Revival is God bending down to the dying embers of a fire just about to go out and breathing into it until it bursts into flame.

Transcription

1 Study 1 THE FIRE OF REVIVAL Revival is God bending down to the dying embers of a fire just about to go out and breathing into it until it bursts into flame. - C. Evans Read: Psalm 85:1-13 It was All Wales was aflame. The nation had drifted far from God. The spiritual conditions were very low. Church attendance was poor and sin abounded on every side. But unknown to each other, Christians all over Wales were calling out increasingly in prayer for God to intervene and send revival. Suddenly, like an unexpected cyclone, the Spirit of God swept over the land. The churches were crowded so that many were unable to get in. Meetings lasted from ten in the morning until twelve at night with several services held each day. Evan Roberts was the human instrument, but this was clearly a sovereign move of God. There was little preaching. Singing, testimony and prayer were the main features. There were no hymnbooks. Most knew the hymns from childhood. There was no choir, for everyone sang. And there was no advertising. Yet people came from everywhere. Nothing had ever come over Wales with such far-reaching results. Delinquents were converted; drunkards, thieves and gamblers saved; and thousands changed. Drunkenness was immediately cut in half, and many taverns went bankrupt. Crime dropped so markedly that judges had no cases of murder, assault, rape or robbery to try. Old debts were repaid. Picture theatres closed because no one turned up. Even the police in many districts had nothing to do and so joined with the crowds going to the revival meetings. Confessions of awful sins were heard on every side, and amazing testimonies of changed lives. In five weeks, twenty thousand people joined the churches. Within a year, that number had risen to one hundred thousand. 1. What is revival? Some people think revival is powerful evangelism with many unbelievers coming to Christ and filling our churches. This may be the result of revival, but it is not where revival starts. The very word revival means to re-vive or bring back to life again. Revival therefore has to do with reviving those who already have spiritual life (believers). It is God re-viving and awakening His church. 1

2 C.Evans, a famous Welsh preacher says, Revival is God bending down to the dying embers of a fire just about to go out and breathing into it until it bursts into flame. Another writer (D.Panton) describes revival as an inrush of divine life into a body threatening to become a corpse. Vance Havner says, What we call revival is simply New Testament Christianity the saints getting back to normal. Revival is God coming in His mercy to awaken us from spiritual sleep, to quicken us, and raise us up to the level of spiritual life that we should always have been experiencing. Revival is God blowing upon the dying embers of our hearts to bring a fresh fire of love and passion for Him again. It is God coming to stir up, refresh, renew and restore His people back to spiritual health, wholeness and joy in God again. It is God bringing us back from below normal to the normal Christian life, back to New Testament Christianity. Revival is what happens to the people of God. It begins with the church before it spills over into the world. 2. What happens when revival comes? When revival came to a church in Edinburgh in 1905, this is the Pastor s account of what happened in his church: It was at a late prayer meeting, held in the evening at 9.30, that the fire of God fell. There was nothing, humanly speaking, to account for what happened. Quite suddenly, upon one and another came an overwhelming sense of the reality and awfulness of His presence and of eternal things. Life, death, and eternity seemed suddenly laid bare. Prayer and weeping began, and gained in intensity every moment.... One was overwhelmed... Could it be real? We looked up and asked for clear directions, and all we knew of guidance was, Do nothing. Friends who were gathered sang on their knees. Each seemed to sing, and each seemed to pray, without being aware of one another. Then the prayer broke out again, waves and waves of prayer; and the midnight hour was reached. The hours had passed like minutes. It is useless being a spectator looking on, or praying for it, in order to catch its spirit and breath. It is necessary to be in it, praying in it, part of it, caught by the same power, swept by the same wind. One who was present said: I cannot tell you what Christ was to me last night. My heart was full to overflowing. If ever my Lord was near to me, it was last night. 1 - Pastor Joseph Kemp Revival history is full of stories like this. Again and again God has sent waves of revival to bring fresh life and vigour to His church. But we don t only have to look back in history to see these things happening. We just need to look around us now. God is at work in our time in a way never seen before. Over recent decades especially we have seen revivals on a scale never known before in the history of the church. 3. The day of God s visitation 1 Winnie Kemp, Joseph W. Kemp (Marshall, Morgan & Scott), 1936, p

3 What a sick and sleeping church needs is not more teaching, or better programs, or greater effort, but a powerful visitation and revelation of God. Revival is simply that - God breaking into our churches and into our lives in a powerful and perhaps unusual way. It is God revealing Himself to us in awesome holiness and great power. This will shake us out of our complacency. It will stir and challenge us deeply. It will reveal those things that are stopping God from blessing His church and changing our lives. Revival is God coming to refine and purify His people so that we might burn for him again with a pure and holy fire. Above all, the heart of revival is God coming to restore us to fellowship and intimacy with Himself because He loves us, and then reaching out through us to people who are lost, broken and alienated from Himself. Scripture makes it clear that revival does not come automatically. There are preparations we must make. Revival is not a miraculous visitation of God falling on an unprepared and unwilling people. It comes when God s people earnestly want revival and are ready to pay the price. Do you really want revival? Do you want to be ready for the day of God s visitation? Then begin to prepare the way for the Lord now! The following studies in this book will show you how. Explore further! 1. Read again the account of the Welsh Revival at the start of the study. Underline the words or sentences which clearly show that this was a sovereign move of God. How do you feel as you read this account? (choose) Amazed; Excited; Encouraged; Hopeful; Not affected; Discouraged; Skeptical; Some other feeling: Imagine something similar to the Welsh Revival happening in your church and the churches in your area or across the nation as a whole! How would you feel? 2. What is revival? D.Panton describes revival as an inrush of divine life into a body threatening to become a corpse. Now think about your own church. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the spiritual life and vitality of your church? (lifeless) (strong & active) [Realise that your own assessment may be very different to God s!] Do you think your church needs a new breath of divine life? Why do you think this? 3

4 3. Now a more personal question! C.Evans says, Revival is God bending down to the dying embers of a fire just about to go out and breathing into it until it bursts into flame. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your own love and passion for Jesus? (fire out) (fire hot) Do you need the wind of God s Spirit to blow afresh across your life? 4. Think about the third description of revival as simply God awakening and stirring up Christians to return to the normal Christian life, to New Testament Christianity (Vance Havner). What do you think and feel about this? Tick any of the following statements that reflect how you feel? (Be honest!) I feel I am living the normal Christian life now (New Testament Christianity); I feel I am living a below normal Christian life, below God s best for me; I am happy with what God has done in my life, but I know there is much more; I have a longing in my heart for more of God, and want all that He has for me; I am happy with my present experience of God and content to stay as I am; I am not prepared to pay the price of revival and don t want to be disturbed; I don t think there is any need for revival in my life or in the church; 5. What happens when revival comes? Read again the story of Pastor Kemp s church under point 2 in the study. Underline the words or phrases that show that God was visiting His people in an extraordinary way. Have you ever experienced anything like this happening in a church service? yes; no; similar; partly the same; different. Do you feel in some way you need to be renewed, restored and refreshed spiritually? What do you need? 6. Throughout Scripture we see people longing for more of God, and longing for God to come in a greater and fuller way. Write down what the people in the following passages were longing for. Psalm 85:4-9 Isaiah 64:1-9 4

5 Habakkuk 3:2 Do you feel any of these same longings expressed in the above passages? (If you do, put a tick next to any of the above references that most closely reflects the longing of your own heart). Personal response: 7. Now use the words of either Psalm 85 or Isaiah 64 to express the longings of your own heart to God. Read one or two verses at a time and then express the same thoughts back to God using your own words. Then write a prayer below expressing what you long for most of all. 5