Revival In The Land

This morning on Fox News, I heard something that brought joy and gladness to my heart. I wish that I had written down the name of the four colleges that were given, but they were major colleges, and what happened on those campuses is happening on college campuses across the land!

There is a revival going on among our college campuses, and 200, 250, and 300 college students are being baptized in the back of pick-up trucks! Local churches and pastors and campus ministries are taking part in a movement of God upon our large educational institutions throughout the country, and my heart is thrilled to hear such news!

Fox interviewed one of the students that was baptized and one of the local pastors about what was happening. The young female student that spoke said “when she was baptized, it felt like a burden had been lifted from her shoulders.”

She also stated, and this was echoed by the local pastor, that “we are looking for something more.” Students are disappointed in their government, and their education is not supplying what is missing, but Jesus Christ is! The pastor said that students are looking for meaning in their lives, they are looking for something that the world and its education cannot give them, but they are finding it in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Just last week at Baylor University, hundreds of students participated in a three day, 72-hour on campus prayer and worship was a bloody mess. Isaiah wrote of Him, “He had no form or splendor that we should look upon Him, no appearance that we should desire of Him. He was despised and rejected by men, and we did not value Him” (Isaiah 53:2,3). Then they marched Him out to a hill called Golgotha, or, Hill of the Skull, and there they crucified Him. King David wrote about Him, “They pierced my hands and my feet. I count all my bones (for many were exposed); people look and stare at me. They divided my garments among themselves and cast lots for my clothing” (Psalm 22:16-18). Yet, when He died, Psalm 34:20 says, “He protects all his bones; not one of them is broken,” for it was the cruelty of Rome that ordered the condemned’s legs to be broken to hasten his death. Zechariah 12:10 declares, “They will look upon Me whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, weeping bitterly as one weeps for a firstborn.”

As two disciples of Jesus, not those of the twelve, but two believers were walking to their home in Emmaus that Sunday morning, the third day after the crucifixion, Luke tells us that Jesus sudden accompanied them as they were discussing the events of the past few days, but He prevented them from recognizing Him. “What are you discussing,” He asked them? They replied, “Haven’t you heard? Are you so new to Jerusalem that you haven’t heard what has happened these last few days?” The stranger asked, “What things?” “Why, the things concerning Jesus of Nazarus, the Prophet who was powerful in action and word before God and all the people. But the chief priests and religious leaders handed Him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified Him! We were hoping that He was the One who was about to redeem Israel, but now, we don’t know. And on top of that, some among us have reported that they have seen Him alive and risen from the grave!” And then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus began interpreting for them the things concerning Himself in the Scriptures.

What things were these? The things quoted from the Psalms and Prophets above and the words of Isaiah in Isaiah 53, “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed because of our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and we are healed by His wounds. All we like sheep have turned away, but the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” And when they asked this stranger to stay and eat with them, He broke bread before them and suddenly He disappeared right before their eyes! And their hearts and eyes were opened. Now even they believed that Jesus had risen from the grave! Words recorded five hundred, seven hundred, a thousand years before, fulfilled right before their very eyes. Jesus is alive! He is risen indeed! Do you know Him?