Corey Russell - Reclaiming Revival: Calling a Generation to Contend for Historic Awakening

Copyright 2022Corey Russell and Billy Humphrey

All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All emphasis within Scripture quotations is the authors own. Please note that Destiny Images publishing style capitalizes certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and may differ from some publishers styles. Take note that the name satan and related names are not capitalized. We choose not to acknowledge him, even to the point of violating grammatical rules.

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ISBN 13 TP: 978-0-7684-6090-2
ISBN 13 eBook: 978-0-7684-6091-9
ISBN 13 HC: 978-0-7684-6093-3
ISBN 13 LP: 978-0-7684-6092-6

For Worldwide Distribution, Printed in the U.S.A.
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We dedicate this book to intercessors all over the earth who are believing for revival.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are very grateful to those intercessors and revivalists who have gone before us. They and their stories have served as catalysts to our hunger and desire for historic awakening. We thank God for their lives and examples.

We would like to thank Edie Mourey for co-laboring with us in bringing forth the message in this book.

We want to acknowledge and thank the team at Destiny Image. We are grateful for your dedication to producing quality books that promote living Spirit-inspired and Spirit-empowered lives. We want to especially thank Larry Sparks for his partnership and for seeing the importance of calling a generation to contend for awakening.

FOREWORD

The Church of America must experience a fresh, mighty wave of revivalor else. It is simply non-negotiable. As Billy Humphrey and Corey Russell write in the very last words of this book, Revival and nothing less. Revival or we never rest. Revival now, oh God, we cry. Revival now or we will die!

They are not exaggerating in the least. It really is a matter of revival or we die.

Thats because America is at a tipping point, being torn apart at the seams and convulsing deeply in moral and spiritual confusion. But thats because the Church of America has failed to shine the light, failed to demonstrate the reality of the gospel, failed to show the world a better way. In fact, for a full generation now, rather than the Church changing the world, the world has changed the Church. How can this be?

In so many ways, as American followers of Jesus, we are known for our divisions, for our sexual and financial scandals, for our hypocrisy, for our political obsessionsreally, for everything but our relationship with Jesus. Something is terribly wrong.

The good news is that God Himself longs to pour out His Spirit afresh, and for several decades now, a cry to Heaven has been rising 24/7a cry for revival, for outpouring, for awakening. The Lord will respond to our cries!

But what, exactly, is revival? In this powerful and stirring book, Billy and Corey paint a picture of revival that you can not only see but that you can feel and even taste. Their words, which will convict and challenge, remind us of the power of divine encounter, of the reality of the Spirits visitation, of the transformational character of a true move of God. And as you read, your own heart will burn, Lord, wont You do it again? And wont You start with me?

As the authors share their own journeys, with humility and honesty, and as they describe the mighty works of God from revivals in the past, you will experience a hunger and thirst rising in your own heart. Grab hold of that hunger and let it drive you afresh to pray, to fast, to turn away from sin, to share your faith boldly. And then make a determination: No matter how long it takes and no matter how many obstacles I have to overcome, I must experience God for myself in a deeper, more powerful way. I must experience revival!

Thats the hunger that the Lord is looking for, and that is the hunger to which He will respond. In fact, it is the degree of your spiritual hunger that will determine your capacity to be visited by the Lord. He pours out His Spirit on the thirsty land. How thirsty are you?

It is my prayer that, once you finish this timely book, revival will become non-negotiable for you as well. With it, all things are possible. In fact, Americas greatest days could be ahead. Without it, we are in dire trouble.

What, then, will it be? I say, Send a fresh wave of revival, Lord, and start the work here and now in me!

D R . M ICHAEL L. B ROWN
Host of the Line of Fire radio broadcast
Author of Revival Or We Die:
A Great Awakening Is Our Only Hope

INTRODUCTION

The whole globe is in transition.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:2223)

Creation is longing and groaning for redemption from the bondage of sin that has weighed it down. This groan is in the sky, on the earth, and rumbling through society. All creation is groaning. This groan is manifesting through the historic rise of pestilences, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes.

Not only is creation itself groaning, but there is a groan deep within us alla longing to throw off this body of death and be fully absorbed in God. The Spirit is groaning within us, making intercession with Jesus for the full will of God to come about in our lives.

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (Romans 8:26)

WHAT IS THIS GROAN?

We believe its the deep cry within every one of us to fully experience everything that God intended in the beginning. Think back to the garden, where God and man walked in seamless intimacy, in unbroken connection. And out of the overflow of this connection, man was commissioned to rightly take dominion over the earth.

Sadly, in many places the current state of the Church is disconnected from this intimacy and our Heaven-breathed calling for dominion. From the pain of this dispossession, the groan and vision for revival have begun to awaken in the heart of a people longing for more. Where we have chosen to anesthetize our souls with a thousand lesser comforts and settle down into a world we were meant to be passing through, we must now honestly come to grips with the reality of our state.

We are desperately in need of reclaiming what we have lost: namely, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church that awakens her from her sleep and causes her to walk in the glory and the fear of God to the extent that entire cities, regions, and nations are impacted by a pure confrontation of God. This groan over our desperate state is calling us to reclaim revival.