Psalm
85:5-7, “5 Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger through all generations? 6 Will you not
revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? 7 Show us your unfailing
love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.”
Why is Revival Important?
Before Jesus left to go
back to heaven He gave His church the Great Commission. This Great Commission was a command to go
into the entire world and make disciples, Matthew 28:16-20. However, He told them to wait in Jerusalem
for the Promise of the Father before they went out. What was this Promise of the Father? It was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Acts 1:4-8.
Jesus said in Acts
1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you
will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth.” This promise was
fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came into the upper room
where the 120 disciples and followers of Jesus were praying. The Bible says in Acts 2:2-4, “Suddenly a
sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole
house where they were sitting. They saw
what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of
them. All of them were filled with the
Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
The Bible then records
that they went out into the streets and began to prophesy and preach to all the
people celebrating the Jewish Holiday.
When the people began to mock and laugh at them, Peter stood up and
boldly began to preach proclaiming that what was happening in the people’s
midst was the foretold prophecy of Joel that said, “In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions;
your old men will dream dreams. Even on
my servants, both men and women I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and
they will prophesy," Acts 2:17-18.
As the people saw and
heard this mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit their mockery turned to deep
conviction and as Peter continued to preach about how Jesus was put to death
and raised from the dead for the fulfillment of prophecy so that God might be
glorified through the forgiveness of sinners, the people cried out, “Brothers,
what shall we do?” And then, “Peter
replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and
your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will
call," Acts 2:37-39. And thus the Bible
records that 3,000 people were saved that day.
The book of Acts
continues through its twenty-eight chapters to record revivals wherever the
church went.[1] What does the word revival mean? It simply means to bring life to something
that is dead. The Bible teaches that all
men are born spiritually dead in their sins and that they must be revived or
born again to be saved, Romans 3 & John 3.
Therefore, when Jesus sent out His first disciples He wanted them to
bring the message of the Gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit to revive
the sinners to life in God.
So
to answer the question, “Why is Revival Important?” The answer is simple, revival is important
because it is the way in which Jesus designed the Gospel to be preached and the
lost to be saved. Jesus never intended
His message to be a dry, cold, smelly religion full of dead men’s bones and
man’s tradition. Jesus gave authority to
His disciples through the Holy Spirit so that they might have power to preach
the message with boldness and conviction with powerful demonstrations of signs
and wonders!
Matthew 10:7-8, “7 As
you go, preach this message: 'The kingdom of heaven is near.' 8 Heal the sick,
raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you
have received, freely give.”
Life Cycles
Now, take a moment to
consider another reason why revival is so important within the church. Consider how everything that is made of flesh
and blood has a life cycle. A life cycle
is the different stages that a living thing goes through before death. Every healthy living thing creature has a
life cycle. Most life cycle’s consist of
first a birth, then growth and adolescence, then maturity and productivity, and
then aging and decline, and lastly death.
Now consider how God uses different people and structures within His
church. Though Jesus promised His church
would never disappear or be removed, we can learn from Church history that
those God used and how he used them always had a life cycle.
Take
for example the formation and structure of the Roman Catholic Church. The church was growing into maturity and they
needed to organize their doctrines, beliefs, and leadership so God used the
church of that day to work within the government’s acceptance of Christianity
to bring both stability and growth to the church. But when the leaders of Rome became
comfortable with their freedom and power they began to desire more and more power
and began to drift further and further away from their dependence on God and
His Word. So what did God do? God lifted His hand off their structure and
thus their “church” began to die. But
did God allow the Church, His Bride to die?
Of course not! He simple raised
up new leaders and new structures to continue to grow and develop the Church
within a new generation.[2]
Therefore, revival
also can been seen as God bringing life to the old things that He did in the
past but men let die. Revival is the
blessing of God to the Church, whenever the church’s of men get dry and
stagnate, He sends a fresh outpouring of His Holy Spirit so that a new
generation of radical Christ followers will rise up and take the Gospel to a
new group of people.
God
always protects His Church from death and extinction. Though some cults have risen up in the last
100 years and state that God allowed His Church to die and remain dead for
hundreds of years, this is not true. As
you read this book you will see the same message with the same methods being
given fresh and new to every generation.
Here are some of the key things that you will
see in every revival through history.
1. A
emphasis on true repentance and being born again
2. A
fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, everything in the Church becomes exciting
3. A
passion to worship God
4. A
zeal for evangelism and missions
5. A
structure for making disciples that make disciples
6. A
desire for sound Biblical preaching
7. A
hatred for sin
8. A
powerful impact on society
9. A
overcoming need to pray for the lost with tears and brokenness
10. A
demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power with signs and wonders
11. A
strong dependence on God and His Word
12. A
suffering of persecution from both the “Christian” and non-Christian world
Now some have said
that God’s message will never change but His methods will. I agree with that statement in some ways and
disagree with it in other ways. I agree
that God will use different methods of transportation, cultural customs, and
structures that are uniquely adapted to the people and time the Church is
in. But I do not believe that the core
methods of the early church should ever change.
For example, we may not dress like Peter, talk the way he did, or travel
how he did; but we ought to preach on the streets with boldness like him, make
disciples from house to house like him, and value all the teachings that he
believed in. So when we are talking
about reviving the old order and making it new, we are not talking about God
“reinventing” the church in every generation, but rather reviving the Church to
the first way of doing things. So
revival is always bringing the church back to the way Jesus first taught it to
His disciples.
Therefore, I ask you
to pray and seek God for a revival in this generation. I pray that we all will be like the first
disciples and see thousands of people saved by the power of God. I ask God right now to cut off everything
that is not of His true Church and that He will revive everything that is
missing so that we can be the pure and spotless Bride He called us to be! I pray that God will teach us from the core
values of the past revivals how to walk in their footsteps and see what they
saw and do what they did! May we see the
nations saved, the sick healed, the truth preached, the dead raised, and the
Name of Jesus glorified in our lives!
Reflection
1. What
does “revival” mean?
2. What
are the two ways it applies to us today?
3. What
are some core values that every move of God should have?
4. Why
should God’s message and method remain the same in every generation?
5. List
three things you will do to see God revive you and your church?
Resources
1. “Why
Revival Tarries,” by Leonard Ravenhill.
2. “The
End of the American Gospel Enterprise,” Dr. Michael Brown.
