Habakkuk 3:2 KJV                     “O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of years, in the midst of years make known; in wrath remember mercy.”

We are now living in one of the most unusual, critical, and strategic times in history.  We a part of a very special generation.  This generation is unlike any other generation that has ever stepped onto the scene of human history.  This generation is facing things that no other generation has ever faced.  And that’s why we’re going to see a revival that is unlike anything anybody has ever seen before.

“There has never been a time when it has been more difficult to be a Christian.  And there has never been a time when it has been more necessary.”                    ¾William Barclay

Webster’s dictionary defines “revival” as “a bringing back to life or consciousness” “a stirring up of religious faith” “restoration of vigor and activity” “to make alive once again.”

Revivals normally come in times when the world is in deep spiritual darkness and the church is backslidden, complacent and lukewarm.

It’s time for a revival…

·        …When instead of the church going out and changing the world, the world comes in and changes the church.

·        …When the church has lost her spiritual power.

·        …When the church is more interested in prominence and position instead of passion and purity.

·        …When the church is more interested in status instead of souls.

·        …When the divorce rate in the church is the same as the divorce rate in the world…and even slightly higher than the divorce rate among atheists.

·        …When a major U.S. Denomination can nominate a chaplain to a national abortion agency.

·        …When teenagers commit more than four thousand homicides a year.

·        …When heroin is being used by more than 1.4 million people across America.

·        …When major denominations are allowing practicing homosexuals to be ordained.

·        …When Jesus feels more at home in a bar instead of in the church.

IT’S TIME FOR A REVIVAL!  IT’S TIME FOR A RADICAL INVASION OF GOD UPON HIS CHURCH!  IT’S TIME FOR A DIVINE ATTACK UPON AMERICA!

There are two important points to remember about this rising revival:

1.      This is NOT our Grandparents revival; this is not our father’s/mother’s revival.  They can get in on it.  They help us, encourage us, minister to us, give us wisdom but this rising revival is for US.  It’s fashioned and shaped specifically for our time/generation.  They had their day.  It’s our turn now. 

2.      The reason this present revival seems so weird is because we are weird.  We’re more different than any other generation in history.  Jesus has shaped this rising revival according to our need and our calling.  When you see what this generation faces and what they are like, the purposes of God in doing the ‘weird’ things He does will become clear.

Every revival that I’ve ever heard or read about has been messy, dangerous and has had its share of problems.  There has never been a revival in history that had no problems, no criticisms, no opposition.  Why should this revival be any different?

The real question is, Are we really willing to pay the price for revival?

In 1983, Winkie Pratney gave this pointed challenge, a challenge that speaks even more pointedly today.

“When the question is asked: “What hinders revival?” One of the simple answers is this: We do not have men and women who are prepared to pay the same price to preach the same message and have the same power as those revivalists of the past.  Without these firm believers, the community can never be changed.  Our concern is conciliatory, our obedience optional, our lack theologically and culturally justified.  Quite simply, it costs too much!

We say we want revival.  But who today is prepared to live a life of absolute obedience to the Holy Spirit, tackling sin in the Church as well as the streets, preaching such a message of perfection of heart and holiness of life- a message feared and hated by the religious and street sinner alike.  Are we prepared?”

·        Revival brings the church back to the place of being RADICAL!

How radical do we need to be in order to reach a radically lost world in this hour?  How radical does our abandon to God have to be, in the church, in comparison to the radical abandon to sin and the yielding to the spiritual rulers of darkness that is going on in the world?  I don’t believe we’re radical enough.

Once in a Mario Murillo crusade, there was a young punker sitting in the front row.   “Dressed to impress” in his ozone warrior gear, fully spiked, anti-gravity gelled green hair daring the Evangelist to make a comment about his looks.  Mario walked by several times and looked him over.  Finally, he looked him right in the eye and said, “YOU’RE NOT RADICAL ENOUGH!”

God’s Company of Radicals

Hebrews 11: 32-38 KJV           “And what sahll I more say?  For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.  Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy)…”

Radical is not multi-colored hair.  It’s not cool shoes or designer clothes.  Radical is not a shaved or ratted head, a tough tattoo or a pierced lip.  It’s not bungee jumping without a bungee chord.  It’s not a skateboard grind, a rollerblade move or a killer wave.

What it means to be radical…

·        Radical is knowing God so well that you pray once and the heavens close up for three years, and then pray again and see fire fall from the sky, and yet still be a “man subject to like passions.” (1 Kings 17-18, James 5:17)

·        Radical is worshipping God so intensely and passionately that you dance right out of your clothes. (2 Samuel 6:14-16)

We’re in bad need of some real radicals!

Famous Quotes about Revival
 

“Revival is a divine attack upon society.”                                             

 ¾Winkie Pratney

“Revival is a divine disorder.”                                                           

¾Charles Spurgeon

“Revival is a clean cut breakthrough of the Spirit, a sweep of Holy Ghost power, bending the hearts of hardened sinners as the wheat before the wind, breaking up the fountains of the great deep, sweeping the whole range of the emotions, as the master hand moves across the harp strings, from the tears and cries of the penitent to the holy laughter and triumphant joy of the cleansed.”                                                           

¾Norman Grubb

“Kneel down and with a piece of chalk draw a complete circle all around you- and pray to God to send a revival on everything inside the circle.  Stay there until He answers and you will have revival.”           

¾Gypsy Smith, when asked how to have a revival

“If our goal is revival, we will be quite unbalanced when it comes.  If our goal is God, we will be able to walk with Him calmly and steadfastly through the years of waiting and through the joys and victories of a season of refreshing.  Christ crucified and risen is not only the door, and the way, but the end also.  It is our personal relationship to Him which counts more than anything else.  Oh, the need for men and women who know their God!  The church of Christ will only arise militant, triumphant, “an exceeding great army,” when individuals get rightly related to God.”             

 ¾Nancy B. Morris

God is not interested in you being “balanced”.  The Lord told Joseph Garlington one time that “You can’t love me and be balanced.”  People who are in love are not balanced.  They’re in love.  They don’t know what time it is.  They can’t keep their hands off of each other’s food.  They disappear for a while.  They drift off into “la-la land” more frequently…which is really bad for some people.

“Revival is when God grows tired of being misrepresented and comes down to represent Himself.”                                                                                               

 ¾Dr. Fred Wolfe

“There must first come a quickening of the saint at the root before there can be a saving of the sinner as the fruit.”                                                               

 ¾Charles G. Finney

·        Revival by it’s very definition will always be too loud for the lukewarm and too heavy for the half-hearted.  It will be too convicting for the complacent, too cutting for the comfortable. 

And since revival means radical change for the church, there will always be those who say, “Oh, for the good old days!”  But the good old days weren’t always so good!  What some people really mean is “Oh, for the non-confrontational sermons!  Oh, for predictable, packaged services!  Oh, to be able to slumber in serious sin!  Oh, to be acceptable to the religious and acclaimed by the religious!  Oh, for the days when we talked about the Lord, and sang about the Lord, and prayed to the Lord- but never had an encounter with the Lord.  Oh for the good old days!”

Those days are gone friend!  Gone are the days of comfortable Christianity!  Gone are the days of half-heated devotion to the Lord!  Gone are the days of

Isaiah 33:14 KJV           “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites.  ‘Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?  Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?’”

NOW IS THE TIME!

Now is the time to seek the Lord!  Now is the time for the outpouring of God’s Spirit!  Now is the time for revival!  Now is the time to break up the unplowed, fallow ground of our hearts!  Now is the time to sow the seed of the gospel in the fields of the nations!

The lifetime of opportunity is now!  The time to get the sin out your life is now!  The time to get saved is now!

It’s not God’s will for revival to stay within the four walls of our churches.  He wants it to breakout into the streets.  He wants there to be an OUTBREAK of spirit-filled, holy, on-fire, INFECTIOUS, uncompromising radicals!

Friend, if you’re here today and you have sin in your life, and you need to get right with God, the altars are going to open.  If you’re here and you don’t know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior, or if you don’t know for sure that you would go to heaven if you were to die today, there are people waiting to minister to you.