What is a spiritual awakening?

A spiritual awakening is God rousing people who are spiritually asleep or dead, so that he, sin, Christ and eternity become real to them. Scripture uses the language of waking: "Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Ephesians 5:14). The Greek verb egeiro means to waken or to raise up.¹ Preachers use the word for what happens in one person and for seasons when God moves on a church, a town or a nation. In that wider sense it is close to revival. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, "Revival means awakening, stimulating the life, bringing it to the surface again."²

Asleep

A person can attend church, own a Bible and use Christian words and still be unmoved by God. Paul wrote to believers, "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed" (Romans 13:11). Christ said to the church in Sardis, which had a name for being alive, "Wake up and strengthen what remains, which was about to die" (Revelation 3:2). Awakening is the opposite of that sleep.

God's work

Awakening is something God does. Carter Conlon defined it this way: "Spiritual awakening is when God speaks, and he has free course, and there is no resistance to his voice."³ Lloyd-Jones insisted, "A revival is not the Church deciding to do something and doing it."² He described its essence: "The essence of a revival is that the Holy Spirit comes down upon a number of people together, upon a whole church, upon a number of churches, districts, or perhaps a whole country."² Richard E. Bieber said of such a movement, "we don't engineer it, we can't manufacture it and make it happen."⁴ The prophets prayed for it as a gift: "If only You would rend the heavens and come down" (Isaiah 64:1). "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of Hosts" (Zechariah 4:6).

It begins with God's people

Charles Finney observed that a revival "presupposes a declension."⁵ There is something to be revived only where life has ebbed. Conlon said of his own city that awakening was needed, but "it must start first among God's people."³ Billy Sunday described two effects: "First, it returns the Church from her backsliding and second, it causes the conversion of men and women; and it always includes the conviction of sin on the part of the Church."⁶ The psalmist's prayer is the church's prayer: "Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?" (Psalm 85:6).

Conviction of sin

The first mark is that sin is felt. Jesus said of the Spirit, "when He comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8). At Pentecost, "when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and asked Peter and the other apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'" (Acts 2:37). Bill McLeod listed it first among the signs: "First of all, an intense spirit of conviction of sin is felt."⁷ Lloyd-Jones described what has happened in such times: "They went to bed feeling as usual, but they are awakened with an aweful sense of sin, and they have to get up and pray and plead with God to have mercy."²

Repentance

Conviction that does not lead to turning is only a passing feeling. Peter's answer to the crowd was, "Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away" (Acts 3:19). Vance Havner pointed out how Christ's letters to the churches end: "The last thing the Lord said to the Church was repent."⁸ To Ephesus he said, "keep in mind how far you have fallen. Repent and perform the deeds you did at first" (Revelation 2:5). God's word through Joel is, "return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning" (Joel 2:12).

Christ at the centre

A true awakening does not make much of experiences or preachers. David Bryant said, "A spiritual awakening is all about being reintroduced to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ."⁹ The awakened person sees his sin and then sees the Saviour, and the promise attached to the call is that "Christ will shine on you" (Ephesians 5:14).

The promise and the means

God gives awakening, and he tells his people to seek him. "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, forgive their sin, and heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14). "Break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the LORD until He comes and sends righteousness upon you like rain" (Hosea 10:12). He works through his word: "The Law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul" (Psalm 19:7). And he answers prayer: "After they had prayed, their meeting place was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly" (Acts 4:31).

Holiness

What follows is a changed life. McLeod said, "Holiness will become the prime object of the awakened person's life."⁷ David Wilkerson expected God to deal with his church in this way: "He is going to sovereignly move upon His church and awaken it anew to Bible holiness."¹⁰ God says he dwells "with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).

True and false

Not every religious excitement is an awakening. E. M. Bounds warned, "There are counterfeit revivals well executed, well calculated to deceive the most wary."¹¹ He gave the test: "The test of a genuine revival is found in its staying qualities."¹¹ Jesus said, "by their fruit you will recognize them" (Matthew 7:20). Crowds and emotion prove little. Repentance that lasts, love for Christ, obedience to Scripture and concern for the lost prove a great deal.

In history

Church history has given the name to particular periods. An account of the awakening in Jonathan Edwards's town in the 1730s records that it "appeared to be full of the presence of God."¹² Later awakenings followed in Britain and America around 1800, in 1857-58 and in 1904-05. The older writers treated such events as sovereign gifts of God and not as results that correct techniques can produce.

The prayer for awakening

Habakkuk prayed in a dark time, "Revive them in these years; make them known in these years. In Your wrath, remember mercy!" (Habakkuk 3:2). The promise to those who pray so is plain: "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8).