Captured by a Vision for Spiritual Awakening
By Claude V. King
Last year I was traveling through Bartow County, Georgia, with a video crew interviewing pastors and leaders. We were capturing stories of the transformation God is working in individuals, families, churches, and in the larger community surrounding Cartersville.
I heard stories of deliverance from alcohol and drugs, reconciled marriages, churches restored to life and vitality, and powerful unity among pastors from many different Christian traditions. People spoke of more than ten percent of the student population coming to faith in Christ, with students aggressively sharing their faith with their peers. They told of more than 50 students responding to God’s call to missions.
In addition, the community leaders were calling on church leaders for solutions to their problems. These stories and others left us amazed at God’s activity.1
Overwhelmed by these encouraging stories, I remembered a message from years before when I heard David Bryant speak about “Prisoners of Hope.” His text was Zechariah 9:12: “Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you” (emphasis mine). A prisoner of hope is a person captivated by hope, filled with hope, and confident of a future happy reality.
Suddenly, I realized I am one of those guys, a prisoner of hope. I can’t help it. I’m full of hope for revival and awakening in our land!
The Church Does Not Always Reflect Hope
But I have to confess that much of what I observe in churches and among God’s people fights against that hope. A church I know of discovered that 75 percent of their men were addicted to pornography on the Internet. Church conflict and lack of unity and joy are more normal than exceptional. Biblical illiteracy is widespread and a biblical worldview is rare. Intentional discipleship is on the decline.
Pollsters tell us that church members are pretty much like the rest of the world in our beliefs and practices. Arrogance, judgmental spirits, impurity, iniquity, unforgiveness, bitterness, prayerlessness, apathy, conflict, divisions, selfishness, sexual immorality—these are far too common in our churches. If I keep my eyes focused on churches and members living like this, my hope will fade from memory.
Paul prayed that “the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13). God Himself is our source of hope. Our joy and peace and confidence come from trusting in Him because He is the One who can change our present reality. Our overflowing hope comes by the power of His Holy Spirit who lives in us. Christ in us is our hope of glory (see Col. 1:27). The writer of Hebrews instructs us this way:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Heb. 12:2-3).
Let’s not grow weary and lose heart and hope for revival in our land. Let’s keep our focus on the resurrected Christ who reigns in heaven as the King of kings. Let’s keep our focus on God’s activity and not on sinful humanity. Let’s not forget the promises of the One who is Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11).
So, could you use some hope? Hope with me that:
– Christians (we) can be set free from the power and dominion of sin
– we can be pure and holy
– we can walk in unity with those who are different
– peace and joy can replace conflict and discord
– vitality and service can replace apathy
– we will experience God’s manifest presence in our worship services
– prayerlessness will be replaced with powerful and fruitful intercession
– our children will no longer leave the church when they leave home
– the good news of the gospel will be appealing to those who are yet to believe
– spiritual darkness will turn to light
– God’s Kingdom rule will come on earth as it is in heaven.
If you could use some hope like that, listen to the God of hope—the Lord Almighty—who says, “Return to me . . . and I will return to you” (Zech. 1:3). God restores life, vitality, and His presence when He revives His people. He has promised revival when we return to Him and His standards for our living.
God’s Revealed Activity
When LifeWay revised Experiencing God in 2007, we took a video crew to interview Lonnie Riley of Meridzo Center Ministries in Lynch, Kentucky.2 He and his wife Belinda had moved back to her home town to minister to the mountain people in this poor Appalachian community. We sat in Rotary Park where Lonnie described a community prayer meeting that took place in 1999.
About 250 people gathered to pray for forgiveness for relying on the government, U.S. Steel, and International Harvester instead of depending on God. They asked God to improve the quality of their lives in such a way that they would honor God. Lonnie described the scene in his recent book Miracle in the Mountains:
The people began to pray with a fervency that we have rarely ever experienced. They literally fell to the ground, weeping and pleading with God to restore their land. I can only describe their cries to God as “wailing” as they cried out, “God, could You return to us?”3
As God’s people returned to Him, He did return to them and began to restore vitality to their community. Coal mines reopened and new employers came to town. God began providing (sometimes in miraculous ways) people and resources to minister to needs for food, clothing, school supplies, jobs, and housing.
Through God’s provision the closed 95-room hospital was transformed into missions housing for volunteers coming to town.
As God revealed Himself to the people of Harlan County, many began coming to faith in Christ, and six new churches started. Even a closed Christian college campus was donated and is now being renovated for ministry.
Lonnie was summoned to Washington, D.C., to report to the Appalachian Regional Commission. They wanted to know how an Appalachian economy was being transformed in Harlan County, and the answer was God is doing it! Based on the population of the region, the number of people who have come to faith in Christ, and the transformation in the community, God’s activity in Harlan County might be described as a miniature spiritual awakening.
Doug Small, prayer leader with the Church of God Cleveland, invited me to join him with a group of about 70 pastors and coal executives in West Virginia to pray for their region. On my drive to West Virginia, I listened again to Lonnie’s testimony. I drove through Manchester, KY, where the transformations described in Appalachian Dawn (see Prayer Connect, Vol. 1, No. 1 or go to prayerconnect.net) are taking place. I thought about God’s activity in Bartow County, GA (the southern tip of Appalachia). Then I began to think about revival stories I’ve heard recently in Harrogate and Cleveland, TN (also Appalachia).
Then it struck me: God is revealing (announcing) His activity in Appalachia. I’m learning to “watch to see where God is at work and join Him.” Would you join us in crying out for the widespread transformation of this region of the country?
The Future Is Pressing In
Another source of hope for us is to look to our future. Revelation 19:7-9 describes the wedding supper of the Lamb when Christ’s Kingdom reaches its fulfillment. We are told that the bride of Christ (the Church) will have made herself ready, and she will be dressed in fine linen representing the righteous acts of the saints. Revelation 7:9 describes a multi-ethnic multitude from every tribe, people, and language standing to worship before Christ’s throne.
Are you aware that our future is pressing in on us? Jesus said, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). Organizations around the globe are uniting to “finish the task.” Groups are adopting the last remaining unengaged and unreached people groups. The spread of the gospel is accelerating, people groups are hearing, and God is gathering the multi-ethnic multitude for that unimaginable worship service that will signal the wrap-up of time as we know it.
In July I was in Sierra Leone, West Africa. I heard stories and interviewed church planters who have seen more than 3,000 churches started in the past six years in a predominantly Muslim and animistic nation. They are carrying the gospel rapidly to other villages, people groups, and nations. I met one former sheik who came to Christ in 2007 and has now started 100 churches! We visited one of these churches. We were the first white people to ever come to their village. They were less than one year old and had already built and outgrown their building. They are targeting starting churches in five neighbor villages.
Training for church planters in sub-Saharan Africa over the past six years has now borne much fruit. Presently 33 church-planting movements have been identified among people groups that were formerly classified as unreached or unengaged. Fifty Muslim people groups in Africa that were unreached or unengaged now have multiple reproducing churches. And God is on the move like this all over the globe.
Join God and Finish the Task
Stories like that make me a prisoner of hope! I also want to be a messenger of hope. But oh, how I want to see spiritual awakening come to our nation once again. Revival and awakening are acts of sovereign grace.
However, God has given us a prerequisite. Repent of our sinful ways and return to Him. Then He has a people through whom He can work in power.
Let’s do our part to experience revival, join God in His work, and finish the task for His great glory!
1. To view video testimonies of the Bartow County Transformations go to: vimeo.com/album/1489794.
2. You can listen to 55 minutes of Lonnie’s story at vimeo.com/album/1624280.
3. Lonnie and Belinda Riley with Joyce Sweeney Martin, Miracle in the Mountains: Experiencing the Transforming Power of Faith in the Heart of Appalachia (Bloomington, IN: CrossBooks, 2010), 33.
CLAUDE V. KING is a discipleship specialist with LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, TN. He is coauthor of Experiencing God, Fresh Encounter, and more than 20 other books and resources. Consecrate the People is another tool he has written especially to help churches return to the Lord for revival. He posts a video blog at lifeway.com/GrowingDisciples.
A 24-Hour Prayer Watch that Lasted 100 Years!
The Moravian Revival of 1727
In The Key to the Missionary Problem, Andrew Murray described a moving revival under the leadership of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf resigned from all his governmental responsibilities to provide spiritual leadership for a group of about 300 people who had moved to his estate to escape religious persecution. Most were Moravians, a religious group related to the martyr John Hus. But the refugees also included Lutherans, followers of Calvin and Zwingli, Anabaptists, and others.
In the spring of 1727 internal conflict was about to destroy the religious community. Zinzendorf and three other elders drew up a covenant of brotherly union that described the way these Christians would live together. It recognized their differences but insisted on brotherly love and unity in the body of Christ.
On May 12, 1727, the entire community repented of their divisions, were reconciled with their brethren, and entered a covenant to live in harmony to honor their Lord. Murray quoted from their diary account of that day: “The Brethren all promised, one by one, that they would be the Saviour’s true followers. Self-will, self-love, disobedience—they bade these farewell. They would seek to be poor in spirit; no one was to seek his own profit before that of others; everyone would give himself to be taught by the Holy Spirit.”1
A Powerful Encounter
God began to bind this body of believers together in love and unity. On August 13, 1727, they had a significant encounter with their Savior at a Lord’s supper observance.
On Sunday, 10th, Pastor Rothe was leading the afternoon meeting at Herrnhut, when he was overpowered and fell on his face before God. The whole congregation bowed under the sense of God’s presence, and continued in prayer till midnight. He invited the congregation to the Holy Supper on the next Wednesday, the 13th.
As it was the first communion since the new fellowship, it was resolved to be specially strict with it, and to make use of it “to lead the souls deeper into the death of Christ, into which they had been baptized.” The leaders visited every member, seeking in great love to lead them to true heart-searching. In the evening of Tuesday, at the preparation service, several passed from death to life, and the whole community was deeply touched. 2
On Wednesday morning many were reconciled with one another on their way to church. During the service, they pledged their loyalty to Christ because He had loved them so sacrificially. They were deeply touched by this love of their wounded Savior.
A New Battle Cry
From the prophecy in Isaiah 53:10-12, they developed their battle cry for missions: “to win for the Lamb that was slain the reward of His suffering.” They determined that the best way they could express their love for Christ was to win for Him the souls for which He died.
Following that encounter with Christ, the Moravian Brethren were possessed by a zeal for missions. They began a 24-hour prayer watch for the causes of the Kingdom, which continued for more than 100 years.
During the following 25 years they sent out more than 100 missionaries.
Some of those missionaries met John Wesley on a boat bound for America in 1735. In them Wesley saw a personal faith in Christ, a love for Christ, and a calm assurance that were different from his own. When he returned to London, Wesley came to personal faith in Christ in a Moravian chapel at Aldersgate. He went from there a different man and led the Evangelical Revival (the First Great Awakening) in England. Even William Carey, known as the father of modern missions, was greatly influenced toward missions by the testimonies of these Moravian missionaries.
At the Lord’s table those Moravian Brethren had a moving encounter with the wounded Savior, and they and their world were never the same. The living Christ met 300 religious refugees at a Lord’s supper service and transformed them into world changers!
With our resources, technology, and travel capabilities, what could God do with churches today if we would come to love and follow Him like this?
1. Andrew Murray, The Key to the Missionary Problem (New York: American Tract Society, 1901), 47.
2. Ibid., 49–50.
Adapted from Come to the Lord’s Table, Claude V. King, Nashville: LifeWay Press, 2006, pp. 10-15. Reprinted and used by permission. Available from lifeway.com. For a video telling of this story go to vimeo.com/9361202.
-Claude King
