QUESTIONS FOR A FORMER REVIVALIST

Question – What does “former revivalist” mean? Are you backslidden or something?

Answer – No, I’m not backslidden! It means that I don’t talk about revival the way I used to.

Q – Why is that? Did you talk bad about revival?

A – From the time I was a boy, I heard sermons and stories about the revivals of the past and the ones “just around the corner.” When the old-timers talked about the early days of the Pentecostal revival, the stories were always tinged with, “Those were great days and we wish it could be that way again!” There seemed to always be a wistful desire to “go back to the good old days.”

I couldn’t begin to count the times I heard sermons about the great revivals that were coming—great tidal waves of His Spirit that would shake cities and countries—but never arrived. I picked up this jargon too, but no more!

Q - Have there been no revivals during your life?

A - I have seen God do some marvelous things that were a type of revival, and I have been able to participate in a few of them. For example, the Charismatic Renewal and the Jesus Movement both happened in the 60’s and 70’s. Also in 1970 a revival broke out at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, that eventually spread to dozens of universities and colleges. In the 80’s and 90’s there were flashes of revival throughout the U.S. and Canada and a lot more in other countries. But there were hundreds and hundreds of “impassioned messages” given about impending revivals and moves of God that never happened.

Q – So you stopped believing in revival?

A – That’s the odd thing. I see more need for revival now and want to see revival more than ever but I don’t feel inclined to talk about it like I used to. I am drawn more to pray about and personally live in revival but I’m tired of trying to talk up revival or to alternately coax people into revival using the old “carrot in front of the donkey” trick. I’m tired of trying to preach guilt and goad people into a worked-up revival. Hot preaching (with hot music) is not revival…it’s nothing more or less than a lively form of worship—a style of worship.

Q – What do you mean when you talk about “personal revival”?

A – The following verse from Isaiah has really spoken to me:

"For this is what the high and lofty One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15 NIV).

Gods’ commitment is to be with His children, to live with them, and to bring revival/renewal to them on a personal basis. The only condition God sets on this personal revival is that His people be contrite and lowly in spirit, meaning that they be humble and honest.

Q – Do you think that’s what holds back revival…the lack of humility?

A –I believe revival is held back because people do not do the one thing that will bring humility.

Q – Which is what?

A – Repentance brings humility. When we ask God to forgive us for trying to do it on our own and we honestly repent and confess that we really are nothing, we break the back of selfish egotism. Pride is brought down by repentance.

Somehow in our lifetime repentance has gotten all tangled up with legalism, and misguided preachers are telling people to repent over clothing styles or drinking coffee or something equally mundane. Repentance is not about exterior issues, it’s about the heart and the core values of my life. It’s about giving Him the steering wheel of my life and my repenting for trying to drive by my rules and not His. Repentance is about laying aside the things that weigh us down and distract us from living a life that is pleasing to Him.

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Every revival starts with one repentant sinner, people just like you and me.

Q - Are you suggesting that churches should stop having revival meetings?

A - We have focused so much on the Upper Room experience that we have lost sight of the fact that if you had visited the Upper Room a few days after Pentecost, you wouldn’t have found anybody there. The wind of the Spirit pushed the “newly empowered believers” out into the street to share their faith. When the newly revived didn’t fully understand what Acts 1:8 was saying and seemed to get stuck in the first part of the verse, again the wind of the Spirit blew many of them out of Jerusalem and into Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. The real revival meeting of the 21st Century has little to do with a church meeting and everything to do with His people being led by His Spirit to take the gospel into the marketplace and to the ends of the earth.

Q - So what’s your final word on revival?

A - I intend to continue living in the presence of the Lord and having my own personal revival. I also intend to keep encouraging others to do the same…to stay humble, to stay repentant and to continue living in the reviving, refreshing presence of the Lord according to His promise. I intend to continue letting the Spirit of God lead my life.