I recently wrote about "The Apathy in America," which presents a picture of how the majority of people are sitting on the periphery, very troubled, yet doing nothing to really affect change. Now I don't want to present myself as having too negative of an attitude toward the plight of America and concomitantly the church, so let me broach another subject, that of Revival. Someone has well said that what we all need is revival...a God-sent Revival.
In 1966, Dionne Warwick recorded a blockbuster song, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, that spread like wildfire across the globe. The title of that song is "What the World Needs Now is Love," and it goes on to say it "...is love sweet love, not just for some but for everyone." The premise of the song is that "love" is the answer to every problem that we encounter. I would agree, in part, with one caveat, that love generated by you or me is not enough to make any significant change.
About 2,000 years ago, the Bible says that God showed us His kind of love by sending His only Son, Jesus (who in fact is the second person of the God-head) to pay the penalty for our sin. Perfect God required a perfect sacrifice as the propitiation (the payment) for that sin and only He was qualified to make the sacrifice. So, let's see...if you and I are imperfect and we cannot approach perfect God, then, though I cannot comprehend this level of love, I accept the gift that God has given, by faith. This is the kind of love that "the world needs now...for everyone!"
Now back to the statement that what the world really needs is a "God-sent Revival." Since man has moved so far away from God by worshipping the idol of self and in most part he has no concept of God's kind of love, then Revival may not be what the world really needs. Before one can be revived to something he once had, he must have once had it. Re-read that statement. Actually, what the world needs is not revival, but rather a God-sent awakening!
An awakening can and will happen only after the church in America and around the world first has a God-sent revival. As history has revealed, this has happened time and time again when God's people become convicted enough with their own failure and of the movement of the world away from God. They then get on their knees and confess to God that failure to be what He wants them to be (His people doing His will for His glory). They then begin to plead for revival in their own lives and in the church locally, in America and around the world. God's promise is that "He will hear from heaven, He will forgive their sins...and then (only then) will He heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:13-14).
A God-Sent Revival in the church will then be followed by an awakening across the land. Isaiah the prophet cried out for God to split open the heavens and come down to reveal Himself again so that the world might see who He really is (Isaiah 64:1-2). God did this when Jesus became a man, died on a cruel cross, was buried in a grave, and then He conquered death by comng back to life. This He doesn't need to do again (once was enough for all-time) but what we do need now is for the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Triune Godhead, to bring change to our world. We need a God-sent Revival followed by a God-sent Awakening before the prophesied end of the world as we now know it when Jesus comes as conqueror and King.
This is a true statement that what the church needs is a God-sent Revival! What the world needs is a God-sent Awakening so that they can see what true love really is, love that is found in God's heart and that comes from God alone. Then, and only then, can I agree with Dionne Warwick that "What the World Needs Now is Love"...it's the true kind of selfless love that comes from God ..."not just for some but for everyone."
"For God loved the world so much that He gave us His only Son so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but that they might have eternal life" (John 3:16).
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