Let a Revival Begin with Me — E.A. Johnston

Revival Must Begin with Personal Repentance

I reckon it was about 20 years ago when I received a telephone call from a pastor inquiring about a book of mine he had just read. He asked me to launch to discuss my book, Realities of Revival, and answer some questions he might have concerning revival.

Well, I seldom turn down a free launch, so I agreed to meet with him. We met at a local Chinese restaurant, and this pastor introduced himself and said he'd been a pastor for 55 years and he'd never seen a revival, and he was hoping I could help him understand what real revival was.

I looked him in the eye, and this is what I told him. I said, if you are serious about revival, and if you really want revival to come to your church, then you have to repent of your sins, because revival has to start with you.

He didn't say anything. He just stared back at me with a look that said, well, you young whippersnapper, and he grabbed the check and said he had to go. We said goodbye in the parking lot, and I thought I'd be the end of him.

I thought I'd never hear from him again, because I must have hurt his feelings. The next week, I received another phone call from him, and he was wanting to know if he could buy me lunch again, but this time he wanted to bring two of his pastor buddies with him.

Pastors United in Persistent Prayer

I thought, well, another free lunch, so I agreed to meet with these men. When I got there, they introduced themselves to me, and when the food arrived, they asked me the following question. They said, we were wondering if you wouldn't mind meeting with the three of us once a week to pray for revival.

We sure want to see God move in revival. Will you do it? Well, I said, sure, I'd be happy to meet with them and pray for revival, and we set up a time, and for the next three months, we met on a regular basis to pray for revival.

We fixed our chairs in a little circle so that we faced each other as we prayed, and these pastors were very consistent in prayer and praying for revival, and I'll never forget it. As we were praying one day, this elderly pastor who had first invited me to lunch, it was his turn to pray, and he shot up out of his chair like a bolt of lightning hit him, and he stood straight up rigid like a wooden board.

Confession as the Turning Point for Revival

Then he crumbled to the ground, and he began to sob, and as he was on his hands and knees crying, he turned up his head toward heaven and cried out, Oh, great God, forgive me for my dirty, rotten sins.

I want to see revival. Lord, let it begin with me. Well, that man was getting serious with God, and I tell you what, friends, when we get serious with God, then He gets serious with us. Now, I relate that story to you because our churches need revival today.

The Church's Spiritual Slumber and Need for Awakening

The church at our hour is mainly an impotent institution that's spiritually asleep on the pillows of conformity and compromise. We desperately need a Holy Ghost revival today, but many pastors refuse to do what is necessary to do what that man did and to repent and to pray.

We have a pattern for revival, but where is the man who take the book of God and believe God and humble himself before God and cry out to God and confess his sins and turn from his wicked ways? In 2 Chronicles 7, verses 13 and 14, we read, If I shut up heaven, that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Revival Requires Humility and Turning from Wicked Ways

Let me ask you, friend, does our land need healing? Do our marriages need healing? Do our doped up teenagers today need healing? Does this sin-sick society need healing? There's a promise to seekers here in this verse, the scripture, and it has hope for us, but we must be willing to conform to its conditions.

We can't just pray for revival without humbling ourselves and turning from our wicked ways. I got a call from Richard O. Roberts one day, and he said he was in my city at a local hotel, and he invited me over to see him to talk about revival.

All-Night Prayer for National Revival

And once I got there, I said to him, do you know what mystifies me? And he said, what? I said, what mystifies me are all the pastors out there who refuse to turn their sanctuaries into all-night prayer meetings where the saints of God cry out to God over the sins of the land.

And Richard O. Roberts agreed with me and said it startled him as well, that the very time when we need revival the most, there is the least interest in it, but we need a national revival, friends, if this nation is to have any hope at all, or hell will enlarge itself to accommodate this wicked nation of ours.

The Loss of Revival Witnesses

Oh, where, oh, where is the pastor who is hungry for revival? Where, oh, where is the one willing to repent and get right with God so God can use him in revival? I know but a few, we need more. Most of the revival men I know who've actually seen real revival or old, and they're dying off one by one.

Soon we'll be left with men who have never seen revival in their life and know very little about it. Heaven help us all.