To Those Who Wait

James Weidner III   -  

Isaiah 43:18-21 (NKJV) 18 “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert. 20 The beast of the field will honor Me, The jackals and the ostriches, Because I give waters in the wilderness And rivers in the desert, To give drink to My people, My chosen. 21 This people I have formed for Myself; They shall declare My praise.

1. The people came so far to go see, hear, and feel.

Luke 7:24-27 (NKJV) 24 When the messengers of John had departed, He began to speak to the multitudes concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed those who are gorgeously appareled and live in luxury are in kings’ courts. 26 But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’

1.1. The people came from far to see John in the wilderness.
1.2. Why would people come from so far………
1.3. After so many centuries of drought there was a spring gushing forth in the dessert.
1.4. This is what revival is… it is a spring in the dessert.

1.5. The outpouring of God’s glory provides a deeper degree of the Lord’s presence in our life…

1.6. “There is nothing more satisfying than the immediate and director Presence of the Lord”

1.7. People waited so long to hear the Word of God.
1.8. Ela… people now still wait to feel the Presence of God and hear His voice.

2. The outpourings over the past 300 years.

  • The Great Awakenings starting in 1727 1, 2, and 3
  • The Welsh Revival 1904
  • Azusa Street Revival 1906
  • The Healing Revival
  • The Latter Rain
  • The Charismatic Revival
  • The Jesus Movement 1960/70s
  • In the 90s Brownsville, Toronto, Lakeland.
  • I was personally saved during the revival of the 90s.
  • My initial reaction was to reject that which I did not understand.

Jude 1:10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

• Thankfully later in a small country Church, with an older ministry couple, who came into town to minister the Lord softened my heart and I humbled myself to receive the move of God in my personal walk with Christ.

3. Just two examples of what happens during times of revival:
Welsh Revival:
Young Evan Roberts (26 years old in 1904) had been praying for revival and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit for 11 years. Through a vision he received, Roberts believed that God was going to win 100,000 souls. In response to a further vision, he returned home in Loughor from Newcastle Emlyn where he had been enrolled in a Bible College.

During his first few meetings the heavens opened. God’s presence seemed to fill the air. Many were prostrated with conviction, others cried for mercy and many were so filled with the Spirit they pleaded with the Lord to stay His hand.

Soon the revival spread to other places in South Wales. Teams of young people assisted preachers like Roberts, Sydney Evans, Seth Joshua, Joseph Jenkins and R. B. Jones. The revival then took hold in North Wales. Within six months 100,000 had come to Christ!

There was an intense passion for Jesus. On several occasions during a meeting people could be heard crying out: “No more, Lord Jesus, or I die!” The point is that you want revival when you pray for more of Christ. You are in revival when you’ve got so much of him that you feel compelled to say, “No more, lest I die.” (Sam Storms)

“Another feature was the overwhelming sense of God’s presence. One pastor said: “If one were asked to describe in a word the outstanding feature of those days, one would unhesitatingly reply that it was a universal, inescapable sense of the presence of God. The Lord had come down! A sense of the Lord’s presence was everywhere. It pervaded, nay, it created the spiritual atmosphere.” (Sam Storms)

What were the results of this awakening? :During the time of revival the police were left with virtually nothing to do and the courts were empty. Saloons and bars shut down for lack of business. Public drunkenness was almost non-existent. Old debts, many long forgotten, were paid off in full. Traveling theatrical agencies canceled their engagements, as everyone was in church! Profanity disappeared. It was said that horses everywhere were in complete confusion. They had become accustomed to responding to their master’s profane shouts and kicks and cursing, virtually of all of which had disappeared. (Sam Storms)

The Welsh Revival was soon the main topic of conversation throughout the Christian world. Wherever the news went it seemed to cause passionate prayer and began to ignite revival fires everywhere. Christians across Great Britain turned to prayer and church membership increased throughout the land.

Azusa Street:

The United States felt the after-shock of the Welsh Revival in almost every place. Prayer, conviction and conversion spontaneously occurred, resulting in unusual church growth.

In 1906 the modern Pentecostal Movement was born in Azusa Street, in Los Angeles, after a succession of local revivals through 1905. News of the Welsh Revival encouraged more prayer and suddenly the Holy Spirit descended. Daily meetings were held for the next three years. Visitors flocked there to catch the power of the Spirit and they were not disappointed. No one could have imagined that this was the beginning of the greatest and most effective missionary movement that the world had ever seen. It marked the birth of what was once called ‘the third force in Christendom.’ Some would argue that, 100 years later, it has grown into the largest and most powerful force.

Almost no country in the world was excluded from the effects of this incredible revival. Almost every nation, on each continent, received new power from heaven, a new passion for prayer and for the lost. Hundreds of thousands came to the Lord.

From the Azuza Street revival Spirit filled Christianity spread across the earth. We feel the effects of it today.

4. Each outpouring of God’s glory has a significant impact on the Church, the future of Christianity and the trends of cultural and society.

Psalms 2:4 (ESV) He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.

4.1. Think about what is happening right now in multiple universities and spreading to cities and hopefully Churches.

4.2. The Lord is grabbing the attention our our young generation.
4.3. And all this generation wants that has in large been rejecting the Lord is something real.

4.4. They want to be able to know with their heart, their mind, their body that what they are experiencing is real.

4.5. Ela… so from this our future pastors are birthed, or government leaders,

One commonality of all moves of God’s Spirit is there were a people who waited on the Lord.

3. Why waiting upon God so important?

Isa 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. NKJV

3.1. Shall be renewed!
3.1.1. To pass through, go through…
3.1.2. We spend all week running around expending.

3.2. We begin to come aware of the greatness of God.

Isaiah 40:9-18 (NKJV) 9 O Zion, You who bring good tidings, Get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem,

You who bring good tidings,
Lift up your voice with strength,
Lift it up, be not afraid;
Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
10 Behold, the Lord GOD shall come with a strong hand, And His arm shall rule for Him;
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His work before Him.
11 He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs with His arm,
And carry them in His bosom,

And gently lead those who are with young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, Measured heaven with a span
And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?
Weighed the mountains in scales
And the hills in a balance?
13 Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD,
Or as His counselor has taught Him?
14 With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, And taught Him in the path of justice?
Who taught Him knowledge,
And showed Him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket,
And are counted as the small dust on the scales;
Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.
16 And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.
17 All nations before Him are as nothing,
And they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless. 18 To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?

4. Those who wait upon the Lord.

Isa 40:28-31 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, 31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. NKJV

Isa. 8:17 And I will wait on the LORD, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; And I will hope in Him.

4.1. Structuring your life to wait upon the Lord.
4.1.1. Allowing margin in your life to spend time with Jesus.
4.1.2. Let us go back to the drawing board and look at how we are spending our time.
4.2. Be diligent to enter rest of the Spirit.

Hebrews 4: 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.

4.3. Ceasing from fruitless works.
4.3.1. To be striving in the flesh is to have a heart filled with anxiety and trying to change the outcome with our effort.
4.3.2. Getting out of striving in the flesh mode and enter into striving in the Spirit mode – there is a difference. 4.3.3. Entering a rest…

5. An increased eagerness to wait.

Rom 8:24-25 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. NKJV

5.1. Hurry up and wait.
5.1.1. Ela… hurry up and leave and get to Asbury and you will also find yourself waiting in the lines.
5.2. The Hope that cannot be seen so we wait for it’s revelation upon our spirits once again.

Heb 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

5.3. Fixing our eyes upon Jesus.
5.3.1. So we can call PERSEVERANCE “staying power” or “hang in there power”.
5.3.2. Queen of all virtues!

2 Cor 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)KJV

5.4. Waiting is an application of faith.

5.4.1. Ela… Waiting for anything now is almost extinct.

5.4.2. Some times the most faith filled act one can endeavor upon is to be found waiting.

5.4.3. Ela… There is a reason why it takes almost 10 months for a baby to be born. Can you image if you receive the report of being pregnant and having a baby the next week. Talk about going crazy.

Ps 27:13-14 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. 14 Wait on the LORD ; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! NKJV

Ps 37:9 For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD , They shall inherit the earth. NKJV

*Here is a word from the Lord “slow down and wait upon God*
*The glory of God can accomplish in seconds what otherwise seemingly takes years.*

Conclusion:

  • We need to respond to what is happening in the earth.
  • We need to respond to what God is doing in our generation.
  • Allow and increased hunger and thirst.
  • Make space to get into more times of Waiting on the Lord…
  • If you can make space to get into the car today and go sit in God’s Presence at Asbury or one of the other locations popping up….I say do it…. Bring back a fresh touch.
  • Starting this week we will begin increasing our times of waiting and will take it week to week.
  • Wednesday – Saturday we will have times of waiting. Friday and Saturday will both be here this week at 630pm.