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Revival possibilities

Matt 5: 10 – 14

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 16 Jul, 2006

LAST WEEK I suggested that revival is a possibility within God’s purposes, that it does not depend entirely on sociological or theological conditions, but depends on God’s mercy and love.

Today let’s follow up that thought by looking at revivals in history. Let’s see that our God does act miraculously when his people truly seek his face.

As we read in II Chronicles 7:14

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

God longs for us to know forgiveness and know the restored fruitfulness that his indwelling Spirit brings.

Revival is what that is all about. Revival is restoration of life to those on the brink of death. You can’t have revival if you have never come to life in Christ, because revival is what happens when God turns the hearts of his people back to himself.

And never make the mistake of thinking we are merely talking about “People in the Western World”, or “People who formally attend church.” Revival is when people who know the gospel and aim to live by it recognise their need to return to their first love and to rediscover the power for living that Christ our Lord brings to his people.

Today we will look at three different examples of revival and the conditions in which it arose.

First we will look at Montanism: revival out of persecution.

Then we will look at Methodism: revival out of isolation.

Finally we will look at The Isle of Lewis: revival out of dedication.

The Montanist Revival began around the year 155 AD in central Turkey, long before the Muslim Turks invaded from the East.

Some historians call the Montanists heretics. I side with John Wesley. He studied them and declared that they were true Bible Christians.

  The Montanists revival movement arose out of intense persecution.

In the early years, persecution was intermittent. It wasn’t every day that soldiers came to drag Christians from their beds or slaughter them on the streets.

Around 110 AD Emperor Trajan told Governor Pliny what to do.

Pliny, wanted to know how to treat Christians. Trajan said, “Don’t seek Christians actively. If they live quietly and keep to themselves, leave them alone. Don't act unless there is very clear evidence, otherwise people will dob in their neighbours in the hope of taking over their property. And, if he did catch any, only punish them if it is very clear that they are Christians, and refuse to change.

That was a fairly common approach.

But there were times of persecution, and one persecution led to the martyrdom of old Bishop Polycarp.

Polycarp had been a Christian since he was a boy, and now he was nearly 90. But he would not submit to the Roman authorities, and was burnt at the stake.

Then there was a general unleashing of persecution against Christians.

And out of it came revival.

Tertullian looked back on these times, and wrote,

The blood of martyrs is seed.

He knew that persecution often makes the church grow.

Persecution made the Christians of central Turkey grow.

And, in the midst of it all, revival broke out. Yes, there were some questionable aspects. They had a focus on prophecy, and it seems that some of the people began going into trances to do it. Other Christians protested, as you would expect.

But the other results were —

• They became bold witnesses; the Montanists testified while other Christians stayed quiet.

• They were united in purpose

• They were totally convinced of Christ's presence among them and communication to them

• They were motivated by the vision of his coming as Lord, Judge and Saviour.

When people feel threatened, they generally either run away or they fight. It’s called the “Fight or flight response.” The Montanists took an interesting approach. They didn’t run away, they ran to Jesus. They didn’t take up swords, they fought with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Like it says in the book of Revelation, which they keenly read,

They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

When God’s people respond to the troubles of this life by fleeing to Christ their Rock, and when they apply the Word of God, then the Lord Jesus does miraculous things!

Then there was Methodism.

The Methodist revival grew out of isolation.

The 18th Century was a time of scattering of Village life. New industries began. People invented new machines to make milling cloth and mining coal and all kinds of other work much easier. But it meant that people could no longer earn a living on the farms. They came to the new cities and lived there. They went to church in the village; but there were no churches in the towns where they went. There was no pastoral care. There was no preaching of the gospel.

And a little man, a High Anglican priest with a loud voice and a definite experience of conversion came and started preaching.

If there was a church, he would preach there if the minister would allow it; if there wasn't a church, he would find an empty field, or a market place, or a graveyard, and preach there.

Wherever he went, he preached salvation through Jesus and repentance for backslidden believers.

He was like Charles Grandison Finney, who ministered in rural US towns a generation later. he went to people who had drifted away from their roots, he brought the gospel to them, and people turned back to Jesus in their thousands.

Believers were revived and unbelievers were converted. That is always the goal of the gospel, and always a revival goal.

It’s what the Psalmist says:

PSA 68:4 Sing to God, sing praise to his name...

⁵ A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,

is God in his holy dwelling.

⁶ God sets the lonely in families,

he leads forth the prisoners with singing;

but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

In the midst of their isolation, Christ came to these new urban workers, and brought them hope and life.

At Azusa Street in Chicago, the same thing happened. It was a church that welcomed black and white, the poor, the lonely, the new immigrants. And it was a place of revival for many years.

Revival comes when the good news of a living Christ comes to people in their isolation. People who feel cut off from their roots are ready to respond when they hear Christ’s welcoming voice.

I hear thy welcome voice

That calls me, Lord, to thee

For cleansing in the precious blood

That flowed from Calvary.

Finally we see the revival on the Isle of Lewis in 1949. It was revival through dedication.

Off the northern end of Scotland lies the Isle of Lewis. Many factors fed into the revival that broke out there. There was the constant prayer of a pair of elderly sisters who could barely leave their home, but spent their time in fervent effectual prayer. There was a middle–aged minister who came to do a week of teaching and stayed for months. There were a group of church elders who began meeting in a barn for a weekly prayer meeting for revival.

Bit by bit these factors came together. Then, one evening, something happened.

The farmers meeting in the barn were the first to recognise it. They had been reading God’s Word and praying, and one of them suddenly stopped.

They were praying that God would send a revival on their community, and one of the men said, “This is all so much humbug unless we pray for revival to start with us!”

And, once they had that clear, that was how they prayed. They confessed their coldness of heart, and asked Jesus to renew his work in them.

It was like the words of te Lord Jesus in the book of Revelation:

REV 2:4 ...I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. ⁵ Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. ⁶ But you have this in your favour: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

⁷ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

With repentance and return comes blessings without measure. The threat of oblivion is removed. The light shines forth again.

It was like Solomon’s prayer:

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

They humbled themselves. They prayed. They sought God’s face. They turned from their sin. Then God heard from heaven, and forgave them and his power came down on them.

People came running from the town and the surrounding farm houses. Something was happening at that barn — what was it? Some people thought they heard an explosion or a strong gust of wind. Some people thought they saw a flash of light. They didn’t know what was happening, but they gathered to find out. And they heard, and they believed. Revival came, and revival stayed.

In 1971, I was part of a group which went to Beth Shan at Wyee. It was a troubled weekend. Chris and I were just married, so were my brother and his wife; but we were part of the senior group, sort of the SSS group from our church. Then there were all the younger ones, the 18 or 19 year olds. I mean, I was only 24, and Eddy and Rhonda were about 27 and 24 themselves, but we were the seniors.

And we seniors were where God’s movement began.

It was like what Jesus says in John’s Gospel.

^{JN 15:5} “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Because we weren’t abiding fully in Christ, because the life of Jesus wasn’t flowing without hindrance through us all, we were not fruitful. To use Solomon’s words, our land needed healing.

And when we repented, when we turned back to Jesus with all our heart, then he began a work in us.

It wasn’t great sins. But doesn’t the Bible warn that it is the little foxes that spoil the vines?

Prayerlessness, lack of Bible reading, staying away from the fellowship of Christians, maybe bad relationships with some other fellow believer. I don’t know what each person needed to confess and deal with. But that was it. One by one we did that, until only my sister–in–law, Lois, was left. Each time the chance came to deal with her life, and each time she would stand there shaking with emotion, but resisting the Spirit’s call.

The rest of us leaders went out of the meeting to pray for her.

Then I looked back into the chapel, and there was Lois, talking to one of the leaders, working through whatever she had to deal with.

The joy of the Lord flooded over us, because we were seeing prayer answered as we watched! We stood and praise him for his goodness to us!

None of the young group had attended that meeting. None of them was even near the chapel or any other place where ministry was going on.

Yet, as soon as the leaders were cleaned through the blood of Jesus, these younger people came running from down at the cow paddock and in the dormitories, some of them in tears, because they knew their own hearts and saw their need to surrender to Jesus.

I remember Chris leading five of them at the one time to Christ. Eddy, Rhonda and I organised ourselves as the backup team. As each one submitted to Christ, Eddy, Rhonda and I went over the gospel with them to make sure that no one had missed out on the facts.

That is how revival comes: the revived Christians become a magnet for pagans needing conversion.

It happened on the Isle of Lewis, and it can still happen here. When Christians put in the perspiration, and truly seek God’s blessing, revival will come!

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

Is today the day for revival to break out among us? Revival can come in just about any condition in which we find ourselves. As long as we seek God, he will be found by us. Let’s seek with all our heart! AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)