Revival Stories

The 1995 Mexico Revival (part 1)


Sometimes God brings a revival through someone who is a visiting evangelist or newly planted in the region. At other times, He chooses to release Holy Spirit fire upon the work of a servant who has been serving faithfully for years or decades. Such is the story of how God ignited the revival fires in Mexico in 1995.

David Hogan and his family had committed to serve in Mexico in the 1970’s, laboring among native peoples near Tampico, an area located a little northeast of Mexico City. In 1981, David established a new work called Freedom Ministries to build up a team of missionaries to focus especially on reaching the furthest Mexican mountain tribes. It became common practice for his team to persistently pray and fast for breakthrough as they served among the villages.

On one visit to a remote village in 1995, David met with a local pastor who was in dismay over unexpected expressions of the Holy Spirit in his church: weeping, loud laughing, and folks falling to the ground. David was cautious at first. He had longed to see a true revival in Mexico for decades, but he wanted to make sure it was genuinely from God. He sought to guard against any copycat behavior that might arise from hearing what was happening in Toronto or elsewhere.He called on his ministry team to join him for a month of intense fasting in September of 1995. As he met with local ministers, David would witness the Spirit of God touching these seasoned leaders powerfully in very physical and tangible ways. Healing would often break out as people sensed the fire of God released upon the room. Finally, David felt it was time to gather even more leaders together.

It was October 25th when over 200 regional pastors gathered for a conference at a church along with its regular congregation. As usual, David began to speak from the Word of God. That first day carried a strong sense of God’s presence, and it led to many healings and much encouragement for the pastors and the people. The next day, Thursday, brought an even more powerful wave of God’s activity, and the Lord moved wonderfully from the start at 8AM all the way until it wrapped up at 10PM.But the third day was when God would release an unprecedented outflow of the river of God!

Now, as the third day of the conference got underway, many of the local leaders had stayed up all night to pray and were amazed at the profound sense of God’s presence that appeared. Many people felt the heaviness of God’s glory upon them. Some felt intense heat in that place, even early in the morning, when it was normally much cooler. As David walked to the front and prepared to speak from the Bible, he felt the Spirit urge him to call the 9 elders of the church to the stage. There, he invited them to join him in solemnly committing to see all of Mexico touched by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They agreed. As they made this covenant, they all were overwhelmed by the Spirit, with many falling back or collapsing to the ground. People, believers and unbelievers alike, were amazed at God’s grace and compassion at work in their midst. As miracles and healings intensified, it was clear that this was a day where God had chosen to ignite and set ablaze His revival power once again.


QUESTIONS TO DISCUSS:

  1. What do you think motivates a missionary and his family to forgo all the comforts and conveniences of their homeland in order to pursue a pioneering work on the missions field? How does a person stay focused for a whole year - or 10 years or even 30 years -in such a place? What does this reveal to you about the heart of David Hogan?
  2. How significant do you think prayer and fasting was to God’s decision to bring revival? What do you think David Hogan’s prayer and fasting looked like practically day by day?
  3. Do you agree with David Hogan’s decision to not let stories of other revivals outside of Mexico taint the native work he was doing? Why or why not?
  4. Why is the concept of the tangible presence of God so difficult for Westerners to accept or understand as a component of historic revival? What other preconceived ideas may be getting in the way of understanding how God really works?
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