我们讨论复兴这话题已有好一段日子，前几天我们谈到有些宗教人士并不认同复兴出现时信徒的情绪反应，而今天，我们会探讨有些人认为复兴是不需要的，和无关痛痒的。我们看其中一人的理论。他说：「鼓励大家相信复兴，只会令他们在属灵上感到不满足；他们变成只专注为复兴祷告（而这是很少发生的事），以致未能完成手上的事工。」我对这看法有点儿认同，因为这么多年来，我也注意到有些基督徒常常大谈复兴即将来临，但是逃避了基督徒日常生活上的责任。

多年前，我在威尔斯牧养教会，知道当时有一间教会的领袖认为他们应该取消其他一切活动，只在每天晚上举行祷告会，直到神给他们的会众赐下复兴为止。当他们决定全情投入这个看似属灵却是错误的意念以后，就只能继续下去。他们每天晚上的祷告会维持了一年之久，后来会友们纷纷感到厌倦和迷惑，祷告会才被迫终止。直到今天，那间教会的元气仍然没有恢复过来。

那教会由于对复兴持有不平衡的观念，而错过了很多布道和宣教的机会。他们以为得到引导，但是看不到每天晚上的祷告、等待复兴的来临，是一种沉溺的需求过于属灵的渴望。当对复兴的渴求变成一种沉迷，导致我们失去属灵的平衡时，那就是问题所在了。

We look now at another argument advanced by those who see the issue of revival as unnecessary and irrelevant. It goes like this: "Encouraging people to believe for a revival serves only to make them spiritually discontent. They become so preoccupied with praying in a revival (which happens. only infrequently) that they fail to get on with the task at hand." I have some sympathy for this argument as I too have been concerned for years over those Christians who talk a lot about a coming revival but avoid the day-to-day responsibilities of Christian living.

Many years ago, when I was a minister in Wales, I knew a church whose leaders believed that they should cancel all their activities and hold a prayer meeting every evening of the week until God sent revival to their community. Once committed to this seemingly spiritual but rather misguided idea, they simply had to keep going. They continued holding prayer meetings every evening for over a year, after which the congregation were so tired and bewildered they were obliged to call a halt. The church has never recovered to this day.

Think of all the opportunities the church missed in evangelism and outreach because they had an unbalanced view of the subject of revival. They thought they were being guided, but they failed to see that their commitment to pray every evening until revival came was more an obsessive demand than a deep spiritual desire. When the issue of revival becomes an obsession that tips us off our spiritual balance then there is something seriously wrong.