Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Revive us, and we will call on your name.  Psalm 80:18

Long ago the psalmist prayed, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6).   A generation ago, folks sang the rousing words of a song written by John Husband: “Revive us again; fill each heart with thy love; May each soul be rekindled with fire from above. Hallelujah! Thine the glory, Hallelujah! Amen; Hallelujah! Thine the glory, revive us again.”

But what are we really talking about when we use that term “revival”?  And frankly, if that fire from above really got rekindled in our midst, would it upset the status quo?  Would it really be welcomed?

When a person is at the point of death, and his heart gets a 220-volt jolt from a machine, we say the person revived.  In other words, the individual who was dying gets new life.  In a spiritual sense, revival means coming to life, an awakening, as the mighty Spirit of God brings new life to His Body the Church and to us as individuals who are part of that grand fellowship.

It means a stirring of our hearts to the very core of our being—which results in joy, renewed love for each other, obedience to the Word and a reordering of our personal lives because God touched us.

Revivals are not worked-up, organized events, which can be promoted and can succeed only if we make them happen.   Revivals are not a series of church meetings with singing, emotional frenzy and a fiery speaker who psychs the crowd with outbursts of rhetoric. They are a moving of God’s Holy Spirit, who breathes new life into God’s people.

The question is almost rhetorical, but it has to be confronted:  Do we need revival today?  And if you answer, “Yes!” you need to seriously ponder a second one, “Do we want it?”  Both have to come together for anything to happen in your personal life and certainly in your church and the churches across this land and the world.

When Jesus sent out the twelve, He gave them authority over the spirit world and the physical world as well.  He said, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:7-8).  When the twelve hit the streets, people knew something was happening.  They did not have to put on a show to get a crowd.  Masses of people knew that something was happening.

Today, though, almost every advance of the church can be explained in human terms: good promotion; great programs; terrific entertainment; exciting, feel-good motivational messages (once called sermons).  We have given authority over the spirit world to the psychics and psychiatrists, and authority over the physical to medical science.   The result is an impotent church whose growth comes from within, not without.

Do we need revival today?  Ask yourself, “Do I need to be revived?  Has my spiritual life become mechanical, routine, and humdrum?  Would I really like a deeper, more intimate relationship with God’s Son?”  And when you answer in the affirmative, you have declared yourself to be a candidate for revival.

When the British evangelist Gipsy Smith was asked how to start a revival, he said, “Go home, lock yourself in your room, and kneel down in the middle of your floor.  Draw a chalk mark all around yourself and ask God to start the revival inside that chalk mark.  When He has answered your prayer, the revival will be on.”  Indeed!

Resource reading: Psalm 80:1-19