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f A FEW REVIVAL STORIES FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY Printed and Distributed by All Peoples Church & World Outreach, Bangalore, INDIA. First Edition Printed: December 2013 Revised Digital Edition: July 2021 Compiled by: Ashish Raichur Contact Information: All Peoples Church & World Outreach, # 319, 2nd Floor, 7th Main, HRBR Layout, 2nd Block, Kalyan Nagar, Bangalore 560 043 Karnataka, INDIA Phone: +91-80-25452617 Email: [email protected] Website: apcwo.org Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Used by permission. All rights reserved. Biblical definitions, Hebrew and Greek words and their meanings are drawn from the following resources: Thayer's Greek Definitions. Published in 1886, 1889; public domain. Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance by James Strong, S.T.D., L.L.D. Published in 1890; public domain. Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, © 1984, 1996, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN. FINANCIAL PARTNERSHIP Free distribution of this publication has been made possible through the financial support of members, partners, and friends of All Peoples Church. If you have been enriched through this free publication, we invite you to contribute financially to help with the printing and distribution of free publications from All Peoples Church. Please visit apcwo.org/give or see the page "Partner With All Peoples Church" at the back of this book, on how to make your contribution. Thank you! MAILING LIST To be notified when free books are released from All Peoples Church, you may subscribe to our mailing list at apcwo.org Revivals, Visitations, and Moves of God I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, telling the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done (Psalm 78:2-4). CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 1. OUR QUEST ......................................................................................................... 2 2. JOURNEY THROUGH THE BOOK OF ACTS .............................................................. 9 3. TIMELINE: REFORMATION, REVIVALS, RESTORATION, AND MISSIONS ................ 32 4. REFORMERS AND REFORMATION ...................................................................... 74 5. A FEW REVIVAL STORIES .................................................................................... 75 6. THE RESTORATION OF THE CHURCH ................................................................... 90 7. REVIVAL IN OUR DAY ......................................................................................... 96 8. THE PURSUIT OF REVIVAL—THE CRY FOR A VISITATION AND A MOVE OF GOD . 111 9. STEWARDING REVIVAL TO HOST HIS PRESENCE AND MANIFEST HIS GLORY...... 121 10. BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 129 Revival Visitations and Moves of God INTRODUCTION Revival is bringing something that is dead back to life. Much of today’s Church needs reviving. When God comes in an unusual way, releasing His presence and power over and above what a church normally experiences, we call it a visitation of God. Every visitation of God should become a habitation of God and become a move of God, going beyond that local church into the community, city, and nation. The move of God results in evangelization, missions, and the fulfilling of the Great Commission. Starting in the book of Acts and down through the centuries, there have been numerous visitations and moves of God. We look at Church history. Understanding history helps us correctly interpret the present and prepare for the future. We draw inspiration, insight, and lessons from what God has done in the past, by reviewing stories, and asking relevant questions: What can we learn from Church history about revivals, visitations, and moves of God? What does it take for a visitation of God to become a move of God? What are signs of a genuine visitation of God? How do we steward a revival, a visitation, and a move of God? The “latter rain” falls just before harvest. “Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:7-8). In biblical context, the early rains were showers that usually came during October-November and prepared the ground for the seed. The latter rain fell during March-April and was necessary for the ripening of the crops before harvest. If we believe God is preparing for a mighty end- time outpouring, a great visitation, and ingathering of harvest before His return, then we must get ourselves and our congregations ready for the latter rain of the Holy Spirit. Historical content for this book has been compiled from several reliable sources listed at the end. Biblical content and insights in this work are the result of personal study in God’s Word, learning through experiences in journeying with the Lord, as well as learning through the ministry of several other ministers of God. We trust that this compilation will serve in igniting a passion for God and lighting fires of revival in many places. Our desire is not only for revival to be ignited but to see local churches and believing communities become dwelling places of increasing measures of God’s presence, with greater manifestations of His glory, so that the world may encounter the true and living God. Blessings! Ashish Raichur 1 Revival Visitations and Moves of God 1. OUR QUEST When we talk about praying, pursuing, and pressing in for revival, a visitation, or a move of God, what are we after? Are we looking at just having a season of “Christian” excitement, a series of extended meetings, or looking for some spectacular manifestations and phenomena? What are we really seeking? Duncan Campbell, a man used by God in the revival in the Hebrides Islands of Scotland, in 1949-1952, captured the essence of revival with these words: “Revival is a community saturated with God.” In revival, our pursuit, our passion, our focus is (and literally should be) more of God, until we are filled, saturated, and overflowing with Him. “Revival is God’s arrival!”—Lou Engle Just More Of Him Our quest is simply for more of God, experienced and expressed through us personally and collectively as a body of believers. God is infinite and hence there is no limit to how much we can know and experience Him. He has made Himself available to us, as stated in His Word. For instance, He promised to be with us always. He is with us. He dwells and moves among His people. However, experientially, there is always more of Him that we can experience and there is always more of Him that we can reveal to others. Knowing, encountering, experiencing, and expressing (revealing) more of Him is our quest. Ours is not just a theological or intellectual pursuit. We want to know Him and experience Him so that through us, others can know and experience Him. And we desire for this in an ever-increasing measure. We are complete in Him. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Him. We have our rich spiritual inheritance in Him. Yet, in daily life and experience of our unlimited God and what He has done for us, we desperately need more. Christlikeness—The Personal And Collective Norm The earthly life and ministry of Jesus, as recorded for us in the Gospels, was a life embodying and manifesting the glory of God (Hebrews 1:3; John 1:14; John 2:11). The glory of God is an expression of the nature of God—who God is and what He does. The 2 Revival Visitations and Moves of God birth of the Church was simply a reproducing and multiplying of Christ’s life in each believer at a personal level, and through the Church at a collective level. We are to walk as He walked (1 John 2:6). Our life in this world is to be the same as His (1 John 4:17). Individually and collectively as a community of believers, we are to embody and display (manifest) the glory of God in life and ministry, in an ever-increasing measure. Revive Us Again Psalm 85:6 Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? Psalm 85 must have been written after the Babylonian captivity, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. Here we have a prayer, a cry for revival—a cry to see things back where they ought to be. Revival simply means to bring something back to life, to breathe life into something—to bring it to its original state. The plea for revival is so that people will come to a place of rejoicing in God Himself. The ultimate purpose of revival is to bring our focus and our delight back to where it should be, in God Himself. Ezra 9:8-9 8 And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. 9 For we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. Ezra’s cry and prayer acknowledges that the restoration they experienced in seeing the house of God and the walls of the city repaired, rebuilt, and raised up, was indeed God reviving His people.
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