to intervene.

And over the course of this series, we're gonna look at the life of Elijah, a prophet in the scripture, who was that such person that God called for him to take a stand, for him to make a big difference, for him to rise up.

And we're gonna walk through his story today and a few miracles, and it's gonna lead us into the weeks to come, but to set the stage of where we see Elijah when God calls him as a prophet.

Old Testament, the kingdom of Judah and Israel has have split in two.

There's been evil king after evil king, and there's unrest in the land.

We saw even just this weekend in the land of Israel that unrest has begun.

And we pray for them and pray for those right now who are being killed.

And even all the way back in Elijah's time, this southern kingdom and northern king to Judah and Israel, they have split, and there have been 19 consecutive evil kings in the land.

Imagine that.

Nineteen consecutive evil leaders.

And at the time that Elijah is called out as a prophet, the king and queen of that time are Ahab and Jezebel, the most evil, is what the scripture says.

You may have heard of Jezebel before.

Jezebel.

And she was the most evil and her husband and king.

See, Jezebel and Ahab, they were bringing false worship of false gods of Syrian foreign idols of Baal and Asherah.

And people were worshiping these false and fake deities, and they were even sacrificing their children to them.

They were engaged in temple worship with temple prostitutes, things that we can't even speak of.

And evil had taken over the land.

And God calls out one man, a prophet Elijah.

His name literally means the Lord is Jehovah, that he was a man who was called out to make a difference.

And we see that God leads Elijah to speak directly to the king and the queen and take a stand for God in the midst of this evil.

And in chapter 17 of 1 Kings, we see that Elijah, it says, now Elijah, he told King Ahab, As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, the God I serve, there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word.

Elijah begins to take a stand against Ahab and this evil regime, and he does it by way of the first miracle of saying, there is going to be no rain.

And a prophetic word from the Lord given to him to speak over, to say, there's going to be no rain in this land.

And what basically Elijah is saying at that moment to say there be no dew, there be no rain in this agrarian society, he basically is saying it's going to be shut down level all the way to zero.

It's going to be like COVID shut down.

It's going to be nobody is going to be able to do the work in the of the farms.

There's not going to be food.

There's going to be famine.

Many people are going to die.

Because of the evil, because of the sin, because change needs to happen, there is going to be a stop of rain.

There's going to be a shut down.

There's going to be no food.

There's going to be death.

There's going to be destruction until there's change.

Then the Lord said to Elijah, Go to east and hide by Kareeth Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River.

Elijah makes a stand.

And you would think after he makes a stand that the next thing would be that a bunch of people would stand up alongside him and that would come around him and would rally behind him and that he would continue to fight with a king, maybe as we saw Moses do, but that's not what God did.

God had him make a stand, and then he went to Elijah and he told Elijah, Now I want you to go to a specific place to the Karif brook that's also known as the Karif ravine and to this hidden place.

And this word Karef, it literally means cut off or cut down.

That's what Karef means.

Everybody say Kareeth.

It means cut off, it means cut down.

And God was calling Elijah to trust in him in this deserted place before he would deliver the people and deliver, bring his deliverance through him.

So God calls Elijah to go to this hidden place.

And he gives him instruction in verse 4 Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.

So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside the Carith Brook, east of the Jordan.

And the ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook.

See, God did a miracle.

He brought him a brook in the midst of a drought.

And he brought him food from heaven.

We'd seen God do this before for his people as they were in the wilderness, that God would bring food to them through ravens.

And so God brings Elijah to this place where he is in complete dependence on him.

God's supplying him the brook.

God's supplying him the food.

God is bringing him into a place of total trust.

Of total decision.

Is he gonna trust God to see the miracle happen?

Or not?

And it's in those moments, in the hidden place, where God begins to mold Elijah into the prophet that he was going to use so powerfully.

Now I'll say this to you.

There may be some of you in the house today, and you've come in and you feel like that you're in a deserted place.

You're going through a time of difficulty.

You're going through a time of trial.

I know on a day like today, there are people who've walked walk into our church right now who they've had the best week of their life and they've had the one of the worst weeks of their life.

Literally today, of knowing what's going on in our lives.

It's and in those places where we have this complete dependence on the Lord, that God gives us the opportunity to be made, to be transformed, to be molded into his likeness before we see the miracle happen.

I tell you today that we need to be molded before we see the miracle of the Lord.

Independence and trust in God.

God brings Elijah to this place of being completely dependent on him.

There are many times where we get into a place where we feel like that there's more on us than what we could ever possibly imagine.

How are we going to get through this health scare, this challenge, this difficulty, this job loss?

And there's a teaching in the scripture, or there's a teaching in Christian culture that people think comes from the scripture, but it actually is kind of not.

You ever heard somebody say, God won't give you more than you can handle?

You ever heard that before?

That's not a Bible verse.

There is a passage that says that you won't be tempted more than you can bear, that you won't be tempted to sin more than you can bear, and God will give you an escape.

But there's not a verse that says that God's not going to give you more than you can handle.

Have anybody ever lived life that's hard and challenging and tough?

And there are plenty of times where we meet the end of our rope and that we cannot handle it, and we need God to intervene and for him to handle it.

And for us to depend on him and his power in our life alone.

There are plenty of times where we come to the end of our rope.

We cannot do it all in ourselves, and we're not even able to do it.

There are things that we get hit with in life that are more than we can handle all the time, but it's not more for him.

It's not more than he can handle.

He's waiting for us to be molded, to be made into his likeness, to see a miracle come.

Am I speaking to anybody today?

Look at what the Lord did then.

In verse 7.

But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.

Then the Lord said to Elijah, Go and live in the village of Verethath, near the city of Sidon.

I've instructed a widow there to feed you.

Don't miss this.

In verse 7.

But after a while, the brook dried up.

Everybody say dried up.

When God was ready for Elijah to move, he dried up the brook.

Something that's been very impactful to me from this story and from this teaching years and years and decades and decades ago, in this passage, is that sometimes God leads us by what he provides, and sometimes he leads us by what he takes away.

Sometimes God leads us into our decision about a new job or a new place or whatever we're doing.

And it's because we see that the brook is drying up and where we presently are.

There's been times for Emily and I, in our ministry, over the years that it's come into seasons that are very difficult and trials that are difficult, and we've looked at each other and said, has the brook dried up?

No, the brook hasn't dried up.

It feels like it may it feels like maybe it's time for us to do something different.

No, the Lord hasn't dried up the brook.

We're staying close to his calling.

And there's been other times where the Lord has said, okay, it's time for you to make a change, it's time for something to happen, it's time for something, a new season, and you look to say, okay, God, what are you, what are you, how are you leading me?

What are you bringing into my life?

What are you taking out of my life?

And God has that level of control, and we need to be walking, dependent on him, to be aware of the brooks that he's providing and the ones that he's drying up for those moments.

See, because all of us have the opportunity for us to know the will of God.

And we know the scripture tells us that we should not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed of the renewing of our minds.

And when we do so, we'll be able to discern the perfect will of God.

As we get closer, as we're molded into the likeness of Jesus, we then are able to know what God's perfect will is for us.

Not thinking of the ways of the world, but we are walking in Him with His Spirit.

God tells Elijah, go.

Go to a widow.

Now you've been fed by and by this brook and by these ravens.

Now I want you to go and I want you to be fed by this widow.

And when he goes to see this widow, he shows up at this widow's house, and it's her and her son who are there in the home.

And God has promised and told him that this widow is gonna feed him, but when he gets to the widow's house, the widow informs him that she's out of food.

Actually, what she tells him is that she's got just enough oil and just enough flour for one last meal.

And she said, I'm about to prepare this last meal for me and my son, and then we're gonna die.

We're about to run out of food.

And Elijah, again from the Lord, tells her, No, you're not gonna run out of food.

You're gonna continue to have oil and flour from your containers until this whole season has subsided.

We see in verse 15.

So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days.

There was always enough flour and oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.

Sometime later, the woman's son became sick.

He grew worse and worse, and he finally died.

Through Elijah, God molds him, is making him.

And the next miracle was not that Elijah would receive from the Lord.

But then out of the vessel that he has molded him to be, he then speaks and says, You're not gonna run out of food.

There's gonna be an outpouring over you.

The oil's not going to run out.

The flour's not going to run out.

You're gonna be able to continue to eat.

And God takes a next level of miracle in Elijah's life.

God's already allowed Elijah to have total dependence.

He's provided for him, he's allowed him to be able to eat.

Then a second time he says, You're not going to run out, you're gonna overflow, and that blessing overflows to This family, and then what this widow feared would come, but what happened?

Her son grew sick and died.

And then Elijah's total dependence on the Lord.

Look what Elijah does in verse 21.

He goes over the son and he stretches himself out over the child three times and cried out to the Lord, O Lord, my God, please let this children's child's life return to him.

And the Lord heard Elijah's prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he was revived.

For the first time recorded in the scripture, someone is resurrected from the dead.

The first time that in the in the in the record of the scripture, it comes by the hand and it comes to the prophet Elijah that he stretches out over this child and he asks for life to be returned, and God revived this child.

He was the first one to do it.

Who and what is God calling for you to see happen for the first time in your family?

What is God calling you out to revive, to make new, to break a chain, to break a generation of sin?

But for God to work through you and for you to be the first one to perform a miracle of change in your life and family for your future generations?

What is it?

Is it the change of an addiction?

Is it a streak of poverty and mindset?

God's calling you to do something different, something more.

What's the first call?

And in doing so, to see new life.

You see what's happened in Elijah's life?

God started him in the small thing.

Go to the ravine.

Go to the brook.

Follow my word.

Be dependent on me.

And that leads to him being the first person to see somebody raised and revived and brought back from the dead by the strong power of God.

Yeah, I told you about those teenagers in Somerset who prayed in the barn north of town.

It's back in 2012.

And what happened with those teenagers that started praying in the barn, it led them to host a youth-led revival in our community that was scheduled to last three days.

And it was actually hosted in the church that I was serving at the time and in the smaller of the worship centers, about 300 or so seats.

And for three nights, it was completely filled with teenagers coming, giving testimonies, coming to Christ.

And that moved then to the large worship space.

And this revival of teenagers in our community lasted 29 consecutive days.

One point over twelve hundred teenagers filled the worship center.

As preachers came and pastors came from around and the state to speak, and hundreds of youth gave their testimonies.

These nights of revival lasted two, three hours.

Some of those youth were called into ministry, many were saved.

And it all started with a small group of teenagers on Sunday nights in a barn praying that their friends would come to Jesus.

How revival begins.

It starts with those seeds of prayer.

It starts with one person, a small group of people who are willing to let revival begin inside of them.

The call for each of us and for you to let revival start in your heart.