Back in October 1973, the Holy Spirit came mightily upon a rural community located in the interior of Sarawak, among a people cut off from most parts of the world. That outpouring was so massive that we only need to mention the Bario Revival today, and every local Christian would be familiar with it. It impacted and transformed the local Church in Malaysia, and many of us look back fondly on it. What triggered the Holy Spirit to come in such a powerful way in that remote community?
Rev Solomon Bulan is no stranger to the workings of God, often finding himself among revival settings. Before he became a pastor of the SIB church in 1997, he served as a teacher in charge of the school in the community where the Bario Revival broke out. Years later, in 2015, he revisited Bario and wrote a book on the remarkable event.
On Sunday, 30th October 2022, he shared a message at the Kajang Assembly of God on revival triggers, delivering it directly from his personal experiences. Rev Solomon Bulan has a very conversational style, possesses humility, and communicates from experience, sharing many stories of Bario and his encounter with God during the Bario Revival.
The Bario Revival is a First Seed
In his message, Rev Bulan conveyed that as he traveled across the world over the years speaking on the Bario Revival, God broadened his outlook. He realised that the revival is not just for Bario or the Kelabit and Lumbawang people. Faith in God in the locale has grown to include several other tribes. Today, the gatherings held to commemorate the event have attained the scale of tribal meetings.
Like the great Welsh Revival that started in Swansea, Wales, and the Timor Revival that began in Kupang, Indonesia, revivals are never about the specific locations where they happen or about the people there. The revivals are really about Jesus and His story. The Bario Revival is the forerunner of bigger things to come – a Nusantara Revival.
‘We must be a part of the revival,’ Rev Bulan encouraged. Even during the pandemic, God has brought us together in Malaysia and the wider Southeast Asian region. We have discovered how to connect across national and spatial boundaries, coming together in unity and prayer. Rev Bulan conveys that he expects great things from God in 2023, the jubilee year of the Bario Revival.
God’s Revivals
Revivals are encounters with the Holy Spirit of God. When the Bario Revival happened, it was an encounter with the Spirit of God. Revivals are the great awakening of the Holy Spirit that will bring restoration, renewal, refreshing, transformation, and change. When Moses encountered God in the burning bush, it was an encounter that transformed him to become the deliverer of a whole people. Saul the great persecutor became Paul, one of the greatest apostles the Christian church had ever known. Every encounter will bring a change and a shift.
How can we be prepared for revival and encounter with God? ‘We can only see this happen if we are revived ourselves,’ Rev Bulan conveyed. Before anything else, we need to know that revivals occur as the sovereign will of God.
‘Every revival began with prayer, and prayer sustains revival. Prayers don’t cause revivals. It is God that brings revival. But prayer prepares us, it prepares our minds, hearts, and situations.’
We must be a praying people. We cannot force the hand of God with our prayers, but we do have the privilege as His partners to communicate with Him, and He listens to us as a good father does.
Three Triggers of Revival
Rev Bulan shared three triggers that will cause revival to go through. We may already be aware of many of these, it is just in how we live them out.
The first trigger is that there must be a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God (Matthew 5:6). Do we really hunger for revival? It means wanting desperately, like the man in the desert, for the presence and righteousness of God and having an urgency to live our lives according to His will. Jesus is the Bread of Life and the Living Water. If we want revival in our land, we must live a Godly life.
‘Cultivate an intimate relationship with Him,’ Rev Bulan encouraged. ‘During revivals, people will go into repentance. Rain or shine, they come for prayer meetings. The presence of God permeates everything. Time no longer becomes a factor.’
The second is that we must, as a people of God, have a passion for Him. Rev Bulan conveyed that the word passion connotes an intense emotion such as love or joy. It is an enthusiasm akin to hunger, thirst, or craving, manifested in delight, fervency, and obsession for God.
Passion is what energizes life. Without passion, life becomes monotonous and boring. It is similar spiritually. A lack of passion for God is the greatest threat to the Church. It can lead to routine, spiritual dryness, and even apathy. ‘Do not be afraid of emotion. There is always a lot of emotion in revivals,’ Rev Bulan said. God makes us living beings, and emotion draws people together and us to God. It is part of what an intimate relationship is.
Passion also helps us to be focused and single-hearted to God. Some examples in the Bible can be found in the life of Mary (Luke 10:40-42), Apostle Paul (Philippians 3:13-14), and King David (Psalm 27:4). Passion kept Mary free from the distraction of busyness, Paul to forget his former life and be so focused on what was ahead of him, and David to have such a strong desire for God that he often expressed it in deep feeling such as in many of the Psalms.
The third trigger is that we must cultivate compassion for lost souls. Rev Bulan shared that a survey done among pastors found that the greatest weakness of the modern Church is the lack of burden for lost souls. We live in a world that has become so disconnected. When Jesus saw the people (Matthew 9:36), He didn’t look past them, ignore them, or turn away from them. He related to their condition. Jesus compared them to sheep without a shepherd, vulnerable to going astray and getting into trouble. Jesus was filled with compassion for them. He understood them. As Christians, we must share the same compassion and love of Christ for the lost around us.
The last few years have not been easy and there is spiritual dryness in our nation. Many of us yearn for revival. The encouraging thing Rev Bulan passed across in his message is that God is not done with Malaysia. The Bario Revival is a catalyst. However, as Malaysian Christians, we must rise from our apathy and rebuild again our passion for God and compassion for our fellow neighbours.
Note: The content of this article is a condensation of the message Rev Bulan shared at Kajang Assemly of God on 30th October 2022. To access the full message, you may visit Kajang AOG’s YouTube page
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