True revival is the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, and He is only able to do this work when we fully open the door to Him, when we give up every last vestige of resistance. We cannot cling to our sins and at the same time accept the work of the Holy Spirit. There can be no true revival without repentance.
“A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work. There must be earnest effort to obtain the blessing of the Lord, not because God is not willing to bestow His blessing upon us, but because we are unprepared to receive it…. But it is our work, by confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer, to fulfill the conditions upon which God has promised to grant us His blessing.” Selected Messages, volume 1, page 121.
Praying for revival, alone, is not enough. It can only come when we are prepared to receive it. And this preparation consists of “confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer.” While praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is essential, we must not neglect to emphasize the importance of the other three. If we do not yet realize our deep sinfulness, our apostasy, our rebellion against God, how will we be able to come to Him in full surrender? We will not even realize that we have very much that we need to surrender. We may feel that we can cling to many of our old ways and still experience the power of the Holy Spirit.
“Let the church arise, and repent of her backslidings before God. Let the watchmen awake, and give the trumpet a certain sound. It is a definite warning that we have to proclaim. God commands His servants, ‘Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins’ (Isa. 58:1). The attention of the people must be gained; unless this can be done, all effort is useless….
“The Spirit of God can never come in until [the church] prepares the way. There should be earnest searching of heart….There should be…a deep humiliation of soul.”Ibid. page 126.
The church needs to repent of her backsliding. There need to be calls to repentance. How important that these messages be given in love! As Daniel prayed, including himself in his confession ofJudah’s apostasy, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets….” Daniel 9:5, 6.
Why will all efforts be useless unless the attention of the people is gained? Because if the trumpet is not given a certain sound, if the warnings given are not definite, if the people are not shown their sins, they will not know that they have anything standing between them and God. While it is needed to emphasize grave forms of apostasy and error, all of us need to be encouraged to look into our lives for the seemingly “little” sins that we tend to excuse. Our resistance in these “minor” areas could keep the Holy Spirit from working the miracle of revival in our lives. We may think that our prayers were unavailing and that somehow God was unwilling to give us the blessing, while the real cause lies with ourselves.
“Repentance is the first step that must be taken by all who would return to God…. We must individually humble our souls before God and put away our idols. When we have done all that we can do, the Lord will manifest to us His salvation.” PP 590
“Repent, repent, repent was the message rung out by John the Baptist in the wilderness. Christ’s message to the people was ‘Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish’ (Luke 13:5). And the apostles were commanded to preach everywhere that men should repent.
“The Lord desires His servants today to preach the old gospel doctrine, sorrow for sin, repentance, and confession.” Selected Messages, vol. 2, page 19.
All true efforts working toward revival must emphasize the importance of repentance. Repentance is not a step pleasant to the carnal heart. We must first understand, clearly, our sins and their gravity. We cannot rest with a foggy conception of what we are doing, personally and as a people, that is sin. Those whom God leads to make the needed calls for repentance must risk seriously “stepping on toes,” and know that those who do not desire revival will be offended. Yet repenting of and forsaking our sins opens the way for the Holy Spirit to come in to thoroughly cleanse us, and make us a holy temple for His indwelling. May we each ask God to give us the gift of repentance, and may we never forget that repentance is the first step toward true revival.
All quotations not from the Bible are by Ellen G. White.
