Revival – In One Word

By Bill Elliff

    A radio host asked me how I would describe revival.  I answered with what I heard Richard Owen Roberts say once.  “I can answer that in one word:  God.”  The history of revival is one long story of God.  God’s mercy.  God’s gracious intervention and initiation.  It is God bringing His people to desperation.  It is God initiating unceasing prayer.  It is God letting us see the evil that comes when we don’t walk with Him as a church.  It is God, in great graciousness, opening the windows of heaven to wash and purify His church and set her back on mission.  And then God awakening lost sinners and ushering them into His kingdom.

    Richard Owen Roberts describes revival as “The extraordinary movement of the Spirit of God that produces extraordinary results.”  God is always moving, but in times of revival and awakening, the work of God is dramatically accelerated.  First, reviving the church, then exploding in spiritual awakening among the lost.