In spite of some of its excesses and extremes, there is no doubt that God used the First Great Awakening to vastly increase the spiritual temperature in the colonies and morally prepare the disjoined American colonies to eventually become the United States of America.
Although I didn’t personally go to Asbury University to experience it for myself, I have some very good friends who did. All of them have told me that it was, for the most part, low-key, extremely focused on Jesus, and, for the most part, unorchestrated and student-led. There has been confession of sin, faith indications, surrender to Christ, and lots and lots of prayer and worship.
What is Revival?
But to get back to Zoe’s question: What is revival?
John Piper answered what is revival this way:
In the history of the church, the term revival in its most biblical sense has meant a sovereign work of God in which the whole region of many churches, many Christians has been lifted out of spiritual indifference and worldliness into conviction of sin, earnest desires for more of Christ and his word, boldness in witness, purity of life, lots of conversions, joyful worship, renewed commitment to missions. You feel God has moved here. And basically revival, then, is God doing among many Christians at the same time or in the same region, usually, what he is doing all the time in individual Christian’s lives as people get saved and individually renewed around the world.
That’s a great definition.
What is revival? Here’s something interesting: The word “revival” is never mentioned in the New Testament—not even once. Maybe it’s because what we call “revival” God calls Standard Operating Procedure.
But although the word revival is not mentioned in the New Testament, we see the concept again and again.
- We see it in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit set the believers’ tongues on fire and 3,000 were added to their number that day.
- We see it in Acts 4:31, when the power of prayer shook the building, the power of the Spirit shook the believers, and then the power of the Gospel shook the city.
- We see it in Acts 19:17-20, after a demon-possessed man beat the tar out of the seven sons of Sceva who misused the name of the Jesus to try to cast a demon out. As a result:
…when this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the Word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
I would call that revival. Wouldn’t you? It started when they upwardly held the name of Jesus “in high honor” and continued when they inwardly rid themselves of their secret sins and outwardly spread the Gospel to everyone around them.
Forty years later, we see another example of what this upward, inward, outward revival should look like. And guess what? It’s once again with the Ephesian believers!
Jesus wrote these words to the church of Ephesus through the pen of the apostle John:
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of Him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your deeds, your hard work, and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent, and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Revelation 2:1-5)
In this passage, we see that the Ephesian church, which was once alive and on fire for God, needed a revival once again. Jesus calls them to an upward fixation on Him, an inward consecration of self, and an outward activation for the Gospel.
