We Can Raise the Tent, but Only God Can Send Revival

Recovering the Difference Between Revival and Revivalism

By Drew Von Neida

Revival vs revivalism is more than a distinction between words. It concerns whether we depend upon God to give spiritual life or trust religious methods to produce a response. Churches can schedule meetings, but only God can send revival.

There are few words in the vocabulary of the modern church used as freely, and perhaps understood as poorly, as revival. Churches announce revival meetings, revival conferences, revival weeks, and revival services. A sign is placed by the road, an evangelist is invited, several evenings are set aside, and the congregation is told that revival begins Sunday morning and ends Wednesday night.

There is nothing inherently wrong with such meetings. Churches ought to gather for concentrated seasons of preaching and prayer. Evangelists ought to preach Christ to sinners. Christians ought to plead with God for the conversion of the lost and the renewal of His church. Yet we should be careful about what we claim to have scheduled. We can schedule the meeting. We cannot schedule revival.

That distinction has been blurred in American evangelicalism. What earlier Christians understood as an extraordinary work of God gradually became associated with a kind of meeting and its familiar features: the invitation hymn, raised hands, people walking aisles, and recorded decisions. Revival could be advertised before it happened because the meeting itself had inherited the name.

Iain H. Murray examines this change in his book, Revival and Revivalism. His historical work has helped me understand why we must distinguish a sovereign work of God from methods intended to secure a religious response. I owe that distinction in this article to Murray.

Richard Owen Roberts has described revival as an extraordinary movement of the Holy Spirit producing extraordinary results. The order matters. The Spirit’s work produces the fruit. The visible result cannot be manufactured as proof that He has worked. Revival is something God does among His people, and that truth should govern both our prayers and our evangelism.

Revival Is the Work of God

There is an ordinary work of God that should never be despised. Every Lord’s Day, faithful churches gather under the preaching of Scripture. Saints pray. Christ is proclaimed. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are observed. Children are instructed, sinners are evangelized, weary Christians are strengthened, and believers are sanctified through the Word. A congregation that faithfully does these things for decades is not deficient because it cannot point to a widespread revival. We must never become so fascinated with extraordinary seasons that we despise God’s ordinary means of grace.

At times, however, the Lord is pleased to work with unusual breadth and power. His Word bears down upon the conscience. Sin long tolerated is confessed and forsaken. Prayer becomes urgent. Christ becomes precious to people whose hearts have grown cold. Christians become deeply concerned for the lost, sinners are brought to faith, and the effects may reach beyond a single congregation. We may pray earnestly for such a season, but we cannot produce it by arranging its outward circumstances.

Speaking of the new birth, Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wishes” (John 3:8). The Spirit sovereignly gives spiritual life. That same dependence upon His work should govern our prayers for revival.

Paul said of his ministry, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). God does not make planting and watering unnecessary by giving the growth. He commands us to labor faithfully while remembering whose work we seek.

Finney and the Promise of the Right Measures

One of the most consequential figures in the American understanding of revival was Charles Grandison Finney. In his Lectures on Revivals of Religion, Finney argued that revival was not a miracle but the “purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means.” He compared the matter to a farmer sowing a crop: use the appropriate means, and the corresponding result should follow. Finney also said that means required God’s blessing, and fairness requires us to acknowledge that qualification. Yet he insisted upon a dependable connection between the right use of means and the desired revival.

There is a truth here that no Christian should surrender: God ordinarily works through means. We must not use divine sovereignty as an excuse for prayerlessness or silence. The Reformed tradition has never taught the church to sit idle while sinners perish. God saves through the preaching of the gospel and sanctifies His people through His Word. The difficulty arises when appointed means are treated as reliable mechanisms, as though we can secure an extraordinary work of the Spirit by finding the correct sequence of actions. God’s blessing cannot be summoned by the use of a formula.

Finney’s ministry became associated with the “new measures,” including the anxious seat, where those under conviction were urged toward a public response. The concern is not that sinners were urgently called to repent. They should be. Paul declared that God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). The gospel demands a response. The danger appears when a visible response becomes the apparent measure of an inward work, and when ministers learn to obtain more visible responses by increasing the pressure.

Once a meeting’s success is counted in public decisions, the temptation to produce them grows. The sermon may be shaped toward securing a response. The music continues, the invitation lengthens, and the appeal is repeated until someone moves. Eventually, the evidence offered that God has worked is the very action our methods were designed to produce. A person can move physically without moving spiritually.

From the Anxious Seat to the Altar Call

The anxious seat sounds foreign to many Christians today, but the impulse to seek an immediate, countable response remains familiar. It can appear in a prolonged altar call, repeated verses of an invitation hymn, bowed heads and raised hands, the public walk down an aisle, a signed decision card, or a prescribed prayer followed by immediate assurance that salvation has occurred.

None of these physical actions is inherently sinful. A person may genuinely repent while walking an aisle. A broken sinner may cry to Christ in prayer. An evangelist should urge people not to delay in coming to Him. The problem is confusing the outward action with the saving reality. Walking an aisle is not repentance. Raising a hand is not faith. Signing a card is not regeneration. Repeating certain words is not the new birth. The sinner is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Repentance and faith are real responses, given through the gracious work of God, and they cannot be reduced to the movement of a body or the recitation of a sentence.

I know how easily that confusion arises because I once made such a decision myself. When I was seventeen, I walked the aisle at church and signed a card. I did not do so because the preaching of God’s Word had brought me under conviction of sin. I felt pressured to respond, and I wanted to appease my mother.

Some things changed afterward. I read my Bible more, although I understood little of what I read. I took notes during sermons and posted brief recaps on a blog. Those were good things in themselves, and I do not dismiss them. But I was not broken before the Lord. The aisle I walked and the card I signed could not tell anyone what was happening in my heart, especially when my reason for taking those steps was to satisfy someone else.

I do not tell that story to fault my mother for wanting me to come to Christ, or to suggest that everyone who responds during an invitation does so insincerely. I tell it because an outward decision can so easily be mistaken for the inward work of grace. We should be glad when a person opens his Bible. We should teach and encourage him. But we must not give him assurance on the basis of a moment we can see. We must direct him to Christ, call him to repentance and faith, and care for him as he learns to follow the Lord within His church.

Jesus warned that some receive the Word “with joy,” yet have no root and afterward fall away (Matthew 13:20–21). His warning does not make every immediate response suspect, but it does forbid us to treat one as sufficient proof of regeneration. The better question is not, “How many came forward?” It is, “Where are they when the meeting is over?”

I remember hearing Richard Owen Roberts speak about the way some preachers once handled invitations. When a person came forward under apparent conviction, they did not immediately pronounce him saved before the congregation. They listened to his profession, took it seriously, and continued to care for him. In the weeks that followed, they looked for evidence that his response had been more than the emotion of a moment. Their patience did not diminish the urgency of repentance and faith. It reflected a sober concern for the person’s soul and a reluctance to give assurance where only time could help reveal whether genuine fruit had begun to grow.

We should urge sinners to trust Christ immediately, resting in His finished work and promises. The fruit that follows confirms a profession of faith; it does not become the foundation of our acceptance with God.

The Modern Tent Meeting

This history should make us think carefully about what we call a revival meeting. The problem is not the tent. Canvas stretched over poles possesses no theology. God can save a sinner beneath a tent as surely as He can save one in a church building, a living room, or beside the road. Several consecutive evenings of evangelistic preaching can be a good use of time. We should rejoice whenever Christ is faithfully proclaimed.

The concern begins when we announce beforehand that what is going to occur is revival. A banner gives the dates and the hour. But if revival is an extraordinary work of the Spirit, in which God awakens His people, exposes sin, renews prayer, restores holiness, magnifies Christ, and brings sinners to faith, how can we announce when it will begin? We can announce preaching, prayer, and an evangelistic meeting. We can erect the tent, arrange the chairs, invite the preacher, sing hymns, and plead with sinners. We cannot command the wind.

When revival becomes the name of the meeting, visible responses can begin to carry more weight than they should. If we have announced that revival is happening, it is tempting to look for something immediate to demonstrate it: raised hands, people coming forward, decisions recorded, testimonies ready to tell. Yet God’s work need not conform to the timetable of our report. Its fruit may require patient shepherding and time to discern.

When God Becomes Weighty Again

A. W. Tozer warned that the church can become occupied with religious things while losing sight of God Himself. That diagnosis should trouble people like me who care deeply about doctrine. We can love theology without deeply loving the God theology reveals. We can admire preaching without trembling before the Lord who is preached. Books, conferences, debates, podcasts, and ministry work may fill our attention while private communion with God quietly withers. We can even become fascinated with revival while remaining content without Him.

When God stirs His people, He deals with this disorder. His holiness is no longer an attribute to discuss; it now weighs upon the conscience. Scripture becomes more than material for sermons and arguments. Believers receive it as the Word before which they must bow. Sin becomes personal. We stop speaking chiefly about what is wrong with everyone else and ask the Lord to search us.

This is one reason emotional intensity alone cannot establish that revival has come. Emotion belongs in the Christian life. We rejoice, grieve, fear, hope, and love. Tears may accompany conviction of sin, and joy may accompany a fresh sight of Christ’s grace. But tears are not repentance. A congregation can pass through several overwhelming evenings and return to the same prayerlessness, bitterness, secret sin, neglected families, and indifference toward the lost.

What remains after the meeting? Are hidden sins confessed and forsaken? Are wrongs made right? Are Christians praying when no crowd is watching? Are broken relationships being reconciled? Are parents shepherding their children? Are those who professed faith being taught and gathered into the church? These are not items on a checklist by which we declare an entire congregation revived. They are the kinds of fruit for which we should look, patiently and gratefully, when we say God has been at work.

John the Baptist called for “fruits in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8). Paul distinguished godly grief from passing sorrow by the repentance it produced (2 Corinthians 7:10–11). True revival does not just make people feel deeply. By God’s grace, it makes them turn.

Revival Drives the Church to Prayer

Leonard Ravenhill’s burden concerning prayer also speaks to our present weakness. We can organize without praying. We can preach, hold conferences, publish books, record podcasts, fill calendars, and build ministries while giving little time to seeking God. Prayerlessness reveals something deeper than a neglected discipline: it may reveal how easily we trust our own strength.

The psalmist cries, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6). There is no contradiction between believing that God is sovereign and pleading earnestly for revival. We pray precisely because life and power are His to give. Yet prayer itself must never become one more mechanism. Ten thousand hours of prayer do not place God in our debt, and we cannot accumulate enough tears to purchase an awakening. If revival comes, it comes as mercy.

Perhaps the Lord’s first answer to such a prayer is to turn it upon the one who prays. “Lord, revive them” becomes “Lord, revive me.” We cannot credibly plead for God to expose sin in His church while guarding the sins we have learned to excuse in ourselves.

Judgment Begins With the House of God

Christians can describe the sins of the age at length. We grieve sexual immorality, broken families, dishonesty, and hostility toward Christ. Many of those concerns are warranted, and the church must speak where God has spoken. But we should not ask God to awaken the world while wishing to remain undisturbed ourselves.

Peter writes, “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17). In context, he is addressing the fiery trials through which God’s people suffer and are tested. His words remind us that belonging to God’s household does not exempt us from His searching and purifying work. As we pray for awakening, we should humbly ask Him to expose and correct our own sins.

We lament sexual immorality in the culture while pornography quietly devours Christian homes. We condemn the neglect of family while fathers fail to shepherd their children. We criticize a distracted world while giving hours to screens and minutes to prayer. We grieve that unbelievers disregard Scripture while leaving our own Bibles unopened. When God awakens His people, the finger pointed outward turns back toward us. We find ourselves praying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23).

There is a difference between being angry about the sins of society and being broken over sin before God. We can sustain the former while remaining quite comfortable. The latter drives us to Christ, where sinners who confess their guilt find mercy and grace.

Revival Does Not Replace Ordinary Faithfulness

An emphasis on revival can create its own temptation. Christians may grow so hungry for the extraordinary that they begin to despise the ordinary. The church does not stop preaching while waiting for revival. She preaches faithfully. She does not neglect baptism and the Lord’s Supper while seeking a greater experience. She treasures Christ’s ordinances. Believers do not wait before putting sin to death, loving one another, discipling their children, evangelizing their neighbors, and gathering with the saints. We obey Christ now.

Revival often makes ordinary obedience precious again. Christians hunger for Scripture rather than growing bored with it. They pray more rather than setting prayer aside. They long to gather on the Lord’s Day. Any supposed awakening that draws people away from the Word and the life of Christ’s church should make us cautious. The Spirit who inspired the Scriptures does not awaken His people by leading them away from them.

The Great Evidence Is Christ

The deepest question concerning revival is not how many attended, how long the services lasted, or how many walked the aisle. It is whether Christ was magnified. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “He will glorify me” (John 16:14). Where the Spirit works powerfully, Christ becomes precious. His cross is treasured, His Word is received, His lordship is embraced, His people are loved, and His gospel is proclaimed.

The revived church does not leave chiefly saying, “What an experience we had.” It says, “What a Savior we have.” The meeting eventually ends, the tent comes down, the evangelist leaves, and the crowd goes home. Then the patient work of shepherding continues. Are sinners following Christ? Are believers pursuing holiness? Is prayer continuing? Is the local church strengthened? Is Christ still precious when no invitation hymn is playing? If God has truly worked among His people, the fruit does not depend upon the meeting’s atmosphere to survive.

Praying for God to Revive His People

Perhaps one reason we can speak so easily of revival is that we have grown accustomed to living without a deep sense of our need for God. We pray for the church to awaken while protecting our own sins. We lament the darkness of the world while rarely grieving the coldness of our hearts. We want God to disturb the age, but we hesitate to ask Him to search us.

Let us preach, pray, and plead with sinners. Let hidden sins be confessed and forsaken, wrongs made right, and broken relationships reconciled. Let fathers shepherd their homes and Christians return to their Bibles. Let Christ crucified and risen be proclaimed without manipulation or alteration. Tell sinners that He receives all who come to Him. Call them to repent and believe, warn them of judgment, and proclaim the mercy found in His death and resurrection. Do not give them confidence in an aisle they walked, a hand they raised, a card they signed, or words they repeated. Give them Christ.

We can raise the tent, arrange the chairs, invite the preacher, and gather to pray until late into the night. We ought to labor with all the strength God supplies. But when we have done everything within our power, we must still look toward heaven and confess our absolute dependence upon Him.

We can raise the tent. Only God can send revival.

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