Why Revival Leaves

Late in the 1950s Leonard Ravenhill wrote a book that quickly became a classic on the subject of revival entitled Why Revival Tarries. It addressed the perplexing question: If God earnestly desires to pour His gracious Spirit onto all flesh, then what is preventing it? In other words, what is stopping us from experiencing this outpouring, and what would it take for us to experience real revival like we have read about? I think it is a question that does indeed challenge each of us as we long for more from God and desire to see true revival in our day. But perhaps the thought that should vex us even more than why revival tarries, is the question—why does revival leave? Why, when a people have experienced a genuine presence and outpouring of the living God, would they turn away from it and choose another way?

As I have studied revival and church history, the question that often troubles me when looking at a particular work of God is—what happened that made this group lose every trace of all that God had done through them? Why does the glory of God leave? The Lancaster revivals of the 1950s, the Wesleyan revivals of the 1700s and 1800s, the East African revivals of the 1940s, and even the famous Welch Revival of 1904 are all for the most part gone. Why?

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I Was in the Great Revival

Lessons from the 1905 Revival in India

That evening a friend called to see me; she had spent many years in India, she knew the life, she had learnt her lessons and gained her experience. “I was in the Great Revival”, she said to me.

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Tool? Or Toy?

I trust you would rebuke me.

I mean, if I let my son Daniel use that humongous chainsaw for a toy, you would rebuke me wouldn’t you?

660 Stihl chainsaws are a very efficient tool for milling logs like the one Daniel is standing on. In about six minutes, I could cut off a board 22 inches wide by eight feet long.

But you need not rebuke me: I never let Daniel play with that saw, other than to hold it up for the picture perhaps. Faster than you could say “Be careful with that saw, son!”, it could rip off a little boy’s leg. In fact, that saw was so powerful that I was almost afraid to run it myself!

I say all this to make a point: tools are tools, and toys are toys.

The Internet can be a useful tool. I myself have used it to find a manual for my wife’s sewing machine, got a good bargain for a vehicle on an online auction, located hard-to-find parts for small engines, and other practical uses.

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