19th May: Revivals

Speaker: Chris Laws

A survey of the great awakenings recorded in Scripture and Church history.

Why the term revival? Masses are dead in trespasses and sin and need to be brought to life.
Revival of religion. Concern for eternity. Multitudes awakened to their plight.
Awakening better: for step of conversion is to be awakened to the realities of sin and hell.
Believers also. Suddenly eternity is real, near.

A mighty battle is on. Revelation 6.2 “Behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”
God made a beautiful Creation, and man fell. Every single person is now against Him.
There is “none righteous, no, not one…there is none that seeks after God” (Rom 3.10-11).
Satan and sin have ruined all God’s work. Will God allow them to win?

In Christ’s hand is a bow, and He shoots sharp arrows of conviction, to take people captive from Satan’s clutches.
He wears a crown. Most of the time His work is not visible. Sometimes His hand is seen in revivals.
World rebellion is all around us. Arrogance, snubbing God, scorn, Gospel is downtrodden.
But Christ is the King, commander, conquering souls.
His war strategy includes times of revival/awakening.

Pentecost
The Church started with a revival at Pentecost. 3000 awakened, alarmed and converted in a single day.
Peter explained this was God pouring “out his Spirit upon all flesh.”

1. Not organised by men but a sovereign work of God. Not a mass crusade, “Let’s hold a revival.”
The work of years in weeks. Gospel preaching is accompanied by a powerful work of the Spirit.
Often started by a disaster – an epidemic, a financial crash.
Usually brief, but have lasting results, unlike many mass crusades.
Not mass hysteria, but have profound effects on whole nations for years to come.

2. Human instruments used. Peter and the eleven preached the Gospel.
It isn’t a spectator sport. Exhausting. 3000 baptisms, reaching doctrine, organising the Jerusalem church.
Care for the widows and persecuted.
“That one day changed the moral face of the globe”.

SCRIPTURE EXAMPLES
We tend to think of revivals only as part of church history. But many examples in Scripture.

Hezekiah “opened the doors of the temple, and repaired them” (2 Chron 29.3).
Call to return to God’s prescribed worship. Called all Judah and Israel to the Passover.
Many laughed his messengers to scorn (30.10), but a huge congregation assembled.
The priests were ashamed. Repented, put things right.
Hezekiah gave the congregation 1000 bullocks and 10,000 sheep (30.24).
“So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon…there was not the like in Jerusalem” (30.26).

About 1C later Josiah purged the land of idols and repaired the temple (2 Chron 34).
“Hilkiah the high priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses” (34.14).
“The king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem” (34.29).
Great preaching occasion: “All the inhabitants of Jerusalem…and all the people” listened to the Word of God.
Passover kept; 3000 bullocks and 30,000 sheep.

Ezra returned to Jerusalem from captivity with 50,000 people.
“The people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem” (Ezra 3.1) to listen to the Word.      
Later “All the people wept, when they heard the words of the law” (Nehemiah 8.9).
They “stood and confessed their sins” (9.1)

John the Baptist: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Powerful revival: “There went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan.”
Baptised, confessing their sin.

By Acts 4 the Church had increased to 5000, then an explosive spread of the Gospel.
Acts 8: great persecution of the church at Jerusalem “and they were all scattered abroad…”
They “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17.6). Conversion is a work of God, which uses human instruments.

REVIVALS IN CHURCH HISTORY
In the Middle Ages superstition and Roman Catholicism prevailed.
1300s Wycliffe and poor preachers taught the Gospel. Morning Star of the Reformation. Died 1384.
Reformer, seminary professor at Oxford, translated the Bible from Latin (Vulgate) with associates.
Rejected Catholicism, was declared a heretic.
1400s his followers, the Lollards, were ‘Protestants’ ahead of time.
1500s Reformation, 1517 Luther. Sudden unveiling of a long hidden Bible. Justification by faith.
Never such widespread concern for spiritual things since NT times.
Revival on a massive scale. One monk against RC church and empire. Work of God.
Changed the face of Europe.
1600s Puritans. Bunyan, Owen. Baxter at Kidderminster: on the Lord’s Day you might hear 100 families singing psalms and repeating sermons as you passed through the streets.
1700s Great Awakening 1740. Atheism, every trace of Christianity eradicated from science.
Whitefield, Wesley. Thousands converted. Descriptions of groups on roads converging on the towns.
1790s Missionary movement, Judson, Carey – Bible into 35 languages.
1815-1842 In USA on average 40-50,000 professions per year.

1859 Second Evangelical Awakening
Race for riches, Wall Street collapse, wheels of industry still.
Little room in NY, 1st prayer meeting 6, next 20, after 6 months 10,000. Schools suspended for daily worship.
100,000+ converted in USA in 4 months. Total both sides of the Atlantic approaching a million. 
Ulster, 100,000 conversions. Maze racecourse used to have 500; meetings up to 20,000.
Scotland, 20,000 on Glasgow Green. 40,000 attending prayer meetings.
Wales, in 2 years 100,000 converted (10% of population).

England. CHS “times of refreshing”.
He used Surrey Gardens Music Hall (near our mission) – up to 10,000
Lord Shaftesbury turned down pleas to become Home secretary, used Exeter Hall for evangelism.
Tom Barnado, Hudson Taylor, Muller in Bristol.
1900s first century since Wycliffe with no awakening (except Welsh revival of 1904). Nothing for 160 years. Why?

HINDRANCES
1. No singleness of aim. “The churches…do not make the conversion of the ungodly their one grand aim”. Today “no adequate idea of the one great work to which every child of God is called” (HC Fish).
This is Christ’s mission. It brought Him into the world, and He has committed it to us.
The early disciples planted churches in almost every part of the known world.

2. Love of ease, money, pleasure, honour. Slothful believers. “Inactivity in the church may prevent a revival.”
Rededication is needed. Huge effort is needed in revivals.
Whitefield crossed the Atlantic 13 times, Wesley rode 100,000 miles.

3. No distress over prevailing ills. “As soon as Zion travailed she brought forth children.”
Begin with the heart. Cannot expect revival without putting away all known sin and lukewarmness.
“They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn” (Zech 12.10) for dishonouring His name.
No mourning for sin means we are unfit to bring up the young in the faith.

4. Lack of Gospel preaching. Whitefield: “Intense yearning for souls...there was pleading for souls in his very looks.”

5. Inadequate prayer – Pentecost began in the upper room: “These all continued with one accord in prayer and
supplication.”  

6. Departure from God’s prescribed worship. Worldliness has been let into the church.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Temporary in duration, but enduring in effect.
Society at large uplifted. Missionary endeavour. Universities. Thinking. Great mental tides of men.
No revival in 20th C. First century since Reformation.
God uses human instruments. If we are not ready, He will use others.
Not all churches were visited by revival power in 1859.
If revival comes, will we be ready?

Isaiah 44.3: “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.”