A few weeks ago I was in a meeting with several pastors and we were discussing revivals. One of the pastors declared, “Most churches in America today don’t even know what a revival is!” That got me thinking. I went back to my office and looked up the word “Revival” in my Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of English Language. Revival – “return, recall or recovery to life from death or apparent death.” Well, if we want revival in American churches, the American churches must be dead or near death. That is a sobering thought. But then I started thinking, attendance is down in American churches, salvations are down, baptisms are down, and the influence of the church that once existed no longer does. Maybe the church in America is nearing death!
When talking of revival we often quote 2 Chronicles 7:14 but do we know what it really means. “If my people, (God wrote this to his church at the time. This church must have been dead too. They needed revived.) who are called by my name, (there are a lot of names out there today) will humble themselves (most leaders today want to be in the front not on their knees)and pray and seek my face (we must hunger for God more than things) and turn from their wicked ways, (not half way but the whole way. Not one leg in the world and one in the church) then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” This is a conditional promise. We must do our part then God will do his. Perhaps the reason we do not have ‘alive’ churches is we are not doing our part.
We read in Ezekiel that he had the same problem, a dead church. God gave him a vision in Ezekiel 37 of dead dry bones. And what brought life to those bones was the Spirit of God. In Ez. 37:14 God said, “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live.” That is what we all need. The Spirit of God living and breathing in us.
We read about the revivals of the past with Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, Dwight Moody, Jeremiah Lamphier, Evan Roberts, and the Azusa Street revival with William Seymour. There have been other pockets of revival, but why doesn’t God move today in the church as he did years ago? I recently heard someone make this statement, “We don’t have revival today because we want revival without repentance.” How true that is!
Why don’t we want repentance? True Repentance is hard work. John the Baptist came declaring “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near” in Matthew 3:2. In the Greek language, the word ‘repent’ actually means “to turn around”. Turn from evil ways to Christ. Turn from acting out of the flesh to walking by the Spirit. God has spoken the need for man to repent for years. Jeremiah declared it. So did Ezekiel and Joel, as well as other Old Testament prophets and priests. Even Jesus came preaching repentance in Mark 1:15 “The kingdom of God is near, Repent and believe the good news.” And the apostle Paul declared it in Acts 26:18.
But what is repentance? Proverbs 28:13 encourages us to confess and renounce our sins. James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins to one another. True repentance involves confession of sin, turning away from sin, turning to God and it may also require restitution. Zacchaeus taught us this in Luke 19 when we encountered Jesus he gave half his possessions to the poor and gave back 4 times the amount that he took from others. Jesus then told him in Luke 19:9 “Today salvation has come.”
This can be a hard thing to do. We do at times ask God to forgive us but what about going to the one we have wronged and ask for their forgiveness, then changing our behavior and attitude. This is a hard thing to do. But if we truly want to see a move of God, we need to truly repent.
Revival will not happen without Repentance. When true repentance occurs revival will come. And it all starts with us!!!!!
October 15, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I will repent right after the honor bound conference.
I believe that a lot of people think of sin as drinking, lying, stealing, sexual immorality, etc. Isn’t sin also not following God’s commands? What if God wants one of us to go to Iraq and start a church? If we refused, wouldn’t that be a sin?
My point is that we all (me too) have something to repent from. Repentance-Bring it on!
October 21, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Pastor, that was exactly what I needed to hear!!!! It’s scary to think of our churches these days as dead, but it is sooo true!!! I love our church to death and I never ever want to see it fall apart. Before revival outside of the church happens, we need to have revival INSIDE the church. Only then can we reach out to the ones who have lost their way. I want revival so bad. I want it in my family, in my friends, in my school, in my city and in my country. But I can’t wait around for others to do it. I know I was put here for “such a time as this. I want God to be so apparent in my life that people just feel different when they’re around me. I want God to start a revival in me and I want that to spill over into my everyday life. But as you said… the only way to do that will be if I repent of my sins and forget them as God has already done. Thanks for that message, Pastor.