Y Safle

“Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.”

–Joel 1:3

I have said before that the message of Joel is timeless, and now we see that Joel knew this too. Joel knew that we humans forget easily and we quickly lose sight of all that God has done for us. We also quickly forget his judgements on us when we go astray. That is why Joel says “tell your children.” He knows that very soon we will forget the judgement of the locusts and return to our evil ways.

If you do not believe this to be so, then look at the Christian church. We see a continual process of revival followed by decline, revival and then decline. God pours out his Spirit upon us and we see great and mighty things but we quickly forget that this revival came about only because we were sick and tired of a lifeless church that had lost the power of God’s Spirit because we had lost touch with God. We quickly lose touch with him again and fall into a new state of decline.

America, Britain, Australia and most of the western world have not seen a true revival of religion for many years. Not within my lifetime certainly. It is hardly surprising that we no longer know what is meant by a revived church.

We are slipping into a terminal decay. Our society is falling apart and our churches are blindly following. We need a revival or we will die.

What then is a revived church?

The answer may be found if we look at Church history. If we took seriously the onus that is upon us to pass on the stories of God’s blessing from generation to generation, then maybe we would not need ask the question, but we have come to a stage in Christian life where we have forgotten what blessing is, and have forgotten why it came about. We have also forgotten why the blessing was needed - because the churches before revival were dead and formal, and many members (especially younger ones) were worldly and demonstarted a shallowness of faith. Preaching was “popular” in the worst sense. In many ways it sounds exactly the same as the church today.

So again, what is a revived church?

A revived church is a church which is experiencing revival. A revival is a fresh outpouring of God, the Holy Spirit, in Pentecostal power.

One writer described revival as “a people saturated with God.” If we were experiencing revival, we would know the Joy of God that we see in the Bible. We would experience God in our lives in a powerful and experiential way. We would know the true meaning of Pentecost.

In times of revival the church has been powerful and effective. Evangelism has met with astounding success, and the power of God has been evident within the church to an extent that even unbelievers have had to step back in awe (and often flee away).

Newspaper headlines for 1904/5 in Wales report that national festivals had to be abandoned, football matches were scrapped, public houses were closed due to lack of support and convictions for offenses were reduced by two thirds.

The police were inundated with returned stolen goods. They were over-run by people confessing past crimes.

In New England in one revival 15% of the population were turned to Christ in three months. In 1904 in Wales 100,000 people turned to Christ in a similar amount of time and similar figures are true for the 1859 revival as well as the ten other revivals of 19th century Wales.

Observers of revivals speak of the overwelming atmosphere of peace which pervades whole towns. Unbelievers fall down in the streets under the convicting presence of God. One man fled the town of Rhos, only to be converted to Christ in the surrounding mountains.

We are talking about much more then emotional people being overcome in a wave of hysteria. Such views could not be further from the truth. We are talking about the powerful sense of God’s Spirit pervading our lives.

These days we see a few people on fire for God, but when revival comes those people will no longer be the exception, but the norm.

I urge everyone of you who loves God to read at least one book on revival. Just one book will not take long, but it could save the life of your nation.

Choose a revival local to your area, or a general overview of several revivals. Read the accounts, searching for lessons that could be taught to our generation. All works of God are distinctive and different, but they all have some common themes and lessons for us now.