"THOU WILT REVIVE ME"

Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me. The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.

Psalm 138: 6 - 8

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Philippians 1: 6

"This Fire is the work of Grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts Water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that thou seest the Fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that. So he had me about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a Vessel of Oil in his hand, of which he did also continuously cast (but secretly) into the Fire. Then said Christian, What is this? The Interpreter answered, This is Christ, who continually, with the Oil of his Grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart: by the means of which notwithstanding what the Devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still."

- John Bunyan

INTRODUCTION

he doctrine of revival is antithetical to Dispensationalism. For whereas the defeated, gloomy, sour-faced Dispensationalist can offer us no more optimistic outlook than that "the Church Age ends in failure", the Word of God assures of something completely contradictory and fatal to his entire manmade scheme. Throughout the New Testament, believers are assured of nothing less than victory and of the utter impotence of the Gates of Hell to impede the Church's onward march (Matthew 16: 18) and of her successful execution of that Great Commission to which she has so long gone forth with weeping, bearing precious seed (Psalm 126: 6). And though seasons of gloom and of seeming defeat might seem at times to have finally brought to pass the demise so often anticipated with glee by men such as Voltaire and Ingersoll, revival has time and time again confirmed for God's despairing Church that her Maker has promised that no weapon formed against her shall prosper (Isaiah 54: 17) and that victory is that great and final end to which she has been infallibly predestined according to his Eternal Decree (I Corinthians 15: 57). Indeed, these immutable promises of our Almighty Sovereign are so large and so liberal that even in the face of the most extreme persecution, when all the combined powers of Popes and Emperors, equipped with the most ingenious inventions of human cruelty ever devised, lay at last exhausted and discarded, broken, shattered and scattered, the Church stood still after all, invincible and victorious, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners" (Song of Solomon 6: 10), the bruised Serpent beneath her feet, defeated and crushed (Genesis 3: 15; Romans 16: 20) by the bloodstained cross of that Glorious Bridegroom, the Church's Well-Beloved, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Colossians 2: 14 - 15), through the Holy Spirit's miraculous ministry of revival.

In keeping with that perfect harmony that, like our Saviour's garment, so weaves the Inspired Record of Divine Truth from beginning to end that it may indeed be described as being without seam, this victory is anticipated in the Old Testament, as well as in the New. In Psalm 138, we find this wonderful promise recorded by the pen of David in which he expresses his unshakable confidence that "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me". Like believers today, the sweet Psalmist of Israel found himself amidst perilous times. Within his own kingdom, evil seducers, such as Absalom, Ahithophel and Bichri, seemed to wax worse and worse. Yet the Psalmist found consolation in this divine assurance that, no matter how extreme the circumstances that David faced were, the Lord would most assuredly send revival.

I. APPROPRIATION

Now, we say unequivocally that the Dispensationalist, through his unbelief, has neither part nor lot in this matter, for his heart is not right in the sight of God (Acts 8: 21). For if the Word of God had been penned according to his theology, if the Most High had taken counsel with his teachers, the passage would undoubtedly read something like this:

"Because I walk in the midst of perilous times, revival is impossible: I shall therefore hold the fort and hope for the rapture, for thy promises of victory are withholden from me, defeat hath darkened mine eyes, and failure shall be my portion in the land of the living. Therefore will I not lift up mine head, but shall keep silence before the gates of mine enemies."

So we repeat that the Dispensationalist has nothing at all to do with this promise. We dismiss him summarily to go and sulk within the narrow confines of the Pauline Epistles and whichever chapter of Acts that he supposes marks the beginning of the Church Age. If that is all the birthright that his poor faith dares lay claim to, we leave him to his poverty. As for us, let us arise and walk through the length and breadth of Scripture, for that is given to us for an inheritance.

II. ASSURANCE
Now the wondrous blessedness of this passage lies in its note of unshakable confidence. The Psalmist does not say here, "Thou mayest revive me", or "Thou canst revive me" or "Thou hast power to revive me". Rather he says in the plainest, most unequivocal terms, "Thou wilt revive me". In David's mind, the revival to come is simply a matter of established fact. There is no room for doubt or uncertainty in this matter for him. For him, it is an assured event, just as certain as if the miraculous event were already inscribed on the pages of a history yet to be written.

It is just the same note of confidence that we find given utterance to by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. We find in Philippians 1: 6 that the Apostle Paul expresses this same unshakable assurance in writing to the church at Philippi. The church there of course found itself in the midst of dark days, perilous times far more severe than anything that we face today here in the United States of America. The Apostle Paul himself had been imprisoned. Stephen had been stoned to death (Acts 7: 59 - 60). James had been martyred (Acts 12: 2). Jewish believers, such as Nicodemus and his daughter, were being ostracized and reduced to the most abject, most pitiable poverty imaginable. They were enduring the most extreme exhibitions of bigotry, prejudice and hatred from their own countrymen (I Thessalonians 2: 14 - 16). And there was a growing element of hostility emerging from the Gentile world, especially were Pagan worship was being threatened by the spread of the Gospel (Acts 19: 24 -

28). Within a brief space of time, the cry of "The Christians to the lions" would erupt across the Roman Empire and Nero himself would undertake the attempt at a systematic extermination of all who professed faith in the crucified Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, in a genocide so horrendous, so barbaric, so monstrous in its character, that basic human decency shudders to speak of it, and passes silently on.

And yet, against that very background of ever-blackening skies, with the rumble of the most unspeakable atrocities rapidly approaching, the Apostle Paul expresses the most unshakable confidence. His tone is one of fearlessness, of beaming optimism. "Being confident", he writes to the church at Philippi, as he opens his epistle to them from the miserable confines of his prison in Rome.

Confident? With everything going on? With all of this bitter persecution being unleashed on Christians? Confident of what? Surely, Paul, in the light of these perilous times, you must mean that you are confident of failure, that the Church Age will end in failure. But the aged Apostle continues unflinchingly:

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ".

There it is again! That unshakable "will"! Like David of old, Paul has no "may" or "might" to discuss with us. It is "will". God "will". Without a doubt, God "will" perform the work that he has begun, "until the day of Jesus Christ". Yes, there would be discouragements, yes, there would be those who would forsake him and leave him abandoned and alone (II Timothy 4: 10), yes, there would be persecutions above measure (II Corinthians 11: 23), yes, there would even be a great falling away (II Thessalonians 2: 3) which would take place in the fourth century, and yet, "until the day of Jesus Christ", Almighty God would relentlessly perform and accomplish the work that he had begun.

And what is that but a promise of revival? No matter what might transpire, no matter what circumstances might develop between his day and the prophetic "day of Jesus Christ", throughout all the long centuries of Church history, God's work would go on in the life of every genuine believer. That means that no matter what periods of apostasy and spiritual degeneracy might infect the Church, no matter how the spiritual climate might cool at times, no matter how much carnality and worldliness might at times set in, none of these conditions would be able to overcome or impede the work that God had begun. In other words, though these seasons would most certainly come, and lapses would indeed occur, God's work would not be stopped, but would always be renewed and revitalized through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit's supernatural ministry of revival. Apostasy might rear

it monstrous head, degeneracy might cool the Church's spiritual fervor for a season, but God would revive his work in the midst of the years! Revival would follow!

Perhaps there are those who still fail to see the connection. Look at Psalm 138: 8. It begins with the same note of assurance:

"The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me".

Again, we hear the ring of certainty! "The LORD will"! Not "The LORD may" or "the LORD might", but "the LORD will"!

What will he do?

"The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me".

And what is that, but the same confidence of the Apostle Paul expressed in Philippians 1: 6?

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ".

This is God's Eternal Purpose in redemption. He has purposed and promised before the foundation of the world to "purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 1: 2; 2: 14). In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul describes it like this:

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

The Puritans called this "The Golden Chain of Redemption". They understood that salvation did not conclude with justification, but that with justification and adoption came the assured promise that glorification - what we generally refer to today as sanctification - would unavoidably follow. It is described in II Corinthians 3: 18 like this:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

Notice the word "all". God's work of sanctification in the life of a believer is not selective. He does not sanctify some while others are permitted to wallow in the filth of their worldliness and materialism. He sanctifies "all" of his children, glorifying "all" those whom he justifies, changing them "all" "from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

"The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me".

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ".

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

Now there are those who will raise the objection, "What about those who make professions but never grow, those in whom there is no change whatsoever all through their life? What about them? Certainly there are many such people in our churches."

We answer that objection without hesitation in the words of Hebrews 12: 8. They are "not sons." They are bastards. They were never truly born again. They never received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry "Abba, Father" (Romans 8: 15). If they had, then their Heavenly Father would have worked in them "both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2: 13). If they had, he would have chastened them (Hebrews 12: 6). But, seeing that they go on in their obstinate way and live entirely contrary to the Word of God and the pattern of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ with no chastening work taking place, we say of such professors on the infallible authority of God's Word, that they are "bastards, and not sons". Their professions are meaningless. God's Word calls them liars and counterfeits. Old Bunyan brands them rightly with the epithet "Wanton professor and damnable Apostate". And we do not hesitate to say that the Baptist (Plymouth Brethren) churches across America today are filled with them.

III. ADMISSION
Verse 8 carries with it a candid admission. The Psalmist observes that "The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me". This is an admission that is essential to any revival. It is the admission of imperfection. It is the admission of shortcomings. For the anticipation of future perfection is unavoidably also the admission of current imperfection.

And is not that, Beloved, to a great extent the reason that revival has eluded us for so long in this generation? We have been blaming the whole crisis of our times on "evil seducers" and so on, on everyone else but ourselves, for so long, that we have become conditioned to look for nothing but some external boogie man, some outside culprit who is always the real cause of our current defeat. It's always either the Modernists or the Muslims, the Hippies or the homosexuals, the New Atheism or the New Calvinism, PETA or Planned Parenthood. It's never us. We're the good guys after all. We've got all of our doctrinal ducks lined up in a row. There's no need to investigate whether or not we may have imbibed error at some point along the way. There's no need to search the Scriptures to see whether the pop theology and pseudo-separation of our day is really in line with God's Word. Dispensationalism has given us the free pass that we wanted to stop examining ourselves and to start blaming everything on "perilous times" and "evil seducers". So instead of looking in the mirror and holding ourselves accountable, instead of probing the soundness of our doctrine and practice, instead of assessing our own spiritual standing, we can just throw up our hands and say, "The Bible said this would happen, so we know the Rapture is getting close." Which, of course, is both a presumptuous and fatalistic attitude.

But David's attitude is quite different. It is introspective. He sees himself as imperfect. He sees himself as flawed. He sees himself as falling short of God's glory, of not measuring up to God's perfect standard of holiness. He says "the LORD will perfect that which concerneth me." It is not so much the heathen that he is concerned with, but with himself. He is not looking around seeking for someone else to blame, some new boogie-man, but rather he is looking inwardly, assessing those areas in his own life that need to grow up unto a perfect man, to "go on unto perfection" (Ephesians 4: 13; Hebrews 6: 1).

And this attitude is always foundational to revival. Which is, again, why we haven't had revival in so long. The Bible repeatedly reiterates the doctrinal axiom that "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble". As long as the modern Baptist continues to harden his heart and refuses to take a good, long, hard look at himself and at his fellow Baptists (Plymouth Brethren), and to honestly assess the raw hypocrisy and rampant carnality, materialism, worldliness, pride, rebellion, stubbornness, disobedience, apostasy and heresy that he is part and parcel of, and until he will humble himself and admit that both he and his entire circle of fellowship are exceedingly wicked and grievous to the Spirit of our God and have provoked the eyes of his glory (Isaiah 3: 8), and will break off his sins by righteousness (Daniel 4: 27) he will not taste of revival, but of God's sore hand of chastening. Let us not deceive ourselves further. God is not mocked. God is not blinded because you call yourself a Baptist or carry a King James Bible. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6: 7). And the modern Baptists (Plymouth Brethren) across the United States of America today will reap a grievous harvest of chastening before revival comes, unless they humble themselves and repent of their wickedness, carnality, materialism, worldliness, arrogance, pride, stubbornness, rebellion, disobedience, heresy and general apostasy.

IV. ANTICIPATION
It's worth noting that these verses carry a prophetic implication with them. They do not merely speak of the immediate presence, but are also to be interpreted in a futurist sense. The work of perfection continues until the prophetic "day of Jesus Christ".

This gives us pause for meditation on the state of believers already in glory. Some say that those saints who are with the Lord have already received their glorified bodies. But this is simply not true. "The adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" has not yet taken place. Romans 8 tells us that we are still waiting for that. II Corinthians 5: 8 speaks of those who are present with the Lord as being "absent from the body". And I Corinthians 15, speaking of "the resurrection of the dead" tell us that this takes place

"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." That trump has not yet sounded. And so the saints in glory are still waiting for their earthly bodies to be glorified, to be "fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself" (Philippians 3: 21).

So there is a sense in which even the saints in Heaven are not yet perfected in the final sense of the word. They are no longer battling the sinful nature that beset them during their earthly pilgrimage. But in terms of final perfection, ultimate perfection, there is that prophetic aspect which will not be finalized until "the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1: 6). Is there some sense in which, as they await "the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Romans 8: 23), and as, in Christ's presence (II Corinthians 5: 8), they behold the glory of the Lord (II Corinthians 3: 18), their inner man continue to be perfected, that is, to be conformed unto Christ's image, to increase, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our infinite Saviour? B. B. Warfield seemed to believe so, and a plain reading of Philippians 1: 6 seems to indicate that although the sin nature is no longer an adversary for the saints in glory, some aspect of the growth of the inner man continues to take place "until the day of Jesus Christ".

Now there is more to this than mere idle speculation. It has very practical implications for us in terms of theology, which consequently trickle down into life application. The benefit of understanding the perfection of the believer in both its present and future aspect is that it safeguards us against the heresy of sinless perfectionism, the idea that anyone in this lifetime can be sinlessly perfect. To those who claim that we can be sinlessly perfect in this lifetime, in these vile bodies (Philippians 3: 21), we point to the fact that God's work is not completed and final perfection is not attained "until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1: 6). How then can there be any final perfection while in the flesh?

V. APPLICATION
And this is an excellent place to discuss application. Knowing that sinless perfection in the earthly body is impossible, there is the practical application that follows, that is, the admission that none of us are perfect yet. I am not perfect. You are not perfect. You cannot congratulate yourself because you are "evangelical" or because you "defend the Fundamentals" or "defend the King James Bible". Every one of us needs to grow up unto a perfect man, to "go unto perfection" (Ephesians 4: 13; Hebrews 6: 1).

So if behooves every one of us to examine ourselves, and to honestly assess those areas of our lives where growth is still necessary. It behooves us likewise to claim the promises that we have in these

verses, that current deficiency will not thwart the purpose of God in redemption, but that revival is available. What is the "that which concerneth" you? Some of you reading this are painfully aware that you are deeply backslidden and extremely carnal, materialistic and worldly. You feel trapped in your current condition. You feel that you cannot break free and claim the victory. Claim prayerfully this promise of Scripture. The Lord will revive you! Some of you are painfully aware of deficiencies in your spiritual life, of strongholds that Satan yet maintains, over which you have not yet gotten the victory. Claim prayerfully this promise of Scripture. The Lord will perfect that which concerneth you! Some of you are wrestling with false doctrine or Scriptural ignorance. There are those portions of Scripture which you cannot quite understand, those areas where your understanding is still unfruitful and your mind unsettled. You have no peace at all about certain doctrinal questions. Claim prayerfully the promise of Scripture. The Lord will perfect that which concerneth you! No matter what your specific deficiency is, the promise of God is sure:

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me. The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.