The Moravian Mission Machine

Revival, by its very definition, implies something is brought to life that was once sleeping or dead. Throughout history, God has repeatedly sent revival to awaken His church from sleepy self-indulgence to an active, world-changing force. It is interesting how history repeats itself, and it becomes apparent that we will never “arrive” at any destination on this earth in which we will outgrow our need for this continual, life-changing phenomenon we call revival. The church lives or dies in direct proportion to the measure in which it operates under this Holy Spirit anointing. In Acts 2 and 4 when revival came at Pentecost, it didn’t just usher in great feelings; it was the birth of the church—a gathered, called-out people.

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Why Revival Leaves

Late in the 1950s Leonard Ravenhill wrote a book that quickly became a classic on the subject of revival entitled Why Revival Tarries. It addressed the perplexing question: If God earnestly desires to pour His gracious Spirit onto all flesh, then what is preventing it? In other words, what is stopping us from experiencing this outpouring, and what would it take for us to experience real revival like we have read about? I think it is a question that does indeed challenge each of us as we long for more from God and desire to see true revival in our day. But perhaps the thought that should vex us even more than why revival tarries, is the question—why does revival leave? Why, when a people have experienced a genuine presence and outpouring of the living God, would they turn away from it and choose another way?

As I have studied revival and church history, the question that often troubles me when looking at a particular work of God is—what happened that made this group lose every trace of all that God had done through them? Why does the glory of God leave? The Lancaster revivals of the 1950s, the Wesleyan revivals of the 1700s and 1800s, the East African revivals of the 1940s, and even the famous Welch Revival of 1904 are all for the most part gone. Why?

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Revival Terminology in History

A number of years ago in a book entitled Revival I gave the following definition of that term: “Revival is an extraordinary work of the Spirit of God producing extraordinary results.” While that phrase conveys the fundamental concept of revival, over the intervening years I have come to the conviction that one single word describes revival better than any other—that word is “GOD.”

There is a very precious sense in which revival is literally “GOD in the midst of His people.” His manifest presence produces all that is desirable in revival. The absence of His manifest presence accounts for all that is undesirable during the seasons of moral and spiritual decline that precede revivals.

Revival is a time when heaven comes closer to earth than at any other time in the lives of men and women. If one considers the greatest attraction of heaven, is it golden streets? Is it the tree of life? Is it the presence of angels? Is it fellowship with other redeemed? NO! The greatest allure of heaven is the absolutely unbroken presence of God.

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