In This Issue:
What Is Revival?
Do You Love Your Country Enough to Pray for It?
Revival The Moravian Revival
It Started by Prayer If
Successful “Method”
Volume: 1051 June 8, 2026
Theme: Revival
What Is Revival?
From an article by Charles Finney
Although many plead for revival today, their expectations of what one is come short of what a true revival is. It is not just more people coming to church, getting more out to one’s Sunday school class, or more people being interested in the things of God.
Charles Finney was a Presbyterian and Congregational minister of the Second Great Awakening. He lived from 1792 to 1875. Here are some excerpts of how Finney described what a true revival is:
- “The foundations of sin need to be broken up … In a true revival, Christians are always brought under conviction. They see their sins in such a light that often they find it impossible to maintain a hope of their acceptance with God.
- “Revival is a new beginning of obedience with God. The first step is a deep repentance: a breaking down of heart, a getting down into the dust before God, with humility and a forsaking of sin.
- “Backslidden Christians are brought to repentance … A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.
- “Christians will have their faith renewed. While they are in their backslidden state, they are blind to the state of sinners. Their hearts are as hard as marble. The truths of the Bible appear like a dream … But, when they enter into a revival, they no longer see ‘men as trees, walking,’ but they see things in that strong light which will renew the love of God in their hearts. This will lead them to labor zealously to bring others to Him. They will feel grieved that others do not love God when they love Him so much. And they will set themselves to persuade their neighbors to give Him their hearts. Their love for men will be renewed and they will be filled with a tender and burning love for souls. They will have a longing desire for the salvation of the others.…
- “A revival breaks the power of the world and sin over Christians … They have a new foretaste of Heaven, and new desires after union with God. The charm of the world is broken, and the power of sin overcome.
- “When the churches are thus awakened and reformed, the reformation and salvation of sinners will follow. Their hearts will be broken and changed. Very often, the most abandoned profligates are among the subjects. Harlots, drunkards, infidels, and all sorts of abandoned characters are awakened and converted to Christ. The worst of human beings are softened and reclaimed, and made to appear as lovely specimens of the beauty of holiness.
- “When can a revival be expected? A revival may be expected when Christians have a spirit of prayer for a revival. That is, when they pray as if their hearts were set upon it; when they go about groaning out their heart’s desire; when they have real travail of soul.”
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” II Chronicles 7:14
Do You Love Your Country Enough to Pray for It?
Bill Brinkworth
Most would admit that America of today is not the same America that flourished and was blessed by God in the past. There are those in government who are attempting frightening, unscriptural changes. Others are trying to “improve” it without seeking God’s guidance and help.
Government is not the solution that will change America the right way. Complaining amongst ourselves will not change anything either. What has in the past, and what can change it today, is God’s help!
If Americans will humble themselves, seek God’s intervention and control of their future, America can once again be a proud, strong, moral nation. In the past, when Americans joined each other in prayer, God has turned this nation around. If you love this country, consistently pray for our nation.
“Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.” James 4:2
“If you put-off sincerely seeking God’s will and way today when the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart, tomorrow your heart may be too hard to hear Him!”
Revival
Excerpts by C. H. Spurgeon from the 1866 Sword and Trowel
The word “revival” is as familiar in our mouths as a household word. We are constantly speaking about and praying for a “revival”. Would it not be as well to know what we mean by it? Of the Samaritans, our Lord said, “Ye worship ye know not what.” Let him not have to say to us, “Ye know not what ye ask.”
The word “revive” wears its meaning upon its forehead. It is from the Latin and may be interpreted as, “to live again, to receive again a life which has almost expired; to rekindle a flame which was nearly extinguished.”
When a person has been dragged out of a pond and is nearly drowned, the bystanders are afraid that he is dead, and are anxious to ascertain if life still lingers. The proper means are used to restore animation; the body is rubbed, stimulants are administered, and if by God’s providence life still tarries in the poor clay, the rescued man opens his eyes, sits up and speaks, and those around him rejoice that he has revived.
A young girl fainted, but after a while, she returns to consciousness, and we say, “She is revived.”
The flickering lamp of life in adying men suddenly flames up with unusual brightness at intervals, and those who are watching around the sick bed say of the patient, “He is reviving.”
We do not expect to see the revival of a person who is dead. There also will be no revival of a thing that never lived before. It is clear that the term “revival” can only be applied to a living soul, or to that which once lived.
To be revived is a blessing which can only be enjoyed by those who have some degree of life. Those who have no spiritual life are not, and cannot be, the subjects of a revival.
Many blessings may come to the unconverted from the consequence of a revival among Christians, but the revival itself has to do only with those who already possess spiritual life — those that are born again. There must be vitality to some degree before there can be a quickening of vitality, or, in other words, a revival.
The Moravian Revival
Bill Brinkworth
One of the greatest revivals of God’s people occurred at the Saxony estate of Count Zinzendorf. The young, Christian noblemen offered many Christians safety on his property. Many at the time were fleeing imprisonment, death, banishment, and torture for their beliefs. They fled to Zinzendorf’s and called their new home Herrnhut, ‘the Lord’s Watch’.
There, on August 13, 1727, a great revival began. According to Oswald Smith, “They discovered that the Church could not save them, that there was no salvation in its creeds, doctrines or dogmas, good works, moral living, commandment keeping, praying, Bible reading, culture, character, or conduct.
“They found that Christ alone could save, that He was willing and able to receive sinners at a moment’s notice, that justification, the forgiveness of sins, the new birth, etc. were instantaneous experiences received the very moment a sinner believed on Christ. It was believed that salvation was through grace and by faith, apart from the deeds of the law. When a man is saved, he has peace with God, and he receives the assurance of salvation by the witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart.”
When these truths prevailed in their hearts, things changed! The Moravian brethren had stopped judging each other and were convinced of their sinfulness in God’s eyes. Divisions and discord were halted. All were together in one accord. Prayer groups started and spread. Songs were written by the group and sung throughout the country. Hearts were broken, and lives were changed.
Prayer groups started and got power from God. A prayer chain that ensued from this revival lasted over 100 years!
People had burdens to reach others with the Good News. The burden was so powerful that many went themselves to reach the world for Christ. The West Indies, North America, Greenland, Africa, South America, and most countries in Europe and Asia were reached by those who were stirred. The world was changed by God’s people when they got revived!
“A native of India, in the past, described the great revival they were experiencing as, ‘We are having a great re-Bible here’. The church needs to be re-Bibled!” — C. E. World
It Started with Prayer
Gospel Herald
When Pastor Finney was conducting services in a certain place, a young woman came in from a neighboring town and asked him to go there and preach. “Her utterance was choked with deep feeling.” Mr. Finney told her he did not see how he could go, but he inquired of the place and found that it was a moral waste.
The young woman came the next Sunday, and “appeared greatly affected; too much so to converse, for she could not control her feeling.” The evangelist consented to go the next Sunday afternoon. After he arrived at her home, he heard her praying in a room above. He remained in that home overnight and heard her praying and weeping nearly all night. She pleaded with him to come again, and “at the third service the Spirit of God was poured out on the congregation.”
A spirit of prayer spread, and the revival that followed was so powerful that “nearly all the principal inhabitants of the town were gathered into the church, and the town was morally renovated.” That great spiritual movement began with that young woman’s prayers.
“Give me 100 men who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world.” — John Wesley
If all the sleeping folk will wake up,
And all the lukewarm folk will fire up,
And all the dishonest folk will confess up,
And all the disgruntled folk will sweeten up,
And all the discouraged folk will cheer up,
And all the depressed folk will look up,
And all the estranged folk will make up,
And all the gossipers will shut up,
And all the dry bones will shake up,
And all the true soldiers will stand up,
And all the church members will pray up,
Then you can have a revival.
“The monument I want after I am dead is a monument with two legs going around the world; a saved sinner telling about the salvation of Jesus Christ.” — D. L. Moody
Successful “Method”
C. A. Curry, “Western Recorder”
Following reports of successful revivals by Gypsy Smith, a certain preacher approached the noted evangelist to ascertain the secret of his success. He was asked to explain the best method to start a revival.
The answer was, “Brother, go back home, and lock yourself up in a private room. Take a piece of chalk and mark a circle on the floor; get down on your knees inside it; pray to God to start a revival in that circle. When that prayer is answered, a revival will begin.”
“All it takes for nothing to change, is for good men and women to do nothing!”