Revive Us Again

Dannah Gresh: Revival isn’t something we can make happen on our own. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We can’t turn ourselves back to God. We can’t revive ourselves. The prayer is, “Lord, would You revive us? Would You turn our hearts back to You?”

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of Seeking Him for October 25, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Just say you’re on a long, multi-day road trip. Do you fill up your vehicle with gas one time and expect to make it without gassing up again? No!

Or, even as you go about your day, do you start your day with a sip of water hoping you’ll last all day? No. You need to be constantly re-energizing your body with water.

Just like keeping gas in your car and hydrating your body with water, we need to be refueling our minds and hearts with Christ. And even though we are to seek the Lord, only He does the reviving work in our lives.

Sometimes, even when we’re doing work for God, we can lose sight of our love for Him in the process. Nancy shared a great reminder for times like this with the Revive Our Hearts staff.

Earlier this year our team went through the Seeking Him study together. The message we’re about to listen to was the first in that series. The truths about revival Nancy shared might be just what you need to hear, too.

Nancy began her talk by sharing a story that was in the news at the time. You may have heard about the charges against Alex Murdaugh. Though the trial has now received a verdict, at the time Nancy recorded this message, the case was just unfolding. Let’s listen.

Nancy: If you are a news follower, you probably have seen this trial of Alex Murdaugh, who’s a wealthy—well, he was wealthy at one time—very successful (at one time) lawyer from South Carolina. He comes from a prominent family, generations of prosecutors and lawyers and law practice. He comes from just a high profile family in their communication, a highly respected family for generations. But now he is being accused of murdering his wife and his son.

I was kind of spellbound listening to portions of this. They’ve had all the testimonies of all the witnesses, the prosecution, the defense. The prosecution gave their closing arguments. It was captivating as the prosecutor talked about how Alex Murdaugh had been in what the prosecutor called a gathering storm.

There had been pressures building up in his life over a period of years. Alex had had some debt, and he got pressured about paying that debt because he was spending money lavishly on his lifestyle, but also on an opioid addiction. $50,000 a week was the cost of the pills he was taking. You can’t even believe that somebody could live through all of this.

And here’s this man with this gathering storm. He’s got this generations of family legacy and a reputation to protect, but the pressure of having to pay for this habit he had, the debt he had, and lots of things that came into his life and his family. The pressures became unbearable, and he began to engage in even more destructive behavior.

And during this trial, he confessed to having stolen millions of dollars. I think it was, like, $9 million dollars from settlements he got as a lawyer for people who were involved in accidents. He tried their cases, and he got money for them—millions and millions of dollars. He would steal from them. He was already getting paid handsomely for those settlements, but then he would steal from the portion that was supposed to be going to the people he had been representing.

These clients over the years included two sisters who had been horribly hurt in an accident, and another person who had ended up as a quadriplegic in an accident. He had gotten the money, and then stolen it from them. These clients had no idea what was going on. They thought he was helping them when he was actually helping himself while he was harming them.

The prosecutor talked about and challenged this man in the cross examination, like, “You were looking these people in the eye, and you were telling them one thing. They were trusting you, and you were living a lie the whole time.”

Well, eventually this whole thing would collapse. He would be discredited. He’s lost his career. But the whole time, until this trial when he finally acknowledged some of these lies, he was smooth.

He was a smooth talker. He was a skilled lawyer. He was constructing these elaborate defenses and alibis. He kept wanting to do whatever he had to do to keep from getting exposed. He fooled everyone for a very long time—including his family and closest friends. The prosecutor said, “They thought he was what he was in public. He was so convincing.”

And then this line just stuck with me. The prosecutor said, “Not a single person close to him knew who he really was.”

Well, it was a shocking and tragic story. As I watched this horrific tragedy unfolding, it’s been striking to me that there is something of a spirit of Alex Murdaugh in every one of us. There’s something of his spirit in me.

We have a propensity, a bent, toward hiding—being one thing in public and another in private. It’s been sobering to realize. You look at this man who’s just so messed up, but then to think of me, and us, and realize we are only ever a series of small steps away from disaster.

Now in that light, Alex Murdaugh is coming to a day of reckoning. He’s been unwilling to humble himself; therefore, he is being humiliated before the entire nation.

But, before we get there, I want us to look at Psalm 85. I just want you to open your Bible. I’ve got mine open. Just notice the inscription. It says, “For the choir director.” This is intended to be used for our public worship or our corporate worship.

And then it says, “A psalm of the sons of Korah.” There are eleven psalms that are designated this way, “the sons of Korah.”

You’ve heard that name, Korah? You remember in Numbers how Korah was a Levite who rebelled against the Lord, and God destroyed him and his whole family. 

I’m memorizing the book of Jude right now, and the rebellion of Korah is a big thing even in the New Testament.

But here were the descendants of Korah who were Levites. The descendants of a man who had rebelled against God’s authority and had perished, and took a lot of other people down with him. But here are the descendants of that man. Think about the amazing grace.

They write psalms—eleven of them—in our Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit. They didn’t try to hide their background. They didn’t say, “Sons of ‘muffle the name.’” They were sons of Korah who had rebelled so greatly, but now here these men are being used by God to write songs and psalms that would be used in the corporate worship.

Listen, we are sons and daughters, all of us, of Adam, the rebel. We ourselves are born rebels. We are sinful people, but we have been saved to serve a holy God.

I love the inscription of this psalm. Well, as we read it, you’ll see that it is a psalm, a prayer, for the people of God. This is not a prayer for them. This is a prayer for us. This is not about those people out there. This is a prayer about us.

So you see, in verse 2, you see “Your people.”
Verse 6, you see, “Your people.”
Verse 8, he speaks to, “his people,” “his faithful ones.”
Verse 9, “those who fear Him.”

This is a prayer for us. In fact, in verses 4–7, the word “us” and
“return to us,” that word “us” is used six times just in those few verses there.

So it’s, “revive us” collectively and “revive us” individually. It’s a prayer for us, for the people of God, for our ministry.

If I could just break it down for you and give you a little bit of a handle on how to outline this in your head, then as you go back to it and pray through this, you’ll have maybe some little skeleton to hang your thoughts and prayer on.

The first three verses, the sons of Korah, the psalmist, is looking back and praising God for His blessing, His favor, and His grace in the past.

And then verses 4–7, the psalmist is praying for God’s blessing and favor and grace in the present.

And then in the rest of the chapter, verses 8–13, he is celebrating the promise of God’s blessing and favor and grace in the future.

So, praising God for His blessing, favor, and grace in the past, the first three verses, and you see, 

LORD, you showed favor to your land;
you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
You forgave your people’s guilt;
you covered all their sin.
You withdrew all your fury;
you turned from your burning anger.

Lord, in the past, You have moved in Your people, among Your people. You have done amazing things for us.

• “You have given favor,” verse 1.
• “You have given forgiveness,” verse 2, “when we have sinned.
• “You have restored fellowship when it was broken,” verse 3.

So we look back, and we see what has God done in the past.

As you look back twenty years ago, what did you see in Revive Our Hearts then?

Now, we only had a website then. A lot of things were new. But there was a lot of blessing and favor and grace that God showed to me, that God showed to us.

Not only at the beginning of Revive Our Hearts, but look back in your life to seasons of blessings, seasons of special grace—maybe when God saved you, maybe when He restored your heart when it had wandered away from Him—and you experienced a sweet, fresh sense of His favor, His blessing, His grace.

And then we see in verses 4–7 the psalmist is saying, “Lord, You’ve done it before,” but now as he looks at the present, he says, “Lord, we need You to do it again.”

A prayer for now, pleading with God, not just praising Him for His past blessings and favor and grace, but now pleading with God for fresh blessing and favor and grace. And out of desperation saying, “Lord, we need You.”

Look at verse 4: 

Return to us, O God of our salvation,
and abandon your displeasure with us.
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger for all generations?
Will you not revive us again
so that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your faithful love, LORD,
and give us your salvation.”

Now, I want you to look at a word that (I’m reading in the CSB) is a little different in other translations. But at the end of verse 3 it says, “You turned from your burning anger.”

And then verse 4 it says, “Return to us.” That’s the same word. In fact, some of your translations will say, “restore us.”

So, Lord, one time You turned Your face toward us. You turned Your face away from us when we sinned. But when You forgave our sin, You turned Yourself toward us.

And now he’s saying, “Lord, would You return to us as You did in the past, and would You turn us back to you.” Turn us back to You. Turn Yourself back to us. The same word there.

And then you see that word—same word—it’s translated different in the English, but it’s the same word in the Hebrew, verse 8: “Let them not go back to foolish ways.”

When the Lord has turned back to us, has turned our hearts back to Himself, let us not turn away again from the Lord. Let us not go back to our foolish, self-centered ways of living.

So that word “turn” . . . God turning away and turning His favor and grace and blessing away when we turn our faces from Him. But then God turning Himself to us when we confess and humble ourselves and are repentant. And God turning us back to Himself. 

We can’t turn ourselves back to God. We can’t revive ourselves. The prayer is, “Lord, would You revive us? Would You turn our hearts back to You?” You just see this desperation, this longing, the sense of need.

I read an article a couple weeks ago that really struck me called “The Faith Crisis of Francis Schaeffer.”

And Francis Schaeffer many of you are aware was a twentieth century American theologian, philosopher, and pastor. And what I’d forgotten was that there was a point in his life when he had a major crisis of faith, and this article was exploring what caused that and then how he was restored from that.

But here’s what caught my attention. It said that in this season, he was in a very conservative denomination and was very active in it. It said he grew concerned that he had become cold and doctrinaire.

“These people,” as he reflected years later, he said, “they were zealous for their theological precision, but not for obeying Jesus’ command to, ‘love one another as I have loved you.’ And they were lacking reality, the need for cultivating closeness to God and depending on the Holy Spirit.”

And then listen to this line: “They were serving Jesus but not enjoying Him.”

Wow! That stopped me—in the middle of that article—dead in my tracks.

He became concerned. Frances Schafefer became concerned. He had all this theological training. He was a pastor, ecame a missionary and started an incredible ministry in Europe.

But he became concerned that he had become cold and doctrinaire, lacking reality, lacking love—theologically precise, but lacking reality; not cultivating closeness to God and dependence on the Holy Spirit; serving Jesus but not enjoying Him.

That’s what this psalm speaks to. “Lord, we’re doing the right things, but we need the fresh oil of Your Holy Spirit. I need it. I need it so that I don’t become self-sufficient, independent, but I’m leaning into You, and I’m experiencing the joy of Your salvation and the fullness of Your Spirit in my life.”

I’m finding as I’m getting older—no secret to most of us—that things dry up. My skin dries up. Your body changes. Your cells change. There are all kinds of products. I’ve been getting ads for these since the day I turned forty. These ads come in all the time for, “How to stay young.”

The one I’m into currently is that I just got a fresh supply of the other day is called “Life Cell.” It’s a skin care product. It’s a moisturizer. It’s called, “Ultra-Concentrated Skin Rejuvenation.” And the promise here is that you apply it day and night for a lifetime of youthful skin.”

Well, I wrote “LOL” in my notes here because there’s no such thing if you live to any advanced age at all of a “lifetime of youthful skin.”

But there’s a sense here in which you realize that we need moisturizers, we need things that refresh and replenish and rejuvenate and renew and revive our cells, physically.

Do you think we need that any less when it comes to our souls getting shriveled up, cold-hearted, barren, dry? Maybe not a lot, but just a little, incrementally? We need the oil of the Spirit, the moisturizer of His Word and the fellowship and communion with God’s people.

And the prayer, “Lord, would You restore to us, would You turn us, would You bless us in fresh ways with Your favor and Your grace. We need You. So we cry out, ‘Lord, revive us—not just once—but again and again and again and again.’ My heart gets crusty. My heart gets cold. My heart gets desensitized. I lose a sense of wonder of the things we’re talking about and helping others experience. Would You revive me? Would You revive us again?”

We need God to revive us and turn us again to restore and renew and rejuvenate us as we contemplate what it is He has for us down the road.

And verses 8–13, the promise of His blessing, His favor, and His grace in the future, if you meditate on these verses. I’ll just read a few of them here, but you’re going to see it’s “freedom, fullness and fruitfulness.” That’s what God is promising. That’s what He’s given in the past. That’s what we’re praying for now. That’s what He has promised He will give us in the future.

But just look at a couple of these verses. Verse 8: “I will listen to what God will say.”

So he’s prayed his prayer. “Lord, would You revive us? Hear us. Give us Your salvation. Give us Your steadfast love. We need You. Restore us. Return us.”

But then he stops talking and says, “I’m going to listen. I will listen. I will hear. I’m going to lean into what God has to say.”

So, God’s going to speak. He is speaking. He’s always speaking to us through His Word. The question is, “Am I listening? Do I have ears to hear and a heart to receive what He will say?”

Verse 10: “Faithful love and truth will join together.”

Oh, I skipped verse 9. I’ve got to do that. “His salvation is very near those who fear him, so that glory may dwell in our land.”

It’s the glory of God in our lives, in our ministry, in our churches that we’re longing for. This isn’t about us. This is about His glory. When we see these promises, faithful love, hessed, God’s covenant-keeping love, truth and love will join together. Righteousness and peace will embrace. 

Truth will spring up from the earth,
and righteousness will look down from heaven.
The Lord will provide what is good.
and our land will yield its crops.
Righteousness will go before him
to prepare the way for his steps. (vv. 8–13)

God wants us to prepare a pathway of righteousness, holiness. Isaiah 35 calls it “a highway of holiness” where He can come and walk in the midst of us, where He can bring what is good. He can cause us to flourish individually, collectively, and as a ministry.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go through the same old, same old and have a dry, cold, or indifferent heart. I want fresh tenderness, fresh peace, fresh grace, fresh freedom, fresh fullness, fresh forgiveness day after day after day.

The sweet thing in this psalm is that it all points to Him, in Him, in Christ, the Reviver. In Revelation chapter 3, the church in Ephesus, their love had grown cold. And what did Jesus say? “Remember.”

Think back to the past blessings and grace and favor. Then confess, repent, and acknowledge where you are. Then believe God to send fresh mercy, fresh oil, fresh grace, fresh favor, fresh blessing into your life, into my life and into our ministry.

So as we close this time together today, I want us to just bow our hearts before Him and ask Him for what we just read about here.

So we pray, O Lord, first, return to us. Return to us. And, Lord, restore us to You. Turn us back to You. Turn Yourself to us. And then restore us. Turn our hearts to You, to gaze upon Your beauty, to be taken, captivated, the wonder of who You are and the gospel message that we are proclaiming to others today. May we be restored to the wonder of that. Lord, would You revive us? Revive our hearts. Revive my heart.

And then, O Lord, would You cause us to rejoice in You? Rejoice in You. To find our gladness, our soul satisfaction, our deepest longings fulfilled—not in things or people or our job or the weather or how things are going for us in this season, not of the condition of our physical bodies or our aging or our weariness . . . whatever. Help us not to find our rejoicing, our deepest rejoicing in anything or anyone more than we do in You.

So, Lord, would You restore us? Return to us. Revive us. And cause us this day and this week to rejoice in You.

And thank You for Your promise that You, Psalm 69:32, that “You will revive the hearts of all those who seek you” (Psalm 69:32).

So, Lord, we’re going to seek You together and pray, “Revive us again.” We need it, Lord. And we thank You by faith for what You will do. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: I hope that prayer is one your heart has been stirred to pray, too. “Revive us again, Lord.”

That was Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, sharing a message as part of the Seeking Him study our staff walked through together this year. It was really a powerful experience to go through it as a team.

And we’ve also heard story after story of women whose lives have been impacted through this study. Here’s one story Nancy shared with our team a few months ago.

Nancy: Yesterday, in God’s timing, we got an email from a woman named Susie who has been a Monthly Partner for this ministry ever since—I think it was January of 2002—so right at the beginning of the ministry. Month after month after month she has supported this ministry. She saw the Prayer and Praise update and sent this email to Revive Our Hearts right away. She said:

Revive Our Hearts has been a part of my life since Nancy started broadcasting on KHCB in Houston. I just read today’s email. What joy!

We talked in that email about how we’re starting into a Seeking Him study as a team. And she said, 

Seeking Him influenced my life years ago. Yesterday I found a signed copy of Seeking Him from Nancy, unused, and my old workbook.

She’d been through it once, and then had this other one that she hadn’t used. She said, 

I’m so excited to start again. My life has been very hard these past three years, and I’ve been asking the Lord for a renewed love for Him as I did when I first started listening to ROH. So praise the Lord, I’m starting anew tomorrow.

Dannah: Oh, I love that! We love hearing stories just like that how God uses resources like Seeking Him to make a difference in women like Susie. And He uses people like you to do it.

By the way, there’s more information about the twelve-week Seeking Him study linked in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Let me remind you, Revive Our Hearts is a listener-supported ministry, which means when you give to this ministry, you’re making it possible for us to reach women around the world and to help them thrive in Christ.

So, if you’d like to join us in this mission, here are two great options for you to think about:

You can become a Revive Partner, which is a monthly partner like Susie. Find out more about how to join a team on our website. Go to ReviveOurHearts.com/partner.

Or, you can give a gift of any amount, and with your gift, you’ll receive our new tabletop Advent card set. These cards are beautiful, and they’re the perfect way to prepare your heart for the upcoming Advent season. Just request your tabletop card set when you give at ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

We’re all serving someone or something. The question is, “Whom or What do we serve?”

My friend Kim Cash Tate will be here to show us from the life of an obscure Old Testament prophet what it looks like to serve the Lord in our generation. I hope you’ll be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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