Revival Cannot be Measured by Men's Standards

The church I pastor just completed a weekend Bible Meeting.  I’m always hesitant to announce a meeting as a revival service.  So many skewed ideas these days are connected with the term “revival”.  Many seem to think that bringing in a certain evangelist with little knowledge of the Scripture will spark revival as long as his delivery (i.e. robust personality) makes up for it.  Men stand in pulpits with Bible in hand but unopened.  Emotional stories lead people to make professions of faith when the clear Gospel of Jesus wasn’t even preached.  Such a notion of revival is a long way from Biblical.  There was a time that such evangelists would have been viewed as charlatans.  Today, they are heroes of the faith. 
 
We cannot produce revival.  There is no way to arrange the songs, invite the right folks, assign the right topics, and pray the right prayers and usher revival in through the door of the church.  The Psalmist certainly knew where revival came from when he wrote, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalms 85:6).  If we are to be revived, the Lord will have to do it.  We can do what we believe to be right.  But if all we gain is an emotional response to a staged act, we’ve only worked up the flesh.  It will be short-lived and there’ll be no repentance in the life of a child of God. 
 
Revival is a word that is used in a broad sense these days.  There is national revival…regional revival…church-wide revival…personal revival.  Fine enough.  I suppose those terms will work.  And, we should be praying for God to revive our country, our region, our local church and ourselves.  We need it – all of us.  But, sometimes we need it more than other times. 
 
I always enter a weekend Bible meeting looking for revival – mostly for our church and myself.  Though, I’m always happy when visitors attend and are touched.  This weekend during our three services, we had seven sermons.   Our visiting pastors had been assigned various parables of Jesus and I spoke Saturday on the Parable of the Sower.  Attendance was outstanding, really.  We had numerous visitors and our church members were present and ready to learn.  The singing was great, having a nice crowd.  The preaching was solid. 
 
By the end of the weekend, I had listened to two pastors whom I greatly respect work verse by verse through six passages.  I thank God for a church that enjoys such preaching.  There simply is not enough expository preaching these days.  Topical preaching is the norm in most pulpits.  Topical preaching is easy.  Topical preaching grabs a few verses that may support the point the speaker is trying to make (I say “may” because oftentimes these verses are grabbed quickly using a search engine without considering the context).  Expository preaching is not that way.  Expository preaching takes great time and effort – effort to learn the intended meaning, purpose and application.  Expository preaching takes pinpoint accuracy to deliver.  But, people need to hear the Word of God preached thoroughly and in context.  There is not a better way to do it. 
 
I was amazed througout the weekend as these men expounded God’s Word staying faithful to the text.  Day after day…sermon after sermon…passage after passage…God’s Word was powerfully delivered to the church here.  We were taught everything from the pure Gospel of Christ to how we are to forgive one another.  As I said before, I am greatly thankful to the Lord for a congregation that enjoys such deep, methodical preaching of God’s Word.  The church listened attentively and I know God effectually applied some of these marvelous messages to the hearts of those in attendance. 
 
I believe throughout this weekend there was revival.  No, the meeting didn’t extend another week and we didn’t have 75 “decisions” for Christ (hard for me to even type that out without cringing a little).  What we did have was the Word of God preached accurately according to the text.  No sermon was preached out of context.  The application was as plain as the nose on your face.  People were affected.  I was revived.  I feel challenged.  I feel excited for the things of God.  And, I believe the people here felt the same. 
 
My prayer is that whatever impact the preaching of the Word had on the people this weekend, it will not be soon forgotten.  I pray that the preaching of God’s Word changed all who attended.  I hope that as the days and weeks ahead forge on, life doesn’t take control and we find out that this “revival”, of sorts, was only short-lived.  I hope that we are energized permanently to go forth doing what God has called us to do. 
 
True revival isn’t measurable by men’s standards.  And honestly, true revival isn’t normally measured at the time it occurs.  The mark of true revival is a year from now…two years from now…five years from now…did this weekend truly change us? Can we then look back and say for sure that we experienced revival?  That is the prayer of this pastor – for me personally and for the church here.  But only time will tell.