Revival, Disaster, and the Unknown; What is God Doing?
In some ways, the current state of our nation feels almost impossible to change, but it’s actually proving to be a rallying point for people to return to God.
Some have said we need revival; others say our need is for awakening or reformation. I say we need all three! I don’t think it matters so much what we call it, but the bottom line is that we need God to pour out on our country and rescue us at a core level, even from ourselves. Throughout this article, we’ll take a look at revival, awakening, and reformation. We’ll glean from things God’s done in the past and see how faithful, praying believers have literally changed the course of their nations. We very much have a part to play in what He wants to do in this season of history, and trust me, you’ll want to get in on this!
When you hear the word revival, what comes to mind? CPR? Tent meetings? We use the word in a few different contexts, but of the many words that are synonymous with revival, they all have to do with life—recovery, renewal, and restoration. Pastor Sam Rodriguez told me recently, “We’ve been waiting for God to send revival down; He’s waiting for the Church to rise up!”
For the purpose of our discussion, I’d like us to consider the “spirit of revival,” rather than simply thinking that revival is a two-week tent meeting where people get a touch from God and then go back to life as usual. The spirit of revival is simply acknowledging Holy Spirit who lives inside of us. He is our revival, and the One who brings renewed life to us on every level—personally, corporately, and everywhere in between. I believe God wants to bring us to a place where we rise up, knowing that we carry revival inside of us, and everywhere we go we bring things back to life! If we can grab on to the idea of the “spirit of revival,” I think we’ll be more aligned with what God is doing right now. We don’t need a visitation from God; we need Him to establish His Church and our country in a new normal—that as outpouring, revival, reformation, or awakening happens, we find our place and contend for His presence to stay among us!
First, Pray!
So what is our part in seeing revival unfold in America today? The most important ingredient to any revival is prayer. History clearly shows us that prayer always precedes revival! Thankfully, there’s been an increased emphasis on prayer over the past several years, and I believe we are positioned to see God show up and answer in powerful ways. To encourage us even more in this direction, let’s look at some of the ways He’s answered throughout history.
Father Nash was an intercessor who traveled with Charles Finney. When God revealed to Finney where to travel and hold revival meetings, Father Nash would show up days before Finney with only one priority—prayer. He would rent a room, with no windows if he could find one (in order to eliminate any outside distractions), and he’d spend those days alone in his prayer closet interceding for that city to be changed. After several days, Finney would arrive and the meetings would begin. Father Nash continued tirelessly, pouring himself out in prayer for both Finney and those who had gathered to hear him preach. Phenomenal things would occur in Finney’s meetings as a result of Father Nash’s prevailing prayers. This was the secret behind Finney’s powerful ministry.
Charles Finney knew firsthand how important prayer was to his meetings. In fact, it was so important that when Father Nash died, Finney essentially stopped traveling because he no longer had the pure, intense intercession of his friend to accompany him and undergird his meetings. How can we read a story like this and think that God won’t answer our prayers for revival? Prayer warriors and intercessors like Father Nash are true heroes of the faith. We need them no less than Charles Finney did. We must have those who are committed to the Lord alone, and not to gaining their place in the limelight.
Prayer truly has to be first on our list when we think about revival. When believers pray, we have a direct line of communication to the Father. Sometimes we forget this or we don’t realize the significance of it. But one look at Father Nash’s prayers is evidence enough to show us that when we seek God in prayer, He hears and responds. We will discuss prayer more in a later chapter, but know this: He does answer the prayers of His children and He will send revival when we get serious and fervent enough to cry out for it!
The Hebrides revival is another great example of the power of prayer ushering God’s glory into a nation.
In 1949 in the village of Barvas, Rev. James Murray MacKay was the parish minister. For months he and his church leaders prayed for an outpouring of the Spirit. In a small cottage lived two elderly sisters: Peggy Smith, aged eighty[1]four and blind, and her sister Christine Smith, eighty-two and almost bent double with arthritis. They were unable to attend worship, but for months they prayed in their cottage for God to send revival to Barvas. The sisters prayed by name for the people in each cottage along the village streets. They loved their church and respected their minister, but longed for a new visitation of God. God gave them the promise, “I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground” (Isa. 44:3). The Smith sisters prayed this promise day and night.
On the other side of Barvas, knowing nothing about the prayer burden of the Smith sisters, seven young men met three nights a week in a barn to pray for revival. They entered into a covenant with God in accordance with Isaiah 62:6-7 that they would give God no rest until He sent revival.
Notice how God doesn’t put constraints on whose prayers He hears? Or that He doesn’t choose one generation over another, but He uses the generations together? “The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). By most churches’ standards, these two women wouldn’t be considered likely to affect their own church, much less the nation or the world, for revival! So often the people we disqualify and overlook are the very people God uses to accomplish His purposes. Two old ladies and seven young men, though they didn’t know each other, were lifting their prayers in unison to God from one end of the village of Barvas to the other. They were commit[1]ted to seeing God show up in a big way. And that was enough for God. You are never too young or too old to be effective for God. This true story effectively wipes out all your excuses.
Another great example of prayer ushering in revival is seen in the Shantung Revival of 1932. God sent one of the greatest revivals of the twentieth century to the Shantung province of north[1]ern China. It began in the North China Mission of the Southern Baptists through the ministry of Miss Marie Monsen, a Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran missionary who was a refugee in Chefoo.
The Shantung revival was born in prayer groups, some of which began as far back as 1925. Miss Monsen wrote: “Visiting the different stations of this mission was a wonderful experience. In each place one felt everything had been prepared in definite, believing, unceasing prayer. It was marvelously open everywhere, and there was a unity between the missionaries in the work.” In Honan, Southern Baptist missionaries had been praying many years for revival in their province. Beginning in 1929 there were two daily prayer meetings for revival, one for missionaries and one for Chinese. Then for five months these two groups united in prayer twice daily, and finally God sent revival.
Prayer paved the way for God to visit China with revival. And it wasn’t sporadic prayer—it was unified, focused prayer for one purpose. “There was a unity between the missionaries in the work.” In the same way, when we lay down our differences and pursue God with one heart and one mind, He will surely send revival to America!
Rumblings of Revival
We can learn a lot by looking at history; it’s a great teacher that clearly tells us what to do and what not to do. No two revivals have ever looked the same, but they’ve each brought a change to the Church and, consequently, to society around us. The Welsh Revival didn’t look like Azusa Street; the revival in Toronto didn’t look like Lakeland or Pensacola; and some revivals didn’t even look like what any of us would have called “revival.” But in each instance, God showed up and changed His people.
So here we stand today, in the face of great opposition. Those in positions of greatest political power are working to cause the greatest harm to this country and the godly principles upon which it was founded. While the Church’s cries for revival often seem to be drowned out by the loud evil agendas of hatred and control, we can rest assured that the prayers that have been prayed from even the smallest of pockets around our nation have reached God’s ears. It’s just a matter of time until we see Him answer—and when He answers, we’ll know it!
It is said of the Azusa Street Revival that even the children could see the shekinah glory of God moving around their feet, and people got healed, not because they had a certain degree of faith, but just by being in God’s presence! I don’t think this was a one-time event. I believe this is part, but only a small part, of what God is going to do in our country as we continue to pray.
In case you haven’t heard, there are already sparks of revival igniting across our nation and across the earth where God is moving, bringing restoration, renewal, and new life.
In California during the pandemic, believers began to gather on the beaches and worship and pray. People were drawn out of their homes and came from across the state, and even from other states, to simply come together and worship God. They took their masks off and saw God move among them. It was pure, unadulterated worship like I remember from the days of the Jesus Movement!
We tend to look at revival as a return to something, but what I saw when I attended Mario Murillo’s tent meetings in Modesto, California, was not a return to something; it was something entirely new and different. In my own life, it was at Mario’s meetings that God fulfilled a prophecy I’d received twenty years earlier. I’d never been able to figure it out, and it definitely looks different than I expected!
My Own Experience
In 2001, I was working for Benny Hinn Ministries as COO. At a TV taping one evening the guest, Cathy Lechner (deceased), had a prophetic word for me. The part that stood out was: “You will be involved in politics; yet you won’t run for office. I see you in Washington, DC and Modesto, California.” For years I waited to be invited to Modesto for a meeting. It never happened. Nothing. I didn’t even know anyone from Modesto. The years ticked by. Then when Mario announced this meeting in early 2021, my heart skipped a beat. I remembered the prophecy from so many years ago. Now here’s the real miracle—I had written down that prophecy back in 2001 and I found that notebook! Believe me, that’s a miracle. I have moved countless times and lived all over the United States, so for me to place my hands on that notebook is nothing short of miraculous.
I told Mario I had to be there in Modesto. My wife Teri and I flew out, anxious to see what God was going to do. I had no idea what to expect. Then, Mario asked me to speak to the audience and suddenly I knew exactly what the prophecy meant. I was there to drive a stake in the ground in California for the next Great Awakening! It had been 20 years since I received that prophecy, and this was the fulfillment of it.
I left there on a Wednesday and arrived on the other side of the country at Cape Henry, Virginia to speak at a tent crusade that weekend. Suddenly, I realized I had traveled the entire width of the United States and drove a stake in the ground at the exact place where Robert Hunt came to America and planted a cross on the beach, proclaiming America for Christ in 1607. I was stunned. God was doing something new in me and in our nation.
I’ve seen it in California, in Virginia, in Georgia, and in New Mexico as people have cried out to God and have been touched through healing, a renewed realization of His nature toward them, and activation into what He’s called them to. By no means is this the whole picture—far from it. I know that I have seen and experienced such a small piece of this revival picture that I can’t begin to tell you what shape or form it will take. But I do know that God is moving, and when God is moving we have to get on board—no excuses!
Treasure Hunt
I think of what’s happening now as a treasure hunt. And if we look at Scripture, God is pretty well[1]known for keeping His hand close to His chest. While He is eager to share some things with us, He invites us to search other things out and to inquire of Him.
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter (Proverbs 25:2 NKJV). Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know ( Jeremiah 33:3 NASB).
The popular show The Curse of Oak Island reminds me of where we are now and what God is doing. No, not because the title has the word “curse” in it. And please don’t get religious on me because I enjoy the show! The point of the show is that it’s a treasure hunt and the team is constantly discovering another piece of the puzzle. With each episode, they follow their most recent clue to the next stage of the hunt. Because their goal is to solve the mystery, they never ignore clues or wander off aimlessly. They have a destination and they are focused. However, they are not so focused on one area that they don’t keep an open mind and let the facts lead them to where to dig next.
Then Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the same names which his father had given them (Genesis 26:18 NASB).
This is where we are with revival—though it feels like we get one clue at a time, the Lord is leading us somewhere. Even though we don’t have the complete picture, as we continue to seek and search with an open mind, we will see it slowly come into focus.
David Barton has said, “History proves the American Christian doesn’t realize they’re in revival until fifty years after it happens.” Friends, from where we stand now, we need to pay attention. We don’t have fifty years to realize that what is happening in this hour is revival! Even if we only see a small glimpse of God’s hand moving, we need to grab it. If we are hungry for the Word, we need to turn off the TV and ask Holy Spirit to speak to us as we read the Scriptures. If we are stirred to pray for someone, we need to step out and do it and not be afraid of what they might think of us. Whatever we sense from the Lord, no matter how small, let’s grab it and press in! Let us be the generation in America that says, “Revival came and we were well aware of it because it changed everything!”
People of Love and Unity
What we’re seeing now is revival in that we are seeing elements of refreshing and renewal, but it’s going to be more than that because we need more than that! Our country has not seen the level of division we’re seeing now since the days of Martin Luther King, Jr. We need a revival that transforms us into a people of love and unity, and I believe this is where we’re headed. Obviously, signs, wonders, and miracles will be a part, but love and unity are always our foundation as believers. This was Jesus’ prayer for us, His Church, in John 17:
But now I am coming to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but to keep them away from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. Just as You sent Me into the world, I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, so that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
I am not asking on behalf of these alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me ( John 17:13- 21 NASB).
It can be easy to read this and think that Jesus is praying for someone else, but He is praying for you and me! That we may be one. Let me ask you this: when you look around at the Church today, do we seem like one body? Do you see unity among us? Yeah, I don’t think so either. We have a lot of work to do!
Jesus also told us that the world will know that we are His disciples, not by the love we have for them but by the love we have for one another! The Church cannot influence our nation toward unity when we are splintered and divided a million different ways ourselves. I know how impossible this sounds, but remember—with God all things are possible!
Make no mistake, this kind of love is not squishy, and it starts right where we are. We have to acknowledge our differences and even celebrate them. We must be intentional about loving each other, even when we don’t feel like it. This takes work, but it has to start with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We must love one another. Jesus said so.
This kind of love is also not afraid of the dark[1]ness. It doesn’t cower in a corner and hide—it runs into the darkness to rescue others. Love must supersede evil and hatred. Remember, it’s love that covers a multitude of sins. And it’s love that is the very foundation of our faith. God so loved the world that He gave us His Son. His love changed the world two thousand years ago, and it’s His love flowing through us that will change the world now.
This is why the Jesus Movement in the late ’60s was so popular—people were drawn by love. Obviously, there was “free love” and that wasn’t going to work out for long, but it really showed the heart of a people hungry for a manifestation of love that only a relationship with God can satisfy. The Church as a whole hadn’t done a really good job of loving people in that era. Christians were too busy condemning “free love” and not showing these hungry people the real love of Jesus.
We had been far too concerned with appearance and behavior, and we required something of people before we loved them. Maybe you’re old enough to remember when there were dress codes, acceptable hairstyles, music, etc. in the church. Is it any wonder people weren’t typically drawn to our meetings? But when the Jesus Movement happened, people who met Jesus simply learned that He loved them, and then they introduced other people to Him. No one was concerned with hairstyles or dress codes or music. Love was the order of the day. And friends, it still is.
Revival, Disaster, and the Unknown
Let’s also remember that alongside great revivals and moves of God, there is always a move of the enemy—some agenda of hell that he’s trying to accomplish in the earth. Consider that Azusa Street Revival happened in 1906, the same year as the great earthquake shook and destroyed parts of northern California. Spiritual awakening was occurring at the same time as natural destruction. The world thought the end was near as the ground shook violently, leveling four square miles of the city of San Francisco. Yet just four hundred miles away, Christians boarded trains heading from Azusa Street to San Francisco and witnessed to thousands!
At the time of the Welsh Revival, there was tremendous civil unrest throughout society and corruption within the Church in Wales. They were in the middle of an election season, too. Does this sound familiar? Seth Joshua was part of the Welsh Church at the time; because of the legalism and corruption in the Church, he prayed that God would send someone from outside who would usher in revival. In his wisdom, he knew that if God used someone from outside the Church, it would bypass the corruption; there would be no question that it would be a pure and untainted move of God.
There are numerous other examples of this same dynamic of revival and disaster operating simultaneously in a society. The Second Great Awakening began around 1800, and it was in full force when England decided to retake America and the War of 1812 broke out.
There are clearly two forces at work here in each of these situations. I’m not sure we can know which was stirring first, revival or enemy attack, but we do know that God has always raised up a praying, believing remnant to accomplish His purposes, regard[1]less of the enemy’s opposition. The season we’re in is no different. We’ve seen the ruthless attacks of the enemy on our nation in every segment of society, and we have a unique and amazing opportunity to be the very ones God uses to defeat the enemy’s plans in this hour.
What Does It Look Like?
Historically, the Church has gone through waves of revival, and they have been great cycles of learning. There’s always something more that we can learn about God, about ourselves, and about how to influence the world around us. The danger is that when God moves in the present, we want to clearly define it and build a doctrine around it. Our human nature tells us we have to understand and define everything, and when we do, we’ll know what to expect in the future. Fortunately for us, God never lets us put Him in a box.
He is always moving and He always keeps us guessing. It’s time to lay down our preconceived ideas of revival and accept that we don’t know what it will look like!
The truth is that revival never looks the same way twice. When we pray for revival, we all have a picture in our minds of what it will look like, and not a single one of our pictures is 100 percent accurate!
Lester Sumrall once relayed Smith Wigglesworth’s vision of seeing a revival of people in Bibles and notebooks. This certainly didn’t fit the previous picture of revival we’d seen. But when we look at the ministries of people like the Copelands and Kenneth Hagin, who were instrumental in the Word of Faith movement, we did have a true revival of the Word of God—“Bibles and notebooks.”
We have to be careful not to dismiss God’s current stirrings across America because they don’t fit our preconceived idea of “revival” or we don’t recognize it as being significant. Thankfully, God is not allowing us to go back, but He is moving us forward, full steam ahead! I’m telling you, though we may not see large-scale evidence of it just yet, it is significant, and all the clues we’re collecting along the way tell us something great is about to happen.
