I was reflecting today on the church, revival and the Holy Spirit. It seems that A.W. Tozer was concerned about how the Holy Spirit was grieved by the church during his days in ministry in the 1920’s to the early 1960’s. He was quoted as saying, “If the Holy Spirit left most churches today, 95% of the people would not even notice, but during the early church it would have been immediately recognized.”

Leonard Ravenhill had an interesting thought about the church. He said, “You never have to advertise a fire. Everyone comes running when there’s a fire. Likewise, if your church is on fire, you will not have to advertise it. The community will already know it.”

Both quotes are about the role of the Holy Spirit in the church. It seems that today most churches are a revolving door, people coming and going. There are always a lot of reasons why people leave and move to another church, but I don’t think anyone ever left because the Holy Spirit had too much influence, or because people loved each other too much. It is probably why a major revival has been absent for so long in America.

Henry Blackaby, once said, “When Holy God draws near in true revival, people come under terrible conviction of sin. The outstanding feature of spiritual awakening has been the profound consciousness of the presence and holiness of God.”

Everyone says that revival would be wonderful, but after you think about what it really involves, most people would rather just keep the status quo. Leonard Ravenhill said, “As long as we are content to live without revival, we will.” Revival requires prayer, a lot of it and by a lot of people. It requires prayers of repentance, a deep inward look into ourselves and that “terrible conviction of sin”.

It’s only when we quit deceiving ourselves by thinking that we are pretty good people, that revival has a chance. It’s not much fun thinking about and confessing your sins. The Holy Spirit has been revealing some of these to me and I have to say, it’s not a pretty picture. And I’m very sure that I don’t even know a small portion of it yet. But I do know that if Christ’s church is to be what He wants, we have to make sure the Holy Spirit, and He alone is in control of it. When He is in control, we will be in love with Him and with each other so much that it will draw other people to the fire. Then revival can begin.

If you want to pray about that, come this Tuesday to prayer at 7pm.

Always praying for the glory of God,