2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.”
Every revival in the Bible can be traced back to one person. One man or one woman who got desperate enough to seek God in earnest while everybody else stayed comfortable. Before God ever moved on a nation, He first moved on a heart.
Asa was the first king in Judah to tear down the high places. Hezekiah opened the doors of the temple in the first month of the first year of his reign. Josiah began to seek God at sixteen. Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord. Nehemiah wept and fasted for days when he heard about Jerusalem. John the Baptist came out of the wilderness preaching repentance. Peter stood up in the upper room and preached Pentecost. Paul reasoned daily in Ephesus until all Asia heard.
And every one of them was a picture of the ultimate Individual: our Lord Jesus Christ. The one perfect Servant who came alone, sought the Father alone, bore the cross alone, and rose again to send His Spirit to indwell us. Every revival is just the Spirit of Christ working through a yielded man what Christ already finished on the cross.
1. God Stirs One Person Before He Stirs a Nation
When God gets ready to do something big, He starts with one.
Genesis 6:8, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” The whole earth was corrupt and full of violence, and God found one man through whom to preserve the human race.
Exodus 3:10, “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” Two million slaves under the most powerful empire on earth, and God sent a single eighty-year-old shepherd.
John 1:6, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” One man came to prepare the way of the Lord. The whole nation had been silent for four hundred years and God broke the silence with a single voice in the wilderness.
When God wants to turn a nation around He starts by raising up one. The question is whether we are willing to be that one.
2. He Seeks God Personally Before He Calls Anyone Else
The individual God uses does not start by calling people to pray. He starts by praying himself.
Daniel set his face to seek God by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth (Daniel 9:3).
Nehemiah sat down and wept and mourned for days when he heard the wall was broken down (Nehemiah 1:4).
And our Lord Jesus Himself, before the multitudes and the miracles, “rose up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35).
3. He Humbles Himself First
Pride is the first thing God deals with in the man He is about to use. Anointing always comes after humbling.
James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”
Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Woe is me, for I am undone” (Isaiah 6:5).
Peter, the first time he truly understood who Jesus was, fell at His knees and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8).
Paul called himself the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) after walking with the Lord for decades.
The closer a man gets to Christ the smaller he gets in his own eyes.
4. He Owns His Own Sin Before He Names Anyone Else’s
The natural reaction to a wicked culture is to point at the wicked. But the Bible revivalist starts with the same confession.
When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem and found the people had married pagan wives, the first thing he did was tear his garment, pluck his hair, sit astonished, and pray.
Ezra 9:6, “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.”
Our iniquities and our trespass. Ezra had just arrived from Babylon. He had not married a pagan wife. But he owned the sin of his people as if it were his own and the result was a revival. The very next chapter records that the people gathered, wept, confessed, and put away the strange wives.
Hezekiah did the same thing when he opened the temple after the wicked reign of his father Ahaz.
2 Chronicles 29:6, “For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs.”
Hezekiah had just become king. He had not closed the temple. His father Ahaz had. But Hezekiah owned the sin and led the nation back. The result was the greatest Passover since the days of Solomon.
This is the dividing line between the prophet and the Pharisee. The prophet says, “We have sinned, including me.” The Pharisee says, “I thank thee that I am not as other men are” (Luke 18:11).
Revival never came through a Pharisee. It always came through a broken man who included himself in the confession.
5. The Greatest Individual of All
Every individual God has ever used was a shadow of the one perfect Individual. Christ is the only man who never had to confess His own sin because He had none. He humbled Himself when He had no pride to deal with. He prayed not from need of cleansing but from communion with the Father.
Philippians 2:7-8, “But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
He made Himself of no reputation, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. The pattern of every revival individual is the pattern of Christ. Lay down what you are owed and bow before the Father. Walk in obedience even if it costs you everything.
The Question for Us
Every reader of this blog is in one of two places.
Either you are waiting for someone else to start the revival, or you are willing to be the one God uses. There is no third option.
If you are lost, the first revival you need is the new birth. You need to come to Christ.
If you are saved, then you already have the same Holy Ghost that fell at Pentecost living on the inside of you. The fire is not the issue. It is the yielding we need.
