I saw a sign outside a church in
the San Fernando Valley which said revival every
Monday.
What they do during the rest of the
week one can only conjecture.
Five miles away in Burbank I saw a
sign that said revival every night except Monday.
I wondered if some evangelist was moonlighting.
I was lecturing at Baylor University when a
Baptist pastor and waker said to me, brother,
oh we had a revival here last fall
and nobody got revived.
I said run that past me again.
He said we had a revival here last
fall and nobody got revived.
I said then you didn't have a revival.
Oh yes we did.
He told me the name of the evangelist,
the name of the song leader.
He told me how much money they put
out in publicity, but said we never got
off the ground.
This must be the only country in the
world where a non-event can be an
event, provided you mean well.
I was lecturing at Asbury College, a Methodist
college in Kentucky, and an old professor said,
brother, oh you warm my heart.
He said I have seen three revivals here.
I said tell me, were they organized?
Oh no.
He said matter of fact the last one,
1970, the president had left town.
The president was a good friend of mine
so I said maybe he ought to leave
town oftener.
But he said well the students had just
held their revival and nothing happened.
And they were so disappointed they started praying
half the night and then the Lord sent
revival.
I said you better say that again.
You say they had just held their revival
and nothing happened and then the Lord sent
revival?
He said I see what you mean.
In this country the word revival is misused.
A Pentecostal evangelist whom I have not met
sends me his literature from Texas, and recently
I got a letter which said that Brother
Grant, I think was his name, had gone
to San Antonio to hold a revival.
And to everyone's surprise a real revival broke
out.
Now what did he mean?
I'm afraid we can blame this confusion somewhat
on a very godly man, Charles Finney.
Finney said revival is nothing more than the
right use of the appropriate means.
Now this was in contrast to Jonathan Edwards,
who said revival is a work of God.
But the result was a lot of men
without the power that Finney had in his
ministry have used the word cheaply for any
kind of effort.
And we need to straighten out definitions first
of all.
That's what I propose to do so that
during the week when I talk to you
about the great awakenings, the mighty revivals that
have come from God, you'll understand what we're
talking about.
Now as far as revival is concerned, it
must have a biblical basis for us to
understand.
The Apostle Peter said on the day of
Pentecost, this is that which was spoken of
by the prophet Joel.
It shall come to pass afterwards, saith God,
I will pour out my spirit upon all
flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your
old men shall dream dreams.
And the quotation ended with the words, they
that call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved.
The Apostle Peter applied these words to the
events of Pentecost.
Think of what happened.
A hundred and twenty believers who had been
scared for their own lives became bold, and
overnight became three thousand one hundred and twenty.
That's what Dr. Donald McGavin calls very satisfactory
church growth.
Now what was the secret?
The Apostle Peter said this is what was
predicted by the prophet Joel.
I will pour out my spirit upon all
flesh.
Now when Peter said at Pentecost the promise
is to you and to your children, to
them that are far off, to as many
as the Lord our God shall call, was
he referring to the promise of a Savior?
No.
The promise of the Messiah runs throughout the
whole of the Old Testament.
He was referring to the promise of the
Holy Spirit.
You'll find throughout the Old Testament promises of
a new day.
You see before these events of Pentecost the
Holy Spirit had come only upon individuals.
We call them prophets.
The Hebrew word for prophet is the word
nabi.
It means an effervescent one, one who overflows,
one who simply must speak.
But they were individuals.
And Joel said the time is coming when
God will pour out his spirit upon all
sorts of people.
And the Apostle Peter applied this to what
was happening at Pentecost.
Now you may object and you may say,
but it was Peter who did the preaching.
True, what you read is what Peter said,
but it doesn't mean he was the only
actor in this great drama.
If Peter said this is that which was
spoken of by the Prophet Joel, I will
pour out my spirit upon your sons and
your daughters, that must have been happening.
In other words, all 120 must have been
busy in the work.
Because these outpourings of the Holy Spirit are
always marked by generality.
I was talking to the president of the
graduate school of one of the biggest colleges
in the United States by telephone, long distance,
the other day.
I mentioned that I was researching the 1858
revival.
By the way, during the 1858 revival, the
Academy of Music Hall in Washington D.C.
was packed every day with 5,000 men
at prayer.
So my friend, the president of the graduate
school, said, who started that?
Was that Moody?
I said, Moody didn't start any revival.
It was the revival of 1858 that started
Moody.
It's all the difference in the world.
Now there may be controversy as to what
we mean by revival.
You know, some people use the word for
a week of meetings.
Someone said to me today, oh you mean
like a week of meetings in August the
way they have in Kentucky?
That sort of thing.
But no, others use the word revival when
we talk about the Welsh revival, about the
Wesleyan revival, about an Anglican revival, and so
on.
The word is used very ambiguously.
Not only that, but there's a controversy about
the theology.
Jonathan Edwards said, revival is the work of
God.
Finney said, revival is something for man to
do.
And there's a difference there.
So I think we ought to try and
solve the problem and make sure what we're
talking about.
And we start with that word, the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit.
And I asked you a question.
Is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the
work of God or the work of man?
Well the Lord Jesus answers that for us.
The wind blows where it lifts.
You can't tell where it's coming from, where
it's blowing to.
So it is with the Spirit.
There is not any organization under heaven that
can organize an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Imagine if World Vision were to announce that
on the 15th of November, 1983, they have
organized an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Now you can organize a crusade, you can
organize a picnic, you can organize all sorts
of things, but you cannot organize the work
of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore that is the work of God.
Now you cannot see the wind, but you
can see what the wind does.
And you can always see the effect of
an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon his
children.
The first thing is in the reviving of
the Church.
You say, what do you mean the reviving
of the Church?
Every great awakening, every great revival has been
marked by an intense spirit of prayer.
Jonathan Edwards wrote a book, if my memory
serves me right, the title was A Humble
Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union
of All God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for
the Revival of Religion and the Extension of
Christ's Kingdom According to Scriptural Promise and Prophecies
Concerning the Last Days.
That was just the title, not the book.
Now he addressed the very first point about
revival, A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement
and Visible Union of All God's People in
Extraordinary Prayer.
What did he mean by that?
Do you remember ten years ago, we had
an evangelistic program throughout the United States called
Key 73?
It took its name from the key bridge
on the Potomac.
Some godly men said we ought to get
together and try and win America for Christ.
Who knows, we may have a great awakening.
I was asked by friends, what do you
think of this?
I said, any church that puts anything into
it will get something out of it.
But I don't think we get a great
awakening that way.
However, their attitude was this.
We evangelicals don't agree among ourselves.
So, you Southern Baptists, you do your thing.
You Missouri Lutherans, you do your thing.
You Presbyterians, do your thing.
The Pentecostals will do your thing.
But we'll all do it together.
And who knows, we may see a great
revival.
Well, we saw a great campaign, not a
great revival.
Why?
There was no explicit agreement and visible union
of God's people in extraordinary prayer.
A.T. Pearson once said, there has never
been a great revival in any country or
locality that did not begin in united prayer.
That doesn't mean that people become disloyal to
their own convictions.
It doesn't mean that a Presbyterian becomes any
less attached to the Westminster Confession, or an
Episcopalian to the 39 Articles, or whatever.
But it means we're willing to pray together
because our need is general.
Have you ever, when you thought of the
pornography we face, the immorality, the gross murders?
Why, in California, we've just had one man
arrested who not only murdered people, but had
sex with dead bodies.
When you realize the filth we're up against,
sometimes you feel you can't do anything, you're
helpless.
It's too much for any one church or
any one denomination.
It's time for God to move.
But then it's also time for us to
ask God to move.
Therefore, all these great movements have begun in
prayer.
Now we have the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit is the work of God.
But the reviving of the church is also
the work of God with the response of
his people.
They can refuse to be revived.
They can turn their backs upon God.
But it is his work.
Now why do we have so much controversy
over the word revival?
The word revive was already in the English
Bible when we got our translation.
You know, revive thy work, O Lord, it
was there.
It's defined as the act of reviving, the
state of being revived, restoration to life, strength,
consciousness, etc.
That's the way the word is used in
all senses.
If you talk about a revival of a
Shakespearean play, you mean a play that has
not been used for some time, you bring
to life again.
That's as understood.
If you find a man's body in the
creek and the doctor says he's been dead
five days, you can't revive him.
But if he's got a pulse, you use
artificial respiration to revive him.
That's the meaning of the word revive, to
bring to life again.
That word revive was in the translation of
the scriptures from the beginning, but the word
revival came into the English language 1702.
It was defined as a general awakening of
or in religion.
Evangelical religion was understood because the word was
not used by our Roman Catholic friends or
Greek Orthodox or Jewish or Muslim.
It was definitely an evangelical word.
Of course, it could have been applied to
witchcraft.
We can talk about a revival of witchcraft.
But generally speaking, the word revival is a
New Testament word.
You say, is it in the New Testament?
Its synonym is there, times of refreshing from
the presence of the Lord.
The word revivalism made its appearance in 1815,
and the word revivalist in 1820.
Revivalism means the state or form of religion
characteristic of revivals, as previously defined, and a
revivalist is one who promotes, produces, or participates
in religious revival.
You'll find this is true also in foreign
languages.
The German word for a revival is erweckung,
which means awakening.
The French word for revival is the word
reveille, which means to wake up again.
It's the same as the word revival.
The Scandinavian word in all three languages is
vekelse.
The Portuguese word down in Brazil is reavivamento.
But in every case, it means the coming
of life again to people who have already
possessed life.
Now this is standard in all our dictionaries,
in all our encyclopedias.
But in American dictionaries since 1930, you get
a choice.
A, revival, it means an awakening in or
of religion.
B, also a week of meetings, especially in
the South.
Now supposing you live in New Zealand, do
you have to go south to get a
revival?
It's an illogical use, and yet people use
it all the time.
Now what about the Bible?
The word that's translated revival, there are two
words translated revival.
One is tshadash, the other is tshaya.
Tshadash means to revive, to renew or restore
or repair, and tshaya means to bring back
to life again.
The word has never been used except for
people already in relationship to God.
Therefore it is not right to use the
word revival as far as evangelism is concerned.
Evangelism is trying to win outsiders to Christ.
Therefore we see the Holy Spirit is outpoured,
that's the work of God.
The church is revived, that's the work of
God with the response of believers.
But we have to go a little bit
further than that.
I used to hold the view, revive the
church and win the world.
There's some truth in that.
In 1956-57, I took a team of
evangelists to New Zealand and Australia.
We held 105 campaigns.
We wanted to reach the people down there,
so we had an Episcopal evangelist, he was
an evangelist of the Brotherhood of St. Andrews
of the Episcopal Church in America.
We had a Presbyterian, we had a Methodist,
he is now Speaker of the House, he's
in the Australian Parliament, he was at the
Presidential Prayer Breakfast recently, and I'm a Baptist
minister by ordination.
We also had Corrie Ten Boom.
I take it you understand her, know who
Corrie Ten Boom is?
She was my associate for three years.
We adopted as our slogan the evangelization of
the world through the revival of the church.
There's truth in that.
Get a church on fire for God and
you'll win somebody to Christ.
But is the whole truth there?
When the Apostle Peter stood at Pentecost and
preached, and 120 believers became 3,120, what
was the secret?
You say, well Peter was filled with the
Spirit, he preached the word.
Yes, but Stephen the martyr was filled with
the Spirit and preached the word.
And instead of adding 3,000 they murdered
him on the spot.
I began to realize from that, I used
to think John Wesley was such a genius
of an evangelist that when he began to
preach, strong men who never darkened the church
door would break down and weep.
But the more you read about John Wesley,
the more you find he was a rather
stuffy high churchman in those days.
He became a great evangelist, but he was
very stuffy at the beginning.
What was the secret?
The Holy Spirit who was poured out upon
Wesley and Whitfield and the other members of
the Holy Club and other Christians in Britain
at that time was also poured out upon
the people.
That's something we seem to miss entirely these
days.
Even in the charismatic movement, the concern is
not so much for an outpouring of the
Holy Spirit upon the people as an infilling
of the Holy Spirit for each individual Christian.
We need to pray that the Holy Spirit
may be poured out upon the masses.
After all the scripture says when he has
come, he will convict the world of sin
and of righteousness and of judgment.
Have you ever tried to convict someone of
sin?
Stop a man in the streets of Washington
and try and convict him of sin.
He will tell you where to go very
quickly.
How is it then in times of revival
people come running to God?
It's because the Holy Spirit is poured out
upon them and makes them hungry.
So I find that not only do we
have an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and
the reviving of the church, but the awakening
of the people, the people among whom we
labor.
Then the revived church engages in evangelism and
teaching.
There's the great commission.
Whoever will preach the gospel will teach the
commandments.
The best definition of evangelism that I know
was coined by a dear friend of mine
who died just two years ago, Canon Max
Warren of Westminster Abbey.
To evangelize is so to present Jesus Christ
in the power of the Spirit that men
may come to put their trust in him
as Savior and to serve him as Lord
in the fellowship of his church and the
vocations of the common light.
That's to evangelize.
We evangelize inquirers, we teach disciples, those who
wish to follow.
Then by many or by few we engage
in the reforming of society.
Every great awakening has been followed by some
great social reforms.
But notice I said by many or by
few.
John Wesley's mother, Susanna, lived at a time
when slavery was legal.
But so far as I know she never
said a word about it.
Why?
Well, the woman had twenty children.
Twenty!
She prayed with each child each day.
There was a fire at Epworth Rectory, and
as soon as the fire alarm was sounded
she lined them all up and counted them,
and there were only nineteen.
John Wesley was left upstairs there, and they
got him down very quickly.
He always called himself a brand from the
burning after that.
Susanna Wesley had plenty on her hands.
I would say if Susanna Wesley did nothing
more than give the world John Wesley, Charles
Wesley, and Samuel Wesley, that would have been
a life work.
But John Wesley was quite different.
Long before his time he wrote a pamphlet,
Thoughts on Slavery, in which he denounced slavery
as a sin against God and a sin
against man.
But John Wesley had more time.
He had a very unhappy marriage.
I remember once speaking at a Methodist conference,
and I said, I wish you Methodists had
the zeal of your early founder.
He used to get up at four o
'clock in the morning and travel long distances
with the gospel.
And one Methodist minister said, if I had
a wife like John Wesley's wife, I'd get
up at four o'clock in the morning
too, and travel long distances with the gospel.
See, God knows to whom he gives the
work.
There was one little hunchback in Yorkshire, during
what we call the Second Awakening, decided to
serve God in Parliament.
His name was Wilberforce.
He went into Parliament and fought the slave
trade until he persuaded the British Parliament to
abolish the slave trade and use the Royal
Navy to hunt them down.
That was just as much a call from
God as to become an evangelist like William
Carey in India.
Now you might say, is there any priority
here?
Well, perhaps in one way.
We're all called to preach the gospel.
I put it this way.
You don't need to be a Christian to
engage in social reform.
I knew Frank Laubach.
He was called Mr. Literacy.
He put out the principle, each one teach
one.
He taught people to read and write by
the thousands and then by the millions.
Became a consultant of governments.
Last time I saw him was just before
he died.
I spoke with him and Stanley Jones at
Asbury College.
But on the other hand, when I was
in the People's Republic of China last year,
I had to admit that the Communists have
done a good job in teaching the Chinese
masses to read and write.
You don't need to be a Christian to
teach people to read and write.
So while God calls us to social action,
inasmuch as you do it unto the least
of these my brethren, you do it unto
me, visit the prisoners and the sick and
so on.
While God calls us to do it, it's
a commended ministry.
I'll put it this way.
If we don't do it, somebody else will.
But if we don't preach the gospel and
teach the commandments, nobody else will.
Therefore, we should remember our priority.
The reason I deal with this subject is,
you can't get anywhere today until you understand
what you mean when you say you're praying
for revival.
In Griffin, Georgia, recently I met a man.
I said, you know, the country is such
a mess, we ought to pray for revival.
Yes, he said, but closer to the time.
I said, what do you mean by that?
He said, we always hold our revival in
August, so why start praying about it until
July?
You mention a revival to some churchman to
think you mean some kind of high-pressure,
hot gospel type of rally or something like
that.
No, no.
What do we mean?
We mean an outpouring of the blessed Spirit
of God upon his children, regardless of their
denomination.
And that's happened time and time again in
the history of this country.
Now, each evening, I'm going to tell you
what God has done for America.
I wrote to an outstanding historian, a church
historian, not far from here.
I said, can you give me any clues
on the great revival that swept the United
States in 1905?
He wrote back and said, I've never heard
of such a movement.
I doubt very much that such a movement
could occur in the twentieth century.
I just went ahead with my research and
published my book.
Do you know that during 1905, the Minister's
Association of Atlantic City reported of a population
of 60,000, there were only 50 adults
left unconverted.
Do you know that during the 1905 awakening,
200 major stores in Portland, Oregon, closed each
day from eleven to two for prayer?
Do you know that the pastor of the
First Baptist Church in Paducah, Kentucky, an old
man, Dr. J.
J.
Cheek was his name, took in a thousand
new members in two months and died of
overwork?
And the Southern Baptist said, what a glorious
way to go.
Yet the average American, and I'm going to
say this strongly, the average church historian, the
average minister of the gospel, never heard of
the revival of 1905.
So who do you mean Azusa Street?
Azusa Street was 1906.
There were 120 people in that little room
on Azusa Street.
But in 1905, more than two million Americans
were revived.
And yet people have never heard of the
general awakening.
I think conditions are so deplorable that we
need to pray that God will visit his
people again.
Will thou not revive us again that thy
people may rejoice in thee?
Now I want to give a message from
the word, but that will come a little
bit later.