Originally Posted in 2023

For the last week I have been extremely sick. Added to my ongoing health issues, it has been extremely difficult. Because of the effects of the sickness and treatment, each joint is in excruciating pain, even my skin hurts to touch. I have developed a high tolerance for pain over the years due to not being able to take pain medication. When asked on a scale of 1 to 10 what the pain level is, I must ask myself how the average person would answer. This week my answer has been 9 to 10.  I know there is nothing I can take or do to give relief. In desperation I asked if we had anything in the house that had lidocaine in it. I was reminded it does not work for you.

My response got my attention. I answered that even if it only gives me seconds of relief it is better than the excruciating burning pain I am in now. I thought to myself that even a few seconds of relief gives me hope that the pain will end at some point. At that moment, I had the most vivid understanding of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man lifted his eyes being in torment. He asked for one drop of water to be placed on his tongue. Even if he had received the drop, it would not have changed his condition. What it would have done was give him hope that someday the pain would stop.

I have a greater understanding of that now more than ever. It is all about the hope of someday the pain will be gone. The reality for me is that I have hope the pain will end. But for the rich man and others who died without Christ, there is no hope. The pain will not cease. This story of the rich man was told 2000 years ago. The reality is that the rich man is still there, with no drop of water, no hope.

While facing this reality of understanding this week I was listening and reading opinions on revival. Since revival is both personal and corporate, dissecting it makes it necessary for one to remove themselves from it to appear objective.  Once you remove yourself from it to see it you now need it. I am not here to dissect whether revival is taking place anywhere but within myself and to do so consider young college-aged students. 

At the top of every study, both secular and faith-based, one common item appears repeatedly in describing the Gen Z generation. This generation of young people are demanding someone tell them the truth. I believe that the outbreak on several campuses now is a result of this generation looking for Truth. There is a principle in Scripture that teaches that if we will believe and trust in the truth we know or the light we see, God will then give us more truth and light.

I have read articles this week of people criticizing these students for what they do not know or even for a wrong doctrine. I am glad God always takes us from where we are and not where someone thinks we should be. God works as He pleases to revive His people and to redeem the lost, often despite us.

Some use the passage of Scripture where Jacob returns to “Bethel,” the House of God, where Jacob saw the ascending and descending ladder, but the second time he renames the place “El Bethel,” The God of the House of God as a place of revival. We can be in the house of God all we want but until we get to know the God of the House of God it does us no good. This example does not seem as dramatic since it was a personal revival that affected not only a family, or a nation, but an entire salvation of mankind. 

We prefer to see spectacular revival and use stories like the entire nation of Nineveh coming to God after the message preached by Jonah. Nineveh’s story is not a picture of revival. It is a picture God caring for lost souls far more than His own people care for them.

I have seen in recent years people excited about weeks of ongoing “revival” and the testimony of countless numbers being saved. Some of the same critics of the “revival” taking place now were ardent supporters of those previous meetings.

Here is the difference between the two. The countless souls being saved then were simply due to God’s mercy and grace being poured out despite God’s people not because of them. Jonah was by no means in a revived state of loving God. He was angry at what God had done.  Notice in the story he expressed these thoughts with no one around only with God Himself. I watched these great meetings where souls were being saved and witnessed pastors and church members angry at God for not seeing any of those join their church. I saw pastors who barely spoke with other pastors in town, not speak to them at all now.  That is not a revival.

What we are seeing today on campuses today is a generation of young people begging for a touch of truth, a touch of God. Even if it is for a moment of relief from the dregs and pain of this world... It gives me HOPE we will have a full-fledged touch of God to turn our nation back to God. As we let time test this outpouring of spiritual awakening, do not dismiss the momentary relief, trust me it helps.