Introduction

Where do I even start on such a monumental project? I guess I should go back to the beginning, about two weeks ago. When I awoke on May 11, 2010 the word “revival” dominated my thoughts. This is nothing new. For nearly fifteen years I have given a significant part of my life praying for revival, studying about revival, and even preaching several different revivals.

I have witnessed powerful moves of God both in my ministry and in places around the United States. On two different occasions I attended revival services in Pensacola, FL where people started lining up at 6:00 a.m. in the church parking lot to wait to get into the services. The doors did not open until 6:00 p.m. Those revival services lasted around three straight years. One hundred thousand were saved. I have never seen people wait twelve hours in the brutal sun just to go to church.

Twice I have been a part of much smaller outpourings. One Sunday night after the evening service at Burke Baptist Church in east Texas a group of people met with me at the back door. They had a strange request I had neither heard before nor since. They wanted to meet for church the following Sunday night. We ended up doing this for over two weeks. The Spirit was thick and the services lasted from two and a half to three hours nightly. God moved deep in our hearts during those days.

A few years later I was invited to preach a college revival on the campus on Angelina Junior College located in Lufkin, TX. The revival was scheduled for three nights. It ended up lasting three weeks! I have not been a part of anything like it since. On the first night after I preached and extended an altar call two significant things happened. God immediately convicted me to get out from in front of the people for He was pouring out His Spirit. I immediately fell prostrate on the floor and placed my head underneath a chair on the front row where I spent the rest of the evening in prayer. The other thing I clearly remember from that night is all the weeping around the room. God met with His people and called them to get right with Him. That first service lasted three hours and the majority of that time was the invitation with people repenting of sin and being restored to fellowship with God.

The second and third nights we experienced much of the same outpouring of God’s Spirit. We felt God wanted us to meet again on Thursday night as well as Friday night. God continued to move powerfully. We did not meet on Saturday night but I drove out to the Baptist Student Ministry building anyway. A thunderstorm pounded us that night but I stood on the front porch of that building crying out to God that I wanted more. I could not be satisfied. The decision was made to meet again on Monday night and the Lord continued to move. Several were saved and others were drawn closer to God. We repeatedly had two and a half to three hour services each night. We met again for a third straight week.

I will not soon forget when it ended. I showed up to preach and several students congregated outside. The first words spoken to me were about where we would go out and eat after the services. Each night we gathered at IHOP to eat. I did not eat before the services. We seldom left the campus until midnight or after. Before that night the focus had been on meeting with God and people coming to grips with holiness. When that young man asked that question our focus had shifted. As soon as the service began I could sense it was over. We took God’s mighty move for granted and the revival dried up. That was the last night we met. To this day I am convinced God had much more He wanted to do but we took His move for granted.

That was nearly a decade ago. When I say I awoke May 11, 2010 with revival on my mind, I want you to understand what I am talking about. I am not talking about just having an evangelistic series of meetings. I am referring to a sovereign move of God where His people come to repentance and are made alive again and restored to Him. Often this translates into spiritual awakening. Those were the concepts on my heart that morning over two weeks ago.

I went about my day as usual. A man dropped by to see me and before leaving he asked me to pray about having a ten-day revival. I told him the irony of his comments considering I had been thinking about revival earlier that morning. I started to make an excuse about evangelists when he looked at me and said, “I think you should preach it.” That unnerved me a bit and I assured the man I would pray on the matter.

I asked a few people to begin praying with me. On May 19^th I sensed the Lord speaking these words to me, “The enemy wants to take you out but I will overcome and have purposed to use you mightily as an instrument of revival. I do want you to preach a revival here at FBC Seminole. Schedule it for ten-days.”

The next day I doubted God had really spoken to me. As I prayed that morning I believe the Lord spoke to me again. “Do you really want revival? Revival is costly. You must be willing to pay the price. Read all you can on revival. Saturate your heart and mind with revival scriptures and books on revival. Do not neglect these preparation days. Initially I will revive the church and then bring spiritual awakening. Do not doubt that I am speaking to you.” That same day I discovered a scripture that touched my heart and seemed to confirm all I was hearing. The scripture is [Ps. 119:37-38] “Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity and revive me in Your ways. Establish Your word to Your servant, as that which produces reverence for you.”

Suddenly I recalled a prophesy made about First Baptist Church Seminole being used to lead a revival in the community. I emailed the leader of our Community Prayer Room to see if she knew of the prophesy. After doing some digging she sent me the following. “There will come a mighty River of God to Seminole and it will begin and come through First Baptist Church. The water will run deep in the aisles of the church. People will take dippers and dip them in the river and pass it out to other people.”

Since all of this, God has consumed me with thoughts and prayers toward this revival. The Lord spoke other things to me that at this point I do not feel at liberty to share. Part of His instructions for me included writing this devotion to be used by our church to prepare our hearts to meet with the Lord. Today is May 26, 2010. Forty days out from the start of the revival will bring us to June 23, 2010. That gives me about twenty-seven days to write the material, proofread it, duplicate it in house, bind it, and then distribute it. This is an impossible task without God’s intervention.

I am assured in my heart God birthed all of this and wants to move in significant fashion. I am moving forward in obedience and faith. I have devoted this summer to praying for and studying about revival. Once again the Lord has called me to step out of the boat. I cannot earn a revival. Only God can bring true repentance and healing to His church. Only the Lord can draw the lost masses to a saving relationship with Him. The Lord has reassured me that all of this is His choosing and not mine.

So with those words of introductions I am off and running. Preparations are being made. I have solicited prayer partners over the next ten weeks to pray specifically for me. I have begun my preparations and now am starting this massive project. I pray God uses it beyond Seminole. I pray the revival He will bring goes far beyond Seminole as well.

“Father, I am taking these steps in faith and obedience. I plead with you to move powerfully and show people that like Elijah, today you will let it be known that you are God in Seminole and that I am your servant. Let them know that I have done these things at Your word. Answer me, O God to turn hearts back to you in Seminole and Gaines County.” [I Kings 18:36-37]