When God Comes Down, with Bill & Holly Elliff

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Bill Elliff has studied revival for decades. He says revival happens when God moves to do something special, something extraordinary in His people. 

Bill Elliff: God is moving all the time, but there are moments in history where He decides to open the windows of heaven and come down and make Himself known. God knows this is necessary because He keeps doing it.

Nancy: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for February 22, 2023. I’m Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

It’s no accident that this program is called Revive Our Hearts. It’s been more than fifty years since the Lord first put a burden in my heart for revival. I can remember as a young teen, I began to read accounts of how God had moved in a supernatural way to revive the hearts of His people, many times resulting in spiritual awakening among the lost. You can read those accounts in Scripture. You can read others in history books. As I’ve heard and read more of those reports over the years, my prayer has been, “Lord, you’ve done it before! Please do it again in our day.” 

There's been a few times I’ve had the opportunity to get a glimpse of God moving in this extraordinary way. It’s not easy to explain; you have to be there. Throughout history those works of God have often taken place where and when you’d least expect it—often it's been among young people.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been hearing reports of God stirring on the campus of a Christian college in Wilmore, Kentucky, named Asbury University. You may have heard that name before because God has moved on this same campus a number of times over the years, including in 1970. There have been a number of documentaries produced about that time. This time, as back then, the stirring started in a chapel service and now is spreading to campuses and churches around the country. This morning I watched the livestream of a chapel service in another Christian university where God is at work in an unusual way.  

You may have heard about some of these things yourself. As reports have come out, I’ve seen a range of responses—from people saying this could be the beginning of the next Great Awakening to those who have sincere questions about what is taking place on these campuses. Is it biblical? Is it sound? Then sadly, there are those who are just plain cynical. 

The fact is, our world, the United States is in a moral/spiritual meltdown unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. The damage is seen especially the younger generation. There is such brokenness, such pain, such confusion, such dysfunction, such sexual perversion. What has been particularly concerning to me is how much of this is the consequences of seeds planted by my generation. This generation and mine desperately need a fresh move of God's Spirit that you can't explain in terms of human effort but only in terms of God.

As I've watched some of what has been happening on the campus at Asbury and in other gatherings, one of the things that has touched my has been there has not been a lot of hype, really, no hype. You've not seen emotionalism. Yes, there have been emotions, but by and large it has been a quiet, peaceful, serious listening to the Lord and responding to Him. And this from a generation that is deeply distracted by their phones and social media.

I've watched them standing and being still, being quiet in the presence of God. That has spoken to me. 

In times like these, it’s impossible to know exactly what God is doing. Revival is messy. There are always some excesses that need to be addressed and shepherded. When God is moving in people's hearts, we need to stop, pay attention, listen, pray, let Him speak to our own hearts. That's what I've been trying to do over these last couple weeks.

Today, we’re going to do something we don’t do very often, take a break in our normal programming. Tomorrow we’ll will return to our current series on encouraging one another. But what we'll hear today I believe will be a great encouragement that you'll want to share with others. I want you to hear a special program we shared earlier this week on our live videocast, Grounded. You'll hear most of that program on the Revive Our Hearts podcast today. We'll start with a few clips from a student at Asbury named Eliana Wiggenhorn, as she recalled the initiatl days of God moving on her campus.

Eliana Wiggenhorn: Well, on Thursday when I was there, there were so many people just in chapel, just singing and worshiping. On Thursday night, we had about seven people come back to Christ after they had been lost. They had been found again. And that was just super cool to see. Everyone was thirsty for Jesus. Everyone was singing. Everyone was just having so much fun in that chapel. People were just wrapping their arms around strangers. Some of my friends said that they were called to walk up to a stranger that they'd never met before and just pray for them. That really impacted both the strangers lives and my friends lives. That's just been super cool to see how well my friends are just embracing this and how God has just been so present in that chapel building.

Nancy: As the word got out, thousands flocked to Asbury University to see for themselves what God is up to.

Eliana: It is very cool to see God working in other people's lives. But I know a couple days ago, the line was like two miles long wrapped around our campus. It is also super cool just seeing everybody so thirsty for God that they'd wait in a two-mile-long line just to get into our chapel.

Nancy: Eliana views those long lines as evidence that this is more than flash-in-the-pan hype.

Eliana: Well, if I feel like if it was emotionally driven, then I mean, I know for sure if I was emotionally driven, I would not be outside waiting in a two mile line in twenty-seven degrees or in rain all day. I would not do that if I was emotionally driven. The only reason I would ever do that is if I was thirsty and hungry for something I had not experienced before, which is God. And I know that people have waited in that line, and people are desperate for God's presence, which is what I pray that they have found in that chapel building.

Nancy: Eliana talked about how God has been at work in her own life, too.

Eliana: God has let me become more compassionate towards others, to be more of a light in other people's lives, and being able to just wrap my arms around them as well and fellowship.

Nancy: That’s Eliana Wiggenhorn, a freshman at Asbury University. Eliana was one of our guests earlier this week on our live video cast, Grounded. She joined Erin Davis, Portia Collins, Grounded co-hosts,and Bill and Holly Elliff, longtime dear friends of mine and of this ministry. Bill served for many years as the pastor of the Summit Church in North Little Rock, Arkansas. 

He and Holly have been following what God has been doing on the campus at Asbury, as well as campuses around the country. Bill has been posting some really helpful insights on this movement. Today on Revive Our Hearts we want to share part of the recent episode of Grounded. Here’s Portia Collins to help introduce the topic.

Portia Collins: I don't want to just hear about revival. I want to experience it in a new way in my own life. I'm gonna ask you, do you have a heart that God can revive? Well, Nancy will help you answer that question in this one-minute clip. Check it out now.

Nancy: What kind of heart does God revive? What kind of heart does God look to? The heart God revives as we see in those verses and many others is the broken, humble, contrite heart.

Now, our emphasis in this era is on everything but that we want to be whole. We want to be full; we want to feel good. We often think of revival as a time of great joy and blessing and fullness and celebration. And it will be all of that and more in its time. But we want a painless Pentecost. We want all the fullness of God's Spirit. We want to be this great, godly, free and full and fruitful woman without getting to the cross. 

God's Word teaches us that the way up is down. The way to wholeness is through brokenness. One revivalist was a man who was greatly used of God in revival in the 1970s in Borneo. He said, “Revivals do not begin happily with everyone having a good time. They start with a broken and a contrite heart.” 

You and I cannot meet God in revival until we first meet Him in brokenness, humility, and brokenness. 

Erin Davis: That is true. If God is going to revive your own heart, it won't be a “painless Pentecost,” it will be some stretching that happens. Part of what we hope God does in this episode is makes you willing to say, “Do whatever You have to do, Lord, to revive my own heart.” I can say this honestly, I don't know a couple who has longed for revival more deeply, prayed for it more passionately, or believed God for it more than Bill and Holly Elliff. 

They were the first people I texted. That's because I know they are going to put an ache in our chest for revival. They are going to move us to pray, and they are going to move us to long to see revival in our own hearts. So welcome back to Grounded Bill and Holly.

Bill Elliff: It’s our joy.

Erin: Holly, I don't want to start with what God's doing today, although we're gonna get there. I want you to take us back to when the two of you were college students at Ouachita. Some students from Asbury, the same campus where God is stirring hearts today, came to share in your own chapel. Can you tell us that story? What happened? How did it impact your lives.

Holly Elliff: 1970 is when that happened, a long time ago. What happened was that revival broke out again at Asbury. A man named Jack Taylor came to our campus. He spoke at our noonday encounter. He just shared very briefly about what was happening at Asbury. After that service was ended, it didn't end. 

We had a taste of what actually happened at Asbury happen at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas. It changed our lives just dramatically, not because there was anything extraordinary happening. I mean, there weren't bells and whistles going off and gold dust in the air or anything like that. We just could not move on from that moment without it changing our lives. And it put a desire for that, for the presence of God, to be happening in our lives. That has never gone away since then.

Erin: It is remarkable to me how similar some of what's happening is to some of the revival stories that I've heard about before. I have a lump in my throat because I haven't seen it with my own eyes. I’ve longed too. Part of the reason I long too is because I've heard people like you pray passionately for revival many times. Can you describe what you've spent decades longing to see God do? What is revival to you?

Bill: You know, the president of Ouachita asked us to come last week. We stood in the same chapel where that happened. I couldn't talk for about ten minutes because it was that day. That a fifteen-minute noonday chapel would go for hours in the afternoon. They canceled all the classes. It was just an extraordinary moment of the very clear manifest presence of God. 

And when you've been in that, you just you get a taste under your tongue. You realize that God can do more in five minutes of His manifest presence than in fifty years of our best human effort. I stood there last week on that same stage and realized this is where God changed my life forever. I have sought that, pursued that, studied that for fifty-three years. We have seen different measures—once in our church in Oklahoma where a meeting lasted four weeks. 

In 2011 here in Little Rock in the church we pastored, a normal Sunday morning service just continued till 3:30 in the afternoon. We came back the next night that was not planned. That service went four hours. That went on for five weeks, every night except Saturday. What God did, the results . . . You know, Richard Owen Robert says that “revival is the extraordinary movement of the Spirit of God among His people that produces extraordinary results.” 

So, God is moving all the time. But there are moments in history when He decides to open the windows of heaven and come down and make Himself known, just make Himself known. God knows this is necessary because He keeps doing it. He's done it all through the Bible. He's done it all through church history, because we fall away. And when we do, He brings necessary judgments. One of the greatest judgments is Him just pulling His presence away and letting us eat the fruit of our own way. And when it gets so dark, as it is right now, and it was as it was in the late sixties, God's people began to cry out. God is so merciful and so intentional about His ultimate mission that, He revives His people. That what's happening at Asbury. 

I mean, we were there for several days just to observe and watch. It is so not manipulated, it is so God ordained. The leaders are so carefully listening to the Lord and moving at the Spirit's prompting. Now that's happening in multiple places across the United States and even reports around the world.

Erin: I wanted to report on the spread of that this morning. But honestly, I couldn't keep my arms around it over the course of the weekend. It was at another university. Then it was at four other universities. And then it was happening in churches. The Lord is doing such an amazing thing. 

I do want to go back to that darkness you describe. Though the headlines have been so dark lately. I mean, I don't even have to rattle it all off. But the war between Ukraine and Russia, nation spying each on each other with strange objects in the sky, school shootings. I could go on and on and on. It's easy to see why the lost need God, as those of us who are in Christ can look at the world and go, "They need Jesus!” But they'll help us understand why God's people need revival in these days.

Bill: Well, you know, I often say, Erin, that what we're seeing in our nation is the third level of Romans 1. It says that when we ignore God, God gives us up to a reprobate mind. That word literally means that your mind has lost the ability to make moral judgments. In other words, right is wrong to you, and wrong is right. You'll fight each other about it. I used to hear that in our culture, every once in a while. I'd hear somebody and think how in the world could they possibly think that? Now it is the common consciousness of our nation that you hear it everywhere? 

And you say, “Well, why? Why is that happening?” It happens when the Church goes to sleep. The light of God is under a bushel. And the salt of the Church, we are the salt that loses its savor and is not preserving morality in a nation. 

So, you can't point the finger at the loss. People say, “Well, that's the problem.” No, it's always the Church. That's why reviving of God's people happens before. 

Another term we'd use is spiritual awakening. Spiritual awakening is when God begins to just supernaturally, in a very accelerated way, bring lost people to Christ. And in the First Great Awakening, 15% of the population came to faith in Christ. If you want to wrap your arms around that, the Dallas/Fort Worth area has 8 million people. If that same measure would come there, we would see 1.2 million people come to Christ in the next two years. And that's happened in our history five times in every thirty to sixty years. It's been fifty-three years since the last great movement of God. 

So, it's on our watch, and God in His mercy He’s got a big mission, and that's to seek and save people from every tongue, tribe, and nation. And so, He's bringing the Church back, so that mission can be accomplished in His timing.

Erin: Yeah. I've had to repent myself and say to the Lord, “Oh, me of little faith.” I've prayed for revival. I've said, I long for revival. I've said that in every generation, God uses people. But then, now that it's happening, I had to face the fact that I didn't really have the faith that He was going to do it. I'm so glad that His actions are not contingent on my faith. But now, I'm so eager to see Him do even more than He's done already. 

Holly, when you guys heard about what God was doing in Asbury, you decided to go and see it for yourselves. Can you describe specifically how you saw the Spirit of God moving while you were there?

Holly: Well, on Friday, after the revival started there, Billy and I looked at each other and said, “This is going on.” And I said, “Let's go.” We got in the car. 

Bill: I have kind of a "let's go" wife. 

Holly: But when we got there, it's hard to explain. What it felt like inside that auditorium, just immediately took me back to what we experienced when we were college students at Ouachita. It wasn't that it was the number of people, but it was the Spirit, that atmosphere of God's presence in that place. 

I just read through the book of Mark because our women's group at our church is getting ready to study it. As I was sat in that auditorium, I thought, Everything that I just read in Mark is pretty much happening in this chapel service. Then I realized, it's because in the book of Mark, Jesus was walking down the streets and doing these things, healing people, changing lives. 

And then I thought, that's because He's in here in this auditorium. He is doing exactly what He did in the book of Mark. It's not something new or different. It's who He is. And it was just astounding to realize that the same presence that we read about in that book, was there in that auditorium.

Bill: Yeah, I kind of have been observing this so carefully and asking the Lord to help us understand. You just began to notice the invitation from the speaker on Wednesday, that original Wednesday was, you can't love people . . . He was preaching through Romans 12. You can't love people like Romans 12, unless you experience the love of God. So why don't you if you want to stay after and just pursue the Lord and his love? 

So, twenty students stayed after. Then it grew. It has continued. What was happening is, I think they looked to the Lord. And of course, millions have been praying for years, for decades. And here's how, Psalm 48:3 says, “God made Himself known.” 

That's the manifest presence of God. When you see Him, you see His loving kindness. Psalm 48 says, “You see His righteousness, and your unrighteousness.” He began to fall and say, “Oh, it's not like this shameful, horrible.” It's, “Oh, God, You have so much more. Son, Daughter, I have so much more for you. Repent, turn, you've been going this way, turn.” 

So there is deep repentance happening. The altar was filled. And as far as I know, the whole two-and-a-half days we were there, it was constantly filled. A prayer team was constantly ministering. 

When the microphones were open, they had to cut off the testimonies because the lines would get too long. It was just story after story of repentance, of salvation, of God delivering them, of healing, emotional healing. And you know, this next generation is so emotionally messed up. 

And so, it seems like God is trying to rescue the next generation. I think that's so much of what this is about. Because that next generation are all our pastors, missionaries, leaders in the next twenty years. And just as He did in 1970, God is rescuing this generation and healing them. But an element, Erin, was they tarried. We don't wait. They stayed there all night. They read the Word. They listened; they sung to Him. They were tarrying and giving God time. I think for our listeners, that's a really important thing. Just to give Him time.

Yesterday, I'm getting texts from my friends. One guy says 2:30 in the afternoon, "There are no words. I just left the church at 2:30. 106 people were baptized.” Another text said, “Fifty-two students were baptized." Other texts, “Twenty were baptized spontaneously this morning.” And then a little later, he said, “I left too soon—thirty-three.”

Another pastor started a prayer meeting, just a normal prayer meeting on Wednesday, and it lasted for two-and-a-half hours, spontaneously. They came back the next night and the next night. And they didn't come back. They weren't gonna meet on Saturday night, but people showed up and had a prayer meeting. And Sunday morning, both of their services merged into one and went to one o'clock. And he said, “And oh, by the way, we spontaneously baptized sixty people.”

Erin: Wow. 

Bill: That's extraordinary. Those are the kinds of reports that you read in past histories of revival. The Church revived. And when the Church starts praying, really praying, that is revival. But that's where generally God starts moving, and through the testimony of His people, and just supernaturally awakening people. Jonathan Edwards says, “The work of God in these times is accelerated.” And that's all for the purposes of God, and His ultimate mission, to reach His world for Christ.

Holly: I noticed in Mark that the Lord had healed a man. And he said, “I want to come with You” when Jesus got in His boat to leave. And Jesus said this to him. He did not let him go. But He said to him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how He had mercy on you.” And that's what we're seeing happen is that people are seeing the presence of God there and then going home and sharing what God has done. And that's why it's spreading across our nation. That is such a blessing.

Bill: Yeah, you know, after the 1970, seven days that chapel happened at Asbury, they shut the school down. And reports are that over 1,000 students in teams went to 130 college campuses and everywhere they went revival broke out. They went to Azusa Pacific University, and they showed up during a basketball game. They said, "We just want to share what God's doing." They said, “Well, here's a microphone” during halftime. The game never resumed. It stopped the game. 

And there are just thousands of reports like that. It's interesting that people are coming and staying a day, two days at Asbury and then going home. This week you may know that the wise leaders at Asbury are reserving the auditorium this week just for college students and high school students. 

I think the reason is, now, God wants us to turn our eyes off Asbury and just look to Him for our own city for our own home, our own family, our own church. Somebody said to me, “Should I go to Asbury?” 

I said, “Well, if the Lord tells you to. You may not get in. You may not even get into the city. But you may want to stay right where you are and cry out to God because He's coming. He's coming. He's coming to your city. He's coming to your university. They want you right there to help to steward what the Lord is doing."

Time will tell whether this moves from a mercy drop or an outpouring to a full-blown great awakening. But what's fascinating, Erin, is just even me sitting in Little Rock, Arkansas, I'm having people call from Cuba, from Canada, from London, from California from all over, just wanting to hear what God has done and telling me reports of what God has done. 

I have wondered often if God has not used COVID, which entire world was shut down in six weeks, and we were stripped of everything, to bring us to the end of ourselves and to make us desperate. God's people began to cry out and to send what we pray will be a great awakening, maybe nationwide, because He shut down the whole world. Maybe a worldwide move of God. 

I have a little theory that maybe that will happen. It will set the church ablaze in mission enterprise. We'll get to every tongue, tribe, nation, and people, and then the end would come. That's just a theory. 

Erin: It's heavy on my heart and light on my heart that out of this, whatever we want to call it, I'm just gonna call it revival for simplicity’s sake. Out of this revival, there are going to be young people who surrender their lives to ministry. You guys have been serving the Lord for fifty years. I've been serving the Lord for twenty years. I have been like, “Where are the young people surrendering their life to the call? Where are those dedicating themselves to showing God's Word so they could teach it with integrity? Where are those who will say, ‘We will go to the far corners of the earth for the name of Jesus.’ Where are they?” And they that's going to be part of the fruit of what's happening. Of course, it's happening first with young people. 

I just believe you're right. God is sending out an army out of this, and I'm so grateful. I want to steward them well. I want to steward this moment. Well, the best way we could do that is by praying. So, I want us to do that. Bill, every revival begins with God's people praying . . . sometimes for a very long time. You've been praying for revival since you experienced it in 1970. I can hardly get it out, because I just expect God to respond to the heartfelt prayers of His people. We want to call everybody who's watching and listening to this episode to pray. Holly, could you give us some language, what should we pray for? And then Bill, would you just lead us in praying?

Holly: I think we have to trust the Lord for His perfect will to be done and not get in the way in any way to hinder that or to stop it. But to listen and just be open to whatever He calls us to do with a spirit of open hands to whatever that is that God's calling us to, not Asbury if we don't live there. But wherever we're planted, that we would be the men and women or students that He has desired for us to be, and that we let him work through us in whatever way he calls us to do that.

Erin: All right, Bill, you pray, we'll add our amen. Let's ask the Lord to continue to move. 

Bill: Our Father, we are so grateful for Your mercy. Lord, we deserve nothing but judgment. We've ignored You. We've walked away from You. We’re more interested in our favorite television program than we are talking to the God who made us. We take our money and use it for so many self-absorbed purposes, other than the advancement of Your kingdom. And Lord, we're so sorry. But we're so grateful that You never leave Your Bride. Lord, You love her with a perfect love and with extraordinary kindness. 

And Lord, You have come and are coming in these days. We see it, Lord; we sense it. You are visiting Your Church. We're so grateful for people who have been seeking the Lord for many decades at Asbury and for Your visitations there, and Lord, for the spark that has begun and the spread that we're seeing. 

And so, we just pray that You would continue. Lord, we would pray that it would accelerate. We pray, Father, for every college campus. As we come this Thursday night to pray for the CollegiateDayofPrayer.org that has been happening for 200 years. And if we come on that night to pray for college campuses, Lord, we pray, You would touch down on every campus in our nation. 

Father, we pray for churches. We're hearing reports of pastors who are seeking You in unprecedented ways. Oh Lord, do not pass us by. Don't pass our church by. Don't pass our city by. Lord, don't pass my state by God. 

So we pray, Father, that in Your sovereignty, Lord, we can't manipulate this. Help us remember that we cannot orchestrate it. It is a divine invasion of Your Spirit. We can look to You, and we could cooperate with You. And Lord, as You're moving, may we refrain from quenching the Holy Spirit.

Father, we pray that all around the world this would spread and the news of what You're doing would be like a match to dry tinder. Lord, would You would do what only You can do? 

And Lord, I pray You receive the glory that You deserve, that You would receive lives that are walking away from You but are returning to You and worshiping You and serving you and going to the ends of the earth for You so that Your great mission would be accomplished for Your glory. 

So, Lord, that's our prayer. Keep us praying fervently in spirit, unceasing prayer, always obeying You instantly. We just want to tell You, Lord, before we stop, we love You, Lord. We just love You. We're so grateful for Your mercy. And we just pray, Father, You would take us to places that we would love You more. in Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

Erin: Amen. Thank you, Bill. Bill mentioned the Collegiate Day of Prayer and the 200th anniversary of that is this Thursday. I don't have to tell you that college campuses have become real hotbeds for deception. And yet, God is stirring on them. Bill tells us about the coincidence (I say it tongue in cheek). Of course it's God orchestrated about where the collegiate Day of Prayer will be held this year.

Bill: You know, every year a broadcast of this is held. Over a year ago, it was planned to be broadcast from Hughes Auditorium on Asbury’s campus. The leaders at Asbury are very excited about this. They see it as totally providential and will kind of be the last night of their public gatherings they've said, because they believe in that moment, God wants to explode this outside of Wilmore, Kentucky. This will go to potentially millions of viewers. 

So, I would encourage people to get their church together, bring a group together in your home, go to CollegiateDayOfPrayer.com. You can just click a livestream there. It's a prayer meeting. We'll be praying for two hours for the colleges in our nation. And Erin, just again, I really believe that what God is doing in this movement is about the next generation. It's about all of us old codgers. But it's about the next generation and seeing that generation be instantly healed, which they can be if they come to Christ, and be restored and set ablaze for God's glory. 

So please, wherever you are, adopt a college campus. Fast and pray on Thursday. Join us on the livestream if you can that night. Just pray that God would reach this next generation for Christ.

Erin: I'll join you in praying for that. We're going to drop the link so that you can join that livestream that he mentioned. Bill, Holly, thanks for being on Grounded. I admire you so much, because you've both carried the banner of revival for so long. I think we will see how your prayers have contributed to what we're seeing God doing in this day when all is revealed. So, thank you again.

Holly: Thanks for having us. 

Erin: Bill has been writing about what God is doing on his blog. There are lots of really good thoughts there, lots of things to pray about, we're gonna drop the link for that as well. 

Well, if you're like me, you want to move on from here to just lay flat in your living room and cry out to the Lord for revival. We're going to encourage you to do that really soon. I do just want to open our Bibles together quickly to put the punctuation on everything that we've heard. The Asbury revival of 2023 will have practical applications in the lives of many people. As I said, many will surrender their lives to ministry. I believe we're going to see a great crop of pastors, missionaries, Bible teachers born out of what God is doing. Many are going to be set free, have already been set free from patterns of sin; relationships are being restored; people are repenting asking forgiveness, granting forgiveness. As amazing as all of that is, then it is amazing. 

That is not the headline today. Here's the headline. It comes from Acts chapter 2:17–21.

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
   and your young men shall see visions,
   and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
   in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
   and signs on the earth below,
   blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
   and the moon to blood,
   before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. [That’s what verse 20 says.]
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Did you hear what God said through His Word? An outpouring of the Holy Spirit on men and women, on young and old, on those with power and position and those are just college freshmen. It's a sign that we are living in the last days. Nobody knows when Jesus will return. But we do know that He will. I like to say it won't be long now. I hope it is really soon. 

The purpose of revival is not simply to bless God's people, though, of course it is a blessing. We're not just supposed to get fat on what the Holy Spirit is doing or keep it like a little secret. Jesus is coming back. And for those of us who are in Christ, that is the best news that we could ever hear. But for those who do not know Him, who will not surrender their lives to Him, the inevitability of His return is the worst news possible. Because once He parts the clouds, the window of opportunity for them to choose Him will close. They'll miss the opportunity to gain eternal life. 

So Church, hear me: this is our moment. May we not waste it debating over things that are trivial. This is not a call to watch this unfold on social media. The call is to share the gospel, to live Spirit-filled and Spirit-directed lives every day. And it is to boldly call those who are dead in their trespasses to experience new life, fresh life, wholeness, eternal life in Christ. 

Here's one more quote from Nancy’s study Seeking Him, and we're going to drop the link to that Bible study. It really is a primer on revival. Nancy said, 

A revived church is the greatest means of making God's great redemptive plan known throughout the world. The Church is God's Plan A for the spread of the gospel. And there is no plan B. A dead Church can't complete the mission, but an awakened Church can.

So if God is stirring in your town, in your church, in your life, it's not just to help you feel better. It's so you could be the ambassador of truth that God has called you to be. 

So, Church, God is reviving us. He's reviving us so that we can bring life to others. And one thing revival does is it makes us long for Him, long for His return so you say together as we pray for revival there.

Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. May You find us ready. 

Portia: Amen.

Although we'll end the episode, I encourage you. In fact, that's what I'm gonna sit here and do for a minute—just tarry and to wait to seek the Lord, to seek Him.

Erin: Make space. He is worthy. No matter what you have on your to-do list today, you have time to sit and listen for the Lord.

Portia: It’s His time in a way.

Erin: I do want to point you to one more resource. It's on the Revive Our Hearts blog today written by Nancy. It is, “When Do We Need Revival.” I'm gonna give you just a sampling. She's got many bullet points about when we need revival. 

• We need revival when we do not love Him as we once did. 
• We need revival when earthly interest in occupations is more important to us than eternal ones. [Bill mentioned that.] 
• We need revival when we would rather scroll social media and binge watch shows and movies than read our Bible and pray. 
• We need revival when church dinners are better attended than prayer meetings. 
• We need revival when we know the truth in our heads and we're not practicing it in our lives. 
• We need revival when we don't tremble at the Word of God

So, Church, we need revival. Let's keep praying to see it.

Portia: Amen, amen. Revive us Lord, revive us. 

Nancy: And Lord, I want to add my own amen to what we’ve just heard. You know that as I listened to this conversation and these prayers a couple of days ago, I found my own heart crying out, “Lord, I need revival. We need revival at Revive Our Hearts. We need revival in our churches, in our country, and in our world.”

Lord, would You do a fresh work of grace in my heart, in the heart of each listener. Lord, help us to sense and to see and to hear what You are doing in our day. We pray that in all of this Christ might be magnified and Your glory seen in our world. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. 

We’ve been listening to my dear friends, Bill and Holly Elliff, talking to Grounded hosts Erin Davis and Portia Collins, just a couple of days ago, about what God has been doing in Wilmore, Kentucky and around the nation. 

If your heart is hungry for true revival, let me encourage you to go to the transcript of today’s program where we’ve included a number of links. We weren’t able to share the entire Grounded program. I want to encourage you to watch the whole thing. It is deeply moving. Erin mentioned a blog post I've written called “When Do We Need Revival?” Again, I want to encourage you to download it and take time to let God speak to your heart. 

Don’t forget. Tomorrow is the national Collegiate Day of Prayer. Which as Bill Elliff mentioned, in the Lord’s providence, the it will be hosted tomorrow evening from Hughes Auditorium on the campus of Asbury University. You’ll find the information about how you can participate in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Today's been an unusual program. I'm so grateful to many on our team including producers Phil Krause and Justin Converse who helped to make these changes possible on short notice. 

I hope you'll join us tomorrow as we pick up on our series on encouraging one another

Please be back as we pray together, "Lord, Revive Our Hearts."

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