What is the purpose of a REVIVAL?

[Pastor Joni Worthy]

One of "Websters" definitions states, an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings to reawaken religious faith. Do you think we have lost the meaning or maybe the church doesn't understand? I am noticing all types of revivals; including debt releasing revivals. In fact if we go by definition then we need to bring awareness, stir up the love of God, which in turn increases faith of the believers, and awake the non-believers to the salvation of the Lord. Do you think we have become to commercial?

Has the church lost it's purpose for a real revival?

[prophetess m. brignac]

I would have to conclude that quite a few of us have become separated from God's original plan, purpose, and profile for genuine kingdom revival, and in it's place we have accepted what is no more than the average "let's get happymeeting". We have been conditioned to seek and expect those sorts of "revival, where we rely on the manifestation of the "wonders" of men instead of expecting Christ's magnificent glory, and we anticipate being "preached under the pews",dance, dance, dance,dance, dancing all night", with no form of conviction, personal sin awareness or contrition. Powerfully effective revival is always "prayed" in and a yearning for a tangible visitation from the Lord, resulting in a harvest of souls being saved, the back-slidden being reconciled, and the weary believers being refreshed. In genuine revival there should be such a great depth of yearning and desire for the flesh of God's people to die, so that God can be multiplied, until the atmosphere crackles with the manifest presence and power of God. I know that it really disappoints and angers God when what we pass off as "revival" becomes a seasonl "fundraiser" where we book a high-priced "whooper" who will pack the house out and we can prosper off of the salvation and deliverance of the lost. We'll know when we are in thre pathway of a real "Jesus" revival when we are compelled to cry out as the Prophet Isaiah when he came to a place of beholding God, in all of His opulent glory, and his response was "woe is ME for I am undone, and I stand in the midst of a peoople of unclean lips" It was at this humble acknowledgement of his own fralities, and iniquities that his lips were touched with a burning coal (revival)! God's holiness revealed to him that he had no time to magnify the transgressions of anyone else, because, he, himself had a heaven to gain, and a hell to shun. True revival will compel you to run swiftly to the altar of sacriice and repentance, and declare that "It's Me oh Lord, standing in yhe neeed of prayer, or have you to prostrate yourself wherever you are. Revival used to be marked by what was known as the "mourner's bench", where the lost and unsaved would be seated each night to ponder their sin-sick lives, hear the ingrafted Word, pray, and receive prayer, and there they'd remain until the Spirit of he Lord moved them to receive salvation, and then the church rejoiced. It used to be harvest time and a platform to compel those who had no Saviour , and to reconcile the backslidden, to renew strength, ressurect hope, and restore souls. It's supposed to be a time of sobriety and self-examination and it's summed up in the lyrics of this hymnal "Pass me not O Gentlle savior, hear my humble cry, while on othersThou art caling, do not pass me by", but it's the next verse that really brings it home, "kneeling here in deep contrition........! We are about to experience that revival that reunites the hearts of men with the heart of God in these times of social unrest and economic uncertainty, one way or the other. It's alaways been that way!