Revival

Introduction

“Lord, send a revival to our city, state and country.” How many times have we heard this prayed throughout our lives? The prayer is simple, yet because “revival” is defined differently depending the Christian groups you are involved with, one group of people could be talking about a week long event scheduled once year and another group can focus on a method or formula driven approach, where if the church does A,B, and C then revival will come. As you can see the prayer is simple, but depending on how we are to understand revival, two people could be asking God to do two very different things.

In Psalms 85 we read a question;

Psalm 85:6 ESV

Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

The psalmist is posing a question to God, will you not revive us again? The psalmist was asking God to revive the people of God, which at this point in history, is the nation of Israel. Maybe you have heard the same question posed by Christians in our generation, “God, will you not revive us again?” Followers of Jesus, asking God to bring revival to the people of God, now known as the church. Based on this psalm, asking God to revive his people, is something we should ask God to do. Therefore, if revival is something we should pray for, it is important that we search the Scriptures to understand what biblical revival is and the impact biblical revival brings. But before we move on we should look at the sovereignty of God and human responsibility when it comes to revival.

Sovereignty of God and Human Responsibility

Before we begin to look into the biblical accounts of revival we must address the mystery of the sovereignty of God and human responsibility. There are some who would say revival is totally dependent on believers, if we as a church would repent, live holy, pray etc. then revival would come to the church. Yet, others would say that revival is solely in the hands of a sovereign God and there is no human responsibility. The truth is the Sovereignty of God and human responsibility is something we as finite human beings can not comprehend, but it is something we can apprehend.

When it comes to revival, God sovereignly blows the wind of his Spirit where he so chooses to do so. When God chooses to bring revival he uses the ordinary means of grace of prayer, the scriptures, preaching, etc., which involves us as a people of God praying, preaching, serving, making disciples and more. God sovereignly chooses when revival begins, where revival comes, the purposes he desires to accomplish through the revival, and the human instruments he chooses to use. Yet he does use human instruments, people of God who are praying, preaching, as embers which spark the flames of revival. As the people of God, we must trust in God’s sovereignty to do as he wills, walk in obedience to God, because we hunger and thirst for knowing and desiring God whom we love more than the revival we are asking God for.

Revival in the Scriptures

While the word “revival” is not a word the Scriptures uses, it doesn’t mean the concept of revival isn’t in the scriptures. As we stated earlier, people define revival in different ways, but what we should do as people who believe the Bible is God’s inspired words of God to us, we should look to moments of revival throughout the Scriptures and allow the Scriptures to define what revival is and the impacts of revival on the people of God and the society in which they live.

Revival in the Old Testament

When we look at the moves of God in the Old Testament, some stand out as extraordinary move of God. I would like to look at three events in the Old Testament and draw out how the move of God started and how it impacted the people involved. The moves of God I would like for us to consider are during the reign of Josiah (1 Kings 22-23) during the rebuilding of the walls in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 6-8; Neh. 8) and Jonah and the Assyrians (Jonah).

The first thing we should look at is the need for revival. In all three of these moves of God, we see there is a need for people to be revived. In the case of Josiah, he succeed the reign of the king who did what was evil before the Lord, the nation of Israel were serving other gods, living in disobedience to the covenant the Lord initiated. In the case of Ezra and Nehemiah, they were rebuilding the temple and the walls of the city after it was decimated by Babylon many years earlier. In the case of Jonah, the Assyrians were Gentiles, people who never worshipped the Lord, but the Lord had a message for them.

Something else we need to consider, is the prominence of the word of God played in all of these moves of God. In the case of Josiah, the Book of the Law was read to him which opened his eyes to the sins of the people of God. The book of the Law was read before the people and there was a covenant renewal ceremony. Something similar happen to Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra reads the words of God to the people of God and they understood the truths of God. Much like what happened in the reign of Josiah, the people of God have a covenant renewal ceremony. When we look at the Assyrians, they were a Gentile people who served other God’s, yet God had purposes to accomplish, so he sent the prophet Jonah with a Word from the Lord. In all three cases, the reading, preaching, and understanding of the Words of God was vital to the move of God.

Another result in all three cases was an awareness of their sinfulness and in light of a holy God. When the people heard the Word of God, they became aware of their sinfulness and a realization they were living in sin and deserve the wrath of God. This realization cause physical displays of brokenness before the Lord like weeping, the tearing of clothes, or fasting which was a display of humility and a realization they have sinned against a holy God.

This awareness of sin which led to brokenness birthed them to turn from their sin and run to the Lord. They knew the only one who could forgive their sin and heal their brokenness was the Lord. The people experienced a time of mourning, fasting and repentance. In the case of Josiah and Nehemiah their was a return to the Law and the ceremonies of worship, like the Passover.

There was also a commitment to turn from their sin and live differently. In the case of Josiah and Ezra/Nehemiah their was a commitment to obey the book of the Law. There were also Covenant renewal ceremonies between the people of God and the Lord. In the case with Assyrians, there was no covenant renewal because they were part of the covenant people of God, but there was a commitment to turn from their evil ways and their violent tendencies in hopes that they would be spared from the wrath of God.

As a result of the Covenant renewal and commitment to turn from evil and violence this caused reforms in the culture. In Israel, the idols were destroyed, there was a renewal to community worship through the Covenant ceremonies, there was commitment to obey the Lord. In the case of the Assyrians, they were a very violent group of people. They would decimate the people they invaded. But as we see in Jonah, there was turning away from evil and violence and a commitment to change.

Revivals in the New Testament

In the New Testament, we see a shift from the people of God as a nation to the people of God as the church, which comprises of Jews and Gentiles. Another major shift we see in the New Testament, which is different than the Old Testament is the role of the Holy Spirit in the people of God. In the Old Testament we read the Holy Spirit came upon individuals or a group of people and empower them for a specific purpose and then the Spirit would depart when the purpose was completed. In the New Testament, because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit now indwells the believer and points believers to Jesus, helps us understand the Scriptures, convicts us from sin, helps us grow in Christ.

As a result of believers being indwelt by the Spirit, there is a sense in which we are filled with the Spirit now, we are not missing anything or we do not get the Holy Spirit in doses. While the Holy Spirit indwells us, and we are not waiting for “more of the Spirit”, Imagine two daughters running to their Father, one of them runs and hugs the fathers leg and says I have all of daddy. The second daughter runs into the arms of her father, which are wrapped around her, she says “daddy has all of me.” When it comes to the Spirit, we aer like the second daughter, the Holy Spirit has all of us. Yet their are times in our lives where experience the Holy Spirit in our discipleship journey that it seems like we have more of the Spirit. where we may, in those seasons what’s happening is that you are yielding more of your life to the Lordship of Christ and their is substantial growth in Christ, or we can say you are experiencing personal revival.

With this in mind when we look at the Day of Pentecost, which is one of the feasts the people of Israel celebrated, Because Israel was dispersed through out the known world at the time because of the exiles they experienced, many had to travel to Jerusalem to experience the feast of Pentecost. Another issue to consider is because many of the Israelites were dispersed throughout the known world they spoke different languages. When the Spirit was poured out on the followers of Jesus all the people traveling in heard the amazing works of God in their own language, which is an amazing miracle, but that isn’t the greatest miracle that happened that day. We see the Holy Spirit poured out on the followers of Jesus and Peter stands up and lets them know that the prophecy of The Spirit being poured out on all flesh from Joel 2 is fulfilled today. Then he proceeds to preach the Gospel using the Old Testament to make the case that Jesus is the messiah, whom they killed, is the Lord and Messiah. Peter commands them to repent and they too will receive the gift of the Spirit. and 3000 come to follow Jesus.We see some of the same patterns from the Old Testament, the Word of God is preached, the people become aware of their sinfulness in light of a holy God, there is repentance from sin and commitment to obedience, or to follow Jesus. The shift between the Old Testament and the New Testament is the gift of the Spirit indwelling the believer to empower him to live out the Gospel by his grace and for his glory.

We see something similar happen to a group of Gentiles in Acts 10, Peter is sent to the home of Cornelius in an extraordinary manner. When he arrives he begins preaching the Gospel and as Peter is preaching the Holy Spirit is poured out on them, which Peter takes as a sign that the Gospel is for the gentile as well as the Jew. We see the importance of the preaching of God’s word again, we can make the case that Cornelius and all who were with him, became aware of their sinfulness in light of a holy God, repented from sin, and committed to follow Jesus.

When we look at Acts 19 and Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, we see a move of God happen and Paul stays in the region for two years. We read “all the the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord” and “the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” Again we see the prominence of God’s word and the preaching of God’s word. We also read the Gospel had such an impact, people began to follow Jesus and abandoning their idols. Which was impacting the economy of the silversmiths who made the idols.