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Why Revival Happens
- or Tarries

We seek revival. But are half of us are seeking revival rather than seeking the Lord, the Living God? Even though we 'seek the Lord', deep down is it as a means by which we hope to obtain revival?

This page looks afresh at revival occurs - or doesn't. It is linked with another page that works out one particular exciting new possibility: revival based around environmental responsibility.

What have these revivals in common?

The Wesleys and Whitefield in England in the 1700s,
the abolition of slavery in Britain around 1800,
the work of Lars Levi Laestadius among the Saami people,
the Welsh revival of 1904,
the East African revival of the 1920s,
the Hebridean revival,
the revival in bits of Canada in the 1970s.
- add your others that you can think of! All true revivals bring joy, creation and healing, because in revivals humanity and the world are discovering a little of what we were made for, and we experience God in direct, poignant ways.

So at other times, Christians look back to revivals and long to see revival in their own time. {Note 1.}But it does not happen. Why not? Why does revival happen, or not? What are the conditions necessary for revival to start and occur?

Many have written on this (e.g. Leonard Ravenhill Why Revival Tarries). They focus on a number of necessary things, such as God's people in subjection to him. But in most places at most times there are always some people in humble subjection to God, so why does revival tarry. Others take the line that "After all, God is sovereign, and he chooses the time." But that is fatalism.

Do we spiritualise revival too much? Do we focus too much on the 'religious' aspects of prayer, submission to God and sovereignty to God, and fail to grasp other aspects necessary for revival? While these are certainly true, they are only half the picture. {Note 2.}

I have tried, here, to think in common-sense terms about revival : what are the conditions necessary for revival to begin and continue? What characteristics can we delineate about revival? Here are some initial thoughts [citing the Weslyian, Laestadian, Welsh and East African revivals as examples]. Read, ponder, question and respond and debate. But, even while questioning or debating, search your own heart, and let the way you see things be 'transformed' (you know which verse I am referring to!).

Contents of this page (unfinished notes, but I trust you will find them useful):

Revival is Always Surprising (because God knows and we don't)
The Situation is Important (because God is loves the world, not just individuals)
Addresses an underlying, common problem (often one that people don't realise they have)
The Message (because God is Truth and has provided The Way of Salvation)
To Unexpected People (because God values all alike while we come to ignore some)
God Uses Unexpected People to Lead Revival (for various reasons)
God
Conclusion

These are each worked out with examples for the new possibility of revival related to environmental responsibility.

Revival is Always Surprising (because God knows and we don't)

Cuts across conventional thinking
Cuts across conventional expectations
Addresses the deep orientation or attitudes of the heart
Involves unexpected people
To unexpected people

The Situation is Important (because God is loves the world, not just individuals)

Addresses real problems in life (not just our spiritual relationship with God).
Addresses problems in society, not just individuals. [e.g. harsh lives of miners and families, debt, despair, drunkenness, divisions]

Addresses an underlying, common problem (often one that people don't realise they have)

There is an underlying yearning, which people do not know - the usual commentators do not see it, yet most people would admit to feeling if they were made aware of it.
Speaks not directly to the problems, but to the heart, challenging attitudes that lie beneath these problems. [e.g. that I (Cornish miner) am nothing to do with God, that I (Saami) am inherently a pagan, that I (Welsh miner) am a Welsh hard drinker, that I (Rwandan) am inferior to the white missionaries]
But in ways we do not expect - not speaking explicitly to, nor analysing, the real underlying attitudinal problem, nor challenging people to change their surface ways, but rather challenging the surface manifestations of the underlying problem yet prompting solutions that speak to underlying orientation of the heart.

The Message (because God is Truth and has provided The Way of Salvation)

Take God seriously
We are guilty (evidence of the problem) [e.g. to treat your families badly, to waste our money on drink, to waste our lives, to despise other people or treat them as inferior]
But it is our attitude of heart that is the real problem (our rebellion against God)
We cannot solve the problems yourselves.
Turn to Jesus Christ
This relates to ordinary people and their ordinary lives
Lots of practical illustrations, stories, testimonies
Does not just appease our feelings, but challenges while affirming us: "You are responsible to God".

To Unexpected People (because God values all alike while we come to ignore some)

Those outside, who do not take God seriously [e.g. Cornish miners, the Saami, Welsh miners, ordinary Rwandans]
Those without power or resources
Those who have this underlying yearning that they do not know.

God Uses Unexpected People to Lead Revival (for various reasons)

Not the leaders of established religion (because of their pride or affluence)
Nor those who see themselves as contributing to it (because their world-view blinds them) [e.g. those on church committees, those who contribute to Christian journals]
Nor even those who are seeking God (because they are thinking in the wrong way and have wrong expectations for revival - and probably they are too focused on the spiritual and not enough on the world God loves) [e.g. evangelists of the time, prayer warriors, those who are seeking revival]
But unexpected people, who think differently, see the world in a different way. [e.g. Wesleys, Lars Levi Laestadius, Evan Roberts, the two who met on the steps of Cathedral in Rwanda]
HOWEVER, God does allow all the others to be involved and to contribute to the revival if they wish, once those he uses to lead it have set the direction.

God

is Just: So we might expect revival to occur in each and every part of the world before Christ comes a second time. (So seeking revival in Britain or North America again might be greedy and inappropriate?)
is Sovereign: But we cannot be bound by that.
has a Cosmic Plan: Revival is big to us, but not big to God; it is only a tiny part of his Plan (viz. why he created, why he created us, why he came, why he saves).
is Love: Bigger to God is that humanity shepherds the rest of creation as he would, with agape-love; see what I (mis-)call A New View in Theology which looks at God's Cosmic Plan in a new way.
So don't seek revival; rather, seek God's Cosmic Plan.

Conclusion

In view of all this, I suspect that the only possibility of revival in Western cultures will be linked to God's people taking genuine responsibility for climate change and other environmental damage (which is the major problem we face in our situation today). Indeed, unless Holy-Spirit-led revival does occur, humanity has no chance at all to do anything about climate change - because the heart of people is desperately wicked and self-serving. So, perhaps, in the New View is even partly right, revival is linked with environmental responsibility. See how these thoughts might be worked out in relation to this.

NOTES

Note 1. In the early 1970s Jean Darnall prophesied revival in Britain, starting in the north and flooding down through the whole land.

Note 2. We might see such a picture as governed by the Nature-Grace Ground-motive, in which our whole way of thinking completely ignores the world that God created and loves.

Note 3. Why is it valid to think in 'common sense' terms about such a spiritual topic? Because that is how Jesus and Paul thought: they used what might be called 'spiritual common sense'. Example: Jesus used the fact that Elijah was sent to Gentiles as showing how God affirms Gentiles too.

Why Revival Happens - or Tarries