Whether you’re a pastor or a layperson, let me once again encourage you to carefully study the First Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening. What were our spiritual forefathers doing then that we should be doing today? Are there any lessons you could draw from the last two chapters and begin applying right now in your own life, your own family, your own congregation?
I would also encourage you to spend time studying—and teaching others about—other periods of tremendous evangelism, pastoral training, church planting, and moral reform in American history, particularly those from the twentieth century. Consider how powerfully God moved through the ministries of men like Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899), Billy Sunday (1862–1935), Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871–1952, founder of Dallas Theological Seminary in 1924), Billy Graham (whose evangelistic crusades worldwide spanned from 1949 to 2005), Dawson Trotman (1906–1956, founder of the Navigators ministry in 1933), Bill Bright (1921–2003, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951), Dr. James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family in 1977), Chuck Swindoll (chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary, with more than seventy books published), Chuck Smith (a leader in the “Jesus Movement” of the 1970s and founder of Calvary Chapel, which has planted more than 1,200 congregations worldwide), and many others. While God didn’t unleash full-scale Great Awakenings through these men, he certainly effected amazing miracles through them, and we have much to learn from their accomplishments. Indeed, their ministries may very well have planted the seeds that will turn into the greatest spiritual awakening in the history of the United States.
Most of all, I would encourage you to study the Scriptures afresh with an eye toward examples of national prayer, fasting, and revival. Study the stories of Joel, Nehemiah, Ezra, and Josiah, for example, a prophet, governor, priest, and king of Israel respectively, all of whom God used to call his people to wholesale national repentance and a renewed hunger for the Word of God and moral reforms.
In the book of Joel (admittedly my favorite book of the Bible), the Lord spoke through the Old Testament prophet to the entire nation of Israel and “all inhabitants of the land” (Joel 1:2). He told them that just as a severe natural disaster (a locust plague) had shaken them in the past, so too a time of severe and unprecedented traumas was coming upon them and upon the world in the future. Joel told anyone listening to “the word of the LORD” to “sound an alarm” because the “day of the LORD is coming; surely it is near” (Joel 1:1; 2:1).
How, then, were the spiritual leaders, ministers, and elders of the time supposed to respond? And what does this mean for us today? Joel made it crystal clear in the second chapter:
• Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm (v. 1). That is, wake up the people and call them to action, remind them that the Lord is coming soon, and urge them to make a pure relationship with Christ their top priority.
• Consecrate a fast (v. 15). Urge people to stop doing normal things; urge them to make serving God more important than eating food or reading e-mails or being entertained or anything else.
• Proclaim a solemn assembly and gather the people (vv. 15-16). Gather the children and the nursing infants and the brides and the bridegrooms. Encourage people to spend more time with the Lord in their homes as individuals and families, but don’t stop there. Bring the people together for a special event or a series of events—not entertainment but serious self-reflection, prayer, fasting, repentance, and time in the Word. Invite everyone to come; everyone needs time to get right with Jesus, not just the grown-ups.
• Sanctify the congregation (v. 16). Sanctify means to set someone or something aside for sacred and holy purposes, to free something from sin, to purify it. Here’s one idea for illustrating sanctification for your congregation or small group: Encourage people to make a list of things they are doing that God doesn’t want them to be doing. Have them write down on the bottom of that list that they promise to ask for God’s help to repent of such things and not do them anymore. Have them sign the list and write “1 John 1:9” over the list. Then have them tear up, shred, or burn the list as an act of prayerful repentance. Find other ways to encourage your congregation to sanctify themselves from sin.
• Assemble the elders and urge the Lord’s ministers to weep and ask the Lord to spare his people (vv. 16-17). Focus on leaders; spend time in prayer and fasting and repentance with and for them. If you’re a leader, set a godly model, and ask people to follow.
• Return to the Lord with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments (vv. 12-13). These are not supposed to be typical, run-of-the-mill prayer and praise meetings; this is a call to get on our faces and beg and plead with the Lord to have mercy on us as individuals, as families, and as a nation. This is supposed to be serious time with the Lord. Think differently about your services; consider radically changing your schedule; give people time to talk to the Lord and listen to him; give people time and space to get on their knees—or on their faces. Maintain order, and don’t let things get out of hand, but take this issue of mourning and weeping very seriously, and make sure your pastoral staff and counselors and elders and ushers are ready to comfort people and pray with people and mourn with people—and have lots of Kleenex ready.
• Return to the Lord, because he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness, and relenting of evil (v. 13). Encourage people to remember how wonderful and loving and forgiving the Lord is. Don’t let people simply dwell on their sinfulness; teach people the stories of the First and Second Great Awakenings to remind them that God has saved us before and can do so again.
For all of 2010 and for nearly half of 2011, I studied the book of Joel. Not every day, of course. But I read it dozens of times. I also read commentaries about it. I listened to several pastors preach on it (though not many do). The more I chewed on it, the more the Lord taught me.
May I encourage you to spend several months studying the book of Joel? It’s short—only three chapters—but it is powerful. May I encourage you to meditate on those three critical chapters, comparing those passages with other passages throughout the Scriptures, especially those that call entire nations back to repentance, prayer, and fasting? If you’re a pastor or church leader, may I also encourage you to take your congregation through the book of Joel? There is a message there that is relevant for our time. There are warnings there that we dare not ignore. There is a sense of urgency that we need to share. This is a book that is near and dear to the heart of the Father. There is a fallen world that is not listening and a church that by and large is not proclaiming. True, the promises spoken of by Joel are specifically for the nation of Israel. But like 2 Chronicles 7:14, the book of Joel contains godly principles we should seek to put into practice. May we commit in our hearts today to apply the lessons from the book of Joel while we still can.[428]
What We Should Expect from Ourselves
What, then, should we expect from ourselves?
The church cannot be healthy and strong unless believers are walking closely, purely, and powerfully with Christ, right? That means that ultimately, revival begins with you and me. Let’s not be fearful about the state of the church or angry about the failings of her members or leaders. Rather, let’s start beseeching the Lord to have mercy on us, to purify us, to heal us, to shake us and wake us up while there is still time.
My friend Anne Graham Lotz said many things at the 2011 Epicenter Conference in Jerusalem that caught Lynn’s and my attention. But the point that captured us most was when Anne cited the famed British evangelist Gypsy Smith. “Do you really want to see a revival begin?” Smith used to ask his audiences. When the people said yes, Gypsy replied, “Then go back to your home and draw a circle around you on the floor. Then get down on your knees in the middle of the circle and ask God to convert everybody inside that circle. When you do that, and God answers, you are experiencing the start of revival.”
If we want to see our churches and our nation experience
revival again, we first need to experience personal revival. To that end, here are nine steps the Bible instructs each of us to take to get right with God.
1. Reject Fear
Paralyzing fear and anxious despondency are not God’s will for our lives.
No matter what is going on all around us, born-again believers in Jesus Christ must not succumb to fear. Why? Because Christ commanded us not to fear. Indeed, well over three hundred times throughout the Old and New Testaments, God’s people are commanded, “Do not be afraid” or “Fear not” or a similar variation. As Jesus said in John 14:1, for example, “Let not your heart be troubled” (KJV). Some of you think that line was coined by Sean Hannity. But it wasn’t. It was a command from Christ. Jesus told us that he is God. He’s in charge. He’s preparing a place for us in heaven, and he’s coming back for us. He promised never to leave us or forsake us. He promised to always be with us. We need to believe him. We need to take him at his word.
How can we avoid being consumed by fear? The apostle Paul gave us godly counsel: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things” (Philippians 4:6-8).
Don’t fixate on the dangers and threats and anxiety producers in your life. Instead, fix your mind on Christ. Bring all your cares and concerns to him. Dwell on the truths in the Bible about who God is, how much he loves you, how much he has done for you, the promises he has made to you, and the reality of his imminent return. In fact, it would be a great thing to memorize this passage in Philippians so you can recall it every time fear threatens to paralyze you again. I, too, get attacked often by flashes of fear and anxiety. And every time I do, I try to go back to these and similar reassuring words from Scripture and fix my eyes and heart on Christ and his love.
2. Resist Anger
Losing a job, a car, a home, a business, a lifetime of savings, your health, or a loved one doesn’t just produce fear. It can produce anger—anger at your boss, at the politicians in Washington, at one political party or another, at Wall Street, at the rich, at the poor, at other countries, at other races, at a family member or neighbor, and even at God. Be very careful about this, especially in turbulent and difficult times.
Anger, in and of itself, is not necessarily sinful. Whenever God is angry—and he does get angry—it is righteous anger. That is, it is anger at evil and injustice. With God, however, anger never turns into sin. He always deals with it appropriately and righteously. The problem with us is that our anger most often turns quickly into sin. Sometimes we become justifiably angry at something terrible that someone says or does, but more often than not we express that anger in sinful ways. We lash out verbally or even physically.
That’s why the apostle Paul urged us in Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry, and yet do not sin.” Don’t let something sinful that another person has done cause you to be sinful too.
Paul also says in Ephesians 4:26-27, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.” In other words, don’t go to sleep angry. Don’t let a problem fester or build up, lest it explode later. Start dealing with the problem immediately—first and foremost in your own heart. Hold your tongue, and plead with the Lord to cool you down, to drain away all the angry emotions, to give you a calm heart and a level head. And then, when you’re calm again, begin to talk the problem through with the person who offended you, and start to work the problem out.
Now is not the time to become engulfed in anger. Now is the time to once again read about and meditate on the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and ask the Lord to develop within us “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
3. Rekindle Your Love for Jesus
Personal revival doesn’t come from being obsessive about a new list of dos and don’ts. Rather, it comes from a deep, personal friendship with Jesus Christ.
In the book of Revelation, Jesus said these words to the church in the city of Ephesus: “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent” (Revelation 2:2-5).
Christ didn’t tell that struggling church to stop doing the right things. To the contrary, he urged them to keep doing the things they were commanded in the Scriptures to do. But Jesus missed them. The people in that congregation were working so hard at working hard that they weren’t abiding with Jesus. They weren’t really enjoying fellowship with him. They weren’t telling him they loved him. They weren’t slowing down to listen to him. They weren’t reflecting on how amazing and awesome and beautiful and powerful and majestic he is. They had gotten into a ministry rut. They were doing the right things, and probably for the right reasons, but they had left their first love.
They had fallen in love with ministry and out of love with Jesus. And it grieved him. He wanted them to learn to love him all over again.
How is your friendship with Jesus?
4. Repent of Your Sins and Recommit Yourself to Holiness
What was John the Baptist’s message when he was trying to get the people ready for the first coming of the Messiah? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2).
What was Jesus’ message when he began his earthly ministry? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).
What was the apostle Peter’s message in his first sermon in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost? “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
What was Jesus’ message to the sleeping church at Sardis in the book of Revelation? “So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you” (Revelation 3:3).
The Bible directly uses the word repent or repented or repentance more than seventy times. The message is clear.
Now is the time to become doers of the Word, not hearers only. If you are not a born-again follower of Christ, why not take time right now to confess your sins to him? To repent means to turn around spiritually. Once you have turned toward Jesus, ask him by faith—trusting the promises in the Bible—to come into your life to forgive you, to save you, to adopt you into his family, to fill you with his Holy Spirit, and to start showing you how to be his disciple and walk with him and love him and serve him daily. This is the most important decision you will ever make, and Christ is waiting for you to say yes to him.
If you are already a born-again believer, now is the time to ask the Lord to show you—gently and mercifully, but clearly—areas of unconfessed sin in your life. Look at these areas squarely, though it’s painful. Then ask Christ to forgive you and cleanse you by the blood he shed on the cross. Ask him to give you the strength to turn away from your sins and walk with him more purely than you ever have before. And remember this beautiful promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
5. Recommit Yourself to the Study of God’s Word
If Jesus delivered a letter to your mailbox, wouldn’t you open it? If he sent you an e-mail or a text message or posted a note on your Facebook wall, wouldn’
t you read it? You would if you really loved him, right?
When was the last time you read through Psalm 119? Have you ever noticed the following verses?
• “Revive me according to Your word” (Psalm 119:25).
• “Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways” (Psalm 119:37).
• “Behold, I long for Your precepts; revive me through Your righteousness” (Psalm 119:40).
• “This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me” (Psalm 119:50).
• “Consider how I love Your precepts; revive me, O LORD, according to Your lovingkindness” (Psalm 119:159).
Including these five, the psalmist asks God eleven times in this psalm to revive him by the Word of God. Is it possible that we grow weaker when we avoid reading the Bible or when we read just a few verses quickly or sporadically, but that we grow stronger and are revived when we immerse ourselves in the Word of God and meditate on it, memorize it, chew on it, savor it?
In the first chapter of John, we learn that Jesus Christ is the Word of God. The more time, therefore, we spend in the Bible, the more time we are listening to the heart of Jesus. Didn’t Jesus also say in John 6:48, “I am the bread of life”? Didn’t Jesus say in John 6:51, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh”? Isn’t it possible that we are slowly but certainly starving ourselves when we rush through our day without partaking of the Bread of Life?
While I was working on this book, I had the joy of leading a man in another city to faith in Jesus Christ. He was so excited by his newfound faith at first. Every day for weeks we spent between an hour and an hour and a half studying the Gospel of John together. He would ask many questions, and I would point him back into the Scriptures to find the answers. He was growing rapidly. Then he had to do some travel for work, and so did I. When we reconnected, I asked him if he was continuing to study and savor God’s Word every day. He admitted that over time he had gotten too busy. I certainly understood, and I told him that for years I struggled to be disciplined and faithful to study the Bible on a daily basis. But rather than let him get discouraged, I suggested he let me help him.