# What Is Revival? Language: en Author: by Denny Kenaston Original issue: The Heartbeat of The Remnant, May/June 2001, Number 3 Source pages: 4–6 Read article: Original PDF: 2001\-05\-remnant\.pdf [The Heartbeat of The Remnant, May/June 2001]() > *“Wilt thou not revive us again, that > thy people may rejoice in Thee?” > Psalm 85:6* ![Three men bow together in prayer beneath rising flames\.]() We live in a day and an age when there is a desperate need to answer this question\. Some would say we are on the wake of a worldwide revival\. Others say we are living in a time of worldwide apostasy\. I am not going to address these issues directly in this article; however, a clear definition of this historically powerful word will help to draw some much needed lines in our day\. We will draw our definition from three major sources\. They are the Bible, which defines its own words so beautifully, comparing scripture with scripture; the historical records of the movements of the Holy Ghost since Pentecost; and my own gleanings through many years of reading everything I could find on revival\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* This word, according to its biblical definition, means, to revitalize, to energize, and to quicken again\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* The simple prefix at the beginning of the word is a powerful insight to its definition\. “Re” in front of a word always means “to do again, as in restore, and renew\.” “Do it again, Lord,” should be our constant plea\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* A season of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, Acts 3\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* A people saturated with God\. Duncan Campbell, Scottish islands, 1953\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* Note this example of revival praying from the records of the revival in the Scottish islands in 1953: In the midst of great opposition, a half night of prayer was called\. Duncan Campbell called on a local blacksmith to pray about midnight\. He prayed for about a half an hour and closed with these words\. “Oh, God, Your honor is at stake\. You promised that You would pour floods upon the dry ground, and You have not done it yet\. Your name is at stake, Lord\.” After this prayer the place was shaken where they prayed\. When they went outside about 2 A\.M\., the whole community was alive with the presence of God\. People were carrying chairs to the church house, preparing to go to a meeting as if it was 10 A\.M\. Sunday morning\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* The word revival is for the church first, not for the community\. Many confuse its meaning, thinking that it is a series of meetings for the community\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* A visitation of God among His people\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* As A\.W\. Tozer always said, “Revival will change the moral climate of the community\.” All true revival will affect others\. Wherever there is an inflow of the grace of God, there will always be an outflow of the same\. *“I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground\.” Isaiah 44:3* ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* Judgement day early\. When God’s Spirit visits a people in answer to believing prayer, He will send illumination to each heart\. The people will be convicted of sin, and will begin to judge themselves as is mentioned in I Corinthians 11\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* As it was in King Josiah’s day\. They found the Book of the Law stashed away in the dusty parts of the temple\. When the King found out, he had it read outloud to him\. He discovered how many ways they were breaking God’s Laws and repented\. He led the people to repent, and they had a national revival\. Dozens of practical areas changed in the land\. Do it again, Lord\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* God pointing His finger at me\. It’s “not my brother, or my sister, but it’s me, Oh, Lord, standing in the need of prayer\.” It is when we quit judging one another, but turn to the Lord and see the beams that are in our eyes\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* An organized disorder\. From God’s perspective, He is leading all the way\. But from man’s point of view, it seems like things are not quite in order\. When revival broke out in Andrew Murray’s church, he tried to stop it\. The people were weeping and wailing, and some were rejoicing over their new freedom all at the same time\. “This can’t be right,” he said, and tried to stop them\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* When God’s people bring their salvation experience up\-to\-date\. Many in the church today continue to give a testimony of what God did for them at the moment of the new birth\. This is good, but when Revival comes, they begin to share what God is doing in their life today\. Salvation is an ongoing experience of fellowship with the living God\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* When we become willing to get thoroughly right with God, and completely right with our fellow men\. One revivalist said, “draw a circle on the floor, then get in the circle yourself, then pray that God will send revival inside this circle\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* A return to New Testament Christianity\. The history books are full of testimonies where God began to move upon a people, they started confessing their sins, the Spirit was poured out, and the desire and power to return to the Early Church pattern rose in every heart\. ## *REVIVAL IS \. \. \.* When God becomes a living reality again\. God’s presence becomes real, and His voice is heard again, deep in the soul\. The list of definitions could be endless\. How many different ways do you want to describe the supernatural workings of God? It is debated in these last days whether revival is still a possibility\. What do you think? The bottom line definition of revival is God\. That may sound oversimplified but it is not\. David said in the Psalms, “God is become my salvation\.” That is it in a nutshell\. The reality of the presence of the living God is salvation\. Salvation is more than a judicial transaction in heaven because of the atonement of Christ\. It is God and man having fellowship again because of the cross\. It is hard to give definition to the word revival without describing the experience of revival\. The reason for this is that revival is an experience\. When you have lost your first love relationship with God, you have lost an experience, you have lost the reality of God loving you, and you loving God\. Surely God expects us to have a personal revival if we have lost our way with Him\. But what about the church? The whole church at Ephesus had lost their first love, and they were admonished to get back to the way it was in the beginning\. Study the way it was for them in Acts 19, and also the way it was when Paul wrote them his Epistle\. So, a church can surely have revival\. I know of no less than sixty accounts of widespread revival over the last six hundred years, where a whole area or even nation has been griped with the presence of God, and the moral climate of the whole community was altered\. In all these cases, and there are probably many more, the people of that day were led by God to record the things that were happening\. I am so grateful that they were\. Now I can read the accounts, and be stirred to pray and believe God for the same thing in my day\. *“We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old” Psalm 44:1\.* The only problem I have with this verse is that our fathers had nothing to tell us\. There has been very little revival in our time, which is all the more reason for us to long for it\. We must have something to tell our children or they may not make it\. A dry, stuffy religion is all they will have if we don’t get some fresh blessing from God\. I see a pattern in many of these revivals of the past\. It begins with a great lack, followed by a few longing hearts\. Those who are sighing and crying for the need that is all around them, and in their own lives also\. Often, with the revelation of the need, comes a reading of some account of the holy movements of God in the past\. This sparks desire, spiritual desire, sanctified desire, that moves a group of longing hearts to pray\. As prayer proceeds, personal needs begin to surface, and as these are dealt with, prayer becomes more intense\. If a group of people will stay in this posture and travail in prayer, they will prevail with God, and revival will come\. It may only be to a small group, or a church full of seeking brethren\. It could be to their community\. Brothers and sisters, we need it\. I know that I need it in my own life\. I know that our brotherhood stands in need of fresh streams of revival\. And, oh, to see God reach outside the church again to touch the community\. Do it again, Lord\. Do it again\.