Revival and Surrender

Series: We Need Revival! An Interview with Dr. Henry Blackaby

Dr. Henry Blackaby: I’ve always felt that every encounter with God is a moment of judgment.   

Leslie Basham: Here’s Dr. Henry Blackaby. 

Dr. Blackaby: Because the moment God encounters you, you either say yes or no.  But it’s a moment of judgment, and nothing is the same.  It either moves you into the will of God and the excitement of His presence because you said yes, or it moves away from the withdrawal of the activity and the presence of God because you said no.   

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Wednesday, July 19th.   

Yesterday, Henry Blackaby explained how important repentance is for churches and individuals.  He’s seen the effect of repentance by studying revivals of the past.  As Nancy picks up her conversation with Dr. Blackaby, they’ll explore why studying revivals in history is so worthwhile. 

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I think if we want to have a vision of what it is that God wants to do in our day, we need to look back and see what God has done in the past.   

I think of that verse in Isaiah 64 that says God meets with those who are eager to do righteousness, and who remember Him in His ways (see verse 5). I know that you have loved the study of the past movings of God’s Spirit. 

You’ve traveled in Wales and England and Scotland and Ireland, and walked in some of the very places that have experienced the presence of God in the past.  How has that given you a sense of what God wants to do in our day? 

Dr. Blackaby: Well, there is a scripture in the first part of Psalm 111 that has impacted how I approach those times which says: “God has commanded that his mighty deeds are to be remembered, studied by all those who have pleasure in them” (verse 4, paraphrased). 

So I have gone and studied what has happened.  Ron Owens and I have led four revival heritage tours, and would worship Him.  We would repent, and we would let God convict us of why in America does such a thing not happen with us.   

The last time, which was last June and July, I asked. "What is it in the preaching that caused thousands to gather and then fall on their faces, even if it was raining, in the mud all night long and sometimes through the next day?"  The universal witness was that they came under an awful terrifying sense of the reality of eternity.  

They suddenly realized that hell was real; eternity was real, and they could face it any moment, and they were not ready.  Their sin had never been forgiven, but they didn’t know what they ought to do. 

Nancy: Was that because of the preaching on eternity?  What gripped the people with that sense? 

Dr. Blackaby: Well, they put God’s great salvation in the context of eternity.  It’s like: Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem?  I think I know one of the reasons was that He knew what eternity was like.  He knew how real eternity was.  He knew how real heaven and hell was.   

Nancy: You can’t talk about eternity without talking about eternal judgment.   

Dr. Blackaby: Exactly. 

Nancy: The possibility that . . .  

Dr. Blackaby:   . . . that everyone would stand before God and give an account for deeds done in the body whether they were good or bad. That’s what Paul says, and so they were deeply concerned to make certain that they were right with God.   

So I asked the group on the tour of almost a little less than 50, when was the last time they had heard a message on hell?  And they, not one, could remember.   

Nancy: Why are we not preaching on hell today? 

Dr. Blackaby: Because we feel it will not attract people.  We’re seeker-friendly, and to speak on hell is to drive people away.  In our mind it drives people away.  I don’t think it will.   

But actually, just the opposite happened in those revivals in Europe.  Hundreds of thousands were saved when God’s people became serious about their relationship to God and the reality of eternity in their own life.  Then lost people, after seeing God’s people repent, came under conviction of their own sin and repented.   

In my growing up, it was normal to bring in that reality.  Without Jesus Christ and a saving experience of His grace, we’re headed for an eternity in hell.   

But our generation is far more concerned about pleasing the world, and if you preached on hell, you’ll drive people away. Then we don’t preach on repentance to God’s people because we might lose some of our favorite givers.   

We don’t talk about the sin of divorce because one of the deacon’s daughters is just divorcing.  We have reshaped God into the God we want Him to be, not the God who He really is.   

Now God is not going to respond to His people.  But nobody is helping God’s people to see where the standard is.  If you’re not walking by the standard God established, then you’re away from God. There’s no neutrality with God.   

I’ve always felt that every encounter with God is a moment of judgment.  Because the moment God encounters you, you either say yes or no.  But it’s a moment of judgment.  And nothing is the same.  It either moves you into the will of God and the excitement of His presence because you said yes, or it moves you away from the withdrawal of the activity and the presence and blessing of God because you said no.   

But there is no neutrality when God encounters you.  He mostly encounters you in His Word.  So if the Word is faithfully shared, it will bring incredible response.  You cannot be neutral. But if you don’t preach a word from the presence of God, nobody will respond.  They’ll just feel good.  So we have a pop psychology, or we preach to the lost, but God’s people do not sense you’re preaching to them. 

In the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah, God condemns the prophets who come saying they have a word from the Lord.  He said, "They have never stood in My presence.  So they’re telling My people you can do what you want and no evil will come to you" (see verses 16-22).   

Then he said, “If these prophets had stood in My presence and got a word from Me, they would have turned My people from their sin and returned them to Me” (verse 22, paraphrased). 

So I say at pastors' conferences, you can tell if you’ve had a word from God, not whether lost people are saved, but whether God’s people are repenting.  Nobody can stand in the presence of God and get a word from God, and not turn His people away from their sin.   

Nancy: Dr. Blackaby, do you think a lot of the struggles and the situations in the church today and in believers’ lives goes back to having a flawed view of what God is like? 

Dr. Blackaby: We have a whole generation who’ve never been taught.  You’ve got to be in the Scripture, and you’ve got to be teaching and hearing the truth of the Word of God.  Because it is the truth responded to that completely sets you free, and it’s done by the Son of God who is revealed in the truth.  And when He sets you free, you’re free indeed (see John 8:32).   

I would say to anyone listening, “When was the last time the fear of God came over the whole congregation?”   

Nancy: Do you think we need to see more of the judgment of God?   

Dr. Blackaby: Well, in the purest sense, if we see what that does, but most people would not be ready for it.  But it’s not that He can’t, and it’s not that we don’t have the Scripture that tells us that God is a God who is absolutely just and absolutely holy and will not tolerate sin. So there are a whole lot of people who think God is tolerating my sin, or I must not be sinning because He’s not judging me.  I say that’s not true.   

Given David’s sin against Bathsheba, God waited a whole year before Nathan came. And in that year, David never repented.  But the moment he was confronted, he did.  But if Nathan had not come, would David have repented or would he have thought God had overlooked his sin? 

Well, God had a bigger agenda for David, and He knew his heart.  But the child had already been born when Nathan came.  So it was probably close to a year, and David had not repented.  Did God forget?  Not at all.   

Nathan’s announcement was interesting because the just judgment for David’s sin was that he should have been put to death according to the law.   

But Nathan announced, “David, God has heard your cry and you will not die” (see 2 Samuel 12:13).   

Nancy: So there was mercy right there. 

Dr. Blackaby: There was mercy, but he could have died.  God could have taken his life. 

Nancy: And he knew it. 

Dr. Blackaby: He knew it. And when you read Psalm 51, there’s never been a more contrite, broken spirit than David’s.   

Our problem is we somehow feel because God does not confront us in a radical way that God’s overlooking our sin.  He is exactly the same God you see from Genesis to Revelation.  But there’s no teaching on it because it’s not seeker-friendly.   

So if you start preaching on sin and repentance and brokenness, both God’s people will get upset. I’ve heard from many a pastor who comes under conviction that he needs to preach about repenting. And God’s people—they fire him. 

Or he says, “I’ve had such a revolt on the part of my deacons, they don’t like my preaching.”  I counsel pastors all the time. Some stay, and God helps them to speak the truth in love. But I think in our generation we’re trying to make God into the person we want Him to be, not the God He really is. Because of that, God is not honoring our activity because our hearts are far from Him. 

Nancy: When we reshape God into what we want Him to be, isn’t that the essence of idolatry. 

Dr. Blackaby: Idolatry.  Yes. 

Nancy: We think that Old Testament Jews had a problem with idols, but we don’t think of that as our problem.   

Dr. Blackaby: God says an idol is something you reshape into the image you want to worship. I think the evangelical community is practicing another form of idolatry in that we’re removing from anything that is said and done.  We’re putting in what we want to do. 

But He’s no longer the God of the Scriptures.  He is a God that we have fashioned.  I think the Enemy can cause us to be quite successful at that.   

Nancy: You know, every time I get around Dr. Henry Blackaby, I sense that I am with a man who has been in the presence of God.  I know you have been challenged as I have been by some of the thought-provoking things we have heard today from this conversation with Dr. Blackaby.   

Leslie: I have, and I know our listeners have as well.  Unfortunately, we don’t have time to air your complete conversation.  It was difficult to know what to cut out since everything Dr. Blackaby says is so meaningful.   

If you’d like to hear the entire conversation between Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Dr. Henry Blackaby, including conversation that didn’t make it on air because of time, you can on CD.   

Just visit www.ReviveOurHearts.com and click on the series We Need Revival: An Interview with Dr. Henry Blackaby.   

When you visit our website, you can also learn more about great revivals of the past.  You can listen to past broadcasts on the topic. You can also get resources to help you know how to pray for revival and develop a heart for revival in your own life.   

The website is a great resource for women seeking God, and it’s made possible through the generous support of our listeners.  Nancy, I can’t wait to hear more from this week’s guest. 

Nancy: Tomorrow, when we pick up this conversation with Dr. Blackaby, we want to talk about the whole subject of worship and how a powerful movement of God in revival will affect our response to God.  I hope you will join us tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts. 

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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