The Trauma of Revival

I read something today about revival that struck me as to the actual nature of revival. We say we want revival, but no one living today has actually experienced it. The little that I have read about it communicates that it is the single most impactful experience one could possibly have. So much so, that there is a limit as to what can even be handled.

What I read was from a blog by Sam Storms. He said the following:

But how do we know when we’ve prayed enough? It is reported that on several occasions during the Welsh revival (1904-06) that people could be heard crying out: "No more, Lord Jesus, lest I die." The point is this: You want revival when you pray for more of Christ. You are in revival when you've got so much of him that you're forced to say, "Stop, no more!"

This absolutely accords with what we understand about God’s presence.

God is not boring. If you think God is boring, it is only because someone has obscured God through terrible teaching and preaching, or by your own obscuring done by worldly thinking and living. To see Him more is to be forever changed by it. To see Him in some ways is to be traumatized.

The reality is, God’s glory is more than you can handle. It is like looking at the sun. Therefore, the Scripture shows us that God has to limit what we see of Him.

Look at some of the different ways God kept His presence from full view.

God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15:17 and when the time came for God to pass through the covenant elements we read of a symbolic presence. “It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.”

When God brought the covenant to Israel during the exodus we read in Exodus 19:17-18 “And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently.”

Notice that when Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah chapter 6, he also mentioned seeing the seraphim. These are special angels serving in the presence of God. One of their features is three sets of wings, one set devoted to covering their face and their feet. I do not think that sinful Isaiah was permitted to see more than these sinless angels could see.

Ezekiel had a vision of God in chapter one but the most notable feature is the difficulty of understanding what Ezekiel was seeing. When it came to God himself, he was simply a radiance.

There was a moment in Jesus’ ministry when God spoke in the presence of a crowd (John 12:29-30). But the crowd could not understand what was said.

This same phenomena happened in Acts 22:9. When Jesus came to Paul on the Damascus road, the soldiers heard the sound but could not understand it.

Lastly, Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 12:4 that he was caught up into God’s presence, and that he heard things that a man is not permitted to speak.

All of this is the trauma of God’s presence. Why would I use such a negative word about God? Not because God is a problem, but because we are. There is nothing wrong with a wall of polished white marble, but if you try to run through it you will traumatized. Such is the case when sinful people come before a holy and sovereign God.

Yet in all of the trauma, there is also grace. Seeing holiness and sovereignty without being drawn into mercy is deadly. It is what causes people to fall down like dead men. But when mercy and grace are also seen more clearly and cherished more deeply, there is life like has never been known.

Yet it seems, even as the fullness of the gospel is understood, there is a kind of limitation that comes with our fallenness. I can’t imagine saying, “Stop, no more” but this reveals my low view of God’s glory. It also reveals that I have a fairly tame understanding of revival.

Let us pray for revival. But let us do this with a seriousness that understands how up-ended we would really be by it. God is not boring or tame or manageable. He is more than we can handle. Revival is when we understand that in ways we can’t comprehend right now. Resurrection is when we are finally equipped with bodies that can handle God’s full glory. We should desire revival, and even more we should want the coming of Christ to reign in fullest glory and our resurrected ability to enjoy it fully.