Merle Weaver emphasizes that revival is a choice that requires individuals to seek God wholeheartedly. He highlights the importance of drawing close to God, stating that if we seek Him, we will find Him, and that true revival stems from a personal relationship with God rather than mere religious activity. Weaver encourages the congregation to examine their lives and identify what may be hindering their relationship with God, urging them to surrender their identities and desires to Him. He reminds them that God desires a love relationship and that true fulfillment comes from living for His glory. Ultimately, Weaver calls for a humble and contrite heart, assuring that God will revive those who earnestly seek Him.

Shall we pray? Yes, Lord, have your way. We are just clay and you're everything. Father, I pray you would mold us and make us to what you want us to be. That we would be fit instruments and fit vessels for you. That we might be worthy to contain this living water of life and, Lord, that you might use us to pour it out to those around us. I pray this morning, Father, that you would come. I thank you that you are here. Thank you for your presence. I thank you, Lord, that you are everything and you're all we need. Father, I pray this morning that you would just allow me to share what you put on my heart, Lord. And, Lord, I pray you would make my tongue a vessel for your spirit, an instrument of your power, Lord. And, Lord, I pray that in all things you might have glory. We worship you. We praise you in Jesus' name. Now, you may be seated. Greetings in Jesus' name. Good to see each one of you this morning. It's good to be here. I just pray that this morning we could lift up the name of Jesus. The desire of my heart is that this morning we could all draw closer to God. And He is close to us. He is not far away, if we want to draw close to Him. For a text verse, I would like to turn to Acts 17, verse 27. This morning, Acts 17, 27, that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. One of the greatest passions or study subjects that I enjoy studying the most in my life is the subject of revival, of God meeting with His people. And I would like to, in our meditation and our looking at the Scripture this morning, just spend a little time thinking about revival. A number of weeks ago, Brother Emanuel shared a message titled Divine Visitation. I really appreciated that message. And by the grace of God, I would like to just pick up a little bit on that subject. Some things that I've been meditating on since then and that God's been doing in my life. I'd like to read the context there, starting at verse 24 of Acts 17. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worship with men's hands, as though He needed anything. Seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things, hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed in the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also His offspring. Stop reading there. Seems to me that as we study Scripture, there is a clear thread that finds its way all the way through the Scriptures. It's a very simple concept that if we seek for God, we will find Him. If we seek after Him, we shall find Him. I'd like to start back in Deuteronomy 4 verse 29 and follow down through Scripture a bit and look at this concept. Deuteronomy 4 29 says, But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou shalt seek with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Moving up to Isaiah 57 15, For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with Him also that is of a contrite and humble heart, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Probably come back to that verse a little later on, but I'd like to keep on going. Isaiah 64 verse 5 says, Thou meetest Him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness. Those that remember thee in thy ways. Jeremiah 29 10, For thus saith the Lord that after 70 years be accomplished, and I'll be reading through verse 14 if you want to turn to Jeremiah 29. After 70 years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good towards you in causing you to return to this place. But I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you and expect of them. Then shall you call upon me, you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you, and you shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the Lord, and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, from all the places whither I've driven you, saith the Lord, and I will bring you again into the place whence I have caused you to be carried away captive. Turning to the New Testament, John 6 verse 37 says, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And finally, I'd like to read James 4 verse 8 where it says, Draw an eye to God and he will draw an eye to you. I'd like to also read a verse out of Psalm, I believe it's Psalm 50. I'll just turn back there. Psalm 50 verse 3 says, Our God shall come and shall not keep silence. A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. This morning as we think about this concept that if we seek God, we will find him. If we draw close to him, he will draw close to us. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. I am the Lord, I change not. There is no mystery to revival. I wonder how many of us, as we hear from time to time, discussions about revival, have a mindset of a bit of a, it's a bit of a mystery, a bit of something we can't explain. And it is true that there is a manifestation of the presence of God that we can't always explain. It is true that it is supernatural and all those things. But I would like to, this morning, say that it is very explainable about drawing close to God. And this morning, any people, any group of people that will individually draw close to God will have revival. And I wonder if there's something else that we're looking for than that, when we think about revival. I know at times in the past, myself, I've looked at the revivals and various outpourings of Spirit and various places on the face of this earth, and it's been beautiful things. But always, it's come as people are drawn close to God, as they've come to know Him. And it is true that we cannot control the outpouring of the manifestation of God's Spirit and all those things. But we can make a difference today by how we relate to Spirit in each of our hearts. And whether or not we will draw close to Him, because His promise is that all those that seek will find Him. He's not very far away. In fact, all those that have believed on the name of Jesus and are born of His Spirit, He is within us. And we can have all that He has for us, but we must yield to Him. We must put away the desire for this world, the desire for popularity, the desire for security. Jesus said that those that seek will find, but He also said that you can't serve God and material things. You can't serve God in this present world. And this morning, I just want to, each of us, look at our lives and examine and lay before God, what is it that we are serving? Is there something that is giving us our identity? Is there something that's giving us our security? Something other than the kingdom of God and His righteousness that we're serving and seeking? Because on the authority of the Word, if we seek God and His righteousness first, He will take care of us. And on the authority of the Word, if we seek Him, we will find Him. And so, if we're not finding Him in reality, and if we're not finding the overcoming life in our lives, it's because we're not seeking Him with all our heart. It's because there's some other love in our lives that has captured our attention, that has captured our interest. And, you know, it would have been so easy when we got born again and filled with the Spirit if God, instead of how He chose in the dispensation of the age of the church, if He would have just raptured us out, and that was it, it was all over, or instantly gave every one of us a martyr's crown, and we lost our head. And in days gone by, there was times like that when He's done that, I guess. But many times, He hasn't chosen that today. He's chosen a living sacrifice. And it's because He wants to see if a man will walk through this world. And if he'll walk through all the glitter and the glamour, and yes, even legitimate things, that breath that demands home on our lives. And if he'll keep his eye on eternity. And if God will be as everything. If he'll be obsessed with God, he'll be enamored with God, and it'll consume his being, and it'll be nothing else that he'll live for. And I wonder this morning, as you look at your life, if that's your life. Is your life a life that's so obsessed with God, and so consumed with God, that there's nothing else that catches your attention? There's not everything else pales in comparison. And yes, you need to get up, and in the morning, like every one of the rest of us, you need to go to work, or do whatever it is that God has called you to do. But you do it all for His glory, and it's all you can think about is God, and fellowshipping with Him. Is that where you're at this morning? And if not, why not? What is it that's causing each one of us to hold back? Is there some area of our life that is causing us to hold back from giving God everything? And you know, it would be, I believe, so easy in some respects to be able, it would be such a blessing to just sit down and study the Word all day, and be in prayer, and maybe there's days that it's good to do that, and I'm all for that. But it's a whole different thing to take that same Word, and walk out into this world, and not be contaminated by this world, but hold the living pure water that He's put inside of us, that others might get a drink everywhere we go, and even if we don't speak a word, they can see God in us. Because we can't manufacture that. There's so many how-to books, there's so many five-step, ten-step, twenty-step, however-many-step programs, and you can try and make it happen. But if God is not the consuming passion of our life, it won't happen. You can never be an effective evangelist for the kingdom. Yes, Paul said that there was those that preached the gospel of contention. He was glad because the gospel was so powerful it would convert sinners anyhow. But you will never be an effective evangelist. Say that you're consumed with God, and with the passion of what He's done for you, and His glory, and that that's what you exist for. And this morning, I would just like to present the question to our heart, why do we exist? What is it that takes up our day? What is it that consumes us? As we rise each morning, as we go about our activity, is it raising a family for God? Is it going to work for God, or is it God? That's the question. And I believe we should raise a family for God, and I believe we should go to work for God, and I do believe we should preach for God, or He should preach through us, or however it is. But if it's not the person of God, and the beauty of Jesus Christ, and the person of Jesus Christ, and what He's done for us, and that He loves us with an undying love, and He wants a personal relationship with us. If it's not that, and you're doing it for God, it's not enough. He wants a love relationship. And I remember back 10 years ago, when I was a young man, I was sitting under the sound of a preacher, lifting up, I believe it was out of Matthew 5, about, blessed are those that hunger and thirst after God, and he was lifting up being in love with Christ. He was lifting up communicating with Christ, and in our every day, and just having a love relationship. And I had believed, I believe at that point, in a saving faith in Christ, but I knew that was not my life. And I can say that that time, when I heard that message, it convicted me, and it changed my life. And I've never been the same, and I don't want to be the same. I don't ever want to go back to just living my life. And yet, so much He's had to prove, and He does every one of us to do His work, because He loves us. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives. We're not supposed to despise the chastening of the Lord. Just recently, I believe it was Saturday or Friday, I was reading, I was working on a subject, and I was researching the statement that said, in the last century, more people have died for their faith in Christ than in all the previous 1900 years or so before. And it is true, that's correct. In the last century, more people have died for Christ. But as I was researching this, I was researching this article on dying for Christ. The writer of the article said, if we would talk to the persecuted church today, those who are living sacrifices, they wouldn't say a campaign for stopping the persecution. They wouldn't say that. That's not what it's about. They want to be conformed into the image of Christ. They want to have the fellowship of the sufferings. And I wonder today, how many times when thorns come into our life, or maybe it's a brother, or a sister, or a customer, or a vendor, or whatever it is, or a trying situation, and they come into our lives, and instead of saying, thank you, Lord, and seeing the face of a loving Heavenly Father that wants to better us and make us more conformed in the image of Jesus Christ, instead, we turn around and we despise it. And we don't see the loving Heavenly Father. And we maybe sometimes even bow down our head and accept the cross almost grudgingly, almost grumblingly, or maybe just not cheerfully. But that's not enough. God doesn't want us when a baby wakes up in the middle of the night and it's yet again another time to suffer, yet again another time to miss some sleep. He doesn't want us to get up and do it without complaining. He wants us to get up and do it rejoicingly because He has done all things for our good. And whatever it is, maybe it's a car accident, whatever it is in our life that brings trial, that brings trauma, He wants us to embrace it, even just realizing that He allows these things because He loves us. And this morning, my burden in my heart is that we can see the love of God. We can see how incredibly He loves us, so much that He would send His only Son, Jesus, to die for us. And yet, we have such a great salvation and how much and much pain is heart when we believed and come to saving faith, and yet we sit here and dawdle and seesaw on the edge of total commitment. When we don't pull out the stops and give everything that He's asking us to do, and every one of us knows what our cross is, everyone knows what He's asking of you, what He's preparing for you for, or where He's sending you, or where He's called you. And if you don't, you need to know, you need to seek Him and say, God, why am I here? What do you want me here for? And I only want to exist for your glory. And I wonder if I'm bringing you the glory you want me to in my life. I'm just sharing out the overflow of my life because as I look at my life, and as I look at my walk, I see so many areas where my life doesn't exist to as much glory to God as it could. I'm not letting Him live His life through me like I ought. And so, if you listen in this morning, all you're hearing is the passion of a heart that wants to see God glorified, wants to give everything. And so many times, you know, we sell out for so much less. And just recently, we were working through a situation, and my wife and I, and we had some funds, and the Lord had provided. It was a blessing to pay some bills that were due. But, you know, we wanted to hold them back because we wanted to save them up for something else. And it's so easy for us to hold when God gives us something to say, I want it for this purpose or that purpose, instead of saying, thank you, Lord. And just giving it to Him, giving our all. Maybe it's education, maybe it's our job, whatever it is. And we have a certain vision of how it ought to look. And we're not willing to say, Lord, whatever, it's yours. And I just want to say that His promise is to us. If we seek Him first, if we give Him our all, if He is the consuming passion of our life, He'll take care of us. He'll bring us into a close relationship, James 4.8. He will draw nigh to us. And revival, it doesn't have to be a mystery. It can be a living reality. But I'm saying, if it's a mystery to you this morning, if it's a mystery to any one of us, we need to seek Him. We need to draw close to Him. We need to repent of anything He brings to us. And we need to walk humbly with our God. And He will revive the heart of the lowly. He said in Isaiah 57.15, For thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with Him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble. And to revive the heart of the contrite ones. It's that simple. It's no complex math. It's no special formula. It's just humbling ourselves. And I'm so grateful for what God has been doing in our life, in my life, in our life as a congregation, and right along these lives, in humbling us. Because I know His promise is that if we'll humble ourselves, if we'll say we don't have it all together, if we'll say there's things that are missing that ought not be that way. But Lord, it's all we have is You. I know that He'll meet us there. His word says He will. And you know, one of the ways that we can find ourselves not being humbled and not being in a place that God can revive us, is the place of not losing our identity. It can make us feel so vulnerable. Maybe this is more for us men. I'm not sure maybe it's for all of us equally. But Jesus said in John 12, that the only way a corn of wheat would bear much fruit, is if it would fall on the ground and die. You have to be willing to lose who you are. You have to be willing to lose, you know, a corn of wheat has life inside of it. It already does. But it needs to die for that life to bear much fruit, to reproduce. And this morning, as we draw close to God, He's going to touch the very fabric of our being, who we think we are. And He's going to ask us to surrender that. Maybe you say, well, I'm this, or I'm that. You know what it is. And God's going to say, will you give that to me too? Will you admit you're nothing in and of yourself without this treasure that I wish to put in you, and that I wish to leave flow through you? My Holy Spirit, you're nothing. And even, I remember the day I was on the way home from work, and I was just pondering this concept, and all of a sudden it hit me, that you know, one man's gift to another is no big deal to God. Between the greatness of God and one man's talent or gifting over another, it's almost nothing. It's so small. It's like, you know, if we could maybe use the illustration of an ass, and one that's a little bigger, has a little stronger leg compared to a giant. We say, well, there's no difference. It makes no difference. And it all of a sudden hit me, and I realized the only thing that makes a man valuable to God, the only way that he can get much glory from a life, is not by its ability, not by its skill, not by even how well it can understand the Scriptures, and the intellect, and being able to command words, and, you know, just understand the Scriptures well, though I do believe we should understand the Scriptures well. It's not about how good of a mother we can be. It's not about those things. It's about letting it all go, and existing totally for His glory. And I'm here to say that if the reason you're existing is only to do things for God, if the passion for your sisters is only to raise children for God, or whatever it is, or to serve your husband, those things are all good and right, and they need to flow out of the life that's consecrated to God. But if that's all it is, and it's not God Himself, a life that's totally filled out and surrendered, it's not enough, and it won't work. And I would just like to say this morning, yes, that if our lives are a life that's just constantly up and down, and we just don't have this, we read about this overcoming life in the Scriptures. Yes and all in Christ Jesus, we're more than conquerors. And if that's where we're at, may I suggest this morning, it's because we haven't lost our identity. May I suggest this morning, that many times the reason for nursing hearts in our life, the reason for the way we struggle with so many things, is because we haven't lost our identity yet. There's still pride there, and you know, we can walk around with a stooped down head, and all these things, and it can look so right. But if we haven't lost our identity, and if all that we're living for anymore is God, see, when all that we're living for is God, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how people use us wrong. It doesn't matter about this guy in front of me that's just not going the speed limit, I want to get there quickly. It doesn't matter about this brother that spoke an evil word about me. It doesn't matter about anything, you fill in the blank, because we only exist for God, and the only thing we can think about, the only sane thought that we know to think, is that it would be for His glory. And God just used me, just made me a living sacrifice. Just, Lord, bring on the pain, that's all right, just so you get glory. That's my only, that's my only passion. Just so I can see some more people kneel and bow at the feet of Jesus. And that's all I want to exist for. And I would just like to challenge us this morning, that we would look at our lives and say, and you know every one of us, we're all souls in process. God's all still showing us. We don't all see ourselves as we ought yet. I know I don't, and I think that's true of every one of us. But He wants to take that light and say, what about that area? Are you still willing to surrender that one? And what about that one? And whatever it is. And just lift up our walk and our life, our thoughts. Lift it up before the Lord this morning and say, come Lord, would you examine me? Would you see if there's any wicked way in me? Thank you that you have created in me a clean heart. But where is it that I'm still resisting your Spirit? Where is it that I'm still not letting you be all you want to me? Where I'm not being a vessel that you can use. May God add His blessing to these words. Thank you Brother Merrill. Thank you for the reminder that it doesn't matter. I have been meditating quite a bit yesterday on God's sovereign work and the way He orders all of our lives. And God has been challenging my own heart. You know, it's one thing to recognize that God does everything and He orders everything in our lives. It's another totally different thing to embrace that sovereignty with a willing heart and a delight and say, yes Lord, you are working these things in my life and I believe you are all wise God. I believe you love me with all of your heart. I believe you're overflowing your tender kindness to me and I embrace this whatever it is that is now coming into my life. And I confess that I don't always do that. I confess. Sometimes I grumble a while before I get to that place where I say, okay, yes Lord, you are ordering these things and I accept them from my heart. Amen. Something else that came to my mind is our brother was sharing a little bit. I just was reading a little bit in just a recently republished little book about James Stewart. I don't know if you remember James Stewart, but a little book I must tell. It's a story of a young man's life from age 14 to age 24. And this is for you young people just a little bit, but he went on to be a mighty evangelist. God used him all over Eastern Europe just before World War II, but he was converted at 14 years of age and he was converted out of a life of idolatry to sports. Soccer was his idol and he was converted at age 14 and he found the Lord. When he got born again, he was transformed. And I thought about him, Brother Moreau, while you were sharing. I thought about his zeal for the Lord, his desire. He immediately began to be a witness for the Lord. At 14 years old, he used to put these signs on, you know, hang these signs around his neck and go out in the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland and preach. They called him the boy preacher because of his zeal. I mean, he just let it go with all of his heart and he walked around. He would go out in the morning when all the workers were going to work because the streets were full of people and preach for about 45 minutes. And then he would go back again in the evening when all the workers were getting out and again, wear these signs and just walk up and down the streets, passing out tracks and preaching the gospel. They called him the boy preacher. It's quite a testimony of how God worked in that young man's life from 14 to 24. Oh, may we seek that kind of a relationship with God. Amen. And then I also thought about Charles Finney a bit this morning while Brother Moreau was sharing Charles Finney's principles of revival. I don't know if you understand the theological history of Charles Finney, but one of the reasons why God used Charles Finney to shake the eastern side of the United States back in the early 1800s was because he believed there's something that we can do to bring revival. And he believed that in a day when everyone was just sitting back in a Calvinistic mindset saying, it's just up to God. It's just up to God. Yeah, we know everything's falling apart, but it's just up to God. Yeah, we know that's it's bad. We know how it is, but it's all up to God. And Charles Finney came on the scene and said, draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. And he began to emphasize, not that there's no sovereignty on it. Yes, God sovereignly rules over revival, but he began to emphasize that there are things that man should do. And in that Calvinistic mindset, it sparked in the hearts of people and they got serious with God and began to seek God with all their heart and revival broke out in his day. So may we also receive these admonitions from our brother this morning, this heart admonition to us this morning to seek God with all of our heart in the midst of our circumstances and the way that God is working in our lives. And it's different for every one of us as we sit here this morning, but God is in it all and God is after us in it all. And God wants us in it all. And if we will let him, he will have us in it all. Amen. Thank you brother Merrill for those words this morning. We are the Tonys. We came here to receive some healing and some things with Mel and Barbie and it's been a real blessing. We had some victory over a spirit of fear. We were able to pray through some other matters. So it's a real blessing. Last night we spent some time with the ashes singing. My three oldest boys actually play instruments, but we take those into the Baptist churches. As these coats we have on, we wear them mostly in the Baptist churches too. But anyway we're just a normal family really. You know trying to find our way. And you know we've made a lot of mistakes. Mom and dad had a lot of baggage from our past. Our hearts cry from the beginning was to raise the God we see. But we had some things in our lives we had to deal with even after all these years. And we praise the Lord for his grace and his mercy. He's been very good to us. You know it is interesting how we came here for healing and yet as we were here we went down to a subway to get a bite to eat. And the lady who owns the subway is an Indian lady. And right when we walked up she began to pour out her heart to us. And right now at this time her husband is in the hospital. He tried to kill himself. And you know it's really a neat opportunity. I left my credit card there which I never did. I'm sure that was from the Lord. And so then my wife went in the next day to get that. And again she she immediately called somebody else up to be in the work the the area. And she just started sharing with Lori again about the pain that is in her life. And so we're going to go back to North Carolina tomorrow. But the subway that she owns is Tanger Outlet I think it is. So go eat a sub and uh and minister to this lady. And she actually is a professional Christian. So anyway but she needs a lot of ministry.