Revival: The Time Is Now!

Billy Graham has just concluded his "Heart of America Crusade" in Kansas City, Mo. The "Greater Los Angeles Billy Graham Crusade" is scheduled for Nov. 18-21; and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has announced plans for what is being called the "final" New York Crusade in June of 2005.

I remember well the New York Crusade in 1957 and watched it night after night on WBTV, a Charlotte, NC, television station. The crusade, initially planned for six weeks, was extended for 16 weeks. More than two million people attended the crusade held at Madison Square Garden, including a turn-away crowd of 120,000 at Yankee Stadium on one of the hottest days of the summer and more than 125,000 at the closing meeting in Times Square.

The New York crusade next year will be the evangelist's seventh campaign in the area, but the announcement of this being the "final" New York Crusade has a sobering, even unsettling, ring to it.

All of us have known that there would come a time when Billy Graham would have to bring his illustrious, heaven-blessed ministry to an end, but the thought of him passing off the scene brings to mind the end of an era.

In fact, we have had some great champions of the faith; some renowned evangelists/revivalists go on to their eternal reward in recent years. No longer do we have Stephen Olford, Jesse Hendley, Ron Dunn, Manly Beasley, Leonard Ravenhill, J. Edwin Orr, Charles Culpepper and Vance Havner. Although not a "preacher," Bertha Smith would have to be included in that list of stalwart saints whose work on earth is ended.

Yet, we have never been in greater need for revival than now. Any one of us could provide an endless list of moral and social ills that demand a spiritual awakening. We are being swallowed up in an immoral, hedonistic, hell-bent society and so many Christians are indolent and indifferent and so many churches are visionless and passionless.

I am so grateful that our Convention president has chosen as our Convention theme: "Revival: the Time is Now." There must be an urgency in our response to the call to revival. There must be an earnest and persistent seeking after God. There must be the elimination of self-righteousness and pride. There must be honest confession and contrition over our sins. There must be a willingness to make restitution for our sinful and unjust behavior.

We have a goal of baptizing 50,000 next year in the churches of the Georgia Baptist Convention. That is not likely to happen unless hundreds of churches across our state experience a heaven-sent, devil-defying, earth-shaking, rafter-rattling, Christ-exalting, sin-killing, heart-warming revival.

The salvation of souls will come about as a result of the relevance of an already-revived church. Many churches are guilty of false advertising. The things they promote they are not able to produce. Pastors talk about a God who works miracles, provides healing, restores families, conquers addictions and changes lives, but there is far too little evidence of that in our churches.

The lost and unchurched who are looking for answers cry out like the one who lamented, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" They do not see any evidence of the God we declare to be omnipotent. In fact, when they dare to come to some of our churches, all they see is discord and dissention.

We talk about revival and proclaim to long for revival, but more than that God longs to give us revival. And we desperately stand in need of the kind of spiritual awakening that will produce "revived" churches that will begin to righteously infuse the society in which they are located. The evidences of awakening usually include mass conversions and dramatic changes in a given geographical area's social structure.

Charles G. Finney said, "The Christian church was designed to make aggressive movements in every direction - to lift up her voice and put forth her energies against iniquity in high and low places, to reform individuals, communities, and governments, and never rest until the Kingdom and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the saints of the most high God - till every form of iniquity is driven from the earth."

That is what we need, but a whole generation of revivalists and evangelists are almost gone. Who will stand in the gap to pray for revival and not let go of the Lord until the blessings begin to flow?