“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6)

Everyone has his own opinion on revival, what it means, how to recognize it when it arrives, how to coax it into being, and what to do then.

Here’s mine.

When I was 15 years old, Dad drove my little brother Charlie and me five miles around the highway to get to the back side of our property. Our large, mean, ugly, belligerent (get the idea?) bull had broken out of the pasture and a neighbor had penned him up. Without a truck to haul him in–we were not your typical idea of a prosperous farm family–Charlie and I were going to have to lead him across the fields and through the woods back home.

Dad tied a rope around the bull’s horns and handed me the end. “Charlie, you push. Joe, you lead.”

Oh yeah.

That bull did not want to go anywhere. Pulling on the rope to get him started was something like tugging on a Greyhound bus to start it rolling. To say Charlie was pushing is not exactly right. Getting anywhere close to that animal’s back legs was risking one’s life. But we did the best we could.

After a bit, the bull got the idea and began to trot. Since he was headed in the right direction, we were pleased and ran along beside him.

Then, he decided to leave us behind.

If you ever want a picture of grit and determination, think of me that day. I held onto that rope as that bull dragged me down off that hillside, through briars and bushes, across a little creek, up another hill, through plowed fields and across thick woods.

A cartoonist would have shown this scene with the bull charging ahead, the rope straight out behind him, and me hanging on for dear life, also laying straight out.

I was bruised, scratched, exhausted, and beaten up. But after two miles and perhaps 20 minutes, we arrived back at the house.

By now, Dad had returned and with the help of Mom and my sisters, they headed the bull toward the barn and shut him inside the fence.

That is my ideal picture of a revival.

A pastor is like I was on that rope, trying to get the bull (the congregation) to go somewhere, to do something. He pushes, pulls, berates, beats, urges, and begs. He promotes and preaches, prays and entices. Sometimes the bull moves forward a little, but usually only because it was his choice. The tactics of its leader has little to do with it.

Then, when revival comes, the bull–the congregation–gets up a head of steam. He’s moving ahead, and it’s all the preacher can do just to hang on.

I’ve seen churches get into the spirit of “real revival” and the congregation start acting on their own without a single word of encouragement (or rebuke or threats!) from the pastor. In one, the youth would come straight from the high school in the afternoon with their friends so the preacher could talk to them about salvation. I was in college, and drove over just to sit in the back of the room and observe. There were forty high-schoolers in that room. The next day these would be back with friends who also wanted to know how to know Jesus.

(To borrow a concept from the Lion’s Club, perhaps we should think of the pastor as the “tail-twister.”)

“Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6)

When I think of revival, I picture someone taking one of my grandma’s old “Ball Mason fruit jars” out of the cellar and opening it. It’s been there for several years, ever since she “put up” (meaning, she “canned”) whatever is inside, whether fruit or vegetables. Over the years, the family has regularly gone into the cellar and selected jars and eaten the contents, but invariably a few jars get overlooked and the lids rust.

A lot of us in the church resemble those jars. Whatever is inside was put there years back. The lid was sealed and nothing has been allowed in or out since.

Opening that lid takes an act of congress. It’s rusted and stuck.

When God’s Spirit manages to get the top off–when we finally humble ourselves and open our hearts to Him–good things begin to happen. The old and ugly gets out, there is a thorough cleansing, and God’s new fruit is put inside.

I’ve told you of Virgie Estes. When her husband died, Mrs. Estes asked Bill Hardy on our church staff to conduct the funeral. After the services, she invited Bill and Barbara to run by her house. “There’s something I want to give you.”

That day, Mrs. Estes went into her pantry and brought back a large brown paper bag. “It’s a gallon jar of pickles I put up,” she said. “I’d like you to have it.”

At home, Bill pulled the jar out of the sack and carried it directly outside to the garbage can. He could see that inside the jar, only a few inches of brine and vinegar remained. Whatever pickles had been inside had rotted. It was awful.

We teased Bill. “You are the world’s greatest diplomat. I know you thanked Mrs. Estes for those pickles.” “I did,” he said.

I said, “What I want to know is what you told her.”

He smiled. “I told her the truth. Pickles like that don’t last long around our house.”

The contents of that jar resemble the innards (a good country term) of some of our hearts. Thirty years ago we had an experience with God and nothing has happened since. We “put up” that experience and have been counting on it ever since to take us to heaven. In the meantime, it has “gone bad.”

Time to open up. Time to clean out. Time to get purified, and then to be filled with God’s new things.

Revival is God’s people experiencing Him anew, in exciting and unexpected ways. Revival is God taking over and the Holy Spirit driving events around the church.

Sometimes at the beginning of a revival meeting, I’ll announce to the congregation several goals for the messages I will be preaching and all that happens this week:

–I want to honor the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything dishonoring or displeasing Him is not of God and does no one any good.

–I want to strengthen the Lord’s church. Every time God leads someone new to join the church, it’s stronger. When He causes a bad influence in the church to repent or leave, the church is strengthened. When a church member grows by beginning to read his Bible or tithe or witness or get involved in ministry, the church is strengthened.

–I want to reach new people for Jesus. Almost every sermon I preach has an evangelistic element in it. There is no greater happening than for someone to hear the Word and get up out of their seat and step forward to open their hearts to the Lord Jesus and be born again.

–I want to encourage the ministers and other leaders. There is a great deal of discouragement among the leadership of churches today. I’ve sat in congregations where the visiting preacher made matters worse by berating them for what they’re not doing. Some may need that, but most need encouraging and motivating.

–I want to do nothing to embarrass my mama or daddy. Okay, that one may not be spelled out in the Scripture in so many words, but it’s still big in my mind.

Vance Havner used to say that revival is just the church of Jesus getting back to normal. The problem, he said, is that we’ve been subnormal so long, if we were to get back to normal, we’d think it was abnormal.

“Lord, will you not revive us again so that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6)

It may well be that from God’s standpoint revival is nothing in the world except this believe and that one deciding to repent and commit his/her life to Jesus. They get serious about reading the Word and praying, and about obeying Christ in every facet of their lives. No big show of emotion, no lightning strikes and thunder, no “signs and wonders.” Just God’s Spirit having His way in our hearts.

One by one. That may be how lasting revival will come.