Why we need Revival


From Global Revival – Worldwide Outpourings by Mathew Backholer

1. God must be glorified. Jesus must be lifted up and the Holy Spirit needs to be given His rightful place as a Person.

2. The Church needs to be revived. It must be swept free and cleansed from sin. If revival does not start in the Church then it cannot move outside the Church amongst the graceless.

3. The graceless need to receive the grace of God, sinners need to be surrendered to Him and in times of revival they are drawn as if by an unseen hand to call upon the name of the Lord and to turn from their wicked ways.

4. Revival supremely quickens evangelism and aids discipleship, ‘Warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus’ (Colossians 1:28).

5. In times of revival, under the searchlight of the Holy Spirit, people are highly sensitive to sin, responsive to repentance and forsaking sin and desire to live righteously before a holy God, acknowledging the difference between, ‘The holy and the unholy, and causing them to discern between the unclean and the clean’ (Ezekiel 44:23).

6. Revival can so change a person in a matter of hours which would have taken a Christian counsellor years or decades to produce much lesser results.

Mr Swallen, missionary to Korea, in a discussion about the fruit of the Pyongyang Great Revival (1907-1910) of which he was a part said, “It paid well to have spent the several months in prayer, for when God the Holy Spirit came He accomplished more in half a day than all of us missionaries could have accomplished in half a year. In less than two months more than two thousand heathen were converted.’

Rev. W. J. Patton, a minister in Dromara, Ireland, writing about the 1859 Irish Revival, wrote: ‘For the time being business was very much suspended. The whole parish was a place of weeping, and praying, and singing, and reading. There cannot be doubt that there were more Bible-readers, more believing prayers, more loving thoughts of Jesus, in our parish in the month of August than had been in the five years previous.’

God said, “If My people who are called by My name will 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).

‘O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do it for Your name’s sake; for our backslidings are many and we have sinned against You’ Jeremiah 14:7.

Global Revival – Worldwide Outpourings by Mathew Backholer.

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Mathew is the author of:
Revival Fire - 150 Years of Revivals Go
Extreme Faith – On Fire Christianity Go
Global Revival – Worldwide Outpourings Go
Discipleship For Everyday Living. Christian Growth Go
Understanding Revival and Addressing the Issues Go
Revival Answers, True and False Revivals Go
Revival Fires and Awakenings. Thirty-Six Visitations of the Holy Spirit Go
How to Plan, Prepare and Successfully Complete Your Short-Term Mission Go