Why Revival Cannot Come

Why Revival cannot come today?

The church is in deep unbelief. And the church is in deep unbelief because individual believers who make up the church is in deep unbelief. In the first place, you have people in the church, and very often these are those with theological degrees and with years of experience in church leadership who think they know better than God who has revealed all about Himself through the Scriptures. And so these people who are in positions of power continue to propagate a system of belief mixed with much unbelief. This unbelief stems from knowledge which is not submitted to the knowledge of God as revealed in His Scriptures, and chiefly, through the revelation of His Son, Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Revival cannot come today because the church is chock-full with people who are NOT born of the Spirit. In John's gospel, chapter three, Jesus makes it absolutely clear to Nicodemus, a highly regarded Old Testament teacher, that it is not rabbis and their teaching that gets people into the kingdom of God. Jesus makes it clear that a person has to be be born-again, of the Spirit, from above, solely of God's initiative, which refers to God's grace toward undeserving sinners, to enter the kingdom of God. The realm of the kingdom is the King's rule over His subjects. Those who are called through the gospel message do not enter because of any inherent quality or ability, because human quality and ability is forever stained by Adam's rebellious nature. The gospel message brings a person face-to-face with the truth that the only thing they bring to the gospel invitation is their nothingness, consisting of their current sin and sinful nature, which is deserving of God's anger and rightful judgment on pride-ful humans.

Revivial cannot come because preachers do not point out that the 'heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked'. We dare not preach this message of total depravity which refers to man's inability to heed the truth of the good news that God has already provided for a righteousness for fallen Adam's children, through the righteousness of the second and last Adam, the God-man from Galilee, Jesus the Christ.

Revival cannot come because preachers, teachers of God's Word and leaders of churches do not teach the fullness of Christ's gift of salvation. The message of salvation currently boils down to 'Jesus died for your sin, so give Him your heart'. This is such a truncated gospel, not worthy of the label 'gospel'. The apostle Paul was oftentimes speechless and straining at the limits of language in trying to communicate the glories of the riches of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, and again, in his writings, and not just his, but in the entire NT corpus on the gift of salvation, much is made of the 'exceeding abundant above all' of the finished work of Christ's redemption for His fallen brethren.

Revival cannot come because vast segments of the church either abuse and mis-use the teachings of Scripture on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was referred to by Jesus Himself as the 'gift and promise of the Father' for all who would turn to Him in faith for the remission of their sins. This message comes through again and again in the book of Acts, which is the continuation of Jesus ministry reported in the gospel of Luke, and which Luke carries on Jesus' work in the book of Acts, through His Spirit working in and through Jesus' apostles and members of the early church. This gift and promise of the Father would then fill the believers with Himself, and bring them into union with Christ Himself. This amazing truth contained in the gospel is hardly understood and therefore, hardly taught in churches today.

Revival cannot come to our churches today because the church is awash in either moralistic and legalistic teaching, or, to the other extreme, a 'grace' teaching which almost totally down-plays keeping the commandments of Jesus, when Jesus Himself said that He had not come to destroy the commandments, but to fulfill them. He also said whoever taught the commandment keeping was unimportant, would be unimportant in the kingdom when He returns. In the upper room discouse, just before His betrayal and crufixion, Jesus said that the mark of one who loves Him would be keeping His commandments.

So how will revival come?

When preachers, teachers and leaders of God's people go back to the gospel themselves, and faithfully preach the fullness of Christ's salvific Person and works. Predestination, Election, Calling, Regeneration, Faith, Repentance, Conversion, Justification, Sanctification and Glorification, all preached by humble servants of God, who know that without the unction of the Holy Spirit, dead souls remain dead.