Featured Saved in the great Arminian way

Not at all. You can't just call a revival meeting. Revival, true revival, does not work that way. It's not something man dictates.

 

You make my point regarding pre-determination beliefs...

 

No, you just completely miss the point.

 

You make my point regarding pre-determination beliefs...thus, that it becomes a "Calvinist/Arminian issue...." with your statement. So no, it is clear that it is you that has missed the point.

 

How is whether or not God brings revival a Calvinist/Arminian issue?

 

Why ask/pray for and schedule a meeting with a goal of a revival it its all been pre-determined? What difference would it make? If you can't understand or even recognize the differences, I can't help you.

 

I believe the goal of EVERY service should be revival.

 

To me, it has nothing to do with what you call, "Calvinism", Benjamin.
It has everything to do with God's every word.

I've been studying it for a fair amount of time now, and I don't see any such animal as modern day "revival" anywhere in the epistles, and anywhere in the New Testament.
If you find references to what is contained in the above articles being performed in the churches, please list them.

Secondly, God's children don't need "revivals", they need correction from God's word and instruction in righteousness, as well as solid time in the words of their Saviour.
To me, "revivals" are strictly an invention of men, not God.
They utilize emotionally manipulative techniques in order to get the target audience to do something that the preacher wants them to do...
Usually, it's to "make a decision for Christ", or to "re-dedicate their lives to Christ" as I often experienced in "Traditionalist" circles.

In the case of the Baptist churches I grew up in, they always used "Finneyism" in order to get people to come to the front and make decisions...
They never simply preached the word of God and waited to see if what that did had any effect...
Instead, we always sang "Just As I Am" for several stanzas during the invitation, while the preacher made impassioned pleas for people to come forward for various reasons..

The Holy Spirit works differently than all that...
When He works, the person becomes sober, quiet, and listens intently.
There is no excitement, there is no hopping up and down and running around bumping into things and shouting...
The words of God hit square between the eyes, make the person sit up and glue themselves to them.

For example, when the Lord showed me the reality of my sin and what I was before Him, nothing like what I later experienced in the Baptist churches I was a member of, ever matched the stark clarity and sobriety that I experienced when I simply sat and listened intently to His words.
I can only conclude that, as the Bible describes, the person who "hears" those words knows without a doubt that they are indeed God's words, and they are directed at them ( John 8:47 ).

Have you ever had that happen to you, Benjamin?
Has God ever really gotten a hold of you through His word, and it wasn't all "warm and fuzzy", but it scared the stuffing out of you?
I have.

I call it " the spotlight of Scripture"...
and it's very bright.

It showed me who I am before a holy God...
A sinner in desperate need of a Saviour.

It also tells me what He did for me...
He sent His Son to die for me, that I might know Him.

I praise Him for bothering with a worthless idiot like me...
Because without Him having sat me down in front of a preacher of His word, I would have never sought Him out ( Romans 3:10-20 ).
I was having too much fun as a 12 year old kid in 1970's America.


May the Lord bless you in your life, and may He be pleased to show you many important truths in His precious word.

 

What do you mean when you say revival?

 

And why do you have the title of the thread the way you do?

 

Oh Jon!... first of all my wife is vegetarian so no bacon... And I don't know about yours but if my wife brings me breakfast in bed the donuts are gone... She ate them!... The rest of the breakfast will probably go on my head... But I must admit, for me it will be a great awakening... Brother Glen

 

It's right next to faith promise mission giving, national day of prayer, rally around the flag, and Patriotic Sundays.

See Jonah 3.

Glad to see you know the mind of God. Must have taken a lot of studying.

Personal anecdotes are not necessarily Biblical truth.

 

I'm sure we would all agree that revival is more than just something we put on the calendar.

 

Of course, but the question would be can you ask/pray for and schedule a meeting with a goal of a revival or is it merely a pre-determined event?

 

Wait, are you praying for God to violate someone's free will?

I wonder if there is a true difference between the present day and the days that brother rockytop hearkens back to. I think of a revival as a turning back to piety. For the first and second Great Awakenings, we have what presents itself as a Christian society, with a re-dedication to piety, sanctification, & etc.

Today's population is more starkly divided. There are a far greater number of unbelievers. I think we may need more emphasis on evangelizing than reviving, unlike the 70 years ago.

 

In response to Rob_ bw post#59.
I agree that revival will always bring believers to a deeper relationship with the Lord leading to a renewed consecration/holiness in thought, word, and deed. I also agree the demographics are vastly different in this time and those of the great awakenings.
However, it is just those differences that convince me of a need for revival. I have been criticized for my emphasis on the darkness infiltrating the Church. I have always "done the work of an evangelist" but my call has been primarily to believers.
I look at it like this. If there is a meeting or series of meetings and 10 souls are born again ( for the sake of argument there are genuine conversions) then I leave for the next series of meetings that is great. 10 souls saved and left to be discipled in the local church. BUT... If I go to a meeting and 10 believers are revived then they take the great commission seriously. Perhaps those 10 win 10. Now we have 100 born again disciples of Christ. They are then placed in a spiritually living environment and, as like begats like, they are faithful to spread the Gospel message themselves.
The spiritually sleeping don't evangelize. Those who are awakened do. Revival opens out eyes not only to our own need but to the desperate need of salvation for the lost.