As I consider the Pentecostal heritage in which I was raised (and our fellowship’s 100th anniversary), I’ve been thinking about revival. Here are a few quotes I have been pondering…
“As a historian, three things increasingly impress me about awakenings in church history: first, that they really do occur, and—from medieval, monastic revivals through classic evangelical awakenings to modern Pentecostal renewal—they really have brought great benefit to the church. Second, revivals tend to exaggerate, so that along with the real benefit often come increased problems like exalted opinions of one’s self in God’s general design. Third, most of the circumstances that have made a permanent difference in spreading the Gospel and deepening the church’s understanding of the Gospel have taken place in ordinary church settings rather than revivals.” —Mark Noll, historian
“Love for people doesn’t merely say, ‘Here’s the seed, take it or leave it.’ Love pleads, love persuades, and love prays. Love prays until its dying breath for that wonderful, ordinary work of the Spirit to save one here and one there, month after faithful month. And love prays for that extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit that we call revival. … Let us pray without ceasing and labor without sparing for the greatest blessing on this day’s sowing, that it would be blessed with reaping, and that it would be a part of God’s plan to bring extraordinary seasons of harvest and holiness to the church and to the nations.” —John Piper
“You often find people in the world are more desirable, easier to get on with, than people in the Kingdom. There is frequently a stubbornness, a self-opinionativeness, in Christians not exhibited by people in the world. If there is to be another Revival it will be through the readjustment of those of us on the inside who call ourselves Christians.” —Oswald Chambers
What do you think?
Eternal power, Whose high abode
Craig T. Owens 