How does God send Revival to a church that does not believe in it?

I am struggling with an issue, say if your church does not believe in revival.
The problem is what people define as revival. My church defines revival as the whole world being saved! or a Triumphant Victory of the Church.

Luke 18:8 KJV
I tell you that he will avenge them speedily . Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh , shall he find faith on the earth?

Luke 17
24 For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. 25 But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. 26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27 They did eat , they drank , they married wives , they were given in marriage , until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came , and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat , they drank , they bought , they sold , they planted , they builded ; 29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed . 31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away : and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back . 32 Remember Lot's wife. 33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. 34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken , and the other shall be left . 35 Two women shall be grinding together ; the one shall be taken , and the other left . 36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken , and the other left . 37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together .

So what they refer to is that because of these verses that there will be no end time revival because Jesus will find faith no faith on the earth, there will be only a small people!

The thing is I have never really have defined revival as a worldwide revival and Jesus coming back to a triumphant church. I have always refereed to revival as simply God reviving the church to what it once was.

The Thing is the implications of this Theology are is that we wait round for Jesus to return and do not pray for sinners to be saved from Hell! Because the world is un savable and we cannot reach them! Only a small remanant will come in. Crying or Travailing for Sinners is not a concept in there mind!

I evangelise alot, if I did not believe that God will save people through my evangelism! There is no point in going out there! Why speak on the street and cry on the street for a lost world. What is the point of evangelising.

Then if someone does get saved? Are they a real Christian?
I believe God is the only one that can save People.
I love reading the stories of Duncan Cambell where sinners were awakened by God himself and listening to J edwin Orr and stories of William Booth or John Wesley.

My problem is that most people denounce these stories as we are in a postmodern age and are God is less powerful now! So he does not save sinners like that any more!

Hebrews 13:8 KJV
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

I believe my God is so powerful, that he can make people believe in a work of grace where he does the saving work rather than Man!

My struggle is how to change there definition of revival to a belief where they do not class it as a worldwide redemption or even national redemption to a truly biblical definition. Is when the church starts to love him!

The hardest thing is that I find is that it is almost looking at the world this way is unbelief not believing that are God is great!

I pain over this generation such as my Brothers and Sisters and any person including me who has not seen a revival and wants so much to see one, in a world which is dark. I mean if they do not see the presence of God how can they know to renounce the false things in this world such as the music coming out of Hillsong. I mean if you do not what is true, how can you argue against something that is false. If all you have seen is something false.
Most of the younger generation and older generation have not seen a revival! So Worldly Church is all they know.

Only God can get people out of a worldly church aswell, we need a revival just for this issue!

All people tend to hear from us is what is wrong with the church! Noone has any solution. I mean telling someone that say the Emergent Church is say wrong! But actually praying for that person or dealing with there concerns or actual needs, making a step to evangelize the church that is into Heresy or dealing with them in love so they know better!
I believe in the power of prayer can change someone who is into those beliefs!

It breaks my heart because we need a revival, we need Jesus,
I know Jesus is returning and we have hope that he will set the World to rights when he returns.
Yet we cannot wait for the world to get worse and worse and not believe there is light even in the dark days!

I am praying for a revival in my church where God will convict sinners in the Church and in the world! Even if my Church does not believe in it!

Do any of you go to a church where they do not understand the word revival or the history of revivals? Why revivals happen? Do you believe that God can cause a revival in a church that does not believe in it?
This issue I cry over daily!

deltadom:

Brother, I can identify with your heart. I remember my wife and I spending time every week in the building where our local body met praying over the people and praying for revival among the people. At times God would begin to move powerfully and people would leave saying, "My wasn't that a wonderful service." and one week later all was back to "normal" and last week's encounter was forgotten. What is interesting is that this time in my life and what has happened since has caused me to completely rethink my own concept of revival, and my conclusion will probably fly in the face of some of the common attitudes about revival that I hear today.

I understand that there are times and seasons when God desires to do a mighty work among a particular group of people. But I do not believe this to be revival at all. I am convinced that there are times when God has desired to move in a powerful way among a group of people and the people themselves have prevented it. It happened in Nazereth to Jesus. But I do not think that the people have at that moment somehow prevented revival.

On the day of pentecost the Holy Spirit of God that Jesus said was with us and would be in us was poured out. Jesus made no small issue of the fact that it is the Holy Spirit of God in us that would cause us to walk in the same level of power that Jesus walked in on this earth, and according to Jesus, an even greater level. He said the works that He did we would do as well, and GREATER works because He went to His Father, the implication being that His going would facilitate the coming of the same Spirit that indwelt Christ to fill us as well.

It is as we begin to walk in the Spirit that we will have all the revival we can handle and then some. Revival is, I believe, always a personal thing and never a corporate move. In fact, I am not sure that I even so much like the term "revival". It is not a Biblical term and carries with it the connotation that we are somehow dead and need to be revived by some special, sovereign act of God that we have not experienced yet. Biblically I don't see this at all. I see a group of people who were filled with the Holy Spirit, walked in the Spirit, and took "revival" with them wherever they went. They were sold out to Christ, full of the dunimas power of the Holy Spirit, and as a result, salvation, signs, and wonders accompanied them wherever they went.

I have always had a great hunger for God and to see the things reality in my own life that I see in the lives of the men and women of the early church in the book of Acts. I am not seeing it to that degree yet. I heard someone once say that he had not yet arrived, but praise God he had left. I feel the same way. God is rearranging my life in so many wonderful, albeit painful at times, ways. Always for His glory, always from glory to glory, and I am experiencing what I think many call "revival" simply because I am hungry for Him and am learning more and more what it is to walk in the Spirit, to have the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through me.

A couple of years ago God led us to leave the body we were with, the place I had grown up, and join ourselves to what seemed at the time to be a pretty rag-tag group of believers. They were just a small group of people hungry for God who had been meeting in their homes for several years. We are now about 120 people who are after God with all we have. We have an every growing group of young men and women in their teens and twenties whose lives now consist of seeking Him with their whole heart, and a group of older saints who are doing everything in their power to teach these young ones how to walk in the Spirit. We have seen many saved, healed, delivered, set free, and growing. Some might call this revival. I guess I don't. I call it normal Christianity. But on a personal level in each one of these people is something that I am sure they would probably identify as revival. Their lives are being transformed in a powerful way.

We are crying out to God for our city. Not for "revival", but that God would use us to impact our city for His glory. Almost to a person God has spoken individually to us about a coming move of His Holy Spirit in our town. We are doing everything we know to prepare to be used in a mighty way.

I am not trying to advise you about your fellowship as I don't know enough about it. But, I will tell you that breaking from the place we were at was not easy for us. I would say a quarter of the people in the place were my family and another quarter were people that might as well be since I had grown up around them. It was difficult, but we knew that what God had for us was not there. I still pray for them. It is not like they are apostate or don't live God. There are those in that body who are very hungry for God but are constrained by a religious system, or by fear of stepping out. It is all they have known. There are others who are lukewarm and like it that way. I still pray for God to break in to that place. The pressures that ministers face are unfathomable to many who have never been in that position. I know the pastor there is hungry for God and I know his heart breaks for those he shepherds. I would say though that if you are truly walking in a different direction than the body you are in, you might at least pray about whether you should join yourself to those going in the same direction. Above all else, follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and personally learn what it means to walk in the Spirit. Personal revival is waiting on us, not the other way around.

Blessings Brother

Travis

Hi Deltadom.
My belief is that God is bringing a personal revival to His children and not an enmass revival across the churches.

Many believe that we are in the Laodecian age - the end time Church.
This is the Church that believes it has it all, yet in God's eyes has nothing, it is self sufficient and rich, a Church ruled by the people for the people, and doesn't need God to be able to fill it.
Yet where is God?
His message to the Laodecian Church is 'behold I stand at the door and knock'! God is outside the door!
yet He continues 'if any man hear my voice let him open the door and I will come in and sup with him' here is the key - 'If any man' anyone within the Church who hears him knocking has to open up that door of his heart to Him -
'I will come in and sup with him' He is promising to enter a personal relationship, a personal communion with that person, notice God says 'him' not 'them' - it's personal!

I believe that the great falling away before the rapture is not so much people backsliding and losing faith - but the church sliding into apostasy, with many people being given over to a great delusion, we see this happening so much today - makes me think how close are we to that day!
But God is working on the individual - a personal revival -He is bringing His own together.

I see most strongly a separating within the Church, a division down the middle.
What really strikes me is when Jesus speaks of the end times it is a half and half divide - '5 wise and 5 foolish virgins' All ten virgins were waiting for the bridegroom but only 5 were prepared and went in, the other 5 were left behind - '2 in a bed', one taken, one left; '2 in a field', one taken, one left.
All these are preached as Gospel messages to the unsaved, but they are messages to the church!

Personally I don't believe in a coming flood of revival sweeping over the nations, as Jesus Himself said 'Will I find faith on the earth when I return?' but God is doing a personal revival in the hearts of His own, and is seperating His people unto Himself and also bringing them towards each other, as God does the work in us, so we will impact those we come in contact with, our light will shine to those around us.
I saw this so clearly as David Guzik spoke at Moriah about the ducks in their cages around the lake, as the waters rose they were lifted up and out of their cages and towards each other.
That picture has lived with me since that message, for God said to me in that moment 'you don't have to do anything, just rest on the water and allow yourself to be lifted up and out and you will be brought together with others to which you belong'. I then felt such peace and reassurance.

The thing to be prepared for though - as we've experienced in our lives already - when you make a stand for the truth and against wrong teaching the backlash and such hurt comes from the Church and those you thought were your brothers and sisters!