Lord send a revival.
Colossians 1 : 8-12
8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.
The church was in decline, so the people started to pray...and the Spirit moved.
The Presbytery in Timor examined the impact of revival on their nation in the first year; between 1964 and 1965, they found that:
- 80,000 people were converted to Christ; 40,000 were previously Communists and the rest were heathen
- Some 15,000 had been permanently healed
- Church attendance grew phenomenally, some churches which only had 30 people attending their Sunday service experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and had congregational growth of up to 500
- A wave of repentance and sanctification swept through the former waning church.
- More the 100,000 idols had been brought out by repentant people and destroyed.
What a contrast to the previous year! In 1963 congregations complained when the Pastor/Minister preached for more than 2 hours. However during the revival, Christians did not allow some pastors to leave the pulpit until they preached for 7 or 8 hours in a stretch.
Christians in Revival lost all sense of time, hunger, and thirst, and the value of money. The first year of the revival saw the birth of 72 evangelism teams that a travelled throughout the area preaching the Gospel and equipping others in evangelism. Yet they received with little or no financial help. Class divisions faded. At the end of the third year of revival, those who were converted had risen to over 200,000.
Here's a wee story from the revival:
Another interesting conversion is that of a radical Muslim youth who participated in acts of terrorism. One day, he smashed the windows of a church as well as the windows of its minister’s house. When the minister did nothing to retaliate, the youth asked the minister why. The pastor answered, “God loves you and therefore we love you too. Christians don’t repay evil with evil!” 17 The youth was stunned by the response and, sometime afterwards, purchased a Bible. He wanted to be able to refute both the Bible and Christian faith. However, instead of refuting Christian faith, he converted to it. He changed his name to Timothy and began telling his friends about his new faith. He enrolled in the Bible College in East Java and, upon completion, left to do missionary work on the island of Sumatra.
God answered their prayers and brought a great victory in Jesus name.
'Lord God of heaven and earth, send such a revival to Ireland.'
