Revival is not the right word
You will probably have noticed in my first post that I used the words ‘revival’ and ‘awakenings’, describing the same event. Why did I do that? Well, it was basically so I could lead into my second post!
The word ‘revival’ is used in the UK and around the world, but many people do not know what it means. This is understandable, because virtually nobody in England has ever experienced one.
The word ‘revival’ meant ‘the revival of religion’. In times gone by everyone was brought up with a Christian education; either formal or informal from their parents. Even more, during some times in our history, every person had to attend church every Sunday or be fined. This was very hard on people like the Quakers in the seventeenth century, who were regularly fined, because their consciences could not allow them to attend an Anglican service. So, in the past, when there was a move of God, people would have the religion in them revived.
Today of course many people know virtually nothing of religion, so there is nothing to revive. I would contend therefore, that ‘revival’ is a completely inappropriate word to use when describing a move of God. The difficulty is that everyone uses the word, so it is going to take forever to get them to use a more descriptive one awakening!
