The third and final prescription for the church is to seek a broad spiritual awakening across the body of Christ as well as revival of individual Christians and the local church. The pattern of sin and falling away from God followed by repentance, revival, and restoration of His people is a recurrent theme in the history of God’s dealings with the Israelites in the Old Testament. This pattern is illustrated in Psalm 80 as the author pleads with God to once again revive and restore His chosen people.
Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself. Your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire; at your rebuke your people perish. Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself. Then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name. Restore us, O Lord God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved. [Psalm 80:14-19. NIV] [emphasis added]
The essence of revival of the church is a return to God and His ways. In the Old Testament there were at least twelve instances of revival.[1] Preceding each of these revivals there were at least four common elements present:
• A spiritual decline among God’s people.
• A righteous judgement from God – While varying from revival to revival, God’s judgement led to prayer, brokenness, repentance, and a desperate seeking of God’s face. Sometimes God’s judgement led to the deaths of the wicked.
• The raising up of an immensely burdened leader or leaders who had a heavy burden of the moral and spiritual needs of God’s people and the nation.
• Extraordinary actions were taken, the most common of which was a call for a Solemn Assembly of the people who humbled themselves, sought the Lord, wept, fasted, mourned, prayed, confessed and repented of their individual and national sins, and who committed themselves to leading a Godly life and separation from all unrighteousness of the nations.[2]
The prophet Joel called for a solemn assembly following God’s judgement on Judah by sending a horrendous swarm of locusts that devastated the land due to the drunkenness and rebellion of the people. “Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord.” [Joel 1:14. KJV] [emphasis added]
For those Christians of our day who are in anguish at the spiritual condition of the church and the nation, there is perhaps no verse that is more invoked in their prayers for revival and restoration than 2 Chronicles 7:14. It is sometimes called the revival verse.
…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. [2 Chronicles 7:14. KJV]
Notice that God required His people, not the culture at large, to turn from their wicked ways. Although this promise was to Israel and not to other nations, it is a biblical principle that when adhered to has been proven to dramatically change the church as well as the destiny of cultures and mankind’s history for the better. During times of spiritual and moral decline within the church and nation, God will hear His people and respond with spiritual revival, renewed purpose, and restored blessings when the four conditions listed in verse 14 are met.[3]
If my people will humble themselves – God’s people must humble themselves. Humility is a brokenhearted expression of spiritual poverty and wretchedness. This humility comes from their shame and chastisement as their failures and sin are exposed and recognized and for which they now express true sorrow followed by a renewal of commitment to follow God’s commandments and direction for their lives.
If my people will pray – Prayer for revival it is an incessant and desperate plea for mercy and a casting of one’s complete trust and dependence on God. Such prayer is not a casual, intermittent recitation of the awfulness of the one’s situation and a request for a Band-aid® to treat the abrasions caused by a fallen world so that one may get back to more pressing matters of the hour. That’s not a prayer for revival and restoration.
If my people will seek my face – Seeking God’s face is seeking his presence. When God’s presence is withdrawn, Christians feel it. The individual Christian and the body of Christ must turn back to God and seek his presence once again with passion born of a hunger, a burning desire to feel and see more clearly the nearness of His presence. This leads to a deeper and closer relationship with Him. As the Christian basks in His presence, there will be an increasing desire to please Him by obeying His commandments, plans, and purposes for his or her life.
If my people will turn from sin – Christians must repent for their sins and turn from their own sinful ways and rebellion against God. This is a separation from evil influences while focusing on a life of purity and holiness.[4]
Prayer – The common threat
Although all four of God’s conditions are necessary for revival and restoration of His people, it is prayer that stands at the vanguard and acts as a covering for the other three. Dr. A. T. Pierson once said, “There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.”[5] Throughout all of history, the common and inextricable thread running through all spiritual awakenings is the concerted intercessory prayer of Christians. This was proven in each of America’s three Great Awakenings between the 1730s and the 1860s.
The church must not be discouraged if it does not see immediate results from its prayers for revival. Sometimes God must shake His people with drought, disease, war, economic collapse, or other calamities. At the beginning of the First Great Awakening in America, Jonathan Edwards prayed 2 Chronicles 7:14. But things didn’t seem to get better immediately, and the shaking continued with many tragic events and unusual deaths. God used these deaths and natural disasters to urge the people to church. Conversions began to increase due to prayer. People started talking about eternal things. And the Great Awakening eventually followed and served as the foundation of the American republic four decades later.
The Third Great Awakening that began in 1857-1858 is a pattern for the modern church. It was called by many names including the Businessman’s Revival, the Layman’s Revival, and the Union Prayer Meeting. Although popularly called the Revival of 1857-1858, it bore all the marks and qualifications of a general moral and spiritual awakening in America. [Note: Revivals tend to be localized events (church, village, town, or city), but an awakening encompasses a much larger area (district, county, or country), can last for years or decades, and significantly raise the moral standards of a society.[6]
The revival sprang from an initial meeting at the noon hour on September 23, 1857 in the upper room of the Dutch Reform Church in lower Manhattan. Jeremiah Lamphier had advertised the prayer meeting, but only six came that first day. Three weeks later, a financial panic that had been building since August exploded on October 13th when banks were closed and did not reopen for two months. Attendance soon mushroomed as businessmen from nearby Wall Street began attending. The prayer meetings quickly spread to other churches, auditoriums, and theaters.[7] During the winter months the crime rate dropped even as in mass unemployment caused by the financial panic engulfed the large city and where one would expect the crime rate to rise under such circumstances.[8]
The greatest intensity of the revival occurred between February and April of 1858. The initial effects of the revival were felt in New York City where the revival began. The prayer revival also sparked local church revivals in New England, the Midwest, and upper South (beginning particularly with New Year’s Eve “watch night” services); in separate women’s prayer groups; and on college campuses across the nation.[9] The character and results of the Revival of 1857-1858 were described by Matthew Backholer.
The lay influence predominated to such an extent that ministers were overshadowed. This awakening was not a remote piety in little corners of churches, but to the fore of everyday business life, college life and home life. It was right there in the nitty-gritty of everyday work, not just a Sunday affair.[10]
After considerable and careful research, J. Edwin Orr, one of the twentieth century’s foremost revival historians, confirmed estimates that over one million solid, long-lasting conversions occurred during 1858-1859 out of a population of less than thirty million.[11] Historians have debated the impact of the Revival of 1857-1858 as it related to nineteenth century social reform efforts. But, the reality was that the 1857-1858 Revival was about personal religious transformation but with which society greatly benefited. The revival caused men and women, in both the North and South, to be spiritually prepared for the coming struggle in which the nation would exorcize the demon of slavery and recover its national unity.
One hundred and sixty years later America and the church are again in profound rebellion against God, and as a result He is pouring out a measure of judgement on the nation. Whether this measure of judgement is remedial in nature or a final judgement depends on the actions of God’s people. Pierre Bynum says that America is ripe for destruction because of the rebellion of the church.
The Evangelical Movement in this country is characterized by an arrogance that is almost beyond belief. The neglect of prayer, the involvement in Philistine methodology, the moral evils, the doctrinal corruptions that characterize the Movement are sufficient to cause the people of Sodom to wonder at God’s justice in destroying their city while sparing the United States.[12]
The nation’s only hope is for God’s people to once again humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways. From such comes revival.
As important as revival is to the church, it must add the previous two prescriptions to complete the church’s healing as discussed in Parts IV and V. Christians must resist cultural captivity through cultivation of resistance thinking that is essential to voice a prophetically untimely message to the church and a lost and dying world. This must occur in conjunction with a restoration of the doctrines, teachings, and practices of the New Testament that guided the first century Christians.
A final word to resistance thinkers who become prophetically untimely people
For those that develop and practice the art of resistance thinking, the outcome will be frustration, anger, and sorrow for they are untimely men and women, out of step with the trendy and fashionable, never at home in their present age, and whose message will be rejected by the majority. This occurs because resistance thinkers have a counter-perspective that is anchored in the uncompromising Word of God. Prophetically untimely people have the courage to say “no” to things that are wrong, but there is a price that is paid for their boldness. They are called purveyors of doom and gloom, mal-adjusted, out-of-touch with reality, divisive, legalistic, and haters among other vilifications. But those labels are of little consequence to the resistance thinker who speaks an untimely message.
Their greater pain and sorrow comes from their broken-heartedness as they see the lost-ness of friends, family, and the church that have become acclimatized to and are held captive by a culture saturated with the humanistic spirit of the age. Anger surges in their breasts as they see Satan’s devastation of the lives of men, women, and children engulfed by a sin-soaked world system and a church that is oblivious to the enemy within. They are in anguish at the destruction of the nation’s hard won Judeo-Christian foundations at the hands of false teachers, secularist and humanist philosophers, ungodly politicians, and their groveling fellow travelers.
The prophetically untimely resistance thinker can take solace in that their feelings of sorrow, anger, frustration, and brokenness are similar to the feelings common to all of the Old Testament prophets. They were few in number and rejected by their own age as are resistance thinkers in the present age. But the prophetically untimely resistance thinker can also take comfort, encouragement, and direction from the words of A. W. Tozer written long ago.
Take nothing for granted…Go back to the grass roots. Open your hearts and search the Scriptures. Bear your cross, follow your Lord and pay no heed to the passing religious vogue. The masses are always wrong. In every generation the number of the righteous is small. Be sure you are among them.[13]
The church is sick and the nation suffers. The road back begins with resistance thinking. Be among those to sound the alarm.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Rev. Pierre Bynum, Family Research Council Prayer Team, April 19, 2017.
http://www.frc.org/prayerteam/prayer-targets-rev-ro-roberts-the-solemn-assembly-national-day-of-prayer-may-4-2017 (accessed April 20, 2017).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Donald Stamps, Commentary, Fire Bible: Global Study Edition, New International Version, Gen. Ed. Donald Stamps, (Published by Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, LLC, Peabody, Massachusetts; Copyright 2009 by Life Publishers International, Springfield, Missouri), p. 723.
[4] Ibid.
[5] J. Edwin Orr, “Revival and Prayer.” http://www.jedwinorr.com/resources/articles/prayandrevival.pdf (accessed April 11, 2017).
[6] Matthew Backholer, Revival Fires and Awakenings, (www.ByFaith.org: ByFaith Media, 2009, 2012), p. 7.
[7] Michael McClymond, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, Vol. 1, A-Z, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 362-363.
[8] Backholer, “Revival and Prayer,” P. 62.
[9] McClymond, “Revival Fires and Awakenings,” p. 262-263.
[10] Backholer, “Revival and Prayer,” P. 63.
[11] Ibid., pp. 62-63.
[12] Bynum, Family Research Council Prayer Team, April 19, 2017.
[13] A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1955, 1986), p.5.
