Hungering for and praying for a revival 

     Over the years, there has been one prophecy that has been made several times for this church – a prophecy given by different people at different times but all saying the same thing. That God is wanting to give us a revival. 

And so this morning I want to talk about revivals. What is a revival? It’s good to know about the thing God wants to give us. If God wants to give us a revival, it’s important to know if there are any conditions for us to meet before we can receive it. And once He has given it to us, it’s good to know how we keep hold of the revival so we don’t lose it prematurely as has happened in the past.

What is a revival?

Well, a revival is a move of God in a church and a community- where the Christians get filled with new life and where many people become Christians.

It is not something that can be planned- not by us. It’s something that God sends down from heaven. It’s not an organised evangelistic rally, sometimes that is called a ‘revival meeting’, but that is not what I’m talking about today when I use the term ‘revival’. 

Duncan Campbell who was the main preacher in the Lewis Revival of 1949 to 52 defined revival as ‘a community saturated with God’. ‘A community saturated with God.’ In other words in a revival, God makes presence felt, experienced in the church and beyond in the surrounding community.

Let me quote a Campbell a bit further He said ‘We see the difference between a successful [evangelistic] campaign and revival, in the former we may see many brought to a saving knowledge of the truth and the church or the mission experiences a time of new life, but so far as the town or district is concerned no real change is visible; the world goes on its way... but in revival the fear of God lays hold upon the community, moving men and women who until then had no concern for spiritual things, to seek after God.’

That’s revival.

Brian Edwards defines revival this way; He says; ‘a true Holy Spirit revival is a remarkable increase in the spiritual life of a large number of God’s people, accompanied by an awesome awareness of the presence of God, intensity of prayer and praise, a deep conviction of sin, with a passionate longing for holiness and unusual effectiveness in evangelism, leading to the salvation of many unbelievers.’ 

And I’ll say again- A revival is something God brings about. It is not possible for a revival to be made by man, we can’t work up a revival, it comes by God sending it down. 

Let me give an example. On Father’s Day, June 18^th, 1995, the Holy Spirit suddenly fell in revival upon the congregation of a church in the town of Brownsville, Florida in the US. It became known as the Brownsville Revival or Pensacola Outpouring and it lasted for 5 years till 2000. And in that time four million people attended the meetings, many flying in from other countries- to experience the presence of God. 

If you want to get a taste of revival go to Youtube and type in ‘Brownsville Revival’ and you will see what it is like. 

John Kirkpatrick was the senior pastor of the church at the time and the Lord had told him about 3 years before to start getting his church praying for revival and to have church wide prayer services every week for revival. Well when the Lord told him to start praying for revival he thought revival would break out any day. After 3 years of praying and nothing happening, he thought it would never come. But that’s when it came!

On Father’s Day, a mighty wind blew through the church and the presence of God filled the building. An evangelist called Steve Hill was the guest preacher that day and under his preaching, people began feeling their sin and their need for forgiveness. They felt the need for holiness. 

There began Tuesday through Saturday evening meetings in the building. They were packed out. There were queues outside the building of people waiting to get in. Many, many came and became Christians, the presence of God in the building made Jesus very real. The preaching had great power. Healings happened in the presence of the Holy Spirit, cancerous tumours disappeared. Drug addicts were miraculously delivered from addiction. Christians who had given their life to Jesus long ago, started realising their compromise, their sinful habits and started putting things right. Holiness and repentance was central. People found forgiveness. There was also an unusual sense of refreshing in that holy place. 

All of this is typical of revival.

First when it happened it happened quickly and it was a surprise. Suddenly God came down. It happened because the church had prayed and kept praying. God rewarded the hunger. The word of God had new power, the presence of God in the building, the salvation of many and the deep transformation of Christians- all that is typical of what a revival looks like.  

When we read the story of Pentecost, the first coming of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, in Acts Chapter 2, we see another picture of a revival. Before the day of Pentecost 120 people were gathering together to pray. To pray for what? To pray for the Holy Spirit to come in power. 

They didn’t know when their prayer would be answered. Jesus hadn’t told them. All he had done was told them that he would answer and to pray in Jerusalem. In revival prayer comes first. Every revival that happens, happens because people have been praying for it. If people aren’t praying, a revival won’t happen. Prayer is key to revival. 

By the way my purpose in preaching this sermon is that- 

1. We all understand what a revival is.
2. That we come to desire for God to send a revival.
3. That we pray for it and keep praying until we receive. 

Because I believe God has said that he will send us in this church a revival. He wants to give it. I think not just to us, but many other churches around Scotland and beyond, but including this church. But if we are to receive the gift of God, the great shower of blessing from on high, we must pray and persist until we get it.

When the Holy Spirit came down on the church of 120 on the day of Pentecost, He came down suddenly. The text tells us ‘Suddenly a sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.’ 

That is typical of revival- the prayers for revival get answered suddenly. Suddenly God comes down. The experienced presence of God is in the room, by his Holy Spirit.

When revival came at Pentecost, when the Spirit came, the 120 believers all got filled with the Spirit and they were enabled by the spirit. In their case to speak in new languages. They were filled with life, enthusiasm, energy.

And then the move of the Spirit spilled out into the community. Many in Jerusalem gathered to listen to the languages and Peter preached a powerful sermon that resulted in many people being saved. As Joeson underlined a few weeks ago. Peter’s sermon cut people to the heart. Peter’s sermon had a great power to it. It got through to people. In revival the word of God is given power. Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2 ‘Pray for us that the Word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you.’

Today in Scotland, the word of God is not spreading rapidly. Thousands of sermons are preached that seem to lack power. Countless times Christians share the faith with unbelievers in conversation and the word about Jesus they share results in a blank stare. Maybe you have experienced this! Only God can empower his word, the message about Jesus, only He can make it mighty and get through to the heart of hearers and cause it to spread again like a mighty tidal wave of blessing upon the church and the community. 

We will pray that prayer for the word to spread and be glorified later- only God can do it.

Just as Pentecost was desperately needed at the beginning of the Christian era, so another season of God sent revival is the urgent need for our church and the church in this land. 

We need to realise that we need help! We can’t make an impact on our family, our community, our city on our own. We need God. We really need the felt, experienced presence of God.

When Moses was leading the children of Israel he prayed to God in Exodus 33;

‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?’

What is it that distinguishes the Christian people from all the other people on the face of the Earth? More than anything, it is the presence of God, tangible presence of God. People are not seeing enough of the presence of God in the church- that’s why they are not convinced by us and our message. We are not showing them God. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul talks about a situation where someone comes to church and is so struck by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the congregation that he falls down and says ‘God is really among you.’ 

Maybe we need to pray Moses’ prayer -‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.’ The thing that distinguishes us is the presence of God. Revival is the presence of God powerfully manifest in our midst. 

We really need God to do this. Too many people around us don’t know God and his salvation through Christ and many many don’t care. They are not interested. They don’t realise that they were made by God, on a planet that was made by God and that God made them and breathed life into them in order above all for them to love him and worship him, their maker , to have a relationship with him- He made them for himself. And they don’t realise this.

God is not in many peoples’ minds or their thinking in Edinburgh- many people have no Christian friends or family to tell them and even if they do have a Christian in their life who tells them about Jesus, they very often just say- well if that is what you believe and makes you happy, I’m happy for you, but its not for me!

We are living in a society where people are in the dark. They are in the dark. And they need the light switched on. A revival in the church switches on a great light for the multitudes in the community to see truth, to see the reality of Christ and the way to Holy Creator God. 

On the day of Pentecost a great light was switched on in the city and Jerusalem saw that Jesus was moving powerfully in his church through the Holy Spirit and many people were in awe. 

Martyn Lloyd Jones, who experienced revival himself, noted that ‘every period of revival is a returning to what you can read in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.’

We see revivals also in the Old Testament also- times when the people of God turned back to God.

In revival things happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Meetings are lengthened, crowds gather and sermons have to be preached, not because it is all arranged in advance, but because God is at work. People will arrive without warning for a meeting, moved by an unseen hand. Isaiah described such a time when God did ‘awesome things that we did not expect, you came down and the mountains trembled before you.’ Isaiah 64:3. 

Revivals can’t be publicised in advance, they cannot be, because God chooses the time. A revival that is advertised and arranged ahead of time is not a true revival. Revival surprises people when it comes. 

In revival the normal things of church life continue- the church prays, repents, worships and evangelises- a church stops being a church when it doesn’t do these things. But in revival all this is intensified. Greater repentance, longer and more meaningful worship, power in evangelism, an intensity in prayer. The church moves up several gears in revival. 

At the start of the 20^th century The membership of Charlotte Chapel here in Edinburgh, many of know Charlotte Chapel, membership was 108, but in reality, only about 45 people actually attended the services. There were even murmurings about closing the church down because of lack of numbers, a dilapidated building, and the rise of drunkenness and immorality on Rose St where the church was situated in Edinburgh. However, some of the church members had a dogged determination not to give up, but to press on for breakthrough. The church secretary, Andrew Urquhart, was convinced that revival was coming. 

One time he said to his son, “Don’t you see the crowds flocking into the church?” Urquhart saw with the eyes of faith, whilst others doubted. When the elders decided to invite Revd Joseph Kemp to be their pastor in 1901, Urquhart wrote in his letter to him: “One should never venture to prophesy, but I feel almost inclined to do so and to say that you will, by God’s help fill Charlotte Chapel inside of eighteen months and that it will be, after the first month or two, a centre of evangelical life in Edinburgh and increasingly a birthplace of precious souls.” This is exactly what happened.

The Spirit of God fell and people started getting convicted of sin and converting to Christ. By the end of 1907 the membership of the church had grown from 108 to 609. But only 1 in 4 of the converts of the revival became members of Charlotte chapel, the others joined other churches.

In the book of Acts the disciples went around telling what God had done. Even as they spoke, God did it again. Throughout history the report of God’s deeds in revival have resulted in further acts of God. In British church history, when a revival breaks out in a church, and someone one in another church hears about it, revival can come to that church, because the people get hungry and want it themselves. 

That’s why I am telling you stories of revivals, because they create hunger for God to do it again.

After the great revival happened in Wales in 1904- Three United Free church and a Baptist church minister went down in 1905 to Wales to see it for themselves and when they got back, they spoke to a crowded gathering in Ebenezer United Free church in Leith- our sister church in Leith. The service went on till 12 midnight with praying and singing hymns and the people didn’t want to leave. So they announced that they would have another meeting the following evening and again the church was packed.

The UF minister- JD Robertson said ‘The fervour, enthusiasm and spiritual power have carried us right through 3 weeks. All else had to be put aside.’ 3 weeks of services every evening. That maybe sounds a bit boring, a bit too much, but when the presence of God is in the services, its really attractive. The presence of God is attractive.

Robertson said ‘there have been many conversions, Every night we have decisions for Christ. The life of our churches has been quickened (renewed). It is easy preaching now. There is a new joy in it.’ He said ‘it is the work of God and we must be willing to stand aside and let him do it.’ 

The meetings in Ebenezer went on for 12 weeks, every evening and they were packed meetings.

It happened because people had prayed and because interest was raised by people hearing about what God was doing in Wales and because God chose to do it. 

At that time, South Leith Baptist church recorded in a year 300 men, women boys and girls who gave their lives to Christ. 

300 souls! That’s why its worth putting in the time and effort in prayer to get a revival. Because God does more in a year that would take a hundred years otherwise.

Prayer is key. Brownlow North, a famous 19^th century evangelist in Scotland complained to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland one year. He said ‘I believe there is one thing for which God is very angry with our land, and for which the Holy Spirit is so little among us- it is the neglect of united prayer, the appointed means of bringing down the Holy Spirit.’

We have forgotten this truth. United Prayer brings down the Holy Spirit. 

We must keep at united prayer in prayer meetings and persist week in week out for months or years, even though nothing seems to be happening. Its might seem like a waste of time, but in the end it will bear much fruit, it will be worth it. Because God’s answer will result in more being done than what any human could do in a thousand years. 

In 1908 the Western Missionaries in North Korea, in Pyungyang the capital of North Korea heard of a revival happening in the Khassia Hills of India. So they decided to come together every day at 12 noon until a similar blessing was poured out upon them. Mr Swallen one of the missionaries said ‘after we prayed for a month, and nothing unusual has come of it. We are spending a lot of time. I don’t think it is justified. Let us go on with our work as usual and each pray at home as he finds convenient.’

This seemed plausible. But the majority of us however, decided that instead of discontinuing the prayer meeting, we would give more time to prayer, not less. With that in view, we changed the time from noon to four o’clock; we were then free to pray until supper time if we wished. We kept at it, until at last, after months of praying, the answer came. 

Revival came to Pyongyang in January 1907 when the Spirit fell in a men’s conference where 1500 Christians had assembled. A Korean Christian call Kil Sun-Joo was the main preacher and a wave of public repentance passed through the conference in response to his messages. The revival spread- and by March 1907 2000 people had converted to Christ, by July that number was 30,000, many new churches were planted. Until Communism Pyongyang was the centre of Korean Christianity. And that revival was a stepping stone to what we see in South Korea today, a large vibrant church as converts in the revival moved to South Korea. 

Persistent, united prayer is very, very powerful. But it takes time, it takes sacrifice. It takes determination. I think one reason we have not seen many revivals in Scotland since the Second World War, is that people haven’t been willing to make that sacrifice to spend time praying. 



The book of James says; ‘you have not because you ask not.’ God asks us to pray. It is an expression of relationship, of dependence and trust that he is looking for. If we do not receive, it might well be that we never asked him. 

God responds to hunger, desire and prayer. 

There was a song sung by Scottish Christians in the 1920s, so that’s 100 years ago, I don’t know the tune, but I’ll finish by sharing the words. It goes:

‘In this dear land, in days of yore, (days of yore means in the past) 

God moved in mighty power.

His Word He blessed, and souls found rest

When Scotland was on fire.

Once more, Lord, once more,

As in the days of yore.

On this dear land Thy Spirit pour

Set Scotland now on fire!’

Amen.