Will There Be Another Jesus Movement?
And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. - (Romans 13:11)
I once asked Pastor Chuck Smith if he thought there would ever be another Jesus Movement. He answered, “Well, people were desperate for revival back then. I am not sure people are desperate enough right now.”
That may be true. How desperate are we? The reality is that often we pray for prosperity in our nation and in our own lives. But the fact is that revival often explodes when there is calamity. The Third Great Awakening happened after the stock market crashed.
What is revival? A simple definition is “to come alive again.” Revival is the spark, if you will, that starts the engine. And periodically we need a new spark.
Revival is like waking up from your sleep. One person defined it as nothing more or less than a new beginning of obedience to God.
The great evangelist Billy Sunday once said, “They say that a revival is but temporary. So is a bath, but it does you good.”
A revival may be only temporary, but we need one right now.
We are not praying that nonbelievers have a revival, because they don’t need one. They need salvation. The church needs revival. Revival is a church word, and it is for believers only—believers who once, perhaps, were more alive than they are today and need to be revived again.
C. H. Spurgeon said, “To be revived is a blessing which can only be enjoyed by those who have some degree of life. Those who have no spiritual life are not, and cannot be, in the strictest sense of the term, subjects of revival. . . . A true revival is to be looked for in the church of God.”
Revival starts with you and me. Then it affects the church. And then the church affects the nation.
Copyright © 2016 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
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