Firstline

by Terry Virgo

Once I used to travel the roads of Sussex, my home county, helping establish house churches, all within an hour’s drive.

Gathering the pastors three times a year to pray and fast, we probably started with 20 or 30 men. Now, as nearly 800 gather three times a year, I am staggered by the growth, especially when I remember that over 200 leaders recently gathered in South Africa as our churches there have embraced

a similar pattern.

Last year I travelled overseas in eleven of the twelve months, from Mexico to India, from Montana to Cape Town. This year I also plan to visit Newfrontiers churches in Russia and Australia. Certainly

I never anticipated such global developments.

What thrills me is the genuine sense of family that pervades in nation after nation, and the deep friendships that are maintained though we span so many thousands of miles.

Not only that, I also see a new generation of literally thousands of teenagers and 20s enthusing about God’s purpose for their lives, and anticipate them invading many more nations in future years. Young men and women with gifts far-exceeding anything I have experienced are emerging on every side, demonstrating radical commitment to Christ and a true passion for his kingdom.

Friends in tough situations such as Zimbabwe, China, Japan, Eastern Europe and the Middle East are pressing on against massive odds and learning secrets of drawing on God’s grace. Small groups of pioneers are planting churches in locations often hostile or indifferent. Others are embracing huge financial challenges as their churches grow and larger premises are required. Indeed, vast buildings are being bought.

On many sides there are thrilling and challenging developments where God’s faithfulness is being proved and demonstrated.

Disappointed?

Why then do I feel some disappointment? When I left secular work it was with real expectation that revival was coming imminently. I expected God to break out in power. We have been encouraged by remarkable waves of Holy Spirit breakthrough, but, so far, we’ve not experienced what could be described only as revival, when the Lord’s intense presence not only refreshes the saints but also overflows

from the church leading to multiple conversions, and to the extension of Christ’s rule and impact on the culture.

Sitting at the feet of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Arthur Wallis in my early years, I drank in their longing for authentic revival. Arthur’s In the Day of Thy Power was highly motivational and the Doctor’s insistence that only revival could restore the church to her true glory

and bring about evangelistic breakthrough of real proportion captivated me.

I believe God originally called me to leave secular work

in order to pray for and anticipate revival, and to be available when it came. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, freshly rediscovered and transforming many lives, was a demonstration that God was already on the move. I felt enough motivation to step out of the security of secular work and trust God to supply all my needs while I prayed and went from house to house evangelising.

It never entered my head that a movement would be started that would span all five continents and that we would start hundreds of churches and run conferences attended by tens of thousands. But I did expect revival. I must confess

that I still long for its coming and I am stirred whenever I hear of a fresh breakthrough of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Still persuaded

I remain persuaded that revival will come and that promises that stirred and stimulated earlier generations are still accessible to us. God has promised to pour out water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. We are encouraged to ask the Lord for rain in the time of the latter rain (Zech. 10:1).

The Puritans, according to Iain Murray in his classic book The Puritan Hope, believed ‘that the kingdom of Christ will spread and triumph through powerful operations of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the church in revivals. Such periods would come at the command of Christ, for new Pentecosts would show him still to be “both Lord and Christ”’ (page 51).

I love reading accounts of revivals, such as Jonathan Edwards’ when he records, ‘There was scarcely a person in the town, either old or young, that was left unconcerned about the great things of the eternal world…souls did, as it were, come by flocks to Jesus Christ…the town seemed to be full of the presence of God…there were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house.’

Praise God for all His faithfulness over these 40 years. But let me encourage you to soak yourselves in accounts of previous revivals and to be watchmen who take no rest and give him no rest until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (see Isa. 62:7).