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Good Wednesday to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I wonder what you think about when you hear the word “REVIVAL”?
I have a friend who has been ‘revived’ at least three times in the past 18 months from near death. In fact the first time he had a heart attack while driving and they believe his heart was actually ‘dead’ for at least 7 minutes by the time the EMT’s arrived and were able to get him “revived”. I affectionately call him “Lazarus”.
Of course after that much time of no life, many things begin to decay in our bodies and thus the Medical folks thought my friend Charlie would be little more than a ‘vegetable’ even if they were able to save his life. In fact, God has miraculously restored him over these months to nearly 100% of who he was before the tragedy! All glory to God!
A few months later “Lazarus” had another event which resulted in a ‘brain bleed’ and we again nearly lost him, but once again God has brought him back to us! Finally now a third time… on NY Eve my wife and I went to the ICU section of the hospital at the family’s invitation. Charlie was on a ventilator, and his kidneys were none functional. His living will made it clear he did not want to be kept alive artificially. So we gathered around his bed, his family each told him how much they loved him and we prayed and they turned off the ventilator machine and removed the tube from his throat. . . and he kept breathing, on his own! Last week he came home from the hospital, revived again!
“Revival” is the miracle of something which once was alive and vibrant, but now is dead or dying, being restore to life by God Himself! Can you make the application to a person’s spiritual and emotional life? Have you ever been part of seeing a person who had given up on life. They were emotionally in despair, but they experienced the powerful reviving touch of God and is restored to a vibrant life again?
Have you ever been part of a Spiritual “Revival” where a church that is dying or a Christian who’s faith in God had waned and was nearly gone… and then the Spirit of God does what only God can do and this person or church is revived to new, vibrant life in Christ?
50 years ago this week, “revival” came to the campus of Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. I was a freshman in another College in Illinois that week and truthfully, I was not aware of what was happening at Asbury.
Since then, I have visited the Asbury campus. I have personally met the man who was the President of Asbury that week, Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, and I’ve had the enormous privilege of hearing him tell me, in his own words, what happened 50 years ago this week at Asbury, with those 1000+ College students when the Holy Spirit of God came among them during a normal chapel service on Tuesday, Feb. 3, and for the next nearly 175 hours, ‘revival’ changed that campus forever. I have sat in “Hughes Auditorium” and prayed, many years after this event.
I have met a woman who was student there that week, and heard her remarkable story of how several of them had been praying earnestly the week before, asking God to do something on their campus. Many in the student body were dabbling in so many different things that can so easily ruin the spiritual life of a Christian. And suddenly, the Holy Spirit of God came and began to convict sin, and repentance broke loose among sinful students and God brought dramatic change to that campus. Then it spread across America as students from Asbury called friends at other Colleges and went to visit and told them what God was doing, and ‘revival’ came there too.
I’ve include a video link at the end of today’s “Walking with Jesus” which is actually two reports. The first is a 5 minute synopsis by the late Dr Kinlaw, as he addressed the student body the next week after the “Revival”. It is immediately followed by a 37 minute much more detailed report containing actual film footage of the event. Over the years I’ve watched it many times, usually this week, and it always bring tears to my eyes and leads me to my knees as I consider the miracle of what happens when God comes among a repentant people and ‘revives’ what is dying!
Why, you might ask, have I taken so much time today to tell you that 50 year old story? Because as we continue spending time with Timothy in 64ad, who has received a letter from his friend and mentor the Apostle Paul, imprisoned in Rome, we have come to 2 Timothy 2:20. Let’s read with Timothy as Paul describes what happens when a person “…is an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
As we read verses 20-22 are we able to make the application from the various things in a house to the various things in our lives? What are those things in our lives which help us be the God honoring persons we really want to be, the person your family and friends need you to be, the person that you will want to look back and see when you are old, and you review your life. But then there are those things which have the potential to drag you and me into the darkness of lust, envy, bitterness, resentment, deceitfulness, selfishness. Can you see those things in your life my friends?
The big question is, can you and I do what Paul told Timothy to do… “Flee the evil desires… and pursue righteousness…”? That is what happens when God unleashes “revival” into someone or a group of people! We cannot expect ‘revival’ while at the same time we cherish or nurture those things in our lives which draw us away from God and into the darkness of evil.
Do you next see in verses 24-26, how Paul instructs Timothy to behave as a young leader, among a widely diverse group of people, some of whom want to honor God with their lives, while some are caught up in all kinds of thinking, arguing and behavior, that is disruptive to what God is trying to accomplish among His people? Paul writes: “And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will.” Wow!
So what does that look like my friends when the devil has taken captive of someone, especially a person who claims to be a Christian, and is leading that person as a puppet to do his disruptive work in opposition to what God is trying to do where you live?
You might remember we looked closely at this when Paul wrote about it in Ephesians 4:17-19 and verses 29-32. And also in Ephesians 5:3-12 or Galatians 5:16-25 where Paul contrasts the life of a person under the strong influence of the sinful nature and the person under the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. So my friends, let’s look around our extended families, our social groups, even our churches. Would God like to bring a spiritual revival and how might He want to use YOU and me as a key part of that?
Oh Lord Jesus, thank you for what you did at Asbury College 50 years ago today, and how, by the power of the Holy Spirit ‘revival’ came to so many campuses and churches across America, in February 1970. Oh God, we are in great need of another fresh move of God in our world. As you look into each of our hearts, do you see us ready to participate with you in what YOU want to do this week as you revive people, families, church, schools that are floundering? . . .
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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