“Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee” (Ps. 85:6 KJV).
The church has needed authentic revival for a long time. I haven’t seen a work of God for many years that can be called a revival. I have seen some religious movements that involved the multitudes. But these movements didn’t restore the church to obedience to the Bible and a life of holiness. There was motion, but no progress.
I knew of a local church that invited a very popular and charismatic evangelist to preach in their revival meeting. He would sensationalize the portion of Scripture he used for his message and then work to stimulate the congregation. His meetings were always exciting. In this particular revival meeting, the revival went on for twelve weeks. And one would think that it was a great work of God. But God wasn’t in it because it was all about the man’s performance. At the end of the twelve-week so-called revival, the church he held the meeting in had a knockdown, drag-out fight.
I say that to say this that everything going on in the church is not of God. Sadly, since the church has welcomed in the world, Satan has set up his base of operation in the church, and everything labeled “Christian” is not Christian anymore. But the church that is revived and repents of its contemporary Christianity by returning to Biblical Christianity will not do anything that is not authorized by the Bible (KJV).
But what is a revival? Simply put, a revival is acknowledging and repenting of or turning away from our sins back to a life of obedience to God by walking in His fellowship. It’s turning away from being concerned about morale to being concerned about our morals. It’s turning away from being concerned about our happiness to being concerned about our holiness. It’s turning away from being concerned about our entertainment and excitement to being concerned about our edification. It’s turning away from being concerned about temporal and material things to being concerned about eternal and spiritual things. Martin Lloyd Jones said, “Any agency (the church included) that makes me feel satisfied when my relationship with God is not right, is of the devil, and is my greatest enemy.” Someone else said, “If the church through some means has improved your morale while leaving you enslaved to low morals, then the church has deceived and misled you.”A.W. Tozer said, “I content that whatever does not raise the moral standard of the church and the surrounding community has not been a revival from God.”
The church is still having revival meetings, and yet the church has not been revived. When you see a lot of religion but not Biblical Christianity, you need revival. “Revival meetings” are held, but for all our excitement, energy, efforts, and money spent, there’s no inkling of genuine revival. Foy Valentine said, “We were revival-oriented, but revivalism . . . is dead. It is dead in spite of our frantic mouth-to-mouth breathing over it, and even though we still respectfully hold one-week and even two-week memorial services in loving tribute to its memory.”
God’s people are intimidated, stimulated, and manipulated, but never convicted of sin and persuaded to repent and live according to God’s Word. This is because our revival meetings are nothing more than pep rallies. Religion has become the latest form of entertainment.
The churches invite motivational speakers instead of God-called and God-fearing preachers. Performance has replaced worship. The demand is for something that will make us feel good about ourselves and make us forget our troubles. These “show-boats” get the Christians excited and have them feeling like winners during the meetings but dismiss those still enslaved to sin. They address their felt needs but not their real needs. They address their feelings of defeat and loneliness but not the need to repent of their sins and obey God so they can have victory over sin and experience God’s fellowship again.
The church needs a real revival, not another worthless pep rally.
