02.07. The Pastor in Revivals
VII. THE PASTOR IN REVIVALS.
“ The God that answereth by fire, let him be God.” In setting forth the gifts that commend the ministers of Christ, Paul mentions, among others, the possession of “the Holy Ghost, the power of God.” (2 Corinthians 6:6-7) God’s ambassadors must be Holy Ghost men, power-of-God men. Revival work must be a leading feature in the work of ministers and churches. To labor among the youth, bringing them early into the fold, is of the utmost importance. Home piety and the Christian culture of children is a foundation stone in Zion. But our Saviour did not stop there, and the church must not. Christ’s mission ended at Pentecost, where that of his disciples began, — with the descent of the Holy Spirit, and revival power. The church has therefore two special arms of service — child nurture and revival work. The one secures the young and tender before they stray, the other reclaims the hardened and wandering. By the former, covenant mercies are distilled into the heart of childhood, bringing salvation quietly as the moring dawns; by the latter, the stout-souled sinner is convineed of sin, and brought to the feet of Jesus.
God is God both of dew and of fire. The Christian training of children provides for one whole side of the community, — folding the lambs; but the pastor will find that he needs revival power from God to reach the unbelieving and godless ones moving down the broad way to death on the other side of the community. The experience of ages shows that the pious care of children, aided by baptismal water, and catechism, and confirmation, without times of refreshing from on high to give depth and power to their piety, results in a lifeless, formal church. It needs a spark of the new life from “ the God that answers by fire.” A reviving from the Holy Spirit gives new life to the church and new power to truth and doctrine. The pastor, in building the church, will give both these truths a place in his plans of work. They do not come into conflict. They help each other. Neither one can be dispensed with without great loss. While we hold fast to the covenant-keeping God, to the gentle “Shepherd who shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom,” let us, for the sake of the waste places and dark comers in every parish, keep near that Mighty One who speaks to stony hearts in tongues of flame. This is the privilege of every pastor. It is the highest gift of God to the ministry; the anointing from heaven for the conversion of souls. The pastor may or may not be aided by evangelists or other pastors; the spiritual awakening in his church may be more or less extended or frequent, but it is his own prerogative as a minister of God, endued with the Holy Ghost and the power of God, to see many souls converted from sin, and the miracle of the new birth so wrought upon the hearts of worldly and wicked men that the entire church shall be moved midst tears of penitence and gratitude to new consecration and better service. Let no pastor say that these gifts of ’God are for others and not for himself, until he has waited all the night long, many a night, at the gates of the Temple, praying and longing for the light as one that watcheth for the morning, and until God finally makes answer that there is no more mercy in the skies for lost men; that the wells of salvation are dry, and the promises of redemption recalled.
If all the gods who are asleep or away on a journey when they are worshipped, and who only supply fancies and vaporings to the pulpit, were cast out for the one God of Pentecost, what increase of power there would be. To sit down on these gods as Rachel did would be a step forward in the art of winning souls, and the preaching that converts nobody would end. The final test of all doctrine and method is fruit-bearing. Our churches must yield more fruit, and have greater power with God, revival power. The pastor must speak as one having authority, and not as the Scribes.” The grace that converts one soul will avail as well for a hundred. It is as near at hand, and as easily entreated.
K the pastor will carry a soul-saving faith and prayerfulness and courage, he may secure many conversions as surely as a few. He will constantly watch his hour when he may move out into deeper waters and cast his net in on the other side, drawing it in full.
Christ walks all the waves of life with hands outstretched to save. The church needs nothing so much as to be led out on these wide waters to rescue sinking souls.. The pastor, then, builds thoroughly and powerfully when he seeks for his church the converting presence of the Holy Ghost in His promised fulness. Such periods of divine quickening accomplish great results. They arouse the indifferent, and reach the careless. A great number of those who have had no early religious training, or have passed to manhood untouched by it will be saved in no other way. By revival work I do not mean such spasmodic efforts as are followed by long periods of repose, or to such as leave the converts uncared for to return to their old ways. I mean a faithful ingathering after sowing — a sowing in order to a speedy and full reaping. The indifference to the harvest sometimes seen — pastors thinking if they only sow and go to sleep sowing, God will bring in the sheaves — is a fallacy and a sin. While the good man sleeps, the enemy fills the field with tares. God uses harvesters of living, tireless men, and He needs many, for the fields that are white. “ In due time we shall reap.” In many churches the time is overdue because the pastor has not put in the sickle, but has been waiting for God to do it.
Revivals will always have opposers; nevertheless, revivals are a part of God’s plan in saving the world. The church was begun in a revival, and in spiritual outpouring it shall end, nations being born in a day, the glory of God filling the earth. Earth’s hope is in these visits of God to his people. “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple.” (Malachi 3:1.)
Revivals awaken respect and awe for Christianity. Skeptics who have ridiculed the Bible feel the might of God, and the testimony of bad men converted shuts the mouths of boasters, shaking down the castle of self-righteousness. Revivals make the Bible a new book. They deepen piety, incite to prayer, lift up the family altar, and quicken all the drooping graces of the church. Laymen are set to work, new streams of influence are opened, and men are raised up to special service. Difficulties are healed, alienations overcome, brotherly love made to abound, and knowledge and experience of Christian truth extended. In revivals God and Eternity seem great, Christ’s love near and precious, and Christian duty pressing.
Revivals bring the church back to the simplicities of doctrine and worship, and Christian living. They awaken regard for the Sabbath and the house of God the prayer-meeting, and all the divine ordinances.. They fill up the evening service, and make that hour the best in the Sabbath for reaching and saving the masses. By revivals ministers and churches are more united, pastors and people are drawn into more endearing fellowship and better established, benevolence is enlarged, lost joy restored, and both home and public standards of piety are elevated. Revivals make preaching more Scriptural and pointed. The Word of God, pure and simple, comes to the front. A personal Christ is set forth, and the evil of sin and the eternal loss of the soul without salvation. The doctrines of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, forgiveness of sin through the sacrifice of Christ, and the rewards and retributions at the judgment day; are made vivid and weighty, half-truths and heresies starve, and sectarianism gives place to brotherly love- Revivals take churches out of the rounds of formal ism and the fashions and pomps of this world, putting new life into everything. They lighten the burdens of the ministry. It is never so easy to preach and pray as in the Spirit’s presence. They pay church debts, lift up the fallen, and give the church a wider field and a fresh lease of life and usefulness. Many ’* almost persuaded,’ will never start till this time comes. Missionaries and ministers and teachers are born in revivals, and great Christian societies which bless the world follow them. The church is always becoming cold and entangled with the world without this freshening power of the Spirit. A revival is another chapter added to the Book of Acts. Ministers and churches must have such seasons of divine renewal, consecrating hearts more fully, multiplying offerings, increasing service, moving thought and feeling profoundly toward God and the new life. The breath of the Highest is on the community, and the hearts of believers yield a sweet odor like the fragrance of spices outpoured.