The Elements of Revival
The passage that most evangelicals are familiar with relating to revival is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14. The verse comes at the conclusion of the dedication of the Temple built during Solomon’s reign. In vs. 11-22, God appears to Solomon at night and made a pledge to the king. The pledge involved a promise and a warning. Verse 14 is part of the promise God makes. I’ve always felt the preceding and succeeding verses should be included in the consideration of v. 14.
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or commanded locusts to devour the land or send a plague among My people, 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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place” (2 Chronicles 7:13-15).
Verse 13 is important because it lets us know the reason why the people need to repent and be revived. Calamity comes upon the land—drought, locusts, plague—not because God is capricious or acts on a whim, but because the rebelliousness of the people. We need only look at the lessons from Judges and the messages of the prophets from Isaiah through Malachi to know that God allows His people to suffer when they turn away from Him. It isn’t because He’s vindictive, but He wants us to understand the consequences of turning away from Him and following a different path. God uses difficult times to bring us back to Him if we will only realize the need for repentance. Without this verse, the significance is v. 14 is lessened.
Verse 14 is the promise that God can and will restore His people if and when they return to Him. It is in this verse that we see the elements of how revival takes place in a society and an individual. I would remind us that revival begins when God calls to us and draws us to the awareness of the need to repent and be restored. “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).
The first element is for God’s people to come to the realization that things are not right—“If My people, who are called by My name.” The reason God’s people are the ones who must first become aware is because His people are the ones most in tune with Him. The Spirit of God quickens and convicts and draws us to the truth (John 16:7-13). The Spirit reveals the things of God to us (1 Corinthians 2:9-16). Yes, the Spirit convicts the world, but it is the people of God who are most aware of God’s moving in our world. Revival begins with God’s people.
“The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. . . and the sheep listen to His voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know me—just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father—and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice” (John 10:2-4, 14-16a). The fact that we are called by His name suggests the intimacy of the relationship between God and His people, reinforcing the awareness that is given to God’s people.
The next element for revival is consists of four sub-elements. The first sub-element is a willingness to humble ourselves before God. Go back to Isaiah 57:15 and recall God’s promise to walk with and revive the contrite and lowly of spirit. Jesus reminds us that the poor in spirit are to be blessed “for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Matthew 5:3). God tells us in Micah what He wants from us: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8b). Jesus told the parable of two men who went to the Temple to pray—one a Pharisee and the other a sinner. The Pharisee used his prayer to remind God how righteous the Pharisee was because of all the rituals he performed; the sinner prostrated himself before God, beat his breast and cried out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus’ point was that only one of the men left the Temple in right relationship with God. There are numerous more examples of the need to humble ourselves before the Lord. Without the humility that comes from the recognition of our sinfulness and failings, we cannot hope to find revival.
The second sub-element of revival is prayer. This doesn’t mean form prayers, but heart-felt and Spirit-convicted prayer, prayer that may be beyond our words but that can be interpreted by the Spirit (Romans 8:26-27). These are the prayers that recognize God alone can bring revival. They are specific prayers earnestly seeking revival and a restoration of our relationship with Him. It is not a prayer for everyone else to be restored—though that also is to be included—but primarily a prayer to get me right with God.
The third element is to seek God’s face. In a psalm written by David and recorded in 1 Chronicles 16, David writes, “Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always” (v. 11). God tells His people through the prophet Jeremiah that they will go into exile but that God will not forsake them. At the time God promises to return to them and restore them to their lands, He says, “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:12-13). The seeking of God’s face is crucial to revival for in this process we are turning to Him and truly searching for His guidance.
The fourth sub-element is repentance—“turn from their wicked ways.” It should be noted that the “wicked ways” are the normal way of doing things that we become accustomed to, the way we convince ourselves we are doing what we please and yet are still in God’s will. The Bible is filled with examples of people who assume they’re where God wants them but are so far from Him that they are in danger of grave judgment. Again, a reading of the prophets shows us this. The acts of the Pharisees in their rejection and opposition to Jesus are such. Even to the churches in Revelation 2-3, many of these churches are chided by Christ for falling short in their mission and their calling, leading up to the church of Laodicea, so corrupt in their practices that Christ said they make Him want to vomit them out of His mouth.
The “wicked ways” must be rejected and thrown on the trash heap. Paul once wrote that he was, in his eyes, faultless before God. Then he writes, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is by faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith” (Philippians 3:7-9). Paul recognized that all that had come before was a waste and to be considered as rubbish. So must we come to that conclusion on the way we have been doing things. Revival comes when we turn from the wicked ways and follow the way of God.
All of the elements taken together indicate that God’s people, in order to find revival, must come to a realization that we are each a part of the problem. Like the man in the opening of this paper, revival doesn’t begin when “everyone else” hears the message, but when we take to heart the conviction of the Lord, when each of us takes to heart the realization that I need to change. Not my neighbor or friend (though there is need for repentance for them, too)—it’s me that needs to fall before the mighty presence of God and plead with Him to work in me and through me to bring about the revival that is so desperately needed.
God’s promise is to hear and to forgive and to heal. When we seek Him with all our heart, He hears. When we repent, He forgives. And when we place ourselves in His care, He heals.
The promise of v. 15 is that God is watching and listening. Revival is never beyond reach if we will earnestly seek it through Him.
Conclusion
In Elijah 37:1-14, the prophet speaks of God leading him to a valley filled with bones. God tells Elijah to prophesy to the bones. Elijah does as God bids, and the bones come together, forming skeletons. The skeletons grow into full bodies, still lying on the ground, but whole bodies nonetheless. Then God tells Elijah to prophesy to the breath. Verse 10 says, “So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.” God’s message to Elijah follows:
“Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, My people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put My Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord” (vs.11-14).
God wants revival. Many of us know and believe we need revival. We come to that understanding because we have been stirred by the Spirit of God. But the Bible shows us that we must ask Him for revival. When Jesus tells us to “Ask, and it will be given; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open to you” (Matthew 7:7), He means that we are to continually ask, continually seek, continually knock. Our desire must not be a half-hearted one, but it must be a compelling, earnest prayer for God to send a revival on our land, first through us and then through others.
Then we will have revival as God defines it, not as we do.
© 2018 Glynn Beaty