Revival In Our Lifetime

What do we mean by revival? In historical times this meant virtually an entire nation turning to God. On the island of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland, a few churches, families, even villages were left untouched, but almost everybody became a Christian. In Lewis, this situation continued for a long time, from 1820 to 1950, there were many waves of the Holy Spirit. One difference is that in Lewis people were taught the Bible from when they were children, and every family had family prayers. The preachers were converting people who were very open. Britain today is different. There is no general openness to Scripture. Dr. R. T. Kendall said,
'I have prayed for revival all my life, but I wonder if I will recognise it when it comes. Will I be able to cope with the packaging in which God sends it?' He was referring to the Toronto blessing in the 1990s, a kind of renewal where many people laughed with joy and fell on the floor as the spirit moved them.

Revival is seen by many as something that happens in a church. Charles Finney commented on the state of a church before a revival.
'Revival is needed when there is a worldly spirit in the church. The church has sunk down into a low and backslidden state when you see Christians conform to the world in dress, parties, seeking worldly amusement, and reading filthy novels.' There is a need for spiritual renewal in the church. 'A revival is near when Christians confess their sins to one another. Usually they confess in a genearl and half hearted manner, but it means nothing. But when there is an honest breaking down and a pouring out of the heart in confession of sin, the floodgates will soon burst open, and salvation will flow everywhere.' Without this cleansing from sin our ministry is ineffective. 'Unless you are right with God and filled with the Spirit, your work will be mechanical and fruitless.' Our churches in Britain are ageing, as Charles Finney describes. 'Without revivals there will usually not be as many people converted as there are die within a year. There have been churches in this country where all of the members have died off, and, since there were no revivals to convert others in their place, the church has died and the organisation has dissolved.' Our evangelism brings little response. 'Without a revival, sinners will grow harder and harder, despite preaching.' But if repentance and renewal occur within the church, together with intercessory prayer, there is every chance that there will be dramatic growth.

The revival in Lewis was founded on prayer.
'They had known revival and they knew how it came. It came, not by organising, by programmes, by games evenings, but by prayer - and they prayed; it came by soul travail - and they travailed.' Charles Finney says, 'A Christian who has this spirit of prayer feels anxious for souls, they are always on his mind. He thinks about them by day and prays about them by night. This is praying without ceasing.'

In the 1990s a number of Brazilian pastors came to Britain looking for a great revival. They didn't see a whole nation coming to Christ, although many of them expected to. By mid 1997 they had planted 100 English churches that were committed to 40 days of prayer and fasting. To be able to plant 100 churches in towns where many of the born again and evangelical churches are closing down is a revival of a kind, it is probably as much of a miracle as anything that happened on the island of Lewis.

Stuart Bell wrote about his prayer meetings in 1990s Lincoln. "If we called a prayer meeting today and followed the old form of praying singly out loud, we'd be at it for hours and hours. But if we raise our voices together as one voice in one accord, we have maximised our prayer through unity. As we get used to it, we'll begin to flow in it more and more, and we'll begin to reap the rich harvest of our sown seeds of prayer as a loud voiced church."

In the prophet Zecheriah in the Bible, there is a vision of a lampstand with two olive trees.
"What do you see?" (Zecheriah 4:1 - 3.)
"A solid gold lampstand with an oil container above it. On the stand there are seven lamps, each with seven flames. One olive tree is on the right side and another on the left of the oil container." Matthew Henry saw this as a vision of the church, which was the light of the world. The pipes that led the oil down to the lamps had to be clear and unobstructed by sin.

Stuart Bell (in his book In Search of Revival) warns of the danger of missing this vision. "Every great move of God has faced the hidden temptation of becoming inward looking and most have succumed to it. This happens when we become so engrossed with receiving and being blessed, with laughing or crying, and with falling down under the power, that we stop thinking about taking the light of God's presence into the darkness. We may well miss the very plan and purpose of God for this revival if we refuse to take the things God is doing among us out to the lost and dying world around us!" He also trains others to do the Lord's work. "If you want revival, then you need to learn how to delegate and share your leadership burdens. Share your vision and direction, and devote yourself to training and equipping new leaders." He believes that miracles are important. "I am convinced that the real key to revival is the appearance of miraculous signs and wonders in the church and in believers' lives. These open demonstrations of God's supernatural power can instantly cut through centuries of muddy human thought and generations of heathenism. But God only entrusts this kind of power to a wise and knowledgeable Church that carries His Son's name in honor and integrity."

Charles Finney writes about love as the key to maintaining a revival. "A revival is likely to stop when Christians lose the spirit of brotherly love." Stuart Bell also writes about love. "God the Father is waiting for us to rise up in the fullness of Christ to spread abroad the love of God in our hearts. Love is the answer to the world's hurts. It is love that draws men and women to repentance. Some may come because of initial fears about eternity spent in Hell, but it is the love of God that will keep them." Charles Finney also saw revival as a work that continued in the life of the Christian. "A revival will decline unless Christians are frequently revived." We need many revivals, and we need to each individually stay in revival all the time.