Think for a moment about the state of Christianity in the roughly seventy year period between the Ascension and the close of the first century. Although Christianity experienced rapid growth, most Gentiles were probably still surrounded by paganism. Their employers, their rulers, their acquaintances could have often been pagans, and the world would continually pull at them from that quarter. Some pagans went beyond persuasion and actively persecuted the church.

Genesis 2 tells the story of the formation of the first man, Adam, which provides a foundation for the rest of the Bible. If we believe that “thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11), then we know man’s purpose for life. Otherwise, we are left adrift on a sea of unknowing. No Christian should have to wonder why he is on this earth, because God has told him in the Scripture. Nor should he have to wonder what his purpose in life is.

When I first started this website, I wrote quite a bit specifically about revival, although I haven’t done it so much lately. In this article I would like to return our thoughts to this important topic.

The first thing that I want to point out, something that we often fail to recognize, is that revival is always focused on God. We can have miracles, tongues, excitement, study, a large show of hands, or any of a large number of other things, but if God is not being exalted, we don’t have revival, because our Christian faith centers around God, not man. The gospel of God brings Him glory. “Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (I Peter 2:12)

When Moses was going to make the tabernacle, God warned him, “And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.” (Exodus 25:40) He was telling Moses to be sure that he didn’t change things around, making them different than the pattern God gave him. This pattern was somewhat complicated, and God wanted Moses to make sure that no one changed it.

Sometimes a term becomes so associated with a particular group that it is almost impossible to think of the term without the group entering our minds. For example, upon hearing the term tongues in its religious sense, many of us automatically think of Pentecostalism. When someone mentions tongues, or when we read about them in the Scripture, we think of the tongues of Pentecostalism. It’s hard to think about tongues in any other way. The same thing has happened with predestination.

As we enter the second decade of this millennium, we don’t know what religious controversies lie ahead, although there do seem to be clues that the debate over Calvinism will probably intensify, and the issue of a state church may be revived before the end of the century. Throughout all the years that the church has been in existence, apologists for countless different views, both important and unimportant, have waged war, each hoping to establish his view as the truth, and no mortal man can know for sure exactly what is going to face us in the next few years.

I believe that the most important issue facing us in the rest of this century, will not be tongues, Calvinism, works, war, liberalism, modernism, evolution, false religions, or ethics. It’s an issue you may have never even thought about, because it’s come in undercover. While Christians have been attacking errors all over, this one has come in so slowly, so carefully, that it’s broken in all over Christianity, even in conservative circles.

In the past years, claims about the Holy Spirit’s work have spread across the entire world. Many have professed to have had the Holy Spirit work in their lives through “tongues” and other emotional experiences, and the “gifts of the Spirit” have received a lot of publicity.

Reading the gospels, we may get the idea that when Jesus healed people, He simply spoke, and, just because of His great power, the person was healed. No cost, no pain, no trouble. That’s how we would like to start revival in our churches, too.

Revival is a word that is never mentioned in the Bible. Revive and reviving occur nine times in the Old Testament, and never in the New Testament. Yet the concept is definitely spread across the entire Scripture. There are a number of dictionary definitions, but when we speak about revival in a Scriptural sense, it basically means that we are dead or weak, but God infuses new life and strength into us and empowers us. “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?”