All God’s revivals presume a prior people of God.

Given this truth and meaning Revival is woven within all Scripture, from the Fall, to the end of the present age. From the Fall, for before Adam and Eve sinned the life of the world flourished in the very presence of God. And after the present age for then God’s people will flourish in the resurrection life of the New Creation, and will no longer suffer any curse, or death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order things will have passed away. [See Rev 21 and 22]. Revivals are God’s engagement in the life of His people and those He is calling to be His people in support of His long-term strategy, which Paul expresses in Colossians 1:9bff …

'we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His people in the kingdom of light. For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

'The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

'And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation - if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.

'This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.' [NIV 1984]

Revival as God’s commitment to return His people, the lineage of Adam to life, after our falling into death, to live eternally again with Himself is promised in Genesis 3:15, where in cursing the serpent, an image of the devil who has tricked Eve and Adam out of the kingdom of light into his dominion of darkness, God declares: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

It does not therefore seem to me that Revival, as God’s re-invigoration of His people after they have fallen into decay or decline, is to be seen as something rare, but as something God is likely to will and do when His people lapse into spiritual death, for God’s purposes will not be defeated.

As God declares in Isaiah c46 v 8-10 and 11b [NIV 1984] “Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ …. What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.