God's Purposes IN and IN BETWEEN Revivals

There are two fallen tendencies when it comes to understanding revival ("the wells of salvation"). On the one hand, there are those who deny that revivals still come, teaching that Pentecost was the last and only outpouring of the Spirit for Christians to expect. While this view honors the historical significance of Pentecost, it denies the subsequent outpourings in Acts and redemptive history.

On the other hand, there are those who insist we should be having revival every week. While the former view removes all expectations for revivals, this latter view pressures us to take responsibility to see revivals come now. The absence of another well to refresh God's people on the journey to heaven leads to blame and disappointment.

The prophet Isaiah helps us avoid both of these extremes by referring to the experience of the presence of God as drawing from "wells of salvation." Just as wells have given water to thirsting pilgrims in the Holy Land for centuries, so God has given larger supplies of Himself through the Holy Spirit to the patriarchs, to Israel, to King David, and to believers throughout redemptive history.

The prophetic promise is that there yet remains joy-producing refreshment for God's people from God Himself. And the meaning is clear: If God's people do not joyfully draw the Spirit from the "wells" of God, they will die.

The "wells of salvation," then, are the places and seasons where and when God provides outpourings of the Holy Spirit in larger measures. And God has His purposes both in, and in between, these times of refreshing.

One of God's purposes in revivals is to show that all the blessings of salvation never come because of human merit. Isaiah teaches that the Messiah will be born of a virgin, die as the suffering servant, and rise from the dead (Isaiah 7-9; 53). He anticipates the last days, when Christ will supply, based on His own merits, larger measures of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, revivals exalt the glory of His free, sovereign, generous grace to His people. This was the common testimony of the leaders in the Great Awakening. "God's visiting us," wrote Jonathan Edwards, "[is] an instance of the glorious triumph of free and sovereign grace."

David Brainerd declared his surprise that God's wells of salvation came "at a time when I had the least hope, and, to my apprehension, the least rational prospect of success."

James Robe wrote of the revival in Kilsyth, Scotland, as an "uncommon dispensation of grace" that "has been narrated, that every one may observe the sovereign freedom and riches of grace, in visiting, after this sort, so sinful, degenerate, and ungainable a people."

God not only has His purposes in revivals, but in between them as well. As any thirsty pilgrim can attest, while there are wells to be reached, it takes time and a journey before arriving at the next one.

One of God's purposes in between revivals is to test our faith. When Jesus came to Jacob's well, He tested the Samaritan woman's faith in His ability and willingness to give her living water. "You don't have a bucket," she said, "and the well is very deep."

Similarly, Christ promises us the living water of His Spirit, which tests our faith in His merits. We, too, are sometimes tempted to tell Him that He doesn't have what it takes to fetch us a drink.

Another purpose is to make us the real deal. When a church or Christian is experiencing the anguish of a drought, inexperienced Christians who have not persevered through years of longing and seeking are not able to offer the depth of hope and faith needed to reach the next well. People who are earnest and thirsty for God will never be impressed with fake, lightweight, and inauthentic leaders who have not suffered in their pursuit of God.

Finally, times spent in between the wells of revival prepare us to prize the wells when we finally experience the time and place God has appointed to saturate His people with His salvation once again.

God purposes to make us into the kind of tested, real, and prepared people who believe Him to lead us to "wells of salvation" even after (and in the midst of!) prolonged periods of pain.

David Brainerd called this admixture of strong confidence in God in the face of intense longing "pleasing pain":

God is unspeakably gracious to me continually. In times past, He has given me inexpressible sweetness in the performances of duty. Frequently my soul has enjoyed much of God; but has been ready to say, "Lord, it is good to be here," and so to indulge sloth while I have lived on the sweetness of my feelings. But of late, God has been pleased to keep my soul hungry almost continually, so that I have been filled with a kind of pleasing pain.

When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of Him the more insatiable, and my thirsting after holiness the more unquenchable. And the Lord will not allow me to feel as though I were fully supplied and satisfied, but keeps me still reaching forward. I feel barren and empty, as though I could not live without more of God....

Oh, for more of God in my soul! Oh, this pleasing pain! It makes my soul press hard after God.... Oh that I may feel this continual hunger, ... that I may never loiter in my heavenly journey! (Life and Diary of David Brainerd, pp. 103-104.)

God's "wells of salvation" are given to magnify God's free and sovereign grace. There are also seasons "in between wells" when there will be no revival. God wants to make us more authentic in our faith. By understanding God's purposes, we can seek God for revival (Isa. 44:1-3 and 55:1-3) while avoiding the temptation to dig our own wells out of frustration and despair (Jer. 2:13).