EXPERIENCE REVIVAL IN YOUR LIFE AND CHURCH

A few years ago, Tony Campolo is reported to have said, “There is a revival going on in the world and the reason you don't know about it is because you live in America.” That wasn’t always true in America. There have been some genuine revivals in America.

First there was the Great Awakening in the 1730’s that broke loose largely at the preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Then in 1796 the Second Great Awakening began, marked  by the preaching of James McGready. Revivals broke out wherever he preached, his life was threatened in a letter written in blood, and his pulpit was burned down. He influenced Barton Stone, who alongside Baptist, Methodist, and independent preachers preached at Cane Ridge, KY, in 1801. The roads to Cane Ridge were clogged for miles with wagons, carriages, horsemen, and people who walked to get there. Between twenty and thirty thousand attended. They stayed until food supplies ran out. Then in 1802, revival came to the campus of Yale. It was a day in which unbelief was rampant at schools started to be Christian schools. At the preaching of Timothy Dwight, Yale's president, hundreds of students gave themselves to Christ. Soon this revival spread to other colleges.

Yet there has not been another revival in America like those for many years.

So what is revival? We used to hold “revivals” in churches ever year where we would have an evangelist and music team come and hold a week or two of meetings in the church. Many people were won to Christ through these meetings, but they were not really revivals.

Revival cannot be programmed. It might be defined as God acting to restore his own backsliding people to repentance, faith, and obedience, moving them out of spiritual lethargy to enthusiastically serve him.

So what will it take to have revival in your church in 2009? Consider 2 Chronicles 7:14 when God spoke to Solomon after the dedication of the Temple. God offered to Solomon four prerequisites to revival that need to be present in our lives and churches.

(1) Genuine Humility. God said to Solomon, “If my people will humble themselves.” In 2 Chronicles 12, King Rheoboam demonstrated this kind of humility, after demonstrating pride and arrogance at the beginning of his reign, when the Lord sent the King of Egypt against Judah after they turned away from the Lord. In response, Rheoboam and the nation’s leaders humbled themselves before God, and God promised them deliverance. C.S. Lewis called this kind of humility “blessed self-forgetfulness.”

(2) Active Seeking. The Lord said to Solomon, "If my people will...seek my face." There are numerous Bib le passages calling for God’s people to seek him. We have an example of such seeking in King Asa of Judah in 2 Chronicles 14-16. When he came to power he did what was right before God, tore down the foreign altars, and called for the people to seek the Lord. He called to the Lord when threatened, and the Lord struck down their enemies. How good are you, how good is your church at seeking the Lord in every circumstance?

(3) Serious Prayer. God said to Solomon, "If my people will...pray.” God told Solomon that his ears were now attentive to the prayers offered in the temple they had dedicated. God is ready to listen if we will pray. In two dramatic incidents in his life, King Jehoshaphat practiced such prayer and called on the Lord as recorded in 2 Chronicles 18 and 20. First, when King Ahab sought for Jehoshaphat to attack Ramoth-Gilead with him, Jehoshaphat agreed to do so only after seeking the Lord’s direction which he did through Micaiah. Then as an army came against them, Jehoshaphat sought the Lord through Jahaziel and was told that the battle was not his, but God’s. Jonathan Edwards once said, "When God has something very great for his church, it is his will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of his people."

(4) Honest Repentance. The Lord said to Solomon, "If my people turn from their wicked ways.” In 2 Chronicles 29 and 30, King Hezekiah led Judah in repentance by reopening and purifying the temple, and once again celebrating the Passover. Repentance is essential for the church to experience revival. Samuel Johnson said it this way: “Repentance is always difficult, and the difficulty grows still greater by delay.”

If we will practice these four prerequisites of revival, we have a promise from the Lord: he will hear from heaven and will forgive our sin and heal our land. Find ways in 2009 to seek revival for your church, and the Lord will bless us beyond anything we can imagine.