Fathers and Brethren, in addressing you the burden of my heart is in the words of Psalm 85:6, ‘Revive us again’.

There are three points in these words we should note at the outset.

1. The Person to Whom we Pray⤒🔗

God is the Author of what is sought for here. He is the Author of Revival.

Revival depends upon the Sovereign working of God, the Holy Spirit.

He sends a spiritual awakening, where, when and upon whom He wills.

• He is the All Knowing and All Seeing God

• He is the All Powerful one

• He is the One who has promised to pour water upon Him who is thirsty

• He is the One who has never ever gone back on any promise

This is the One to whom we make such a request.

2. The People Included in this Prayer←⤒🔗

‘Revive us again’. ‘Us’ includes all the people of God. We are all in need of this Revival. Whatever terminology we use — renewed, refreshed, quickened, awakened — we all need this.

3. The Plea in Prayer←⤒🔗

“Revive us”. If we are honest with ourselves and I believe we are, the cry of our heart is in these words – Revive us. I also believe, though, that the crying need to be revived has not gripped us.

It could be that we have become too complacent regarding the spiritual decline in the Church (though there are evidences of a working of God’s Holy Spirit to encourage the people of God) and the moral decadence in the country, so that we just accept it as one of these things — a sign of the times.

The Need for Revival←⤒🔗

(1) The Sadness of This←↰⤒🔗

We may not be aware of the need. The lack of evidence of the Lord at work in our Churches and communities does not concern us the way it should or the way it once did —  when conversions are scarce, new members few, strangers coming to the services a rarity and individuals coming to the Lord’s table for the first time uncommon. And we don’t seem to ask ‘why?’

When we look around us, we might be seeing a number of good things going on in our Church that encourage us to believe that God is once again looking favourably on us, but when we begin to look below the surface, we discover a worldliness and complacency which has crept into our lives as individual believers with the result that we don’t have the same commitment to the things of God. To paraphrase the words of McCheyne ‘We are not as holy as saved sinners can be’.

We need to ask what is the level of our commitment to the Lord? What are our priorities? Are we really functioning as the Light of the World and as the Salt of the Earth? Or does the world have an influence on us, rather than the reverse?

We do need be praying that God would begin to awaken and quicken us as individuals. That has to be our priority. We need to be constantly aware that this is our need. When God is reviving the hearts of His people individually, then the heart of our congregations will be revived. Our Congregations, our denomination, the Church in Scotland needs to be revived. For the sake of our country, we need revival.

Brian H Edwards in his book ‘Revival’ says “The real problem lies with evangelical Churches who claim to have the truth and think they are rich in spiritual gifts and life, and yet are cold, complacent and unattractive to the watching world”. Could that be true of us?

We are not really having the impact upon our society that we ought to have and we need an awakening as Edwards says, “not because of the state of the world, but because of the state of the Church”.

D B Anderson in an essay on ‘Revival and Mission’ makes a telling point.

…there seems to be a direct correlation between the health of God’s people and the state of the nation. He goes on 'Without discounting several very positive indicators… the truth of the matter is, the Church is losing ground, losing grip upon the people of Scotland and is in ‘maintenance mode’ largely rather than ‘mission mode’. We are digging for survival rather than praying for revival.'

A Church quickened and revived can have a powerful positive effect on the moral and spiritual well being of a community.

But for our encouragement, we can take to heart the words of R T Kendal, “Did you know that the Church is always revived at its darkest hour, at an unexpected time, in a surprising way and through the most unlikely people? When the world thinks that the Church is finished, God raises up those who think differently”.

I have been very general, now I want to be more particular.

(2) The Signs of that Need←↰⤒🔗

We all agree that Revival is a Sovereign Work of God and the Holy Spirit awakens the people of God.

What are the signs of the need for revival?

(a) A Lowering of Spiritual Standards←↰⤒🔗

• Where we are not what we used to be, spiritually speaking

• We are not what we could be

• We are not what we ought to be

(b) A Laxness Regarding Sin←↰⤒🔗

• The secret sin we harbour – for instance, in our thought life

• The open sin – in our actions and attitudes

• Not the same revulsion for certain sins that we once had

• Not the same repentance

• Not the same resolve

(c) A Lack of Concern for the Lost←↰⤒🔗

• Forgetting that people are hell-bound (including family and friends)

(d) A Love of Self←↰⤒🔗

• Putting self first

(e) A Longing for Worldliness←↰⤒🔗

• Looking to the world for satisfaction

(f) A Legalism at the Expense of Truth←↰⤒🔗

• An unforgiving Spirit

• An animosity towards others

What is the Nature of Revival?←⤒🔗

Every revival will bring about a deep awareness of the presence of God. Brian Edwards mentions that when God worked powerfully in Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh in 1900, Joseph Kemp recorded “there was nothing humanly speaking to account for what happened. Quite suddenly, upon one and another came an overwhelming sense of the reality and awfulness of His presence and of eternal things. Life, death and eternity seemed to be laid bare”.

Rev Murdo MacAulay Back recalls what an elder in Carloway said during a revival. “The Solemnity of these services was awe-inspiring.” When there is such a sense of His presence, believer and unbeliever are irresistibly drawn, they want to get right with God. This is what is uppermost in their minds.

But revival will also bring a sense of our own sin. We begin to realise how unfaithful we have been to God and His word and how much the world has influenced our attitudes and actions. Walter C Kaiser in his book ‘Revive us Again’ makes a very telling point. “We could mention the Sin of unreliability in Christian Service. Too many have invested all their best efforts into their profession and jobs with whatever time is left being reserved for one’s own leisure time.” This awareness will bring about a deep “uncomfortable and humbling” conviction of sin.

Kaiser has a comment which aptly sums up the points, an awareness of Gods presence and an awareness of Sin in Revival, he says “There is no substitute for the personal presence of the living God. How foolish and how risky it is for us to let sin interrupt that relationship”.

But when the Lord comes in blessing along with an awareness of sin comes a revival of holiness. Brian Edwards says, “it begins with a terrible conviction of sin. It is often the form that this conviction of sin takes that troubles those who read of revival. Sometimes the experience is crushing. People weep uncontrollably and worse”. There is no such thing as a revival without tears of conviction and sorrow. To paraphrase another “we should not expect God to come to us in revival without our going to Him in repentance”.

We should not expect God to touch the hearts of others without first touching our own hearts. If we desire revival we must begin by examining our own hearts in the light of God’s word.

Something else that we should remember is that when the Church is being revived, the devil is being roused. Again to quote Edwards, “In revival the devil is threatened, it is a setback for him and he will attack”. We have to be on our guard.

TM Moore in ‘Preparing your Church for Revival’ says “Every time revival begins in the Church a proof of the genuineness of the work is that it does not leave believers where they were before”. They are filled with new wonder, joy and praise, with a new sense of the privilege of serving God, and with the renewed energy that comes from being constrained by the love of Christ.

The true results of revival last, but revivals themselves do not last, in fact we probably could not sustain it. But the results of revival are not just on the people of God. Every revival is characterised by an increase in conversions and every revival in Church History has a cycle, a beginning and an end. When it is over, it is over.

Lasting revival will be grounded in prayer, because in prayer “we acknowledge Gods Sovereignty”. Prayer changes things. “God has appointed prayers as an effectual means for accomplishing His own people”. Eric Hayden in ‘Praying for Revival’ says, “How we limit our prayers to what we think God can do. True prayer is expansive; it stretches out beyond human limitations. It is not only expansive but expensive. It costs us in time and effort”.

But also true prayer will be earnest prayer. The situations around us are so desperate. There is a spiritual darkness and deadness upon us. So we need earnest prayer. Time is short. The Lord is coming again. There are multitudes without Christ. We need to pray for revival so that saints may be blessed and sinners may be saved.

We also need expectancy in our prayers for revival. C H Spurgeon used to insist when preaching about prayer that “Prayers that plead promises guarantee success!” God is a covenant promise keeping God. When we are praying for revival today, we are asking God to do for us today what He did for others before.

Again to quote Hayden.

Revival is the solution to the believer’s state of backsliding, his coldness of heart, his lack of zeal and enthusiasm. Revival is the solution to the Church’s lack of evangelistic witness and joy in worship. Revival is also the solution to the needs of the world, economic, political and interpersonal.