What Is Revival and Where Do We Find It?

00:00:00.000 | Today we have a simple and a straightforward question, and it comes

00:00:07.000 | into us from a listener who writes this. Pastor John, how can I understand

00:00:12.080 | revival according to the Bible, and what would we expect to see if it broke out

00:00:16.720 | again today? What would you say, Pastor John? The idea of revival originates in

00:00:23.600 | the reality that on the one hand, God is the decisive giver of all spiritual life,

00:00:32.400 | and on the other hand, humans, even those who are born again and part of God's

00:00:39.520 | covenant family, from time to time drift into a kind of lifelessness and lethargy

00:00:47.760 | and backsliding and indifference and weakness. And when you put those two

00:00:52.160 | together, God as the giver of life and man as ever drifting towards lifelessness,

00:00:59.480 | what you get is the need for the hope of reviving, coming back to life, a fresh

00:01:08.760 | outpouring of God's life-giving Spirit on his people. That's what revival is. So

00:01:17.320 | for example, we read in Psalm 85 verse 6, "Will not you revive us again, O God, that

00:01:26.080 | your people may rejoice in you?" Or Habakkuk chapter 3 verse 2, "O Lord, I

00:01:32.840 | have heard the report of you and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of

00:01:39.440 | the years, revive it. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember

00:01:46.520 | mercy." Or Psalm 80 verse 18, "Give us life that we may call upon your name." Or

00:01:54.400 | Isaiah 57 15, "Thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity,

00:02:02.720 | whose name is holy, I dwell in a high and holy place and also with him who is of a

00:02:07.800 | contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, to revive the heart

00:02:14.440 | of the contrite." And alongside those passages about reviving, you read the

00:02:21.720 | history of Israel, and it's just one up and down after the other. One king is

00:02:28.760 | wicked, and God withholds his blessing or sends judgment. Another king recovers

00:02:34.560 | godliness, and there's a reviving and an awakening of true worship for a season,

00:02:40.000 | and up and down it goes. And when you turn to the New Testament, even though

00:02:45.520 | the period of time is really short between Jesus' resurrection and the close

00:02:51.440 | of the New Testament, maybe 40 years or so, we do get glimpses already of

00:02:57.520 | churches that were in need of reviving. I think the book of Hebrews was written

00:03:03.320 | to a church like that. You hear it in Hebrews 5 12, "Though by this time you

00:03:08.640 | ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles and

00:03:14.040 | oracles of God," or chapter 12 verse 12, "Lift your drooping hands and strengthen

00:03:20.840 | your weak knees and make straight the paths of your feet, so that what is lame

00:03:26.280 | may not be put out of joint." So this is a church that's already drooping, it's

00:03:30.760 | already dragging, it's gotten tired already and needs reviving. And then when

00:03:37.080 | you read the prayers of Paul, this is where I feel it, when you read the

00:03:41.220 | prayers of Paul and his letters, they read just like prayers that would be

00:03:48.800 | made for churches that are drifting into lifelessness. There are few prayers in

00:03:56.720 | the Bible that have had a reviving, challenging, awakening, renewing effect on

00:04:04.440 | me like Ephesians 3 14 to 19, where Paul prays like this, "I pray that according to

00:04:11.320 | the riches of your glory, you may grant us to be strengthened with power through

00:04:19.280 | your spirit in the inner being, so that Christ might dwell in our hearts

00:04:24.840 | through faith, that we being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to

00:04:30.880 | comprehend with all the saints what is the height and depth and length and

00:04:34.320 | breadth, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge and be filled with

00:04:38.480 | all the fullness of God." I mean, over the years in my pastoral ministry, that

00:04:43.680 | prayer to have power to comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth

00:04:50.960 | and to be filled with all the fullness of God was a heart cry because of how

00:04:56.920 | short I knew I fell of being filled with all the fullness of God. In the history

00:05:04.440 | of the church, the term "revival" in its most biblical sense has meant a sovereign

00:05:12.920 | work of God in which the whole region, a whole region of many churches, many

00:05:19.640 | Christians has been lifted out of spiritual indifference and worldliness

00:05:24.920 | into conviction of sin, earnest desires for the world of Christ and his Word, boldness

00:05:31.840 | in witness, purity of life, lots of conversions, joyful worship, renewed

00:05:37.240 | commitment to missions. You feel God has moved here, and basically revival then

00:05:44.960 | is God doing among many Christians at the same time or in the same region

00:05:51.480 | usually what he's doing all the time in individual Christians' lives as people

00:05:57.480 | get saved and individually renewed around the world. And I'll just say if

00:06:03.280 | anybody wants to go further, Martin Lloyd-Jones' book called "Revival" would be

00:06:09.240 | a great read. Or you can go to Desiring God and just type, like I did earlier

00:06:14.560 | today, type into the search engine at our website, just type in "what is

00:06:20.480 | revival?" and there's a whole list of things that come up there. Yeah, great

00:06:24.840 | resources. Again, come and visit us online at DesiringGod.org, and you can find

00:06:30.080 | articles on revival and a host of other issues. We publish new content every

00:06:34.160 | single day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and it's all served up fresh every

00:06:40.760 | day for you. And we thank you for the question. Our questions come from you, the

00:06:44.960 | listeners, and if you have a question that you just can't quite figure out or

00:06:49.120 | some issue that seems confusing to you, email your questions to us.

00:06:53.800 | AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org is the email address, and of course you can find our

00:06:58.760 | audio feeds and our episode archive through our online home as well at

00:07:02.640 | DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. On Monday, we're going to return, we're

00:07:09.480 | going to talk about why the Bible sometimes cites non-biblical sources. In

00:07:13.320 | this case, we're going to talk about citations in the book of Jude and how

00:07:17.880 | they got there. I'm your host Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening to the podcast, and

00:07:21.560 | we hope you have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday.

00:07:26.120 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What Is Revival and Where Do We Find It?

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