I remember I was involved in some meetings in Scotland and Wales. The first one in Scotland was a large outreach to the community over several nights, the second one was a revival meeting in Wales. A dear brother, one of my dearest friends, a pastor from Oklahoma was going with me. He got a call from one of the moderators telling him in no uncertain terms not to have anything to do with me and that if he did, things would not go well for him. The problem? Apparently I was a Pentecostal. This man caused all kinds of problems and in his self righteousness did great damage to the meetings in Wales. Many , many years before that he had been involved in a “revival,’ therefore he “qualified,” to be in the revival industry. And believe me brothers and sisters, so much of it is an industry with books and conferences and so on. Revival in and of itself was worshiped. Where was Jesus? Why was His name not high and lifted up? Rather than pursuing Jesus, so many were simply pursuing ghosts of a bygone age, seeking to replicate it and any deviation from what they understood about it caused major problems.

There is a lot of talk about revival right now. I’ll tell you why I do not like that word. It competes with Jesus. If a move of God supposedly happens there are two broad groups of people who immediately respond. Group 1 says “It is definitely a revival.” Group 2 says “It is definitely not a revival.” And in these two groups are all manner of bias and that bias comes immediately to the fore. Somewhere in the middle is a group of people who would love to see God move, yet, because of the horrendous history of so called revivals in the past or churches who claim to have a revival every Sunday, they wait. They wait hopefully. They do not attack anyone. They do not make assumptions. They do however long to see a mostly religious Christendom actually encounter the Living God in ways that mean they can never return to the world from which they came.

If all you are talking about is revival, then you are talking about the wrong thing. If you are running with the crowd then you are most likely running in the wrong direction. It is Jesus first and last. It is His Word and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that we rely upon. Without either, we can do nothing. If you are a cessationist then you have much greater problems than whether some meeting somewhere is of God or is not. This frenetic activity from the two broad groups of folk underlies a fundamental lack of Godly wisdom. In the days ahead, with the world coming to its end, and with gross darkness falling all around us, we will desperately need discernment and patience and wisdom from God above. Delusions, lying signs and wonders, angels of darkness appearing as angels of light, they are all going to increase with an alarming speed. Drawing close to God and His Word will be a vital aspect of our walk, and should always be, but all the more so as darkness descends. Draw close to Jesus brothers and sisters. Only by His name being lifted up will men and women be drawn to God. All other names, all other words, have no power.