WHAT IS REVIVAL?

John Wesley was asked the question, “How do you gather a crowd?” He quickly responded, “I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn!” Mercy! People always come to watch when a building or site has caught fire. Perhaps that is what we need today - we need to catch the revival fire!

More than better techniques or even better conferences - we need a good oldfashioned house fire! The desperately need breakthroughs in our personal, family, church, cities and nations! We need to catch the fire of His presence and burn with His zeal and presence.

What does fire do? Fire purifies, warms, empowers and enlightens. Fire will burn the impurities out of substances when the fire is hot enough. Fire will warm up the condition of something and even bring it to a boiling point. Fire is used as a power or energy source - remember the saying, “we fight fire with fire!” When a fire is burning brightly it also overcomes darkness and light enters the room!

What does spiritual fire do? The same thing as natural fire! It purifies sin out of us and brings a new level of cleansing to the heart and soul of man. Fire warms up a cold heart and makes it want for God again. The fire of God releases new zeal and power into the believer’s life. Fire also releases the spirit of revelation and all of a sudden it is like the “lights just came on!” Let His fire come to each one of our hearts so that breakthroughs can come on both individual and corporate levels.
 

1. Definitions of Revival From Webster’s Dictionary
    

   1. Return, recall or recovery to life from death or apparent death; as the revival of a drowned person.(Revival brings something back to life that is either now dead or seemingly dead. Revival is not something that has never lived at all.)
       

   2. Return or recall to activity from a state of languor; as the revival of spirits. Revival brings a holy shock to apathy and carelessness (Read Isaiah 64:1-3)
       

   3. Recall, return or recovery from a state of neglect, oblivion, obscurity or depression as the revival of letters or learning. (Revival restores truth and recalls to obedience that which has been forgotten.)
       

   4. Renewed and more active attention to religion, an awakening of men to their spiritual concerns.
       

2. Revival Defined
   
   Colin Dye, senior Pastor of Kensington Temple in London, England states, “Revival is a season of a powerful visitation from God. The term, properly speaking, belongs to the history of the Church subsequent to the New Testament era. However, during the historic revivals we can identify dominant elements that are also present in the New Testament Church. These center on God acting through powerful manifestations of His presence, strengthening the Church and awakening the world. Indeed, there are many features of revival that flow out of the New Testament experience of God: conviction of sin, many conversions, powerful spiritual encounters, revelations of God, great assurance of salvation, spiritual fervor and some kind of lasting legacy for the Church and society at large.”
    

3. Foundational Truths
    

   1. Revival is the restoration to life, vigor and / or strengthening something that appears to be dead or is dead.

   2. Revival takes what appears to be dead and makes it operative or valid again.

   3. Revival is necessary to counteract spiritual decline and to recreate spiritual momentum.

   4. Revival includes the conversion of a large number of people in a relatively short period of time.

   5. Revival is the work that carries the faith from generation to generation.

   6. When revival reaches it’s fullness it stirs:
       

      1. The individual which impacts

      2. The family which revives

      3. A congregation to spread unity, inspiration and the fire of God to influence

      4. The church in a city or region; which then in turn

      5. Releases societal change where the Kingdom of God comes one earth
          

   7. Revival is the hunger for change
       

4. Scriptural Pleas for Revival

   1. Psalms 85:1-6
      You showed favor to your land, O LORD; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. Selah. You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger. Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasuretoward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?
       

   2. Habakkuk 3:2
      LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
       

   3. Isaiah 64:1-4
      Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you didawesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
       

5. Quotes From Statesmen Defining Revival
    

   1. R.O. Roberts -
      Extraordinary move of the Holy Spirit producing extraordinary results.
       

   2. Stephen Olford -
      The invasion of heaven that brings the conscious awareness of God.
       

   3. Charles Finney -
      Nothing more than a new beginning to obedience to the Word of God.
       

   4. Vance Havner -
      A work of the Holy Spirit among His own people... What we call revival is simply New Testament Christianity - the saints getting back to normal.
       

   5. J. Edwin Orr -
      A spiritual awakening as a “movement” of the Holy Spirit bringing about a revival of New Testament Christianity in the church of Christ and it’s related community. It accomplishes the reviving of the church. the awakening of the masses and the movement of uninstructed people towards the Christian faith; the revived church by many or few is moved to engage in evangelism; teaching social action.
       

   6. A.W. Tozer -
      Revival is that which changes the moral climate of a community.
       

The Role of Prayer in Spiritual Awakening
By J. Edwin Orr, Ed D., D. Phil (Oxford)

Dr. A. T. Pierson once said, “There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.” Let me recount what God has done through concerted, united, sustained prayer. Not many people realize that in the wake of the American Revolution there was a moral slump. Drunkenness became epidemic. Out of a population of five million, 300,000 were confirmed drunkards; they were burying fifteen thousand of them each year. Profanity was of the most shocking kind. For the first time in the history of American settlement, women were afraid to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.

What about the churches? The Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. The Baptists said that they had their most winery season. The Presbyterians in general assembly deplored the nation’s ungodliness. In a typical Congregational church, the Rev. Samuel Shepherd of Lennox, Massachusetts in sixteen years had not taken one young person into fellowship. The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed uniting with Episcopalians who were even worse off. The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York, Bishop Samuel Provost, quit functioning; he had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other employment. The Chief of Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James Madison, that the Church “was too far gone ever to be redeemed.” Voltaire averred, and Tom Paine echoed, “Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years.”

Take the liberal arts colleges at that time. A poll was taken at Harvard had discovered not one believer in the whole of the student body. They took a poll at Princeton, a much more evangelical place; they discovered only two believers in the student body, and only five that did not belong to the filthy speech movement of that day. Students rioted. They held a mock communion at Williams College; and they put on anti-Christian plays at Dartmouth. They burned down the Nassau Hall at Princeton. They force the resignation of the president of Harvard. They took a Bible out of a local Presbyterian church in New Jersey, and burned it in a public bonfire. Christians were so few on campus in the 1790s that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.

In case this is thought to be the hysteria of the movement, Kenneth Scott Latourette, the great church historian, wrote: "It seemed as if Christianity were about to be ushered out of the affairs of men. The churches had their backs to the wall, seeming as if they were about to be wiped out." How did the situation change? It came through a concert of prayer.

I must go back a little. There was a Scottish Presbyterian minister in Edinburgh named John Erskine, who published a Memorial (he called it) pleading with the people of Scotland and elsewhere to unite in prayer for the revival of religion. He sent one copy of this little book to Jonathan Edwards in New England. That great theologian was so moved he wrote a response which grew longer than a letter, so that finally he published it as a book, entitled: "A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of All God's People in ExplicitAgreement and Visible Union of All God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on earth, pursuant to Scripture Promises and Prophecies concerning the Last Time." That was the title of the book, not the book itself.

But do not miss its message: "A Humble Attempt" (New England's modesty) "to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in extraordinary prayer for a revival of religion and extension of Christ's Kingdom." Is not this what is missing so much from all our evangelistic efforts: explicit agreement, visible union, unusual prayer?

This movement had started n Britain through William Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Sutcliffe and other leaders who began what the British called "Hence, the year after John Wesley dies, the Second Great Awakening the Union of Prayer" began and swept Great Britain. In New England, there was a man of prayer named Isaac Backus, a Baptist pastor who in 1794, when conditions were at their worst, addressed an urgent plea for prayer for revival to pastors of every Christian denomination in the United States.

Churches knew that their backs were to the wall, so the Presbyterians of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania adopted it for all their churches. Bishop Francis Asbury adopted it for all the Methodists. The Congregational and Baptist Associations, the Reformed and the Moravians all adopted the plan, until America, like Britain, was interlaced with a network of prayer meetings, which set aside the first Monday of each month to pray. It was not too long before the revival came. It broke out first of all in Connecticut, then spread to Massachusetts and all the seaboard states, in every case entirely without extravagance or outcry.

However, there were some variations. When the revival reached the frontier in Kentucky, it encountered a people really wild and irreligious. Congress had discovered that in Kentucky there had not been more than one court of justice held in five years. Peter Cartwright, Methodist evangelist, wrote that when his father settled in Logan County, it was known as Rogues’ Harbour. If someone committed a murder in Massachusetts or robbery in Rhode Island, all he needed to do was to cross the Alleghenies. The decent people in Kentucky formed regiments of vigilantes to fight for law and order, fought a pitched battle with outlaws and lost.

There was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minister named James McGready whose chief claim to fame was that he was so ugly that he attracted attention. It was reported that people sometimes stopped in the street to ask: “What does he do?” “He’s a preacher.” They reacted by saying: “A man with a face like that must really have something to say.”

McGready settled in Logan County, pastor of three little churches. He wrote in his diary that the winter of 1799 for the most part was “weeping and mourning with the people of God.” Lawlessness prevailed everywhere. McGready was such a man of prayer that, not only did he promote the concert of prayer ever first Monday of the month, but he got his people to pray for him at sunset on Saturday evening and sunrise Sunday Morning. Then in the summer of 1800 came the great Kentucky revival. Eleven thousand people came to a communion service. McGready hollered for help, regardless of denomination. Baptists and Methodists came in response and the great camp meeting revivals started to sweep Kentucky and Tennessee and then spread over North Carolina and South Carolina, along the frontier.

Out of that second great awakening after the death of John Wesley came the whole modern missionary movement and its societies. Out of it came the abolition of slavery, and popular education, bible societies, Sunday schools and many social benefits accompanying the evangelistic drive.

Conditions had deteriorated by the middle of the nineteenth century. Why? It sounds familiar; the country was seriously divided, as it was later by the Civil War, over the issue of slavery; and people were making money lavishly.

In September 1857, a man of prayer, Jeremiah Lanphier, started a prayer meeting in the upper room of the Dutch Reformed Church consistory building, in Manhattan. In response to his advertisement, only six people out of the population of a million showed up. But, the following week, there were fourteen, and then twenty-three, when it was decided to meet every day for prayer. By late winter, they were filling the Dutch Reformed Church, then the Methodist Church on John Street, then Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway at Wall Street. In February and March of 1858, every church and public hall in downtown New York was filled. Horace Greeley, the famous editor, sent a reporter with horse and buggy racing around the prayer meetings to see how many men were praying: in one hour, he could get to only twelve meetings, but he counted 6100 men attending. Then a landslide of prayer began, which overflowed to the churches in the evenings. People began to be converted, ten thousand a week in New York City alone. The movement spread throughout New England, the church bells bringing people to prayer at eight in the morning, twelve noon, six in the evening. The revival raced up the Hudson and down the Mohawk, where the Baptists, for example, had so many people to baptize that they went down to the river, cut a big hole in the ice, and baptized them in the cold water: when Baptists do that they really are on fire. When the revival reached Chicago, a young shoe salesman went to the superintendent of the Plymouth Congregational Church, and asked if he might teach Sunday School. The superintendent said, "I am sorry, young fellow I have sixteen teachers too many, but I will put you on the waiting list." The young man insisted: "I want to do something just now." "Well, start a class." "How do I start a class?" "Get some boys off the street, but don't bring them here. Take them out into the country and after a month you willhave control of them, so bring them in. They will be your class. " He took them to a beach on Lake Michigan and he taught them Bible verses and Bible games; then he took them to the Plymouth Congregational Church. The name of the young man was Dwight Lyman Moody, and that was the beginning of his ministry that lasted forty years.

For instance, Trinity Episcopal Church in Chicago had 121 members in 1857; in 1860, 1400. That was typical of the churches. More than a million people were converted to God in one year out of a population of thirty million. Then that same revival jumped the Atlantic appeared in Ulster, Scotland, Wales, then England, parts of Europe, South Africa and South India, anywhere there was an evangelical cause. It sent mission pioneers to many countries. Effects were felt for forty years. Having begun in a movement of prayer, it was sustained by a movement of prayer. That movement lasted for a generation, but at the turn of the twentieth century, there was need of awakening again. A general movement of prayer began, with special prayer meetings at Moody Bible Istitute, at Kenswick Convention in England, and places as far apart as Melbourne, Wonsan in Korea, and Nilgiri Hillsof India. So all around the world believers were praying that there might be another great awakening in the twentieth century.

Now, some people say that we are in the midst of another great awakening today. certainly believe that the tide has turned, that we are on the move again, but I do not think that we have reached anything like what God has done in the past. Take examples, from the student world, and the community.

In revival of 1905, I read of a young man who became a famous professor of missions, Kenneth Scott Latourette. He reported that, at Yale in 1905, 25% of the student body were enrolled in prayer meetings and in Bible study. I live next door to UCLA, which has a population of 36,000, and I do not believe that there are 9,000 enrolled in Campus Crusuade, Inter-Varsity and other evangelical groups, or in all of the church groups put together. We have not reached that yet.

As far as the churches were concerned, the ministers of Atlantic City reported that, of a population of 50,000 there were only fifty adults left unconverted. Take Portland, Oregon where 240 major stores closed from 11:00 till 2:00 each day to enable people to attend prayer meetings, signing an agreement so that no one would cheat and stay open. Take First Baptist Church of Paducah, Kentucky where the pastor, an old man, Dr. J.J. Cheek, took in a thousand members in two months and died of overwork, the Southern Baptists saying, “a glorious ending to a devoted ministry.”

That is what was happening in the United States in 1905. But how did it begin? Most people have heard of the Welsh Revival, which started in 1904. It began as a movement of prayer. I knew Evan Roberts personally (of course, I met him thirty years later) a man devoted to God. Seth Joshua, the Presbyterian evangelist, had come to the Newcastle Emlyn College where Evan Roberts was studying for the ministry. Evan Roberts, then 26, had been a coal miner. The students were so moved that they asked if they could attend his next campaign nearby, so they cancelled classes to go to Blaenanerch, where Seth Joshua prayed publicly “O God, bend us.” And Evan Roberts went forward, where he prayed with great agony, “Send Your Spirit now for Jesus Christ sake." Upon his return, he could not concentrate on his studies. He went to the principal of his college, and explained: "Ikeep hearing a voice that tells me I must go home to speak to our young people in my home church. Principal Phillips, is that the voice of the devil or the voice of the Spirit?" Principal Phillips answered, very wisely, “The devil never gives orders like that. You can have a week off. "

So he went back home to Loughor and announced to the pastor, "I've come to preach" The pastor was not at all convinced, but asked: "How about speaking at the prayer meeting on Monday?" He did not even let him speak to the prayer meeting, but told the praying people, "Our young brother, Evan Roberts, feels he has a message for you, if you care to wait." Seventeen people waited behind, to be impressed with the directness of the young man's words. Evan Roberts told his fellow members: "I have a message for you from God. You must confess any known sin to God and put any wrong done to man right. Second, you must put away any doubtful habit. Third, you must obey the Spirit promptly. Finally, you must confess your faith in Christ publicly." And by ten o'clock, all seventeen had responded. The pastor was so pleased that he asked, "How about your speaking at the mission service tomorrow night? Midweek service Wednesday night?" He preached all week, and was asked to stay another week; and then “the break” came.

I have read the Welsh newspaper of the period. In them were snippets of ecclesiastical news, such as: "The Rev Peter Jones has just been appointed chaplain to the Bishop of St. David's." "Mowbray Street Methodist Church had a very interesting sale."But suddenly there was a headline. "Great Crowds of People Drawn to Loughor." For some days a young man named Evan Roberts was causing great surprise. The main road between Llanelly and Swansea on which the church was situated was packed, wall to wall, people trying to get into the church, shopkeepers closed early to find a place in the big church.

Now the news was out. A reporter was sent down and he described vividly what he saw, a strange meeting, which closed at 4:25 in the morning, and even then the people did not seem willing to go home. They were still standing in the street outside the church, talking about what had taken place. There was a very British summary: “I felt that this was no ordinary gathering.” Next day, every grocery shop in that industrial valley was emptied of groceries by people attending the meetings, and on the Sunday, every church was filled. The movement went like a tidal wave over Wales, in five months there were a hundred thousand people converted throughout the country. Five years later, Dr. J.V. Morgan wrote a book to debunk the revival; his main criticism was that, of a hundred thousand joining the churches in five months of excitement, after five years only 75,000 still stood in the membership of those churches. The loss of 25,000 could be explained by a drifting away of unsympathetic people, or of others attracted to missions halls and the emerging groups of Pentecostals after glossolalia in 1907, or emigration.

It was the social impact that was astounding. For example, judges were presented with white gloves, not a case to try: no robberies, no burglaries, no rapes, no murders and no embezzlements, nothing. District councils held emergency meetings to discuss what to do with the police now that they were unemployed. In one place, the sergant of the police was sent for, and asked: “What do you do with your time?” He replied, “Before the revival, we had two main jobs, to prevent crime and to control crowds, as football games. Since the revival started, there is pratically no crime. So we just go with the crowds.” A councillor asked: “What does that mean?” The sergant replied: “You know where the crowds are. They are packing out the churches.” “But how does that affect the police?” He was told: “We have seventeen police in our station, but we have three quartets; and if any church wants a quartet to sing, they simply call the police station.” As the revival swept Wales, drunkenness was cut in half. There was a wave of bankruptcies, but nearly all taverns. There was even a slowdown in the mines. You say, “How could a religious revival cause astrike?” It did not cause a strike, just a slowdown, for so many Welsh coal miners were converted and stopped using bad language that the horses that dragged the trucks in the mines could not understand what was being said to them, hence transportation slowed down for a while until they learned the language of Canaan. (When I first heard that story, I thought that it was a tall tale, but I can document it, even from Westminister Abbey.)

That revival also affected sexual moral standards, I had discovered through the figures given by British government experts that, in Radnorshire and Merionethshire, the actual illegitimate birth rate had dropped 44% within a year of the beginning of the revival. That revival swept Britain. It so moved all of Norway that the Norwegian Parliament passed special legislation to permit laymen to conduct Communion because the clergy could not keep up with the of the converts desiring to partake. It swept Sweden, Finland and Denmark, Germany, Canada from coast to coast, all of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, West Africa, touching also Brazil, Mexico, and Chile. yet until 1973, the extent of that revival was unknown until I published my account of it.

As always, it began through a movement of prayer, with prayer meetings all over the United States as well as the other countries; and soon there came the great time of the harvest. So what is the lesson we can learn? It is a very simple one, as direct as the promises of God in Scripture:

"If my people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. "
II Chr. 7.14

What is involved in this? As God requires us to pray, we must not forget what was said by Jonathan Edwards: "To promote explicit agreement and visible union of God's people in extraordinary prayer ". What do we mean by extraordinary prayer? We share in ordinary prayer in regular worship services, before eating and the like. But when people are found getting up at six in the morning to pray, or having a half night of prayer until midnight, or giving up their lunchtime to pray at a noonday prayer meeting, that is extraordinary prayer. But it must be united and concerted. A Baptist does not become any less a Baptist, or an Anglican less loyal to the Thirtynine Articles, or a Presbyterian to the Westminster Confession. But they recognize each other as fraternal intercessors.

Dr. J Edwin Orr was one of the greatest church historians and teachers of revival of overtime. This article is used by permission by Intercessors of America.
 

THREE PRELIMINARY STAGES
 

1. Intense Hunger for Change
    

   1. Recognition of the way things should be.

   2. Awareness of how terrible things currently are (Matt. 5:3).

   3. Touched personally in your heart concerning these realities with the desire for things to change (Matt. 5:6).
      
      Note: The first sign of “death” is the loss of hunger - you do not want to eat. The first sign of recovery is the return to hunger or the desire to eat!
       

2. Prayer to God to Change Things
   The desire for things to change is not enough. It is but the beginning. If it is not turned back towards God through prayer it will eventually result in frustration and then in criticism. Instead, turn desire into intercession and move deeper into the stages of revival. (For more on this subject read the chapter: “The Desperate Prayer of theHeart” from my book “Kneeling on the Promises.”)
    

3. Networking toward Unity
   A third step towards “revival” that puts feet to your hunger and prayer is the relational work of networking resulting in progressive actions of city or regional unity. We need each other. Labor for the bond of unity and peace in the body of Christ. Remember, it takes a city-wide church to win a city-wide war! (Read John 17 - the Lord’s Prayer for Unity among His disciples.)
    

FIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF CLASSIC REVIVAL
 

1. Passionate Denunciation of Sin
   There must be recognition that sin is an enemy - not a friend!
   James 4:4 reminds us:
   “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself and enemy of God.”
   
   We need a generation of anointed proclaimers like George Whitefield who in the 1700’s preached like a lion and people had to listen whether they wanted to or not! Holy violence was often a characteristic of historic moves of God’s Presence.
    

2. Revelation of God’s Holiness
   
   I Peter 1:16 tells us, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” Jonathan Edwards preached under this conviction in the 1700’s. Many other revivalists did as well. Consider the late Leonard Ravenhill, author of While Revival Tarries. It was said that Edwards was consumed with the extraordinary sense of the awful awareness of the Holiness of God.
    

3. Deep Awareness of the Love and Mercy of God
   
   Romans 8:35-39 encourages with these words,
   “What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We wereconsidered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
   
   It was said that Francis of Assissi, as well as the evangelist D.L. Moody only preached about the love of God. David Brainerd, revivalist to the First Nations People of America, was moved upon by the revelation that the Lord Jesus Christ was a kind and compassionate master. Brainerd would be moved upon with deep distress pleading with his hearers to accept the everlasting mercy of God as tears would stream down his face.
    

4. Heightened Consciousness of Eternity
   Some of Jonathan Edwards’s sermon titles included:
    

   1. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
       

   2. Wrath Upon the Wicked for the Uttermost
       

   3. Eternity of Hell’s Torments
      
      Revelation 20:11-15 describes this reality as follows:
      “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were it, and death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
      Today, we need a return to the teaching and revelation of eternal judgments of God and the realities of heaven and hell.
       

5. Experiential Conviction of Sin
   
   John 16: 7-8 states,
   “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. AndHe, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.”
   
   This is God’s job - it is part of the job description of the Holy Spirit. 
   
   Once again, we need God to squeeze our hearts. Notice, I used the term “experiential conviction.” Perhaps the move of God we need could be termed “When the Holy Spirit came with conviction!” It was quoted from a scoffer of Whitefield, “I came to hear you with a pocket full of stones to break your head - instead - your word broke my heart!
   
   Yes, once again, we need a pure move of God like in the United Kingdom in 1859 when men “staggered down” due to the wounds to their conscience! In 1790 -1800 in the frontier of rough Kentucky, people would cry out for mercy as conviction would fall upon them. All I can say is, “More Lord!”
    

RESPONSES BROUGHT FORTH
 

1. Prayer: The Appropriate Application!
   Extreme times take extreme measures! Desperate circumstances require a desperate response. Extreme prayer is the only appropriate application! In this hour, the greatest worldwide prayer movement continues to grow and grow across the global body of Christ. May the Holy Spirit grip us until we are consumed with the zeal of the Lord for the Father’s house to become“The House of Prayer for All Nations.”
    

2. Pertinent Quotes of Prayers Warriors
    

   1. Charles Finney: "Revival is no more a miracle than a crop of Wheat.
       

   2. Revival comes from heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die - or if need be, to win and die.”
       

   3. Jesus Christ: Matt 11:12 - ...The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.
       

   4. Matthew Henry: “When God intends to do great mercy for his people, the first thing he does is to set them a-praying”.
       

   5. Leonard Ravenhill: "At God's counter there are no sale days, for the price for Revival is ever the same.-Travail."
       

   6. E.M Bounds: “The wrestling quality of importunate prayer does not spring from physical vehemence or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of energy, nor mere earnestness of soul. It is an inwrought force, a faculty implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the intercession of the Holy Spirit in us."
       

3. Persecution
   All revivals were persecuted. No advance goes unchallenged! What you challenge will challenge you back! If you target individuals - persecution will come from individuals. If you target the Church - persecution will come from the church. If you target society - segments of society will target you back.
   
   But remember - we can’t turn back! There must be more. We must pick up our cross and continue on the journey of unprecedented conversions resulting in fervent congregations walking together in love that impacts society declaring and demonstrating that indeed, Jesus Christ is Lord! In Jesus Name, we labor with the Holy Spirit for a God sent revival in our day.We will not quit praying until we have seen with our own eyes the glory of theLord covering the earth as the waters cover the seas. Release a global revivalto the church in our day. Awaken the sleeping beauty called the body ofChrist to her destiny. Start in our nation! Start in our city! Start in our congregation. Release revival fire for Your holy name’s sake! Amen and Amen!