Day 8: Commitments and Indicators of Revival

When a nation’s darkness becomes overwhelmingly destructive, only God can supply what people need to be brought back to life. These things include the assurance of being forgiven, accepted, and loved; the joy of worshiping God alone; and a return to holy living. When God brings revival to a nation, He blesses His people with a call to return to six specific commitments:

1. Authority of the Scripture
2. Belief in the centrality of the cross of Jesus
3. Increased devotional life and return to personal holiness
4. Renewed spiritual authority of biblical preaching from the pulpit
5. Explosive witnessing and discipleship
6. Corporate social change that results from individual, spiritual transformation.

Does seeing the embryonic development of one or more of these things mean our nation is one step closer to revival? In my view, this is the wrong question to ask. Trying to predict any movement of God’s Spirit is impossible and even harmful. We could be so absorbed in wanting to know, “When will it happen?” that we lose an appreciation for how consistent God’s expression of love is in revival. The attraction of these timeless results isn’t that they help us predict revival (they can’t), but rather that they cause us to long to fast and pray for revival. Charles Finney was not interested in forecasting history, yet— approximately two hundred years after they were written— Finney’s 7 indicators of revival may cause us to think again about extraordinary expressions of the Holy Spirit in our nation:

1. When the sovereignty of God indicates that revival is near
2. When wickedness grieves and humbles Christians
3. Where there is a spirit of prayer for revival
4. When the attention of ministers is directed toward revival and spiritual awakening
5. When Christians confess their sins one to another
6. When Christians are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to carry out the new movement of God’s Spirit
7. When the ministers and laity are willing for God to promote spiritual awakening by whatever instrument he pleases.

How many of these seven indicators would you say are real and present where you live and worship?

Isaiah 55:6-7 New King James Version (NKJV)
6 Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon. 

Psalm 51:7-12 New King James Version (NKJV)
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. 

Psalm 116:8-9 New King James Version (NKJV)
8 For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
9 I will walk before the Lord
In the land of the living.

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Phillips, Tom (2016-11-01). Jesus Now: God Is Up to Something Big (Chapter 3 p. 79-84). BroadStreet Publishing Group LLC.