FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 9, number 8, February 25, 2010
Wilt Thou not Thyself revive us again. . . and grant us Thy salvation, Psalm 85:6-7.
What Is Biblical Revival?
There is much talk today of revival. Some see it as a series of evangelistic meetings at a church. Others see it portrayed in signs and wonders of the charismatic renewal and neo-Pentecostalism of our day. Others describe it as a renewal of the church through a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit. Some say revival is an intense time of conversion and evangelistic outreach within a church or community. I have referred to it as the normal Christian life on steroids.
Earlier I gave a historical example of revival, describing the marvelous work of God at the Kirk of Shotts in June, 1630 in Scotland through the preaching of John Livingston.[1] And more recently I described revival topically, referring to the ten marks of revival.[2] But now, from a directly Biblical perspective, how should we define revival? It appears that Psalm 85 was written after the exile, somewhere between 538 and 430 B.C., and this Psalm, along with the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, the Prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Isaiah, and Psalm 126 serve as the Old Testament backdrop for revival. God had long warned His covenant people that idolatry would bring His judgment. He sent numerous Prophets for many years, urging both the southern and northern kingdoms to repent, to return to the Lord, and He would have mercy on them and heal their land. They refused and He sent the Assyrians in 722 B.C. to judge the northern kingdom of Israel . The southern kingdom of Judah persisted in untold rebellion and Yahweh eventually brought Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian empire to judge them, finally taking them into exile in 586 B.C. Daniel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Habakkuk, while reading (Daniel 9:2) Jeremiah’s prophecy about the promised return in seventy years from exile (Jeremiah 25-11-12, 29:10)—weeps, confesses, prays, and repents (Daniel 9:4ff) on behalf of God’s covenant people. God graciously fulfills His promise of a return from exile by raising up Cyrus of the Medo-Persian Empire (Isaiah 45:1ff, 2 Chronicles 36:22-23, Ezra 1:1) who issues a proclamation, allowing the Jews to return to their land. They make the long trek back from what today is modern day Iraq and Iran to a place of utter devastation. The wall around the city and the Temple are both destroyed. They commence to rebuild the temple but through opposition quit (Ezra 3, 4). Finally in 520 B.C., some seventeen or eighteen years after their return from exile, at the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah, the people are energized and return to their great task and complete the rebuilding of the temple.
Fast forward now another ninety years or so to 430 B.C. and Ezra comes to Jerusalem to rebuild the covenant community. He and the leaders humble themselves before the Lord and rejoice at God’s goodness to them, how He protected them on their journey (Ezra 8:31ff). Ezra is then told that the Levites have not separated themselves from their pagan neighbors, that they are allowing their children to intermarry with pagans. Ezra is beside himself with grief and tears his garments, plucks out hair from his head and beard, and sits down astonished until the evening sacrifice (Ezra 9:1-4). He prays, thanking God that for a little while (since the return from exile in 538 B.C. until now, 430 B.C.) grace has been shown from the Lord to leave them a remnant, to give them a peg in His holy place, that God may enlighten their eyes and give them a measure of revival in the midst of their bondage (Ezra 9:8).
Nehemiah, a contemporary of Ezra, while living in Persia as a cupbearer to the King, hears of the wall around Jerusalem still in disrepair, after Israel has been back in the land for over one hundred years. He is grieved by this, weeps, and prays for many days, uttering an earnest prayer of repentance on behalf of God’s people (Nehemiah 1:5-11). God works in the heart of King Artaxerxes, prompting him to allow Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem so that he may rebuild the wall, which he does in fifty-two days (Nehemiah 6:15). Nehemiah urges the continued return of exiles to Jerusalem and ends his book by recounting his zealous deeds on behalf of God’s covenant people, telling us how he called them into account for abusing the Lord’s house, for breaking the Sabbath, and for marrying pagans (Nehemiah 13:4-30). In fact, at hearing of the intermarriage with pagans Nehemiah went a step further than Ezra. He pummeled the transgressors, pronounced curses on them, and pulled out hair from their beards and heads!
Stay with me now. I have a few more pertinent points and then I will wrap this up in a neat package. Isaiah 40-66 is a series of marvelous prophecies about the Suffering Servant, the Lord Jesus, and the glory of His coming. These are given within the context of judgment due to the idolatry of the northern and southern kingdoms. Psalm 126 is a song of praise as God’s covenant people rejoice at His goodness in restoring them from their captivity. They ask the Lord to restore their captivity as the streams of the Negev (Psalm 126:4). The Negev is the desert between Judah and Egypt that is filled with scores of drive river beds that flow with powerful rushing water when the rains come to the region—an illusion to the rivers of living water promised by Jesus (Ezekiel 47, John 7:37-39).
All that I have said thus far serves as an introduction to Psalm 85, written some time after the exile. I suggest this is the model of Old Testament revival which looks forward to a great revival. So, let’s take a brief look at Psalm 85 and see what it has to teach us about revival then, as well as today. The Psalm is divided into three parts. Part one, verses 1-3, proclaims the mighty work of God in mercifully restoring them to the land after their exile. The Psalmist rejoices that Yahweh has shown favor to the land, that He has restored the captivity of His people, Jacob, that He has forgiven them their iniquity, that He has covered all their sin, that He has withdrawn His fury, and turned aside His burning anger. These are words of redemption and reconciliation. This is the little revival to which Ezra has referred (Ezra 9:8).
Part two, verses 4-7, beseech God the Lord to revive them again. The Psalmist is asking God to do another great work of grace, another revival—to restore them, to cause His indignation toward them to cease. He asks if Yahweh will continue His anger toward them forever, if He plans on prolonging His anger to all generations. He asks God to revive His people again, that they may rejoice in Him as they had done so many countless times before (Psalm 103, 115, 126, 145-150). He concludes this section by equating revival with His loving-kindness and salvation. This is a key concept. Revival is synonymous with salvation. Revival is salvation.
And in part three, verses 8-13, the Psalmist reports the result of this coming great revival. He says that he waits to see what God the Lord will say. He believes that the Lord will speak peace—reconciling peace, as in regeneration, justification, and sanctification (Ezekiel 36:25-27, John 3:3-5, Romans 5:1-5, 6:1-7). He follows this wonderful hope with a strong adversative—but they are not again to return to folly. Proverbs is replete with references to the fool and his folly (Proverbs 9:6, 13:16, 14:16), to the fool who returns to his sin as a dog returns to his vomit (Proverbs 26:11), to one who refuses to heed the gracious admonitions of the Lord to walk according to the word of God (Psalm 1, Proverbs 1-6). This admonition is particularly poignant when we remember its context. God had long warned His people against idolatry and consequent judgment that would come from it. He brought judgment at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians. He then graciously returned them to their land. He enabled them to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem and to rebuild the Temple . They instituted the Passover and sacrificial system. Yet in their folly they returned to godlessness, giving their children to be married to pagans. The people of God are always to move forward, holding onto Yahweh the Lord through His covenant of grace, but our salvation history is filled with folly, returning again and again to false gods who lead us astray into unbelief and compromise.
But the Psalmist proceeds, telling us that this great revival will bring salvation near to all who fear Him, to all who desire more than anything God’s smile, and dread more than anything His frown. This salvation, this revival, is characterized by glory that dwells in the land. The Hebrew word for glory connotes heaviness, awe, reverence. And what does this glory look like? In Psalm 84:11 we are told that the Lord God is a sun and shield, that He gives grace and glory. Haggai 2:7 says, “I will shake all the nations, and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill my house with glory.” The prophet Zechariah says that the Lord will be a wall of fire around Zion , the people of God, that He will be the glory in their midst (Zechariah 2:7). And John tells us that the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The glory of the Lord is on the face of His people (Psalm 67:1, Numbers 6:24-26, 2 Corinthians 3:15-18). Their lives, no matter what the circumstances, reflect the glory of God in the face of Jesus. They are able to consider all things joy when they encounter trials (James 1:2-4). Though afflicted they are not crushed, though perplexed they are not despairing, though persecuted they are not forsaken, though struck down, they are not destroyed. They are always carrying in their bodies the dying of Jesus so that in them may be seen the living of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:7-10).
The Psalmist goes further. He says that the great revival will bring a remarkable reconciling grace to the covenant community. God’s loving-kindness, that is His love, mercy, and grace will meet His truth. John says that grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). The judgment our sin deserves, the very truth about all of us, is met in the grace of God through the coming Messiah. Righteousness (the demands of the Law which reveal the very character of God) and peace (right standing with God, our estrangement, having been removed) have kissed each other. David tells us to kiss the Son, to do homage to the Son, lest He become angry and we perish in the way. For His wrath waits to be kindled and without kissing Him we surely would perish eternally (Psalm 2:12). The Psalmist continues His evidences of the great future revival, telling us that truth will spring up from the earth. Isaiah prophesies a similar glory—telling us that the heavens will drip down from above, that the clouds will pour down righteousness, that the earth will open up and salvation will bear fruit, that righteousness will spring up with it (Isaiah 45:8). Surely this is language of great abundance! God is promising a better day, a day when the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). He concludes the Psalm by proclaiming a day of wonderful prosperity, telling us that Yahweh the Lord will give what is good (Psalm 145:14-21), that our land will yield its produce. This is revival language, pointing to a spiritual application in the salvation of the nations (Psalm 126:4-6, Zechariah 2:11, 6:12, 8:22, 9:16, 10:12, 12:10, 13:9, 14:9). He prophesies that the great revival will bring Messiah, His very righteousness and holiness going before Him, preparing the way of the Lord (Isaiah 40:1-5, Malachi 3:1-4).
One question remains—what is the great revival, and when does it occur? If we understand that revival and salvation are synonymous, that glory is to dwell in the land, if this is a long awaited prophecy, then surely we can discern that the great revival occurred on the day of Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit came, when Peter preached with such power and three thousand were saved in one day. All the marks of revival, seen in Psalm 85, within the context of Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Isaiah, Haggai, and Zechariah, are present at Pentecost, as reported in Acts 2, and in the succeeding chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. In other words, revival is salvation. Revival is glory dwelling in a land, in a church. Revival is what we see in the books of Acts, what we see prophesied in Psalm 85. It is what Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Zechariah all longed to see. They rejoiced in the little revival but they waited earnestly for the great revival. Revival is mighty praying, mighty preaching, mighty conversions, mighty assemblies, mighty gospel holiness, mighty grass roots evangelism, mighty societal impact, mighty leadership, and mighty combat. And here is this very, very encouraging thing—we can have revival. God wants to bring it! He wants the church to regain her glory found in the book of Acts. I am not speaking of three easy steps like what Charles Finney believed.[3] But neither am I speaking of what so many today teach, that we ought to seek God for revival, but we have no guarantee that He will ever bring it.[4] It is clear from Scripture that revival is the norm, that we do not have revival because we have returned to folly, because we have returned to trusting ourselves, because we embrace worldliness, because we fail to pray and repent, because we are in bed with spiritual harlotry. If we would draw near to God, then He promises to draw near to us (James 4:8). He will allow us to find Him if we seek Him with all our heart (Isaiah 65:1-2). The question is—are we willing to pay the price to regain the revival culture of Acts, of that which has been so much a part of our history? What will we do with what we now know?
[1] See my devotional entitled “The Folly of Leaving Your First Love,” dated February 11, 2010.
[2] See my devotional entitled “Normative Church Life,” dated February 18, 2010.
[3] See Finney’s Revivals of Religion, Lecture III, “How to Promote a Revival..”
[4] See Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his book Revival, page 185.
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut.
To add your, or someone else’s, name to the list to receive this weekly devotional (or be removed from it), please contact us at admin@christcpc.org. This and archived back-issues may also be found on our website, www.ChristCPC.org