It’s been almost a week now, and the revival that began in the Asbury College Chapel continues to burn on, or at least so it would seem. As usual there are those on social media including Christian organizations, and publications that are beginning to take note, with various prognostications of what it might mean.

Something prudent to point out may well be that this is not the first time this has happened at Asbury. There have been numerous times at Asbury College & Seminary in the past century where classes have been suspended for a period of time to accommodate what has been perceived to be a move of God on the campus. (list of dates and descriptions can be found here)

What remains to be seen is whether this current event will be like one of the previous ones, which lasts about a week or so, and then it’s back to business as usual…OR…if it may become something bigger, spilling over into churches and other campuses, perhaps becoming an event that transforms a significant portion of the national culture as the Great Awakening spearheaded by Jonathan Edwards did in the 1700’s. (find a list of some other American revivals here)

It has been my observation that America has for some time now been “ripe for revival”. The great revivals of past history have typically followed times of great spiritual darkness regardless of culture or geographic location. The history of Israel in the Old Testament is no different. The pattern is perhaps seen most clearly in the book of Judges, where the cycle was always the same. God would bless his people when they walked in obedience to His word. As they gained wealth and power due to His blessing, they would abandon the worship of God, and begin to worship the false gods of the nations around them. God would allow them to reap the just rewards of their disobedience, resulting in a loss of their wealth and power, ultimately ending in their subjugation and enslavement to a rising power in the region. In the misery of their enslavement, the people would remember and begin to cry out to God, who would heed their genuine remorse and repentance and raise up a deliverer in the form of a judge who would deliver them from their oppressors. As they regained their wealth and power under each judge they would again forget and abandon God and the cycle would begin all over again.

So the question one should perhaps be asking is “at what stage in the cycle are we now?” A few years ago, President Obama made the declaration that America is NOT a Christian nation. Some have argued that it never was, but I would submit to you that it is difficult to support the claim that American history has not been strongly influenced by a Christian world view. I would agree that the American church has lost much of its influence on the culture at this point, due mostly to an apathetic approach to influencing culture in the last couple decades. I see a few glimmers of hope beginning to appear, indicating that certain segments of the American church might be waking up to this reality, but despite the bleak appearance, I am reminded that nothing is impossible with God.

I would like nothing more than to see this little revival happening in Asbury this week become the spark that ignites the flame that burns across this land and crosses international borders to become a global great awakening leading to a world wide season of peace and prosperity. Whether that will happen or not is, however, out of my jurisdiction. What is within my jurisdiction (and your jurisdiction) is that we can pray. Pray that God would use this little revival in Asbury, Kentucky to bring about revival beginning in us, because revival doesn’t start with “them” – it starts with “me”.