A Revival Ministry

There are two kinds of preachers, and the church needs them both. The first is a edifying ministry where you comfort the afflicted and strengthen the body of Christ. The second kind of preaching is when you afflict the comfortable and call the church to repentance.

One ministry is a popular ministry. The other is an unpopular ministry. People like the one, but they don't like the other.

Just go study the prophets in the Bible who called the people of God to repentance, and you will soon see, friends, they had an unpopular ministry. Amos had an unpopular ministry, and his message fell on deaf ears. Hosea was unpopular, and his message was rejected by the people.

Old King Ahab called Elijah a troubler of Israel, and Jeremiah spent a lot of time sitting in prisons for preaching repentance, and the message of repentance cost John the Baptist his head. When God called me to be his preacher, he called me to a revival ministry that he had already invested 20 years in. I've been a student of revival now for over four decades.

I've written 18 books about revival. My Ph.D. dissertation was on the revival of religion under Wesleyan Whitfield. God has allowed me to preach on more than one occasion in churches where he came in revival.

I was preaching one Sunday morning, and I saw a church turned upside down. I was preaching one evening to a group of pastors, and I saw their faces altered as they were gripped with eternity. I've seen God move in revival, and it's something you never forget, and I know from experience what the term means, the awful solemnity of a holy God.

But along with that privilege of having a revival ministry comes a cost. I've had Baptist pastors denounce me and Baptist deacons attack me. I've had to learn how to live in poverty for lack of financial support from my hearers.

People like to support ministries that make them feel good, and they don't support ones that have pointed preaching that disturbs their comfort zones. I know what it's like to be completely penniless and go to bed hungry. I know what it's like to try to make five dollars stretch over several days when that's all you have to your name.

But God's been faithful to me these many years. He's encouraged me when I needed encouragement. He's strengthened me when I've needed strengthening.

He's comforted me when I needed comforting, and he's chastised me when I needed correction. But through it all, he's always reinforced his call on my life to revival ministry. I came to Christ in a revival meeting when I was 14 years of age.

I've always have had a love for revival, and I've carried a burden for revival. I long to see godless America to turn back to the god of the bible. I long to see a spiritual awakening that would grip this nation from coast to coast and get a hold of the young people of this generation to where they got their satisfaction in Jesus instead of drugs and booze and sex.

I long to see the church at large experience revival so that folks can see the difference between a form of religion and the reality of God. I long to see God emerge a young man from the shadows, bring him out from obscure obscurity to national prominence in revival like it did with Whitfield and Wesley, Finney and Moody. I long to see churches on fire with God to where its members are busy with evangelism, and they're intoxicated with Christ, and all they think about is eternity.

Yes, friends, we need preachers to encourage us, and when I need encouraging, I know some preachers I can go to to listen and be encouraged, but we also need preachers who fear God more than men and who aren't afraid to call sin black and hell hot and warn folks of a future judgment that awaits all mankind. That unless you repent, you will surely go to hell, and if you want to go to heaven, then you must be aware of your utter necessity of regeneration through the new birth. One can preach about revival and just scratch the surface, but when you start preaching for revival, there's a difference because then you have to step on some toes, and most folks don't like that.

Being a preacher takes its toll on you. Vance Havner was preaching a pastor's conference in South Carolina one year when revival broke out that week. One evening after finishing his message, a pastor approached him and said, Brother Havner, your messages are really tearing me up, to which Vance Havner replied, if they're having that effect on you, just imagine what they're doing to me, but I know this, friends.

God gets serious with those who get serious with him. I know what counts costs and what cost counts. I know we desperately need revival today.

The nations of the world have collectively turned their backs on God and have called evil good and even promote evil, and this powder keg of a world we live in could explode at any moment, and the nations could fall like dominoes in the wind. All of us should be on our faces right now. All of us should be on our knees right now, crying out to God over the sins of the land and seeking his face to have mercy to send us revival before it's too late.