The Nature of Revival

If you have your Bible, please turn with me to 2 Chronicles 7. I want us to take this morning, as I understand this church recently had some revival services and look at what we can call the nature of revival. I think that a true revival as we will see in various scriptures this morning consists of a few requirements and also a few results. We will look at those briefly this morning in our time together.

Throughout redemptive history, God has chosen certain epochs, or moments of time when He moves upon people for the purpose of revealing His plans in the earth. For example, in Genesis 12 God moved upon Abram to establish a covenant with him that would bring salvation to all nations. He promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sand on the seashore. In Exodus, God visited Moses on Mt. Sinai two times, first to reveal His plan to deliver the Israelites from slavery and then to give Moses the Decalogue, the ten commandments, and furthermore the law of God in which the nation of Israel would be governed by. We see in the New Testament, the revealing of the Son of God through whom the whole fullness of deity dwelt bodily (Col.2:9). The Gospels reveal the suffering servant, Jesus Christ, as depicted by Isaiah who would take away the sin of the world through His sacrificial death on a cross. The apostle John would later write the book of Revelation in which revealed Jesus as no longer the suffering servant, but the resurrected, glorified, and exalted King of the universe soon coming to make war on the beast and all those who are not of His Kingdom.

So we see that God has chosen to reveal Himself in various times throughout history for the purpose of making known His plans and then expressing His Sovereign power in fulfilling that which He said He would do. Now this morning, as I mentioned, I want us to look at the concept of “revival” from a Biblical sense of the word, examine some conditions, and finally some of its fruit.

Would you bow your head with me in prayer and let’s ask the Lord to speak to us this morning through His Word.

PRAY:

Thank you for this moment we have this morning to gather together to hear from You.

Be with my mouth as I attempt to proclaim the excellencies of Your truth revealed to us in the pages of Sacred Scripture

Would You move upon our hearts this morning and reveal truth to each one of us. Then, Father, would effect transformation in our lives, for some, salvation through faith in the Savior, and others greater conformity to the image of Your dear Son.

Friends, when we think about revival, we must begin with the foundational truth that whatever a revival is, for it to be an operation of the Holy Spirit, as Jonathan Edwards said “it must operate within the limits of Scripture rules.” To continue on, Edwards says “What the church has been used to, is not a rule by which we are to judge; because there may be new and extraordinary works of God, and He has evidently brought about in an extraordinary manner...as to surprise both men and angels... The prophecies of Scripture give us reason to think that God has things to accomplish, which has never yet been seen. No deviation from what has hitherto been usual, let it be never so great, is an argument that a work is not from the Spirit of God, if it be no deviation from His prescribed rule.” In other words, Edwards is saying that God may still bring about extraordinary works in our day by His Spirit, but it will never deviate from the truth of God’s Word. So that’s foundational for us to understand.

But the question remains, what does “revival” mean from a Biblical sense? By definition, to revive something means that it must first be dead. We’re gonna look at a few passages that will help us really get a sense of what needs to be revived. Look at Ephesians 2:1-2 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—”

1 corinthians 2:14 “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

2 chronicles 6:26-31 ““When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance. “If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemies besiege them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own sorrow and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways, for you, you only, know the hearts of the children of mankind, that they may fear …”