What is revival?
What does it look like?
How should we pray for it?
What are it's counterfeits?
Revival
Schoel,
It is very interesting that you brought this up. I was thinking of starting a thread like this only saying "what is revival and is it supported in Scripture?"
It is very interesting that you brought this up. I was thinking of starting a thread like this only saying "what is revival and is it supported in Scripture?"
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
This is also a favorite subject of mine, since i am so hungry for it but have not yet experienced it. The revivals in the past that I have read about seem to start with a faithful few praying in brokeness and desperation. i am sure this is not always the case, but it seems to be a pattern.
I am very anxious to hear Steve's thoughts on this.
TK
I am very anxious to hear Steve's thoughts on this.
TK
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
"Were not our hearts burning within us? (Lk 24:32)
Some questions for Steve et al:
Is a revival initiated by the activity of men or God?
Why would God not always be initiating revival if He takes the initiative?
If God initiates a revival, does He interfere in our free will in some way to get things going? Or act only through providential means?
When we pray for a revival, what action do we expect God to take to initiate revival if He does not interfere with free will? (i. e. bring calamity, suffering, etc.)
Are we to pray and wait for God to respond or is it up to us to take the initiative?
Do revivals occur because we are "doing the right things" or do they occur when things get really bad, or a combination of both? (it seemed like a revival almost occured after 9/11 but it quickly faded)
What cases of what would be called revival are in the bible and which of the above (or other) conditions were involved in a causitive or contributing way?
Is a revival initiated by the activity of men or God?
Why would God not always be initiating revival if He takes the initiative?
If God initiates a revival, does He interfere in our free will in some way to get things going? Or act only through providential means?
When we pray for a revival, what action do we expect God to take to initiate revival if He does not interfere with free will? (i. e. bring calamity, suffering, etc.)
Are we to pray and wait for God to respond or is it up to us to take the initiative?
Do revivals occur because we are "doing the right things" or do they occur when things get really bad, or a combination of both? (it seemed like a revival almost occured after 9/11 but it quickly faded)
What cases of what would be called revival are in the bible and which of the above (or other) conditions were involved in a causitive or contributing way?
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
A Berean
In my opinion, the history of the church divides into two branches after the third or fourth century—one is the history of the institutional "Christian" religion (which occupies most books on "church history"), and the other is the history of revivals. As near as I can tell, the former is not really the history of the church at all, since the original church (in Acts) began and spread in a revival. Therefore, when revivals occur, they continue the work of God in the character of the church at its founding.
Interestingly, though revivals often bless and add numbers to the institutional churches, they often are brought about through individuals who are not "authorized" or "sponsored" by the institutional churches (e.g., Jesus, Saint Patrick, Peter Waldo, Hus, Luther, Count von Zinzendorf, John Wesley, the Plymouth Brethren, Charles Finney, Evan Roberts, Lonnie Frisbee, etc.)—and when someone who actually is a minister of the institutional church is the spearhead of a revival (e.g., Savanorola, Jonathan Edwards, etc.), they are often persecuted by many of their brethren in the institution.
A revival has several elements. The timing of revival almost inevitably will be at the end of a dry period of organized religion, at a time when public morals and spiritual interest are at an unusually low state. Usually (though not in every case), it begins with one or a few individuals who are burdened over the abysmal state of religion in their day, who set about to pray in earnest for God to revitalize themselves and the church. Through the prayers and preaching of this seed group, there follows a quickening of the spiritual vitality of the believing community—accompanied by or resulting in a sense of conviction of sin and dread of judgment—followed by deep repentance and reformation of conduct.
While this usually begins with the church itself, a true revival generally spreads to the sinners outside the religious community, so that many souls are harvested through mass conversions, and public morality and civility improve, even among the unconverted. In most cases, the character of the city and surrounding environs is transformed, so that it is not unusual for all the bars to close permanently, the jails to be empty, and a great reverence for God to prevail in the society at large.
The history of revivals (and of the true "church") does not begin in the New Testament, but in the Old. In the days of Enosh, son of Seth, "men began to call on the name of Yahweh." The Exodus was something of a revival, and the book of judges records many cycles of revival, headed up by various judges. Some of the pre-Christian prophets also saw some of the elements of revival in their days—e.g., Samuel, David, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah (in Josiah's reign), Zechariah, Haggai and John the Baptist.
This history continues in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles, and right through the time of the Imperial Persecutions, the Medieval Age, the Reformation and up to the present day.
I not only have had the privilege of being in the midst of a wonderful revival (the Jesus Movement of the 1970's), but have made the history of revivals a matter of special study for many years. Once you have seen a real revival, or acquired a taste for such through reading the histories, unless you backslide in heart, you can never be fully content with "religion as usual" again.
There are conflicting views concerning the role of God's sovereignty in revivals:
One of the most amazing revivalists of all time was Charles G. Finney, through whose ministry it is estimated that over 2 million people were converted in America, in the 1800's—of whom 85% are said to have continued in the faith after the revival passed. Finney believed and taught that revivals can be had whenever Christians meet certain conditions for them. They are not sovereignly ordained by God for certain seasons, but are the natural result of certain prerequisite actions, even as sowing and watering seeds are actions that bring a predictable crop and harvest. Those who take Finney's view often tell us that revivals never really have to end, but that God would give perpetual revival to the church, if only the Christians would continue to cultivate it.
On the other hand, there are those (often Calvinists, like Edwards, Spurgeon, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, etc.) who see the timing and frequency of revivals to be less predictable and more directly related to God's sovereign providence.
It is hard to say who is correct, since, even if Finney is right in identifying prayer and repentance as precursors to revival, one might argue that the church will not be inclined toward the proper degree of prayer and repentance without God having sovereignly poured out the desire for these things upon His people.
It is important to note that God has sent revivals through men of various theological persuasions. Finney was a Pelagian, Wesley an Arminian, Whitfield, Edwards and Brainerd were Calvinists; the Plymouth Brethren and Chuck Smith are dispensationalists, the anabaptists were historic premillennial, Hus and Luther were amillennialists, and Jonathan Edwards was postmillennial. God apparently does not pay much attention to men's theological orientation, but to their passion, in choosing instruments for revival.
It is my present theory that God deliberately sends revivals for specific seasons—in order to revitalize a church that is nearly dead and to increase the ranks through a massive harvest—and then lifts the revival for a season—in order to test the fruit and eliminate the "chaff" who were gathered in merely because of the popularity of the movement and who only are interested in the "good vibes" and phenomena that are often the result of the showers of blessing that revivals bring. Just like the seasons of the agricultural year, there is a cycle. We certainly see such an unmistakable cycle in the book of judges, for instance, as well as in the history of the true church.
When the revival "hits" and prevails, it is easier than at other times to get sinners converted (because they have been supernaturally made concerned about their souls) and to get Christians filled with the Holy Spirit. There is nothing like the excitement of a revival in full bloom! It seems, sometimes, that the whole world will soon be converted and the end will come (which is why revivals are so often accompanied by the expectation of the soon coming of Christ). In a revival, you can't imagine that religon could ever again revert to its former dry and dead state.
However, when the rivival "lifts," conversions of sinners become more rare and difficult, and (in my observation) Christians do not find it as easy to experience the filling of the Holy Spirit. Remaining faithful to God during these periods is sometimes a matter of sheer white-knuckled perseverance. People who had shallow "conversions" fall away, and most churches either content themselves with routine deadness, or else seek to artificially "pump-up" the waning revival zeal with programs and campaigns that are essentially of the flesh. Those who actually stay close to God—and even grow spiritually—during this drought season, are usually a remnant, perhaps only a handful in a large congregation, who will not be content to let God slip away from them, and who press-in mightily to resist the contrary tide of both society and church, as the knowledge of God ceases to be a prominent feature of either. This is a time of severe testing of the faithful, even if (as in America) it does not include overt persecution.
The Jesus Movement is said to have had its precursor in several old ladies praying in a small home for revival among the younger generation. I know few details about these ladies, and the story may even be apocryphal, but I have heard that the house where they prayed was located on the very spot where Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa (which became the geographical hub of the movement) now stands.
The tiny stream, from which the rivers of blessing sprang, was actually in San Francisco, where a couple of converted hippies, Ted Wise and his wife, began to share what they had discovered with fellow hippies on Haight Ashbury. Some were saved, and they opened a little soup kitchen and readiing room on the Haight, into which many more hippies came. Even Charles Manson spent some time there, in his pre-criminal days, but sadly was not converted.
One of Ted Wise's converts was Lonnie Frisbee, a hippie who claimed that Jesus revealed Himself to him during an acid (LSD) trip, and who later died of AIDS because of ongoing struggles with homosexuality. This unlikely convert became the stunning evangelist of the Jesus Movement. Lonnie moved to Southern California (I think it was 1968 or '69), where he providentially met up with Chuch Smith, who was pastoring a small, non-denomonational church, called Calvary Chapel. Chuck had formerly despised hippies, but his wife wept for them because of their lost condition, and prayed for their salvation. His wife's passion for these lost kids eventually rubbed-off on Chuck, and he was destined to become the spiritual "father" to tens of thousands of hippie converts over the next few years.
Chuck invited Lonnie to preach on Wednesday nights at Calvary Chapel and Lonnie brought in hippies by the thousands. The mix of the conservative, older father figure in Chuck Smith and the electrifying, charismatic audacity of Lonnie Frisbee, was just the "right stuff" to spawn the mass conversion and nurture of kids disillusioned by the hippie experiment. At one point, Calvary Chapel was baptizing 1000 new converts each month. Soon the church was overflowing every night of the week, and it was necessary to arrive at least an hour or two before the scheduled meeting time, if one hoped to get inside the building. Those who arrived later than this sat on the pavement or the grass outside with the multitudes who listened through speakers mounted under the eves of the building. After the parking lot was filled, cars would be parked along every street for many blocks around the church.
But the church was not the only place where the converts gathered to fellowship. Communal Christian houses, outreach-oriented coffee houses, and every private home were secondary (or even primary) fellowship centers. Intentional or spontaneous gatherings might happen any time of the day in these places, and were frequently hours-long, including, perhaps, an hour or two of exuberant and spontaneous singing, followed by at least an hour and a half of Bible teaching.
The "Jesus People" (or "Jesus Freaks"), as the converts were called, were zealous for the simple life of following Jesus' teachings without the traditional baggage by which institutional Christianity had watered them down. Apathy toward material possessions, simple or communal living, creativity, spontaneity, obsession with learning the scriptures and with evangelizing the lost—these were the common elements that distinguished the Jesus People from the more mainstream type of Christians in the early seventies. As one who became a teacher in the movement (in 1970), my fondest memories are of the zealous hunger to learn the scriptures and to discuss the things of God that characterized everyone in the movement.
The Jesus Movement might easily be seen as the "countercultural" branch of the contemporary "charimatic movement," which had also started in the sixties by the spontaneous outbreak of speaking in tongues in Dennis Bennett's Anglican congregation (in Seattle, I think it was). Calvary Chapel was also "charismatic," but Chuck Smith—having abandoned a Pentacostal background because of his objection to imbalanced treatment of the scriptures and over-emphasis on denominational gimmicks—kept all manifestations of the spiritual gifts subdued in the main meetings, and restricted them to an "afterglow" service, in a back room after regular services.
Lonnie, on the other hand, was all about charimatic phenomena, and God granted remarkable miracles, as well as mass conversions, during his meetings. Lonnie eventually split with Chuck to join up with the Vineyard—a movement that arose in the Calvary Chapel movement when certain of their pastors desired to place more emphasis upon the phenomena of the revival. Chuck's interest was primarily in the exposition of the scriptures, a feature that continues to characterize Calvary Chapels everywhere.
The revival in Southern California spread across the United States and to other countries in the early seventies. It made international news, so that pictures of Chuck and Lonnie conducting massive baptisms in the Pacific Ocean were featured on the covers of "Time," "Newsweek," "Life," and other major periodicals in this country, and on their counterparts in Europe (I saw them on the covers of "Stern" and "Bunde" in Germany, in 1972).
The revival gave impetus to a new mobilization of youth for world missions, through the newly-formed organizations, like Youth With A Mission (YWAM), "Jews for Jesus," and Operation Mobilization (OM). The movement spawned a new genre of contemporary Christian music, which originally was quite "anointed" of God for saving souls, in the early days, but became largely commercialized and languid after the revival "lifted."
The revival waned, in Southern California, in the late seventies, but had not yet reached its zenith in other locations (like Australia), where it peaked in the early eighties. While there was much attrition (as always) in terms of shallow converts falling away after the revival, yet its effects have continued, and thousands of people converted in the movement have gone on to be pastors, missionaries, and general "loose cannons for Jesus" (like "Yours Truly").
I cannot answer all the why's and wherefore's of revivals, as God's choice of times, places and human instruments for such visitations is often entirely unpredictable. However, where there is a savage hunger for holiness and a willingness to fervently pray and to reform the life on the part of a growing number of individuals, there is reason to hope that God may again be preparing to visit His people. Though it be only a cloud the size of a man's hand, it may nonetheless be the harbinger that an end to the great drought is coming.
Interestingly, though revivals often bless and add numbers to the institutional churches, they often are brought about through individuals who are not "authorized" or "sponsored" by the institutional churches (e.g., Jesus, Saint Patrick, Peter Waldo, Hus, Luther, Count von Zinzendorf, John Wesley, the Plymouth Brethren, Charles Finney, Evan Roberts, Lonnie Frisbee, etc.)—and when someone who actually is a minister of the institutional church is the spearhead of a revival (e.g., Savanorola, Jonathan Edwards, etc.), they are often persecuted by many of their brethren in the institution.
A revival has several elements. The timing of revival almost inevitably will be at the end of a dry period of organized religion, at a time when public morals and spiritual interest are at an unusually low state. Usually (though not in every case), it begins with one or a few individuals who are burdened over the abysmal state of religion in their day, who set about to pray in earnest for God to revitalize themselves and the church. Through the prayers and preaching of this seed group, there follows a quickening of the spiritual vitality of the believing community—accompanied by or resulting in a sense of conviction of sin and dread of judgment—followed by deep repentance and reformation of conduct.
While this usually begins with the church itself, a true revival generally spreads to the sinners outside the religious community, so that many souls are harvested through mass conversions, and public morality and civility improve, even among the unconverted. In most cases, the character of the city and surrounding environs is transformed, so that it is not unusual for all the bars to close permanently, the jails to be empty, and a great reverence for God to prevail in the society at large.
The history of revivals (and of the true "church") does not begin in the New Testament, but in the Old. In the days of Enosh, son of Seth, "men began to call on the name of Yahweh." The Exodus was something of a revival, and the book of judges records many cycles of revival, headed up by various judges. Some of the pre-Christian prophets also saw some of the elements of revival in their days—e.g., Samuel, David, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah (in Josiah's reign), Zechariah, Haggai and John the Baptist.
This history continues in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles, and right through the time of the Imperial Persecutions, the Medieval Age, the Reformation and up to the present day.
I not only have had the privilege of being in the midst of a wonderful revival (the Jesus Movement of the 1970's), but have made the history of revivals a matter of special study for many years. Once you have seen a real revival, or acquired a taste for such through reading the histories, unless you backslide in heart, you can never be fully content with "religion as usual" again.
There are conflicting views concerning the role of God's sovereignty in revivals:
One of the most amazing revivalists of all time was Charles G. Finney, through whose ministry it is estimated that over 2 million people were converted in America, in the 1800's—of whom 85% are said to have continued in the faith after the revival passed. Finney believed and taught that revivals can be had whenever Christians meet certain conditions for them. They are not sovereignly ordained by God for certain seasons, but are the natural result of certain prerequisite actions, even as sowing and watering seeds are actions that bring a predictable crop and harvest. Those who take Finney's view often tell us that revivals never really have to end, but that God would give perpetual revival to the church, if only the Christians would continue to cultivate it.
On the other hand, there are those (often Calvinists, like Edwards, Spurgeon, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, etc.) who see the timing and frequency of revivals to be less predictable and more directly related to God's sovereign providence.
It is hard to say who is correct, since, even if Finney is right in identifying prayer and repentance as precursors to revival, one might argue that the church will not be inclined toward the proper degree of prayer and repentance without God having sovereignly poured out the desire for these things upon His people.
It is important to note that God has sent revivals through men of various theological persuasions. Finney was a Pelagian, Wesley an Arminian, Whitfield, Edwards and Brainerd were Calvinists; the Plymouth Brethren and Chuck Smith are dispensationalists, the anabaptists were historic premillennial, Hus and Luther were amillennialists, and Jonathan Edwards was postmillennial. God apparently does not pay much attention to men's theological orientation, but to their passion, in choosing instruments for revival.
It is my present theory that God deliberately sends revivals for specific seasons—in order to revitalize a church that is nearly dead and to increase the ranks through a massive harvest—and then lifts the revival for a season—in order to test the fruit and eliminate the "chaff" who were gathered in merely because of the popularity of the movement and who only are interested in the "good vibes" and phenomena that are often the result of the showers of blessing that revivals bring. Just like the seasons of the agricultural year, there is a cycle. We certainly see such an unmistakable cycle in the book of judges, for instance, as well as in the history of the true church.
When the revival "hits" and prevails, it is easier than at other times to get sinners converted (because they have been supernaturally made concerned about their souls) and to get Christians filled with the Holy Spirit. There is nothing like the excitement of a revival in full bloom! It seems, sometimes, that the whole world will soon be converted and the end will come (which is why revivals are so often accompanied by the expectation of the soon coming of Christ). In a revival, you can't imagine that religon could ever again revert to its former dry and dead state.
However, when the rivival "lifts," conversions of sinners become more rare and difficult, and (in my observation) Christians do not find it as easy to experience the filling of the Holy Spirit. Remaining faithful to God during these periods is sometimes a matter of sheer white-knuckled perseverance. People who had shallow "conversions" fall away, and most churches either content themselves with routine deadness, or else seek to artificially "pump-up" the waning revival zeal with programs and campaigns that are essentially of the flesh. Those who actually stay close to God—and even grow spiritually—during this drought season, are usually a remnant, perhaps only a handful in a large congregation, who will not be content to let God slip away from them, and who press-in mightily to resist the contrary tide of both society and church, as the knowledge of God ceases to be a prominent feature of either. This is a time of severe testing of the faithful, even if (as in America) it does not include overt persecution.
The Jesus Movement is said to have had its precursor in several old ladies praying in a small home for revival among the younger generation. I know few details about these ladies, and the story may even be apocryphal, but I have heard that the house where they prayed was located on the very spot where Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa (which became the geographical hub of the movement) now stands.
The tiny stream, from which the rivers of blessing sprang, was actually in San Francisco, where a couple of converted hippies, Ted Wise and his wife, began to share what they had discovered with fellow hippies on Haight Ashbury. Some were saved, and they opened a little soup kitchen and readiing room on the Haight, into which many more hippies came. Even Charles Manson spent some time there, in his pre-criminal days, but sadly was not converted.
One of Ted Wise's converts was Lonnie Frisbee, a hippie who claimed that Jesus revealed Himself to him during an acid (LSD) trip, and who later died of AIDS because of ongoing struggles with homosexuality. This unlikely convert became the stunning evangelist of the Jesus Movement. Lonnie moved to Southern California (I think it was 1968 or '69), where he providentially met up with Chuch Smith, who was pastoring a small, non-denomonational church, called Calvary Chapel. Chuck had formerly despised hippies, but his wife wept for them because of their lost condition, and prayed for their salvation. His wife's passion for these lost kids eventually rubbed-off on Chuck, and he was destined to become the spiritual "father" to tens of thousands of hippie converts over the next few years.
Chuck invited Lonnie to preach on Wednesday nights at Calvary Chapel and Lonnie brought in hippies by the thousands. The mix of the conservative, older father figure in Chuck Smith and the electrifying, charismatic audacity of Lonnie Frisbee, was just the "right stuff" to spawn the mass conversion and nurture of kids disillusioned by the hippie experiment. At one point, Calvary Chapel was baptizing 1000 new converts each month. Soon the church was overflowing every night of the week, and it was necessary to arrive at least an hour or two before the scheduled meeting time, if one hoped to get inside the building. Those who arrived later than this sat on the pavement or the grass outside with the multitudes who listened through speakers mounted under the eves of the building. After the parking lot was filled, cars would be parked along every street for many blocks around the church.
But the church was not the only place where the converts gathered to fellowship. Communal Christian houses, outreach-oriented coffee houses, and every private home were secondary (or even primary) fellowship centers. Intentional or spontaneous gatherings might happen any time of the day in these places, and were frequently hours-long, including, perhaps, an hour or two of exuberant and spontaneous singing, followed by at least an hour and a half of Bible teaching.
The "Jesus People" (or "Jesus Freaks"), as the converts were called, were zealous for the simple life of following Jesus' teachings without the traditional baggage by which institutional Christianity had watered them down. Apathy toward material possessions, simple or communal living, creativity, spontaneity, obsession with learning the scriptures and with evangelizing the lost—these were the common elements that distinguished the Jesus People from the more mainstream type of Christians in the early seventies. As one who became a teacher in the movement (in 1970), my fondest memories are of the zealous hunger to learn the scriptures and to discuss the things of God that characterized everyone in the movement.
The Jesus Movement might easily be seen as the "countercultural" branch of the contemporary "charimatic movement," which had also started in the sixties by the spontaneous outbreak of speaking in tongues in Dennis Bennett's Anglican congregation (in Seattle, I think it was). Calvary Chapel was also "charismatic," but Chuck Smith—having abandoned a Pentacostal background because of his objection to imbalanced treatment of the scriptures and over-emphasis on denominational gimmicks—kept all manifestations of the spiritual gifts subdued in the main meetings, and restricted them to an "afterglow" service, in a back room after regular services.
Lonnie, on the other hand, was all about charimatic phenomena, and God granted remarkable miracles, as well as mass conversions, during his meetings. Lonnie eventually split with Chuck to join up with the Vineyard—a movement that arose in the Calvary Chapel movement when certain of their pastors desired to place more emphasis upon the phenomena of the revival. Chuck's interest was primarily in the exposition of the scriptures, a feature that continues to characterize Calvary Chapels everywhere.
The revival in Southern California spread across the United States and to other countries in the early seventies. It made international news, so that pictures of Chuck and Lonnie conducting massive baptisms in the Pacific Ocean were featured on the covers of "Time," "Newsweek," "Life," and other major periodicals in this country, and on their counterparts in Europe (I saw them on the covers of "Stern" and "Bunde" in Germany, in 1972).
The revival gave impetus to a new mobilization of youth for world missions, through the newly-formed organizations, like Youth With A Mission (YWAM), "Jews for Jesus," and Operation Mobilization (OM). The movement spawned a new genre of contemporary Christian music, which originally was quite "anointed" of God for saving souls, in the early days, but became largely commercialized and languid after the revival "lifted."
The revival waned, in Southern California, in the late seventies, but had not yet reached its zenith in other locations (like Australia), where it peaked in the early eighties. While there was much attrition (as always) in terms of shallow converts falling away after the revival, yet its effects have continued, and thousands of people converted in the movement have gone on to be pastors, missionaries, and general "loose cannons for Jesus" (like "Yours Truly").
I cannot answer all the why's and wherefore's of revivals, as God's choice of times, places and human instruments for such visitations is often entirely unpredictable. However, where there is a savage hunger for holiness and a willingness to fervently pray and to reform the life on the part of a growing number of individuals, there is reason to hope that God may again be preparing to visit His people. Though it be only a cloud the size of a man's hand, it may nonetheless be the harbinger that an end to the great drought is coming.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
In Jesus,
Steve
Steve
Thanks for the encouraging words, Steve.
Let's get with it everybody and start praying and aspiring to holiness! What do we have to lose?
TK
Let's get with it everybody and start praying and aspiring to holiness! What do we have to lose?
TK
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
"Were not our hearts burning within us? (Lk 24:32)
-
_SoaringEagle
- Posts: 285
- Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 10:40 pm
- Location: Louisville, KY
very touching words Steve. 
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason: