David Sought Revival The Wrong Way
1 Ch 15:13 KJV For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.
This passage of scripture was speaking to when David tried to recover the ark of the covenant of the Lord. The first time he tried, he placed the ark of the covenant on a new cart. On it’s journey back to Jerusalem, the cart shook and possibly would have turned over. Uzzah stretched forth his hand to save it but God killed him.
David was afraid of the Lord because of what God did. Also, he asked this question “How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?”
Remember, the ark of the covenant represented the presence of God, so the return of the covenant (presence of God) in Israel is like having a revival. But, they found it difficult to get the presence of God to return to Israel. Why? They lacked knowledge.
Getting Revival The Scriptural Way
God gave strict instructions of how Israel was to carry the ark of the covenant, but they decided to do their own thing. It didn’t work. Finally, someone did some study of God’s word and found the answer. So David said, “We sought him not after the due order.”
1 Chronicles 15:1 – Then David said, None ought to carry the ark of God but the levites: for them hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him for ever.
Verse 14- So the priests and the levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel.
The Right Way to Seek God for Revival
We can certainly learn something from the scriptures. If we want revival we must know what is the due order. The reason why Israel lost the ark of the covenant was because they sinned and did their own thing. In order to bring it back, the priests had to sanctify themselves. In other words, they had to deal with their sins.
We, the church, are a holy nation, a royal priesthood. We want revival, but we must first admit to God our sins. It is because of our sins why we need a revival in the first place. Therefore, for us to get revival we must deal with our sins.
1 John 1:9 – but if ye confess your sins unto him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.