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In the strictest sense, a revival is really a
spiritual awakening — a stirring of repentance among God's people to a fresh
obedience to God. However, in the casual sense, a revival has often been
used to refer to a special series of evangelistic church meetings, conducted
by an evangelist or minister, hoping to arouse renewed spiritual fervor. In
recent years, it was an annual tradition for many evangelical churches to
conduct one or more such meetings, which would extend nightly for a week or
longer. In years past I conducted hundreds of these type meetings, however,
due to the trends of our present society, prolonged revival meetings have
(sadly) become unpopular and nearly obsolete in some circles.
The idea of revivalism, and special meetings devoted
toward revival, emerged from the evangelistic preaching and prayer meetings
of the Great Awakening of the early to mid 1700's, with such famed preachers
as John Wesley, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. This was later
combined with the tradition of the camp style meetings of the early 1800's,
popularized by pioneer preachers such as Presbyterian, James McGready,
Methodist Circuit Rider, Peter Cartwright, and evangelist Charles Finney.¹
It's possible to conduct a series of revival meetings
anytime we wish. Such meetings would be advisable and a good idea for every
church, as has been the tradition of many evangelical churches at least a
couple times a year. But real revival — that is a spiritual awakening,
occurs only under certain conditions. Charles Finney (1792-1875) was one of
our nation's greatest revivalists, and taught on the subject later in his
life. In his "Lectures on Revival," Finney wrote that there are several
things that suggest when a revival is imminent: "First, when the providence
of God indicates that a revival is at hand... Second, where the wickedness
of the wicked grieves, humbles and distresses Christians... Third, when
Christians have a spirit of prayer for revival... And lastly, when believers
have a desire and anxiety to a call of repentance and to a new or fresh
obedience to God."²
History shows that the great revivals of times past
turned the tide of our nation's morality, yielded hundreds of thousands of
converts to Christ, reversed religious apathy and rekindled the spiritual
fervor of churchgoers. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1764), one of God's choice
instruments of the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century, described his
observations of the effect that revival has upon the hearts of people:³
(1) "Revival brings an extraordinary sense of the
awful majesty, greatness and holiness of God so as sometimes to overwhelm
soul and body, a sense of the piercing, all-seeing eye of God so as to
sometimes take away the bodily strength; and an extraordinary view of the
infinite terribleness of the wrath of God, together with a sense of the
ineffable misery of sinners exposed to this wrath."
(2) "Revival especially brings a longing after these
two things; to be more perfect in humility and adoration. The flesh and the
heart seem often to cry out, lying low before God and adoring Him with
greater love and humility... The person felt a great delight in singing
praises to God and Jesus Christ, and longing that this present life may be
as it were one continued song of praise to God. There was a longing as one
person expressed it, 'to sit and sing this life away;' and an overcoming
pleasure in the thought of spending an eternity in that exercise. Together
with living by faith to a great degree, there was a constant and
extraordinary distrust of our own strength and wisdom; a great dependence on
God for His help in order to the performance of any thing to God's
acceptance and being retrained from the most horrid sins."
By all means, a spiritual awakening is something
desperately needed again in our nation — an objective that every
Christ-devoted church should be praying for. Without exaggeration, America's
widespread sin and rebellion toward God has brought our nation to the
precipice of judgment and disaster.
The verse of scripture that probably best summarizes
the cause and effect of revival is found in 2 Chronicles. "If My people who
are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and
turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive
their sin and heal their land" (2 Chron. 7:14).
¹ Eerdman's Handbook to the History of
Christianity |