Biblical insights for encouraging spiritual renewal
Broadman &
Holman 1999
AJM March 2006
Author American, professor of OT at Gordon-conwell Theological
seminary. Book offers helpful introduction, and chapters on each of 16 revivals
from scripture, with commentary.
To some extent it seems ‘revival’ is the word used in US when maybe
in UK we would be less demonstrative and talk about ‘renewal’. The word revive doesn’t
crop up often in scripture itself.
Introduction
Need for awakening – ‘for many good people, even within the
church, life has lost its meaning. There is no sparkle in the eye, no spring in
the step’. Robert E Coleman.
About ninety
years ago, a college student in Wales named Evan Roberts, age twenty-six,
obtained permission to leave college to return to his home village of Loughor
to preach his first sermon. Seventeen people showed up to listen to his four
points: confess any known sin to God and put away any wrong done to others, put
away any doubtful habit, obey the Holy Spirit promptly, and confess faith in
Christ openly.
No one could
have predicted the nationwide impact that event would have. J Edwin Orr related
that “within three months, a hundred thousand converts had been added to the
churches of Wales. Five years later a book debunking the revival was published
and the main point made by the scholarly author was that of the 100,000 added to
the churches, only 80,000 remained after five years.” This same revival jumped
the ocean and spread to America’s shores and was the last major nationwide
revival we have seen since 1905. xi
The first requisite for any significant planning, praying or
writing in this area would be the study of revivals in the Bible.
Definition of revival – 2 Chronicles 7.14: if my people
who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from
their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and
heal their land.
CE Autrey: ‘revival is a
reanimating of those who already possess life.. It revives spiritual life
whichis in a state of declension’. Hosea 10.12 – revival consists of breaking
up fallow ground that’s got overgrown. J Edwin Orr: ‘times of refreshing from
the presence of the Lord’ (cp Acts 3.19). Revival presupposes a decline in the
church’s appetite for spiritual things and in her championing the cause of
morality and justice in human affairs. It also presupposes that believers
either don’t know the standards of scripture or don’t follow them.
There are 10 great revivals in
the OT. Wilbur Smith lists 9 characteristics of great revivals:
·
Most are preceded by spiritual decline and despair
·
Each begins in the heart of one person
·
Each rests on a new and powerful proclamation of the word
of God
·
Each was marked by a return to the genuine worship of
Yahweh
·
Each was accompanied by destruction of idols
·
Each brought a deep sense of sin and desire to be
separated from it
·
In each there was a return to the offering of sacrifices
·
Each was brought an unbounded sense of joy and gladness
·
Each was followed by a time of productivity and
prosperity
Why study OT revivals? Motivation; method; type of people God
uses; preparation.
Old Testament Revivals
New Testament
Revivals
Epilogue –
revival on God’s terms : 2 Chronicles 7.14
Verb ‘to revive’ comes 5 times in OT (KJV) – quotes below from
NRSV:
·
Ps 80.18 - Then we will
never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name.
·
Ps 85.6 - Will you not
revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?
·
Isaiah 57.15 (twice) - For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name
is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are
contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to
revive the heart of the contrite.
·
Hosea 6.2 - After
two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may
live before him.
In NT it comes only twice, in KJV
·
Romans 7.9 - I was
once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I
died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
·
Romans 14.9 - For to
this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead
and the living.
All the revivals in scripture began among believers. Their
purpose was to call the church back to a new hearing of and responding to the
Word of God. The verse in 2 Chron 7.14 is God’s answer to Solomon after a plea
for forgiveneness for Israel. God gives 4 conditions:
·
Humble yourselves
·
Pray
·
Seek my face
·
Turn from your wicked ways