What Will A True Revival Look Like?

Replies to This DISCUSSION

Permalink Reply by Charles Atkinson on June 22, 2009 at 9:49am

Here is an example of the attitude we need to cultivate for revival.

The attitude is similar to one a gardener would have against pests. Say a caterpillar is eating the plants; the gardener’s attitude is, "I will find you and kill you" or "I will apply a pesticide that will destroy you and your offspring."

Regardless of the method, the attitude is one of determination that I am going to do something about it. The gardener doesn’t expect (pray) that someone else will come and do it for them, or …doesn’t pray that the pests will go away and leave the plants alone. Rather, the gardener takes responsibility and determines to make it happen him (her) self.

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Permalink Reply by Charles Atkinson on June 24, 2009 at 2:41pm

My perspective:
...is that the power of God or moving in the anointing is Never dependent on external circumstances. Yes, there is a matter of timing: "When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son..." But some people recline in their Lazy Boys waiting for God knows what. And really He is waiting on us to fully yield ourselves to obey the promptings/leadings of the Spirit. (And in this I speak to myself as well.!)

All that is needed is ONE person willing to step out and be "revolutionary". Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man. Then when it so burned in his heart (Jer.20:9) to be doing the will of his Father (Lk.2:49) that he could no longer hold it back, his ministry began, and "this beginning of miracles did Jesus...and manifested forth his glory." (Jn2:11)

I love the idea that we are in a revolution – a civil war. Not against the political forces of this nation or the countries of this world, but against the darkness that prevails over the minds and hearts of men.

I love the idea that we are in a battle – light against darkness, and that we are like freedom fighters. We were once the citizens of the kingdom of darkness, but from the eyes of the enemy, we have committed treason by aligning our allegiance with the kingdom of light – the kingdom of heaven. Yet we maintain our concealment through the bodies of Adam, though our spirits are made new with the spirit of Christ – the new nature.

I love the idea that yes, we must rally the troops. And that success is up to us – that is if we take responsibility for the results left to the body of Christ by the head himself. “I have given you authority over all the works of darkness; therefore go…”

I love the idea that I can compare our spiritual revolution to the American Revolution – for I am an American patriot to the core of my soul. But as Paul said, I count what gain I had as lost for the Excellency of …the kingdom of Christ. (So I am not saying the American Revolution was biblical; just pulling similarities from the history.)

Now in the words of Thomas Paine, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Revival?! When?! The present time is preferable to all others.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Lee on July 14, 2009 at 11:01pm

In my previous comment, I talked about the revival in Jerusalem led by Ezra and Nehemiah. I haven't looked it over in depth to dig out the revelation we need for today, but Jim Martin discussed the very same revival in his newsletter last month. In case any one missed it, here's the link:

http://d.sermonplayer.com/c/NM60788/pdf/244803_794.pdf

One other thing I might add, is that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah ministered during this period, so reading (assimilating) their books along with the books of Ezra and Nehemiah would be a good thing.... er, God thing.

I do remember that Zechariah had some good things to say about fasting in chapters 7 & 8, and of course he had one of the most well-known verses in Full Gospel circles:

Zechariah 4:6 (New American Standard Bible)

Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts.

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Cook Dreyer on July 16, 2009 at 10:32am

I absolutely love the way the recent comments have evolved since I wrote this post over a year ago. A lot has happened since then in the revelation of how we walk and our view of our circumstances. As stated they mean nothing in the scheme of things. What matters is how well we are able to commune with the Holy Spirit and obeying what is being said. We know God's will for our cities by reading the gospels and the book of Acts. How that is walked out will come from the mind and heart of God the Father.

More and more I have been thinking about how Gary Carpenter has mentioned about Matthew 15:29 as his point of faith for how revival will look. The one thing that I see is that whatever people came to Jesus for they received. My focus of late has been to somehow expose and root out any unbelief in me. At this point nothing else matters to me.

Every believer has the potential to walk as He did, that is, to be able to meet any need through His power and authority that we have been given. As that continues to happen in each of us we will see changes where we live. I am not sure how that will manifest. It will be through people hearing the Lord but I wonder how formal the structure will be. The tendency of religious structures is control, probably because of lack of knowledge or more than likely losing power over people. Control is what has killed the fullness of God's power being known to the people for the most part. If you can have a group of people that are free to seek and obey the Lord (through good guidance) maybe a structure can work. However I lean (my opinion only) towards individuals coming together as led of the Lord without the chains of religious structures. We will bring revival to wherever we go since it will manifest through us. That manifestation is not limited to location.

More and more I am excited about what will happen. This discussion has brought me a lot more hope because of the prayerful and thoughtful comments posted here. I know there has to be others in the world thinking like this. We just need to connect somehow. Online is probably the best way to find each other at this point.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Lee on July 16, 2009 at 3:07pm

Pam, I recently had a thought come to my mind while Gary was teaching. I don't know if it was Sunday night or last night. But the thought is this: Pastors will get up before their people and tell them that what they are doing is not enough. All their singing and preaching and teaching might be wonderful, but still, it's not enough. The pastors will say they need to seek God's face - NOW! Then, instead of preaching an eloquent sermon about seeking God, with each of their five points supported by three scriptures, some pastors will start seeking right then and there. They'll fall to their knees in tears, and confess to their own prayerlessness and worldliness.

Others will confess to being a fraud. They'll admit they have seen that what they have taught and preached is not true, but they continued to promote that junk because it made them money. They'll go on to say they can't continue to do that because they know that if they don't confess, they'll be exposed and disgraced anyway.

I don't know if that's a prophecy or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does happen. Why would it happen? I can see two reasons.

First, the revival recorded in Ezra, Nehemiah, Zachariah, and Haggai had roots. The revival we are seeking will have roots. The roots of the OT revival were in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel.

Jeremiah is mostly remembered for prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Captivity. But he also prophesied that the people would return after seventy years. Many prophecies are also promises. God promised them their captivity would not last, they would return, and they would have revival!

Daniel read that prophecy and realized the seventy years were about over. His response? He began to confess the sins of his people. Oh, and he fasted too, all when he was at least 80 years old!

God's promise and Daniel's confession made that revival happen.

Acts 3:19-21 (NASB) "Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.

God has promised to restore the Church to the way she was in the book of Acts. Revival is restoration of life.

As Gary has said several times, the whole series on Ephesians began with Eph. 5:14. The Church needs to wake up. To be awake is to be aware of what is truly going on around you instead of what's happening inside the dream you're having. As the Church wakes up, believers will confess and repent of their sins.

Those are the roots of the revival we will see.

The other reason I can see this happen is that "push will come to shove." I believe that people at and in fellowship with the Prayer Center are waking up, and some are already fully awake. But we are not isolated from the rest of the Body. As the people in this fellowship wake up and start doing the message in earnest, we will release spiritual forces that will act to bring about this revival. The process has already started. The spiritual pressure released by all this praying, fasting, confessing of the Word, and private worship will have to manifest somewhere. This revival will not be contained to the Prayer Center family, for the Body of Christ is one.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Lee on August 13, 2009 at 12:24am

I had another thought a few days ago, and it's still with me.

Consider all the previous moves of God. Most no longer are moves of God, but their effects remain, so we can look at how God moved, how He used people to accomplish His plan, and the effects of those moves. When considering the effects of those moves, don't just look at what happened, but include the magnitude of those effects.

We can look at the moves of God all the way back to the exodus from Egypt and the conquest of the Promised Land. Add the victories of the Judges, the victories of Saul (yes, God did use him!) and David, Solomon building the Temple, the righteous kings that led the people back to God from idolatry, Ezra and Nehemiah returning from captivity and rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple, the Maccabean revolt against paganism imposed by the Seleucids, the ministry of Jesus, the Acts of the Apostles, the pre-Reformation movements led by John Hus and others, the Reformation, the Wesleyan revival, the Great Awakening of 1800, the Welsh revival, the Holiness movement, the Pentecostal movement, the healing revival led by Ken Hagin, Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, and others, the Charismatic movement, the Jesus movement, and any other true move of God I have forgotten to mention, or I just didn't know about.

Consider all the good things done by God through those moves, and forget all the fluff, flakiness, and falsehood that came with them.

Combine all those moves into one, and I think you will have a picture of the revival God wants.

Before you think I've gone off the deep end, let me ask one question: Why not?

Doesn't this sound like what we confess during Calling in the Lost?

John Knox prayed, "God, give me Scotland or I die!"

'Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
(Psalms 2:8 NASB)

If John Knox stood on that verse, we'd all be Presbyterian! If he, not even being filled with the Holy Spirit, could believe and receive an entire nation, then surely we can, and will, have the revival God wishes to work through us.

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Cook Dreyer on August 15, 2009 at 12:01am

Each move of God emphasized an aspect of God that is stated in the word. We are indeed to experience all of what is in God's word. Combining them is a wonderful start. The one thing missing in a good number of them is sound doctrine. They usually had the right doctrine for the thing the Lord used them to bring to the earth. However false doctrine entered in at some point. Some of them that insisted on promoting it ended up not too well in the end. Think about how several of them just knew that God revealed that they were the Elijah to come.

You have NOT gone off the deep end:) We can AND WILL shoot for the moon aka all that God has for us.

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