Skip to main content

Pray for Revival



 Do you ever pray for revival? Revival is related to the word revive, or to bring something back to life. Biblically speaking, revival refers to times when God moves in such a way as to stir Christians out of their complacency and into action. The church has a tendency to get stuck in a rut, going through the motions each week of “doing church,” and revival can help re-instill a sense of emotion and passion back into the congregation.   

 

Charles Finney is remembered for the many revivals his preaching helped usher in, and he once delivered a series of lectures on the topic of revival. The majority of his lectures focused on the key ingredient in any revival: prayer. We need to ask God to bring revival because it cannot be manufactured by people. But Finney pointed out that sometimes there is an ingredient that precedes prayer: wickedness. 

 

Finney said there had been times when great wickedness drove the people of God to their knees because they felt hopeless to do anything else. The “outrageous wickedness,” as he called it, disrupted the lives of the saved and opened their eyes to the state of carnality in their city. The wickedness of the world can be a good thing if God uses it to get the church’s attention. Finney said: 

 

“Let hell boil over if it will, and spew out as many devils as there are stones in the pavement, if it only drives Christians to God in prayer—it cannot hinder a revival…if Christians will only be humbled and pray, they shall soon see God's naked arm in a revival of religion.”  

 

There is no shortage of wickedness in the world still a century and a half after the death of Charles Finney. Drugs are destroying lives and communities; violent crime is on the rise; injustices abound, and American cities have burned to the ground. On top of that, the pandemic, runaway inflation, and the heartbreaking images out of Afghanistan are on everyone’s mind. These things can get us down, or they can get us down to our knees. 

 

It may just be that God uses these current events as the impetus for revival. Perhaps He is waiting even now for His people to humble themselves and pray. We know the unsaved world is worried about these things as well; maybe the coronavirus is causing people to stop and think about their own mortality. It may just be that the darkness of this world is making it ripe for revival. If you are not already praying for revival, will you join us in doing that now? 

 

“Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?”

Psalms 85:6

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Save a Life

(Like my blog about the peace symbol, this blog was written as a default response to all the parents, students, and other people who are asking my opinion of To Save a Life.) By now you have probably heard of the movie To Save a Life, which opened nation-wide in theaters on January 22nd. The movie deals with so many issues that teens face today, like suicide, cutting, drinking, drugs, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and abortion. At first glance this movie looks like an awesome resource that we should recommend for our teens, parents, youth pastors, and youth workers. But a closer look at the movie reveals a few disturbing things. For starters, according to pluggedin.com, there are 2 uses of the “A” word, 5 uses of hell (used as a curse word), and once the “D” word is used. There are other crude terms used to describe a girl, and crude terms for referring to sexual activity. There is also a bedroom scene that shows a girl removing a boy’s shirt, then afterwards the girl putting he...
38 comments
Read more

Evangelism

“Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” St. Francis of Assisi is given credit for this famous quote (although that exact phrasing does not appear in any of his writings), and a lot of people would think that this is a great philosophy. His actual quote was that everyone should “preach by their deeds.” Preaching with our deeds is not just a strategy, it is a necessity. We are commanded all through the Scriptures to let our light shine and be a peculiar people. People should be able to look at our lives and see that we are Christians. They should see the love of Christ readily on display, and thus feel compelled to live their lives in the same way. The sermon that we should preach with our lives is a sermon of love, joy, peace, patience, self-control, forgiveness, conviction, etc. But this idea that has emerged that says we should ONLY preach with our deeds is a heresy straight from the devil himself. Think about it: who is the one that does not want you t...
18 comments
Read more

All Things To All Men

One of our favorite verses to use in our evangelism methods is where Paul said that he “becomes all things to all men” so that he might “by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22).” This is certainly a good idea if we keep it in its proper context and application. For example, I remember a time in high school where I knew a kid that loved skateboarding. Being the chicken that I am, I was never a skateboarder. All he would talk about was skating, and I knew none of his lingo. But to help develop a relationship with him (he was new to our church and didn’t know many people), I brushed up on my skating lingo so I could ask if he had done any sick ollies lately (impressed?). This would be like Paul saying “to the skateboarder, I became a skateboarder.” This is effective and necessary. But then there are the people that use this verse to justify doing sinful things in the name of evangelism. The first one that comes to mind is about drinking. Some people will go into the bars to evan...
23 comments
Read more