VITAL KEYS TO REVIVAL
INTRODUCTION:
Revival history shows again and again that if there are two key elements to obtaining true revival, they would have to be DEEP REPENTANCE and AGONIZING PRAYER.
Frank Bartleman ( a leader in the Azusa Street Revival) wrote: "I received from God early in 1905 the following keynote to revival: 'THE DEPTH OF REVIVAL WILL BE DETERMINED EXACTLY BY THE DEPTH OF THE SPIRIT OF REPENTANCE'. And this will obtain for all people at all time."
The other thing that Bartleman emphasized in his book was the hours of agonizing travail and intercession they went through before Revival hit. By: Andrew Strom
Charles G. Finney was convinced that if the church would just meet the basic conditions for Revival--deep repentance and heartfelt, agonizing prayer for the outpouring of God's Spirit, then Revival would ALWAYS result.
Finney said: "Revival is no more a miracle than a crop of wheat. Revival comes from heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die - or if need be, to win and die!
( When Finney's "Revival Lectures" were published and his teaching were put into practice, there were outbreaks of true Revival all over the world.)
SCRIPTURE: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
II Chronicles 7:14
I. AGONIZING PRAYER
A. Famous quotations:
1. Matthew Henry stated: "When God intends great mercy for His people, the
first thing He does is set them a-praying." Would the DAY of Pentecost
have come had they not prayed? Acts 1 & 2
2. Leonard Ravenhill wrote, "the man who can get believers to praying would,
under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known."
3. A. T. Pierson wrote, "From the day of Pentecost, there has been NOT ONE great spiritual awakening in any land which has not begun in a
UNION OF PRAYER, though only among two or three . . . "
Acts 4:31 "And when they prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and
Then spake the word of God with boldness."
Remember Ezek 37: 7 " So I prophesied as I was commanded:
and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone." It doesn't take a stadium full to bring a
shaking!!!!
4. John Wesley said: "Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the
throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down."
B. Agonizing Prayer
1. Pleads with God that He might glorify Himself.
2. Pleads that His Spirit might be poured out.
C. What constitutes a spirit of prayer? Is it many prayers and warm words? No.
Prayer is the state of the heart. The spirit of prayer is a state of continual desire and anxiety of mind for the salvation of sinners. It is something that weighs them down. It is the same as when a man is anxious for some worldly interest. A Christian who has this spirit of prayer feelsanxious for souls.
(Charles G. Finney pg 25)
Genesis 32:24 "and there wrestled a man with him"
wrestled meaning to grapple or wrestle, also means to float away, but is used
only of dust. Hence, its use here could only mean to raise dust by wrestling,
proving the struggle between the Man and Jacob was a bodily contest. (Dake)
Agonizing prayer may leave you dusty and with a limp.
II. DEEP REPENTANCE
"Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you." Hosea 10:12
3 Things to do in seeking God (Dake)
1. "Sow to yourselves in righteousness" This means to stop sinning and start
doing what is right in all things--to consecrate to do that which is good and right. Sowing and reaping always stand out against each other, as labor and reward.
2. "Reap in mercy" This means to accept and appropriate the mercy of God
extended to us. If we do not accept mercy from God it will not be ours, for both sowing in righteousness and reaping in mercy are our responsibility. Righteousness is here to do, and mercy is here to receive, but neither will be a man's experience until he does what is right and accepts the mercy provided.
3. "Break up your fallow ground" This also is the work of man. Each must break
up the ground of his own life. Fallow ground is that which has been plowed but not sown; ground not in use; idle ground crusted over and hardened until it needs to be broken up again to receive the seed. Our hearts and will must be broken and yielded to God. We must make ourselves willing to receive the Word of God and to obey it or seeking Him will not avail us aanything.
Fallow ground is ground, which has once been tilled, but which now lies
waste, and needs to be broken up and mellowed, before it is suited to receive grain. (Charles G. Finney)
A. What is it to break up the fallow ground?
To break up the fallow ground, is to break up your hearts, to prepare you minds to
Bring forth fruit unto God.
B. How is the fallow ground to be broken up?
1. It is not by any means of direct efforts to feel. No man can make himself feel
this way, merely by trying to feel.
2. We can command our attention to it, and look at it intently, till the proper
feeling arises. Let a man who is away from his family bring them up
before his mind, and will he not feel? But it is not by to himself: "Now I will feel deeply for my family."
A man can direct his attention to any object, about which he ought to feel and wishes to feel, and in that way he will call into existence the proper emotions.
Proverbs 23:7 "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:" I believe this
is not a moments worth of thought, but a state of mind.
3. If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, and make your
minds feel on the subject of religion, you must go to work just as you
would to feel on any other subject. Instead of keeping your thoughts on everything else, and then imagining that by going to a few meetings you will get your feeling enlisted, go the common- sense way to work, as you would on any other subject.
4. If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, you must begin by
looking at your hearts: examine and note the state of your minds and see
where you are.
C. You must set yourself to work to consider your sins. You must examine yourselves
. Self-examination consists in looking at your lives, in considering your actions, in calling up the past and learning its true character. Look back over your past history. Take up your individual sins one by one, and look at them. It will be a good thing to take a pen and paper, as you go over them, and write them down as they occur to you. Go over them as carefully as a merchant goes over his books; and as often as a sin comes before your memory, add it to the list. General confessions of sin will never do. Your sins were committed one by one; and as far as you can come at them, they ought to be reviewed and repented of one by one.
D, Sins of Omission pg 38 * Read them one by one slowly allowing time for thought.
*Again
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." II Chronicles 7:14
To turn from our wicked ways doesn't just mean to repent of our sins. Hitherto,
we have repented of our acts, now we need deliverance from our ways.
(Mario Murillo)
Hebrews 12:1 "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,"
Weight -- whatever is prominent, protuberance, bulk, mass
hence a burden, weight, encumbrance
Herein lies the truth that releases the glory. In repenting of sin, we rid ourselves
of evil but in the dark night of the soul, we surrender the things we dearly love, things we can't readily identify as being in conflict with God. Here the issue is not right and wrong, but high and low purposes of living. Spiritual awakening is not simply getting rid of sin, it is giving God want he wants. (Mario Murillo)
For fire to fall and consume the sacrifice, it must be innocent and without blemish, but most of all, it must be on the altar to stay. (Mario Murillo)
References:
1. "Agonizing' Prayer-Vital Key to Revival" by Andrew Strom
www.thinkcoach.com/mirror/nz-revival/agoniz.html
2. "The Dark Night of the Soul" Mario Murillo www.thinkcoach.com/mirror/nz-revival/night.html
3. "Revival Lectures" Charles G. Finney
