A 'REPENTANCE' REVIVAL!!
Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>
by Andrew Strom
Frank Bartleman of the famous 'Azusa Street' Revival once stated:
"I received from God early in 1905 the following keynote to revival:
'THE DEPTH OF REVIVAL WILL BE DETERMINED EXACTLY BY THE
DEPTH OF THE SPIRIT OF REPENTANCE'. And this will obtain for all
people, at all times." Anyone who has studied Revival history will
assent to Bartleman's words. In fact, it would be fair to say that
UNITED PRAYER and REPENTANCE amongst Christians have
been the sparks that have ignited Revival after Revival down the
centuries.
And I want to stress again - "Repentance amongst the CHRISTIANS".
This is a hard thing for some people to grasp. They say, "Surely you
mean that the UNSAVED repent and come into the church?" Well,
yes, this does happen in times of Revival. But we have to realize
that the first thing a true Revival does is CLEAN UP THE CHURCH.
The apathy, the lukewarmness, the secret sin - All of this is a
tremendous blockage to God being able to move in great power
through us. The channels need to be "cleaned out", so to speak.
So it is the Christians who need to be brought to repentance first.
Then God can move in great power into our communities.
This is why, when we look at Revival history, we find that many of
the greatest Revival preachers were real "Repentance" preachers -
very convicting and uncompromising. Edwards, Finney, Wesley,
Whitfield, Goforth - all of them. They preached to the CHRISTIANS
in a way that was designed to see them convicted of "SIN,
RIGHTEOUSNESS and JUDGEMENT" - just as the Scripture says.
This was to bring 'Godly sorrow' - not condemnation. (-There is a
big difference). This was Holy-Spirit-fired preaching just like John
the Baptist or Peter on the day of Pentecost. -Ultra convicting.
A lot of people don't realize that when they pray for 'Revival' they
may be praying that God will send such a preacher to their church!
This is what I would expect to see, if God really is going to bring
Revival to the nation. I would expect to see Him begin to raise up
such truly-anointed preachers, to convict the church of her sin.