3. Some Reflections
Rev W A Weale
1. The benefits of revival. From what we have seen already, God has favoured the Church with seasons of revival from early in its history. There have been long periods in which there have been no revivals; the period between the Testaments and the centuries prior to the Reformation are examples of this – when God’s cause was brought very low. These periods can be compared to seasons of poor fishing, when God’s servants have had to say with Peter: “We have toiled all the night and have taken nothing”. When revival comes, however, this all changes and multitudes are caught in the gospel net. In looking at the benefits of revival we can do no better than quote James Buchanan: “A season of general awakening affords, both to believers and unbelievers, a new and very impressive proof of the reality and power of the Spirit’s grace; it strengthens the faith and enlarges the hopes of God’s people, it awakens those nominal professors who are at ease in Zion, and it alarms and arouses the consciences of the religious multitude. For when many are suddenly arrested by the power of the Spirit, and turned from the error of their ways, and made to break off their sins by repentance, and are seen flying to Christ like doves to the windows, the mind of every spectator must be impressed with a sense of the reality and importance of religion, and the most ungodly for a time will tremble.”
In listing the benefits of revivals we may find it helpful to refer to Henry Fish’s chapter on “What We Owe to Revivals”. He points to five benefits: (1) Society at large has been uplifted by revivals. He refers, among other things to improvements in moral standards. (2) Missionary movements have come from revivals – especially in the period 1790-1842. To see how true this is we have only to think of the many men and women who have left our own shores and, under God, have been a blessing in far-off lands. (3) An effective ministry has come from revivals. How clearly this can be seen if we consider the testimonies of many of God’s servants, as well as the testimonies of those who witnessed a transformation in these men’s preaching at such times! (4) Institutions of learning have owed much to revivals. (5) Strong churches have come from revivals. Many churches have indeed come unto being at such times and those already in existence have grown dramatically. But perhaps it is the effect that revivals have had on individual congregations that has been the greatest benefit. In Acts 2:41-47 we have an account of what followed the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and Peter’s sermon. There in Jerusalem we are told of fellowship, prayer, fear of God, kindness, hospitality, joy, bright witness and praising of God, all of which are what every child of God longs to know more of.
2. The dangers of revival. After what has been said on the benefits of revival, one might wonder how any of God’s people would be opposed to revival. Yet many were – claiming that revivals were “of the devil and a delusion”. In 1744, in a letter to Thomas Prince, Gilbert Tennent writes, “It is shocking to think that any should dare to oppose a work attended with such commanding evidence as has been among us”. He then proceeds to quote from the Narrative of James Robe, minister of Kilsyth: “I seriously beg of any who are prejudiced against this dispensation of God’s extraordinary grace, and look upon it as a delusion, that they will show themselves so charitable, as to direct me and other ministers what we shall answer distressed persons of all ages who come to us crying bitterly that they are undone, because of unbelief and other sins: ‘What shall we do to be saved?’ And as a young girl of about twelve, who had been in distress for some time called upon me in the house where I was, and asked me with great sedateness, ‘What shall I do to get Christ?’ shall we tell them that they are not Christless, and are not unconverted, when we evidently see many of them to be such? “Shall we tell them that their fears of the wrath of God are all but delusion, and that it is not such a dreadful thing that they need to be much afraid of it? Shall we tell persons lamenting their cursing and swearing and Sabbath-breaking and other immoralities that it is the devil that now makes them see these evils to be offensive to God and destructive to their souls? Shall we tell them who, under the greatest uneasiness, enquire of us what they shall do to get an interest and faith in Jesus Christ, that Satan is deluding them when they have, or show, any concern this way? In fine, shall we pray and recommend it to them to pray to God to deliver them from such delusions? It would be worse than devilish to treat the Lord’s sighing and groaning prisoners at this rate; and yet such treatment is a natural consequence of reckoning this the work of the devil and a delusion.” That being said, revivals do have their dangers. We mention two of these.
There is the danger of spurious conversions. In the parable of the sower, the seed was sown on four different soils, and three of them did not bring forth fruit. There was the seed sown by the wayside, the seed sown on stony ground and the seed sown among thorns. In the last two cases there was some reception of the seed, but it all came to nothing. If one applies this to those on whom an impression is made but nothing more, for they go back like Pliable after his time in Bunyan’s “slough of despond”, we find that they are in a worse state than ever. The second danger is that of “revivalism”. That is the idea, as brought out so well by Iain Murray in Revival and Revivalism, that revivals can be brought about, partly at least, by the instrumentality of man. This was the view taken by such men as Charles Finney, who wrote books on how to start a revival. He saw revivals as the work of man co-operating with God, like a farmer cultivating a field. Finney and his disciples, despite what they claimed to the contrary, were anti-Calvinists and this, as Mr Murray points out, was at the source of their teaching. They acknowledged that man was fallen, but they argued that he had free will and so was able to “decide for Christ”. If he was dealt with in a certain way, he could be persuaded to do so.
The poison here, while it ultimately goes back to the broken covenant of works and looking to what can no longer deliver man, has to be traced to the Arminianism of John Wesley. It was to have disastrous consequences for later revivals in America as well as in Britain. One has only to think of Moody and Sankey in the late nineteenth century and the more recent “Lewis Revival” under Duncan Campbell, as well as the present-day Keswick meetings, to appreciate the danger here. If one has the power to believe (which is quite different from the responsibility to believe) then, with some psychological and emotional pressure, people may be persuaded to come forward en masse.
3. Our duty in relation to revivals. After reflecting on the fact that revivals are of God and cannot be brought about by any human efforts or methods, the question may arise in our minds: Do we therefore sit back and just hope that revival – which is clearly something to be desired – will come? We emphatically answer, No. Just as we would never tell an unsaved person that, as he cannot save himself, he must just sit back and hope that God in His mercy will meet with him, but rather that he has duties that he must attend to, so it is with revival. What then is our duty in relation to revival? We would note four things here:
(1.) We should expect revival. God’s way of working has, from the beginning, included revivals, as is seen in the history of the Church. But apart from that we have promises in the Bible of blessings in the Church until the end of time. We sing in the Psalms of the Lord appearing in His glory when He builds up Zion, and we have the prophecies of Isaiah and others, including those of the Lord Himself, that can only refer to the New Testament age. We read, in Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, of the stone that became a great mountain and filled the earth; and we have the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven as told by the Lord. Surely then we have every reason to be optimistic and expect revivals as long as the world lasts.
(2.) We should pray earnestly for a revival. We noticed the prayer meetings in New York in 1857-58, and how it was “when Zion travailed” that children, as promised, were “brought forth”. It has indeed been observed that, before many of the great revivals came, people were burdened to cry unto the Lord for His Spirit to be poured forth. This is, after all, what the Word of God teaches us: after promises of restoration and the blessing of a new heart and spirit were given, the Lord concludes with these words: “Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them” (Ezk 36:37).
(3.) We must seek repentance, for those sins that hinder revival. Here is something that involves all God’s children. They are all sinners and have much corruption remaining within them and have therefore the duty and privilege of examining themselves in the mirror of God’s Word. And, by His grace, they are to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and . . . run with patience the race that is set before us”.
(4.) We are to witness and work towards a revival. The Lord Jesus told His disciples that they were a “city . . . set on a hill” that could not be hidden, and “light” in a dark world, and the duty to act in such ways remains still. We who profess to be the Lord’s are, by our words and deeds, to show forth the praises of the Lord, so as to be witnesses to those in darkness until the Lord’s time to favour Zion comes, as He has promised.
4. Conclusion. From what has been said in this paper, one thing at least is clear: we today stand greatly in need of revival. It is a solemn fact that, since just a little beyond the mid-nineteenth century, there has not been a revival of any great significance in our nation, or indeed in any of the Western countries. It is also an indisputable fact that, since the 1960s, there has been a rapid decline in the religious and moral state of the UK, so that today we stand in a condition as deplorable as it has ever been. Surely then we should be crying out to the Lord and giving Him no rest until He fulfils His promise to “establish . . . and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth”. We conclude this paper with an extract from a letter by Daniel Dana to W B Sprague, written in March 1832. Dana, after referring to the state of things in America at that time, writes: “If anything is to be found on earth which has much of heaven in it, it is a genuine revival of religion. But in this imperfect state, nothing can pass through human hands entirely unsoiled. It is a delightful thought that He who loved the Church and gave Himself for it will finally present it to Himself, a glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle. It is my prevailing hope and belief that the great things which God has already done for His American Israel are precursors of still greater things. May He cleanse our Zion ‘by the spirit of judgement and by the spirit of burning’. May He ‘purify the sons of Levi . . . that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness’. May our beloved land, and may the whole earth, soon behold the glory of the Lord, and rejoice in His salvation.”
True Christians are sanctified wholly, in their whole man, though they are not sanctified thoroughly. They are sanctified in every part, though they are not sanctified in the highest degree. Their whole spirit is sanctified, that is, the higher faculties of the soul, namely, the understanding and the will. Their understandings are enlightened by the Spirit unto a spiritual discerning both of good and evil, beyond what any natural man does or can attain unto. Their wills are bowed, or rather rectified and made straight, being inclined unto God and His law.
Thomas Vincent