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What Is "Revival"?
Posted by Les Puryear in Uncategorized
Martyn Lloyd-Jones defines revival as “period of unusual blessing and activity in the life of the Christian Church. Revival means awakening, stimulating the life, bringing it to the surface again. It happens primarily in the Church of God, and amongst believing people, and it is only secondly something that affects those that are outside also.”
Charles Finney defines revival in the following way: “It presupposes that the church is sunk down in a backslidden state, and a revival consists in the return of the Church from her backslidings and the conversion of sinners.”
Anne Graham Lotz defines revival as “an awakening in our relationship with God where we place Him first — first in our thoughts, first in our time, first in our activities, first in the way we spend our money. We make Him the priority of our lives.”
Is revival primarily a time of awakening of God’s people or it is evangelistic in nature toward unbelievers? The answer to this question is a resounding “Yes!”. Revival is not an “either/or” but it is a “both/and”. Revival is primarily a movement of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that “a revival is not the Church deciding to do something and doing it. It is something that is done to the Church, something that happens to the Church.” God’s people are renewed, refreshed, and revived in their walk with Jesus. Non-believers are regenerated and redeemed for the first time by Jesus.
We need true spiritual revival and awakening. We cannot cause nor manufacture revival. Revival is a work of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones reminds us, “A revival is a miracle. It is the hand of the Lord, and it is mighty. It can only be explained as the direct action and intervention of God. Men can produce evangelistic campaigns, but they cannot and never have produced a revival. A revival, by definition, is the mighty act of God and it is a sovereign act of God. It is as independent as that. Man can do nothing. God, and God alone, does it.”
We cannot cause revival to fall on us but we can pray. We can pray that the Lord God Most High will cause our hearts to turn from ourselves to Him. We can pray that He will cause us to fall in love with Jesus all over again. We can pray that God will move among us in a way that men can never do. We can pray that God show us His glory. We can pray that God will reveal the beauty of Christ to hearts that have gazed on ugliness far too long. We can pray that God will take the hardest heart and display His mighty power by exchanging hearts of stone with hearts of soft, pliable, moldable flesh.
Revival has to begin with us. Pray that the power of the living God will revive our spirits and renew our commitment to Jesus.
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Les,
Yes! Draw a circle. Kneel inside it. Pray God will send revival inside the circle. Don’t stop praying till He does. You won’t have to wait long.
What’s the Scriptural basis for “revival”?
This is a little ironic but Finney DID believe that revival is something we do. Lotz, as Billy Graham’s daughter, is bound to be cut from the same cloth and her focus in your quote seems to be on what ‘we’ do and how we change our focus. Lloyd-Jones most definitely did not think along those lines.
Lets put it on the calendar though and we’ll see how it works out.
Cyle,
Amen!
Bernard,
Entire books have been written to answer your question. A couple of choices are “Revival,” by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and “Firefall,” by Malcolm McDow.
If you want a few scripture references check out: 2 Chron. 7:14; Ps. 85:6; 1 Kings 18; Acts 2-4, etc. When God’s people turn from their wicked ways and turn to God, that is revival. There are many examples of this “turning back to God” in scripture.
Josh,
Yeah, I’m aware of the differing perspectives. That’s why I used them; to point out the varying definitions of revival.
Les
Les – no debate on “turning back to God” being Scriptural. Interesting that in this comment you define revival as “when God’s people turn from their wicked ways and turn to God”, yet in your original post, you said that we cannot cause nor manufacture revival, that it is entirely a work of God.
It’s difficult to differentiate the idea of true personal revival from the concept of a church or a community experiencing widespread conversions or renewal.
I don’t THINK the “concept” of “revival meetings” or “tent revivals” has much Scriptural basis. Of course, neither does Sunday School or Vacation Bible School, and I’m a supporter of both of those.
I’m seriously inquiring if anyone feels that modern day week long “revivals” can be supported by a Scriptural directive, or if it’s largely a tradition that we owe to Oral Roberts or someone like that.
Hey All,
To be perfectly honest, the whole idea of “revival” has always confused me. For instance, we are encouraged to pray for revival… but it seems to me that the people who are “really” praying for revival don’t need it and the people who aren’t “really” praying for revival don’t want it – so they’re prayers are essentially useless.
I also always felt like some of the people praying for revival were being more like pharisees – “God please changed all these people to be good Christians just like me.” I guess in a way I get that impression because of what I just stated, the people praying for revival are sometimes people who don’t think they need it, just others.
In your post, Les, you stated that “we cannot cause nor manufacture revival.” I completely agree. I never understood the planned, week-long revival thing. Whether it be a small local group or a Billy Graham event. It’s like we spend all our time and resources to try to get “backsliders” and non-Christians to go to these things so they can hopefully repent. I think it might be a better use of our time and money to build relationships with these people… instead of putting on a show for them.
I also think there is a lot of confusion as to what “revival” is. Meaning, we’ve over (or maybe under) defined the word. In this post you stated that revival is “an awakening of God’s people” AND “it is evangelistic in nature toward unbelievers.” But does that mean whenever a single person responds to the gospel a revival has happened? Or whenever a brother confesses his sin and repents a revival has happened? Or is it only when large groups do these things (as your coment seems to indicate)?
I read some of those verses that you provided for Bernard. I can see how Acts 2-4 can be interpreted as “revival” – but I am not sure the others, given their context, really have much to do with revival. At least, not how we use the word.
Anyways, I guess those are all my thoughts on the topic (for now).
God’s Glory,
Lew
The Pursuit Online Store
Bernard,
A large church in a large city in southwest Louisiana saw nearly 150 people saved in a week long event last year. Several hundred others made decisions, commitments. They prayed for 40 days as a church, invited lost people to come, and that’s what happened. Is there a Scriptural directive? No. Is there a historical precedent? Yes, for the past 1900 years it’s happened with some regularlity.
Some definitions I’ve used.
revival . . . when the church returns to God
spiritual awakening . . . when large numbers of the lost are born again
Neither term is found in Scripture, but both concepts are scriptural and are historical.
Cyle – I understand the historical precedent. I don’t know how to put my “thoughts” into words about this, I’m sorry. Thanks for your input.
Most people who want to find a biblical passage that supports their idea of revival point to Old Testament passages that indicate the people of Israel returning to God. But I’d say that a thorough review of all of those passages would reveal God moved the people to turn first. Not only that, there was also a return to God’s word as well so you can pray all you want but if folks aren’t willing to dust off their bibles and study up then its just another date on the calendar. It’s not something we can just throw on the calendar and expect God to honor it. So first it has to be God’s idea and second we have to respond to it. That was the point I was clumsily attempting to make above.
I guess my “confusion” about “revival” is this – If a church is so revived by services from Monday through Saturday, why in the world is the Sunday morning worship still the same old same old, with no evidence of God working? Why does “a revival service” have to be special? Why can’t EVERY church service be prayed over so intently? Why don’t we focus on things EVERY week? When did God ask us to turn away from Him so that He could do a mighty thing in bringing us back?
I think we should be repenting for going stale rather than blaming God for our stagnation by saying “God, if you’ll just revive me, I’ll be on fire for you”.
Is that “works based” justification? No, it’s “attitude based relationship”.
Just because God hasn’t “sent a revival” doesn’t give me – or anybody else – an excuse for being sub-par. My lack of participation in God’s work doesn’t indicate a lack of power on God’s part. The Bible teaches that God is at work. We need to get on board and join Him in His work, not pray for Him to get to work.
I think what I’m trying to say is that God sent the ultimate revival when He sent Jesus Christ to the cross. That message doesn’t change.
The harvest may be “riper” at other times, but I feel that my prayer should be for God to work mightily in lives and hearts. I pray that He will use me to do that. I pray that His Spirit will touch other believers to join Him in his work. I pray that He will use His followers to accomplish His work, which was both begun and completed at the cross.
I pray that His people will be encouraged.
But I don’t personally think that having any series of meetings, or a single meeting, and calling it a “revival”, even if God moves mightily, is really the goal. I’ve seen a lot of people who are almost “revival chasers”. They’re not happy unless they are experiencing the “revival spirit”. Normal church services are thus boring, in a way, because there’s less expectation and less intensity. NOBODY seems to pray for NORMAL Sunday morning services the same way we do for “revival” services. I wonder if we wouldn’t see God move more mightily on Sunday if we had higher expectations and more interest in that service, like we do on a Friday night????
[...] What Is Revival? from SBC Impact [...]
A revival might be considered simply a local church phenomenon, a quickening, a renewing of commitment and energy of believers. A Great Awakening is a much more extensive event. It actually involves the coming down of Heaven to earth, a heavenly presence, in conjunction with the theology of Sovereign Grace. Research in the history of the Great Awakenings show this to have been the case.
Many of Lloyd-Jones’ books, as you pointed out, are helpful on the subject of revival.
In addition, Jonathan Edwards’ thoughts on the subject are very good. He believed that fervent corporate prayer was the essential predecessor of revival.
You can find his well-known plea for corporate prayer for revival in many locations online. You have to love the subtitle of his treatise:
A Humble Attempt to Promote the Agreement and Union of God’s People Throughout the World in Extraordinary Prayer For a Revival Of Religion And The Advancement Of God’s Kingdom On Earth, According To Scriptural Promises And Prophecies Of The Last Time.
The interesting thing is that the promises pleaded for the Second Great Awakening and the Great Century of Missions were probably those listed in Edwards’ Humble Attempt. I went through his tract once and listed about 100. Carey’s text for Expect…Attempt Isa. 54 is very likely taken from Edwards’ work. The same promises serve as reasons for our pleas for a present world-wide awakening. The enemy has come in like a flood, the Lord shall lift up a standard, a counter flood, a tsunami against him. That’s a prophecy and a promise to plead for such a visitation in this generation. The flood gates might be about to be opened by the Lord of Heaven and earth. Let us pray that it might be so.