before you.
We set our hearts on you, Lord.
We set our attention on you, Father.
We set our desires on you, Lord.
Lord, as we approach the subject of revival,
this is your territory, Lord.
This is your turf.
We talk about your acts when we talk
about revival, the works of God and nothing
less than that.
And Father, we need your wisdom.
We need your spirit.
We need the reality of your power to
come into these classes.
Lord, we're not here for dead or dry
academics.
We're not here to hear about history.
We're here to hear about you and what
you do and how you move in revival
power and what it will take for us
to move in that power and to see
true revival in our day, in our age,
in our lives.
So, Lord, we open ourselves up to you,
Lord.
We don't know all the directions that you're
going to take us in.
We don't know all the things that you'll
speak to us or do in us, but
we open ourselves.
Each of us presents ourselves to you, O
God, as an open vessel, as a willing
vessel, ready, O God, to respond, ready to
hear, ready to say, Lord, work on me,
send me, use me.
Father, our hearts are in tune with you.
Speak to us in these weeks to come.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
You can be seated.
When we talk about revival, really, to different
people, it means different things because we've heard
different definitions of it.
We've heard of revival in terms of great
works and movings of God and past history,
and some say, oh, we've never had one
in our day.
Others talk about revival just being any good
series of meetings, things livened up in the
congregation, things began to happen.
We're, quote, having revival.
Others just talk about revival when you have
a special speaker for a period of time,
and you're having revival services.
But when we talk about revival here, we're
not talking about the smaller or the lesser
things, little movements here and there, someone being
revived, the congregation coming to life.
We're talking about the great historic movings of
God, the history-changing movings of God, the
works of God, the outpourings of the Spirit
that have left their mark on subsequent generations.
Now, it's important that we understand the term
revival, that we come to some basic definitions,
and then I want you to understand the
thrust and purpose of this course.
You will learn about some of the great
revivals that have been recorded.
You'll learn some historical facts.
You'll get some information.
You'll find out about the great major characteristics
of revival.
You'll find out what it takes to bring
about revival.
You'll find out about hindrances to revival, what
has stopped revival, why we don't see more
of God in our day.
But putting all these things together, the key
thing you'll do is have a hunger for
life, have something planted in you that you'll
know and understand that there is more than
we have presently been experiencing.
And you will be one of the people
that God can then impress to pray, to
fast, to seek His face, to see revival
come and sweep our country and sweep our
lives.
So you'll find out about revival, but not
in an external, outside way.
You'll find out about revival as it pertains
to your life, as it pertains to your
congregation, and this country, and the world.
The first revival, what is it?
What are we talking about?
There are a few basic definitions that I
want us to look at, and Winky Pratt
in his book on revival mentions some of
these beginning on page 12.
What is the basic meaning of the word
revive?
Just start from the beginning.
In the English language, what does the word
revive mean?
And he cites Webster's Dictionary as saying, one
definition, first definition is return, recall, or recovery
to life from death or apparent death as
the revival of a drowned person.
Revival brings something back to life that is
either now dead or seemingly dead.
Revival is not for something that has never
lived at all.
If something wasn't born of God, if something
never moved in God, and there was no
spiritual history to it, and no spiritual life,
it doesn't need revival.
The only thing you can revive is something
that was once alive.
A rock does not need revival.
A piece of wood that's laying there doesn't
need revival, but something that was alive and
that ought to be alive needs revival.
You also have to understand that revival is
not just adding more to an excellent, growing,
living situation.
Revival presupposes that things are not where they're
supposed to be.
When we say we need a revival in
our land or we need a revival in
our congregation, we are saying that things are
not where they are supposed to be, that
there is more, and that there is something
that we need to be brought back to.
The second definition is return or recall to
activity from a state of languor as the
revival of spirits.
Revival brings a holy shock to apathy and
carelessness.
Revival doesn't just come quietly and in a
way that no one notices.
Revival isn't just sneaking little by little and
add blessing to what's there.
Revival wakes things up.
Revival shakes things.
Revival confronts things in a state of spiritual
lethargy and shakes them.
It's just like having a sleeping person, and
you're trying to wake that person up, and
they're sleeping heavily.
You shake them.
You do what you need to do.
You pour cold water over them, whatever it
takes to wake them out of their sleep.
That's what revival does to the body.
Revival wakes the body out of its sleeping
state.
Then the third definition, recall, return, or recovery
from a state of neglect, oblivion, obscurity, or
depression.
As the revival of letters are learning, revival
restores truth and recalls to obedience that which
has been forgotten.
Now, a basic principle that you need to
understand is that you don't know what you
don't know.
I've said that many times, and you may
say, right, I understand.
Well, make sure you understand.
You don't know what you don't know.
You may think that everything is perfectly fine
back at your house.
Why?
Because you don't know what you don't know.
Maybe you don't know that there was a
window left open, there was a huge storm,
and a real expensive heirloom that you had
sitting next to the window just got stopped.
Well, you don't know what you don't know.
A lot of times we don't have a
concern about something because we don't know anything
about it.
There's a worker on his job feeling great.
Why?
Because he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
He doesn't know that in five days he's
going to be fired from his jobs.
Therefore, he's relaxed and feels fine about it.
What am I trying to say?
I'm trying to say that we don't know
how much we don't have.
We don't know how much we don't know
in terms of the body.
We don't know how little we are walking
in in terms of God's purpose and God's
plan.
Why?
Because this is all that we know.
Let's say, for example, that human beings were
built to fly, and we never knew it.
Or we read about flying and people flying,
but we thought that there was just kind
of a figure of speech because everybody we
know walks, and no human beings can fly
on their own.
Well, if all of a sudden somebody began
to fly and someone else found out they
could fly, then you'd find out, man, how
limited we were.
And the state of the body as such
today is that we do not realize how
much we don't have.
We do not realize how far we have
fallen from biblical ideals.
We don't see it because we're the ones
involved with it, and we don't know what
we don't know.
But when revival comes, all of a sudden
you say, oh man, look at this.
We were totally blind here.
We were totally backwards here.
We were totally missing it here.
We were totally out in left field.
We were calling this biblical faith or the
messianic lifestyle, and we were saying we were
full of God, and where is it?
We were just out there doing nothing.
That's what happens when revival comes.
Another definition of revive is renewed and more
active attention to religion, an awakening of men
to their spiritual concerns.
Revival accomplishes what our best spiritual efforts cannot.
And then quoting Arthur Wallace, revival is necessary
to counteract spiritual decline and to create spiritual
momentum.
You've got to see that revival is above
the norm.
You can pray, you can fast, you can
preach, you can lay hands on people, you
can work for God day and night for
50 years.
But when revival comes in one month's time,
you can get more done than in the
previous 50 years put together.
Smith Wigglesworth, after he was filled with the
Spirit, said he could get 15 years spiritual
work done as compared to one year.
He could do it in one year now,
now that he was full of the Spirit.
Frank Barlowman, caught up in the Azusa Street
revival at the turn of the century, would
just say how living six months or a
year now is worth far more than 50
years.
You can get far more for God done
now.
You know, just to this in recent times,
there was missionary work in Cambodia for years
and years and years and years and years
with almost no success.
But when the government began to turn on
the populace and there was great genocide and
slaughter of millions of people, and they cried
out to their gods and they saw their
Buddhist temples destroyed, people began to realize that
there was more.
And within a few short years, more Cambodians
were won to Jesus than in centuries before
that.
It's almost like you're standing there with a
sprinkler over your head trying to get yourself
wet and you're standing there for 10 years,
as opposed to the flood, the tidal wave
comes up the block.
Revival is the tidal wave of God.
Revival is the life of God breaking out
in unrestrained fashion among people.
Revival does what the Word of God tells
us must be done, which is above and
beyond our own ability and effort.
Now there are just a few other definitions
from different writers about revival, and I just
want to quote them to you.
One man says, numerous writings on the subject
preserved confirm that revival is divine intervention in
the normal course of spiritual things.
It is God revealing himself to man in
awesome holiness and irresistible power.
It is such a manifest working of God
that human personalities are overshadowed and human programs
abandoned.
It is man retiring into the background because
God has taken the field.
It is the Lord working an extraordinary power
on saint and sinner.
None of us have experienced the types of
revival that we're going to refer to because
none of these revivals have happened in our
day and our age in this country.
We've had outpourings of the Spirit.
We've had revivals of different things, revivals of
the baptism in the Spirit, revivals of healing,
but in terms of a comprehensive revival, we
haven't had it in our generation in this
country.
But you're talking about God breaking in just
as surely and suddenly and powerfully as if
a tidal wave came and broke through the
walls of this building, just as definitely, just
as irresistibly.
Another writer says that revival is a movement
of the Holy Spirit bringing about a revival
of New Testament Christianity and the Church of
Christ and its related community.
All those who recognize Jesus as Messiah, when
you read scripture, recognize that we don't have
what the early believers were walking in, that
we don't have the power, that we don't
have the unity, that we don't have the
consecration.
Revival brings you back to the New Covenant
faith, to the New Covenant lifestyle.
Another quote, revival is that which changes the
moral climate of a community.
Revival must of necessity make an impact on
the community, and this is one means by
which we may distinguish it from the more
usual operations of the Holy Spirit.
In other words, if revival does not affect
the moral climate of the community in which
you live, then it's not revival.
If it does not have an impact on
the crime situation, it's not revival.
If it doesn't have an impact on the
moral attitude of people, if it doesn't have
an impact in terms of restoring God to
our society, it's not revival.
When revivals have broken in the past, you
have accounts of people just going on about
their business, and all of a sudden getting
stricken with conviction.
It's just there, it's in the air, the
angels of God are there all around, and
there's a sense of the presence of God,
there's an awe for heavenly things, and people
go about on their business, and all of
a sudden just get stricken with conviction, and
finally just fall on the ground and cry
out to God to have mercy on them.
Accounts of people that would be riding in
years back on horseback, or in horse and
buggy, and fall off and be found laying
there on the ground for several days, prostrate,
waiting for someone to lead them to the
Lord.
You're talking about extraordinary actions of God.
You're talking about things that affect the course
of history.
Just to give you an example, there was
a great awakening, a great revival that broke
in the United States around 1857.
That revival, and the conviction that it brought,
and the godly fear that it put into
people's hearts, in very many ways is directly
responsible for the abolition of slavery in the
United States.
You're talking one of the most important things
in the history of our country, and yet
it was a revival, a spiritual awakening that
brought it to pass.
There are scholars who don't believe in God,
who have no sympathy for the Bible whatsoever,
and yet when they look at American history,
or world history, they'll talk about, this happened,
this economic development, this political change, all these
things improved and increased because of spiritual revival.
It's not something that's done in the corner
that's hidden, that people just say, we had
a great revival.
Did you hear about it?
No, I didn't hear about it.
Well, then it's not revival.
If people aren't hearing about it, and talking
about it, and shaking by it, and confronted
by it on the streets, then it's not
revival.
And I want to hammer these things home
to cause you to see and understand how
little we have experienced the real outpouring of
God in our generation, and how much it's
been something that has just about totally been
done within the local body, within the local
assembly, and it's had very little impact on
the community as a whole.
We can have the greatest meetings here, and
sin can abound all around us, and it's
never touched or challenged.
Something is wrong.
And of course, you've got to recognize and
understand that something is wrong before you're going
to get the thing right.
You've got to realize that something is lacking
before you're going to come into the wholeness
and the fullness of what God's promised.
Well, what are some of the major characteristics
of revival?
Some of the major characteristics of revival.
Again, let me just read you a few
quotes.
James Burns raised the question, do we really
want a revival?
And he says to the church, the body,
a revival means humiliation, a bitter knowledge of
unworthiness, and an open, humiliating confession of sin
on the part of her ministers and people.
It is not the easy and glorious thing
many think it to be, who imagine it
fills the pews and reinstates the church in
power and authority.
It comes to scorch before it heals.
It comes to condemn ministers and people for
their unfaithful witness, for their selfish living, for
their neglect of the cross, and to call
it to daily renunciation, to an evangelical poverty,
and to a deep and daily consecration.
That is why a revival has ever been
unpopular with large numbers within the church, because
it says nothing to them of power, such
as they have learned to love, or of
ease, or of success.
It accuses them of sin.
It tells them they are dead.
It calls them to awake, to renounce the
world, and to follow Messiah.
Well, that's pretty blunt and pretty clear, but
I just want to give you that as
an overview of what we're dealing with.
We're dealing with something that is totally unpleasant
on the flesh.
We're dealing with something that is contrary to
the way man would do it.
We're dealing with something that upsets all religious
establishments, that totally turns the religious establishment upside
down.
We're talking about something that leaves no room
for the flesh to boast, and God alone
gets the glory.
Well, what are some of the major characteristics
of revival?
First, it is absolutely supernatural and God glorified.
It has a quality which no one can
write off.
Now, look, you've got to understand critics are
always there.
All the revivals that have taken place have
had critics, have had people skeptical and mocking.
That's always going to be there, but the
fact of the matter is that God moves
in such a way that unless people harden
their heart and resist God, they have to
acknowledge it's God.
It's such a pervasive, supernatural influence that it
can't just be humanly explained to somebody working
it up.
You know, I'll just give you an example
of what happens in the throes of revival.
This was in Ulster in 1857.
Just listen to this account.
Again, to give you an idea of the
supernatural element of revival, the fact that God
alone gets glory, that no denomination can take
credit, that no man can claim that he
did it.
It says, a schoolboy in class became so
troubled about his soul that the schoolmaster sent
him home.
An older boy, a Christian, went with him,
and before they had gone far, led him
to Christ.
Returning at once to school, this new convert
testified to his teacher, Oh, I am so
happy.
I have the Lord Jesus in my heart.
These simple words had an astonishing effect.
Boy after boy rose silently and left the
room.
Going outside, the teacher found these boys all
on their knees in a row along the
wall of the playground.
Schoolboys.
Very soon their silent prayer became a bitter
cry.
It was heard by another class inside and
pierced their hearts.
They fell on their knees and their cry
for mercy was in turn heard by a
girl's class above.
In a few moments, the whole school was
on their knees.
Neighbors and passersby came flocking in, and as
they crossed the threshold, they all came under
the same convicting power.
Every room was filled with men, women, and
children seeking God.
Nobody can take credit for that.
The only one that gets glory for that
is God.
You can't contain that.
You can't box that in.
It's a moving of God's Spirit.
So a major characteristic, a primary one, is
that it is absolutely supernatural and God-glorifying,
and that no flesh can glory in its
presence.
It's too much God for man to exalt
his head.
The greater the presence of God, the more
difficult it is for people to exalt themselves,
the more difficult it is for people to
draw attention to themselves.
You say, well, what are you saying then
in our society when we've got so much
personality in front of us, when we've got
so much human acts and showmanship in front
of us, and when the body of Messiah
is filled with all types of gospel enterprises
to the glory of man, what does that
tell us?
It tells us we have very little of
the real thing, because when you have the
fullness of God, there isn't room for man
to exalt himself.
Now, in the book of Isaiah, the book
of Isaiah is talking about God pouring out
his judgments in the early chapters of the
book, and some scholars think that he was
prophesying the great earthquake that took place during
the reign of King Uzziah.
In Isaiah, the second chapter, this is what
God says in terms of his judgment being
poured out.
The end of verse 9, or verse 9
says, man will be brought low and mankind
humble.
Go into the rocks, hide in the ground
from dread of the Lord in the splendor
of his majesty.
The eyes of the arrogant man will be
humbled and the pride of men brought low
and the Lord alone will be exalted in
that day.
The Lord Almighty has a day in store
for all the proud and lofty, for all
that is exalted, and they will be humble.
Verse 17, the arrogance of man will be
brought low and the pride of men humble.
The Lord alone will be exalted in that
day and the idols will totally disappear.
If you understand that idol is anything made
by man and worshipped, anything man-made that
is then worshipped is an idol.
You understand that when revival power comes, all
idols are destroyed.
And when God arises, it has one effect
on all of the works of man.
It crushes them.
And you just think of all of the
pride that could exist in the human heart
and all of the pride of a prosperous
civilization.
And all the pride of being God's people
and all the things we've built and done.
Think of how all that pride could come
crumbling down in light of a massive earthquake.
Just in terms of God's physical judgment.
Think in terms of a spiritual earthquake.
Think in terms of a spiritual humbling, a
spiritual outpouring.
And where is the pride of man?
Where is the flesh?
See, on the day we stand before God,
stand before his throne, the idea of a
human being boasting or taking credit or drawing
attention to themselves would be utterly and totally
and completely impossible, wouldn't it?
I mean, just the thought of standing before
Almighty God and taking credit and lifting ourselves
up and having people look at us would
be impossible to conceive.
And yet it's so easy for us to
do it here.
So easy for people to think that we're
somebody.
But when revival comes, God is so glorified.
God is so manifestly there that the flesh
can't stand.
Frank Bartleman says that during the Azusa Street
outpouring in subsequent years, that people would come
in, he said, preachers in particular, and they'd
want to be heard and God would flatten
them.
God would just flatten them.
They'd get up to speak and the people
just keep praying.
And all of a sudden they couldn't think.
Their minds would get unclear and they'd just
have to sit down because God wasn't going
to let flesh glory in his presence.
Just another description of the God-glorifying character
of a revival move of the Spirit.
A movement bears this mark of spontaneity when
men cannot account for what is taking place
in terms of personalities, organizations, meetings, preaching, or
any other consecrated activity.
And when the work continues unabated without any
human control, as soon as a movement becomes
controlled or organized, it has ceased to be
spontaneous.
It is no longer a revival.
The course of the 1904 revival has been
outlined thus.
God began to work.
Then the devil began to work in opposition.
Then God began to work all the harder.
Then men began to work and the revival
came to an end.
Most of what we have accomplished in our
country can be accounted for by means of
human effort, human ingenuity, human strength, human professionalism,
human use of media, with the blessing of
God added in.
Most of our building we have built with
God's help, as opposed to God building with
our help.
There's an increasing conviction coming up within me
as I just look at so much of
our magazine coverage of the great and big
meetings and all the posters of this man
of God and this woman of God and
this anointed servant and that anointed servant, and
so-and-so with 9,000 in his
congregation or 15,000 a week coming to
the Lord through his or her ministry.
Now some of those people are some of
the finest men and women on the planet
serving God, devoted to God, humble before Him.
But others you look at and it's just
so much flesh that just hits you.
Something on the inside of you gets offended.
You don't see the Lord.
You don't judge them, but something just doesn't
seem right.
And you ask the question, I wonder out
of all these great numbers, these large congregations,
and thank God for large, thank God for
small, but you wonder in terms of these
large congregations, how many of the people would
stand up for the Lord in the face
of persecution?
How many of the people can keep a
one-week commitment to keep their television off
or fast for three days without having anything
but water?
How many of these people show up for
the prayer meeting or get up early to
seek the face of God if you say,
well, very, very, very few?
Well, then all the big numbers don't mean
anything.
We're so flesh-oriented when revival comes, it
just changes it completely and entirely.
Revival is supernatural and God-glorifying in that
it is sudden and spontaneous.
It is sudden and spontaneous.
Let's say we had our big announced meeting
six months in advance, and everybody's been praying
for it, everybody's been inviting people out for
it, and everybody's been getting ready for it,
and you've been working on your message for
six months, and you get up to preach,
and it's a great message, and it's a
great night, and people are tremendously blessed, and
lives are changed.
Well, thank God for it, but you can
explain that somehow.
God gets glory out of it, but man,
the one that brought that message, they may
get a lot of glory also, or the
workers that work so hard, they get a
lot of credit for it also.
But if you just happen to be at
somebody's house one day and both kind of
feeling a little tired and not even in
the mood to pray, and you just say,
well, let me just pray a little bit,
and the next thing, neighbors start knocking on
your door.
What's going on?
I saw fire over your house.
What's going on in here?
Something's wrong.
I don't feel right.
I feel terrible, guilty.
What's going on?
And they start flocking to you.
You say, hey, God did it.
Only a fool would take credit for that.
So revival has that supernatural quality because it's
sudden and spontaneous.
It also has that supernatural quality because it's
uncontrollable and uncontainable.
If you can control it and box it,
it's no longer revival.
And I'll tell you the temptation, it's happened
over and over and over again.
We've only seen a small fraction of the
true revivals that God's begun.
Because even though it's uncontrollable, uncontainable, once people
start to put their name on it and
decide when it happens and how, God moves
on.
He pours out his spirit in other circles.
Now, Charles Finney, in his revival lecture, says
that one of the key things for revival
is that people get out of the way.
Now, he gives specific ways as to how
to bring about revival through prayer and preaching
and witnessing and consecration.
And he says a revival is no more
a miracle than a crop of wheat is.
In other words, when you'll participate with God
and do what he tells you to do
and follow his laws, revival will come suddenly,
spontaneously, supernaturally.
Only God could do it.
But you've got to cooperate.
But he says here, revival may be expected
when ministers and believers are willing to have
God promoted by whatsoever instruments he pleases.
Sometimes ministers are not willing to have a
revival unless they can have the management of
it or unless their agency can be conspicuous
in promoting it.
They wish to prescribe to God what he
shall direct and bless and what men he
shall put forward.
They will have no new measures.
And then in Finney's kind of gentle style,
he says, such men will sleep on until
they are awakened by the judgment trumpet without
a revival unless they are willing that God
should come in his own way, unless they
are willing to have anything or anybody employed
that will do the most good.
One thing we'll see is that when revival
comes, it always comes with religious stumbling blocks.
What does that mean?
It always comes with something added in that
you didn't ask for and that really offends
you.
Something that's just too humbling, something that's just
too much against what you think is a
good way for God to work.
People pray for the outpouring of the spirit.
God pours out of spirit.
People start speaking in tongues.
They say, well, we want God, but none
of that tongue stuff or demons start leaving
people.
People start getting delivered in the middle of
a nice service with a nice, prestigious guest
speaker from out of state.
People start getting delivered and convulsing in the
aisles.
And well, they're changed.
That person was an alcoholic and drug addict
for 30 years.
They're instantly changed.
But that doesn't matter because you don't like
it within the building.
Revival will always come with religious stumbling blocks.
And the fact is, people will always try
and pick and choose.
But the only way to handle it is,
God, you move however you want.
Now, I'll tell you something interesting.
I've been involved in a major outpouring of
the spirit about seven years ago and a
quick, small, minor outpouring that began to take
place when I was at Christ for the
Nations about five years ago.
Otherwise, I've had movings of God and stirrings
of God, but everything else I know about
revival is through reading the word and through
reading books about it.
But I felt, you know, after all these
years of experiencing certain things and reading certain
things, that I have prepared myself for any
potential religious stumbling block.
In other words, whatever it is, I don't
care.
I'm going to go with the spirit.
If anything tries to get in the way,
I don't care.
I'm going to go with the spirit.
I'm going to do it God's way.
It doesn't matter.
And I really convinced myself of that, that
I have kind of immunized myself against religious
stumbling blocks because I've let my reputation go
out the window, because I let people hate
me or think whatever they want to think
of me if I follow the Lord anyhow,
because I've humbled myself in terms of the
scholarly pursuits that I wanted to have in
that reputation.
I said, forget it.
I don't want it.
Whatever God wants, that's fine.
So I figured that I got myself immunized
so that I couldn't catch that terrible plague
of stumbling over something that God did in
a spiritual way that I didn't like.
And I basically had myself convinced of that
until a couple weeks ago I read a
book by a brother who talked about the
outpouring of the spirit.
Actually, he called it revival.
He said it was the last great revival
and that it started already.
Now, this guy's a good fellow.
He loves the Lord.
He's anointed by God.
God uses him in many miraculous ways.
So I wasn't doubting him or questioning him
per se.
But what happened was he talked about the
revival that broke already