DAY OF HIS POWER 2

Hab. 3:3-4 God came from Teman,The Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of His praise. His brightness was like the light; He had rays flashing from His hand, and there His power was hidden.

Real revival is quite unpredictable. Until you taste it for yourself, its really hard to know what it is like. Many of us in the church world had preconceived ideas of what it would look like. As a matter of fact, it is often a demonstration of the unprecedented. Just because something has never happened before doesn’t rule it out. Revival could be defined as unprecedented acts of God. In 1994 I thought I had church pretty much “figured”. I was a self proclaimed “expert” on church growth which I considered synonymous with revival. I couldn’t have been more wrong. That very year The Lord Himself visited our church and challenged our thinking. When He comes down all of our ideas pretty much become obsolete. I was expecting an orderly, predictable revival with maybe a few tears thrown in for good measure. Was I ever surprised when unspeakable joy interrupted our services. Here is something Arthur Wallis said about revival.

“True revivals have ever been marked by powerful and often widespread outpourings of the Spirit. Many, many times the preaching had to cease because the hearers were prostrate or because the voice of the preacher was drowned by cries for mercy. Who will deny that these were outpourings of the Spirit? Who could find a more appropriate description of such scenes than the words of Luke: “The Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word” (Acts 10:44)? David Brainerd recorded the beginning of the wonderful movement among the American Indians in 1745 thus:

The power of God seemed to descend upon the assembly “like a mighty rushing wind,” and with an astonishing energy bore down all before it. I stood amazed at the influence, which seized the audience almost universally; and could compare it to nothing more aptly, than the irresistible force of a mighty torrent. . . . Almost all persons of all ages were bowed down with concern together, and scarcely one was able to withstand the shock of this surprising operation.”

One of the amazing things about Brainerd’s service was this, these Native Americans didn’t speak English. God came down in such an amazing way that words didn’t seem to matter. Just as it was on the day of Pentecost as Peter was preaching the Holy Spirit began to fall in quite an unprecedented and astounding way. They had never seen anything like this. Even Jesus’ services were not quite like this. All of the people present on the day of Pentecost heard the disciples worshipping God in their own languages. This was brand new, this was an outpouring of the Spirit of God. So, do you really want revival? Some people are praying for things they not only don’t understand, they are praying for things that may be much bigger than they could ever know.