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Plymouth-Sorrento SDA Church

Ralph Henderson

The Seed of Revival

Our loving Father in heaven, this morning as we kneel before you once more, first Lord, we just want to thank you for the beautiful music that has been given to us today.

We praise your name for those who are willing to give you honor and glory through gifts and talents that you've given.

We thank you that they were willing to sacrifice their time to be here with us.

And we pray that you will bless them for their service.

And we ask now, Lord, that as we are going into this topic today, as we think about the communion service, all that was done for us at the cross, that today, Lord, our hearts will be inspired, that we will be stirred within us and that the seed of revival will be planted in our hearts in this church, in this place today.

That we won't just talk about revival and reformation for the next 2345 weeks, or through the next quarter, but that we will begin living it out in our lives.

This morning we heard that there was a revival begun in a church in England and all of the churches around it were affected by that and that's our prayer today, that you will begin revival right here in this place in our hearts and that it will stir up other churches around us.

And we know that you're not waiting for money, you're not waiting for events, you're waiting for people.

We have been told in inspiration that you wait for a people who will fully reflect you.

So Lord I pray that this morning we begin to get that picture and we will start pursuing that with all of our hearts.

Fill us with Your Spirit today and speak to us now through Your Word because we ask it in Jesus' name.

So this morning we are beginning the first part of our series, and I can't tell you how long it will go.

I want you to know that we are going to strive to cover every aspect of revival and reformation, that nothing be left out.

But there are 2 simple questions that I want you to ask yourself this morning as we begin.

Number 1, I want you to ask yourself, do I sense the need for revival and reformation in my own life?

Now think about that question because we are the Laodicean church and the Laodicean church has a problem, and the problem as we discussed in our lesson this morning is, they are blind, they are wretched and miserable, and they do not know their condition.

So the most important thing that we can grasp today before we walk out these doors is to really get a true picture of our own individual condition.

That means I'm not going to be looking next door at my neighbor.

I'm not going to be thinking about somebody on the other side of the aisle that I wish they'd get it.

I'm going to be looking at myself and I'm going to be saying, do I personally, this sermon is for me by the way, do I, Ralph Henderson, do I sense the need for revival in my heart?

I don't want to be part of Laodicea that doesn't know where I'm at.

I don't want to think that I'm better off than I am.

And I'm praying this morning that God will speak to my heart in a way that will change me and I'll never be the same again.

Question number 2AM I asking God to bring revival and reformation into my life?

Every day is that something I'm saying to the Lord?

So please, Lord, move upon my heart, because we need to know this morning it is God alone who brings revival to us.

Inspiration tells us in the whole missionary, November 1, 1890, paragraph 26 and 7, I'm gonna begin with something you've heard many, many times, but the next part, I don't know how often we hear it.

She says, a revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most, what?

Now we've heard that said many many times but have you ever heard this?

We have been stricken with spiritual paralysis and everyone needs the help of the great physician.

I want you to go with me on a little journey as we look at a couple of words this morning.

Ephesians chapter 2 and we're going to look at what Paul talks about.

If you don't have a Bible, There are Bibles in the slots in the chairs in front of you, and I would hope that you would grab those and open them up so you can read for yourself what the Word of God says.

And if you've got an iPad and a Bible, I'd prefer that you turn the iPad off and go to the Bible, because sometimes when you have an iPad, you start looking at some other things besides the Bible.

And I don't want you to be distracted this morning.

We're looking at Ephesians 2, beginning in verse 1.

The Bible says, "...and you hath He..." what?

"...quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.

Where in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of what?

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath even as others.

But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.

By grace are ye saved." You see, Jesus wants to quicken us.

And I want you to know that the Bible is filled with men who understood what it means to be quickened and to be revived.

Let's go to the Psalms, Psalms chapter 119.

And we're not going to spend a lot of time, but I tell you right now, you can take your Bible and go home and do a study on the words quicken and revive, revived, revival.

You will find many things in the word of God.

God is wanting to continually revive his people.

Psalms chapter 119, and we're going to look at verses 37 and 40.

We could look at 6 or 7 other verses just in Psalms 119, where David speaks about God quickening and reviving the heart.

Psalms 119 and verse 37, he says, "'Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, and quicken thou me'..." What?

"...in thy way." The psalmist says, "'Lord, look, I know that my way is a way of death.

I want you to quicken me, bring me alive to your way so that I understand the way to life and life eternal.

Remember, Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

The psalmist says now in verse 40, he says, behold, I have longed after thy precepts.

Brothers and sisters, if we are going to get into the kingdom of heaven, we are going to have to have on the robe of Christ's righteousness.

Your righteousness is not going to get you in the kingdom of heaven.

You are going to have to take that robe off and put on the robe of Christ's righteousness.

In Psalms 85 and verse 6, David said, "'Wilt thou not revive us again "'that thy people may rejoice in thee?' You see, when you're living in a church or a Christian community that has not got the power of God, they're miserable because they're trying to live with 1 foot in the world and 1 foot in the church and it doesn't work.

You know, a partially converted Christian is 1 of the most miserable people in the world because they can't commit to either way.

Remember now, the 2 words, quickened and revive, are essentially the same words and both mean to restore life, to stimulate, to activate, and to renew.

God wants to stimulate you, activate you in his word, and renew you by his spirit.

You know, when I was 18 years old, I got out of high school, and I went to work at a steel foundry.

And when I was hired on to work at the steel foundry, they put me in a department called the mold room.

And there we made all of the sand molds for them to pour the steel.

Now, as I learned a little bit more about it, every day they would bring this big dump truck in with just pure white sand and dump it in a big pile.

And the 2 guys that mixed the sand had 1 of those big cement mixers, you know, the kind of portable cement mixers, and they would have a bottle or a can of what we call sodium silicate and They had a certain mixture of sodium silicate that they would add to this sand and when they would add it to the sand The sand had this beautiful soft it was so much fun to put your hands in it and let it run through your fingers, because you could tell it would just bind together, but yet it wasn't hard.

And they would put this in big barrels with bags, and we would get those bags and barrels, we would open them up and then we would take and start putting them into patterns.

And we would form them into the patterns and then we would activate the sand with CO2.

We had these little hoses with cups on them And we'd set it down over the mold and we'd go through and we would activate that sodium silicate.

And then we would bring the mold up off of the sand and here would be this hard formed mold that would have whatever pattern it was that we were making.

And we would put those together and stack them up.

And that activation made that sand so strong that when you poured 2, 700 degree metal down into it, it wouldn't do a thing.

It would hold together until the metal had cooled, and then they would have to actually take sledgehammers and break it all off of the metal and then run it all through a process of cleaning it up and I was so thankful that I didn't have to work over there.

But you see my brothers and sisters God wants to activate us.

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The Seed of Revival

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