Well, I thank you for your very kind
welcome.
It's a great joy for me to be
here.
I've looked forward earnestly to it, and I
truly believe I'm going to look back to
it as a highlight in my own life.
I bring you the greetings of many Christian
friends and pastors in Britain who would love
to be here on this occasion, remembering us
at this time.
I have to tell you that the bonds
that exist across the Atlantic are very precious
to us.
For these 30 years or so, they have
been increasing.
A number of you have been across.
We have heard you preach.
You have encouraged us.
We read the Founders' Journal.
We are deeply thankful to God for the
strength that comes from a wider unity, and
we do believe that that unity is given
of God, and we prize it.
And I bring you the greetings of these
many friends in Great Britain who would also
love to be here, counted a privilege as
I did.
I was thinking this evening at our first
meeting what Spurgeon would have felt to have
seen this gathering.
You know, when Spurgeon died in 1892, he
was a comparatively lonely man.
The faith which he loved had fallen on
hard times, and he said, not long before
his death, the next 50 years I may
be eaten of dogs, but the more distant
future will vindicate me.
And it's wonderful how that has been seen.
Now, this evening I want to seek to
speak on how do we understand revival.
And as I begin, I remind you of
something that I'm sure you know, and that
is that the word revival is one of
the most confused words in our Christian vocabulary.
It has all kinds of various meanings.
And I think the right starting point then
is to ask the question, is there a
definite meaning, and what is it?
Now, not everybody would agree with that starting
point, because some people, understandably, would say, the
word revival, after all, is not strictly a
biblical word.
Certainly isn't a biblical word in the technical
sense of the word.
And so why not drop the word?
If it's a subject of so much confusion,
why should we not simply use substitute words?
And sometimes the argument is added, the word
revival has become discredited.
It's an additional reason to drop the word.
So in reply to that thought, I think
we need to say that the confusion isn't
actually simply about the word.
It's the thing itself which is in confusion,
the phenomenon itself.
So simply by changing the word, we don't
actually remove the confusion.
I'm ready to accept that it's not a
biblical word, and I think it's good to
remember that.
But on the other hand, it is a
word that's come down to us at least
from the 1740s, and we have a rich
history associated with it.
Seems to me, therefore, better to ask the
question, what was its original meaning, and how
was that justified from Scripture?
I think there's an advantage in doing that.
We drop the word, and we continue to
read the heritage that we have.
We'll constantly come across the word.
Why don't we then seek to understand what
it means, and what it originally meant?
As we approach the subject, I think there's
one qualification that we need to give at
the outset, and that is to remember that
all are agreed that the subject of revival
has to do with the person and the
work of the Holy Spirit.
And anything that is of God is something
that reminds us that we, by contrast, are
sinful, and fallible, and finite.
And if revival is something that we can
easily understand, then it's surely not the thing
that the Bible would teach us that it
is.
Behold, Scripture says, God is great, and we
know Him not.
Our Lord warned Nicodemus that we who simply
don't understand how the wind may blow, we
have to look on with wonder at the
work of the Spirit in the regeneration of
one individual.
It's therefore no surprise that when we come
to the subject of revival, we see that
God's ways are unsearchable.
And it behoves us to have a humble
mind, and a humble spirit.
We do not know how the Holy Spirit
brought Christ's birth to pass in the womb
of the Virgin Mary.
We do not know how the Holy Spirit
enabled men to write inerrant Scripture.
We do not know how the Holy Spirit
dwells in our bodies and in our spirits,
and how He will raise these same bodies
at the day of resurrection.
There is so much that is incomprehensible to
us.
And all who have had any experience of
true revival have all, I believe, been humble
men and women.
And we must have humility of mind.
You remember how Samuel Davies, who lived in
the era of the Great Awakening, the first
Great Awakening, wrote the words, Great God of
Wonders, all thy ways are matchless, godlike, and
divine.
Theodore Tyler of New York in the last
century wrote this about revival.
After long pastoral experience and frequent labors in
revivals, I confess that there is much that
is utterly mysterious in regard to them.
Our God is sovereign.
He often seems to withhold His converting power
at the very time when, according to our
calculations, we ought to expect it.
I have had many disappointments of this kind.
On the other hand, he says, several copious
showers of heavenly blessings have descended when we
were not expecting them.
So here is a profound, wonderful, mysterious subject.
We stand on holy ground, and we pray
for the help and the light of the
Holy Spirit.
Now you remember how in the first chapter
of the first epistle of Peter, we have
this sequence of statements.
The apostle speaks of the great things that
were foretold by the Old Testament prophets.
Now he says, announced to you through preaching
with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven,
which things the angels desire to look into.
That is to say, with all their faculties
so high above ours, they cannot fully comprehend
the magnitude of the grace of God revealed
in the Gospel.
And then the next verse says, wherefore gird
up the loins of your minds.
That is to say, although these things are
profound and difficult, we have to make every
effort in dependence upon God to look into
them and to understand them as best we
may.
And I think that word of exhortation, to
gird up the loins of our minds, is
probably particularly necessary this evening.
A lot of us have travelled a good
way.
It's been a long day, getting weary, and
here am I in this first session going
to give you my most difficult address.
And yet it has to be the starting
point.
It may be more pleasant, more interesting, more
uplifting, simply to describe revivals.
But I am certain the primary need is
that we should understand what we mean when
we talk about revival.
Otherwise, ultimately, we make no progress.
I'm going to put before you then three
current views on the meaning of revival.
And these are contradictory views.
I hope nobody will suggest to me that
they can be combined.
I do not see how they can be
combined.
With the greatest love or will, they are
differing, colliding views.
The first is this.
The first view says that the whole idea
of occasional, extraordinary revival is not a biblical
idea.
And they say that because, they point out,
that in the Old Testament the Church prayed
for revival, and God promised that He would
revive His people by the outpouring of the
Spirit in the latter days.
And that promise has been fulfilled.
So that our Lord, you remember, says, I
will pray the Father and He will send
you another Comforter, and He will abide with
you forever.
So, they say, the Holy Spirit is part
of the present inheritance of the Church.
Isn't it true, if any man have not
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
His.
By one Spirit we're all baptized into one
body.
And therefore, they say, our business should not
be looking for, or awaiting, or thinking of
some future revival, but we should realize what
is our present inheritance.
And they think that any other view is
a serious mistake.
Now, I hope you follow that position.
The view that's been widely held, often held
in Reformed churches, defended by some notable theologians,
found in such recent, recent books as Frederick
Bruner's book on the Holy Spirit, Bruner says,
there are no replicas of Pentecost.
There are no little Pentecosts.
God has fulfilled His promise, what we have
to do now is to realize by faith
what is ours.
That's the first view.
Second view is quite different.
The second view holds that the presence, or
the absence, of revivals is conditional upon the
behavior of Christians.
Now, they admit revivals might be permanent if
only Christians did what God calls them to
do.
But they're not permanent, and they're not permanent,
they say, because of our fault and failure.
Now, this view that revival is conditional upon
our obedience, it can be divided into two
groups.
The first group put their emphasis upon evangelism.
They say if we pray and witness and
preach the gospel, faithfully, there will be revival.
So, Charles Finney argued that we might have
the millennium within three years if only Christians
were obedient to the Great Commission.
The other group, under the same view, put
the emphasis somewhere else.
They don't talk so much of evangelism, but
they talk of the necessity of personal repentance
and holiness.
To quote you the words of Jonathan Goforth,
missionary in China, beginning of this century, he
said, if God the Holy Spirit is not
glorifying Jesus Christ in the world today as
at Pentecost, it is simply we who are
to blame.
After all, what is revival but simply the
Holy Spirit fully controlling the surrendered life?
It must always be possible then when man
heals.
The sin of unyieldedness alone can keep us
from revival.
Pentecost is within our grasp.
If revival is being beheld from us, is
being withheld from us, it is because some
idol remains enthroned.
So far, Goforth.
And a more recent writer, Reverend Duncan Campbell,
middle of this century, has a book called
The Price and the Power of Revival.
How is it here that revival carries?
Is there any reason why the Church today
cannot everywhere equal the Church at Pentecost?
And he went on to say, we have
only to regard and observe those laws and
limits with which the Holy Spirit acts, and
we shall find His glorious power at our
disposal.
The great thing he said is a clean
hand and a pure heart.
Complete and full surrender is the price of
revival.
With that view, as I'm sure you know,
2 Chronicles 7 and verse 14 is so
very often quoted.
If my people which are called by my
name humble themselves and pray and seek my
face and turn from their wicked ways, then
I will hear from heaven and will heal
their land.
That's a promise.
Now, let's stop at this point to consider,
as briefly as we can, this second view.
That revival is conditioned upon our obedience.
It's so important here to understand what the
question is and what it is not.
The question is not whether God uses means
in revival, that is to say whether prayer
and preaching are parts of revival that God
uses.
That isn't the question.
The question is, is what we do by
way of prayer and preaching the cause of
the revival?
Is revival the effect?
Is one the cause of the other?
That's the question.
The question again is not whether evangelism will
be blessed.
It will.
Nor is the question whether personal devotion to
Christ, greater humility, prayer, whether these will lead
to greater health in the church.
That is not the question.
That is certain.
The question is whether either of these things,
more evangelism, more sanctification, will guarantee and ensure
a revival.
That's the question.
It's certainly true that before some revivals, these
things have sometimes been in evidence.
But the question is, is there any promise
that where these things exist, there is going
to be a revival.
Now take the argument that revival depends upon
greater evangelism.
Surely the mistake there is to do with
the assumption that Christ has promised that our
preaching will always be accompanied by some remarkable
success.
He hasn't surely promised that.
Our activity is not the controlling factor.
When Peter preached at Pentecost, three thousand were
converted.
Paul, by the river at Philippi, one woman
is brought in.
Was Paul less faithful than Peter?
Of course not.
The scriptures teach that one may plant, one
may water, but God gives the increase.
It is neither he that watereth nor he
that planteth, but God that giveth the increase.
Now that doesn't mean that we are excused
from evangelism.
Of course not.
But the controlling factor is the gracious purpose
and hand of God.
So we can say that the evidence of
history is against the idea that the revivals
are dependent upon evangelism.
Look at it like this.
In 1740, George Whitefield was here in America
on his second visit.
Of course he was visiting his own country
in those days when Americans were wise members
of the…
I had to get that in somewhere.
I mustn't distract you with patriotic thoughts.
What I was going to say was that
he was here in the Thirteen Colonies for
his second visit.
And as you know, 1740 was the beginning
of the Great Awakening.
His preaching was wonderfully used.
Open air meetings in Philadelphia, many other places,
many, many souls brought into the Kingdom of
God.
Whitefield came another five times to America.
Never saw the same results again.
Was he less faithful?
Was he less true as a preacher?
Not at all.
Or take Spurgeon.
1857, three years into his ministry in London,
Spurgeon could say that he had seen a
thousand converted and added to his own then
comparatively smaller church in London.
He never wrote that again.
He preached for another thirty years.
God blessed his ministry further, but never with
the same results.
So we cannot say that what controls the
success is the extent of our endeavours.
Some of the most earnest endeavours that have
ever been put forth in the spread of
the Gospel by missionaries and others have seen
comparatively little fruit.
So what are we to say to the
idea that more repentance and holiness would secure
revival?
Well, again, it doesn't fit the facts.
All of you who've read missionary biographies will
know that people like Henry Martin, some of
the godliest Christians that ever lived, they didn't
see revival.
Whitefield was a more mature spiritual Christian after
the Great Awakening, but he didn't see the
same fruit.
We cannot make the work of God dependent
on our conduct.
It simply doesn't fit, I believe, either the
Scripture or the facts.
I think it comes about, this view, this
second view, it comes about often by a
confusion of thought between Old and New Testaments.
Let's think about the promise in 2 Chronicles
7, 14, for a moment.
If my people that are called by my
name, you know the text.
What is it that's being promised in that
text?
Well, I think we have to say it
cannot be revival for this good reason, that
it was something to be realised by penitent
believers in the time of Solomon.
And the whole of the Old Testament makes
clear that the blessing of the Holy Spirit
was a blessing that still lay in the
future.
All the prophets, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Joel, speak
of the blessing that is to come.
And John's Gospel, chapter 7 and verse 39,
tells us very clearly that the Holy Spirit
was not yet given, for Jesus was not
yet glorified.
Now, if a revival is an outpouring of
the Spirit of God, by definition it is
not something that belonged to the Old Testament
Scripture.
So it is a confusion of thought to
take a text such as the text in
2 Chronicles and make it applicable to revival.
What does 2 Chronicles 7 then mean?
Well, it surely means this, that God requires
obedience and holiness of life of all who
profess his name, and that that obedience will
not be unrewarded.
But the nature of the reward is not
identical in Old and New Testaments.
Listen to the words of an old Scottish
writer, Thomas McCree.
He says, The peculiarity of the divine government
of Israel, or as it is commonly called,
a theocracy, consisted in general in two things.
In a system of laws which was immediately
given unto the people from heaven, and in
the exercise of a peculiar providence in supporting
and sanctioning that system by conferring national mercies
and inflicting national judgments, often in an immediate
and extraordinary way.
I believe that is a true statement.
But in the New Testament, the church is
not connected with any country in a theocratic
manner.
We belong to the Jerusalem which is above,
the heavenly Jerusalem.
There is no promise in the New Testament
that if Christians will humble themselves and pray,
God will heal the land.
Think of the apostolic age and how faithful
the Christians were, and you know what happened
to Israel in A.D. 70.
It's a different day has dawned.
Our Lord surely underlining that again when he
says in John 16, It is expedient for
you that I go away.
If I go not away, the Comforter will
not come unto you.
So, revival is in the Old Testament in
terms of promise and prophecy, but not in
terms of experience.
And therefore I believe a lot of confusion
arises because people turn to Old Testament texts
and from those texts they make it a
basis of understanding what they say is revival.
That needs perhaps some more discussion.
I think it's an absolutely fundamental point.
I'm not saying of course that we don't
draw from the Old Testament many illustrations of
the supernatural marvellous working of God.
We do, but if we begin to identify
that with our pourings of the Spirit, we
are leading to theological confusion.
So much for the second view, the view
that says revivals are conditional upon us.
The third view then is this, and it's
the view that once prevailed on both sides
of the Atlantic.
It's the view that was certainly prevalent for
at least a hundred years after 1740.
And it rests upon the person of Christ
as the exalted head of the Church.
Christ is the Anointed One, the One to
whom the Spirit has been given without measure
for the work of redemption.
And when that work was completed, Christians, believers,
enter into Christ's inheritance.
We too are anointed.
We too receive the Holy Spirit.
Acts chapter 2, He, Christ, has shed forth
this which ye now see and hear.
So the third view agrees with the first
at this point, that Pentecost was a decisive
event in the history of redemption.
Christ fulfilled his promise.
The comforter was given to the Church, and
given to the Church not temporarily, not for
a year or two, but to abide with
the Church forever.
That is agreed.
The difference comes here.
The third view says the measure in which
the grace and power of the Spirit was
given at Pentecost, that measure is not uniformly
present through the ages.
Two things happened at Pentecost.
There was the giving of the Spirit to
abide with us, but there was also a
largeness of degree in his manifested presence and
power, which is not permanent.
So it was not permanent that 3,000
people would be converted every time the Gospel
was preached.
It was not permanent that fear would come
upon every soul.
These were extraordinary things.
See the argument.
Two things then at Pentecost.
The Holy Spirit is given to abide, but
the degree, the measure in which he was
given was not permanent.
Now what's the supporting argument for that?
Let me give you three.
It is surely clear from the book of
Acts that all Christians did not remain permanently
filled with the Holy Spirit.
I say that is clear because from Acts
4.31, you remember, we read of the
same disciples who were at Pentecost, that they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
And we read further in Acts 6 that
when certain men were to be chosen for
the service of the Church, they were to
look out for men full of the Holy
Spirit.
If being filled with the Holy Spirit was
permanently true of all Christians, then that would
not make any sense.
So we believe, as the larger catechism of
the Westminster Assembly states, that the Holy Spirit,
while he is given to all Christians, his
working is not in all persons nor at
all times in the same measure.
Now some people still object.
They say, if the Holy Spirit resides in
a Christian, how can it be only part
of the Holy Spirit?
He's a person.
And if the Holy Spirit is present, he's
wholly present.
Now at this point, I think we have
to come back to the qualification at the
beginning.
There is so much we do not understand.
But let me just remind you that while
John 7 says the Holy Spirit was not
yet given, we know that the Holy Spirit
was in the Old Testament, don't we?
Psalm 51 and so on.
So what the Scripture must teach there is
that there's a great difference in the degree
of his manifested presence and influence between Old
and New Testament.
And you know, there's a great difference in
degree, in his manifested presence, between what we
are now, when we have the first fruits
of the Spirit, the down payment, and what
we shall be in glory.
We now are indwelt by the Spirit of
God, that is true, but not in the
way in which we shall be in eternity.
These are things beyond our comprehension.
But I believe they help us to see
that there are what you call degrees or
measures of the Spirit's manifested presence and power.
And further, in a new era, the work
of Christ in bestowing the Spirit is not
uniform, but there are seasons when, in his
own grace and power, he more abundantly makes
manifest the Spirit's grace and presence in the
church.
Now a third line of proof, I think,
comes from church history.
Supposing the first view was true, all we
have to do is to realise what's our
inheritance.
How do you explain the Reformation?
Supposing the Church was, I'm sorry, supposing the
Holy Spirit was always permanently indwelling the Church
in the same way.
How do you explain a century like the
16th when there was such a glorious change?
It wasn't that men sat down and said,
ah, we are going to realise what we
already have.
It wasn't that.
Something happened.
That's right.
Something happened to them.
John Knox puts it perfectly.
He says, God gave his Holy Spirit to
simple men in great abundance.
That's it.
That's a revival.
God giving his Spirit in great abundance.
So in the next century, in the 17th
century, there was a great revival in the
southwest of Scotland in the 1620s.
And this is how one of the men
describes it.
He says, there was a very solemn and
extraordinary outletting of the Spirit.
God poured forth his Spirit.
Or Kentucky here in America in 1800.
Men, we read, men felt as if the
Lord had breathed on them.
They were first affected with awe and fear.
Then they were bathed in tears, then filled
with love unspeakable.
The year 1800 exceeds all that our eyes
ever beheld on earth.
All the blessed displays of almighty power and
grace, all the sweet gales of the Divine
Spirit, and the soul-reviving showers of the
blessings of heaven which we enjoyed before, and
which we considered wonderful, were like a few
scattering drops before the mighty rain.
God gave greater measure of the Holy Spirit.
Now, as time is running on and we're
under instructions, and we mustn't be antinomians, must
we?
We must keep...
And you have to listen to my friend
Mark Dever and we look forward to that.
So I'll have to come to a conclusion
very soon.
The third view then is teaching that revivals
are times of extraordinary communications of the Holy
Spirit.
Not denying the abiding presence of the Spirit.
No.
The times when Christ is pleased for his
own glory to grant the Spirit in greater
abundant measure.
I draw two lessons then, briefly.
The first is that if what we're saying
is true, a revival is a heightening of
normal Christianity.
If we say the Holy Spirit is always
with the Church, what happens in a revival
is not a different kind of Christianity, but
it is an intensification, a heightening of normal
Christianity.
Now, what is normal Christianity?
Normal Christianity is love to Christ, reverence for
the Word of God, obedience to Scripture, isn't
it?
These are the things.
And so, here's the lesson.
If we're going to test whether a revival
is genuine, the first test or the only
safe test is to ask, are the things
that are true of normal Christianity all present
but in a greater degree?
More reverence for Scripture, more love for Christ,
more consciousness of heaven.
Now, what I'm saying is this, that if
people try to prove the existence of a
revival by other tests, supposing people say they
fell on the floor, or they jumped with
joy, or they wept with tears, or they
spoke with tongues, or they saw visions and
angels and whatever you have, my friends, these
are very unimportant things.
The important things are more love to Christ.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace.
So, the real test of a revival is
always, not did some extraordinary thing happen, but
was the work of the Holy Spirit even
more evident by the normal evidence of the
New Testament?
That is tremendously important, and this is why
the writings of Jonathan Edwards are so stupendously
valuable.
Edwards says, it doesn't matter what happens physically,
it's spiritual evidence you need, and without that,
nothing is of any value.
The last lesson is this one.
I sought to argue that we can't bring
revivals by our conduct.
And someone might respond by the text in
Acts chapter 5, we are his witnesses, says
Peter, and so also is the Holy Ghost
whom God hath given to them that obey
him.
Now, there's a text.
And what do we say about that great
text?
Well, surely, that text is laying down a
vital principle, not particularly in relation to revival,
but in connection with all Christian living.
It's axiomatic that Christians have to obey the
revealed will of God, or be obedient.
And so, for a church in decline, to
begin to look for revival without repentance, without
obedience, is utter folly.
And you know, A.
W.
Towson has a statement somewhat to the effect
that he knew nothing more depressing than so
many Christians running around seeking to be filled
with the Holy Spirit while they lived in
moral carelessness.
I picked up a book the other day
by Wilbur Smith, written when he was a
young man in the 1930s.
And he was talking there about how much
was being said about revival, how hopeful this
was, but nothing had happened.
And you know, the same thing happened in
Britain.
In the 1950s, many of the Methodists, for
instance, talked about the need for revival.
Dr. Sankstein of a quotation, he says, if
Methodism has lost her true emphasis and passion,
both may be restored.
God will not withhold his grace from a
people prostrate before him.
The big thing, he says, is the revival
of Methodism.
But you know, Methodism has not revived.
And the answer is in that verse in
Acts 5, which God has given to them
that obey him.
Now, that text, I believe, is saying this.
It's not saying if we act in a
certain way, we'll guarantee a revival.
But it will certainly bring the favour and
help back to the church.
That's sure.
Our Lord says, if you keep my commandments,
you shall abide in my love.
So, my friends, it would be a great
mistake for people to begin to speak of
revival as a solution to our problems, as
a solution to declining church membership, or trouble
in our denominations, or whatever, and not to
set about the earnest need of repentance, obedience
to the word of God.
We have to contend for the faith.
We have to do the will of Christ.
So, what I'm saying is, in answer to
the text in Acts 5, that's a universal
rule for Christian behaviour at all times.
It's not a promise that there will be
an extraordinary revival if we do this or
that, but it's absolutely certain that the blessing
and favour of God will not be given
with this moral carelessness.
Well, we must break off at that point.
Thank you.