Every spiritual awakening, revival, or whatever you’d like to call it, has certain visible characteristics. These are the results of people coming face to face with their idol, and their God. I’ll mention three distinguishing characteristics that will be demonstrated before and during a spiritual awakening.
Altars are rebuilt
Places sanctified for prayer and worship – OPEN PORTALS FOR GOD’S POWER
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord… Genesis 12:7-9 NKJV
Abram (Abraham) built altars to the Lord. They were used in worship, and in memorializing, or helping them and their offspring, remember what God had done and what he had promised to do.
Jacob, Abram’s grandson, built an altar at the same place his grandfather had many years prior.
Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.” (see Genesis 28)
…And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan… And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother. Genesis 35:1-7 NKJV
God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is God to each generation, not just God to the past. He is wanting to do great things in and through each generation, whether it’s the Boomers or the Millennials. But each generation must build upon the altars of their godly forefathers. Or, and probably more accurately, rebuild the altars that have fallen into disrepair due primarily to neglect.
The “old-time prayer meetings” are such altars. Every move of God begins with God and man, Heaven and Earth, meeting together in fervent prayer. Today’s no different.
The prayers of the upright are God’s delight (Proverbs 15).
Jan Grace 