Signs of Revival-
Merry Monday by Parris Bailey
“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive (nourish up, preserve, quicken, recover, repair, restore to life, save, be whole) the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” Is. 57:15
The month of August is always special to me. Frank and I were married in August, we both meet our precious Lord in August and our church experienced a revival in, you guessed it, the month of August in 1994 that lasted well over a decade. When revival hit us in 1994 of that summer, it wasn’t easy for me. Everything as I knew it had suddenly changed. What made matters worse, was I felt as if I was the only one in the room that felt nothing at all. I had to find my footing and fast. For me, the only recourse was to go back and study past revivals while I patiently watched others getting changed, having joy unspeakable or the many other manifestations that come with revival. It was then that I discovered Jonathan Edwards and found that I was not the only one looking on the outside in. I remember weeping as I devoured as much as I could on the struggles that Whitefield, Edwards and Wesley went through as a torrent hit England and America. Even Sarah Edwards won my heart over. I became hungry and open for God to touch me. It was then I surrendered.
C. Vulliamy, a biographer at the time of Wesley, records these sights and sounds of revival.
“Still, the more notable conversions took place among men, and it was the men who fell into ugly fits, with dreadful sweating and awful heavings, groanings and violent bodily disturbances, symptoms of this kind were rare among women. At Grantchester, seventeen people were “broken down” more or less spontaneously by the mere singing of hymns, and an innocent child of seven saw many visions.
At Everton, powerful men were seized by the hand of the Lord, shaken like clothes drying in the wind, or flung to the ground as though by the blow of a giant, or they stood gaping and staring, full of a huge dismay. In the churchyard, women fell among the graves, plucking at the turf and grass with convulsed fingers. Others burst into peals of hideous laughter.”
We are once again feeling and experiencing the winds of revival and we are letting down our sails to ride his winds. Maybe some of you are fearful or just are not used to seeing and hearing the sounds of revival. Go back into the ancient books and you will see that ‘THIS IS THAT”!
A.B. SIMPSON reminds us that the whole purpose of revival is the ushering in of the second coming; he says;
“That is the sure hope of the Gospel, and the promise of His Word. The conviction is pressing on Christians today that this advent is very near, that in the upheavals of society, in the workings of evil, in the intense unrest of the human heart, in the breaking up of nations and of social structures everywhere, in the throbbing of the world’s heart in the earnest spirit of revival that is coming forth in the Church of God, in the: love for His coming which is taking possession of the hearts of Christians, in strange manifestations of God’s hand and power today in the healing of disease and the working of divine power in every part of the world we are seeing the signs of a great crisis very near, and that yonder these spaces are teeming with chariots and with horsemen that forms unseen are gathering, that great armies are marshalling, and that the trumpet of the great procession is sounding afar, and a voice is beginning to say: “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him.” O, it is indeed a solemn age! I have not talked with an earnest man for several years, but has said, “It is the most solemn age I ever knew of, and we are on the verge of a great and important change.” I believe that the dear Lord is coming soon, and perhaps we have come with this work and into this place to be ready for His advent to prepare others to meet Him, and to spread abroad the message of His salvation and of His kingdom to all the world before He comes.”
Come Lord Jesus! Revive us again!