If you asked most Christians, they would probably agree that our beloved country is in need a spiritual awakening or a revival. My favorite biographer, Iain Murray, defines revival as “when the Holy Spirit is poured out in a day of power.” He goes on to write that the results or the inevitable consequences of this outpouring is a sudden conviction of sin, an anxiety of having the Word of God, and a dependence upon those truths which glorify God in man’s salvation.
Revival is a change in direction. In my opinion, we are in need of that change. It was not too long ago that revival was something your church scheduled once or twice a year.
There would often be a guest preacher of some renown brought in and sometimes even guest musicians and singers. There would be a series of meetings and people were encouraged to invite their friends and neighbors in hopes that the lost would be saved. If you are familiar with this methodology, you know that there was excitement around that event.
But is this revival? We learn some things about revival from the sailors in the story of Jonah in the Old Testament. They did not get on that ship expecting to have their lives put in danger. They certainly were not expecting to have an encounter with the living God.
But both of those things happened. Why? Because in God’s sovereign plan, He had chosen those sailors for salvation and He would sovereignly and secretly use Jonah’s disobedience to glorify Himself. Jonah did not enter that ship a.
