First Baptist Church of Diana, Texas

Evan Roberts had a three-fold formula for revival. Pray for the Spirit. Pray for the Spirit to come powerfully. Pray for the Spirit to come powerfully now. Much of His time was spent seeking God in prayer. He prayed diligently for years prior to the coming of the Spirit in power and the great Welch revival in which God used him to preach.

There seems to be common themes in Scripture that precede the coming of the Spirit in power. One is a time of waiting. Isaiah proclaimed in the 40th chapter and the 31st verse, “wait upon the Lord.” The waiting in this passage is the key to gaining strength in the Lord. In Acts 1 verses 4-8 the disciples were to wait upon empowerment from the Spirit before beginning their ministry. I believe there are several key points to this waiting.

First, the timing must be God’s timing rather than man’s timing. Revival does not come in our time nor can we manufacture revival.

Second, we are to wait expecting the power of the Holy Spirit to come. It is at this point where I am challenged in my thinking and my practice. I believe we are to be busy with the Gospel. The Bible teaches a labor until the Master comes. But it also teaches a waiting. Key in on the expectation and answer this question, “Do you really expect an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in your lifetime that will bring revival to your city or region?” Some may answer that revivalism is dead and a thing of the past and I can guarantee if that is our thinking, revival is dead and it is a thing of the past. God comes to those who are waiting expectantly for the coming of the Spirit. If we really don’t expect the Spirit to come in power then why do we ask God for anything? After all, it is the Bible that says we are to pray without doubting. Every time He divinely intervenes in the affairs of this world it is a move in power.

I commit myself to pray with an attitude of waiting expectantly for the power of the Spirit to come in revival.

Thinking back to the times when God has been most active in the churches He has allowed me to be a part of, brings two great memories to mind. Both were centered around scheduled revival meetings.  Both can be spoken of as something only God can do.  Neither of these great memories came out of the regular program of a church.

The first occurred in my early adulthood in the town of Mobeetie, Texas.  I personally came under great Holy Spirit conviction that I needed to publicly profess the Lord Jesus Christ through baptism.  I had been saved through a personal experience with Christ some years earlier but had never been baptized.  On the second night of a scheduled meeting I obediently followed the leading of the Spirit and testified during the invitation  of the conviction. As the meetings continued throughout  the week, God did an amazing work in bringing teenagers to salvation.  The Lord reminds me, it wasn’t the program, it was the spirit of the Lord.

The second occurred in the year 2001.  I was serving in the 3^rd year of my second pastorate. The community was Diana, Texas, and the church, First Baptist, where I continue to serve. I remember feeling frustrated with the church due to our relaxed attitude toward personal witnessing and reaching our community for Christ. One morning while praying, I sensed the Lord saying that we would baptize over 50 people in our congregation in the next year.  I was astounded.

We had scheduled a series of meetings we were calling a crusade for later in October. On September 11, 2001, our nation experienced terrorism on our own soil, and America was stunned. In the coming days, our churches were fuller than they had ever been at regular services. In October, our meetings with brother Jim Everedge began. In the very first service, over fifteen people were saved. In the coming week over 35 people gave their lives to Christ. In the year that followed, we baptized 73 converts in our congregation alone. Others were baptized in surrounding churches.

These events helped me to believe the accounts of great revivals in history and also left me longing for a powerful move of God.  The Hebridean revival of 1949-1952 is one such revival.  God swept across the Hebrides Islands over the course of 3 years and saved hundreds of thousands of souls. My favorite story about those meetings was the result in the coal mines. It has been stated on numerous occasions that the language of the coal miners changed so much that the mules working the mines would not obey the commands of the miners. Their language was without cursing.  It is also said that you could hear echoes through the mines as the miners sang songs of praise to the Lord.

Let us pray that God will send a revival. Let us pray this is the time, He will raise up a preacher, and this will be the place.