This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Revival is When God Shows Up.
We pray about elections, but no president can bring revival. We pray for victory overseas, but no military victory can bring revival.
If you ask why we have no revival, people say, “Because of the disunity of God’s people. We have not been evangelistic enough. We’ve been living in worldliness and compromise. There is liberalism in the churches.” No. Those are not the reasons; those are the results.
Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! (Isaiah 64:1a).
Isaiah 64 was written to a discouraged people. Judah had been carried away into captivity. The people remembered the former glory days, so Isaiah prayed, “Oh God, please come down.”
Thank God that He is the God who comes down! He came down that first Christmas morning. Born of a virgin, He made Himself flesh, so that He might die for us. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit of God came down, and the Early Church was baptized with an outpouring of mighty power. And there will be a second coming down of our sovereign King, Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ when He will step out of Heaven and come down to this Earth.
If you study the history of the world, there are stories after stories of how God met with human beings and manifested His presence.
God does not send revival in a convoy. An entire church, city, or nation does not get right with God at once. Revival is a sovereign work of God—sometimes in the life of one person. If you want revival, get your heart right. Get your family right.
So, what is revival? It is the presence of God.
What happens when the glory of God comes down?
Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence—as fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence! When You did awesome things for which we did not look,
You came down, the mountains shook at Your presence (Isaiah 64:1-3).
What kind of mountains is Isaiah 64 talking about? Mountains of pride, selfishness, unbelief, indifference. They melt before God.
Do not insult God by saying we cannot have revival. There is no sin so firmly entrenched, and there is no power of Satan, that can stop Almighty God.
Sinners are terrified when they see the manifest presence of God in a Christian’s life. Let the glory of God show up, something that cannot be explained, and you will not have comedians on late-night television mocking holy things.
Are you not tired of this world walking on God’s Church? “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” (Matthew 5:13). Are you not tired of Christians living in disgrace, or just hanging on, praying, “Lord, come rescue us, your precious little children”?
When the God of revival comes, the unsaved will cry out for God’s mercy, and thousands, even millions, will be swept into the kingdom of God.
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways (Isaiah 64:4-5a).
God is going to do inexplicable things, “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.” (See Ephesians 3:20.) And when He does, the righteous rejoice.
You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—in these ways we continue; and we need to be saved. But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:5b-6).
God speaks of the people who do not think they need revival. If you are looking around and saying, “I hope some of those old sinners have revival,” you may be the one who needs God’s mercy more than any other, because of your self-righteousness. We strut around in the things that condemn us: our filthy rags.
People with superficial religion fade like a leaf. They may look beautiful, like autumn, but let the wind of adversity blow—they lose a child, their business goes upside down—something happens that they cannot understand, and they have no stability. They have been wrapping themselves in their self-righteous rags.
And there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities (Isaiah 64:7).
It is bad enough that we are corrupt in our sins, but we are complacent. The situation is desperate, but the saints are not. Do you really care? Are you desperate for God, or have you been chloroformed by the spirit of this age?
What is wrong in America? God has taken down the hedge. We should not be afraid of the terrorists or the liberals. We should be afraid that God may consume us because of our sin.
God is our only hope, and our biggest threat. We are ripe for the judgment of Almighty God.
What kind of prayer causes God to open up the heavens?
But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and all we are the work of Your hand (Isaiah 64:8).
God, You have everything in Your hand. Mold me and make me after your will. If you are not surrendered to God, do not expect revival. Prayer is when you say, “Lord, here I am. Whatever you want of me, I will do.”
Do not be furious, O LORD, nor remember iniquity forever; indeed, please look—we all are Your people! (Isaiah 64:9).
Oh God, do not give us what we deserve. Dear God, show mercy! God wants us to pray that. You do not have to persuade God to send revival. God wants to forgive our sins, but we must forsake them.
Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, is burned up with fire; and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Will You restrain Yourself because of these things, O LORD? Will You hold Your peace, and afflict us very severely? (Isaiah 64:10-12).
Oh God, bring back the glory that we used to know, when Shekinah glory filled the temple, when You were with Your people.
Why do we pray for revival? Not for our own sake. Not for our families’ sake. Not for our churches’ sake. Not for our nation’s sake. For the sake of God’s glory! When you seek the presence of God, turn from your sin, and desire more than anything else that God be glorified, that is revival.
Isaiah is saying, “Lord, it happened before. Do it again.” And God’s people said Amen.
Isaiah 64; Matthew 5:13; Ephesians 3:20
And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth” (Exodus 33:14-16).
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit (Psalm 51:10-12).
A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him (John 13:19-21).
