The modern day word, “revival” comes from the latin word, “revivere” which means to live again, or to return to a flourishing state.
I have never been one to restore things, whether that is furniture, a car, a house…objects that many people around the world love to spend time on, but that number does not include me. However, what I do know is if you are restoring something, that thing has declined. It is not what it once was. Wear and tear has visited the item. Cracks, dust, dirt, or disrepair are common in items that are in need of restoration. To restore assumes a decline.
The same is true of revival. We see revival throughout Scripture as a return to the Lord. You can’t return to someone you didn’t leave. Throughout the almost 2,000 years of Church history, revival has happened in moments when the Church has lost her way.
We can look at the Protestant Reformation. The Church had fallen into false doctrine. Priests were teaching that salvation was a thing to barter, a service to buy, a rite to auction. Indulgences were being used as a power chip of the high and lofty members of the Church of that day. On October 31, 1517, God used a man named Martin Luther to spark a revival of sound doctrine and salvation by faith alone. Through Luther’s teaching, amongst many others in this time period, God revived His Church and brought her back to the message of the Gospel and the Authority of Scripture. There was a decline, and God poured out revival to re-awaken His people.
We can look at early American history and see another decline, and another revival. Churches had become divided. Divided by class, divided by people group, the unity of the Spirit was non-existent. God used men such as Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitefield to awaken the need for a true new birth in the hearts of men and women. This new birth is that which Jesus spoke of in John 3. This salvation was not just for the well-to-do, the wealthy, or the affluent, but it is a salvation for all mankind. This revival brought unity to His Church as it spread from the 13 colonies of America to England. There was a decline, and God revived His Church.
Moving forward to the late 1800’s, the Church was yet again in decline. There was a stark contrast between the power of the Church in Acts and the reality of the Church in the 1800’s. The reality of the Spirit’s work in people’s lives was not the forefront of people’s minds. Through men such as William Seymour, Evan Roberts, and others, God reawakened people’s hearts to the work of the Spirit. Through this revival, today Pentecostalism is the fastest growing group of Christianity in the world.
For us to say we need reviving, we must admit we have been declining. In America, we have allowed greed and comfort to distort our view of the Gospel, and now we embrace both and claim health, wealth, and prosperity as part of the redemptive work of Jesus. We have espoused a cheap grace, where Jesus just wants to be my friend, and Christianity is simply the best “self-help” option we can find; forgetting all along the severity of our sin and the requirement of justice. Thus salvation is more about accepting Jesus’ friend request than it is crucifying my flesh and my desires on His cross.
If we are to truly cry out for revival, we are obliged to concede the reality of a precipitous decline. The American Church has declined to a point where it is hard at times to see the true Gospel within her excesses. I have spoken with Christians in other parts of the world, and together we have been alarmed at the “gospel” that is coming from America.
But hope is not lost, nor is anything too far gone. God is faithful. He will revive His people if they ask. I believe God is awakening hearts around the nation for this exact purpose. Will you join me in this venture? Yes, there has been decline, look around and the Church in America is not what she should be, but it is in this place that people can look and say, “there has been decline.” And it is in the admission of a decline the first seeds of revival are sown.
Revival America 