In the chapter before where I'm getting ready to read, the book of the law had been lost and it's found. If you didn't believe in the sovereignty of God, you would say that it was stumbled on in the temple. And it's brought to the king, King Josiah, and he reads it. When he reads it, he tears his clothes, because as he reads it, he sees how far they are from what God has said. And now I pick it up in 2 Kings 23.

Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord. Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to follow the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul to perform the words of his covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.

And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, the priests of the second order and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and for the host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in all the places around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the hosts of heaven. And he brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord to the brook of Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the brook of Kidron, and ground it to ashes, and threw its ashes on the graves of the common people. This is what happens when the Holy Spirit orders circumstances and then moves in an unusual way among a people.

He takes them out of a place of coldness into a place of zeal for himself. And exalts his name among them and he causes them to grind their ashes to powder and to burn the powder. My topic this morning is signs of true revival in a younger generation. The speakers here, our heads are gray now. And We have seen something in our lives of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit at different points and different places.

We want to talk to you about the things that we've seen in hopes that it will awaken an appetite, it will give birth to a desire in you to see those things in your lifetime. May God give you the grace to see an unusual outpouring of the Holy Spirit among you. I will happily concede that I'm not an expert on our revival or revivals. I wish I was. I wish I had seen more than I have seen.

But I was at a time and in a place where the Holy Spirit was moving on young people across the local churches in my hometown in an unusual way. In other words, the moving of the Spirit wasn't isolated to one church, and it wasn't even contained to a few churches. I started thinking about the people who were involved in my hometown during the 1980s. And it had to have been a dozen churches or maybe more, and this is in a small town. So God was really doing something not in one church or a few churches, but among the young people in my hometown.

Young people were being saved, and the young people who were already born again were being discipled and growing like crazy. And so maybe we had, Maybe we experienced a mini revival, and I want to talk to you about those experiences. Unless you live under a rock, You've heard of events at Asbury University in Kentucky in February. I'm sure that in all of our circles what was happening at Asbury's generated a lot of discussion about what was actually happening there and whether it was real or fake. And in those discussions, that immediately made me think of Jonathan Edwards and the book that he wrote coming out of the Great Awakening.

The Great Awakening happened in the 1730s and 40s. It was a revival in the United States that happened over the course of more than a decade. And coming out of that, he wrote a book about it, about what people had experienced during that more than a decade. It's called the religious affections. And I haven't read all of it, but I have read extended excerpts from it.

And here's what he concluded. Some of it was real and some of it was baloney. Some of it was a real move of God that proved over time to have been a real move of God and some of it was just the output of unbridled emotion and it didn't last at all. And that really is true. When God moves, there's always pockets of counterfeits that happen at the same time.

And when I heard in February of the events that were happening at Asbury University in Kentucky, my overriding thought was this, whatever is happening at Asbury, God, please revive me. I only care a little bit about what's happening in Kentucky. I do want to see the Spirit out poured, but I want to experience it in my own heart. I was saying, God revive me, Revive us here where we are. I hope that God was moving in Kentucky at Asbury, but I long to see him refresh me, revive me.

Take the pockets in my heart that are sleepy and make them wide awake again. So that's really the heartbeat of this message. It's not an analysis of the Great Awakening. It's not an analysis of what happened in Kentucky in February. It's a pleading that God would visit us.

That God would pour out his spirit among us in an unusual way and then use what he's done in our hearts, what he's done in our circles to enliven, awaken people in a broader and broader circle. As we come to this time, let's let's ask God to help us. God, our prayer this morning is very simple, that you would in your kindness revive us, that you wouldn't leave us alone, you wouldn't leave us to ourselves, You wouldn't be content to give us what we deserve, but that you would pour out your spirit on us. We want to know you. We want to walk with you, to draw near to you, to walk closely with you.

We want to feel alive. I pray that you would pour out your spirit. Set an expectation, Lord, this morning during our time together as the speakers, all the speakers speak, set an expectation. Give us a hunger and a thirst for an outpouring of your spirit like we've never seen or experienced before. We don't want to be content with the good things that we have experienced, though we're thankful for them.

We want you to pour out your spirit. We pray for it in Jesus' name, amen. I'm going to give you six signs of revival, signs of true revival, among a younger generation. It's not an exhaustive list. I think it's a good list, a helpful list.

There's so much more to say. So I acknowledge that. I'll give you six signs. Sign number one, real spiritual life as opposed to institutional religion. Now you're going to think that my remarks are anti-institutional.

If you actually know me, you know they're not anti-institutional. Actually, not all religious institutions are God's idea, but religious institutions are God's idea, and He has put structures in place for the nurturing of means of grace so that there would be these regular channels of the outpouring of His grace to His people. So it's not anti-institutional. All I'm saying here is I want a distinction acknowledged and drawn and understood that institutional religion is not the same thing as true spiritual life. They're different.

Institutional religion has been given by God to feed real spiritual life. In John 3, Jesus says to a strict man, a very religious man, a leading man, a leader and a teacher, a respectful man, an acknowledging man. He's coming to Jesus acknowledging that the things that he sees in Jesus and hears from Jesus must be from God. Jesus says, you must be born again. You are strict, you're not born again.

You are religious, you're not born again. You are a leader and a teacher, you're not born again. You are respectful, you are not born again. You are acknowledging that the things that you see in me and hear from me are from God but you are not born again. It's not the same as real spiritual life.

There are lookalikes for everything in religion But none of the lookalikes impart life. What we need is not lookalikes, but what we need is God to move and impart spiritual life. You must be born again, and the look of likes cannot do that for you. In my example, my hometown in the 1980s, this is Greenville, North Carolina in the 1980s, the people that the Holy Spirit was moving on overwhelmingly had grown up in the church. Isn't that true?

These were church folk. So they weren't bolting on religion to their life. They already had religion. They were already at church when the doors were open. Religion was already bolted on.

They were passing from death to life. And for those who were already alive they were being radically revived. When the Holy Spirit revived. When the Holy Spirit is moving to save the lost and to revive the saved, there is authentic, vibrant, spiritual life, and the look-alikes become obvious. In other words, the things that you thought represented real spiritual life a week ago a month ago a year ago you now see That's just a look-alike.

That's nothing that will impart life. That's nothing that will feed, that will give birth to, and then feed authentic, vibrant, spiritual life. We thought that last week, but we don't think that now. We thought that last month, but we don't think that now. We see the difference.

So that's sign number one. Real spiritual life as opposed to institutional religion. Sign number two, personal ownership of salvation. When God is really moving, really pouring out his Spirit, salvation ceases to be a group activity in the sense in which I'm speaking it. You might have heard this saying, I hope you have, God only has children, no grandchildren.

When a preacher preaches that what what is he preaching what is meant by that the preacher means that we're all born in Adam. We have a family head and we are inescapably dominated by his defining act. What is the defining act that inescapably dominates us? Genesis chapter 3 and his plunging our race, our family line into rebellion and the corruption that is inescapable for us that was handed down from generation to generation to generation and now it's in me. That all who are born in Adam must be born again in Jesus Christ, must come out from the headship of Adam and the corruptions of his defining act and come into the cleansing work of a new head of a race.

You have to change races. You have to change families and be inescapably dominated by the defining act of your new head. What is that? That's his work on the cross. Whose defining act will you be dominated by?

Adam's or Jesus's? Especially in Christian families. I think most of us came from Christian families. Especially in Christian families, you begin riding along. Literally.

We're going to church, kids get in the car. You're riding along. Participating isn't coming from an impulse in your heart. You're riding along. At some point, each individual has to own their own sin and has to own their own Savior or else you will be lost.

Not the family riding to church together, but me owning my sin and me owning my Savior. Did you know that Christian home can be a very dangerous place to grow up? I didn't say that I'm not thankful for Christian homes. I'm thankful for Christian homes. I didn't say you shouldn't grow up in a Christian home.

You ought to grow up in a Christian home. Not that you choose your home. I didn't say that it's not the best place for a child to grow up. It is the best place for a child to grow up. Then why would I say it's dangerous?

Because in a Christian home, you're not at liberty to give outward expression to your inner inclinations, and you can conclude from that that you aren't that bad and you don't need very much to be right with God. You weren't free to just run with your natural inclinations. Your parents wouldn't have it. So you don't think there's that much wrong with you. You don't think you need a radical transformation so you never flee to Christ for refuge from the wrath to come.

Because you have no sense of God's anger against your rebellion against him, because your rebellion's respectable to the people who know you. But rebellion is not respectable to God who pours out his fury against rebellion. In my hometown the Holy Spirit was moving on young people and we were breathtakingly aware that a person has a direct relationship with God or nothing at all! You'll never be God's grandchild! He will be your father, you will be his son or daughter, or you are nothing worse than nothing.

In fact, when God was pouring out his Spirit among us, we had such a desire to go farther than the older generation. We wanted to know all that they knew, and then we wanted to know more. We wanted to have all the experience of God that they had and then we wanted to experience Him more. We wanted to grow in faithfulness beyond what we had seen in them. Now this comes with a warning.

The younger generation always thinks that they invented zeal for God. We all have a tendency to think human history started on the day of our birth. It did not. And so we tend to despise the older generations, not realizing that they have a sweet, warm, deep, consistent walk with the Lord that we should want for ourselves if we were only thinking about things rightly. So be careful about wanting to go beyond the older generation.

Do want that, but think that you're standing on their shoulders. Think that you've received something for them by which you can go beyond them and don't despise them. I'm old, that sounds self-serving. When the Holy Spirit is moving to save the lost and to revive the saved, the people being moved upon get off the coattails of others and take personal ownership of their faith. Not a single one of us will ride anyone's coattails into heaven.

You will have a personal relationship with God as your Father through his Son Jesus Christ, or you are nothing. You have nothing. When God shows up and pours out his spirit, that becomes breathtakingly plain, and people who have been riding coattails say, I have nothing. That's sign number two, personal ownership of salvation. Sign number three, love for God.

This is such a critical distinction between religious activity and the overflow of authentic spiritual life. What's the difference of being busy in Jesus Incorporated and being alive to God? Love for God. In that time, in that place, in those years, I just wanted to be with God. I didn't need anyone to see me.

I didn't need anyone to notice me, to approve of me, to praise me, to think well of me. I just needed to be near him and to feel that he was near me. They were the sweetest days of my life. It was more than just me, there was a bunch of us, and we would sing and pray and study simply for the pleasure of being with God. Now I know about spiritual disciplines and I'm for them.

I'm for them. We need the spiritual disciplines, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about singing and praying and studying simply for the pleasure of being with God. We were teenagers. He had saved us from our sins and he was all lovely and we couldn't help but love him.

We couldn't help it. It was pouring out of us because the Spirit had been poured out on us. Paul Washer, I've heard, described it in these terms, and I found them so helpful. Boots on and boots off. What does Paul Washer mean when he talks about boots on and boots off.

Now he's talking about your disposition. What are you about? The Christian life has boots on time. When do you put your boots on? You put your boots on for work and war.

Don't go to work without your boots. You don't go to war without your boots. And Christians are to work and do work. Christians are to war and do war. But Paul says, if your But Paul says, if your Christianity has been reduced to that, God help you.

What about boots off time, where you just take time alone to be in your favorite chair with a hot cup of coffee and your Bible flopped open And you're just there for the enjoyment of being with God, to hearing from Him and His word and to communing with Him in prayer. Not work prayer and warfare prayer, but just to draw near to Him and to feel Him draw near to you and to have the sweetness of it. You know, your your spiritual life can be reduced down and that's the sweetness squeezed out of it. You can make yourself so busy in your religious activities. All good, none of which I'm saying back away from, but devoid of time where you take your boots off, you're not there to work, you're not there to war, and it's your favorite chair and your favorite drink and the Bible flopped open just to be near him.

I hope you know. I hope you know what I'm talking about. If you say, what is this guy talking about? Please come talk to me afterwards. There must be some point in your spiritual life where what I'm saying resonated with you.

When the Holy Spirit is moving to save the lost and revive the saved, hearts burn with love for God and they recoil at duty. Not because they don't want to do their duty, but because they can't bear to think of it as duty. I'm bought with blood. I'm bought with blood. It is my duty, but I dare not call it duty.

I love this king. If it wasn't my duty but it would please him, I would want to do it anyway." When the Spirit is poured out, we start to think like that. That's sign number three, love for God. Sign number four, a love for God's words. The words.

You've all taken math? How did you read your math textbook? There's a few math lovers in the room, I married one. I can probably count you. I wouldn't probably run out of fingers.

How did you read your math textbook? I had to work up to it. Did you have to work up to it? I had to sort of steal myself to go read the math textbook. Get in the right frame of mind to face the math textbook.

Now, How would you read a love letter from a beloved? Would you carry it with you? Yeah, you'd carry it with you. Would You read it over and over again? Yeah, you'd read it over again.

Would you read it slow to make sure you didn't miss any words? You'd read it slow to make sure you didn't miss any words. I can tell you this. In Greenville, North Carolina, In the 1980s, when we had our Bibles in our hands, we weren't reading the math book. We were reading it slowly and over and over again.

We were reading a love letter from a beloved. Our Bibles were with us. Now we take the phone, so that's cheating. If God said it in his book, we believed it was the revelation of perfect truth from heaven. If God said it in his book, we wanted to learn to obey it.

We wanted to know everything that was in the book. We didn't want to stay ignorant of anything that was in the book, not even for one more day. We weren't scared of what we might find. Psalm 19 says that God's words are more to be desired than gold, yes, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

In Greenville, North Carolina in the 1980s, we read Psalm 19 10 and said, just so, just so, so sweet. When the Holy Spirit is moving to save the lost and revive the saved, the Bible becomes a most precious possession. You give up almost anything before you give up your Bible. It is read and reread, It is memorized and meditated on. That's sign number four, a love for God's words.

Sign number five, a desire for and carefulness about personal holiness. A desire for, you want it, and a carefulness about, you dare not be thoughtless about personal holiness. When the Holy Spirit moves on young people, they don't want Him to become like them, They want to become like him. When fake revivals happen, the young people want God to become like them. And they make a new Jesus that the Bible doesn't recognize or understand and he looks just like them and he's comfortable this Jesus is comfortable with everything about them he makes them so happy he looks just like them he affirms everything about them.

But when the Holy Spirit is poured out, the young people want to be made like him not to make him like them the Holy Spirit is holy he is a Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit. They want to become holy. To be holy is to be set apart to and set apart for. When the Holy Spirit is poured out, that's what they want. They want to be set apart for God would you set me apart for whatever would make you happy my life plans just don't seem to be that important anymore what would what would please you set me apart for that Pull me out of my life plans and move me to that.

They want the old ingrained patterns of defilement to give way to new patterns of Christ-likeness. Doesn't all happen in a day? They're saved the day after they're saved. Some of those old patterns seem as ingrained as they ever were. They've passed from death to life, but that doesn't mean that everything's been cleaned up all in a day.

But they want these old, ingrained, stubborn patterns of defilement to give way to new patterns of being like Jesus. They look at Jesus and say, I want to be like that. Here's a funny story to make the point. In Greenville, North Carolina, in the 1980s, I began to be seriously discipled. I'm probably 15 years old, 14 or 15 years old at this time.

When I was 12 years old, my dad got an assignment to Oxford, England, and our family lived in Oxford, England for a year. I tell people I was educated at Oxford. I mean, I went to a public elementary school in Oxford, England, so technically speaking, I was educated at Oxford. Here's what I'm sure I learned at Oxford. They taught me to cuss.

I came back from Oxford, England as a 12-year-old, not cussing around my parents, but knowing all the words. And then the sign language and the rest. When I began to be seriously discipled at 14 or 15 years old, I knew that had to go, but It really was ingrained. It was the language that I spoke when I wasn't around mom and dad. So this was happening among a number of us.

We wanted to be different. We didn't want to stay the same. So a friend and I made a pact. The cussing has got to go. And we gave each other permission.

Whenever a cuss word was said, we had full permission to open hand slap. I was slapped a lot, and I did slap a lot, but for us in that time it was a small price to pay. It's foolish. That's a foolish way to go about life transformation, and a painful way to go about life transformation. But it just proves the point.

It was unthinkable that we would stay the same. It was unthinkable that we would talk that way in one moment and speak of Christ in another, speak of our Savior in another. So it had to go, By whatever means, it had to go! That sort of thing happens when the Holy Spirit is poured out on people. They stop sparing their sins.

They start taking radical action to become a little more like the Savior who bought them with his blood. When the Holy Spirit is moving to save the lost and revive the saved, People lose the ability to be careless about what they think and do and say and watch and listen to. I'm going to say that again. When the Holy Spirit is moving to save the lost and revive the saved, people lose the ability to be careless. Last month I could be so careless I can't even be careless anymore when the Holy Spirit is poured out.

I lost my ability to be careless about what I think and do and say and watch and listen to. Is anyone's conscience being pricked when I say that? I hope so. That was number five, the desire for and careless about personal holiness. Number six, staying power.

This is our last sign, staying power. That's God's power, by the way, not our power. In the Calvinistic system there are five major points the acronym is TULIP. The last letter P is perseverance of the saints. I've heard it renamed what I think is helpfully as the preservation of the saints.

So I don't really care whether you use perseverance of the saints or preservation of the saints, but at least adding preservation into the conversation shifts the understanding to this is God preserving his people. This is not Christians knuckling down to persevere to the end. This is God taking responsibility to bring his people safely home. Genuine moves of God result in lasting transformation, period. Amen.

There is immediate translation, death to life, heart of stone to a heart of flesh, dead in sins and transgressions to born again, But that isn't the complete transformation of life, of patterns and habits. The transformation that shows up in life lags. Your state can't become any more right before God. Your state is settled, but then your life begins to be transformed progressively. Sometimes it's slow, but it's always ongoing.

It's always lasting if it really was the Holy Spirit. The real analysis of what happened to Asbury University will be a year from now. Better yet, five years from now. Better still, ten years from now, we'll know. The real will have been sifted out from the look-alike.

Looking back on what happened in Greenville, North Carolina in the 1980s, not everything that seemed to be real in my hometown proved to be real over time. But this much we know for sure. He who has begun a good work in you will complete it. He will complete it. Not because you knuckle down, but because he takes ownership of his children, and he is almighty.

That's Philippians 1 6b. When the Holy Spirit is moving to save the lost and revive the saved, the saved stay saved and the already saved keep making meaningful progress. Let me conclude in Genesis 32. Genesis 32 beginning in verse 24 through 30. Genesis 32 24 through 30.

Genesis 32, 24 through 30. Then Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when he saw that he did not prevail against him, this is God not prevailing against Jacob, He touched the socket of his hip and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, let me go for the day breaks. This is God asking Jacob to let him go, telling Jacob to let him go.

But he, Jacob, said, I will not let you go until you bless me. So he said to him, what is your name? He said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked, saying, Tell me your name, I pray.

And he said, why is it that you ask about my name? And he blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved. I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved. Friends, we should wrestle with God for an unusual outpouring of His Spirit.

We should wrestle with God. We should cling to God and say, We won't let you go until you bless us! We won't let you go until you bless us! Maybe he'll let us win for the sake of his great name. If you've been praying for a revival, keep praying for a revival.

Keep praying that God would pour out his spirit in an unusual way. If you haven't, Start! Pray that God would start with your own heart and the hearts of the people who are nearest to you. And may God pour out his spirit among us to impart real spiritual life and to give every one of us personal ownership of our salvation and to cause us to love the Lord with all our hearts and to give us an insatiable desire for God's word and to give us a burning desire for and carefulness about personal holiness and that it would last and last and last and last. That 10 years from now we would say, God visited us.

God visit us. We have something in us, an impulse in us that says, how disrespectful of Jacob to talk back to you like that. And an impulse in us right alongside it that says, God, let me wrestle with you. Would you let me win for the sake of your great name? Would you hear our crying out to you that you would pour out your spirit in a way that we've never seen or experienced?

We want to. We don't want to live and die and not see you pour out your spirit in an unusual way. Bless us God, bless us. We know you're such a free giver. Bless us.

We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.