The When of Revival

Our topic this evening, friends, is the subject of revival. The title of message is Revival When, and we will explore several aspects as to the when of revival. First, I will list them for us and then elaborate on each head as we proceed.

Number one, when is revival needed? Number two, when does God send revival? And number three, when God visits in revival. Let's look at the first aspect of the when of revival. When is revival needed? Several decades ago, I met with a group of men in my home whom I was discipling at the time.

We were studying the topic of revival and going through a book by Charles Fanny entitled Lectures on Revival, which I believe now is out of print. But as we studied that book, we learned an important precept from Fanny in regard to understanding when revival is needed. Fanny stated that a revival of true Christianity presupposes a fallen away.

And that's a true statement, friends. The church needs revival because she has fallen away from the living God of the Bible. A nation needs national revival because she has turned her back on the God of the Bible.

I have my copy of Fanny's book here before me. Let me read a paragraph to you in regard to when revival is needed. Here now are his words.

Look back at the history of the Jews. God maintained devotion among them by special times of great awakening when people turned to the Lord. But soon after they had been revived, the Jews faced opposition and their spirituality declined until God had time, so to speak, to shape events, to produce another awakening, and again pour out his spirit to convert sinners.

When the opposition began afresh, religion degenerated, and again the nation was sucked down by a whirlpool of luxury, idolatry, and pride. I will stop there from quoting Charles Fanny. I part company with Fanny on a good part of what he has to say in regard to revival, but I do agree with the statement that revival presupposes a fallen away.

And that's true, friends. Look at the church today and see her sad spiritual declension, her congregations are sound asleep, her pulpits compromised with a perverted gospel, the church is cold and sends forth her chilly blasts. What comes from the pulpit is mostly teaching, and what little preaching there is has become cerebral.

The Bible is taught, but the heart is not touched and lives are not transformed. People leave the sanctuary the same way they came in, unchanged. There is little burdened prayer, and there are fewer brokenhearted people truly seeking God's face for revival in our time.

What we have in most churches on Sunday morning is either complete nonsense with Hollywood entertainment and funny stories or dry lectures and liturgy. What takes place on Sunday morning in most churches is the status quo, which means business as usual. And I ask, where is the God consciousness in our churches today? Where is the power of God in a meeting? Where are the broken hearts, burdened with prayer, praying for the lost? Why has the fire gone out of the church in our day? It's because we need revival, friends.

I want to list for us at this time what I feel are the telltale signs of when we need revival. Oh, we need revival when, number one, the people of God have lost their love for God. This is a telltale sign, friends, of a need for revival when the people of God have lost their love relationship to Jesus.

I remember the evangelist Mordecai Ham, and it was Billy Graham who was converted under Mordecai Ham's powerful preaching. They became friends, and one day Billy Graham visited Ham seeking his advice and ministry. Mordecai Ham had this to say to Billy Graham, I have only one bit of advice to give you, Billy.

Never lose your sweetheart love for Jesus. And friends, that is the number one problem in the church today. We have lost our sweetheart love for Jesus.

We are like the church in Ephesus and Revelation who left their first love and Jesus rebuked them by saying, remember from where you have fallen and repent. When revival comes, friends, the first thing that happens is the people of God are swept away by the love of God and fall back in love with Jesus, the lover of their souls. Number two, we need revival when Christians fall easily into sin.

This is the biggest problem in our churches today, believers struggling with sin and having little victory over it. Rather, it is easy to fall into sin because we have fallen out of love with Jesus. So the world occupies our thoughts, our lusts dictate our behavior, and our pride keeps us from seeing our wretched condition and turning from our wicked ways through a repentant heart.

Number three, we need revival when our eyes are dry and our Bibles are a closed book. There is little brokenhearted prayer today over the lost. Years ago, you could walk into a prayer meeting and hear the sobs of brokenhearted saints praying over the lost souls in their community.

But how can we today call ourselves a church when the carpets in our sanctuaries are not wet from the tears of the brokenhearted people of God crying out to God over the sins of the land and the perishing souls all around us. We don't know our Bibles today and we don't know the God of the Bibles either because we spend so little time with either of them. Most churchgoers would rather watch their favorite TV show than read their Bibles or pray for the lost.

Most pastors today only spend 10 minutes a day in prayer. They'd rather be consumed with the entertainment of this world than spend their free time on their knees and in their Bibles. Number four, we need revival when we have lost our concern for the lost and perishing.

Very few Christians even witness today or share their faith. Let me ask you a question, friend. Who have you witnessed to this week? How many persons did you witness to last week? Have you told anyone about Jesus today or are you keeping Jesus to yourself? How did you come to Christ but had not someone told you about the one who came down here so we can go up there? Well, let us now look at this second aspect of the wind of revival.

When does God send revival? Revival is a sovereign work of God. We cannot produce revival, friends. The wind blows where it wishes but we can set ourselves to prepare for those revival winds when they do begin to blow.

But I think I can answer this question from what I've studied in historical revivals. I've been a student of revival for several decades and I see that God normally sends an outpouring of his grace and revival and spiritual awakening when things are as black as night, society seems morally bankrupt and spinning out of control, and the church is sound asleep at the wheel. Pretty much the condition of our present hour when all seems hopeless and all hope is gone.

Then God steps in with a mighty outpouring of effusions of his grace. This was the case with the revival of religion under Wesleyan Whitfield in the mid-18th century. London churches were dead in their formality and rituals.

The average minister was an unconverted man. The blind were leading the blind. Alcoholism was rampant in London.

Historical records state that every fifth house in London was a gin shop. Sexual perversion was common and moral indecency prevalent in society. Then God stepped in with a powerful revival of religion and raised up young men like Wesleyan Whitfield and Hal Harris and others to proclaim the gospel of the Son of God and Great Britain was shook for God.

So we cannot produce revival, but we can pray for it. We can prepare our hearts and realign our lives back to God to bend his ear to be merciful and send forth his revival winds and to stir the tops of the mulberry trees. I want us now to see this third aspect of the wind of revival and that is when God visits in revival.

When God comes in revival and reveals his manifest presence amidst his people, then all human props are kicked out from beneath us as God takes the field. The manifest presence of God in revival will melt the hearts of sinners, save the most wicked person in town, bringing them under great conviction of sin. Let me read you a quote from George Whitfield's journal taken from 1738 as he preached outside of London in a grassy area out in the open air.

Preached in the evening at Cannington Common to about 15,000 people and we had an extraordinary presence of God amongst us. Listen friends, that awful presence of God will bring many under conviction of sin. One of the first things that will happen to a church in revival is that the people of God will turn in repentance toward God and get in a right relationship with him.

Amos 3.3 declares, how can two walk together except they be agreed? Revival brings the people of God back into a close intimate walk with God. Revival brings a church to her knees. Prayer, which was almost non-existent, now becomes the life of the church.

Even prayer meetings are fully attended and people can't wait to get into the presence of God to pray. Revived people are praying people, so there'll be a strong emphasis on prayer and prayer meetings be taking place at all odd hours of the day. Listen friends, when God comes in revival and there is a God consciousness in the sanctuary, you'll not be able to keep the teenagers away.

They'll flock to church to have that encounter with God. There'll be a God consciousness there. Also, the preaching during times revival will be powerful and life-changing.

The great doctrines of the Bible will be proclaimed with a new authority. Ministers will be encouraged by the results of the revival as more sinners come to Christ in seasons of revival than in decades of steady evangelism. For it is God who takes the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh.

God's authority and power will sound forth through the gospel message and sinners will be converted as they are gripped with eternity and the God of that eternity. Often burdened sinners under conviction of sin will rush the platform to get near to God. The missionary Reese Howells said of the revival he saw in Africa that the people had such a vision of Christ on the cross lifted up that they rushed forward to get to Christ and in the process almost knocked the pulpit over.

When God grips the heart of sinners in seasons of revival, they are melted down under the awful presence of the Almighty. During the revival which took place on the big island of Hawaii in 1835 under the preaching of Titus Cohen, who saw so many saved during that time, he became known as the Saint Peter of Hawaii. Here is an extract from that powerful revival under Titus Cohen which gripped the island and the natives hearts were taken.

For God, this is from that diary entry. There was trembling, weeping, sobbing, and loud crying for mercy, sometimes too loud for the preacher to be heard, and in hundreds of cases his hearers fell in a swoon. Some would cry out, the two-edged sword is cutting me to pieces.

The wicked scoffer who came to make sport dropped like a dog and cried, God has struck me. The preaching in times revival, friends, will be anointed preaching in the power of the Holy Ghost and lives will be transformed for eternity. Listen, friends, our pulpits today lack power.

Let's be honest with ourselves. There can be only one answer to the question of why has the church lost her power? The answer lies in the reality that the church has forsaken the third person of the Trinity, replacing him with programs, money, and man-centered methodologies. Our relies today is on ourselves, on money and manpower rather than God and Holy Ghost power.

We need a touch from heaven to empower us to pray, preach, and witness with an endowment from on high. When God visits in revival, the life of an entire community is changed. Let me read you about the revival in Wales in 1904.

It's taken from a newspaper articles reported in December of 1904. There had been no arrests for drunkenness since the revival had started. The earnings of the workmen, instead of being squandered in drinking vice, were now bringing great joy to their families.

Outstanding debts were paid. Restitution was the order of the day. The gambling and alcohol business lost their trade and the theaters closed down from lack of patronage.

The quarrels of local Christians were healed. One of the most outstanding features of the revival was the confession of sin, not among the unsaved alone, but among the saved. All were broken down and melted before the cross of Christ.

Listen friends, when I have studied revivals throughout history, I often see that three main streams flow into the life of the church in times of revival. Number one, divisions between brethren are healed and there is unity in the body of Christ. Number two, holiness, which was almost non-existent before, now is on the forefront of everyone's minds as their walk with God is reinvigorated with a new force.

And number three, evangelism, previously on the back burner, is now front and central as everyone in the church is now an evangelist burning to bring the lost in. So we've seen these aspects of the when of revival, when is revival needed, when does God send revival, and when God visits in revival. Let us prepare our own hearts, friends, and enter into personal revival of our own so we can pray right for a national awakening to grip our land.

Oh, how desperately we need God to send revival to us at this tragic hour. Let us go to our knees in prayer and seek our God with fervency and humility. Let me close this message with a reading from the word of God as found in Psalm 80.

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends, and I will read us this portion of scripture as it pertains to our topic this evening for in this psalm we have all the ingredients necessary for a move of God in revival. Listen to the desperate cry of the psalmist as he bends the ear of God to move the heart of God, and may it be our prayer as well. And as I read us this psalm, friends, think of mighty England and Scotland and their missionary enterprise in former days in bringing the gospel to the nations, and how desperately they need revival at this hour.

Think of the nation of Wales, the land of revivals, how dry the ground is in Wales now, and how in need of revival showers they are to awaken the slumbering churches there. Think of America and how she was blessed by God in former days through spiritual awakenings, and how she has forsaken God and is now under the judgment of God, and only a heaven-sent revival will keep her from utter ruin. Dear friends, this is a desperate time in which we live.

We desperately need God to send us revival. Please listen carefully as I read us God's word to us now. Here now is the word of God.

May the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word. Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth before Ephraim 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 givest 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 shadow 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 beasts 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 madeest 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, friends, let's take this time right now to go to our knees in prayer and pray to the God of heavens that in his mercy and grace he will send revival to us at this desperate hour. Let us pray.