Some Observations
About Revival
Observation #1 – Rightly understood, a revival is not a series of services or meetings scheduled in advance. Genuine Holy Ghost revivals are heaven-sent and not conjured up, even though they are known to be sovereignly sent by God in answer to prayer.
Observation #2 – Those who coined the terms have a right to their understanding of what they meant. Puritans referred to revivals of religion by recognizing that genuine revival frequently featured the conversion to Christ of many professing believers, as well as the conversion to Christ of those living on the periphery of the Christian community, with the penetration of the Gospel into the surrounding unreligious community.
Observation #3 – Those who have experienced the Spirit’s work in revival tend to be far better commentators on the subject of revival than those who have sought to conjure up revival by labeling a series of meetings a revival. Scheduling a series of meetings and labeling them a revival is an exercise in ignorance and denigrates the sovereign work of God.
Observation #4 – Many revivals have been sent by God without a lasting record of His work maintained anywhere by heaven, especially revivals of short duration, confined to a small region, or off the grid (such as the long-lasting revivals ongoing in Nepal and the Amazon basin.
Observation #5 – Many of the revivals known to us in history have been followed roughly a generation later by war. Such was the case with the Protestant Reformation (The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648)), the First Great Awakening (the American Revolution (1775-1783)), the Second Great Awakening and the revival in the Southeastern states (the American Civil War (1861-1865)), the Welsh Revival and the Korean Revival (World War One in Europe and the Japanese invasion in the mid-1930s), the Isle of Lewis Revival (an exceptifon to this pattern), and the Indonesian Revival of the early 1970s (civil war that brought East Timor into existence).
(1618–1648)), Observation #6 – With the exception of the revival that led to astonishing Church planting in the American southeast, and the two revivals presently underway in Nepal and Brazil, the expansive revivals known to most of us were generally not spearheaded by Baptists. The Protestant Reformation gave rise to Lutherans and Reformed movements, the First Great Awakening was ignited under the preaching of a Congregationalist (Edwards) and two Anglicans (Whitefield & Wesley), the Second Great Awakening by a Congregationalist (Nettleton), Presbyterians in Korea and Calvinistic Methodists in Wales, a Presbyterian on the Isle of Lewis (Duncan Campbell), and in Indonesia among the Dutch Reformed congrgations of that former Dutch colony.
Observation #7 – Revivals that are genuine works of God are sometimes followed by man-made or demon-inspired counterfeits. Such was the case with the infamous Azusa Street Revival, which was a trumped-up imitation of a real revival God visited on Los Angeles under the preaching of R. A Torrey some years earlier. My persuasion is that Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement cannot be rightly understood, nor can their source be appreciated, so long as the imitative and superficial nature of their beliefs and practices is ignored.
Observation #8 – No revival that I am aware of or have read about from eye witness testimonies has featured, either leading up to the revival or during the course of the revival, verse-by-verse expositional sermons through books of the Bible. Correct me if I am wrong with appropriate citations that I can verify.
Observation #9 – A number of the Puritans I have read were of the opinion that the best to be hoped for without revival was a maintenance of the ministry, with revival being absolutely crucial to substantial Church membership growth and Church planting success.
Feedback and correction appreciated. Please include relevant citations.
