1 REVIVAL 2 Chronicles 7:14 Lars Wilhelmsson The typical conversation in many Christian circles today is about the terrible condition of the world with its sin and degradation. World conditions have so pressed us that "doomsday" and "Armageddon" are becoming common words even to the media. As a country our list of national failures and sins is long. Alcohol and drug abuse in our country are about as high as in any land on earth. People are now told that they are foolish to walk down many of our streets at night or to use city parks during the day. We now have almost one million people in federal and state prisons, and the number grows by 1,000 a week. More than a million couples get divorced every year. One and one half abortions are performed each year. Edward Gibbon, noted historian of the Roman world, has given five primary reasons for the collapse of the great Roman Empire. These are: 1. The breakdown of the family and the increase of divorce. 2. Spiraling taxes and extravagant spending 3. The mounting craze for pleasure and brutalization of sports. 4. The expanding production of armaments to fight ever increasing threats of war while the real enemy was decay from within. 5. The decay of religion into confusing forms, leaving people without a uniform guide. Other historians have also added: an increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. The rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the parallels between the former great Roman Empire to our own nation. Our country and the world, therefore, become an easy target to complain about. But should that be our main concern? Is the primary problem our country or the world? Not according to the Bible. Our main concern should be the church, God's people. The classic passage on revival points this out: "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Ch 7:14).
2 REVIVAL The greatest need of the church today is not more members, more buildings, more money. The supreme issue is not even missions or evangelism. It is repentance and revival. The words "revival" and "evangelism" have become synonymous in our thinking. Yet they do not mean the same thing at all. Evangelism is the proclamation of the gospel in order to win the lost. Revival is "a work of the Spirit among God's own people whereby they get right with God and with each other." A revival is "a movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church of Christ bringing about a restoration of New Testament Christianity." This will effect the revitalization of the lives of nominal Christians, and will bring outsiders into vital touch with the dynamic causing every such revival the Spirit of God. Revival means simply the purifying and vitalizing of the existing Church. There is not much in the New Testament about revival. The early Church was alive and under the control of the Spirit of God, as we see in the book of Acts, and therefore, they did not need revival. They were experiencing normal New Testament Christianity. Revivals should not be necessary. God intended that His people should grow in grace without periodic spells of backsliding and repenting. Yet in the first three chapters of the book of Revelation, we have the Church in need of revival. This was only after these churches had been established for 40 years or so. The membership was now made up of second and third generation Christians who were not as enraptured with God and His new truths, but began to take these for granted. Strictly speaking, revival is an Old Testament term: "will You not revive us again? Then your people can rejoice in You again" (Ps 85:6). "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me..." (138:7). The New Testament word is "Repent." it, Revival is simply a return to normal New Testament Christianity. As Vance Havner puts "Most of us are so subnormal that if we ever became normal we would be considered abnormal!" Revival means self-examination on the part of Christians repentance, confession of sin, renunciation of sin, restitution, submissions to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, separation from the world, being filled with the Spirit. Charles Finney, the leading revivalist of modern times, who was instrumental in leading nearly half a million people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ defines revival as follows:
3 "Revival is the renewal of the first love of Christians, resulting in the conversion of sinners to God. It presupposes that the church is backslidden and revival means conviction of sin and searching of hearts among God's people. Revival is nothing less than a new beginning of obedience to God, a breaking of heart and getting down in the dust before Him with deep humility and forsaking of sin. A revival breaks the power of the world and of sin over Christians. The charm of the world is broken and the power of sin is overcome. Truths to which our hearts are unresponsive suddenly become living. Whereas mind and conscience may assent to truth, when revival comes, obedience to the truth is the one thing that matters." God in His sovereign will has used revival then to bring multitudes to Christ and cause the Church of Jesus Christ to grow mightily. Revival however, is not a new phenomenon. In Old Testament times we see how that God has intervened in the lives of nations and individuals to bring back His people who had drifted away from a right relationship with Him. Thus God works to make His people "come to life again." Though the Bible does not record any instances of revival which would approximate the kinds of awakenings which have occurred in the past few centuries, in both Testaments there are instances of particular revivings of God's people. This can be explained in part by the fact that the Holy Spirit was not poured out until Pentecost, and the Christian history recorded in the New Testament was too brief after that event for revival in the modern sense to be known. The theological insight that God was the author of revival is expressed in the profound prayers of the later Psalms and Prophets. The revival of which the Old Testament speaks in its most thoroughly developed form has nothing to do with sweeping emotionalism on the one hand or mass evangelistic efforts on the other. It simply meant the restoration of a proper relationship with God. The initial and most extensive pattern for revival is laid out in Leviticus 26. There is also a revival pattern in Samuel's ministry (1 Sa 7). At the completion of the Temple of Solomon God promised to listen to the people and bring them relief from their sufferings which would come upon them when they turned away: "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Ch 7:14). This one verse contains the core of the principles God has established for revival. From this verse the method for seeking revival is taken which has been followed in many revivals of modern times. The procedure contains four elements. First, God's people were to humble themselves.
4 When someone asked the Latin saint St. Augustine, "What is the first Christian virtue?" he replied, "Humility." And for the second and third requirement, he gave the same answer: "Humility." When he was asked what the great God was doing now, he replied, "He is casting down the proud and lifting up the humble." The Bible states, "Toward the scorners He is scornful, but to the humble He shows favor" (Pr 3:34). "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (Jas 4:6). Paul states, "... and make holiness perfect in the fear of God" (2 Co 7:1). The fear or reverence of God is that condition in which man recognizes and assumes his proper place in relation to God. Man must realize that he is the creature and God the Creator. This forms the basis upon which God requires man's humility. The second requirement for revival is prayer. Turning away from God means denying Him the fellowship He desires of His people that they seek His face. SEEK GOD'S FACE According to 2 Chronicles 7:14 the third element in seeking revival is to seek God's face. There must be earnestness in our prayers. To illustrate this claim: Characteristic of prayer, Jesus told the story of one who went to his neighbor's house at midnight to borrow bread for a hungry traveler. The night caller sought the face of his friend persistently until his request was fulfilled. So, Jesus admonished, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Lk 11:9). God commands His people to know Him and His will intimately. James reiterates this same injunction, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (Jn 4:8). It was David who wrote, "You have said 'seek my face.' My heart says to You, 'Your face, Lord, do I seek.' (Ps 27:8)
5 God's people must seek His face with all diligence in order that they may know specifically how to pray intelligent or enlightened prayers for the particular progress God intends to accomplish. To seek God's face is also to become a part of what God is bringing to pass as He "declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose... I have spoken and I will bring it to pass: I have purposed, and I will do it" ( Isa 46:10-11). The fourth and final element in seeking revival is to forsake sins. In fact, God says that He will not even hear His people's prayers if they hold on to their sins: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear... Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save or his ear dull that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear" (Ps 66:18; Isa 59:1-2). In the early days of his struggle toward the truth, Augustine made a prayer, "Lord, save me from my sins, but not quite yet." Then sometime after that he prayed, "Lord, save me from all my sins, except one." And then came the final prayer, "Lord, save me from all my sins, and save me now!" It was when he made that final decision against evil that the victory was his. Billy Sunday, the baseball evangelist and reformer, never spared himself or those he wanted to help in the vigor of his attacks on sin. He thundered against evil from the Gay Nineties through the Great Depression. He preached Christ as the only answer to man's needs until his death in 1935. "I'm against sin," he said. "I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot, and I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist. I'll butt it as long as I've got a head. I'll bit it as long as I've got a tooth. When I'm old and fistless and footless and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition." Years ago, Evangelist Gipsy Smith was conducting meetings when a preacher came to ask the secret of his success. He wanted to know the best method of starting a spiritual awakening in his congregation. This was Smith's answer:
6 "Brother, go home and lock yourself in your room. Take a piece of chalk and draw a circle on the floor. Then get down on your knees inside that circle and confess all known sin. Determine to follow the Lord wherever His Word directs you, no matter what the cost. Ask Him to begin His work in you! When this prayer is answered, you will have the beginning of a revival in your church." It was John Wesley who said, "Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world." Paul exhorts men to "pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting" (1 Ti 2:8). To have defilement on our hands, to have dissention in our spirits and to have doubting in our hearts is to cancel all effectiveness in prayer. To experience revival is impossible unless the seekers cleanse their actions as well as their hearts since God looks upon the heart (1 Sa 16:7). The purpose of God's heart is to bless his people. He cannot wait to pour out revival in answer to burdened praying. It is important to realize that such revival means the blessing of divine intervention "I will hear from heaven." Revival is not man-made; it is heaven-sent in answer to Spirit-anointed praying. With heaven-sent revival also comes the blessing of divine absolution "I will forgive their sin." Revival always deals with sin in the saint as well as the sinner. At the height of the 1857 revival in America it is estimated that 50,000 people per week were born into the kingdom. Equally important was the cleansing effect of the revival in homes, churches and national life. Conviction of sin led to repentance, faith and obedience. DIVINE RESTORATION Finally there is the blessing of divine restoration "I will heal their land." There is no problem our country faces or fears today that cannot be solved by a heaven-sent revival. To read the story of revival throughout the ages is to put this beyond all dispute. Revival occurs as God in His sovereign wisdom honors man as he fulfills these conditions. God honors full repentance by restoring His people to fellowship with Him. Are we prepared to pay the price of revival? Are we prepared to humble ourselves, to selfishly pray, to earnestly seek God's face, to turn from our wicked ways? I hope we are for nothing less than revival and save the church that I am the world.