WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.500
So many times I'm asked by people, what is a revival?

2
00:00:03.500 --> 00:00:07.500
And this is a question that's been on a lot of people's minds.

3
00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:14.000
I would say, especially in the 20th century, and then even as we move into the 21st century.

4
00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:25.500
Here we are, you know, over 20 years into the 21st century, and it's still a very hot topic.

5
00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:27.500
Lots of books have been written on it.

6
00:00:27.500 --> 00:00:31.000
I've got a whole shelf of books on revival.

7
00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:44.000
And there's no doubt that great moves of God have happened in America and around the world

8
00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:48.500
since the time of Christ, and it's super amazing what God has done.

9
00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:54.000
And it does seem like, when we look at history, that there are these times where

10
00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:01.000
the Lord comes and He surprises us with His mighty signs and wonders,

11
00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:04.500
with His work, with people getting saved in great numbers.

12
00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:07.000
And the question is, what is a revival?

13
00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:15.500
And I want to talk about that, and that's really what this whole set or series of episodes is going to be about.

14
00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:20.500
And I'm going to make the contrast between revival and revolution,

15
00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:23.500
partly because my own growth.

16
00:01:23.500 --> 00:01:32.000
My own growth has led me to some convictions that guide my life about what I call a kingdom of God revolution.

17
00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:37.000
I'll touch on that later, but I wanted to begin with what is a revival.

18
00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:40.500
And, you know, there's so many different perspectives.

19
00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:44.000
One perspective is you hold a revival.

20
00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:50.500
So there has been, especially in Baptist churches, this idea of having a revival.

21
00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:52.000
And I grew up with this.

22
00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:59.500
Now, I didn't grow up Southern Baptist or in the Baptist church, but lots of my Christian friends were part of those churches.

23
00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:06.000
We laughingly say in the South that there's a church, there's a corner on every church, and it's a Baptist church.

24
00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:10.500
So you heard about, and I was always invited to, hey, come to a revival.

25
00:02:10.500 --> 00:02:12.500
We're having revival meetings.

26
00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:14.000
That's not what I'm talking about.

27
00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.000
So I'm not talking about holding meetings for other people.

28
00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:28.000
It's the idea of a move of the spirit by which spontaneously or in a prolonged way,

29
00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:33.000
there's a large numbers of people getting saved, coming to know the Lord.

30
00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:40.000
You might look at some of the revivals that have been so termed under Billy Graham.

31
00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:47.000
And Billy Graham started really strongly in his crusade ministry in 1949 in L.A.

32
00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:52.000
And then it was the rest of his career was one crusade after another.

33
00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.000
I'm also not talking about that.

34
00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:01.000
In the charismatic Pentecostal circles, primarily but not exclusively,

35
00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:06.000
there has been an idea of revival as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit,

36
00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:15.000
where the Holy Spirit falls upon believers mainly, and there's extraordinary effects on people.

37
00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:20.000
So here's some of my experiences, and then I'm going to get to a definition in this episode.

38
00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:27.000
So I came to know the Lord in 1976 at University of Georgia, and I was an athlete there.

39
00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:31.000
And a guy shared with me the four spiritual laws.

40
00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:38.000
And the four spiritual laws is a tool that the ministry of Crewe uses.

41
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.000
Back then it was called Campus Crusade for Christ.

42
00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:44.000
And I gave my heart to the Lord.

43
00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:55.000
So in that situation, I soon was thrust into an environment of all these young people coming to know the Lord.

44
00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:03.000
It was like everywhere I turned, friends of mine either led by me or by someone else were coming to know the Lord.

45
00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:05.000
And I was in the athletic department also.

46
00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:10.000
And there was a pretty extraordinary move of the Lord in the athletic department.

47
00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:13.000
So a lot of the football players were getting saved.

48
00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:20.000
On my gymnastics team, over half the team, I had the privilege of leading to the Lord over the next three years.

49
00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.000
And it was just a very, very exciting time.

50
00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:33.000
So from 1976 to 1980, hundreds if not even thousands of students and athletes at the University of Georgia came to know the Lord.

51
00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:35.000
And our meetings were just big.

52
00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:36.000
We had big meetings all the time.

53
00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:39.000
But no one ever called it the UGA revival.

54
00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:45.000
So we never, I don't remember anybody ever before or since ever associating that as a revival.

55
00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:49.000
But it obviously was an extraordinary time.

56
00:04:49.000 --> 00:05:00.000
In 1994, I was in Anaheim, California, with a group called the Vets.

57
00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.800
Vineyard Christian Fellowship, the senior pastor was a guy named John Wimber, and I

58
00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:08.320
was on staff there and I was John Wimber's assistant.

59
00:05:08.320 --> 00:05:15.440
And in 1994, there was this, this work of the Spirit is super different, where you could

60
00:05:15.440 --> 00:05:20.040
feel his presence in the sanctuary during worship services and stuff.

61
00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:28.240
And at one point, even John Wimber, we talked about falling, falling, literally falling

62
00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:30.680
under the Spirit.

63
00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:36.360
These are kind of charismatic terms, but falling under the Spirit, fell on the floor while

64
00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:41.560
he was preaching in the pulpit, and then literally rolled down the steps, and he was laughing

65
00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:42.560
the whole time.

66
00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:44.400
It was just weird.

67
00:05:44.400 --> 00:05:49.280
And you may have heard of Rodney Howard Brown at that time.

68
00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:51.080
He's kind of called the laughing evangelist.

69
00:05:51.080 --> 00:05:56.060
Well, what's funny is the vineyard had nothing to do with that guy, but this thing hit John

70
00:05:56.060 --> 00:06:02.740
one day, and then, because I was on the leadership team, on the ministry team, I was constantly

71
00:06:02.740 --> 00:06:08.860
being asked to come into these meetings and share, speak, and minister at the church.

72
00:06:08.860 --> 00:06:15.820
And it's no exaggeration that almost everybody that I laid my hand on fell, fell under the

73
00:06:15.820 --> 00:06:20.140
power of the Spirit, to the point where I had these guys that traveled around with me

74
00:06:20.140 --> 00:06:22.500
in the church called catchers.

75
00:06:22.500 --> 00:06:26.780
That's kind of a charismatic term again, but catchers are catchers.

76
00:06:26.780 --> 00:06:29.060
I mean, they catch people.

77
00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:33.820
And so they would be behind me or in front of me, whatever, and if I was going to pray

78
00:06:33.820 --> 00:06:35.900
for somebody, could you guys get back there?

79
00:06:35.900 --> 00:06:41.820
And then, bam, they would go down, and it was the strangest thing.

80
00:06:41.820 --> 00:06:48.740
We never called it a revival, but it was, it lasted at least until I left, and I left

81
00:06:48.740 --> 00:06:58.260
in 94, in July, to come to Colorado Springs and plant the church that I planted here.

82
00:06:58.260 --> 00:07:02.860
And I don't know how much longer it lasted, maybe, I think I heard something like six

83
00:07:02.860 --> 00:07:05.540
or eight months it lasted there at Anaheim.

84
00:07:05.540 --> 00:07:13.820
Well, simultaneously, in 1994, in Toronto, Canada, there was a vineyard called Toronto

85
00:07:13.820 --> 00:07:20.580
Vineyard, no, excuse me, called Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and they saw this same

86
00:07:20.580 --> 00:07:27.660
kind of experience, the same kind of sign and wonder of people falling under the power

87
00:07:27.660 --> 00:07:33.660
of the Holy Spirit, and it seemed like it was even stronger there than it was at Anaheim,

88
00:07:33.660 --> 00:07:38.780
and hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world started flying into Toronto

89
00:07:38.780 --> 00:07:40.300
to be a part of the airport vineyard.

90
00:07:40.300 --> 00:07:48.180
Now, that one lasted for years, and it got so kind of crazy there that John Wimber, who

91
00:07:48.180 --> 00:07:57.180
was the president, director of the Association of Vineyard Churches, actually asked Airport

92
00:07:57.180 --> 00:07:59.740
Vineyard to kind of calm it down and pastor it.

93
00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:00.820
They didn't want to.

94
00:08:00.820 --> 00:08:04.460
They felt like that was quenching the spirit, so they left the vineyard.

95
00:08:04.460 --> 00:08:09.260
Now, that was called the Toronto Blessing, so that was called, so it did have a term,

96
00:08:09.260 --> 00:08:12.100
but again, revival was not used.

97
00:08:12.100 --> 00:08:20.900
Well, by 1998, 97, 98, there's this move of the spirit very similar to these in Brownsville,

98
00:08:20.900 --> 00:08:29.140
Florida, so this was called the Brownsville Revival, and the Brownsville Revival was a

99
00:08:29.140 --> 00:08:36.620
holy ghost, holy spirit move through a guy named Stephen Hill, Pastor Stephen Hill, who

100
00:08:36.620 --> 00:08:43.900
was an evangelist, who began to preach, and I'm thinking it was around Mother's Day, 1995

101
00:08:43.900 --> 00:08:49.100
or 96, I may have my dates wrong, where the holy spirit came.

102
00:08:49.100 --> 00:08:54.020
People fell down again, kind of under this power of the spirit, but this was different

103
00:08:54.020 --> 00:08:56.780
in that people were getting saved left and right.

104
00:08:56.780 --> 00:09:03.900
So Steve Hill led the preaching there, and I don't even know, but it had to be, I think

105
00:09:03.900 --> 00:09:09.580
at one point, I heard something like 100,000 people got saved in about four years, and

106
00:09:09.580 --> 00:09:14.940
Liz and I went down there, so we went to Brownsville for a whole week, and we actually had the

107
00:09:14.940 --> 00:09:20.500
privilege of hanging out with some of the pastors, and then going to the weekly meetings.

108
00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:22.060
It was every night, it was happening.

109
00:09:22.060 --> 00:09:27.660
I think they took one day off a week, but it was, and that went on for quite a while,

110
00:09:27.660 --> 00:09:30.780
and that was called the Brownsville Revival.

111
00:09:30.780 --> 00:09:38.980
So from 2002 to 2007, after we had planted Mountain Springs Church here in Colorado Springs,

112
00:09:38.980 --> 00:09:44.860
the spirit really began to move at our church, and we saw thousands come to Christ, and the

113
00:09:44.860 --> 00:09:52.740
church grew from like 600 to almost 3,000 overnight, and at one point, a church growth

114
00:09:52.740 --> 00:09:56.820
analyst felt like we were one of the fastest growing churches in America.

115
00:09:56.820 --> 00:09:59.500
Again, we didn't call it a revival.

116
00:09:59.500 --> 00:10:00.500
We didn't even call it a revival.

117
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:06.160
and outpouring, we just called it really fast church growth. So what is a revival? I mean,

118
00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:00.500


119
00:10:06.880 --> 00:10:15.280
how would I define revival? Well, there's so many different terms. I've been fascinated with

120
00:10:15.280 --> 00:10:20.240
revival since I came to know the Lord when I was a freshman in college. So I have books and books

121
00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:27.600
on it. Here's some of the terms that are oftentimes associated with a revival. Terms that writers

122
00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:34.560
have used are a special blessing, an outpouring, outpouring of the spirit,

123
00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:45.200
the manifest presence of God, the presence of God coming suddenly, awakening, showers of the spirit.

124
00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:50.320
So those are some of the different, and each, every author you read has a different definition

125
00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:57.920
of what a revival is. Jonathan Edwards, considered by most to be the father of the

126
00:10:57.920 --> 00:11:05.280
first great awakening in America. So that would be 1730 to 1740. So 1730s and 1740s

127
00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:14.720
would be the great awakening in North Hampton, Massachusetts. He called it a surprising work

128
00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:22.080
of God. That's a pretty good phrase, a surprising work of God. I think you'll find that when

129
00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:30.960
something unusual happens where many, many people in the church are touched by God, and then it

130
00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:40.560
spills out into the community, you're witnessing a revival. I mean, you're witnessing something that

131
00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:47.200
is unique, and it's a surprising work of God. Here's a long definition, but I like it.

132
00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:54.640
This is by Duncan Campbell. Now, Duncan Campbell was the key leader of the Hebrides revival in

133
00:11:54.640 --> 00:12:02.560
1949 to 1953, and I think he gives the best description of a true revival. So I'm going to

134
00:12:02.560 --> 00:12:12.880
read from a transcript that he gave when he was speaking at a college about the Hebrides revival.

135
00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:20.080
Here's what he says. First, let me tell you what I mean by revival. An evangelistic campaign or

136
00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:27.680
special meeting is not revival. In a successful evangelistic campaign or crusade, there will be

137
00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:33.360
hundreds or even thousands of people making decisions for Jesus Christ, but the community

138
00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:40.560
remains largely untouched, and the churches continue much the same as before the outreach.

139
00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:48.400
In revival, God moves in the district. Suddenly, the community becomes God-conscious.

140
00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:55.600
The Spirit of God grips men and women in such a way that even work is given up as people give

141
00:12:55.600 --> 00:13:01.280
themselves to waiting upon God. In the midst of the Lewis awakening, now when he mentions the Lewis

142
00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:06.800
awakening, that's one of the islands in the Hebrides, the Lewis island. The parish minister

143
00:13:06.800 --> 00:13:13.520
Barvas wrote, the Spirit of the Lord was resting wonderfully on the different townships of the

144
00:13:13.520 --> 00:13:21.920
region. His presence was in the homes of the people, on Meadow and Moreland, and even on public roads.

145
00:13:22.560 --> 00:13:30.720
This presence of God is the supreme characteristic of a God-sent revival. Of the hundreds who found

146
00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:37.760
Jesus Christ during this time, fully 75% were saved before they came near a meeting or even

147
00:13:37.760 --> 00:13:44.400
heard a sermon by myself or any other minister in the parish. The power of God, the Spirit of God,

148
00:13:44.400 --> 00:13:51.360
was moving in operation, and the fear of God gripped the souls of men. This is a God-sent

149
00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:56.880
revival as distinct from special efforts in the field of evangelism. I agree with that. I think

150
00:13:56.880 --> 00:14:02.480
that's a beautiful definition, and actually in my next episode, I'm going to look at six

151
00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:07.920
characteristics of a revival. So revival, basically what Duncan Campbell's saying, and I would agree,

152
00:14:08.640 --> 00:14:18.480
is both a touch of the church, of the Spirit of God moving upon believers who are kind of dead,

153
00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:23.520
and they come back to life. It'd be like someone who faints, and then they're revived,

154
00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:32.880
but it doesn't stop there. It flows out and begins to affect the whole city or the whole region

155
00:14:32.880 --> 00:14:38.560
in an area. So different guys, different authors would look at this differently,

156
00:14:38.560 --> 00:14:42.960
but that's what I think it is, and I think Duncan Campbell has hit the nail on the head. I mean,

157
00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:49.120
he was a part of it, so he's not just talking about it from theory like a lot of authors are.

158
00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:55.200
He actually lived it, and so that's what I believe a revival is. I know it's a long definition, but

159
00:14:56.160 --> 00:14:59.680
it's the Spirit of God touching the church and then

160
00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.240
filling out into the community with evangelistic boldness and fervor.

161
00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:09.000
In my next message, I want to talk about the six characteristics of revival.