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Dr. Ronald Powell
What does it take to have a revival
Wikipedia Definition of Revival:
A Christian revival is a specific period of increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or many churches, either regionally or globally.
This should be distinguished from the use of the term "revival" to refer to an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings (see Revival meeting).
Mass conversions of non-believers are viewed by church leaders as having positive moral effects.
Revival......another definition would be to recover, repair or restore.
Hosea 10:12 says:
"Sow to yourself in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord till He come and reign righteousness upon you."
What is fallow ground?
Fallow ground is ground that has been fruitful, and then it has been plowed over, and no seed has been sown in it, and therefore it has become unproductive.
Notice, there is a human emphasis here - it says
that we are to break up - you break up your fallow ground.
Now take another aspect of it here in Psalm 85:6
"Would Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice in Thee."
So, there is an absence of joy, of vitality - there is an absence of ecstasy.
The very word "revive" presupposes life.
You can only revive what has already had vitality - life that has become sick, weak, or apathetic.
I think the nearest analogy I can give you is a recent case of a man who apparently drowned. He had been under the water for an incredible amount of time. Then somebody pulled him out and worked and worked on him, and eventually life came again.
This is actually what it means to revive:
It means to revitalize.
It means to restore lost power.
It means to recover lost energy.
In the Acts of the Apostles 3:19 we read,
"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord."
The term Great Awakening is used to refer to several periods of religious revival in American religious history.
Terminology
The idea of an "awakening" implies a slumber or passivity during secular or less religious times.
Joel speaks about the priests, the ministers of God.
Look at Joel 1:13, "Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl ye ministers of the altar, come lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God." Go over to verse 12 of the 2nd chapter, "Turn ye now even to Me with all your heart and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments." Come down to verse 17, "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach."
Now, how do you get to that state?
There is no way you can jump to that level in ten minutes.
It is an operation.
It's a process.
It's a preparation.
There has to be an individual breaking up of fallow ground in me.
What is there in my individual life that obstructs the flow of the Spirit?
If you are going to break up fallow ground you have to get your own life into a state of discipline - and we are the most undisciplined generation of believers ever.
There is no way of getting to revival unless previously there comes brokenness.
What God wants
The Fire of Revival
Jesus said, "To bring fire on earth have I come." What kind of fire? Well, surely not hell fire. Holy Ghost fire!
The most devastating fire of all is not the fire that consumes a building. It isn't even the fire of hell.
The greatest, most devastating fire, is the fire of God. We say, "God is love, God is love, God is love..."
And yet our God is a consuming fire. "Who shall abide the day of His coming," Malachi says. "He is like a refiner's fire."
Mathew 3:16, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and Fire." But you see, that aspect is not stressed in the day in which we live.
Everybody talks about the baptism. So what do you mean by the baptism? There is a baptism with the Holy Ghost and Fire. Not just with the Holy Ghost, but with Fire.
When He comes He will "thoroughly purge His floor and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Which, again,
can happen individually,
or it can happen in a church,
or it can come and work through a whole community
or it can work through a whole nation.
You never pray a prayer that is born of God without it being on record with God.
God never wastes anything. Do you think you and I have prayers born of grief, born of anguish, born of desire to see an overthrow of iniquity, (for after all that is what revival is) and you think God will let them die?
Now again, the shadow of darkness and death is over this generation like nothing we've ever had before.
And yet, the greatest tragedy of all is this: a sick church in a dying world.
We have neither the vision nor the passion, nor at this moment, the intention of setting our house in order - "to break the fallow ground" - to prepare the way of the Lord.
My hope is that as we go on here we are not just going to gather information and statistics about revival, but that we are going to individually seek personal revival.
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