Revival Myth #3

3. Revival is for the lost.

If you grew up in the same church culture I did, you know that a typical “revival” meeting lasted about a week (sometimes two), with a fiery evangelist calling sinners to repent every night. You have probably been encouraged to “pack a pew” or at least bring all your lost family members and friends. Oh, and make sure you put in the newspaper so you'll have a crowd! (If real revival ever broke out the newspaper reporters would be knocking our doors down.) Leonard Ravenhill used to say, "You never have to advertise a fire." When God sets a church on fire, people will come for miles to watch the blaze! 

I’m not condemning these types of meetings. They have proven to be fruitful over the years. Many have come to saving faith through meeting just like this. But my question is why do we call this “revival”?

To be “revived” you have to be alive to begin with. The Bible says before Christ we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). So, revival is not for the spiritually dead. It is for those of us who have been made alive in Christ through salvation but don’t love Him like we once did.

Revival is the stirring of God in the hearts of His sleeping Church.  

We tend to forget that the Church in Laodicea that Jesus rebuked was in fact a CHURCH (Revelation 3). These were people who had been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, had been set free from sin, and were made alive in Christ. But over time this group of people became self-sufficient and they left their first love – just walked away from Jesus. Churches are filled with people like you and me who act like they don’t need God. Of course we would never say that, but we live that way. So, it is the Church – you and me – that really needs revival.

Here’s the cool part. When God revives the hearts of His people there are always lost souls saved as a result. Why? When God breathes His life back into His people, then the Church rediscovers its purpose – to make disciples.

So, what we've done is put the cart before the horse. We want the lost to be saved without us having to repent of our sin. It's as if we say, "I love to see a sinner gloriously saved, but don't confront me about my sin of prayerlessness, or covetousness!" (The list goes on.) Our nation is headed to hell fire because the Church has lost Holy Ghost fire. A mighty sweeping harvest will never take place in our land until we have the fire of God again. We'll never have the fire of God again if we, the Church, don't get on our faces, repent, and return to the Lord.  

During genuine revival, the lost are convicted of their own sin because of the confession and repentance of Christians. Often the difference in Christians’ lives is so dramatic that the lost are drawn to Christ through the witness of God’s work in His people.

It’s also interesting to note that every work of God in revival has resulted in an influx of people into the mission field.

God wants His praises to be sung in every nation, so He extends His mercy to a lost and dying world through the message of the gospel. But when His messengers would rather sleep than go and tell, sometimes He just has to wake us up! That’s revival.