We Need Revival

My brother Roy Ingle and I have been thinking a lot about revival lately and how much the Church of Christ Jesus needs to be revived, so we teamed up to briefly write about it. When we say "we" need revival, we mean that each and every individual who calls him- or herself a follower of Christ Jesus needs revival. When we say we "need" revival, we mean that there are crucial spiritual and disciplinary elements missing among those who call themselves Christ followers; a need presupposes lack. When we say we need "revival," we find hard and fast definitions of that word difficult.

For example, Iain Murray, in his book Pentecost Today? The Biblical basis for Understanding Revival, took aim at the "revivalist movement" of the nineteenth century. Murray believed (along with many others) that the "revivalist movement" guided Christianity away from its biblical mandate toward another mandate -- one that has since mislead the Church. He believed that the practices and teachings of revivalistic evangelists such as Charles Finney brought about heretical practices, such as the altar call and the "sinner’s prayer," and introduced man-centered, pragmatic theology into the Church.

In some ways Murray is correct. There are some things about Finney that we appreciate, such as the account of his conversion, or the fact that he had a passion to bring spiritual life back into "dead" New England churches. But there are things about Finney with which we do not agree, such as his introducing the “sinner’s prayer” as the way to properly respond to the gospel, or his pragmatism.

A problem arises, however, when trying to accurately define the word "revival" from Scripture. The prefix "re" refers to the concept of doing something again, whereas "viva" refers to life. Thus revival can be conceptualized as bringing back or restoring to life that which has lost life. But what do we mean by "life"? To what does "alive" refer in the context of revival?

To the church in Sardis Christ said, "I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God" (Rev. 3:1-2 NASB). The Greek word for "alive" (zes) is the present active indicative of zao, meaning "to live." Thus the followers of Christ in Sardis had a name (reputation) for being living Christians -- the ones who had life!

Now, we know that they had physical life, since they were breathing. The reference to "life" here should refer to spiritual life. They had a reputation for being spiritually alive (regenerate) in Christ. However, Jesus informed them that their condition was grave: though their reputation was that of spiritual life and vitality, they were actually dead (nekros), figuratively speaking.

This does not mean that they had lost their salvation, for He commanded them to "Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die." What these Christians needed was revival -- a bringing back to life the spiritual elements of their faith that were dying. We are reminded of the Ephesian believers, whom Jesus informed had left their first love (Rev. 2:4). But to the Ephesians, He did not command to "wake up and be revived," but to "repent" (Rev. 2:5). Indeed, the need for revival often indicates the adoption of bad or sinful habits of which we need to repent; and though we must do the repenting, we recognize even repenting is a gracious enablement of God.

What this indicates is that we cannot work up, initiate, or instigate revival and repentance on our own. When apparent "revivals" derive from man-centered efforts or constraints, what we witness are parades of the flesh, not genuine works of the Holy Spirit.

Finney stated in his book Lectures on Revivals of Religion that revival was not a supernatural work of God’s Spirit but a work and product of man. Thus the rise of modern “revival movements,” which followed Finney’s pragmatism, included aspects of special (oftentimes emotionally driven) music, advertisements, etc. Finney thought that prayer for revival was good and necessary, but that people had to do their part to promote revival and bring it about. He emphasized what we have found to be true of many so-called "revivals," that revival is not explicitly defined for us in Scripture, and thus the term “revival” often means different things to different people.

Why do we sense that Christ's Church today needs reviving? The answer is inherent in Dr. Wilbur Smith's summary of nine characteristics of revivals mentioned in the Old Testament:

1) They [revivals] occurred in a day of deep moral darkness and national depression.
2) They began in the heart of one consecrated servant of God who became the energizing power behind it, the agent used of God to quicken and lead the nation back to faith in and obedience to Him.
3) Each revival rested on the Word of God, and most were the result of preaching and proclaiming God’s law with power.
4) All resulted in a return to the worship of Yahweh as the one true and living God.
5) Each witnessed the destruction of idols.
6) In each revival, there was a recorded separation from sin.
7) In every revival, they returned to offering blood sacrifices (Hebrews 9:22).
8) Almost all recorded revivals show a restoration of great joy and gladness (Nehemiah 8:10; Acts 8:8).
9) Each revival was followed by a period of great national prosperity.

Our churches today -- and by "churches" we mean those self-professed Christians who attend them -- are steeped or trapped in unbiblical and uncritical worldviews and/or practices either explicitly or implicitly condemned in Scripture. Such has turned our hearts away from obeying Christ and has robbed the body of Christ of joy. Our witness has been tainted by sin and we have become ineffectual for the work of God's Spirit.

The simple conclusion is this: we need revival. We need Spirit-led ethical and moral behavior in the hearts of God's people. We need to be saturated in God's word so that we might obey Christ in all things, be faithful witnesses of Christ's gospel and goodness, thereby ridding ourselves of idols and sin, and joyfully, righteously exalting the nature and character, justice and holiness, of our Triune God. Worldliness must be replaced with godliness. Apathy must be replaced with holy zeal. Sinfulness must be replaced with holy obedience. Again, these spiritual facets need to be the daily experience of all denominational and non-denominational followers of Christ.

Finally, James, the Lord Jesus' half-brother, wrote, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8a). Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Chaddick comments, "The reason we're not having revival is we're too content living without it" (Sermon: We Need Revival). By God's grace, we can be as close to Him as we desire. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners [he's writing to Christians]; and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8).