Introduction to Revival

We are in Evangelism Awakening, Revival Institutes, and if you'll turn in your handout to session one, Introduction to Revival, Vance Havner said, everybody is holding revivals. It's about time somebody let loose a one. Revival is not evangelism.

Most churches, when they advertise a meeting, they're hoping for some new additions through evangelism. Revival is a sovereign work of Almighty God, where he shows up in the midst of his people, in his manifest presence, where the awful solemnity of a holy God is felt in a congregation, and lives are transformed. Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh, Scotland, has been the scene of several revivals in the past, and its pastor, one-time pastor Joseph Kemp, described one such heavenly visitation.

Quite suddenly, one upon another came an overwhelming sense of the reality and awfulness of his presence, and of eternal things. Revival changes the spiritual life of a church, friends. It brings it up for a time to heaven's level.

Duncan Campbell wrote of the Lewis Revival in the Scottish Hebrides. The awful presence of God brought away the 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.

Well, that's a good description. Revival is a wind of grace from heaven blowing on the people of God. First Chronicles 14 15 reads, And it shall be, when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shall go out to battle, for God has gone forth before thee to smite the host of the Philistines.

Revival is heaven invading earth to realign the strain backslidden people of God back to God in a right relationship to Him. It has been said that evangelism is something we do for God. Revival is something God does for us.

I believe that is a apt description of the work of a heaven-sent revival. Charles Finney wrote that the need for revival presupposes a fallen away. When there is a worldly spirit in the church, there is need of revival.

The church is clearly backslidden when Christians conform to the world and dress in attitudes seeking worldly entertainment. It shows they're far from God and need awakening. Well those are wise words from Finney.

We see that revival is needed when the church is lukewarm in its love toward God, lack and zeal in its witness to the world and self-love and self-preservation has crept into the lives of believers. In 1740, when God moved through New England, it was called the Great Awakening. Revival has often been referred to as an awakening.

At Gethsemane, Jesus faced the crisis point of his earthly ministry and his disciples slept right through it. Today, the church is in a crisis point and we are sleeping right through it. Revival awakens and realigns the people of God to their duty of evangelism and love for others.

Often, revival comes when times are the bleakest in society and the church is at a spiritual low web. Jonathan Edwards wrote wisely on this subject. He said, we see that God is faithful and never will forget the promises that he has made to his church and that he will not suffer the smoking flax to be quenched, even when the floods seem to be overwhelming it.

But we'll revive the flame again, even in the darkest times. Well, we're living in some pretty dark times today, friends, and it should be obvious to us that when society is spinning out of control and moral chaos and evil is called good in the land, that the spiritual ground is ripe for revival. This is when the people of God should be on their faces before God, crying out to God to send forth his plentiful effusions of divine grace to a parched land.

We read in Hosea, so do yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain righteousness upon you. And in times of revival, God will raise up his human instruments of revival, like a Wesley or a Whitefield. At the height of the revival of religion in England, John Wesley cried out, give me 100 men who fear nothing but God and hate nothing but sin, and I will shake the gates of hell.

And he did just that. Revival times are the most exciting of times, for it is a time when heaven comes down to earth. George Whitefield said of preaching Christ in the open air in London, such a sight I never saw before.

I believe there were no less than 50,000 people and near four score coaches, besides great number of horses. God gave me great enlargement of heart. I continued my discourse for an hour and a half, and when I returned home, I was filled with such love, peace, and joy that I cannot describe it.

Well, times revival are unusual times, when people throng the house of God to hear a preacher speak about God and to hang on every word, as if the very atmosphere is charged of heaven. People will stay in church for hours at a time, as if on the verge of eternity. George Whitefield's crowds would stand out in the rain and snow for hours to hear him preach in the open air, and people would meet at all odd hours of the morning.

An eyewitness account of Whitefield preaching in New England in 1740 is given by a local minister. An immense crowd is hurrying at five or six o'clock in the morning to the corner of High and Federal Streets, and some of them, men and women, young and old, have come riding or afoot, even from Raleigh, for what strange thing, of all other strange things, to hear a sermon. But the preacher is George Whitefield.

He gives out his text, ye are the salt of the earth. Then his voice rolls over the assembly as he begins, and whom does the apostle mean when he says, ye are, why you, ye saints of Newberry, but I fear ye have lost your savor. Well, revival times are remarkable times, friends.

Oh, how we desperately need such times in our day. Our crowd today should be one with the writer of 2 Chronicles. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Well, that's our introduction to revival, friends. We'll pick up at the next session.