Joshua 7:11-12, “Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing from among you.”
Israel had just crossed the Jordan. They had just seen Jericho’s walls fall down flat. The next city should have been an easy victory. Instead they ran from a town so small the spies thought three thousand men was overkill to attack with. Thirty-six Israelites died and the army came home defeated.
God told Joshua there was sin in the camp. One man, Achan, had taken what God said belonged to no man. A wedge of gold and a Babylonish garment buried under a tent. And as long as that buried sin was in the camp, the whole nation could not move forward.
Revival has hindrances. Real things that stop God from moving in our hearts. The Bible names what stops revival. We had better know what it names.
Lukewarmness
A hindrance is not raging sin but lukewarm religion. Christianity that has all the right answers and none of the passion for the Lord.
Revelation 3:15-16, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Christ told the Laodicean church he would rather they were cold than what they were. Cold men know they are cold.
Lukewarm men think they are fine. They have a thermostat set just warm enough to keep the conscience quiet and just cool enough to stay friendly with the world.
A lukewarm person is more resistant to revival. The cold person knows he is dead and is willing to be raised. The lukewarm man thinks it is alive and resents being told otherwise.
Grieving the Spirit
The next hindrance is grieving the Holy Ghost. The Spirit is a person, and persons can be grieved.
Ephesians 4:30, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
The very Spirit who came to fill us, lead us, and bring revival to our hearts can be grieved by what we do. The verses around this command list the ways we grieve him.
- Lying
- Anger that we don’t deal with that day
- Stealing
- Corrupt communication
- Bitterness
- Wrath
- Clamour
- Evil speaking
- Malice
The Holy Ghost is sensitive to those things. When we live in them and ignore God’s calling to change, he pulls back. He does not leave the Christian, because we are sealed, but he stops moving with the freedom he wants to move with.
The fire dies down to embers because we have been pouring water on the man who lights it.
Quenching the Spirit
We can quench the Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:19, “Quench not the Spirit.”
To quench is to put out a fire. To douse it or smother it. Grieving the Spirit is a personal matter against him. Quenching the Spirit is shutting down what he is trying to do. He moves to convict somebody and we distract them. He moves to use a brother and we silence him. He moves us to give and we close our hand. Every time we feel him pushing and we push back, we quench him.
A man can quench the Spirit by being so committed to his routine that the conviction never has time to take root. Quenched Spirits do not start revivals.
Saul-Style Disobedience
There is a hindrance the Bible names through the life of King Saul. Partial obedience offered as if it were the real thing. Saul was told to destroy the Amalekites completely. He destroyed most of them and kept the best of the sheep and the king alive. When Samuel confronted him, Saul tried to baptize his disobedience by saying the sheep were for sacrifice.
1 Samuel 15:22, “And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
To obey is better than sacrifice. God will not accept an offering instead of obedience. He wants obedience. Religious activity offered in place of actual surrender is the oldest trick in the flesh’s book. Saul lost his kingdom over it.
If God has told us to forgive, we cannot replace it by giving more in the offering. If he has told us to confess, we cannot replace it by serving on more committees. The obedience comes first. The activity is no substitute for it.
What This Means for Us
Is there sin in your camp you are tolerating because removing it would be painful? Is our temperature lukewarm? Are we grieving the Spirit by the way we are living? Are we quenching the Spirit by the way we are stopping his work? Are we offering activity in place of obedience?
Any one of those will choke a revival.
Read the last part. Once the hindrances are gone, the revival is meant to spread.
