Revival Must Come!

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For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him (2 Chronicles 16:9).

We are continuing our thoughts on the need for a Holy Spirit empowered revival (see yesterdays notes further down). Business, as usual, is not enough when it comes to reaching the multitudes who do not have a relationship with God. I am convinced that God is looking for whole congregations to pour out their lives in dedication for the salvation of those who have yet to find Christ. Do you know that it was not until 1830 that the population of the earth managed to reach 1 Billion people? From that point, it took 130 years to 1960, to add the second billion to planet Earth. Now in 2019, we are well over a population of 7.4 Billion and increasing by a billion approximately every eight years. If God would visit in revival in the days of Charles Finney, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitfield, why would he not visit us in power in our day? More than half the amount of people who have ever lived are now alive.[1] Think about that statement! Because of the population increase, if we don’t have a move of the Spirit and a visitation of God in our day, more people will go to a lost eternity without God than in all previous generations put together. I can’t see God allowing that to happen. 

Do we believe what the Bible tells us about eternal life, and about heaven and hell? If whole communities can be brought to Christ in the 1830s, why would God not do the same now with your city? If God so loved the eastern United States that he would visit in power in the 1830s, why not now when there are 6 billion more people than in Finney’s day? Our faith and expectation of God’s power at work through us needs to be strengthened and exercised. Faith is like a muscle; it needs to be fed and exercised. To add to our churches 20 or 30 people in a year is not enough. The population growth is higher than the rate of growth of our churches. But God has not left us without hope. He has promised that in the last days there will be a wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the task of reaching the world for Christ.

17" 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved' (Acts 2:17-21). 

There is coming a wonderful wave of the Holy Spirit that will be poured out in these last days. It will not be without persecution, though. In fact, the persecution of the church often brought revival in the Scriptures and in history. I don’t know about you, but I have longed for years to see our young men and woman prophesying with the Holy Spirit resting on them—as an ‘old man’ I can take just the dreaming of dreams! But God’s move doesn’t come without prayer. It’s time for the people of God to cry out to the Lord to pour out His Spirit. Keith Thomas
Taken from the more complete notes at the following link: The Holy Spirit at Work in the Believer

[1]John Dawson, Taking Your Cities for God, Page 65, Word Publishing.

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