In this message I hope to give a word of fellowship and exhortation. After much prayer and seeking before the Lord, I feel that the Lord’s recovery both in the East as well as in the West has arrived at a stage where we need to look for a fresh revival. Particularly here in Taiwan, the elders of the churches and the co-workers should pick up the burden to seek a fresh revival.
The revival that I am talking about is not the kind of revival commonly known in Christianity. It is not something sudden, brought about by days of prayer and fasting and accompanied by extraordinary events, resulting in a general excitement. The revival that I am talking about is the renewing described in the New Testament. Second Corinthians 4:16 says, “...indeed our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day.” The renewal here is a revival. Every day we need a renewal, and this renewal has to be refreshed day by day. What we need today is this kind of renewal in the inner life as opposed to a renewal in outward actions or expression. God has set up a natural law that the rising of the sun affords a new beginning and a fresh renewal every day for everything, whether plant, animal, or human being. The same is true with our Christian life. Every morning we should allow the Lord Jesus, our Sun, to rise up in us so that we can be renewed. This is the revival that I am talking about.
I have covered this matter in an elders’ and co-workers’ meeting already, but I feel that I have not yet awakened the attention of the saints in all the localities. Although the words of this message will be short, I hope that the elders taking the lead in all the churches, together with all the helping co-workers, will practice this new revival, that the Lord Jesus may have a fresh rising within us every day.
In order to achieve this, all of you should rise up early in the morning. But to rise up early, one must go to bed early. If you cannot go to bed early, it will be hard for you to rise up early. Early rising affords tremendous benefits for a Christian. Every morning, when the sun rises up, it is time for us to rise up to fellowship with the Lord. We should pray to the Lord, “Thank You, Lord, for a new beginning. May this day be a memorable day in my life.” On the one hand, we have such a fresh consecration and waiting before the Lord; on the other hand, we receive from Him fresh bestowals and enlightenings. With all this freshness, we will naturally have a revival. This is what we call a morning-by-morning revival. It is also what Paul described as the renewing day by day. This renewal happens early every morning. I hope that this matter would be practiced properly among us. All the co-workers with the elders should trumpet this call in all the places, awakening all the saints to go to bed early and rise up early. As soon as we get up, we should have a good touch with the Lord. No matter how busy we are or how important other things are, we must put them aside until we have a touch with the Lord.
This touch with the Lord should preferably be for half an hour. At the very least, it should be for fifteen minutes. This should be something very easy for us to do. Leviticus 6:12 tells us that “the priest shall burn wood on it [the altar] every morning and arrange the burnt offering on it.” This indicates that every morning we should offer up Christ as our burnt offering based upon His being our sin offering so that we may have a new beginning. Not only must we do this every day, we must also do it with sweetness and depth. The fifteen minutes in the morning is not mainly for prayer or supplication; rather, it is for a direct touch with the Lord by which we speak to Him and He speaks to us. For this reason, the best way is to spend this time on a few verses, so that we may be filled by the Lord through pray-reading His Word in an enjoyable way. In this way, we will have a new beginning and a fresh revival.
If we are daily revived spiritually, there will be no need for a big revival. Actually, none of the so-called big revivals are long lasting. For example, the great Welsh revival at the beginning of this century was over by 1933. All the revivals brought in by various spiritual movements in the past were transient. After a while, they all cooled down. This kind of sporadic revival is not reliable. The reliable revival is the kind that comes from a daily renewal.