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Will Revival Come to your city?

by Dave Konkol


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We hear lots of talk these days about revival and that's good. Oh that we would see a spiritual awakening, a revival in this land. Amen?

Think about it. A revival. Here. In your city. Think about it.

Today I'd like us to take a look back at the great revivals in church history and get just a glimpse of the glorious picture of revival power.

What are some of the common results of revival?

Well, revival changes the moral climate of communities.

Duncan Campbell said that where revival takes place you'll find "...a community saturated with God."

Ben Franklin observed the revival called the Great Awakening when George Whitfield visited Philadelphia.

Here's what he said:

"The multitudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous...it was wonderful to see the change so soon made in the manners of the inhabitants. From being thoughtless and indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world was growing religious; one could not walk through town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families in every street." (Fisher, Reviving Revivals)

John Orr recalled this revival story in "The Second Evangelical Awakening" one of several books he wrote on revival.

"During the 1859 revival, no town in Ulster was more deeply stirred than Coleraine. A schoolboy in class became so troubled about his soul that the schoolmaster sent him home. An older boy, a Christian, went with him and before they had gone far, led him to Christ. Returning at once to school, this new convert testified to his teacher, "Oh, I am so happy. I have the Lord Jesus in my heart." These artless words had an astonishing effect; boy after boy rose and silently left the room. Going outside the teacher found these boys all on their knees, ranged along the wall of the playground. Very soon their silent prayer became a bitter cry; it was heard by another class inside and pierced their hearts. They fell on their knees, and their cry for mercy was heard in turn by a girls' class above. In a few moments, the whole school was on their knees! Neighbors and passers-by came flocking in, and all as they crossed the threshold came under the same convicting power. Every room was filled with men, women and children seeking God."

In writing of the impact of the Welsh Revival, Orr wrote,

"With less than a score of intercessors when it burst, the churches of Wales were crowded for more than two years; one hundred thousand outsiders were converted, drunkenness cut in half, and many taverns driven into bankruptcy. Crimes were so diminished that judges were presented with white gloves signifying there were no cases of murder, assault, rape, robbery, or the like to consider. The police became "unemployed" in many districts. (Orr, Evangelical Awakenings)

Also during the Welsh Revival a report from a local newspaper read,

"A wonderful revival is sweeping over Wales. The whole country, from the city to the colliery underground, is aflame with Gospel glory. Police courts are hardly necessary; public houses are being deserted, old debts are being paid to satisfy awakened consciences, and definite and unmistakable answers to prayer are being recorded.

The leader in this great religious movement is a young man, twenty six years of age, Evan Roberts...He is no orator, is not widely read. The only book he knows from cover to cover is the Bible." (Ram's Horn)

During the 1905 Awakening here in America, Winkey Pratney writes in "Revival: It's principles and practices" that

"In the West great demonstrations marched through Los Angeles streets. United meetings pulled crowds of 180,000; the Grand Opera House was filled at midnight with winos and hookers seeking salvation. For three hours a day, business practically stopped in Portland, Oregon, with bank presidents and bootblacks all at prayer meetings while two hundred department stores closed by agreement from 11:00 to 2:00."

The Azusa Street revival started in a predominantly black church -meeting in the middle of the black ghetto of Los Angeles at the beginning of this century. It launched the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement and is well known for astounding healings and dramatic conversions during three and a half years of non-stop services! Writing in his book "The Black Face of Church Renewal", Douglas Nelson wrote,

"The deepest truth of Azusa lay not in the simple fact that diverse people came together but in how they came together. The whites came with love and true repentance for the way they felt about blacks and had treated them. The blacks came with love and genuine forgiveness. Orientals, Hispanics, Native Americans and others participated similarly."

And all this at a time when racial tension between poor whites and poor blacks was the greatest in America's history.

Now, imagine revival happening here in your city. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see? Our churches, our communities, our relationships - all radically and supernaturally transformed during a great outpouring of God's Holy Spirit. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Or would it? You see, there's a problem with revival. In fact there are several problems with revival. Let's take another look at the history of revival and see what those problems are.

Problem No 1. We want revival to start out there but it starts in here - and that's something that shames us.

James Burns, writing in "Revival, Their Laws and Leaders, said in 1909:

"To the church, a revival means humiliation, a bitter knowledge of unworthiness and an open and humiliating confession of sin on the part of her ministers and people. It is not the easy and glorious thing many think it to be, who imagine it fills pews and reinstates the church in power and authority.

It comes to scorch before it heals; it comes to condemn ministers and people for their unfaithful witness, for their selfish living, for their neglect of the cross, and to call them to daily renunciation, to an evangelical poverty and to a deep and daily consecration. That is why a revival has ever been unpopular with large numbers within the church. Because it says nothing to them of power such as they have learned to love, or of ease, or of success; it accuses them of sin, it tells them they are dead, it calls them to awake, to renounce the world and to follow Christ."

Man, am I glad these are not my words. You might be tempted to kick me our of here if they were. Yes, revival brings shame to the church.

Here's Problem No. 2. Revival is launched from the platform of deep, personal repentance - and that's something that hurts us.

Again, during the Great Awakening here in America, a reverend Jonathan Parsons recorded these words regarding the revival in Lyme, Connecticut:

"Many had their countenances changed; their thoughts seemed to trouble them, so that their loins were loosed and their knees smote one against the other. Great numbers cried aloud in the anguish of their souls. Several stout men fell as though a cannon had been discharged and a ball made its way through their hearts. Some young women were greatly disturbed."

Yes, revival brings pain to the church. Are you into pain avoidance?

Problem No. 3. We think we know the sins we'll be willing to repent of but God reveals those we're not willing to confess and those we're blind to. And it might just happen in public.

How does He do it? He catches us up short before we can concoct our alibis. He does it by moving in power toward you and me- pushing aside intermediaries and the like. He does it by moving in holiness toward you and me - revealing the real Him and the real you and the real me. He does it by coming for you and for me and calling us by name - having a uniquely open and honest conversation with us. A conversation we can't prepare for or hide from.

Let's go back to a sedate Calvinist Congregational Church in Wales in 1859.

"Instead of their usual minister, there were this young man and some equally young girls with him. Instead of announcing the customary hymn, one of the girls burst out in song, tears streaming down her cheeks. The whole congregation gasped. Before this impromptu solo finished, her friend joined in also. But the young minister in the pulpit stood utterly silent; and as the congregation watched, his body shook and tears coursed down his pale cheeks. A stillness fell on the people like the quiet before a storm. It only broke when one of the proudest members of the church fell on her knees in agonized prayer, confessing her sin. The meeting went on all day without a break. By night every church in the city was trying to get into the building. And so the Welsh Revival began."

Revival brings the truth to light. Are you ready for that?

And finally, Problem No. 4. We think we can control or organize a revival - in fact we think we can manage it so it will fit with our particular tradition or style or theology. But in revival, folks, God is in control and we're not. And that's something that scares us.

John Wesley recorded this in his journal about George Whitfield.

"He had opportunity of informing himself better; no sooner had he begun... to invite all sinners to believe in Christ than four persons sunk down close to him, almost in the same moment. One of them lay without sense or motion. A second trembled exceedingly. The third had strong convulsions all over his body, but made no noise unless by groans. The fourth, equally convulsed, called upon God with strong cries and tears. From this time, I trust, we shall allow God to carry on His own work in the way that pleases Him."

Winkey Pratney again writes,

"The most ordinary conversion of a sinner is a supernatural work, but it is not manifestly so. Revival features conversions that are, in the eyes of men, manifestly supernatural and that can be accounted for in no other way. It produces in the hearts and minds of observers the reaction described in Acts 2:12: 'They were all amazed and were perplexed, saying one to another, "What meaneth this?""

Arthur Wallis in "In the Day of Thy Power" observes,

"A movement bears this mark of spontaneity when men cannot account for what has taken place in terms of personalities, organizations, meetings, preaching, or any other consecrated activity; and when the work continues unabated without any human control.

It is God revealing Himself to man in awful holiness and irresistible power. It is such a manifest working of God that human personalities are overshadowed and human programs abandoned. It is man retiring into the background because God has taken the field."

Who has taken the field here and who is in the background?

"Oh, fair enough," we might say. "It can be God but only if He acts like this and not like this" Or we might say "It can't possibly be from God if it means I'm still lying on the church floor on Monday morning instead of sitting at my computer at the office or my desk at school or at my breakfast table at home. Not with all the things I've got to do!"

Daniel Boone invited Barton Stone to Cane Ridge in 1801 to hold some revival meetings. In May his first meeting was "attended with blessings." His second meeting three months later was attended by 20,000 people in the middle of the frontier. It was described by a Methodist Church circuit rider:

"The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others in wagons and one standing on a tree which had, in falling, lodged against another...Some of the people were singing, others were praying, some crying for mercy in the most piteous accents, while others were shouting most vociferously...A strange supernatural power seemed to pervade the entire mass of mind there collected...I stepped up on a log where I could have a better view of the surging sea of humanity.

The scene that then presented itself to my mind was indescribable. At one time I saw at least five hundred swept down in a moment as if a battery of a thousand guns had been opened upon them, and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens." (Mendell Taylor, Exploring Evangelism)

Man's control goes out the window in a revival.

Those are some of the problems with revival.

So what is the Key To Revival? What will bring it about?

I would suggest we be willing to let the Holy Spirit scare the hell out of us. I'll come back to that in a minute.

United prayer and unity among the churches seem to be obvious precursors of revival as is a fresh emphasis on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Arthur Wallis says

"...there is born in many such hearts a wholesome dissatisfaction with that vague and mystic view of being filled with the Spirit that leaves one in the dark as to what it is, how it comes and whether or not one has received it."

The London editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, William Stead, was interviewed by a reporter for the London Methodist Times after observing the revival in Wales. The reporter asked if he dreaded the revival coming his way. Here's what he said:

"No, that is not so. Dread is not the right word. Awe expresses my sentiment better. For you are in the presence of the unknown...You have read ghost stories and can imagine what you would feel if you were alone at midnight in the haunted chamber of some old castle and you heard the slow and stealthy step stealing along the corridor where the visitor from another world was said to walk. If you go to South Wales and watch the revival, you will feel pretty much like that. There is something there from the other world. You cannot say whence it came or whither it is going, but it moves and lives and reaches for you all the time. You see men and women go down in sobbing agony before your eyes as the invisible Hand clutches at their heart. And you shudder. It's pretty grim I tell you. If you are afraid of strong emotions, you'd better give the revival a wide berth."

Now, think about it. Are we willing to let the Holy Spirit scare the hell out of us?

Yes, hell and all the forces of hell can be scared! A true revival scares the pants off Satan and his demons. That's why so many are added to God's Kingdom during a revival. The Holy Spirit rides into town and the devil let's go of people and gets out of town.

Giving up bad habits doesn't scare the dark forces of hell like that. Trying to refine our old nature doesn't scare them like that. Neither does turning over a new leaf. Or making restitution for known sins. Or trying to find someone of another color to be reconciled with. And believe it or not men, becoming a Promise Keeper doesn't scare them like that either.

But true, deep, personal repentance sparked by the work and person of the Holy Spirit does scare them. Repentance that comes like a refiner's fire - first on the people of God and then on those around them - exposing and consuming real sins - not just the stuff we dare to label as our sins.

Repentance of the sin that stops our growth in Christlikeness. Repentance that brings a radical and supernatural change of mind, a change of heart and a change of will. Repentance that scares the hell out of you and me.

And yes, there is a bit of hell in each of us. Here's what it looks like. Here are five bits of hell that might be in each of us.

How about the hell of Arrogant Cultural Pride. The type of pride that causes us to say "Because I'm an American or because I'm an Irish American or a Native American or a White American or an African American I'm someone special and I need to be treated special or watch out."

Or Political Pride that says "If you're not connected politically, or not politically correct, I won't listen to you."

And in this cultured city that can manifest as Intellectual Pride that allows so called learned men and women to water down the authority of the Word of God so that it's reliability is questioned and it's power drained. Intellectual Pride that says "If you're not highly educated you've got nothing of significance to say." Pride that causes some to look at the Bible and, echoing the words of Satan in the Garden of Eden, say "Did God really say that?"

Luther was an educated man but he said that the truth is mightier than eloquence; the Spirit greater than genius; faith more than education. Worldly wisdom standing by itself looks quite impressive. It's only when we put it beside the confounding wisdom of God that it begins to sound weak and insipid. Have we forgotten that here in your city?

Or how about the hell of Foul Self-Righteousness that causes us to say, "Because I'm a real Christian I can point out the hell in other's lives without admitting the hell in my own." Self-righteousness that sees everyone outside my denomination or my church or my family as the enemy. That even causes us to look down on our brothers and sisters in other churches who happen to worship differently than we do, or look different, or speak differently than we do, and who certainly read books and listen to messages we've never read or heard before - but who still believe Jesus is Lord.

Or the hell of Blind Selfishness that compels our preachers and pastors and book writers and Christian celebrities to condone chasing after money and significance and comfort and convenience and a better lifestyle in the name of "Godly excellence" - and all the while being watched by a great crowd of the poor, both inside and outside the Body of Christ, wondering "What's this got to do with me?"

Or do you house the hell of Unconfessed Fear of Man that causes you to keep your mouth shut when you're the only one around with anything of life and hope and salvation to share. When you're the only one with the power of heaven at your disposal. And all because you don't want to be uncool or maybe unprofessional or, God forbid, ineffective in your witness.

Ineffective - Ineffective. There's a word that, in our success mad culture, stops most of us from even trying to speak the gospel to anyone at all. Rather than risk being ineffective gospel sharers we keep silent, sharing nothing, except to speak to ourselves about what I would have or should have or could have said, if only.......

And finally there's the hell of Pathetic Lukewarmness that dries up the tears in our eyes, ties up our feet and hands, binds up our hearts and causes us to be of little significance and even less of an impact in a world going to hell all around us.

Oh brothers and sisters. Do we really want a revival? Are we sure we're not just hoping it will happen to somebody else - maybe even everybody else - but not us? Are we sure we're not simply looking for a spiritual dose of happiness and satisfaction and acceptance so we can get on with our lives pretty much just the way they are?

Do we really want to find our total acceptance and total significance in simply being a Child of God?

Do we really want to be more humble and gracious and caring for those outside the Body of Christ? To those for whom Christ died? Those we want to call our enemies? Those who outside of the light of Christ - who outside of the light of the Kingdom of God - are just as blind to the truth of salvation in Christ as you and I once were? The ones Christ commands you and me to love?

Do we really want the Holy Spirit to help us re-examine our lifestyles - to help us understand how to use our gifts to serve God's agenda and not our own? To learn what it really means to be a Child of God in America at the end of the 20th Century? Do we really want to know that?

Do we really want to see how much we've compromised the message of the Gospel simply to keep from losing something that means nothing to God if we're not first wholly His? Our status? Our reputations? Our position? Our friends? Our jobs? The work of our hands? Our acceptance by other men, by other women - men and women of the world? Or even men and women in the Church?

Do we really want the Holy Spirit of God - the Holy Spirit who can divide our souls and spirits from our bones - who can get right down to the real you, the real me, with no pretending - and who wants to do this with us! - Do we really want him to show us just how cold our hearts really are toward God and toward those who suffer around us?

Do we really want this?

Well, part of me says "No way, man." Part of me knows that there's a battle going on between my own agenda and God's agenda and that part wants nothing but a skin deep walk with God that keeps me securely in the dark about God's way for me.

Where we walk sort of close together - but not that close.

Where we turn God's grace into a damp towel of reason that we throw on our convicted hearts when they begin to burn with zeal for God.

A life of security and salvation thank you but not this revival stuff. Not real revival anyway.

But there's another part of me too. That part that wants to let go of what's of me and what's of mine and to grab onto God with all my strength. That part that sees the emptiness and fruitlessness of my own rationalized brand of Worldly Cultural Christianity.

That part that knows deep down in my inner man that the very best for me is to be with the very real, one true God, and to let him help me see the truth and not to pretend.

Not to pretend about myself, or about my agenda, or about my fears, about my pride, or about my unbelief.

To be set free from the sin that so easily entangles me. To be radically and truly changed from the inside out. To be set free to turn the world upside down.

That's what revival brings. And revival could come to your city if that's what we want.

Take it up with God. Is this what you want?

END