Hungering for Revival

Years ago, I was sitting in a chapel listening to Dr. Stephen F. Olford preach, and he made the following comment regarding the Word of God. He said he grew up in the African bush, and his parents were missionaries in Africa. And Dr. Olford said that at times you could hear the roar of the lions, and he said he learned to distinguish the different roars that the lions had.

He learned to tell them apart. He said he could tell the roar of the female lions from the roar of the male lions. For the female lions, they would roar when they did the hunting, when they brought the fresh kill to the male lion who sat waiting for it.

And as that male lion would look at that fresh kill before him, he would begin to lick his lips, and then he would roar. And his roar was quite different from the females. He would paw at his delicious meal before him, and roar over it before he ate it, as if to say, you're mine, you're mine.

And then he would devour it with delight. And Stephen Olford commented, the roar of the lion, as he was about to relish his delicious meal, is how we should approach the Word of God, with that same hunger and delight. And I want to take those comments of Dr. Olford, friends, and apply them this evening to our subject of revival.

Dr. Olford was a man of revival. He wrote the foreword to my first book on revival, Reality's Revival. And I believe we should approach the study of revival and praying for revival with that same hunger.

Listen, friends, the world's in such a sad shape, and society's spinning out of control and moral chaos, and the church sleeps soundly on pillows of conformity and compromise. But we, as believers, should have a hungering for revival. And that's the title of my message this evening, Hungering for Revival.

My text can be found in the Book of Psalms. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in Psalm 80, which I call the prayer for revival.

Psalm 80 is a lament, a plea, from the people of God, to God, to move among His people, to turn them back to Him, and for God to turn His face toward His people. The psalmist laments, turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. And that's the true essence of revival, friends.

Years ago, I was preaching on revival at the Stephen Olford Center in Memphis, Tennessee, and I made the following comment to a group of pastors concerned in the subject of revival. I said that, first, God will place a desire in your heart to learn more about revival. And as you take the time and study historical revivals and learn more about them, then God will deepen that desire and give you a desire to pray for revival.

And as you begin to pray on a regular basis for revival, then God will take that desire and give you a burden, a burden to see revival, and that burden for revival becomes a hunger in to see revival in such a degree, it's your meat and drink, for you long to see God move in the church and in the nation, in your day and in your generation, with the heaven-sent spiritual awakening to where the church is once again gripped with the consciousness of God. For when revival comes to a church, there's power of God in a meeting. I recall about two decades ago, actually it was about 1994, I was at a church that was experiencing God in a move in revival.

I haven't seen that touch of God since, but in that particular church, there was such an awful presence of the Almighty, all you could do was weep and repent of your sins. You couldn't drag the teenagers away from that church when God was there, they could not wait to get back to church to witness the power of God in a meeting. When revival comes, it's days of heaven on earth.

When God shows up in his manifest presence, all human props are swept away, swept from beneath us, and we're bowed down under the awful presence of God. There's a certain holy solemnity to revival, because men are quite suddenly gripped with eternity and the God of that eternity. I've been a student of revival, friends, for several decades, and have traveled to most of the historical sites where God has moved in revival.

Those scenes of revival that I have visited seem sacred still. I stood at the stone which marks the spot in Exeter, New Hampshire, where George Whitfield preached his last sermon of 4,000 hearers in a field, and there is a certain solemnity there still. I've walked the ground on the plot of land in Anfield, Connecticut, where the old meeting house stood, where on July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, where it was said that there were such shrieks and cries which arose to such a loud degree that the minister had to cease his sermon, for the people were bowed under the awful presence of the Almighty and felt as if hell itself was opening beneath them.

I've been to the land of revivals, traveling extensively throughout Scotland and Wales and England, visiting the various sites where God has seemed pleased to bring spiritual awakenings that swept thousands into his kingdom of light and life. I say all this because God first gave me the desire to study revival, then he deepened that desire to a burden and a hunger to see revival in our day, friends, and that's my hope this evening, that this message will so stir your own heart that you, too, will become a person of revival. First I'd like to read us an account of an actual revival and then lead us in the reading of prayer for revival in Psalm 80 with some brief commentary.

Listen, friends, things are so bad in society and so desperate in the church today. We desperately need revival in our time. If this nation does not turn back to the God of the Bible, we're facing utter ruin.

I've brought with me a book this evening. It's a copy of the biography of Duncan Campbell. It was given to me by a friend of his who is still living, and she signed this book for me.

I want to read you her inscription. To earnest with love and prayers, it was a great privilege for me to have worked with Reverend Duncan Campbell on the Isle of Lewis, signed Hester Randall. Well, Hester is married to Ted Randall, who is an expert on revival.

Ted's one of the few handful of men still living who actually witnessed a powerful move of God in revival. He's written many books on the subject of revival. They're both my dear friends, and they've encouraged me through the years to keep the burden for revival glowing.

We've prayed together for revival for a long time. I believe it's our duty and responsibility, friends, to pass on what we know about revival to others of a younger generation, to pass the baton, so to speak, to keep the revival fires glowing on the altar of our hearts, to lay hold of God in faith and prayer and not let go until we, like Jacob of old, receive a blessing from on high. I've made it my life's aim to leave a written legacy behind me so others can learn about revival.

I have 18 published books on the subject of revival. My preaching ministry is revival-based ministry, and I pray every day for revival to come in our land and in our world. Oh, friends, how I long to see God move in our day in revival.

I've seen dew drops here and there in the past, but oh, for a spiritual awakening that would grip this land from coast to coast. I want to give us an account from the Lewis Revival under Duncan Campbell, which occurred in Scotland in 1949 to 1952. It was said that a God consciousness swept the entire island.

I knew a man that knew Duncan Campbell personally, and he said that Duncan Campbell was an ordinary man who had had an extraordinary experience of God, and that's true, friends. Listen to this partial description of this revival, which occurred on the island of Lewis under the mighty preaching of Duncan Campbell. At times, the preacher's voice was drowned with the sound of men and women weeping uncontrollably.

On occasions, he found it necessary to stop preaching because of the distress manifested by those whose consciences had been awakened, men broken in spirit, wept openly over their sin. One man cycles down a road with the word of God pounding in his brain, causing him to dismount. It seems that hell has opened up, spitting out balls of fire on the road before him.

In the fields or at the weaving looms, men were overcome and prostrated on the ground before God. One said, the grass beneath my feet and the rocks around me seemed to cry, flee to Christ for refuge. The awful presence of God brought a wave of conviction of sin that caused even mature Christians to feel their sinfulness, bringing groans of distress and prayers of repentance from the unconverted.

Strong men were bowed under the weight of sin, and cries for mercy were mingled with shouts of joy from others who had passed into life. I will stop there. That's revival, friends.

When God shows up, men are bowed down under the weight of sin. Let me ask you, friends, when was the last time you were in a church service where people were gripped with the conviction of sin and crying out, what must I do to be saved? Oh, how I long to hear those cries of distress in our day's friends. George Whitfield said of the Camp Busline revival, where he preached to 30,000 people on a hillside at 11 o'clock at night.

He said that the scene before him looked like a battlefield, where the wounded lay on the ground in cries of distress for all that was to be heard. Well, I want to take this time now, friends, to go over our revival prayer this evening in Psalm 80, for I believe it will move our hearts up to our God as we prepare to pray this evening for revival. Notice in the Psalm how the plea from the people of God is for God to give ear, to turn us again, to look down from heaven and visit us again.

Here now is that beautiful Psalm, and it is my prayer that the great God on high will be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word by the power of his Holy Spirit. Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth before Aphraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up thy strength and come and save us.

Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Thou feedest them with the bread of tears, and giveth them tears to drink in great measure. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves.

Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. Thou preparest room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.

The hills were covered with the shadows of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.

Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down, they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.

Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee? Quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts.

Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Well, let us go now, friends, to the God of revival, and beseech him to pour out his mercies and showers of blessings upon his church and this land in our sad day of spiritual declension and moral chaos. Let us go now and pray.