Expecting A Great Revival

A month after my wife’s cardiac arrest and subsequent recovery/healing miracle—the Lord began to speak to me about revival. Before I was about to fall asleep one night, I had an impression/thought (whatever you would like to call it), but I believe the Lord spoke to me and told me to study revival. Honestly, I had no clue where to start. I’ve studied church history, but not with the focus on revivals and testimonies from people who experienced revival.

I asked the Lord where to start, and the name Martin Lloyd-Jones came to mind. Years ago I had listened to a sermon by him, but that was the extent of my knowledge about him. So I googled “martyn lloyd-jones revival,” and to my surprise, he had an entire sermon series and a book titled “Revival.” In 1959, he interrupted his teaching on the Epistle to the Ephesians to preach about revival on the 100th anniversary of the Welsh Revival in 1859. The book was so impactful to me, and I developed a strong hunger to pray, expect, and to see a great revival in our day.

The Need for Revival

In Revival, J.I. Packer writes,

“The divine visitation that revives… cannot be precipitated by human effort, even though our not caring about it and not seeking it can effectively quench the Spirit and block it. To acknowledge our present impotence and cry to God for such a visitation is… a supreme priority for the church today. But we shall not do this until we grasp the need for revival, and that will not happen until we see that nothing less can help us. Self-confidence, however, currently masks this from us. Shall we ever change at this point?”

I would argue that a large portion of Christians in the United States do not see the urgent need for revival today. Do you think Christians are becoming a reflection of the culture the Lord commanded us to be set apart from? Statistics show the church becoming bankrupt, divided, young people leaving, and evangelism is now viewed by many as “radical.” I haven’t even mentioned materialism, racism, sexism, and hyper-sexuality… (shocking!) Did you think #metoo only applied to Hollywood?

Check The Pulse

I was a guest speaker at a church recently, and I went to go speak about the issue of sex trafficking. It’s horrific, evil, and this dark force is continuing to spread throughout the world. After my talk, I met a gentleman who asked me, “what do you think is the solution to this evil?” I replied, “Revival!” The church has changed the world many times in history and has brought major social change, i.e. Wilberforce and slavery, Luther and literacy, William Booth and the Salvation Army, etc. There is a great book about this by Dr. Jeremiah Johnston, Unimaginable: What Our World Would Be Like Without Christianity

He said, “yeah, I pray for revival.” So I said, “let’s pray right now for revival,” and he said, “no, I’m ok.” I recognized his apathy because before I had my most recent encounter with the Lord, I probably would have responded the same way. My expectations of what God could do was below what Scripture promised. Do you recognize the need for revival? Do you expect revival?

To acknowledge our present impotence and cry to God for such a visitation is… a supreme priority for the church today.

J.I. Packer

Carry The Burden For Revival

I’ve seen more miracles, signs, and wonders in the past six months than I have seen in my entire life. We are at a critical and important time in history when the church can shine! If you are a Pastor or church leader I would be very excited about what God is going to do in this season. Something has to be dead or dying in order for it to be revived!

Here are some valuable reads on the current condition of Christianity in the U.S:

The Great Evangelical Recession by John Dickerson; Prepare: Living Your Faith in an Increasingly Hostile Culture by Dr. Paul Nyquist (a previous professor of mine).

I pray you are not discouraged when you read the stats about the condition of the church. I pray that you will desire to know what we are up against and the urgent need for revival.

The Spirit coming in unusual power has given an exceptional glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Do you not long for it? Do you not long to see it and feel it? Do you not long to know what it is to be overwhelmed by a sense of His glory, His majesty and all the fullness of His goodness? Seek it, my friend. Seek it personally, Seek it for the Church in general, not only in this country, but everywhere throughout the world. The need of the hour, individually and collectively, is the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones