03-INTRODUCTION

“Pray for revival in America.” I (Elmer Towns) saw this sign in a restaurant in Dallas, Texas, while we were writing this book. I said, “AMEN!” in my spirit, but wondered if they knew what they were praying for. When most people pray for revival, they are probably asking for a wonderful experience at church next Sunday at 11:00 a.m. But revival is more than a Sunday morning experience. When you pray for revival, you’re asking God for life-shaking experiences that will cost you plenty. It’s agonizing because in revival you become terrorized over your sin and you repent deeply. It’s consuming because in revival you have no time for hobbies . . . for chores around the house . . . for work . . . for sleep.

Revival crashes your Daytimer . . . interrupts TV times . . . demands your full attention . . . and wears you out. Usually when we pray for revival, we’re telling God “sic ‘em” on the bad guys. Little do we realize that revival begins with us, the people of God. As a matter of fact, we’ve got a suggestion for you who want revival. Don’t pray for revival, just repent of all known sin, do every thing you’re supposed to do, give God all—not part—but all your time, and you’ll experience revival. When revival came to Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church in the fall of 1973, glory flooded the church auditorium . . . it was atmospheric revival. All normal activities in our lives shut down. Students and business people didn’t want to leave the sanctuary because when they left the building, they were leaving the presence of God. They didn’t want to miss anything that God was doing.

Revival began on Wednesday evening about 10:30 p.m. an hour after prayer meeting was over. It came when students and church members were milling around the front of the sanctuary.

Most of the ushers and pastors had gone home. One student went to the pulpit—weeping—to confess sins. The microphone and pulpit lights were off, but God was there. The student’s passionate repentance captured those who were still in the auditorium. Someone began singing. A pianist ran to play the piano. People dropped to their knees beside the altar and front pews. The piano was playing softly, not interrupting the sacred sound of tears. Shortly, another broken person approached the pulpit to confess sins. After two hours, frantic phone calls went out to the pastor and deacons, “Revival’s hit the church!”

Church members were awakened in the middle of the night, hurriedly dressed, and drove through the dark streets of Lynchburg. All came back to the church building expecting to experience God. No ties . . . no Sunday morning dresses . . . just believers eager for the touch of God.

They stayed at the church from Wednesday until Saturday morning. Classes were canceled, most didn’t leave for work, some didn’t eat. When drowsiness couldn’t be fought off, students slept in the pews in the back of the auditorium, some slept under the pews. Like the tide that comes and goes, there would be intense times when people were confessing their sins, then soft times of quiet weeping and private prayer around the altar. What stopped the revival? Early Saturday morning one student rose to confess his sins, but he seemed to be bragging about what he did when he sinned; there was no shame, nor brokenness. The Holy Spirit—Who knows the heart—departed the meeting. Within one hour, all knew the revival was over. All left, went home and went back about their daily activities. This book describes The Ten Greatest Revivals and Their Influence. While some may not agree with the authors’ choice of the ten or the sequence of the ten, don’t be too critical; even the authors disagreed at times. Since we don’t have complete records of revival, and no one knows everything that God did in all revivals; only God knows which were the ten greatest revivals. As a matter of fact, there may have been greater revivals than those described in this book, but we don’t know anything about it because no one wrote down what happened. But based on our study, these are our choices (Douglas Porter wrote his doctoral dissertation on AnAnalysis of Evangelical Revivals with Suggestions for Encouraging and Maximizing the Effectsof an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Evangelism and Elmer Towns was the mentor. Towns wrote the book Rivers of Revival with Neil Anderson, then wrote books on spirituality, including the topics of fasting, meditation, praying the Lord’s prayer, worship and God encounters.)

Note that these are ten revival eras, not just isolated revival places or revival events. It seems when God poured out His Spirit, He did so on “all flesh,” meaning the revival sprang up in several places at the same time. Therefore, in this book we identify the ten greatest revivals ever, as the ten greatest periods of time when God manifested Himself around the world. Like a stream that disappears underground to burst to the surface at another location, so in the First Great Awakening, revival sprang up in several places, i.e., in New England (Jonathan Edwards), in England (Wesley and Whitefield) and in Germany (Herrnhutt). This book doesn’t just tell revival stories of isolated events, we have focused on ten world-wide “times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.” We’ve called them, “The Ten Greatest Revivals Ever.”

We’ve described the strange phenomena associated with revivals, i.e., the jerks, shouting, “slain in the Spirit”, speaking in tongues, barking, dancing in the Spirit, etc. Since none of these phenomena appeared in all revivals, we conclude none of these manifestations are mandatory for an awakening and true revival can happen without these extraordinary phenomena. But since most of these unusual phenomena occur more than once, what do we conclude? We agree with several other writers who have concluded, “When the divine is poured into the human, expect the human to react in extraordinary ways.” Some of these phenomena are prompted by God, at other times they are just the exuberant expressions of those who are experiencing God’s presence. We have a word of caution to you as you read about the different displays of emotions. First, don’t seek the extraordinary signs of revival, for these unusual expressions are not what revival is about. Second, don’t measure the success of a revival by the intensity or amount of extraordinary signs, for when you do; you’ve missed the whole purpose of a revival. Third, seek the Lord, because it is God who revives our hearts. Measure a revival by God Himself . . . is God present? . . . what is God doing (not what are people doing) . . . and what did God accomplish?

Just as all normal people have the same facial characteristics, yet the characteristics in the faces of all people are arranged differently; these revivals have the same facial characteristics— they reflect God’s presence—yet they have different faces; which means the revivals were expressed in different ways. I (Elmer Towns) wrote Rivers of Revival, Regal Books, 1998 with Neil Anderson. In that book, I describe nine faces of revival (see pp. 116-117). These nine “faces” of revival are different manifestations of revival. These nine faces occur throughout history and are found in the times we call the ten greatest revivals ever. Yet, in each of these ten periods of time, the expressions of revival all appeared differently in each revival. These nine faces of revival in the book, Rivers of Revival, are:

1.    Repentance Revival: emphasis on cleaning up one’s life and society.

2.    Evangelism Revival: emphasis on winning souls to Christ.

3.    Worship Revival: emphasis on magnifying God.

4.    Deeper Life Revival: experiencing God’s indwelling.

5.    Spiritual Warfare Revival: battling demons and Satan.

6.    Holy Spirit Revival: emphasis on the Spirit’s manifestations.

7.    Reconciliation Revival: removing barriers to racial harmony.

8.    Liberation revival: freeing from corporate and personal bondage to sin.

9.Prayer Revival: an enormous movement of intercession and prayer. The authors will use the plural “we” because we wrote together. However, when a reference is made to just Douglas Porter or just Elmer Towns, the text will reference the author impersonally, as in (Elmer Towns, Fasting For Spiritual Breakthrough, Regal Books, 1995). If you wish to correspond with us about revival or comment on this book, contact www.elmertowns.com or porter.palace@sympatico.ca.