IT has been said that the history of revivals is the history of
religion, and no one can study their history without being impressed
with their mighty influence upon the destiny of the race. To look back
over the progress of the Divine Kingdom upon earth is to review revival
periods which have come like refreshing showers upon dry and thirsty
ground, making the desert to blossom as the rose, and bringing new eras
of spiritual life and activity just when the Church had fallen under the
influence of the apathy of the times, and needed to be aroused to a new
sense of her duty and responsibility. “From one point of view, and that
not the least important,” writes Principal Lindsay, in “The Church and
the Ministry in the Early Centuries,” “the history of the Church flows
on from one time of revival to another, and whether we take the
awakenings in the old Catholic, the mediæval, or the modern Church,
these have always been the work of men specially gifted with the power
of seeing and declaring the secrets of the deepest Christian life, and
the effect of their work has always been proportionate to the spiritual
receptivity of the generation they have spoken to.”
As God, from the beginning, has wrought prominently through revivals,
there can be no denial of the fact that revivals are a part of the
Divine plan. The Kingdom of our Lord has been advanced in large measure
by special seasons of gracious and rapid accomplishment of the work of
conversion, and it may be inferred, therefore, that the means through
which God has worked in other times will be employed in our time to
produce similar results. “The quiet conversion of one sinner after
another, under the ordinary ministry of the Gospel,” says one writer on
the subject, “must always be regarded with feelings of satisfaction and
gratitude by the ministers and disciples of Christ; but a periodical
manifestation of the simultaneous conversion of thousands is also to be
desired, because of its adaptation to afford a visible and impressive
demonstration that God has made that same Jesus, Who was rejected and
crucified, both Lord and Christ; and that, in virtue of His Divine
Mediatorship, He has assumed the royal sceptre of universal supremacy,
and ‘must reign till all His enemies be made His footstool.’ It is,
therefore, reasonable to expect that, from time to time, He will repeat
that which on the day of Pentecost formed the conclusive and crowning
evidence of His Messiahship and Sovereignty; and, by so doing, startle
the slumbering souls of careless worldlings, gain the attentive ear of
the unconverted, and, in a remarkable way, break in upon those brilliant
dreams of earthly glory, grandeur, wealth, power and happiness, which
the rebellious and God-forgetting multitude so fondly cherish. Such an
outpouring of the Holy Spirit forms at once a demonstrative proof of the
completeness and acceptance of His once offering of Himself as a
sacrifice for sin, and a prophetic ‘earnest’ of the certainty that He
‘shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation,’ to judge the
world in righteousness.”
And that revivals are to be expected, proceeding, as they do, from the
right use of the appropriate means, is a fact which needs not a little
emphasis in these days, when the material is exalted at the expense of
the spiritual, and when ethical standards are supposed to be supreme.
That a revival is not a miracle was powerfully taught by Charles G.
Finney. There might, he said, be a miracle among its antecedent causes,
or there might not. The Apostles employed miracles simply as a means by
which they arrested attention to their message, and established its
Divine authority. “But the miracle was not the revival. The miracle was
one thing; the revival that followed it was quite another thing. The
revivals in the Apostles’ days were connected with miracles, but they
were not miracles.” All revivals are dependent upon God, but in
revivals, as in other things, He invites and requires the assistance of
man, and the full result is obtained when there is co-operation between
the Divine and the human. In other words, to employ a familiar phrase,
God alone can save the world, but God cannot save the world alone. God
and man unite for the task, the response of the Divine being invariably
in proportion to the desire and the effort of the human.
This co-operation, then, being necessary, what is the duty which we, as
co-workers with God, require to undertake? First of all, and most
important of all—the point which we desire particularly to
emphasise—we must give ourselves to prayer. “Revivals,” as Dr. J.
Wilbur Chapman reminds us, “are born in prayer. When Wesley prayed
England was revived; when Knox prayed, Scotland was refreshed; when the
Sunday School teachers of Tannybrook prayed, 11,000 young people were
added to the Church in a year. Whole nights of prayer have always been
succeeded by whole days of soul-winning.”
When D. L. Moody’s Church in Chicago lay in ashes, he went over to
England, in 1872, not to preach, but to listen to others preach while
his new church was being built. One Sunday morning he was prevailed upon
to preach in a London pulpit. But somehow the spiritual atmosphere was
lacking. He confessed afterwards that he never had such a hard time
preaching in his life. Everything was perfectly dead, and, as he vainly
tried to preach, he said to himself, “What a fool I was to consent to
preach! I came here to listen, and here I am preaching.” Then the awful
thought came to him that he had to preach again at night, and only the
fact that he had given the promise to do so kept him faithful to the
engagement. But when Mr. Moody entered the pulpit at night, and faced
the crowded congregation, he was conscious of a new atmosphere. “The
powers of an unseen world seemed to have fallen upon the audience.” As
he drew towards the close of his sermon he became emboldened to give out
an invitation, and as he concluded he said, “If there is a man or woman
here who will to-night accept Jesus Christ, please stand up.” At once
about 500 people rose to their feet. Thinking that there must be some
mistake, he asked the people to be seated, and then, in order that there
might be no possible misunderstanding, he repeated the invitation,
couching it in even more definite and difficult terms. Again the same
number rose. Still thinking that something must be wrong, Mr. Moody, for
the second time, asked the standing men and women to be seated, and then
he invited all who really meant to accept Christ to pass into the
vestry. Fully 500 people did as requested, and that was the beginning of
a revival in that church and neighbourhood, which brought Mr. Moody back
from Dublin, a few days later, that he might assist the wonderful work
of God.
The sequel, however, must be given, or our purpose in relating the
incident will be defeated. When Mr. Moody preached at the morning
service there was a woman in the congregation who had an invalid sister.
On her return home she told the invalid that the preacher had been a Mr.
Moody from Chicago, and on hearing this she turned pale. “What,” she
said, “Mr. Moody from Chicago! I read about him some time ago in an
American paper, and I have been praying God to send him to London, and
to our church. If I had known he was going to preach this morning I
would have eaten no breakfast. I would have spent the whole time in
prayer. Now, sister, go out of the room, lock the door, send me no
dinner; no matter who comes, don’t let them see me. I am going to spend
the whole afternoon and evening in prayer.” And so while Mr. Moody stood
in the pulpit that had been like an ice-chamber in the morning, the
bed-ridden saint was holding him up before God, and God, who ever
delights to answer prayer, poured out His Spirit in mighty power.
The God of revivals who answered the prayer of His child for Mr. Moody,
is willing to hear and to answer the faithful, believing prayers of His
people to-day. Wherever God’s conditions are met there the revival is
sure to fall. Professor Thos. Nicholson, of Cornell College, U.S.A.,
relates an experience on his first circuit that impresses anew the old
lesson of the place of prayer in the work of God.
There had not been a revival on that circuit in years, and things were
not spiritually hopeful. During more than four weeks the pastor had
preached faithfully, visited from house to house, in stores, shops, and
out-of-the-way places, and had done everything he could. The fifth
Monday night saw _many of the official members at lodges_, but only a
corporal’s guard at the church.
From that meeting the pastor went home, cast down, but not in despair.
He resolved to spend that night in prayer. “Locking the door, he took
Bible and hymn book and began to inquire more diligently of the Lord,
though the meetings had been the subject of hours of earnest prayer.
Only God knows the anxiety and the faithful, prayerful study of that
night. Near the dawn a great peace and a full assurance came that God
would surely bless the plan which had been decided upon, and a text was
chosen which he felt sure was of the Lord. Dropping upon the bed, the
pastor slept about two hours, then rose, hastily breakfasted, and went
nine miles to the far side of the circuit to visit some sick people. All
day the assurance increased.
“Toward night a pouring rain set in, the roads were heavy and we reached
home, wet, supperless, and a little late, only to find no fire in the
church, the lights unlit, and no signs of service. The janitor had
concluded that the rain would prevent the service. We changed the order,
rang the bell, and prepared for war. Three young men formed the
congregation, but in that ‘full assurance’ the pastor delivered the
message which had been prayed out on the preceding night, as earnestly
and as fully as if the house had been crowded, then made a personal
appeal to each young man in turn. Two yielded, and testified before the
meeting closed.
“The tired pastor went to a sweet rest, and next morning, rising a
little later than usual, learned that one of the young men was going
from store to store throughout the town telling of his wonderful
deliverance, and exhorting the people to salvation. Night after night
conversions occurred, until in two weeks we heard 144 people testify in
forty-five minutes. All three points of that circuit saw a blaze of
revival that winter, and family after family came into the church, until
the membership was more than trebled.
“Out of that meeting one convert is a successful pastor in the Michigan
Conference, another is the wife of one of the choicest of our pastors,
and a third was in the ministry for a number of years, and then went to
another denomination, where he is faithful unto this day. Probably none
of the members ever knew of the pastor’s night of prayer, but he verily
believes that God somehow does for the man who thus prays, what He does
not do for the man who does not pray, and he is certain that ‘more
things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.’”
All the true revivals have been born in prayer. When God’s people become
so concerned about the state of religion that they lie on their faces
day and night in earnest supplication, the blessing will be sure to
fall.
It is the same all down the ages. Every revival of which we have any
record has been bathed in prayer. Take, for example, the wonderful
revival in Shotts (Scotland) in 1630. The fact that several of the then
persecuted ministers would take a part in solemn convocation having
become generally known, a vast concourse of godly persons assembled on
this occasion from all quarters of the country, and _several days were
spent in social prayer_, preparatory to the service. In the evening,
instead of retiring to rest, the multitude divided themselves into
little bands, and _spent the whole night in supplication and praise_.
The Monday was consecrated to thanksgiving, a practice not then common,
and proved the great days of the feast. After much entreaty, John
Livingston, chaplain to the Countess of Wigtown, a young man and not
ordained, agreed to preach. He _had spent the night in prayer_ and
conference—but as the hour of assembling approached his heart quailed
at the thought of addressing so many aged and experienced saints, and he
actually fled from the duty he had undertaken. But just as the kirk of
Shotts was vanishing from his view, those words, “Was I ever a barren
wilderness or a land of darkness?” were borne in upon his mind with such
force as compelled him to return to the work. He took for his text
Ezekiel xxxvi. 25, 26, and discoursed with great power for about two
hours. _Five hundred conversions_ were believed to have occurred under
that one sermon, thus prefaced by prayer. “It was the sowing of a seed
through Clydesdale, so that many of the most eminent Christians of that
country could date their conversion, or some remarkable confirmation of
their case, from that day.”
Of Richard Baxter it has been said that “he stained his study walls with
praying breath; and after becoming thus anointed with the unction of the
Holy Ghost he sent a river of living water over Kidderminster.”
Whitfield once thus prayed, “O Lord, give me souls or take my soul.”
After much closet pleading, “he once went to the Devil’s fair and took
more than a thousand souls out of the paw of the lion in a single day.”
Mr. Finney says: “I once knew a minister who had a revival fourteen
winters in succession. I did not know how to account for it till I saw
one of his members get up in a prayer meeting and make a confession.
‘Brethren,’ he said, ‘I have been long in the habit of praying every
Saturday night till after midnight for the descent of the Holy Ghost
among us. And now, brethren (and he began to weep), I confess that I
have neglected it for two or three weeks.’ The secret was out. That
minister had a praying church.”
And so we might go on multiplying illustration upon illustration to show
the place of prayer in revival and to demonstrate that every mighty
movement of the Spirit of God has had its source in the prayer-chamber.
The lesson of it all is this, that as workers together with God we must
regard ourselves as in not a little measure responsible for the
conditions which prevail around us to-day. Are we concerned about the
coldness of the Church? Do we grieve over the lack of conversions? Does
our soul go out to God in midnight cries for the outpouring of His
Spirit?
If not, part of the blame lies at our door. If we do our part, God will
do His. Around us is a world lost in sin, above us is a God willing and
able to save; it is ours to build the bridge that links heaven and
earth, and prayer is the mighty instrument that does the work.
And so the old cry comes to us with insistent voice, “Pray, brethren,
pray.”
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_Lord Jesus, cause me to know in my daily experience the glory and
sweetness of Thy name, and then teach me how to use it in my
prayer, so that I may be even like Israel, a prince prevailing with
God. Thy name is my passport, and secures me access; Thy name is my
plea, and secures me answer; Thy name is my honour and secures me
glory. Blessed Name, Thou art honey in my mouth, music in my ear,
heaven in my heart, and all in all to all my being!_
—C. H. SPURGEON.
_I do not mean that every prayer we offer is answered exactly as we
desire it to be. Were this the case, it would mean that we would be
dictating to God, and prayer would degenerate into a mere system of
begging. Just as an earthly father knows what is best for his
children’s welfare, so does God take into consideration the
particular needs of His human family, and meets them out of His
wonderful storehouse. If our petitions are in accordance with His
will, and if we seek His glory in the asking, the answers will come
in ways that will astonish us and fill our hearts with songs of
thanksgiving. God is a rich and bountiful Father, and He does not
forget His children, nor withhold from them anything which it would
be to their advantage to receive._
—J. KENNEDY MACLEAN.