Category Archives: Revival

-Acts 2/ Joel 2: Looking Forward

Posted on by
Reply

It is a new day and a new Biblical year and we are still looking forward to revival. But sometimes there is stuff that must come first or may come along with it that we would rather avoid. But the word ‘Revival’ only brings to our minds the ‘good stuff’ and all of the ‘not so good’ that came along with former moves of God is usually forgotten or disregarded. 

500 years ago on October 31, 1517 Martin Luther tacked 95 theses to a door in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther wanted to bring revival and reform to the church but schism came instead and a few years later he was excommunicated and then the wars followed for several hundred years. But the church was reformed and change came to all of the church regardless. One wonders if he would have proceeded differently if he had known all the stuff that was going to follow.

One thing for sure, the Reformation was a Move of God. More than anything else the most important result was access to the Bible and real knowledge of the written Word of God- the Logos. Before 1517 The Word was only available to the Priests, Monks, and scholars and very little of it was allowed to ever trickle on down to the regular folks. Not only that but ‘worship’ services were in Latin which only the educated could understand.

Coming out of the Reformation, services started being conducted in the vernacular and an exposition and teaching of the Scriptures became an important part of worship. Later the Bible was translated into the languages of the people and with the invention of the printing press it became available for regular folks. The church was changed by the Logos of God.

Most of us in Charismatic and Pentecostal churches look back on Azusa Street in 1906 as the beginning of another Move of God that changed the church. This time it was the Rhema Word of God that was restored along with all of the Spiritual gifts. A good historical case can be made that the ‘gifts’ never really departed entirely from the church but few regular folks in the church had the opportunity to experience them.

Now we are at a new crossroad where a significant part of the church is questioning whether the Bible is still even relevant and whether certain plain teachings in the Word should be disregarded or ignored. Ironically it is the old ‘Reformation’ mainline churches that are in the midst of rejecting their own foundations which were rooted in ’solo scriptura.’

The point is, major change and a new move of God including some kind of new ‘reformation’ is ahead for the church and we can expect that the revival we are hoping for may be far different than our romanticized expectations. Fact is, the church is always ‘looking forward’ to the past revivals and is never fully prepared to receive the new one.

To demonstrate what I am talking about let’s take a look at Acts. Before all of the good stuff in Acts 2 we find in chapter 1 that all the church devoted themselves to prayer. Since Pentecost came 50 days after the Passover they could have been praying solid for at least a month or so. Not only that, but for only this one time in history the entire church and everyone in it was actually prepared to receive a move from God.

Now for the scary part that may be relevant for us now or in the very least for the church some time in the future. We all like the ‘good stuff’ in Peter’s quote of Joel 2:

17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,and your young men shall see visions,and your old men shall dream dreams;

18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. …

21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Here’s the part of Acts 2 / Joel 2 we would rather ignore. The verses between 18 and 21 (19 & 20):

19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;

20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

In light of all of the major disasters lately, these verses might be far more relevant to a coming revival than we want to admit. Also, a falling away and major persecution might well come along with it.

It is time for the church to pray. It is always time for us to pray but especially now.              

-Hungary: ‘Greatest Revival of Our Time’?

Posted on by
Reply

image

Here’s a link to an article by Ted Baehr who claims that the ‘greatest revival of our time’ is breaking out in Hungary:

Recently, I returned from speaking and teaching in Hungary with my son Robby, … Hungary was a wonderful, definitive, different experience because Hungary is in the midst of revival. More than 60 percent of the members of Parliament there are Christian. The prime minister, who was once a typical European leftist, who started out a Communist Youth leader, came to Christ and is on fire for God. Members of the cabinet are pastors and leaders in Reformed and other Hungarian churches.

Besides speaking at the conference that brought me to Hungary, World Congress of Families, I got the chance to speak in the largest Christian church, 60,000 people, one of the largest churches in the world. That church owns the biggest news network in Hungary, reaching 2 million people.

What makes all of this so exceptional is the history of Hungary.

<Read the whole article>

Response: This is really good news.  Most of the time when we read about Europe it is all about how Muslims are taking over significant parts of Germany, UK, Sweden, and causing trouble in France. We forget about what is happening in the former communist countries in the East where Christianity seems to be flourishing more than in the West which is seemingly becoming more secular.

Add this to the on-going secret revivals taking place among Muslims and in China and North Korea. Meanwhile in this country we have a prominent senator and former presidential candidate questioning whether conservative Christians should be allowed to even serve in the government.                

-Some Revival Implications For The Church

Posted on by
Reply

26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire. –Heb. 12:26-29

While I was reading the 12th chapter of Hebrews this morning the 26-29 verses leaped off the page and the Following word came to me:

This is the revival you have been praying for. 

As I read the verses again some of the implications and dangers for the church in midst of revival and afterwards began to come to mind. It may not be as rosy and cozy as most of us expect. For sure the church will be changed in ways we do not  see now. We have been praying for the Kingdom to come down in our midst and have not fully comprehended how that will change the church as we know it.

The church and the leaders will be refined by God’s own fire and that which can be shaken will. It will be glorious but also painful. The church that remains will stand up and more accurately represent the Kingdom of God on earth, fulfill its calling, and finally become the worthy Body and Bride of Christ.

Unfortunately part of the church as we know it will not endure. Look for whole denominations and movements to go into apostasy afterwards. We can already see it happening as some of the mainline churches are turning their backs upon the Word of God. Look for some to turn their backs upon the Word himself and deny his divinity for the sake of world peace.

Revival will come to every church and signs and wonders will follow and many will be saved but the response of the leaders and the aftermath will not be the same.                

-Tent Revival in North Carolina

Posted on by
Reply

image

(YouTube capture)

There’s an old fashion tent revival going on in North Carolina. From Charisma News:

A remarkable move of God that began last May in Burlington, North Carolina, stirred many hearts through July. Pastor Randy Hobbs had only scheduled evangelist C.T. Townsend to spend a week in his church, but as the power of God fell, many were saved and the revival stretched on in a borrowed tent for weeks—filled to capacity every night.

“The only reason the (revival) meeting shut down (in July) is because we couldn’t keep the tent any longer. The man needed the tent back,” recounts D.R. Harrison, one of those saved during the revival.

Remarkably the revival started all over again this year with another tent:

No one knew what would happen when Townsend and his team re-launched their crusade two weeks ago under a newly constructed tent holding 5,000 people.

“It’s been incredible,” Harrison exclaims. “This last Friday night was our biggest night with over 4,000 people, and there were 78 saved.

During the first two weeks of the crusade, 130-140 made professions of faith, and crowds averaged about 2,000 a night. The momentum seems to be building, according to Harrison.

Some of the services have been viewed over 100,000 times on the internet, and their livestream crashed May 12 due to traffic that overwhelmed server capacity.

<Read the whole report>

Response: I believe we are in a season when similar revivals can happen all around North America. The character of each might be considerably different in every place but one of the major themes is going to be the unity of the American church. This move of God across America is destined to go beyond denominations, affiliations, or any of the designations that we are familiar with including race. Look for Mainliners, Catholics, non-denominational evangelicals, Baptists, black and white and Latino churches and all colors to participate along with the Charismatics and Pentecostals that you would expect.

Pastors and leaders, It is time to pray for guidance on what you can do to facilitate a unique move of God in your community. It might be among the youth in your neighborhood, city or town. Now is the time. It might not be in a tent, it might be in an auditorium or field, on in the street. It is time for a new awakening.                

-Core Values for Culture Changing Revival?

Posted on by
Reply

Kris Vallotton,of Bethel Church in Redding CA, in a Charisma article lists 2 core values that are necessary for a culture changing revival (Link NLA):

1. Extreme Giving

2. Trust and Honoring Leadership

Response: I can imagine that not all of you will be all that positive to what Kris Vallotton has to say.  Some will probably protest that it sounds too much like ‘religion’ rather than grace.

This I can affirm for sure- the Lord has called the church in the past to take care of the poor, the orphans, and widows; still calls us to do so, and will in the future right up until the end. Unfortunately the church in America has surrendered most of that task in the last 50 years or so to the government. Now the federal government and some state and local authorities are even trying to stop or restrict what the church is still trying to do through onerous regulations and forced obedience to the new LGBT sexual orthodoxy.

Nevertheless, I can confirm by experience that churches involved in ministry to the poor are being blessed on many different levels. Plus they actually become part of the community and part of the answer to the problems faced in that community. I have even seen a revival environment that has brought hundreds of miraculous healings and conversions to Christ all housed in a building where the poor are being fed and clothed.

Extreme giving can also help in taking the gospel to the far corners of the world by supporting missions, ministers, and organizations involved in the ongoing world harvest.

But what about leaders? The enemy continues to divide America churches through leadership divisions, jealousy, and direct attacks by a Jezebel spirit. Also note that past revivals have been stalled and stopped over attacks against the leaders by the enemy. We really do need to support our leaders any way we can, particularly through prayer.

I would add 2 more core values that are essential for culture transforming revival:

1. Extreme Trust in God

2. Thankfulness for Everything

We are living in times when our nation desperately needs a new awakening that brings change to our culture. So many of us have placed our hopes in the political process to make some of the changes we long for in our country. The 2016 election season seems to have dampened that expectation for most evangelical Christians. I see so many grasping for reasons to vote for one candidate or another. We should all vote but our real hopes should be elsewhere- in God.

So many of our leaders have betrayed us. Just last year the highest court of our land declared in no uncertain terms that the Bible and Word of God is wrong and actually discriminatory. How does our nation come back from that without a culture changing revival? Continue to pray for Revival.              

-Tibetan Revival: 200,000 Buddhists Accept Jesus?

Posted on by
Reply

image

   (The Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet)

We are living in exciting times. According to several reports over 200,000 Buddhists have come to Jesus in the last year. Here’s the story from Charisma News:

All the revival needed was the first spark of a Tibetan monk. When he converted to Christianity last year, the revival fire exploded. Now, more than 200,000 Tibetans have accepted Jesus into their lives, according to multiple reports.  

Asian Access’ Joel Handley says he believes much of the faith sweeping the region stems from Christian response to the devastating Nepalese earthquake more than a year ago.  

“They haven’t seen Buddhists, Hindus or other religious groups helping in the midst of the rubble. Rather, week after week, it is the followers of Jesus who have proved the test of time, sacrificed their own lives to serve and been the hands and feet of Jesus,” Handley says. 

<Read the whole article>

Response: Not only is this exciting but miraculous. The Buddhist mountain nations of Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan have been untouched by Christianity for centuries. Every missionary effort in those countries was shut down and rejected by the people and the government authorities in the past. Now the door has been miraculously opened and folks are coming to Christ in those far away countries.

What is happening now in Tibet could not have been planned or expected accept by the Lord himself. Remember, Tibet is politically an autonomous region of China which would limit any formal missionary activity.

This is similar to what is happening among Muslims who were rarely converted to Jesus until recently. Now there are reports all over the place of Muslims secretly coming to Christ through dreams and visions. Then there is the example of more Jewish folks coming to Jesus in the last ten years than any other time in history since the first century. Now Buddhists in unreachable places are coming to Jesus in unprecedented numbers. Praise the Lord.

-Will the Chinese Host the Largest Revival?

Posted on by
Reply

image

Pastor Kong Hee with his wife, Sun Ho. (Facebook)

Will the largest ‘end-time’ revival take place among the Chinese? According to Pastor Kong Hee that will be the case. Here’s the story from Charisma News:

“Many pop celebrities have received Christ and are boldly proclaiming their faith on traditional and new media. I have no doubt that the largest revival in the End-Times will be a move of God in the Chinese-speaking world,” Kong wrote.

Response: In many ways a hidden revival has been on-going in China since the Communists shut down the churches and missions after WWII. At the time there were less than a million Christians in the country but a generation later there are at least 100 million and maybe as many as 150 million Chinese believers mostly worshipping in house churches.

Now the Chinese church seems to be ready to go prime time and maybe affect the entire culture. However government persecution has also increased as many of the house churches came out of the closet and began building large worship facilities to hold all of the converts.

It will be interesting to see how a hundred million or so Christians will end up affecting the economy and the government in the future. According to reports, there have been numerous conversions of government officials in some areas. Will the supposedly pragmatic current Communist regime continue to crack down on the churches or allow them to be mainstreamed? A turning point one way or another seems to have been reached and the exponential growth of the Christian church in China can no longer be culturally ignored.

-Revival Implications: The Kingdom and The Church

Posted on by
Reply

image

We continually pray for the Kingdom to come and yet many of us ignore the implications. Jesus did not come to build a mega church or start another religious system nor will he be coming again to establish a new one on the earth. The Kingdom of God is already established.

During his life on earth he was constantly bucking up against and challenging the religious organizations, leaders, and the latest theologies of his day. I believe that one of the major characteristics and goals of the current and coming world revival is the shaking and realignment of the church and leaders toward actually reflecting the Kingdom rather than religious traditions of the past and the current popular thinking of the day.

Many of us who are looking for revival and a new awakening are trying to relive the glory of past revivals wanting God to do the same thing to us all over again. Those are actually lessons that the church should have already gotten and incorporated in our DNA along the way and should have prepared us for the coming Kingdom on earth.

There is nothing wrong with drinking from the wells of past revivals and we should incorporate and take serious every past move of God. But they are suppose to be like an oasis that supports us and helps us on our current journey. We are called to move on. When we stay at those wells and glory in the past we may end up limiting what God can do in our midst today. Some have actually camped out at one well and have established churches and religious systems and theologies that reflect that particular move of God and refuse to move on and question anything different.

The Reformation was a major move of God that brought major changes to the church. A major emphasis of that move was on the logos Word of God, the Bible and true theology. There are many churches and denominations today that have refused to move on from that major well.  When it comes to Azusa Street, there are many Pentecostals camped out at that oasis questioning the water everywhere else. One of the major problems of the Charismatic movement is a tendency among many to seek out only the rhema and the newest ever more radical ‘spiritual’ thing while ignoring what God did when he inspired Luther and Calvin and others to seek and nail down the foundational teachings of the Bible.

We continue to pray- “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

What if we really got what we prayed for? What would happen? Any move of God that brought the Kingdom into the midst of our churches today would bring radical changes. The church is called the ‘Body of Christ’ and is called to do what he did. Now that would be radical and that is what we are facing in the move ahead. It will not be about building mega churches or organizations or making new religious systems or establishing theocratic political powers. It will be all about bringing the good news of the Kingdom of God to all of the world before the coming of the Lord.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.  –Matthew 24:14 (ESV)

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,…Isaiah 61:1-2 (ESV)

Here’s a link to a great article that got me thinking about this issue in Ministry Today:  “16 Contrasts Between Kingdom Age and Religious Systems”

-If God Did It Before He Can Do It Again

Posted on by
Reply

image

We live in ‘interesting times.’ Sometimes considering all of economic difficulties, cultural changes, wars and threats of terrorism, along with weather that is extreme to the point that some are calling it ‘Biblical’, I wish I was living in a different generation when life might have been easier for a Christian.

However what is happening in these times can also be exciting. Christianity around the world is growing faster than any generation before and I recently read that the were more Christians living today than all of the previous generations combined. Here in America and in the West we seem to be in decline but in reality we are seeing a great harvest with revivals happening in many countries, some of which are somewhat secret.

On Sunday during church I thought about all of the moves of God that have happened in my lifetime along with some special men and women of God that came and gone ministering in special ways. The tent revivals following WWII, the Charismatic Renewal that touched mainline churches, the Jesus People movement that touched at least a million folks, the charismatic movement that followed along with The Vineyard, KC, Toronto, and Florida and many others. Thinking about all of the moves in this generation including what is happening in China, Africa, and Iran, I came away with a new conviction that what we have seen in the past we will see again and maybe even greater things since the difficult times before us may call for it.

I spent 2015 praying the Psalms asking for revival in our land and started 2016 with the same conviction. I have prayed for the Kingdom to come down and touch the church and awaken it as never before. Now on Sunday came the inspiration to pray for every miracle and healing I come across while reading the Scriptures to happen again. What God has done in the past he can do again in this generation.

Today I ran across the following article and account of a dream in Charisma with the same message:  Prophetic Dream: God Did It Before and He Will Do It Again(Link NLA)

Here’s a short quote from the article:

I heard a second phrase in these dreams. … “If I did it then, I will do it again!” Every miracle we have ever read about in the Word, every revival or awakening from a past season, every example of a city or nation turning towards Christ becomes a foreshadowing of what God desires to do again!

Amen! I am praying to see it all again and even more starting in 2016.

-The Incredible Underground Revival Among Muslims in the Middle East

Posted on by
Reply

imageimage

Since 2001 I have been looking for major revival among the Muslims in the Middle East and I haven’t been disappointed. A few days after 9/11 that year I had vision where the Lord Jesus spoke to me directly that the ‘Prince of Islam’ had exceeded his bounds and that a new crusade was coming, not of swords and spears, but a revival that would sweep across Islamic nations and see 100 million Muslims coming to Christ as a ‘first fruits’. It seemed impossible at the time but I declared it anyway and referred to it in two articles on this site in 2007 after I started seeing confirming evidence that large numbers of Muslims were actually coming to Christ as never before:

-Revival Among the Muslims -Part I: 6 Million a Year Coming to Christ

-Revival Among the Muslims -Part II: 100 Million Coming to Christ?

Since that time I have put up dozens of articles on this site following the underground revival among the Muslims. Now here’s the latest evidence of an unprecedented move of God among the Muslims in a recent article from Charisma News:

In the darkest corners of the Middle East there’s a revival beginning that’s unprecedented in the history of world missions.  …

Reliable reports suggest more Muslims have become followers of Jesus over the last two decades than in Islam’s combined 1,500-year history. Based on the accounts of several missiologists, it has been surmised that “more Muslims have committed to follow Christ in the last 10 years than in the last 15 centuries of Islam.”[1] In spite of great difficulty and turmoil, Christianity is unquestionably expanding throughout Islamic world. God is up to something amazing in a region that many have thought was unreachable.

<Read the whole article> 

Response: The article incredibly goes on to catalog an ongoing move of God among Muslims in the following nations:

Sudan

Pakistan

Egypt

Iran

Saudi Arabia

Iraq

Algeria

Jordan

Plus it includes testimonies of what is going on in a number of other Muslim nations. We have written on a number of occasions about the mission efforts of Heidi and Roland Baker in Mozambique. One report in the article has the following to say about their obvious success:

“The Bakers are now based full-time in Pemba, Mozambique, in an area where Heidi says was once called a ‘graveyard to missionaries.’ But recently the government announced publicly that it’s no longer a Muslim providence; now it’s a Christian providence.”

I implore all to read the whole Charisma article. I already knew about many of these underground revival developments but to see it all cataloged in one article increased my faith exponentially and gave me a reason to be hopeful and thankful this holiday season.