If you know me, you know that I'm better at finding quotes than at being original, so I'd like to share a number of quotes from Flames of Freedom, by Edwin Lutzer, a book about the Canadian Revival in 1972.
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Revival is God purifying His church. Revival is God bringing His church back to the dynamism of the book of Acts. Revival is nothing more than having our experience catch up with our theology.
Revival only seems extraordinary because we have drifted so far from what God has intended for us.
Revival is God's finger pointed at me!
People everywhere in the Canadian revival were discovering that their commitment of God was shallow and in some cases meaningless. Before the revival came, believers did not know how worldly they actually were.
Those who had prayed for revival did not know what they had been praying for. No one expected God to deal so personally and thoroughly with them.
Christians are calling sin 'sin' in their lives.
What was the chief sin that surfaced most often in the Canadian revival? Pride. There was much repentance of pride, jealosy, and lack of love. They confessed that they loved themselves more than they loved God.
Scores of pastors confessed the sin of pride, self-effort and frustration in their ministries
Are you ever conscious of any of the following?
a secret spirit of pride in your success or position, your gifts and abilities
love of human praise, desire to be noticed, love of supremacy
stirrings of anger or impatience, a dislike of being contradicted
self-will; a stubborn, unteachable spirit; an arguing spirit; a disposition to criticize
carnal fear: a man-fearing spirit;
a jealous disposition, envy of the success of another
evading and covering of the truth
unbelief, discouragement, lack of faith and trust in God; disposition to worry and complain
The key to local church revival is the pastor. If he is cool, the church will adjust to his temperature.
If everyone in your church was in your spiritual condition, would you have a revived church?
Revival is a personal and also a corporate experience. It is "God at work, restoring His church to health." It is God visiting a segment of His people with cleansing from sin and the filling of the Spirit.
Like Elijah, we have seen a cloud the size of a man's hand. We ought to pray that the shower we have seen will become a downpour to give life to our parched religious soil.
If one believer can be restored to spiritual health, two can be; and if two, then five; and if five, then ten. In other words, any church can be revived if the believers meet the conditions individually.
We need not wait for the "fire to fall". What we need to do is ask Am I revived? Fire usually spreads.
We ought to pray for revival, work for revival, and be revived ourselves.
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