Shoulder To Shoulder #1318 -- 11-21-22 ---- "Ancient Paths -- The Pathway of Revival - C - Remembering Awakenings (part 26)
SHOULDER TO SHOULDER is a weekly letter of encouragement Bob has written since 1997, covering many topics selected to
motivate people to be strong students of the Word and courageous witnesses of Jesus Christ. It is a personal letter of
encouragement to you, written solely to help "lift up hands that hang down".
"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." -- Albert Einstein
“There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have -- a cheap Christianity which offends nobody,
and requires no sacrifice, which costs nothing, -- and is worth nothing.” – J. C. Ryle
Shoulder To Shoulder #1318 -- 11-21-22
Title: "Ancient Paths -- The Pathway of Revival - C - Remembering Awakenings (part 26)
My Dear Friend and Co-laborer with Christ:
It is another cool and sunny day in Yuma as we approach my favorite national holiday -- Thanksgiving Day. Recently we were discussing favorite holidays with friends and I mentioned that, while Christmas, New Year, and Easter were celebrated more locally and privately, it was always Thanksgiving that the Tolliver clan gathered at the old farm homestead in Hoosier Township of Clay County, Illinois, and celebrated America's early beginnings in much the same way that the Pilgrims did in the 1620's ---- hunting, feasting, visiting, and celebrating. Traveling from numerous parts of the Midwest, we spent two to four days each year and enjoyed each other over more food than any sane group could ingest at one meal.
My father and I were born on the same farm -- the homestead provided to my ancestors via a land grant signed by President U.S. Grant and opened up by my great grandfather, John H. Tolliver. My grandfather, Dora, a veteran of the Spanish American War, built the first house, barn, and other outbuildings. That barn burned and was rebuilt, and the next year the second house burned when my father was two. The house was then rebuilt, and I was born in the "south bedroom" on a snowy March 19th.
Believe it or not, this was a six-bedroom house as seen in a water color painting my Mother did sometime around 1937 or 1938 while sitting in my great grandmother's yard across the road. The bedroom where I was born was the lower right and the barn where I often played is in the background. I had known about the painting for many years but had not seen it for 40 or more years until last year when I discovered it in a box of my mother's "idea" box about to be thrown in the trash. It now hangs next to my office door and brings back floods of memories each time I see it.
With three bedrooms crammed into the top 1/2 story, two below on the left, and one below on the right, I can still smell the scents of home made bread, persimmon pudding, baked ham, and fried chicken coming from the kitchen in the right rear of the house. We'd all wait impatiently in the living room front center or out in the barnyard (or barn) as the "womenfolk" dished it all up and placed it on the table and sideboard in the cramped dining room, rear center. I still remember the day I first got to eat with the "first round" of men in the cramped dining room. Up until then, Darlene, Sara, Dale, Ken, Nancy and I either ate in the kitchen or waited our turn after the men were done and had retired to the living room for their afternoon naps. The women would nibble their ways through serving the food from the kitchen, and then finally crash around one of the tables to finish things off -- some of them eating while others started "doing the dishes".
Because my genealogy goes all the way back to Jamestown, VA, in the mid 1600's, America's origins are a vital portion of my interests. There is an unbreakable link in my mind between my boyhood experiences on the farm and the early history of American colonialism. An appreciation for our history, respect for those who fought for our freedom, and deepest gratitude for the freedom we enjoy (though for how long I wonder) all create my mind's mosaic serving as a backdrop for every Thanksgiving Day. I cannot forget my personal heritage, nor can I forget the earliest colonial days that served as the incubator that would one day birth the United States.
Nor can I forget the dramatic impact the Christian faith had on our nation. From the earliest days at Jamestown's founding in 1607 to Plymouth's "First Thanksgiving" in 1622, to the birth of our nation at the end of the First Great Awakening, the warp and woof of our national fabric is tightly woven with the influence of our Judeo-Christian heritage brought to the land by the pilgrims -- both the Puritans and the Separatists. Since that time, our nation has gone through numerous spiritual awakenings -- some of them national in scope and some of them more regional. In every situation, however, our national culture was changed -- inevitably changed for the good.
Whether you call it revival or spiritual awakening, whenever God moves in a people, nothing remains the same. Any honest observation of history will prove that to be a fact. So, in light of our Thanksgiving Day observances and as part of our current focus on "Ancient Paths", I want to fill in a few blanks left in my previous two letters and take a more in-depth look at the role the pathway of spiritual awakening has played in our country. We'll do that, right after you peruse . . .
THIS 'N' THAT:
+ Tarnishing Thanksgiving: -- The Marxists. "1619 Project" adherents, and other liberals are back at it this Thanksgiving season. Following the well-worn path of Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Hitler, and others, the "I hate America" crowd is bashing Thanksgiving again -- just as they have Columbus, Jackson, Jefferson, and dozens of others. Here are two simple rules to follow ---- 1) If a liberal Socialist, Marxist, or even progressive says something, don't believe them. And 2) do your own homework, such as reading this piece by Gary DeMar. I'm not a particular DeMar fan, especially when it comes to Bible prophecy and other biblical topics, but he has a very good grasp of true American history. Check this one out, for example: -- https://americanvision.org/posts/thanksgiving-s-critics-come-out-of-the-woodwork/?_kx=161Y0xuoeggozDLdpyIX5KUhcVgNDMsCL9aMPSzvSvA%3D.Psh6Fs.
+ Christians -- Courageous or Cowardly: -- While many Christians cower in the shadows for fear of being "woked" or "cancelled", some instead take a courageous and consistent stand. Here's just one recent example of a famous actress who has no fear when hell comes against her with vengeance. Go to https://www.theblaze.com/news/candace-cameron-bure-responds-backlash or https://www.today.com/popculture/movies/candace-cameron-bure-reveals-the-reason-she-quit-hallmark-rcna49275 to read about "Full House" star and producer of family-friendly traditional movies and shows.
QUOTES FOR THE WEEK:
> "The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous." -- Frederick Douglass (former slave-turned-congressman)
> “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood” -- Apostle John (I John 4:6, NIV).
> Having undertaken for the glory of God, and the Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; [we] Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the ends aforesaid." -- The Mayflower Compact, November 1620
> ". . . I had lost hope of America seeing another national revival. It seemed to me that “revival” had degenerated into the self-serving pursuit of sensational, religious phenomena, rather than being the fruit of a sincere seeking after God, His will, and purpose. Revival, it seemed, had become a hyped, man-made, religious event rather than a Divine invasion from heaven." -- Dr. Eddie Hyatt (America's Revival Heritage)
> "If America will once again bless God as it did in its founding and growth, perhaps God will bless America again in its future and mission. But, if it won't, it's likely that He won't." -- T. Allen Robburts
> "The most fundamental trouble with most of our present- day, so-called revivals is that they are man-made and not God sent. They are worked up by man’s cunningly devised machinery -- not prayed down." -- R. A. Torrey
> ". . . there was a direct bearing of the First Great Awakening on the founding of the United States of America. Without the First Great Awakening, there would have been no United States of America as we have known it." -- Dr. Eddie Hyatt (America's Revival Heritage)
> "We can study the history of awakenings until our brains turn to jello, and we can prognosticate until we're blue in the face about why awakening hasn't come, but until we lay the burden of responsibility at the feet of the American Church, it will never happen again. Awakening comes out of revival, and revival happens to the Church. God has not changed His conditions just for us. It is the same for us as it was for Solomon in II Chron 7:14. If our nation collapses, it will be for one simple reason -- God's people were too preoccupied or too proud to prostrate themselves in broken desperation before Him in behalf of America's sin and waywardness. Judgment indeed begins in the House of the Lord." -- T. Allen Robburts
> "As goes the Church, so goes the nation. As goes the preacher, so goes the church. As goes prayer, so goes the preacher. As goes broken desperation, so goes prayer." -- Donte Neeto Nomee
> “The general principles, on which the fathers achieved Independence, were the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young gentlemen could unite … And what were these general principles? I answer, the general principles of Christianity in which all these sects were united: and, the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all these young men united, and which had united all parties in America, in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.” -- U.S. President John Adams (June 28, 1813)
> ""Oh for a revival that will turn the professed people of God back from their idols of sin and worldliness to serve the true and living God...." -- Unknown
CAN THINGS EVER CHANGE?
Needless to say, you and I are living in an era of American life we probably never anticipated, and which our nation certainly has never endured previously. It's easy to become fatalistic and assume that the downward spiral cannot be halted. However, history dictates otherwise. Whether it be historical records found in the Bible or in secular sources, there is ample evidence that downward slides of spiritual and moral decline can be halted. That fact has not changed in our day; even though we would be hard pressed to deny the fact that we seem to have hit "critical mass" where the very preponderance of immorality will drag us to the pit of total disintegration, God will still have the final word.
The evidence is not only that things CAN change, but also that when things DO change, things truly DO change. This must always give us hope. Even though it appears that the political structure in Washington has again evidenced deeper sectarianism, moral compromise, broken promises, lies and deception galore, conflict between parties, unresolved ideologies, rampant corruption, economic catastrophe, and social unrest, we dare not lose hope. Again, or hope is not in politics and people, but in an all-powerful sovereign God. He always is on control, and always choreographs circumstances in order to bring about a change . . . a major change that only He can bring. Few administrations have brought this much hope personally as has this one. Nonetheless, we must openly confess that only God, and God alone, can bring the moral and spiritual change that is needed both in the churches and the culture in general.
Lest I be misunderstood by you thinking that my optimism and hope are in a political party, they are not. While I am not convinced any longer that spiritual awakening will ever happen again on a national level, there may well be something afoot that will help restore America to her past moral greatness and spiritual foundations. All past major great awakenings gave hint of their approach by political and social "stirrings up" of things. God, of course, is under no obligation whatsoever to grace us with such an event. If it happens, it will be solely because of His mercy He has chosen to pour out upon an undeserving and sinful nation -- just like He repeatedly did with Israel.
At first glance, one might say that everything we see in Washington is a mess. The good news, though, is that all that we feel is wrong, . . . and may be wrong, . . . is also reparable and capable of being restored. The God who has faithfully taken nations through centuries of rise and fall is still the God of today, and available to us right now.
As we continue this study on the ancient pathway of revival and spiritual awakening, I'd like to examine not so much the history of past revivals, but instead the results of past awakenings. What, actually, were the outcomes of past revivals. It seems there is a pattern that can be traced through the pages of history regarding times of territorial social and moral consciousness and awakening. The pattern follows a series of biblical principles seen in the history of Israel, repeated periodically throughout the generations of almost all Judeo-Christian cultures . . . that is, cultures that have Judeo-Christian morality and spirituality as their base.
Somewhere in the process of a shift toward godlessness, immorality, and secularist values and practices, there rises among a few a deep dissatisfaction with the way things are, and the direction things are heading. This leads to the desperation of which I have previously written, resulting in a brokenness and crying out to God, especially by believers. The equation is easy to detect -- Dissatisfaction > Desperation > Brokenness > Seeking God > Repentance > Healing > Restoration.
THE REAL INFLUENCERS:
You might think that the process toward national spiritual awakenings begins with elections, reformers, politicians, or even prayer warriors. That is not necessarily the case. Those who have the greatest stake in awakenings are the ministers. Just prior to and during the American Revolution, it was the thundering pulpits that fanned the flames leading both to awakening and to the shaping of our form of government.
Secularists despise such a thought, but somewhere during every past cycle of awakening, God's messengers, . . . the preachers, . . . began to preach with greater anointing, boldness, and courage the principles of repentance, sin, and its consequences. During Old Testament days, it was not always the king who called people to repentance; and even when it was, the king had been motivated by the prophet to make any moral or social improvements. It was the prophet who called both the king and his subjects to repentance and return to the God of Israel.
With all my heart I believe more strongly today than ever in my life that the real driving human force behind the First Great Awakening and the founding of America was the band of ministers from varying denominations who had the courage to stand in the pulpits . . . and even enter the political fray . . . to declare in no uncertain terms and with great boldness that "Righteousness [indeed] exalts a nation, but sin is [inevitably a disgrace] a reproach to any people" (Prov 14:34)
By the time the Declaration of Independence had been written, sermons had been preached throughout the colonies on every single one of the twenty-seven grievances listed in the Declaration. The pre-revolutionary / revolutionary era was known as "The Golden Age of Oratory", and public speaking of all kinds was the primary means of communication. Newspapers were few and distributed primarily in the bigger cities and then slowly delivered to smaller towns, villages, and hamlets by horse and rider.
Lawyers skilled in both legal knowledge, insight, and oratory were centered mainly in large cities with only relatively few practicing their trade in the smaller towns. So, what was the primary means of communication in such a culture where even the telegraph and radio had not been discovered? There was no such thing as television, cell phones, and the internet. What, then, was the main mechanism of getting news out and addressing social, moral, and political issues of the day?
It was the Colonial Pulpit. The most highly respected and trusted voice in Colonial America was the pastor. He was not only the source of spiritual wisdom and instruction, but he also served as the primary source of what was going on politically, and how those "goings on" fit into the moral and spiritual fabric of a nation in the drawn-out process of being birthed. In 1996 Harry Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity at Yale University, wrote The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (Oxford Press).
If you're a preacher who has a deep burden for America and you wonder what you can possibly do to see the country return to its spiritual roots, then you need to read the book. In it, Stout wrote the following words, pregnant with power and persuasion that the early American preachers in their black robes had the fortitude, courage, and sacrificial recklessness to lay their lives on the line, whatever the cost ---- something tragically missing in most of today's pulpits. Read his description carefully. On the one hand it is surprising, but on the other, sobering. In either case, it is probably something you and I never gave much thought to in the past: ----
"Over the span of the colonial era, American ministers delivered approximately 8 million sermons, each lasting one to one-and-a-half hours. The average 70-year-old colonial churchgoer would have listened to some 7,000 sermons in his or her lifetime, totaling nearly 10,000 hours of concentrated listening. This is the number of classroom hours it would take to receive ten separate undergraduate degrees in a modern university, without ever repeating the same course!
"The pulpits were Congregational and Baptist in New England; Presbyterian, Lutheran, and German Reformed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and Anglican and Methodist in the South. But no matter the denomination, colonial congregations heard sermons more than any other form of oratory. The colonial sermon was prophet, newspaper, video, Internet, community college, and social therapist all wrapped in one. Such was the range of its influence on all aspects of life that even contemporary television and personal computers pale in comparison.
"Eighteenth-century America was a deeply religious culture that lived self-consciously under the cope of heaven. In Sunday worship, and weekday (or occasional) sermons, ministers drew the populace into a rhetorical world that was more compelling and immediate than the physical settlements surrounding them. Sermons taught not only the way to personal salvation in Christ but also the way to temporal and national prosperity for Gods chosen people.
"Events were perceived not from the mundane, human vantage point but from Gods. The vast majority of colonists were Reformed or Calvinist, to whom things were not as they might appear at ground level: all events, no matter how mundane or seemingly random, were parts of a larger pattern of meaning, part of Gods providential design. The outlines of this pattern were contained in Scripture and interpreted by discerning pastors. Colonial congregations saw themselves as the New Israel, endowed with a sacred mission that destined them as lead actors in the last triumphant chapter in redemption history.
"Thus colonial audiences learned to perceive themselves not as a ragtag settlement of religious exiles and eccentrics but as Gods special people, planted in the American wilderness to bring light to the Old World left behind. Europeans might ignore or revile them as fanatics, but through the sermon, they knew better. Better to absorb the barbs of English ridicule than to forget their glorious commission.
"For over a century, colonial congregations had turned to England for protection and culture. Despite religious differences separating many colonists from the Church of England, they shared a common identity as Englishmen, an identity that stood firm against all foes. But almost overnight, these loyalties were challenged by a series of British imperial laws. Beginning with the Stamp Act of 1765 and running through the Boston Massacre of 1770, the Tea Act of 1773, and finally, martial law in Massachusetts, patriotic Americans perceived a British plot to deprive them of their fundamental English rights and their God-ordained liberties."
It appears that a growing number of preachers are beginning to take more seriously the role God placed upon them to again be "voices crying in the wilderness" (Isa 40:3; Mt 3:3; Mk 1:3; Lk 3:4; Jn 1:23) and are once again "mounting up" on their pulpits to proclaim not only the Gospel and what it offers, but also the wrath of God that is absolutely guaranteed to be released against all ungodliness and those who tolerate it.
It is imperative that we again are gripped by the gravity of God's wrath as contrasted with God's love and mercy. When a jeweler displays his diamonds to a potential purchaser, he lays them out on a velvet cloth of black. Why? Is it to show how "black" the black is? NO! It's to show the refractory beauty of the diamonds. So it is with the love of God. If you want people to understand and appreciate the brilliance of His love, you must display it against His wrath against love requited. God used Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the hands of an angry God" preached in 1741 from his pulpit in Infield, CT, and He will again use such bold preaching in our day to draw the Church back to brokenness and repentance that leads it on into the harvest fields.
Even today it's usually the "prophet-preachers" who begin sounding the alarm calling the Church back to it's Redeemer. Such preaching often does, and should always, result in conviction, shame, and repentance in the church. That is what we traditionally label as "revival", although in many ways it is more akin to the Church experiencing the recovery of truth, of holiness, of vision, etc. It is the process by which the Church recovers or has restored to it certain elements of godliness that had been lost during past eras. And, brother, have we ever lost a lot in the past 70 years in America!
Whatever you choose to call it, when the Church is rebuked and refined by the fires of holy conviction and purification, the society in which it has rested, and which has previously been a warm and friendly bed partner, is suddenly taken aback by the holy change it sees in a bride returning to her betrothed. On the one hand society reacts in anger against this newly-recovered life of separation, but, on the other, also will see the inexplicable improvement in the quality, purity, and love now being manifested in the church toward the culture in which it had once been asleep.
This societal reaction is called "spiritual awakening" . . . an era during which the unregenerate culture takes note of the transforming power of Christ in the Church, begins to see the futility of its own ways, admits the putrid rottenness of its own conduct, and starts hungering after the vitality, wholesomeness, freshness, and vibrant life now being displayed in the Body of Christ. When the Church is touched, purified, and changed by the power of God, communities are transformed.
Jeffrey Ziegler, an international lecturer, founder and President of Christian Endeavors and Reformation Bible Institute, is editor of Revival Flame newsletter. Some fifteen or so years ago he wrote, . . .
". . . revival [is] defined as a recovery of the Lord's testimony in a particular generation of the Church. This definition would obviously imply a tarnishing or loss of testimony among the saints, which would need to be regained if the Church were to have an impact upon society. Such reviving takes place with the application of immutable biblical principles within the context of organized prayer on a congregational level. Thus the fostering of such awakenings, along with all of their accompanying holy grandeur, are not dependent upon certain cultural conditions being favorable toward revival, or by periodic evangelistic campaigns."
There is absolutely no doubt about it . . . when the Church experiences the touch of God, society will notice it . . . and will likewise be progressively changed. The culture pays little attention to the Church erecting new buildings, having a spectacular pageantry, or using high-tech gimmicks. But what does catch culture's attention is the discovery that the Church is no longer being influenced by society, but rather society is being impacted by the revived Church. Without exception, there have always been social manifestations of spiritual awakenings. The facts are the facts ---- when the Church is changed, the culture changes.
WHAT CHANGES WHEN THE CHURCH CHANGES?
Change happens both in the Church and in society . . . in the Church first, and then in society. It is the opposite of what happens when the Church is in spiritual and moral decline. As society drifts further away from God and becomes more secular and worldly, the Church drifts likewise, not far behind. However, when God moves in on the Church and it begins to return to its divine foundations, society itself will also be drawn back. In the former, the Church drifts into the darkness of a godless society, but in the latter, the Church pulls society back into the light of righteousness, goodness, and wholesome prosperity. It is merely a manifestation of II Chronicles 7:14 . . .
"If [or when] I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain,or if [or when] I command the locust to devour the land, or if [or when] I send pestilence among My people, and my people who 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, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (II Chron 7:13-14)
Two books that illustrate how revival in the church dramatically affects the culture around it are Richard Lovelace's, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, and Winkie Pratney's 1983 book, Revival. I recommend both books to you.
The gist of the matter is simple . . . when God begins to deal with the Church, He not only begins the process of cleansing, healing, and empowering, but He also begins restoring lost elements to the Church's message. He touches the messenger by recovering the message. Then, as the Church is renewed and its message restored, its impact radically changes to the point that the moral and spiritual fiber is so radically altered that it often results in changes in society. I touched on this briefly in an earlier letter, but we need to take a little closer look. Pay special attention to the progressive (not politically) restoration of the Church.
For Example: . . .
+ The Middle Ages: Within the first 200 years of the infant Church, -- perhaps due as some believe to the infighting and doctrinal disagreements among the Early Church Fathers, -- the courage, boldness, and influence it had known in its earliest days was lost. Contributing to this trend was, no doubt, the "Christianization" of the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine. It is from this era that we have some of the traditional trappings that still today mask over the real biblical model of the New Testament Church that was free from traditions, professionals, buildings, and performance.
When the Church went downhill in its dependence upon the Holy Spirit, the culture around it likewise deteriorated with unimaginable speed. It was the literal fulfillment of the salt losing its preservative, seasoning, and healing properties as spoken of by the Lord Himself. The Church had been mired in every imaginable form of depravity known to man. Under the weight of papal abominations, sexual promiscuity, financial scandal, and sweeping ignorance of God's Word, the Church lost the testimony of Christ's character. In the midst of such carnal chaos, the Lord began a process of restoring truth, order, and vitality to the Church.
While the Church did continue to grow during those dark days, Ziegler continued:
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"Sporadically, powerful revival preachers, such as St. Francis of Assisi, would appear and the common people of Europe would once again receive the power of the Lord's testimony. But the attempts to restore the experience of the first century disciples gradually became lost amidst the pageantry and formalism of the medieval church. Time and time again revival preachers would appear to condemn the excesses of the Roman church hierarchy.
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"Girolamo Savonarola, a fifteenth century Italian friar, charged the church of his day with idolatry in sermon after sermon: 'In the primitive Church the chalices were of wood, the prelates of gold; in these days the Church has chalices of gold and prelates of wood.' With fiery oratory, Savonarola likened the Roman hierarchy to the 'wood, hay and stubble' that the Apostle Paul had warned the first century Church about: 'This is the new church, no longer built of living stones; but of sticks, namely, of Christians dry as tinder for the fires of hell'.
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"More often than not, preachers of reform, such as Savonarola and the Bohemian preacher Jan Hus, were put to death by church authorities. It became evident even to the common people that the Roman church was corrupt; the deaths of the great martyrs only rallied sympathy for their cries for reform.
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"For the people of the Middle Ages, the restoration of revival power had lacked one essential ingredient: the written Word of God. Ever since the time of St. Jerome, the fifth century monk who translated the Greek Septuagint and the Greek New Testament into vulgar Latin, the Word of God had remained obscured from the common people.
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"It wasn't until the invention of moveable type by Johannes Gutenberg in the late 15th century that the Bible became available in mass quantities. The invention of the printing press now set off a revolution in Germany. Now, every scholar could own a copy of a book or some type of printed material. The Latin editions of the Gutenberg Bible proliferated among the nobility and the church leaders of northern Europe.
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"Ironically, Gutenberg's livelihood came mainly from the printing of indulgences: one page documents which were paid for by Catholic parishioners in order to obtain pardon for their sins after receiving the sacrament of penance. German priests grew rich from the sales of these indulgences. Only the intellectual elite could benefit from the printing of the Gutenberg Bibles, since they were only available in Latin. If you happened to be a scholar or a nobleman, the print revolution might have affected you spiritually; but as for the common people of the fifteenth century, 'the masses', there was little benefit in terms of reform.
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"Reform was a slow process occurring over the space of centuries. The Bible was painstakingly translated into the common tongue of each nation. The common people of Europe had to become literate before mass revival was to take place. This was a long struggle won with the blood of the martyrs."
So here we see that God restored to the Church the primacy of His Word, in printed form, so people could read for themselves the truths therein without having to depend on the perverted and bigoted explanation from the corrupt and often greedy priesthood. At the same time, He restored the idea of Biblical truth as opposed to religious tradition and papal authority.
Next, consider another awakening, . . .
+ The Reformation Era (1400's and 1500's): The Reformation of the Church in the 16th century marked the end of the Middle Ages. King Henry VIII unknowingly laid the groundwork for what was to come when he separated the Church of England from the Church of Rome because the Pope refused to recognize his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Done for purely selfish reasons on the king's part, there remained little difference in the Anglican Church from what had been going on in the Church of Rome.
One short generation later, God used rough and unpolished men such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli to recover foundational truths of the Christian faith which had been lost for the past 1,000 years. Though often different from the royal papacy and the elite, they were men of conviction, intelligence, and spiritual depth. They led the way to win the fight for Christ's testimony in their generation.
> Luther championed an ever growing opposition to the corruption of Rome, and it was coming from every political, social and religious sphere of Europe. Driven by genuine spiritual motives rather than selfish political desires, Luther protested the many abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. Having been one of the elite who had studied the Latin Bible himself, Luther realized that there were clearly many areas of official church doctrine which did not align with the teachings of the Word of God.
After the posted his 95 theses on the church door at Wittenberg, Germany, the ensuing controversy led to his arrest and years of hiding. Still, his immortal words were the galvanizing force of Protestant Reformation of the 16th century: "Here I stand; I can do no other; God help me. Amen." Had it not been for the assistance of Frederick the Wise, Luther would have suffered the same fate as prior reformers ---- martyrdom.
> Meanwhile in Zurich, Switzerland, a young priest named Ulrich Zwingli began to push for reforms which went even beyond those of Luther. In 1523, Zwingli, with the full support of the civil authorities, came out against monastic vows, clerical celibacy, the intercession of saints, the existence of purgatory, the sacrificial character of the mass, and the teaching that salvation can be obtained by good works.
> Twenty years later, in Geneva, Switzerland, John Calvin published his Institutes of the Christian Religion. In it, he outlined a comprehensive theology for Protestant Christianity, something Luther had failed to do. He articulated and implemented a plan of church government separate from the rule of bishops and popes. His theology emphasized the ultimate sovereignty of God and the idea of divine election as being the necessary prerequisite for salvation.
It is essential that we not shy away from this period of church history, because during that time, major biblical truths were returned to the pulpits of Christ's Church: 1) justification by faith alone, 2) God's sovereignty over all men and nations, 3) the finished work of Christ in His death and resurrection, 4) the priesthood of the believer, 5) the Church being the visible demonstration of the Kingdom of God on earth, and 6) the availability of the Bible to common man for personal application in all of life. These and others were many of the elements God added to the Church during that time.
As a consequence, society was impacted by the invention of the printing press, the development of reformed theology, large movements of evangelistic endeavors, a growth of Christian optimism, the introduction of strong biblical themes to art and music, and the introduction of biblical principles into the realm of government. It was at this time, also, that the concept of Christianity to the whole world began to drive a spirit of missions. Had it not been for this awakening, it is unlikely that many, if any, of these societal manifestations would have happened.
This, then, takes us next to . . .
+ The Puritan Movement: At first glance, Puritanism would not seem to be a particularly reviving and revolutionizing phenomenon in the Church, but it was. It also impacted general society in profound ways as well. By the end of the Sixteenth century, most of northern Europe had totally severed the political-ecclesiastical ties with Rome. But, things remained much the same, especially in those nations where peasants still lived under the authority of lords and barons, paying high percentages for their "rent" to the elite. What was not destroyed by frequent wars was often taken by mercenaries plundering the peasant villages.
Everybody was armed for self protection for when they ventured away from home. Moral life was lax and times were cruel. Usually undernourished and overworked, a typical peasant would consume a gallon or more of beer or wine any given day, so drunkenness was common. Weddings and holidays provided longed-for opportunities to drown their sorrows in stupefied revelry, and festivals provided opportunity for engaging in all kinds of lewd behavior.
Then along came the Puritans. They were thus called in England in the 1560's because they shunned the frolics of the common people on the one hand, and also wanted to purify the unbiblical practices and teachings of the Church of England. They were seen as "radical nonconformists" who believed that the Elizabethan Reformation that left the Church of England intact in its ways had retained too many Catholic ways and needed to be further purified. They were repressed in their efforts though by Queen Elizabeth who despised their Calvinist practice of lay participation in Church life. It is said that she foresaw that "such a voice in the affairs of the Church would also result in a voice in the state", thus threatening the monarchy.
In spite of ridicule and rejection by both the common citizenry, the Church hierarchy, and the Crown, they were nonetheless highly influential in England, because they stressed individual responsibility and duty more than any other group. The Puritans held to a "Reformation Worldview" concerning every sphere of societal life. They studied the Bible to isolate biblical principles which could then be applied to specific areas of human life. Every human activity described in the Bible (i.e., marriage, government, economics, art, agriculture, science, etc.) was viewed as an "Institution", ordained by God to be reformed according to biblical principles.
In the 1600s, King James I harassed the Puritans by enacting laws requiring conformity to the Church of England. His actions resulted in thousands of them who were unwilling to compromise their reform efforts sailing to the New World in a mass exodus. Those who came to America saw it as an unconquered kingdom in which to advance the gospel, the property of Christ to be cultivated and cared for by men.
The Puritans became convinced that even as they had been reborn as individuals, now whole societies might do the same. It was in America that the Reformation worldview attained its highest ideal. American society was unique in that it was the first culture in the world (with the exception of ancient Israel) to have biblical precepts as the sole basis for its laws and civil government.
So as God restored to the Church a deeper sense of holiness and the idea of living all aspects of life by God's biblical principles, Seventeenth century colonial America subsequently experienced its own great reform in the areas of civil government, law, history, and literature. America's civil government was birthed on the Plymouth Plantation and the Mayflower Compact which was written based on specific scriptural principles and verses.
Of the 102 passengers, of whom roughly half were men, 41 of them, both "the elect" and "the strangers", signed the Compact and then chose a "governor" from "the elect" (the converted). This is where we get the word and practice of "election" by the majority. Term limits of governing were established then. The first document of mutual agreement or "compact" took place there and was the predecessor to the Declaration of Independence.
In addition, the rule of law was established by the Puritans, based upon the Bible. Their view was that all civil laws were based in biblical principles. Even the practice of civil marriages was established when the Puritans had their first wedding and chose a civil magistrate to perform the ceremony instead of a minister, based on Ruth chapter 4. The idea that God was actively involved in human history, drawing everything to the fulfillment of His design on earth.
The Puritans believed that God's hand was present in every human event and that success or failure of both the individual and of nations was a sign of God's approval or condemnation. His design was seen in every event no matter how small. When, for instance, a sailor aboard the Mayflower mocked those Puritans who were sick, Governor Bradford, recounting the incident in his History of Plymouth Plantation, found it fitting that the sailor should succumb to a "grievous disease."
The value of literature in American society is also rooted in the Puritan values and ideologies. The Massachusetts Bay colony, succeeding the Plymouth colony, was probably the most literate society of its day. Even though by the mid Eighteenth Century a mere one million people lived in the colonies, that era was nonetheless replete in literary classics, and their high literacy rate was due in large part to the emphasis they placed on individual responsibility before God to both read and understand the Bible.
Lay involvement in church life also has its roots in the Puritan migration to America. The spirit of individual responsibility, enterprise, and motivated initiative led to the development of a republican form of government and the free market system. The use of covenants, compacts, and contracts both in religious life and civil government began with the Puritan awakening.
So, we see that from the earliest beginnings of colonial life, "revival" in the church impacted an "awakening" of morality, ethics, civility, and even principles of governing within society itself. One simply cannot overestimate what happens in a society when the Church returns to the things of God's Word and submits to the influence of the Holy Spirit. When the Church is brought back to life ("Re-Vived") . . . TRULY revived, . . . it is virtually impossible for society to not be affected for the good.
Although I touched on this in my last letter, next, consider . . .
+ The First Great Awakening (1730-1750): Although we talked about this in last week's letter, there is more we need to understand about how God used the reviving work in the churches to impact the colonies in general. The colonies were suffering severely from the ongoing and intensifying tyranny of the British Crown. The citizenry was generally participating in political complaining, and many were frequenting the taverns, and participating in various lewd practices. Sexual immorality was either condoned or practiced.
One writer said it this way: "It was their manner very frequently to get together in conventions of both sexes for mirth and jollity, which they called frolics, and they would often spend the greater part of the night in them." By this time in colonial life, the standards of Christian morality in general and Puritan practices in particular were held only by a minority of the populace. Escaping the harshness of British rule also led many to simply abandon the high teachings of their respective state churches.
Into this arena came Jonathan Edwards, as I indicated previously. Not only was he distressed by the moral decay and the deterioration of religious piety, but he was also alarmed by the rise of the Arminian approach to salvation and the Christian life as promoted by John and Jacob Arminius. Edwards was an outright Calvinist. In response to these things, he preached a series of five sermons on the idea of being justified by faith alone apart from works of any kind.
The response was startling, surprising everyone, especially Edwards. Later, he humbly acknowledged that they proved to be "a word spoken in season" and resulted in "a very remarkable blessing of heaven to the souls of the people in town." It was like a spiritual snowball, as one account described it, "rolling down the cold hill of New England's religious life, enveloping folks who have been called by more than one writer 'God's frozen people'."
It started with a young woman living in immorality who was convicted of her behavior. When she repented, it inspired young people to follow her example. So many revivals and awakenings have been initiated by young people -- the Welsh Revival, the student revivals of the '50's, the Jesus Movement, the Asbury Revival, etc. This led to a rapid multiplication of conversions.
According to Edwards, during the spring and summer of 1735, "the town seemed to be full of the presence of God. It was never so full of love, nor so full of joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then." It was during this season that he preached his famed sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in 1741.
By 1738 his book, entitled, Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundreds of Souls in Northampton, was the talk of London, England, and was intently read on both sides of the Atlantic. John Wesley read it during a walk from London to Oxford. George Whitefield read it during a trip to Georgia. By 1740, the awakening had spread from Georgia to Nova Scotia and out to what was then called the frontier. So great was the religious fervor and conviction of itinerant circuit preachers that it became common to declare, "The weather is so bad today that there's nothing moving except crows and Methodist ministers!"
Space will not allow adequate treatment of the roles that Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesley brothers played in the first Great Awakening. However, as God moved in the Church during that period of time, He restored to the Church the message of salvation by grace through faith, genuine repentance over sin, and the need for holy living, along with a very different and often animated form of preaching that not only retained scholarly discourse, but emotional intensity that served to motivate people to salvation.
Within society in general, it changed the way many people thought about God in America and, to a lesser degree, in Europe. Its social ramifications alone changed the way America thought about itself. It unified American society and made people of differing religious traditions feel like one. Edwards and Whitefield were unifying names and rallying points a full thirty years before Washington and Jefferson were.
During this religious revival, God restored to the Church elements such as concerted prayer meetings for the purpose of reviving the Church and getting the Gospel to heathen nations. Mass scale conversions and miraculous forms of evangelism were national in scale. An emphasis on the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit for victorious living over sin was emphasized. Discipline and judgment within the Church was re-established. The idea of prospering spiritually and living in freedom and liberty manifested itself in societal righteousness and governmental liberty. In other words, what was being experienced internally was being manifested societally.
As a result of such restoration to the Church, the rapid planting of new churches exploded, and cross-cultural churches pastored by men of differing skin colors was common. No one knows how many people started going to church, but the numbers were huge. Missions, especially to the American Indians, grew as never before. Education received a shot in the arm when the need for ministers schooled in the classics was seen. Literally thousands of schools for children and hundreds of universities, such as Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Brown, were begun there and still survive today as respected secular institutions of learning after their beginnings during this time of religious fervor. The role of the laity in positions of leadership was enhanced. These societal advances were the result of what God did in the Church, thus manifested in mainstream society.
Then came along . . .
+ The Second Great Awakening (1790-1840): Even as the fires of the First Great Awakening were slowly dying out, the seeds of the next awakening were being planted. Upon George Whitefield's death in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1770, the Methodist followers of John Wesley in England sent missionaries to America. The revivals of the 1700s centered around the villages and cities of the colonies, but the Second Great Awakening centered initially in the sparsely populated frontier before sweeping back eastward to visit major cities previously touched by the First Great Awakening.
Numerous major personalities of this period included the Methodist circuit riders Francis Asbury and Peter Cartwright, Presbyterians Lyman Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher and Charles Finney, Methodist Peter Cartwright, and Congregationalist Timothy Dwight IV. In August of 1801, the Cane Ridge Revival meeting occurred. It began as a six-day camp meeting attended by some 20,000 or more people, a remarkable phenomenon, in that it occurred in the sparsely populated frontier. Among the thousands who came to Christ was a James B. Finley, who had attended as an outright skeptic. He wrote this account:
"The noise was like that of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers, all preaching on stumps, others in wagons and one standing on a tree which had in falling, lodged against another. Some of the people were singing, other praying, some crying for mercy in the most piteous accents, while others were shouting most vociferously. While witnessing these scenes, a peculiarly strange sensation such as I had never felt before came over me.
"My heart beat tumultuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered and I felt as though I must fall to the ground. A supernatural power seemed to pervade the entire mass of mind there collected. I stepped up on a log where I could have a better view of the surging sea of humanity. The scene that had presented itself to my mind was indescribable. At one time I saw at least five hundred swept down in a moment as if a battery of a thousand guns had been opened upon them and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens."
Just as the First Great Awakening coincided with the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the United States, this Second Great Awakening was directly linked to America's early westward movement which was, consequently, then characterized by true Christianity. The primary figure who dominated this period of revival and awakening was Charles G. Finney, a young lawyer who had become convicted by the Holy Spirit after having read the book of Romans as a part of his legal studies. Here is how he described what was to become the beginning of his ministry:
"Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without the recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in such a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings. No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart.
"I wept aloud with joy and love; and I do not know but I should say I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart. These waves came over and over me, one after the other, until I cried out, 'I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me.' I said, 'Lord, I cannot bear any more'; yet I had no fear of death."
Finney's early ministry actually was launched in the "Burnt Over District" of western New York State. It was called this because of the area's frequent revivals conducted there. That notwithstanding, Finney's preaching was so persuasive that it sometimes resulted in entire towns being converted. Interestingly, like Whitefield's ministry focused on societal freedom from tyranny and freedom of religion, the focus of Finney's ministry also centered on social reform. He attacked every sin and element of corruption and wickedness known to society. He vehemently declared that every kind of societal sin be completely abandoned and done away with. As a point of fact, the roots of virtually every social reform movement of the 1800s can be traced in some fashion back to Finney's meetings.
Next we find . . .
+ The Prayer Meeting Revival (1857-1858): Seen by some as a latter portion of the Second Great Awakening era, impetus for that move of God actually began a dozen or more years earlier. In the twelve years before, the religious life in America was again in a decline because of American prosperity with people seeking after money rather than God. J. Edwin Orr indicated that churches were rapidly losing people and a spirit of worldliness was infiltrating the church. "Concerts of Prayer" began to spring up in numerous parts of the U.S. and Canada.
By early 1857, thousands of Christians were praying, "that the popular addiction to money-making might be broken." The "New School" Presbyterian Church published a booklet entitled, "Longing for Revivals"in May 1857. Written some time before it was finally published, it was an appeal to corporate prayer. In it were these words: "This longing for revivals we cannot but consider as a cheering indication of the noblest life . . . Next to a state of actual revival is the sense of its need and the struggle to attain it, at any sacrifice of treasure, toil, or time. We trust that the period is not distant, when this state of actual, general, glorious revival shall be ours." Other denominations, particularly the Methodists and Baptists, shared similar sentiments of desperation, calling their members to cry out to God for another spiritual awakening. Once the bank panic had passed, the intercessors directed their praying toward the dire need for revival and spiritual awakening.
Then God seemed to bring retribution to the nation because of its materialism, and the Bank Panic of October, 1857 happened. The winter of 1856-57 had been long and hard, causing major transportation problems and delaying various import trade transactions. By the Summer of 1857 many businesses had started going belly up, and before the Summer was over, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company failed, creating "a shock of public confidence." Banks stopped redeeming promissory notes, and others completely suspended operations, including eighteen of NYC's leading and strongest banks.
By October 14th the entire banking system of the United States collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, Philadelphians, and Bostonians were ruined in those three national industrial centers alone. Rich people went bankrupt by the tens of thousands, suicides (especially among businessmen) became epidemic, murder spiked in an alarming and dangerous rate, and, as one writer put it, "the number of unfortunate women who roamed the streets in the cities" increased dramatically.
However, as if God was preparing His intercessors ahead of time, the initial "prayer meeting" actually began three weeks prior to the Panic. The financial crisis only lasted about two months, and then it was another two months before the Prayer Meeting Revival "officially" began. With a heavy burden in his heart, New York City businessman Jeremiah Lanphier called for a prayer gathering at the Fulton Street Church, and in a matter of months, it exploded into one of the most astounding awakenings in the history of the world. Here's what happened:
Described as a tall man and "with a pleasant face, and affectionate manner . . . shrewd and endowed with much tact and common sense" 48-year-old Jeremiah Lanphier began passing out handbills that on one side read, "How Often Shall I Pray? As often as the language of prayer is in my heart; as often as I see my need of help; as often as I feel the power of temptation; as often as I am made sensible of any spiritual declension, or feel the aggression of a worldly, earthly spirit . . . In prayer, we leave the business of time for that of eternity, and intercourse with God."
Written on the reverse side of the handbill were these words ---- "A day Prayer-Meeting is held every Wednesday from 12 to 1 o'clock in the Consistory building of the North Dutch Church, corner of Fulton and William Streets. This meeting is intended to give merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers and businessmen generally an opportunity to stop and call on God amid the perplexities incident to their respective avocations. It will continue for one hour; but it is designed for those who find it inconvenient to remain more than 5 or 10 minutes, as well as for those who can spare a whole hour. Necessary interruption will be slight, because anticipated. Those in haste often expedite their business engagements by halting to lift their voices to the throne of grace in humble, grateful prayer."
Out of one million people in the city, only six people showed up for the noontime gathering, five of them coming late. The next week there were fourteen, and the next week twenty-three, and the next forty. Within a matter of a few more weeks, thousands of business leaders were then meeting regularly to pray, closing shops from Noon until 2:00 pm so employees and customers could attend.
According to Orr's account, at one point the agnostic news reporter Horace Greely rode by carriage to try to count the number of people, and estimated there to be tens of thousands of people praying before God. Theodore Cuyler, pastor of Nineteenth Street Church, New York, said in November 1857, that he was "struck with the earnestness of petitions for the descent of God's Spirit on our city churches." Prayer meetings increased in numbers and frequency in almost all denominations.
Needless to say, both social changes and soul salvations exploded. At one point, some 10,000 people were being saved each week in New York City. From there the movement spread throughout the nation. More than one million people were converted during that time. In less than one year, nearly 20% of the American population was swept into the Kingdom of God.
Even after the Civil War began in 1861, the revival continued on both sides of the battle with both Union and Confederate soldiers being converted by the thousands. Frequently the opposing fighters would call a cease fire and conduct joint Bible studies before resuming the battle against each other. On more than one occasion the soldiers would simply fire into the air rather than wound or kill a fellow brother in the Lord.
There is so much more to tell about this prayer movement, and many stories of changed lives, but I simply do not have the time or space to do so. It will have to wait for another time. In the meantime, . . .
+ On A Parallel Track (1857): At the same time of the Prayer Revival, another powerful move of God was taking place outside the sphere of the wealthy business world. Even prior to the Fulton Street Prayer movement, black slaves in Charleston, South Carolina, were already experiencing a revival in the middle of 1857. They had their own churches, and most of them were pastored or led by white leaders, such as Dr. John L. Girardeau, pastor of Anson Street Presbyterian Church in Charleston.
The church had forty-eight black members and twelve white. That same year, 1857, they began earnestly praying that God would send "a spiritual awakening," and they began waiting for "the outpouring of the Spirit." While you and I may not be familiar with the story, one evening while leading in prayer, Girardeau felt the presence of God as if it was a surge of electricity atop his head and down through his entire body. He then declared to his congregants, "The Holy Spirit has come. We will begin preaching tomorrow evening."
Nobody left. After a time, he began urging them to "accept the Gospel". By the time the service was over, it was well past Midnight. Then, every night for the next eight weeks, he preached on "sin and repentance, faith and justification, and regeneration" to inexplicably growing crowds of 1,500 to 2,000 people. Hundreds of both whites and blacks were converted and then joined various congregations in the city.
The year previous, in the Fall of 1856, Charles G. Finney began preaching in Boston and the presence and power of God was so strong that he remained in Boston, preaching almost daily, until the following April. He described the situation in his Memoirs by stating, "The work was quite extensive that winter in Boston, and many very striking cases of conversion occurred."
A Boston-based reporter for New York's The Independent newspaper reported, "Members of other churches in the city soon began to come in considerable numbers; then from the neighboring towns; and finally from distant places in New Hampshire and Maine, came ministers by the scores, private Christians by the hundreds if not by the thousands, to hear the word, and catch some of the sacred influences that evidently attended it."
During this same period of time churches in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Iowa, California, Connecticut, Virginia, in New England as well as other states reported similar "spiritual outpourings" among "Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and most of the other denominations". When Finney returned to Boston the following winter of 1857-58, the nationwide attention to revival and spiritual awakening was well established, he later wrote, "This was in the winter of 1857 and '58; and it will be remembered that it was at this time that a great revival prevailed throughout the land in such a tremendous manner, that for some weeks it was estimated that not less than fifty thousand conversions occurred per week." He also wrote, "In this revival I had conversation with a large number of the higher classes in Boston, especially those that attended Episcopal worship. But I suppose we shall never know in this world anything like the number savingly affected during this great revival in Boston."
But God wasn't finished. There were . . .
+ Continuing Waves of Revival and Awakening (1880's-1910): Space and time don't allow me to describe subsequent moves of God that ushered America into the Twentieth Century. The latter half of the Nineteenth Century produced great revivalists and evangelists such as D.L. Moody, William and Catherine Booth, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller and many great theologians such as Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield. They and many others helped to make this period of time an age of optimism and explosive missionary activity. These holiness focused movements both in England and America stressed both personal and social holiness. A theology of sanctification was developed and an emphasis on the infilling of the Holy Spirit was stressed as being necessary to live a holy life. These movements were a natural precursor to the Pentecostal revival which followed at the turn of the Twentieth Century.
WHEN REVIVAL AND AWAKENING COME -- WHAT HAPPENS?
As a result of these series of spiritual awakenings and evangelization, an enormous missionary movement was launched that was unprecedented in the history of the Church. Child labor laws were enacted, women's suffrage movements were begun, labor safety laws and practices developed, social betterment organizations like the YMCA were founded, new Bible societies were born, and dozens of other major societal benefits developed. For example, after George Williams established the first YMCA in 1844 in England, the first YMCA for African Americans was founded in 1853 and the first "student YMCA" was founded at Cumberland University in Lebanon, TN, in 1856.
So, how will we know if and when we have had more than a mile spiritual hiccup in the church and a moral bounce in the culture, and are actually experiencing the real thing? The late sage, Vance Havner listed ten indicators that the real thing had come. I was privileged to know Dr. Havner some 55+ years ago shortly after finishing seminary. Not only was I blessed to hear him preach in his own pithy and penetrating way, but it was my honor to lead music in several services where he preached. Speaking with significant authority and insight, he pointed out the following indicators that would show us that revival had truly come:
" If we had True Revival"...
1. There would be a return to the authority of the Word of God:
2. There would be profound conviction of sin:
3. There would be an impact on lawlessness and crime:
4. There would be a decline of worldliness in the church:
5. There would be radical change:
6. There would be a return to holiness:
7. The Sanctity of the Lords day ( Sunday), would be restored:
8. There will be mass Evangelism by the church:
9. There will be much made of Jesus:
10. When real Revival comes we will know it.
THE POINT IS . . .
Even though time and space simply don't allow me to go beyond this, I believe the point is well established . . . true spiritual awakening is a phenomenon that takes place at God's choosing and timing regardless of circumstances, but usually at times of spiritual decline and societal decay. It is generally initiated by God in relationship to conviction, repentance, intercession, and the recovery of neglected spiritual life in the Church, and it almost inevitably results in significant manifestations and changes in general society. It seems to me that seeming "coincidences" between spiritual awakenings, crises, and some type of significant societal and/or national development should not be overlooked.
For example, The Puritan movement and its connection to the colonization of America . . . or the First Great Awakening immediately preceding the American Revolution and the founding of the United States . . . or the Camp Meeting revivals in relation to the westward expansion to the frontier . . . or the Prayer Meeting Revival as juxtaposed to the Civil War . . . or the Twentieth Century Pentecostal movement to the introduction of Socialism under Woodrow Wilson and the ensuing First World War.
In each of the major awakenings in American history, just as it was in the Old Testament days with Israel -- and as it was in western Europe during the Dark/Middle Ages and the Reformation era that prepared the way for America's colonization, -- there has been either a major crisis or a series of major societal breakthroughs that led to civil betterment.
We cannot escape the fact that when God moves in significant ways territorially or nationally, there are life-changing results. Whether it is in blessing or in chastisement, it is good . . . and for our good. Sometimes God blesses us with good during such time; but at other times -- as in the case of the Shantung Revival that began in the Shandong Province of northern China and then spread throughout the country for sixteen years (its intensity covered about ten years, but the impact was extensive) was used to prepare China -- and especially the Christians -- for Mao's take-over of the government.
So, in that sense the awakening prepared the Church for great persecution to come (and still remains today). But, it also helped prepare for a great spiritual harvest as millions have been swept into the kingdom since then. The house church movement remains the strongest and most rapidly expanding anywhere in the world 102 years later.
So, then, . . . are we asking too much . . . are we expecting too much . . . to think that our current state of decline and rapid deterioration of all that made America great can also be changed by another great awakening? Based on the historical record, I was certainly think so.
That, then, leaves only four simple questions: 1) Can revival and awakening still change a culture? 2) Do we want it to happen here again, and 3) will we humbly and desperately pay the price? . . . and 4) will God be so disposed out of His absolute sovereignty to bless us with such an awakening?
I pray that the answer to all these questions is a resounding yes. Hopefully, you feel the same way.
In His Bond, By His Grace, and for His Kingdom,
Bob Tolliver -- Romans 1:11
"Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness,
examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." -- Dr. Luke (Acts 17:11)
"A fire kept burning on the hearthstone of my heart, and I took up the burden of the day with fresh courage and hope." -- Charles F. McKoy
Life Unlimited Ministries
LUMglobal
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Copyright November, 2022
"If Jesus had preached the same message that many ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified." -- Leonard Ravenhill
"The time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the Church will have clowns entertaining the goats." -- Charles H. Spurgeon
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