This is a continuation of some of the same things we were talking about in a previous post: Revival: Change Now or Change Later. The following is a prophetic word sent to me from ‘Streams of Revival’ from Charisma +online for May 22, 2007, given by Lou Engle (www.thecall.com).

He is suggesting that now is a good time for Christians to pray, fast, and turn to God with all our hearts; that the Lord would like to release a great spiritual awakening in our land. Also, Lou Engle cites Joel 2 as being particularly meaningful for our time and situation:

“I believe that if we respond in repentance in this moment of time, we could release a great revival of confession of sin and a cleansing by the blood of Jesus that could draw us back into marital faithfulness with our Bridegroom. I believe a great spiritual awakening could be at hand that would affect the elections of 2008 and overthrow Jezebel’s death march in this nation.”

“What must we do? God’s holy prescription for our diseased state in times of national crisis and moral collapse is in Joel 2, verses 12-13, 15-16, 18 and 28, which describe a solemn assembly of united fasting and prayer:

“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.”

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room.”

Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, and pity His people.

“And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” (NKJV).

This is a continuation of a previous article: What is Revival Anyway?: A Simple Definition. What does it mean to say that revival is ‘God visiting his church’? After all, He is always with us and all Christians are suppose to be a ‘Temple of the Holy Spirit’ with his presence dwelling within, right? So what is so different about ‘God visiting his church’?

One of the Scriptures that has always affected me greatly is the call of Isaiah in Is. 6. Isaiah up to that time had probably lived in or close to King Uzziah’s court since he wrote the book on the King (I Chron. 26:22). He had probably been in the Temple many times and felt the presence of the Lord, but that day was different for Isaiah, God visited his temple and specifically visited Isaiah and everything changed after that.

You say: ‘well that was ‘Old Testament’ what does that have to do with us? Besides that was God commissioning a prophet, something special and unique.’ Answer: I believe that God is going to visit his church in a unique way and call his entire church to be his prophetic voice to a culture and people in need of repentance.

You ask: ‘What does entire church mean?’ Answer: the entire ‘Body of Christ’- Protestant, Orthodox, Charismatic, Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Reform, Baptist, Evangelical and every other faithful group you can name or Christian denomination you can think of. Many will respond and some won’t, but for sure it should be interesting and controversial.

Now back to ‘God visiting his church’, what does that mean and really look like? We can always look at revivals in the past and read about how God has visited his church before. However, there always seems to be something different or unique about each visitation and revival.

An article in the March 2007 issue of Charisma Magazine (now in the archives) by Robert Heidler and Chuck Pierce is full of good insight about what it means for God to visit his church: “Watch for the Next Great Awakening”. Read the whole article, it is tremendous!

In their article, Heidler and Pierce identify three levels of God’s presence found in the Bible and find revival in the third category:

God’s omnipresence. When we speak of God’s omnipresence, we mean that God is present everywhere. No matter where you go, He is there.

God’s indwelling presence. When you trusted Jesus, the Holy Spirit came to live inside you. If you know Jesus, the Spirit of God is present in you in a way that is different from His general presence everywhere.

God’s manifest presence. God’s manifest presence becomes apparent when God reveals Himself in a given time and place in a way that is discernable to your physical senses. God is always here, but we don’t always discern Him. When God manifests His presence, He makes His presence known in a tangible way.

When God manifests His presence to His church corporately, we call it revival. Revival is the glory of God coming into His temple.

Many of us have experienced God’s presence in church services and conferences and yet no one would claim that it was revival. The changes to many leaders who experienced the renewal at Toronto were tremendous and are still affecting the church, yet it did not really touch society as a whole in North America.

So what makes true Revival different? I believe that it is a matter of degree. When you read about ‘The Great Awakening’ in America’, the presence of God filled the church and brought repentance that spilled out into the street. When Charles Finney walked into a factory in 19th century New York, God’s manifest presence came in with him, the work stopped, people repented, the whole city was changed, and 500,000 came to Christ. When revival came to Wales it was said by children:

“Don’t you know? Jesus lives here now!”

What we are talking about when we say that revival is ‘God visiting His church’ is a manifest presence of the Lord that is life changing for everyone present. A tangible presence that brings repentance, healing, and anointing that flows with every member out the back door of the church and touches families, neighborhoods, cities, and entire cultures and nations.

We have already seen several leaders fall. I believe that now is the time to get our churches in order, particularly leaders. Some seem to think that is the enemy who is exposing leaders and embarrassing the church. However, I actually believe it is a work of God to purify his people and to prepare them for revival.

Will the church need to change before revival comes or will revival come first and bring change? It could be a case of choosing to change now or having to change later and maybe suffering loss.

I received the following from Charisma Online: Streams of Revival, May 8, 2007-Archives. It is a prophetic message from Matt Sorger. It is right on target:

The sifting is not over. There is more sifting that is coming into the church. “Tell My people not to be shaken when they see the shaking happening. There is a sifting hand of God going through the corporate body of Christ right now.” Either you can let God sift you in private or you can let Him sift you in public. The choice is yours.

The season of mixture is over. There are things that God and His mercy have tolerated for a season. But that tolerance has reached its end. We are coming into a season during which we can’t play games anymore. We can’t play with sin–and still expect to see the world won for Jesus Christ. We can’t tolerate inward things in our hearts.

There is no more time for the spirit of tolerance of the spirit of this age. We are coming into a season during which God is going to pour out His power. Either you will be ready for it or you won’t be. That season is just upon us.

Comments:

Over the last few years I have read a number of articles and research papers which claim that Christians live and look no different than their non-believing neighbors. I don’t believe that that is entirely true; however, the ‘spirit of the age’ does seem to have entered into the church on a number of fronts. Will the church need to change before revival comes or will revival come first and bring change? Either way, change is on the horizon and leaders need to be in the forefront.

Years ago when I was in seminary, one day in class we were studying Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. No one there was impressed with Edwards’ work. The professor made fun of it. One of the seminarians suggested that if he preached it at his church the head pastor would fire him for sure. None of us could figure out how the sermon became so influential and could launch any kind of ‘Great Awakening’.

If reading the sermon does nothing for you, read the accounts of those in the congregation that day. When Jonathan Edwards was preaching ‘Hell Fire’, those in the pews say that their feet were dangling over the fires of hell and they were actually experiencing it: heat, smoke, and feelings of complete hopelessness and terror. The alter call was particularly popular that day.

I have read all sorts of modern ‘psychological’ explanations of what really happened there. I’ll tell you what really happened -God showed up!

Most of the time during the Welsh Revival they didn’t even have sermons as such. They sang and prayed & God was there in their midst and everyone knew it.

Why did hundreds of people crowd into a barn on Azusa Street in LA? Believe me there were plenty of fine stone and brick churches downtown that had plenty of room; but the Spirit of God was in the barn.

When people talk about revival they talk about all the stuff that happens. Cities and nations changed, people healed, thousands coming to Christ. Bars closing, police with nothing to do, society and culture overhauled.

Bill Johnson Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California in an article- “Ignite the Fire” (Charisma Mag. March 2007) talks about living in a ‘Revival culture’ with the expectation that God is already there. In regards to revival he says:

“(Revival is) happening, It’s just on a small scale. People are asking for something to happen that’s already been released, and you have to cooperate with what he’s already given.”

In another article- “Watch for the Next Great Awakening” in the same issue, Robert Heidler & Chuck Pierce define ‘Revival’as:

“God visiting His Church”

It is true that God is really always there with us, however when God visits His church in a special way, everyone knows it.