145 Sermon Illustrations on Revival

Charismatic movement is a growing phenomenon. 23 identifying marks are given by a leading Reformed scholar. Some argue it is not from God, but Packer sees many positive results. Unity is sometimes a result of movement but it tends to be superficial. Tongues and Acts 2 are not normative for all believers. Discernment is needed.

“If charismatics err, they err only by expecting to receive from God, whose face they seek, more than He has actually promised.”

Schedule and ideas given for a "Prayer Sunday". Prayer triplets and special meetings described, as well as how to structure prayer to encourage revival.

Can there be a revival in our church? It begins with individuals.

Letter from Robin Schultz to Ledgewood Baptist Church (NJ):

“God has led me here. Praise God for giving me the opportunity

to join others in fellowship and a place to spread the love of

Jesus... At [the Christian hostel] we hold Bible studies each

night and the staff includes other young Christians who are

searching what to do with their lives... We are looking toward

the Lord for guidance and purpose....

I got accepted to Tavernhof Torchbearer Bible School in Austria.

Being a new and immature Christian, I couldn't pass up this

opportunity to learn more about the word of God!”

God Bless,

Sincerely in Christ,

Robin Schulz

Portrays the religious enthusiasm of soldiers in the American Civil War. At first they cared little for religion, but as the bloody war dragged on, hundreds of thousands converted to Christianity.

Continuation of article on Jonathan Edwards and revival:

In the “Treatise on the Religious Affections” (1744), Edwards trained his critical powers almost exclusively on his own party. He was concerned that pure Christian spirituality was being drowned in counterfeits. “‘Tis by the mixture of counterfeit religion with true, not discerned and distinguished, that the devil has had his greatest advantage against the cause and kingdom of Christ.”

As in “Distinguishing Marks,” Edwards starts by listing a series of “insufficient signs” that neither discredit nor validate a revival movement: intense religious emotions, involuntary bodily effects, talkativeness, self-oriented forms of love, a slavish fear of God, intense religiosity, praise of God that is really focused on self, assurance of salvation (or lack of this), and even pleasing other godly persons.

If these are not adequate signs of spiritual renewal, then what is? Edwards answers that the heart (the inmost center of the personality) must be touched by the Holy Spirit. This healing touch generates affections (driving motives that inform and direct the mind and will) flowing out of love for God himself, not just gratitude for his gifts. These affections are responses to God's own beauty, not merely to his power or greatness. They do not bypass the mind, they illuminate and transform it. They make faith more certain, but they also create humility. They change our nature, producing a meek and gentle spirit and a tender sensitivity to sin. They do not foster self- centered emotionalism but rather a vigorous social conscience that cares for bodies as well as souls. They lead inevitably to the practice of Christian charity.

By the time the “Treatise on the Affections” was published in 1746, Edwards was discouraged over the revival. In 1742, he had warned against the Devil's strategy of sowing tares among the wheat in order to discredit the whole crop:

“We may observe that it has been a common device of the devil, to overset

a revival of religion; when he finds he can keep men quiet and secure no

longer, then he drives them to excesses and extravagances.... Though the

devil will do his diligence to stir up the open enemies of religion, yet

he knows...that, in a time of revival of religion, his main strength

shall be tried with the friends of it; and he will chiefly exert himself

in his attempts to mislead them. One truly zealous person...may do

more...to hinder the work, than a hundred great, and strong, and open

opposers.”

In 1747, Edwards assisted a project of Scottish Presbyterians, asking for quarterly concerts of prayer for spiritual awakening in “A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement in United Prayer for the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom.” At this point, he felt that the errors of revival leaders had temporarily derailed the revival. Still, he was confident that united prayer for the kind of spiritual awakening he had described in his writings could prevail. He argues that when the church is at its worst and weakest, it may be closer to revival, as it is drawn to God in greater dependence:

“The church's extremity has often been God's opportunity for magnifying

his power, mercy and faithfulness, towards her. The interest of vital

piety has long been in general decaying, and error and wickedness

prevailing; it looks as though the disease were now come to a crisis....

When his church is in a low state, and oppressed by her enemies, and

cries to him, he will swiftly fly to her relief, as birds fly at the cry

of their young.”

IF EDWARDS WERE HERE TODAY

If Edwards could return to America today, how would he evaluate the spiritual situation?

First, he might be surprised by the degree of activism, organization, and promotion in evangelicalism, resulting from Charles Finney’s influence during the last century. Puritans had been reluctant to intrude upon the work of the Holy Spirit, avoiding evangelistic invitations and all efforts to engineer spiritual response, except through presentation of biblical truth. The Edwardsian strategy was to pray for God to change the weather in human hearts. Finney, on the other hand, counterbalanced this passive/dependent approach with a stress on active planting of the seed, using weeks of extended meetings, invitations, lay exhortations, and other tactical innovations.

Edwards never doubted that God worked through human efforts, but he valued spontaneous stirrings among the laity, the churches, and a variety of leaders. He would be impressed by the huge rallies of laymen now gathering to respond to Scripture, often with a minimum of promotional hype.

For Edwards, the primary human catalyst for revival was always dependent prayer. He would be delighted with movements like David Bryant’s “Concerts of Prayer,” which is partly based on his own writings. He would be especially happy that prayer movements are now focused on broad-scale outpouring of the Holy Spirit and not just on support for individual ministries and campaigns.

For Edwards, as for Calvin, conviction of sin was the usual result of an awakening encounter with God. He would be nonplused by the public confessions of baby busters in Christian schools. Sharing on this level was restricted to pastor’s studies and small groups during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, though it became almost a public sacrament in modern movements like the East Africa Revival. In any case, Edwards would conclude that young people do not show such extraordinary candor unless God is moving them. The normal result of college revivals -- for example, the Yale revival under Edwards's grandson Timothy Dwight -- is a decades-long refreshing of the church's leadership.

What about the Toronto Blessing and its impact through other Vineyard churches? Edwards, Wesley, and other revival leaders also encountered fainting or prostration as the Holy Spirit dealt with individuals. Edwards’s concern would be to verify that the experience involved real illumination and transformation of the heart, with lasting fruit in Christian faith and life, and not just transient bodily effects.

But he would be impressed by the Vineyard’s study of his own writings and their growing grasp of the full implications of revival for evangelism and social transformation. He would be delighted with their optimism of grace, which insists that the church must become more visibly the glorious bride of Christ before the end of history.

Some of the components of the Vineyard renewal would give him pause. It is true that during the frontier revivals converts were seized with contagious behavior, jerking involuntarily and barking like dogs. Peter Cartwright encouraged the phenomena as an aid to humility, but others felt that the revival was being disfigured by these elements. One historian comments:

“Those opposed to the excitement soon realized that the attitude of the

preacher had a great influence upon the character of the meeting. A

peremptory command from him upon the first appearance of undue excitement

sufficed in most cases to quiet those affected, and prevented contagion.

A Baptist minister who was preaching where one of the jerkers began his

motions made a pause, and in a loud and solemn tone said, ‘In the name of

the Lord I command all unclean spirits to leave this place.’ The jerker

immediately became still.”

Vineyard leaders are now trying to downplay the phenomena. But some have defended the animal imitations as adjuncts to humility, which could not be demonic because of the holy atmosphere of meetings. But Edwards and the other revival leaders knew that in awakenings they were always in a tug of war with the Devil. Puritans said, “When the sun shines on a swamp, mist rises.” Sometimes conversion effects exorcism, and the displaced agents may not go quietly. Unable to beat the revival, they may try to join it, like the girl at Philippi who gave the apostles free advertising but was promptly exorcised by Paul (Acts 16:16).

A revival movement that finds itself replicating compulsive laughter, spiritual drunkenness, pecking like chickens or roaring like lions as expected aspects of spiritual awakening may be playing into the Enemy's hands. It is in the Devil's interest to make Christians weird. He does not need possession to do this; he can manage by suggestion. The goal of his strategy is to create a church that is so institutionally strange that unbelievers will detour around it. The goal of revival is conformity to the image of Christ, not imitation of animals.

Movements of revival usually center on recovered biblical truth. If we ask what the Toronto renewal has that would explain God's blessing, it may lie in the fact that the leaders had been praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on an Edwardsian scale. The “Third Wave” has retained the Pentecostal gifts but has recentered the charismatic movement on spiritual warfare and healing, decreasing the emphasis on tongues and accepting a broader range of gifts as signs of fullness of the Spirit. This may be a winning combination, to which God wants to draw attention.

In any case, Edwards would find many parts of modern evangelicalism much stranger than the Vineyard, full of theological weakness, cultural conformity, and the disfiguring effects of spiritual pride: barren and uncomfortable houses where there is little to nurture spiritual life. He would be pleased with the trend of prophetic criticism that pinpoints these needs, but he would not be discouraged. His own final approach to the Great Awakening was to subject it to the most rigorous critique, on the one hand, and to solicit extraordinary prayer for its advancement, on the other. These are strategies we need to follow today.

****************************

Richard F. Lovelace is professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and the author of “Dynamics of Spiritual Life” (IVP).

Copyright © 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctcurrmrw5TA028595y

[see #3675]

United Methodists, whether conservative or liberal theologically, foresee a period of critical decision-making approaching on the mainline denomination’s horizon. Though membership declines have lessened in recent years, the United Methodist Church (UMC) is often perceived as a “sick denomination,” one that requires serious rethinking and recommitment if it is to play a role in modern culture. Membership in the United States, now at 8.6 million, has been decreasing for more than 25 years.

Several movements within the UMC are dedicated to furthering reform in the church. Perhaps none has the potential for controversy as much as the so- called Confessing Movement. Not even two years old, this movement, which seeks to reground the church explicitly in its historic statements of theological doctrine and mission, has attracted thousands of supporters and the focused attention of UMC’s leadership.

That attention should only increase next April with the church’s quadrennial general conference.

Confessing Movement leaders say they have assembled a coalition of UM moderates, traditionalists, evangelicals, conservatives, and charismatics to prevent the denomination from losing its historic faith and doctrinal distinctives. To that end, they urge the church to begin a vigorous internal discussion on the lordship and uniqueness of Christ, the status of its founding documents and statements of faith, and its duty to carry out the Great Commission.

The Confessing Movement’s critics assert the movement has set itself up as the arbiter of orthodoxy and thus is a threat to the UMC’s tradition of tolerance.

Yet, movement leaders reject this characterization. “We’re not trying to define one narrow thing you’ve got to believe,” says John Ed Mathison, chair of the movement’s steering committee and senior pastor of Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. “But how much latitude can you have? When you’ve got some people who say you don’t need Jesus Christ for salvation, you’ve gone too far.”

FOCUS ON DOCTRINE: The Confessing Movement sprang from an invitation-only meeting of about 90 United Methodists in Atlanta last year.

That meeting produced “An Invitation to the Church” -- a call to reformation and doctrinal reinvigoration -- which subsequently attracted 13,000 signatures of support. In April, an open meeting in Atlanta saw about 900 attendees adopt “A Confessional Statement.”

This statement emphasizes the centrality of Christ and takes the church to task for tolerating paganism, disregarding the world’s poor, accepting modern norms of sexuality and marriage, resigning itself to racial and gender injustice, condoning homosexual practices, and abdicating its role of support for the unborn and the mother.

At its heart, the Confessing Movement seeks to put boundaries on what is acceptable practice and belief within United Methodism.

It is also a reaction to nearly a century of liberal Protestantism, which it sees as drifting into the orbit of radical Protestants “who are creating their own religion,” according to Prof. William J. Abraham, of Dallas’s Southern Methodist University. He says the notion that the UMC does not have set statements of faith is false, and he points to the Articles of Religion, the Confession of Faith, and founder John Wesley’s Sermons and Explanatory Notes on the New Testament. “It means Methodism is clearly and unequivocally committed to the classical faith of the church, and we’re also committed to distinctives that have always been a part of this church.”

Central to the movement’s hope for dialogue is the reaction of UMC bishops, who are being urged to lead the discussion by exercising their teaching roles. Bishops have demonstrated uncertainty over how to react.

William Oden, UMC bishop of the Louisiana area, welcomes the emphasis on the UMC’s presence in the stream of Christian thought running through Wesley back to the early Christians.

He points to the current debates and to the growth of renewal movements within the church as evidence of Methodist interest in clearing up confusion over its theological core, its mission, and its execution of that mission.

The disagreements grow more serious -- and political -- when it comes to mission execution. The Confessing Movement, like its critics, stresses the Wesleyan imperative of acting out one’s faith in service, and it is not unusual to find congregations on both sides of an issue actively involved in ministry to aids sufferers, the homeless, and prisoners.

Similarly, both sides are eager to play a socially and spiritually reforming role in the United States akin to that played by Wesley and the early Methodists in eighteenth-century England. However, the role of doctrine splits the groups. The movement focuses on the centrality of Christ as the reason and the source for all social involvement. “That is the center out of which all else must move,” says Maxie Dunnam, president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. “Unless we have agreement on the center, you can’t go anywhere.”

Some critics, such as leaders of Atlanta’s Trinity United Methodist Church, argue that too-strict adherence to doctrine can hinder outreach, particularly to homosexuals. Trinity responded to the Confessing Movement by issuing “A Call for Renewal of Theology and Mission in the United Methodist Church,” which enunciates its concerns. “Doctrine is important,” says Trinity pastor Rex Kaney, “but if it blocks us from being able to love others with the same unconditional love that Jesus loves us, then doctrine is in the way.”

GROWING DIVISIONS: The problems of the UMC are not unique among mainline denominations. Commonly there exists a sense of growing division between the views of denominational leaders and everyday believers.

To the extent that a more conservative laity and younger generation is percolating in the UMC, Confessing Movement leaders are not content to wait for a natural generational changing of the guard.

Confessing Movement cofounder Thomas Oden, professor of theology at Drew University’s School of Theology in Madison, New Jersey, says liberals are finding it impossible to ignore what he calls “an emerging leadership of young United Methodist students.” He compares the UMC movement to evangelical Anglicans, who now represent a large and vital force within the Church of England.

________

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

Ever since he accepted Jesus as his Savior in the spring of 1994, Jim White knew he had been called to preach. But he didn't surrender until he felt like lightning struck him.

It happened several months ago during a spring revival at Chaplin Fork (Kentucky) Baptist Church. White, who became the church's youth pastor last April, had just led a young man in the sinner's prayer. Continuing the invitation, the evangelist urged others to come to the altar. He concluded, "Maybe you're being called into the ministry."

"When he said that, I felt like a lightning bolt shot through the pew and I went forward," said White, 41, who has worked as a carpenter but is considering becoming an evangelist.

"Sheri (his wife) and I had been talking about it that night. She told me it was like waiting to have a kid. If you wait for the perfect time, it'll never happen. You just have to put it in the Lord's hands."

A man led into evangelism may not sound that unusual in church circles. But White's conversion and call starkly contrast with recent drug abuse and marital problems. They led his wife to file for a court restraining order against him in March of last year.

The action followed 14 years of marriage punctuated by frequent quarrels over insignificant issues.

They were an unlikely match from the beginning: an Army baby born in Fort Knox and the daughter of an airline pilot who grew up in southern California's urban sprawl.

"He was different," said Sheri, a trim 35-year-old redhead, of their meeting on a double date. "He was very caring and thoughtful. He sent me flowers. I had never experienced that. Everything clicked."

"Initially, there was the physical attraction," Jim said. "But it was also her intelligence and good wit. There's been a lot of good times in our relationship. It was like 100 pounds of love and two ounces of cobra venom."

The poison struck right before the wedding. He forgot their marriage license appointment. She showed up at his workplace, swinging her purse. Later they laughed it off.

Soon the Whites moved to the Chaplin, Ky., area midway between Louisville and Lexington. But fights erupted again over issues like who would wash the dishes or who left the cap off the toothpaste.

"I would overreact because I was a spoiled brat," Sheri says. "When I didn't get my way, I exploded." And Jim struck back, sometimes leaving black eyes or bruises on her and holes in the walls.

Life heaped on stress, too. The first six years together they faced various family deaths, illnesses and job losses. Then Jim hurt his hand in an accident, and after it healed he couldn't find jobs that paid more than $5 an hour.

He stayed home when Erik was born in 1987; three more children followed over five years, including a set of twins. Meanwhile, Sheri's college degree earned her a breadwinner's position as an Internal Revenue Service auditor.

The role reversal didn't sit well with Jim, who especially resented his inability to become a professional guitarist. He had forsaken everything else to fulfill that dream. Now he had to face the bitter truth. His destiny lay in shaping wood instead of music.

To cope with those feelings, he smoked ever-increasing amounts of marijuana. Right before Sheri's legal action, he popped pills and threatened suicide.

However, the court order served as a wake-up call. On the advice of his mother, a member of the Chaplin Fork church, Jim sought counseling from pastor Tom Knight. Thanks to pastoral visits, late-night calls and Scripture study, the pattern of his life changed. Knight started visiting Sheri, too, encouraging her to turn back to the Lord she had known in childhood.

Both began attending church, but since the court order prohibited any contact, they went on alternate Sundays. At last year's spring revival, Sheri's resistance broke first, prompted by a message about a personal relationship with Christ.

Meanwhile, though progressing, Jim struggled mightily. He calmed the turmoil with booze. Early one morning, he walked outside with a bottle when a strange feeling overtook him. "I realized I wasn't letting go. I poured out the vodka on the ground, got on my knees and said, 'God, take over. You know what's in my heart. Take over.'"

In a matter of days, the Whites were reunited. Eyebrows raised when the family showed up together at Chaplin Fork one Sunday. The reunion sparked a mini-revival. Instead of sagging, attendance last summer increased from the mid-30s to the high-40s. Today it averages close to 60.

Over the past year, Knight has watched a pastor's heart develop in Jim, expressed through a deep concern for others and a desire to fulfill the Great Commission. And, he said, White is very popular with the teen-agers.

"One of their biggest compliments is they say he understands who they are and is non-judgmental, but also non-compromising about the truth," Knight said. "They're in love with him. If it was up to them, he would be making a million dollars a year."

White has filled in several times for Knight and preached at two other churches. He also was asked to lead a tent revival. One neighboring congregation was impressed enough to ask him to come back for a second visit. "Everything I've heard has been real positive," said pastor Jeff Fuller. "He has communicated well what he wanted to say. Our folks enjoy hearing him."

Though he doesn't know exactly where the Lord will lead, White said the difference between today and 19 months ago is like night and day. "Sometimes I could kick myself for wasting so many years with drugs, alcohol and all that nonsense," he said. "I could have been doing something better."

Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press

RNbp5C06mrjB5C06e5C7f

#3714

*

The virtues and vices of tribal history.

"Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858," by Iain H. Murray (Banner of Truth, 455 pp.; $27.95, hardcover).

Iain Murray, who has enjoyed a long and fruitful association with the Banner of Truth Trust in Edinburgh, is one of the most energetic of modern church historians. His gift in biography -- exercised for A. W. Pink, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and John Murray -- recently culminated in an impressive biography of Jonathan Edwards (1987). That book, though unduly neglectful of Edwards's efforts as a philosopher and theologian of the beautiful, is nonetheless the one modern biography that Edwards himself would have recognized as getting at the spiritual heart of his most important concerns. In addition, Murray has always been more than a biographer, as attested by his long-time editing of the Banner of Truth magazine and by occasional books on subjects as diverse as Puritanism and Australia.

With Iain Murray, however, history is an explicit subdiscipline of theology. As a staunch Calvinist, Murray aims single-mindedly at spiritual edification, as that edification is defined by his interpretation of the Scriptures. In this approach, history is an arena in which to trace God's manifest actions with individuals, groups, and societies -- in order to reinforce the truths of Calvinism about the innate sinfulness of humans, the freedom of God's grace, and the foolishness of thinking that people can in any way bring about their own salvation.

The virtues-and vices-of this approach to history are fully on display in "Revival and Revivalism." The argument of the book is that until the nineteenth century, "revival" in America meant "the phenomenon of authentic spiritual awakening which is the work of the living God." From the early nineteenth century, and especially after about 1858, another approach to renewal began to crowd out "revival." Murray calls this other approach "revivalism" and defines it as characterized by "religious excitements, deliberately organized to secure converts." As the epitome of this "revivalism," Murray focuses on the influential work and writings of Charles Grandison Finney. As Murray sees it, the key (and regrettable) innovation of "revivalism" was its concentration on the moment of decision, often promoted by "the anxious bench," "coming forward," or "the invitation system." In his reading of American history, Murray contends that Christian belief and practice were largely healthy so long as "revival" prevailed, but, when "revivalism" took over, the church became dangerously self-preoccupied, even apostate.

To make his case, Murray draws especially on writings published before 1860. He largely disregards the contribution of modern historians (except as repositories of quotations or sources for very occasional matters of fact). These modern historians are suspect, according to Murray, for explicitly theological reasons -- either they confuse "revival" and "revivalism" or they discount the work of God in order to assess awakenings in relationship to social, psychological, political, or other contextual factors. One of the consequences of Murray's disdain for such moderns is that he ignores works by contemporary evangelical historians who, while open to spiritual interpretations of history, nonetheless concentrate on features of the past that can be studied empirically and whose interpretation does not require pre-existing commitments to a specific theological viewpoint.

Revival and Revivalism represents Murray's historical theology at its best and its worst. At its best, the book is filled with challenging accounts of godly men faithfully proclaiming a powerful gospel of God's grace. (Only rarely do women appear on stage, and then only as supportive wives of the revivalists, even though historically the regular participation of women was one of the phenomena that anti-revivalists regularly criticized in the great awakenings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.)

Almost anyone with even the least sympathy to the Christian faith will be able to recognize that some of Murray's Calvinist heroes were indeed heroic -- from Samuel Davies, the awakener of Virginia, whose ministry was instrumental in forming the first evangelical congregations there in the 1750s; through a phalanx of Presbyterian and Congregational stalwarts in the days of the American Revolution and after who regularly risked their all to bring the message of salvation to the hovels and hedgerows of the American frontier; to Baptists like James Petigru Boyce, who in the midnineteenth century combined massive learning with humble piety. Murray's main point is also theologically compelling: when religion becomes something that humans work up for God (i.e., "revivalism") instead of something God graciously bestows upon repentant sinners (i.e., "revival"), the integrity of the faith is at stake.

Thought-provoking as such conclusions are, "Revival and Revivalism" suffers from the vices of its virtues. If you are not a pretty stiff Calvinist to begin with, this book will not be persuasive. In one way or another, Murray describes John Wesley, Charles Finney, and D. L. Moody as promoting a suspect "revivalism" over a godly "revival." The problem here is more than just point of view.

The modern evangelical historian Grant Wacker has called Murray's style of history "tribalism" and described it expertly in the following terms: "This is scholarship that is fashioned with private or factional or parochial or ethnic-in a word, non-public-criteria of what counts for good evidence, reliable warrants, and sound conclusions. Tribal history rarely suffers from factual inaccuracy in the strict sense of the term. Rather the problem usually proves the opposite: an inordinate attention to details, but all linked by explanatory frameworks that only insiders find credible."

Captivated by the excellence of his Calvinist heroes, Murray has difficulty with evidence that does not fit his theology -- for example, the testimony of Ebenezer Bradford, a Princeton undergraduate who in 1772 complained that John Witherspoon was squelching a revival at the college. The difficulty here is that Witherspoon, as an authentic Scottish Calvinist, counts as one of Murray's heroes because he trained some of the great Calvinist preachers of the next generation. In the book, therefore, no hint emerges that Witherspoon actually had an ambiguous attitude toward religious experiences of the sort that Murray praises highly. The situation is similar to Murray's silence on Charles Hodge's "Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church" (1839), a work seriously critical of certain aspects of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century American revivalism. The problem is that both Hodge, as an articulate Calvinist, and the revivalists he criticized, who were also in the main orthodox Calvinists, are heroes to Murray, and so the evidence of Hodge's displeasure is awkward evidence that simply does not appear, because it does not fit.

Finally, Murray's disdain for modern scholarship forces him to miss a great opportunity for constructive dialogue. The best historical study (as distinguished from historical theology) ever written on nineteenth-century revivalism was (and remains) Timothy L. Smith's "Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War" (originally published in 1957). Smith was an even more indefatigable researcher than Murray (which is saying something), for he added extensive digging into weekly and monthly religious newspapers to the exhaustive study of published books that is the backbone of Murray's research. The great missed opportunity in Murray's book was actually to engage Smith's evidence and his arguments, for Smith, as an evangelical Arminian, used the same range of sources that Murray employed to describe American revivalism at the midpoint of the nineteenth century as the most successful, biblically balanced, and powerful version of the faith ever to exist in America -- and precisely because it had set aside ancestral Calvinism for a fresh, dynamic, and expansive Arminianism!

Smith and Murray both shaped their research by their theological presuppositions, but because Smith engaged in even broader and deeper research than Murray, his conclusions -- on the basis of the evidence he presents for them -- ring just as true to the historical evidence as Murray's.

Revival and Revivalism will be an inspiring book for those who share both Murray's approach to history and his brand of Calvinism. For readers who favor his theological approach to history but dispute his Calvinism, the book will mostly stimulate a theological polemic. For at least a few readers (like myself) who share Murray's Calvinism, but who also think that historic Calvinism justifies an approach to historical study focusing on evidence and interpretations open, in principle, to all observers, the book will be an exasperation-edifying in its effort to exalt divine grace, but muddled in its assumption that historical evidence by itself can carry the burden Murray asks it to bear.

***************************

Mark A. Noll is McManis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctap2495mrw5T50315419

Sermon preceding Glenn Gunderson's revival. Ezekiel 37:1-5

=============

DEM DRY BONES

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I. An old spiritual.

II. What does it mean to be alive?

A. Cloning controversy.

B. Machines versus creations. #2566

C. The Bible says the scientists are wrong.

III. You are not really alive unless you are spiritually alive.

A. How non-believers seek fulfillment.

B. Jesus' goal:

C. Politics and economics are not the answer.

IV. Dead or alive?

A. Becoming alive through God's Spirit...

B. Even Christians can seem dead.

C. How dry are YOUR bones?

A friend of the late Robert Roberts (the great preacher of Wales) once asked him where he got the idea for the great sermon to which many attributed the great Welsh revival. Roberts led him to a spot where he had spent four days and nights on his knees in prayer. "Here, Sir, is the place of all great sermons.'"

By prayer a handful of unlearned and unlikely men turned the world upside down and spread the name of Christ beyond the limits of Roman power.

By prayer a tentmaker in Tarsus won the dissolute Corinthians to faith in Christ and laid the foundation of Western Christianity and exulted the name of Jesus above that of Nero.

Martin Boos spent hours and days in intercession. Afterwards, when he preached, his words were as flames, burning into the hearts of those who heard.

Evan Roberts said, "There is no secret to revival. I only 'ask' and 'receive.'"

*

”So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth,” 1 Corinthians 3:7 states (HCSB).

We find ourselves in such an age of me-ism that even Christians struggle with the idea that the world is “all about me.” It's the idea that I should have my way. I should be the one who gets recognized. I should be in charge of the world!

In the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul found himself in the middle of a huge controversy. Members of the church had chosen sides and adopted leaders for the two sides, namely Paul and Apollos. Paul has just finished calling the Christians at Corinth spiritual babies. He remarks that there is envy and strife among them as some have declared themselves to be followers of Paul, and others followers of Apollos.

Paul brings the church back to reality by reminding them that Paul and Apollos are merely servants of the Lord who are fulfilling their responsibilities of Christian service. Paul was the planter and Apollos was the one who watered. Then Paul declares that God is the one who gives the growth. Resoundingly Paul trumpets the truth in verse 7: “I am nothing and Apollos is nothing. God is everything! He is the one who brings the growth!”

It might be wise for every minister and every layperson to daily read these words and be reminded who is in charge.

We are nothing, and God is everything. This work of the church is not about me; it's all about God and His Kingdom. My focus should be upon serving King Jesus. In order to do this successfully, I am going to have to get myself off the throne so that Christ may be glorified.

For me this is as fresh as today's experience. I had preached what I felt was a strong message. People expressed their appreciation and commended my preaching. On the way home I was thinking to myself, “You really nailed that message this morning. You should feel good about that.” Then all at once God spoke to my heart. I stopped my direction of self-serving thought and said, “Okay, how well do you think you would do if the Lord took His hand off of you for one moment? Don't ever forget that any success you have in the pulpit is not due to your ability to proclaim, but God's ability to bless in ways that are beyond comprehension.” If there is any gold in this poor stammering tongue, it comes from God.

How can I be a Kingdom person unless my attitude is a Kingdom attitude? My primary aim must be to build God's Kingdom instead of my own. I was attending an evangelism conference in Alabama years ago when the preacher said, “Some of you folks talk a lot about what has happened in your church since you got there. What you need to do is go back to your previous churches and see what God has done since you left.” None of us is indispensable. We serve at the pleasure of our Master and He should get the glory, not us.

I believe that John the Baptist had this issue of attitude figured out just right. When John's disciples saw everyone leaving their side to follow after Jesus, they asked John how he felt about it. John responded by saying, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). That's what I'm talking about. That is a Kingdom mentality. It's not all about me; it's about our Lord, Jesus Christ. When we get that straight in our hearts and minds, then we will be able to get down to Kingdom business. We just might see the great revival we have been praying for.

_____________

White is executive director-treasurer of the Georgia Baptist Convention and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's Empowering Kingdom Growth Task Force.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5507]

“Women” were baptized and used at Pentecost. A lady came to Moody and asked, “Is the Holy Spirit for women?”

“He certainly is.”

“Well, I have an unconverted husband and a class of girls out of Christ, and I need the Holy Spirit to glorify God in my home and in my work.” She knelt and received the Holy Spirit, yielding all to His control. A revival broke out, her husband was saved and her class and five hundred souls were added to the Lord.

An incident in my own experience, some twenty years ago, taught me a lesson I shall never forget. I commenced a series of meetings in a town in New York, with the Congregational and Baptist churches united. I thought myself fully prepared for the work, and entered into it looking for immediate and large results.

My first aim was to preach so as to lead the churches nearer to Christ. Accordingly I prepared five sermons for Christians, as clear and pointed as I knew how to make them. The first four had no apparent effect. I wondered at it. The fifth was prepared with a scorpion in the lash; it was a severe one, and the last harsh sermon I have preached, and the last I ever expect to preach; but this too was powerless.

I then went to my closet, and there on my knees asked Jesus what could be the difficulty with those Christians. It did not enter my mind that the trouble could be anywhere else than among them. I had preached with tears in my eyes, and been anxious to see a revival, and had no thought but that the preacher was in a right state. But there in my closet God revealed to me my own heart, showing me that the difficulty was with myself, and not with the church; I found myself as cold as those I was trying to benefit. My tears, even in the pulpit, had been like water running from the top of a cake of ice when the warm rays of the sun are falling upon its surface, but which becomes hard and cold again as soon as the sun goes down.

I told the Congregational pastor of what I had discovered, and asked him the condition of his own heart. He frankly confessed that he was in the same state as myself. We prayed together several times. I felt that I could not live in that state and accomplish much. Accordingly I went home and shut myself in my room, resolved to spend the night in prayer, if necessary. Oh, the struggle of that night! Hour after hour I wrestled alone with God. My heart had been full of coldness, and I not aware of it. No wonder the churches had not come up to the work! I renewedly and repeatedly gave myself to the Saviour, determined not to let the angel depart until my heart was filled and melted with the love of Jesus. Towards morning the victory came. The ice was all broken, melted, and carried away; the warmth and glow of my “first love” filled my heart; the current of feeling was changed and deepened; the joy of salvation was restored.

In the morning I went out, took the unconverted by the hand, and said the same things as on day previous; but now they were melted to tears over their sin and danger.

I prepared and preached another sermon to the churches -- no lash, nothing harsh about it. They broke down, confessed their own need of a special preparation of heart, and gave themselves anew to the work, which from that hour went forward rapidly and successfully.

Thus I learned the necessity of having my heart filled with the love of Christ, if I would see the salvation of the Lord follow my labors.

Since then I have spoken kindly of ministers who do not see the conversions for which they labor. Yet I am convinced, and more and more every year, that generally the fault is in the minister’s own heart, coldness, growing out of the absence of the joy of salvation [or sin].

Let me ask any minister that reads this incident, if he has tarried as long in that “upper room,” as he should.

When he has power with God he will have with men, to lead them to the Saviour. Nothing he can do will be a substitute for the fullness of Christ’s love in his own heart.

________

A. B. Earle, From: “Incidents Used ... In His Meetings,” published in 1888

On a gloomy day in 1857 a man in New York City by the name of Jeremiah Lanthier scanned the morning newspaper as he rode to his office. He was distressed to read that the depression gripping the nation was causing fear and panic among the people. Factories were stopping production and thousands were unemployed. Although Lanthier was not a big industrialist, but only a clerk, he had one important distinction. He was a man who had great faith in God!

Concerned with the grim economic situation, he sent a note to all his business acquaintances, telling them that each day at noon a prayer meeting would be held in his office. With high hopes he arranged 20 chairs in a circle, but the first day no one came. All alone he prayed fervently that God would bring about a great change in him and in America. The second day he was encouraged, for a few friends joined him. A short time later a similar gathering was started on Wall Street, another on Williams Street, and finally a fourth on Broadway. Then like wildfire the movement spread to all parts of the country. The moral tone of the nation was affected, and there was a great upsurge in the spiritual life of the people. Some historians say that this effort of united prayer and faith was an integral part of the improvement in the economy which soon followed.

Sociology professor Anthony Campolo recalls a deeply moving incident that happened in a Christian junior high camp where he served. One of the campers, a boy with spastic paralysis, was the object of heartless ridicule. When he would ask a question, the boys would deliberately answer in a halting, mimicking way.

One night his cabin group chose him to lead the devotions before the entire camp. It was one more effort to have some “fun” at his expense. Unashamedly the spastic boy stood up, and in his strained, slurred manner -- each word coming with enormous effort -- he said simply, “Jesus loves me -- and I love Jesus!” That was all.

Conviction fell upon those juniorhighers. Many began to cry. Revival gripped the camp. Years afterward, Campolo still meets men in the ministry who came to Christ because of that testimony.

In Nottingham, England, is the Wesleyan Chapel where William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, was converted. A memorial tablet marks the spot where this notable friend of the friendless received his baptism of spiritual power. Salvation Army leaders from around the world journey to that chapel as a shrine.

One day an aged black man in the uniform of the Army was found by the minister of the chapel standing with uplifted eyes before the tablet. “Can a man say his prayers here?” the old soldier asked. “Of course,” was the reply, “of course, a man can say his prayers here.” And the old Army officer went down on his knees, and lifting his hands before the tablet, prayed, “0 God; do it again. Do it again!”

________

The Evangel

The weeks following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington saw a noticeable increase in church attendance. Americans who hadn't been in churches for years suddenly felt the need to go to church. Millions of Americans watched televised memorial services from the National Cathedral in Washington and St. Patrick's in New York.

This turning to religious faith caught the notice of many cultural commentators. Columnist Peggy Noonan spoke for many people when she wrote that "God is back." A new survey, however, paints a somewhat different picture.

Poll results recently released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggest that the post-September 11 spike in religious influence has flattened out. According to the poll, the percentage of Americans who believe that religion's influence on American life is on the increase has dropped to pre-September 11 levels.

Yet while religion as a whole may have seen its perceived influence wane since September 11, one religion still seems to be benefiting from the post-September 11 surge: Islam. Fifty-four percent of Americans hold a favorable impression of Islam, "significantly" higher than at this time a year ago.

What's even more noteworthy is what Americans believe about the relationship between religion, morality, and truth. For instance, sixty percent of Americans believe that growing up in a religious home makes it more likely that a child will be a moral adult. Yet less than half say that a belief in God is necessary to be a moral person.

Similarly, more than three-quarters of all Americans agree with the statement, "many religions can lead to eternal life." What's even more distressing, according to Pew, nearly half of the "highly committed" evangelicals polled agreed with that statement -- incredible!

The inevitable conclusion from these polling results is that religion in America has succumbed to what has been dubbed "Oprahfication," which takes its name from the talk-show host.

Columnist Terry Mattingly defines "Oprahfication" as the assumption that "all truth is based on human experiences, feelings and emotions ... as opposed to the claims of religious doctrine, transcendent faith, or cultural traditions."

Thus, the important thing about a religion is how it makes us feel, not whether it's true. In fact, questions about truth claims are considered impolite, uncivil, and even intolerant. If a particular belief makes a person happy, who are we to judge?

As Mattingly has written, this is the direction that American religion, including evangelicalism, is headed, and the numbers bear him out. It's this worldview that causes people to see all religions, even those with diametrically opposed doctrines, as equally valid. And it may be why regard to Islam rose after September 11.

Christians need to help people understand religion is not a matter of sentiment. It is a matter of truth. Insisting that the truth claims of Christianity, and of other faiths, be taken seriously isn't "intolerant." On the contrary, it accords them the respect they deserve -- something our "Oprahfied" religious culture can't and won't do.

For further reading:

Peggy Noonan, "God is Back," WALL STREET JOURNAL, 28 September 2001.

Rod Dreher, "More Oprah," NATIONAL REVIEW Online, "The Corner," 20 March 2002.

"Americans Struggle With Religion's Role at Home and Abroad," The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 20 March 2002.

LaTonya Taylor, "The Church of O," CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1 April 2002.

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, THE CHRISTIAN IN TODAY'S CULTURE (Tyndale House, 1999).

_________________________

Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. 'BreakPoint with Chuck Colson' is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Here’s an account from the 1740s, written by a Connecticut farmer describing the 25-year-old Whitefield’s visit to a nearby town. Keep in mind this was written by an uneducated farmer, not an English professor:

“Now it pleased God to send Mr. Whitefield into this land ... like one of the old apostles.... I felt the Spirit of God drawing me by conviction. I longed to see and hear him and wished he would come this way.... Then one morning all on a sudden about 8 or 9 o’clock, there came a messenger and said Mr. Whitefield ... is to preach at Middletown this morning at 10 o’clock. I was in my field at work. I dropt my tool that I had in my hand and ran home and ran through the house and had my wife get ready quick to go and hear Mr. Whitefield preach at Middletown and ran to my pasture for my horse with all my might fearing I should be too late to hear him. I brought my horse home and soon mounted and took my wife up and went forward as fast as I thought the horse could bear ... as if we were fleeing for our lives, all this while fearing we should be too late to hear the sermon. [It’s kind of how I imagine all of you getting ready to come and hear me preach each week. Ha!] So this Connecticut farming couple were hurrying as fast as possible fearing they would be too late to hear the sermon for we had twelve miles to ride double in little more than an hour ... and when we came within half a mile of the road that comes down from Hartford, Wethersfield, and Stepney to Middletown on high land I saw before me a cloud or fog rising, I first thought off from the Great River but as I came nearer the road I heard a noise something like a low rumbling thunder and I presently found it was the rumbling of horses feet coming down the road, and this cloud was a cloud of dust made by the running of horses feet, it arose some rods into the air over the tops of the hills and trees and when I came within about twenty rods of the road I could see men and horses slipping along in the cloud like shadows and when I came nearer it was like a steady stream of horses, and their riders, scarcely a horse more than his length behind another, all of a lather and foam with sweat, their breath rolling out of their nostrils, in a cloud of dust every jump, every horse seemed to go with all his might to carry his rider to hear the news from Heaven to the saving of their souls.... We went down in the stream. I heard no man speak a word all the way, three miles, but every one pressing forward in great haste and when we got down into the old meeting-house there was a great multitude, it was said to be 3 or 4000 of people assembled together. We got off from our horses and shook off the dust and the minister was then coming to the meeting-house. I turned and looked toward the Great River and saw the ferry boats running swift forward and backward bringing over loads of people, the oars rowed nimble and quick; everything, men, horses and boats seemed to be struggling for life; the land and the banks over the river looked black with people and horses. All along the twelve miles I see no man at work in his field but all seemed to be gone. When I see Mr. Whitefield come up upon the scaffold he looked almost angelical, a young slim slender youth before some thousands of people and with a bold undaunted countenance. And my hearing how God was with him everywhere ... solemnized my mind and put me in a trembling fear before he began to preach for he looked as if he was clothed with authority from the great God and a sweet solemn Solemnity sat upon his brow, and my hearing him preach gave me a heart wound by God’s blessing. [My old foundation was broken up and I saw that my righteousness would not save me.]”1

In Leona Choy's book "Andrew and Emma Murray," she writes about the prayer meetings that ushered in revival in South Africa:

[Following an evening when the Lord fell on a prayer meeting with

great passion and fervency,] meetings were held every evening

after that. At the beginning of the meeting there was generally

great silence; no one made an effort to stir up emotions, but

after the second or third prayer the whole hall would be moved

with no human prompting. Everyone would begin to pray aloud.

This was certainly not the custom of the Dutch Reformed churches

at the time.... Sometimes the gatherings would continue until three

in the morning. Even then, many wished to stay longer." (They

would leave singing songs in the streets. The numbers increased

until the meetings had to be moved to the schoolhouse and that

soon overflowed.) "On the first Sunday evening in the larger

meeting, Mr. Murray read a portion of scripture, made a few

observations, engaged in prayer, and then gave others the

opportunity to pray. During the prayer which followed his, we

heard the sound again. Off in a distance at first, then it drew

nearer and nearer, and suddenly the whole gathering was praying

... Mr. Murray descended from the platform and moved up and down

among the people, trying to quiet them ... A stranger came to him

and whispered, 'The Spirit of God is at work here...' (In other

words, Don't touch God's glory or quench His Spirit.)

Murray needed no further confirmation. This was the crisis in

his own personal life that catapulted him for the rest of his

life into the deep walk in the Spirit for which he had yearned

and prayed.

Andrew Murray later wrote, "Oh, if we did not so often hinder Him...how surely and mightily would He accomplish His own work of renewing souls into the likeness of His Son, Jesus, the Christ."

*

Whatever Happened to God?

One of evangelicalism's most respected theologians says most worship is clubby and convivial rather than adoring and expectant.

By Donald G. Bloesch | posted 2/1/01

Not long ago a friend of mine, an affluent businessman and active churchman, shared with me his growing disillusionment with modern Protestantism, especially with its worship. After regularly attending various churches in his area-mainly evangelical and conservative-he confessed that this uneasiness had accelerated rather than abated.

He went on to say that he was now seriously considering turning to the Catholic Church-mainly to be spiritually fed, but also out of a desire to be intellectually challenged. I told him that he was likely to be leaving one set of problems for another. Yet I could empathize with him, for I too have been troubled by the increasing vacuity of much Protestant preaching and worship.

Evangelical Protestantism is in trouble today as an increasing number of business and professional people are searching for a new church. The complaint I hear most often is that people can no longer sense the sacred either in the preaching or in the liturgy. The atmosphere in most of our services is clubby and convivial rather than adoring and expectant. What is missing is the fear of God, the experience of God as the Wholly Other.

Sentimental appeal

Worship has become performance rather than praise. The praise choruses that have preempted the great hymns of the church do not hide the fact that our worship is essentially a spectacle that appeals to the senses rather than an act of obeisance to the mighty God who is both holiness and love. Contemporary worship is far more egocentric than theocentric. The aim is less to give glory to God than to satisfy the longings of the human heart. Even when we sing God's praises, the focus is on fulfilling and satisfying the human desire for wholeness and serenity.

This motivation is not wrong in itself but becomes questionable when it takes priority. Some of the new choruses speak of "falling in love" with Jesus. A sentimental love, not an adoring love, characterizes our relationship to God. We are urged to cultivate a feeling of love rather than to demonstrate the power of love through sacrificial service to our neighbor.

Sad state of the sermon

Equally deplorable is the state of the sermon, which in historic Protestantism was considered the primary means of grace. Our preaching may appeal to the Bible, but that appeal is often more cultural than biblical. We interpret the Bible through the lens of our own experience or our particular religious tradition. We do not allow for the fact that the Spirit speaking to us through the Bible may call our traditions and our theologies into question.

The surest evidence that Protestantism has abandoned its glorious heritage-of being not only a reformed church but a constantly reforming church-is the demise of kerygmatic preaching, preaching that consists in retelling the story of God's gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Ministers may preach from the Bible, but this does not guarantee that they are preaching the Word of God. Their sermons are didactic more than kerygmatic, more centered on moral concerns than on the gospel.

Ministers may still sound a call to decision, but they generally address it to unbelievers, asking them to open themselves to Christ, rather than to believers, asking them to take up the cross of discipleship. The Reformers remind us that even the righteous need to be converted. The call to decision is a call to live out the implications of the law as well as to acknowledge the truth of the gospel.

Evangelicals no longer trust the power of Scripture to authenticate itself; instead we rely on techniques and strategies to assure the desired result: church growth and personal fulfillment. We resort to apologetic argument rather than biblical exposition, to psychological manipulation rather than to proclamation of the good news of salvation.

Part of the problem lies in the lifestyle thrust upon the pastor, who is expected to be active in the community as well as to keep the church's wheels turning. Most pastors give up study first, then prayer usually follows. John Calvin insisted that study is almost as important as prayer. This study, moreover, should entail not only the Bible but theology, for at its best theology is commentary on Scripture for the present age.

The virus that infects our contemporary worship also contaminates much traditional worship. Evangelicals who are rightly unhappy with the poverty of liturgy in their services would for the most part be equally unhappy with Catholic and Orthodox services, which give the impression of burying the Word in liturgical rites rather than allowing the Word to renew and perhaps transform our ceremony.

Whatever happened to social holiness?

Perhaps as a means of avoiding the rigorous wrestling with Scripture and theology, we direct our energies to mastering skills in church management and communication. Method looms more important than content. Worship has become therapy; prayer often degenerates into magic. Religion becomes a flight from the world rather than a catalyst for renewing the world.

Earlier evangelicals like John Wesley sounded the call to social holiness, bringing the Word of God to bear upon every aspect of human life. Calvin saw the world as a theater of the glory of God, the arena in which we are called to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.

Much of modern religion turns the soul inward rather than directing it outward to the crying needs of society. Modern evangelicalism has shamefully adapted to the therapeutic society, which makes personal fulfillment the be all and end all of human existence. An eros spirituality, the desire to possess God and his blessings, predominates over a spirituality of the cross, a willingness to serve both God and our neighbor in God's world.

I am by no means discounting the rightful place for the experience of salvation in the life of the Christian. There is nothing wrong with singing, for example, "Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh on Me," so long as the focus is not exclusively on "me." Yet Calvin made clear there must be something more to the Christian life than striving to save one's own soul.

We are called to build a holy community in which secular life might be permeated by the values and verities of the law and the gospel. It is not wrong to seek blessings from God as we live out our vocation of being witnesses and ambassadors of our Lord Jesus Christ. These blessings, however, should be sought as the means to glorify God and to advance his kingdom.

The church father Irenaeus showed remarkable perspicacity when he declared, "The glory of God is humanity fully alive." To seek God's glory does not mean the denigration and negation of the human self, but it does entail the subordination of the self to a higher goal-the kingdom of God. Our innermost desires will be satisfied only when we are taken out of ourselves into the promises of God that never deceive (Martin Luther).

Need for discernment

Several decades ago conservatives were celebrating an evangelical renaissance, and evangelicalism on the surface still looks robust as its churches record continued membership gains. Yet numbers can deceive: church attendance in Germany rose dramatically in the years immediately following Hitler's rise to power. I believe that in the present cultural situation, it is more appropriate to speak of the evangelical debacle, a compromised church that rests no longer on the clear message of Scripture but on the carnal desire for a place in the sun.

We need revival today, but we also need reformation-a fundamental change in our priorities and attitudes. We must see ourselves as emissaries of the high and holy God entrusted with the gospel of reconciliation and redemption, sent into the world in order to bring the world into submission to the will of the living God.

Amid the growing shadow over the church of our time, there are nevertheless signs of hope. The Spirit of God is indeed moving in some of the new ventures in evangelism and discipleship, but evil spirits are also at work. It is incumbent on us to pray for the gift of discerning spirits so that we can separate what is true and abiding from what is false and ephemeral.

Donald G. Bloesch is emeritus professor of theology at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary and author of The Holy Spirit: Works & Gifts (InterVarsity, 2000).

There are about 150,000 "White" Hmong living in southern China, and perhaps 500,000 in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand combined. They are called 'White' because their women traditionally wore white dresses, but they also speak a different language from other Miao/Hmong groups. The Chinese commonly call these groups 'Miao', but this name is not used by the people themselves. In their own language they call themselves Hmong Daw, which means 'White Hmong'.

Although there have been Christians among this group in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos for most of the past 30 years, in China they remained completely unreached without any knowledge of Christ.

One White Hmong Christian was a refugee who was able to flee from Vietnam to California after the war. He was deeply burdened for his people back in Asia. He started recording Gospel messages in his native language, which were aired by FEBC (Far East Broadcasting). For years they broadcast the Gospel in White Hmong without receiving any feedback from China.

In 1994 an old White Hmong man in Jinping County, Yunnan Province, China, was tuning his radio one day when suddenly he heard his own language being spoken. He was shocked! He ran outside and gathered his family to come and listen with him. They too were amazed because their language is not allowed to be used in media within China. They heard about Jesus, who they had never heard of before, and did not understand, but they were excited to hear their own language. The next day, when the broadcast came on again, the old man had notified the whole village. Hundreds of people gethered around a radio to listen to see if it was true.

Soon after the old man decided he should tell other White Hmong villages about the broadcast. Because he was too old to work he had plenty of spare time, so he walked to 18 other villages and tuned their radios for them to the short-wave broadcast. Within weeks, thousands of White Hmong were listening to the Gospel every night. Slowly, their understanding started to be pierced by the truths of the Gospel. This radical teaching so gripped their hearts and convicted them that they decided they must make a decision to accept the Gospel or else to never listen to this teaching again. The leaders of all 18 villages gathered for a summit meeting. At the meeting they decided all of their people should become Christians!

Not having any churches, evangelists or pastors to advise them, except for the radio preacher, the White Hmong decided they must obey whatever the radio told them to do. One day they heard a teaching about idolatry. The people immediately smashed their idols and tore down their ancestral altars that had been on the walls of their homes for countless centuries. God was moving among the White Hmong in a powerful way. Drug addicts were being delivered from their bondage, fragmented marriages were put back together, and wrongs were made right. Another time they heard a teaching about water baptism. The new believers, out of the simplicity and innocence of their hearts, dug pits in the ground, filled them with water from a nearby stream, and baptized each other.

At this time FEBC did not know these events were taking place, but continued to faithfully broadcast the Gospel in the hope that God would use their efforts. One day a teaching came on the radio about the Lamb's Book of Life. The White Hmong did not fully understand the teaching, but they knew they wanted to be in this Book! About six months later a large package arrived at the FEBC office in California. It came from China and had been sent by sea mail. Not knowing what it is, they opened it and found the names and signatures of some 10,000 White Hmong people. Attached was a cover letter saying, "Dear Sir, please include the following people in the Lamb's Book of Life" !!

Because this took place in Communist China, the government was not happy with this mass turning to Christ and soon stepped in to persecute the movement. All 18 leaders from the 18 villages were arrested. Most were released after paying fines and receiving severe warnings. Some of the other leaders were imprisoned. We received reports that the local police even burned down the houses of some of the White Hmong Christians in a bid to intimidate them.

Starting in 1994, AMO has delivered several thousand White Hmong Bibles and teaching books to the believers in southern China. These have been received with great joy and thankfulness. However, the persecution has continued. In 1995, 100 White Hmong Christian families living in Jinping got fed up with the persecution from the local authorities and relocated themselves 200 km to Xishuangbanna Prefecture, where the officials are less harsh. Please pray for the White Hmong!

Note: The above testimony occurred in China, but similar events took place across the border in northern Vietnam, where as many as 100,000 White Hmong have come to Christ in the past ten years, primarily as a result of the FEBC radio broadcasts.

*

”For Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me ‘“ (2 Timothy 4:10)

— For reading & meditation: or reading & meditation – 2 Timothy 4:9-18

The fact that Christians can come down from the ecstatic heights experienced during times of great spiritual awakening and lose their first love and joy is not a valid argument against revival. As we have seen, we have only to examine the New Testament to find that following the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost there were some who seemed to lose their joy. Yet none can deny the reality and genuineness of the power that surged in their midst.

Critics also draw our attention to the fact that revival can induce great spiritual pride — especially in the young. Revival history contains many accounts of young men being carried away by pride after a high peak in their spiritual experience. William Williams says of one: “He was a raw youth whom no one would entrust to shepherd his sheep and is riding high in a boldness of spirit much superior to old ministers who have borne the burden and heat of the day.” But then, were there not such people in the Church that emerged after the Day of Pentecost? In one place Paul warns against appointing a novice in the faith to office in the Church, “lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil” (1 Tim. 3:6, NKJ). It is a failing that must be expected and guarded against.

Revival is full of dangers — let us not argue against that — but all the dangers can be handled through the principles set forth in the Word of God. When a coal falls out of the fire no reasonable person rushes for a fire extinguisher. They simply pick up the tongs and return the coal to the grate.

PRAYER:

O Father, help us as Your Church not to draw back from praying for revival because of the obvious dangers that accompany it. Show us that when we keep close to You we are equipped to handle anything that comes. Thank You dear Father. Amen.

FURTHER STUDY:

1 Cor. 4:15-21; Prov.11:2; 28:25; Rom. 14:17

1. How did Paul describe the kingdom of God?

2. How did he describe himself?

It is reported that while talking to a very wealthy man about his soul and getting nowhere, Billy Sunday once remarked, “Look, you can’t take it with you, and even if you could, it would just burn.”

Like many Italians in decades and childhoods past, Giampaolo Servadio used to go to Roman Catholic Mass every week. He even served as an altar boy.

But last Sunday morning, as church bells tolled around this city of storied cathedrals, he followed a different ritual: he went running. It struck him as a more relevant use of time.

“The church seems really out of step,” said Mr. Servadio, 39, mentioning issues like birth control and questioning the very utility of prayer. “I don't see how something like a confession and a few repetitions of the 'Hail Mary' are going to solve any problems.”

He wondered if he should call himself Catholic: “When you realize that for 20 years you don't do this -- you don't even go to church -- what kind of Catholic are you?”

A fairly typical one, at least in Italy and much of Europe, where the ties of Christianity no longer bind the way they once did -- and often seem not to bind at all.

This week Pope John Paul II is to celebrate his 25th anniversary as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, which is both Europe's and Christianity's largest denomination.

It has been a quarter century of enormous changes, and few have been more significant, for his church and mainstream Protestant denominations, than the withering of the Christian faith in Europe and the shift in its center of gravity to the Southern Hemisphere.

Christianity has boomed in the developing world, competing successfully with Islam, deepening its influence and possibly finding its future there. But Europe already seems more and more like a series of tourist-trod monuments to Christianity's past. Hardly a month goes by when the pope does not publicly bemoan that fact, beseeching Europeans to rediscover the faith.

Their estrangement has deep implications, including the prospect of schisms in intercontinental churches and political frictions within and between countries.

The secularization of Europe, according to some political analysts, is one of the forces pushing it apart from the United States, where religion plays a potent role in politics and society, shaping many Americans' views of the world.

Americans are widely regarded as more comfortable with notions of good and evil, right and wrong, than Europeans, who often see such views as reckless.

In France, which is predominantly Catholic but emphatically secular, about one in 20 people attends a religious service every week, compared with about one in three in the United States.

“What's interesting isn't that there are fewer people in church,” said the Rev. Jean François Bordarier of Lille, in northern France, “but that there are any at all.”

DEBATES OVER GAYS AND GOD

While France is an extreme case, its drift from Christian institutions and disparity with the United States hold true throughout much of Europe, where faithful attendance at Christian services, be they Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, is the province of a small minority of people.

They show up to mark crucial milestones in their and their loved ones' lives. But they pay minimal heed, between those visits, to their churches' exhortations and admonitions.

The tension between contemporary attitudes and traditional church teachings has forced an emergency meeting this week of the leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

They are expected to debate the acceptability of openly gay bishops in their church. Representatives from congregations in the developing world have threatened to break the church in two if their Western peers head in a permissive direction.

The preamble of a new, unfinished constitution for the European Union omits any mention of Christianity or even God among the cultural forces that shaped Europe, although the pope and other Christian leaders raised vehement objections.

“My own view is that there is a form of secular intolerance in Europe that is every bit as strong as religious intolerance was in the past,” said John Bruton, a former Irish prime minister who was involved in the drafting of the document. He lobbied for God's inclusion.

Mr. Bruton's vantage point is Western Europe, but many Eastern European countries -- with a few exceptions, like the pope's native Poland -- are no more demonstrably devout. Having gone through religious outbursts after their emergence from Communism, they too seem poised to pivot in a secular direction.

Christianity's greatest hope in Europe may in fact be immigrants from the developing world, who in many cases learned the religion from European missionaries, adapted it to their own needs and tastes, then toted it back to the Continent.

In cities like Paris, Amsterdam and especially London, there are many thriving independent black churches, packed with newcomers from Nigeria, Sierra Leone and other African countries.

A recent report by Christian Research, a British group, determined that blacks and, to a lesser extent, Asians represent more than half the churchgoers in central London on a given Sunday, though they represent less than a quarter of the area's population.

By some estimates, more than 25 million people in England identify the Church of England as their denomination. Only 1.2 million actually go to one of the church's services every week.

Other Protestant denominations are in the same shape.

“In Western Europe, we are hanging on by our fingernails,” wrote the Rev. David Cornick, the general secretary of the United Reformed Church in Britain, in the June-July edition of Inside Out, a religious journal. “The fact is that Europe is no longer Christian.”

BELIEVING VS. ATTENDING

That is something of an overstatement. Despite a recent influx of Muslim immigrants and the rise of mosques in countries like Britain, France and Germany, an overwhelming majority of Europeans who profess religious devotion consider themselves Christian. But for most, Christianity has evolved into an amorphous spiritual inclination rather than an exacting creed.

Stéphanie Vercamer, a 31-year-old florist in Lille, wears a gold cross around her neck and said it saved her from injury in a car crash several years ago. “There is a God,” Ms. Vercamer said. “I wouldn't be here today if there wasn't.”

But she said that she almost never sets foot in a church and that while she wanted to arrange a Roman Catholic baptism for her daughter, who was born out wedlock, she had not been able to yet. The little girl is 3 years old.

At the Saint Sacrement church in Lille, attendance at Mass often drops below 50 but rose above 125 on a recent weekend. The Rev. Émile Reyns, a priest there, gladly reported that he had recently done prenuptial counseling for six couples: proof, he said, that young adults still wanted Catholic weddings.

But he sadly conceded that all the couples had been living together for a while.

“They say it without blushing,” said Father Reyns, 66, who added that he did not expect to see the couples much once they moved on to their honeymoons. At Saint Sacrement, like many other congregations, the regulars tend to be much older.

“In terms of religion, Europe is very complicated,” said the Rev. Andrew M. Greeley, the author of “Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millennium,” which was published this year.

Sizable majorities of people in most European countries believe in God, and sizable majorities believe as well that some kind of religious service is important when a person dies, according to the European Values Study, a sweeping survey conducted in 1999 and 2000 and published this summer.

But they are less familiar with, or tethered to, the specific rituals and roots of Christian worship. “If you ask the average European the basic credo or statements of the Christian church, most of them don't know,” said Grace Davie, a sociologist at the University of Exeter and the author of several books about religious trends in Britain and Europe.

That assessment is supported by the caretakers of the faith themselves.

Last month Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, the archbishop of Milan, said at a news conference, “The parishes tell me that there are children who don't know how to make the sign of the cross.”

“At the elementary schools, they don't know who Jesus is,” added the cardinal, who is widely considered to be a strong candidate for the papacy.

According to the European Values Study, only about 21 percent of all Europeans said religion was “very important” to them. Although the methodology was not precisely comparable, a Gallup Poll this year showed that 58 percent of Americans defined religion that way.

Even in Italy, where 33 percent of respondents described religion as “very important,” the percentage of Italians who go to church every week is as low as 15 and no higher than 33, according to various polls.

Most Italians seem not to listen to the Vatican, even though about 85 percent identify themselves as Roman Catholic and the pope resides smack in the middle of their country.

John Paul has exhorted them to be fruitful and multiply, forbidding artificial birth control. But Italians have had one of the world's lowest fertility rates for a quarter century now.

In a 1981 referendum, Italians defied an aggressive campaign by John Paul and other Roman Catholic leaders and voted by a margin of two to one in favor of legal abortion. Abortion is now readily available and commonplace in most European countries, as it is in the United States.

Europeans are moving well ahead of Americans -- and more aggressively challenging traditional Christian teachings -- by providing civil recognition for same-sex couples. Despite stern opposition from the Vatican, the French, Belgian, Dutch and German governments have granted same-sex couples legal entitlements and protections, and Britain is considering it, too.

But the diminished sway of Christianity is evident in more than low fertility rates and bold new legislation.

Public schools throughout Western Europe have removed crosses from walls. Many congregations have been forced to close or combine operations, to make do with part-time ministers or to import pastors from the developing world.

On this continent, ministry has lost much of its luster.

“In Western Europe,” said Archbishop Giuseppe Pittau, the secretary of the Vatican congregation in charge of seminaries, “it's been almost a tragedy. A diocese that once had 10 priests ordained every year might have two, or one, or less.”

The desperation is evident. In September, when a group of Catholics in a rural town near Rome heard that the local monastery would be closed and the monk would be sent away, they kept him there for several days by bricking up and barricading the entrances.

URBAN STRESSES, WIDER CHOICES

There are many suggested reasons for Europe's drift, which happened gradually, over decades, as the continent grew wealthier and better educated.

One is a modern European cynicism about big institutions, grand ideologies and unfettered allegiances, manifest not only in partly empty churches but also in weakened support for labor unions and political parties.

“It's an overarching thing, a diminishing trust,” said Rüdiger Noll, director of the Brussels-based Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches, an interdenominational group.

The process of urbanization moved Europeans from quiet places where the church was at the center of life to chaotic bazaars where it got lost in the din.

The Rev. Enzo Bianchi, a Catholic theologian in Italy, said that in today's heterogeneous and often hedonistic European capitals, “there are more and more morals and ethics on the market.”

“There's Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age spiritualism, consumerism,” Father Bianchi said. “With all these competitors, it's harder for the church to sell.”

But in the United States, to name one country, many of the same dynamics have not prompted a similarly pronounced estrangement. Some experts say that in Europe, suspicion of major denominations may run higher because religious leaders directly wielded political power in the past. Others say the unchallenged supremacy of state-blessed faiths in Europe -- like the Lutherans in Scandinavia and Anglicans in Britain -- perhaps turned out to be a curse.

“Monopolies damage religion,” said Massimo Introvigne, the director of the Center for Studies on New Religions in Turin and a proponent of the relatively new theory of religious economy. “In a free market, people get more interested in the product. It is true for religion just as it is true for cars.”

It also has reverberations well beyond the pews.

“I've been struck by the way in which religion now serves to underpin the divergence between Europe and the United States, and where I particularly saw that over the last year or two was in attitudes about the Middle East,” said Philip Jenkins. Dr. Jenkins is a British scholar who teaches history and religious studies in the United States and wrote “The Next Christendom” (2002), about changing patterns of Christian worship around the world.

“Americans still take biblical and religious arguments very seriously, and therefore give a credence to the Zionist project that Europeans don't,” Dr. Jenkins said.

He said that for many Americans, the frequency with which President Bush invoked morality and religion in talking about the fight against terrorism was neither striking nor discomfiting. “But in Europe,” he added, “they think he must be a religious nut.”

The president's brand of certainty and fervor is not easily found here. But it exists, if one knows where to look for it.

'HALLELUJAHS' AND PRAGMATISM

At least 3,000 people, some clapping, singing and swaying from the moment they left their cars, turned out on a recent Sunday at the Kingsway International Christian Center in East London.

That was just for the first of three scheduled services.

Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo could not welcome each of the worshipers personally, but his face beamed from screens and monitors scattered throughout the gargantuan assembly hall. His voice thundered over loudspeakers.

His message was a blend of Corinthians and Hallmark, gospel truth and pop psychology, rendered in the style of a convention center motivational speech.

“If you don't change your thinking from stinking thinking, your life will stink,” he told the parishioners, who shouted “Hallelujah!” and “Amen!”

“Turn the dream machine on,” he said.

Pastor Ashimolowo, a Nigerian immigrant, started Kingsway 11 years ago, and it now claims about 10,000 members in East London, along with thousands more elsewhere. Many are from Africa, or their parents were.

They belong to a stream of European newcomers who were already Christian when they arrived in Britain -- or France or Switzerland or Holland -- but did not find in the Protestant and Catholic churches of Western Europe what they remembered and relished from home.

They wanted excitement, spontaneity and a kind of inspiration that spoke directly to them. Throughout many European cities, independent Pentecostal churches that are unaffiliated with traditional denominations sprung up to deliver that.

London today is full of them. Some are gigantic, like Kingsway. Others inhabit narrow, indistinct storefronts in working-class neighborhoods.

Worshipers often speak in tongues and take part in faith healings, practices that have begun to crop up as well in more traditional settings, like a United Reformed congregation in East London.

A decade ago, that congregation had dwindled to fewer than 10 members, some white and some black. Then the Rev. John Macauley from Sierra Leone took over. He gambled that the future of the parish was in a more ebullient style of worship.

“I was the only one clapping my hands back then, like I was from Planet Cuckoo,” he said.

But that sound and sensibility, which soon led to a drum kit and baptismal pool on the altar, tugged new congregants into his orbit. His church now has more than 250 members.

Both it and Kingsway deliver more than an adrenaline rush. They strive to be practical, and they market themselves that way.

At Kingsway, glossy brochures for a new religious seminar promise advice on “how to be entrepreneurs,” “mastering your finances” and “managing your relationships.”

There is emerging evidence that the promise of a tightly knit community and a certain intensity of experience can lure more affluent, established Europeans into church as well, especially if those Europeans are young.

Some sociologists say new data suggest a possible reawakening of Christian interest in people under 30, and Christian movements throughout Europe are reaching out aggressively to them.

The Emmanuel Community in France has wooed hundreds to gatherings like one in Paris on a recent Saturday night, where scores of well-dressed professionals nibbled quiche and sipped wine in a courtyard under the moonlight.

Then, around 10 p.m., they hurried across the street to a centuries-old cathedral where they titled their heads backward, lifted their palms heavenward and rocked back and forth, in thrall to a religious ardor that most of Europe has lost.

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Copyright © 2003 The New York Times Company.

*

One of the most remarkable aspects of the current world-wide movement of the Holy Spirit has been a reawakened sense of the awe, mystery, and wonder of God. Within the last several years, events such as the revival in Argentina, the Toronto Blessing, and the Pensacola Outpouring — not to mention numerous lesser-known revival activities — have caused Christians world-wide to grapple with the controversial phenomena surrounding the work of the Holy Spirit.

Most of us create within our mind a picture and concept of God that fits neatly within a three-volume systematic theology that we can proudly display on our bookshelves. Along the very noble path of attempting to explain God and His ways, we tend to domesticate His awesomeness and attempt to create Him in our image. This approach usually works well until God shows up in our midst with His manifest presence. At that point, we quickly discover our faulty misperceptions of God — namely that He is manageable and that His ways are fully rational to humans.

According to the Barna Research Group, a majority of people who attend Christian worship services leave without feeling that they experienced God’s presence. Less than one-third of the adults feel as though they truly interacted with God. Stunningly, one-third of the adults who REGULARLY attend worship services say that they have NEVER experienced God’s presence at any time during their life. According to George Barna, “The research shows that while most people attend church services with a desire to connect with God, most of them leave the church disappointed, week after week. Eventually people cease to expect a real encounter with God and simply settle for a pleasant experience.”

So what happens when the pleasant experience is replaced with the real encounter? “God is, of course, present everywhere,” writes author John White. “But there seems to be times when He is, as it were, more present — or shall we say more intensely present. He seems to draw aside one or two layers of a curtain that protects us from Him, exposing our fragility to the awesome energies of his being.” Theologian Guy Chevreau explains: “Theologically, what we are talking about is the omnipresent and eternal God localizing and actualizing His presence, in space and time.”

The theological works and journals of men such Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley have been studied and analyzed within the last five years by curious Christians in search of some way to gain a theological grasp upon the phenomena of falling, crying, trembling, and laughing. While I had assigned these kinds of manifestations to Pentecostal and charismatic Christians, it has been interesting to discover that many of these curious responses to God’s presence appear within my own Methodist and holiness roots, long before Azusa Street. This often comes as quite a surprise to the heirs of the 18th century Wesleyan revival. Over the decades, our history has been written in such a way as to make it more palatable and acceptable to modern sensibilities. In the process, unfortunately, we have lost sight of the marvelous wonder of God’s dynamic presence.

With the Scripture and Church history as our guide, it becomes very evident that when a holy God encounters sinful people three things usually occur: 1) Sinners are radically converted, 2) Christians are transformed and renewed, or 3) The mind of the saint or sinner is offended and the state of his heart revealed. Just as a storm is produced when high and low fronts converge, so too a storm of a different kind emerges when the glorious and radiant presence of the Lord comes near.

1. THE RADICAL CONVERSION OF SINNERS

How different would our perception and understanding of God be if we had been one of Saul’s companions on the road to Damascus? As you were traveling with him, “suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’

“‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked.

“‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’”

Luke says that the “men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything” (Acts 9:3-9).

Without wanting to make this a normative conversion experience, it is safe to say that witnessing the holiness and awesome power in that one encounter would forever shatter your one-dimensional, flannel-board-Sunday-school concept of Jesus. Conversion, in this instance, was not merely an intellectual ascent to the doctrinal positions of Christianity. Nor was it an emotionally cathartic event. It was just plain terrifying!

As one reads the testimonies of early Methodist converts who eventually became preachers, it is not difficult to see a pattern of anguish and terror as they wrestled with Holy Spirit conviction that literally shook their body and soul.

Philip Gatch describes his encounter with the convicting power of the Holy Spirit at his conversion on April 26, 1772. “Immediately I felt the power of God to affect me, body and soul. I felt like crying aloud,” he testifies.

God said, by his Spirit, to my soul, ‘My power is present to heal thy soul, if thou wilt but believe.’ I instantly submitted to the operation of the Spirit of God, and my poor soul was set at liberty. I felt as if I had got into a new world. I was certainly brought from hell’s dark door, and made nigh unto God by the blood of Jesus. I was the first person known to shout in that part of the country. A grateful sense of the mercy and goodness of God to my poor soul overwhelmed me.

Benjamin Abbott began preaching in New Jersey in 1773. He describes his conversion like this: “The word reached my heart in such a manner that it shook every joint in my body; tears flowed in abundance, and I cried out for mercy, of which the people took notice, and many were melted into tears.”

Peter Cartwright (1785-1872) attended a meeting in early 1801 where the “power of God was wonderfully displayed” and “Christians shouted aloud for joy.” He wrote:

To this meeting I repaired, a guilty, wretched sinner. On the Saturday evening, I went with weeping multitudes and bowed before the stand and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of a solemn struggle of soul, an impression was made on my mind, as though a voice said to me, ‘Thy sins are all forgiven thee.’ Divine light flashed all around me, unspeakable joy sprung up in my soul.

Austin Taft was taught that Methodist preachers were “full of wild fire” and that it was very dangerous to hear them preach. At a prayer meeting in Huron County, Ohio in 1833, Taft writes, “Eternity with all its dread realities opened up before me and it’s impossible for any pen to describe the awful agonies of my mind. It is beyond all human description.” Taft continues:

It seemed to me I had already entered the dark abodes of eternal night, and right here something seemed to whisper to me — that there was mercy for me. I stopped and listened for a moment. What a word — mercy for me. It was the best news I ever heard. From that moment my faith laid hold upon the Savior’s promises with an unguiding grasp, and I saw a light in the distance far above my head, which grew brighter as it came near, and when it reached me I fell to the floor as quick as the lightning flash, and that moment was filled with the fullness of God. Old things passed away and all things became new. My happiness was complete....And I remained motionless for 45 minutes without power to move a muscle. My good Presbyterian father thought I was dead and talked of sending for the doctor.

Although these testimonies may strike some modern observers as highly-charged exaggerations, it seems very clear that they were exposed to the terror and joy of a God who shakes mountains and blesses children.

How would our perception of God be different if we were friends of the prophet Isaiah? What would we say to the friend sitting in your living room explaining that he saw “the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory’” (Isaiah 6:1-3)

As he attempts to retell the experience, he tells you that at the “sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke” (v. 4). You can see the holy terror in his eyes even as he tries to describe the indescribable. Then he blurts out with a cry, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (v. 5).

Once again, the explanation for such an encounter is difficult to process. How do we explain Daniel’s breath-taking encounter with an angel (Daniel 10), the glorious radiance on the face of Moses (Exodus 34:29-35), or the life-giving anointing on Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:21)? Rather than embracing the mystery and sovereignty of the God of the Bible, we often work overtime to domesticate him so that we can comfortably maintain the illusion that somehow we hold the upper hand in the relationship.

“It is time for Christianity to become a place of terror again,” writes Michael Yaconelli in his recent book DANGEROUS WONDER, “a place where God continually has to tell us, ‘Fear not’; a place where our relationship with God is not a simple belief or doctrine or theology, but the constant awareness of God’s terrifying presence in our lives. The nice, non-threatening God needs to be replaced by the God whose very presence smashes our egos into dust, burns our sin into ashes, and strips us naked to reveal the real person within.”

Yaconelli points out that religious leaders in the days of Jesus had the same tendency we have today. “The Pharisees wanted Jesus to be the same as they were. His truth should be the same truth that they had spent centuries taming. But truth is unpredictable,” he writes. “When Jesus is present, everyone is uncomfortable yet mysteriously glad at the same time. People do not like surprises — even church people — and they don’t want to be uncomfortable. They want a nice, tame Jesus.”

Over the years, Jesus has been re-formatted into a cross between Ghandi and a sentimental, doe-eyed host of a Saturday morning children’s show. We superimpose his image upon our pet political dogmas or water him down so that our sin does not seem so bad. “How did we end up so comfortable with God?” asks Yaconelli. “How did our awe of God get reduced to a lukewarm appreciation of God? How did God become a pal instead of a heart-stopping presence? How can we think of Jesus without remembering His ground-shaking, thunder-crashing, stormy exit on the cross? Why aren’t we continually catching our breath and saying, ‘This is no ordinary God!’?”

2. THE TRANSFORMING AND RENEWING OF CHRISTIANS

As the former president of Syracuse University, Daniel Steele was one of the leading theologians for the 19th century holiness movement. On November 17, 1870, he had a powerful experience that shifted his priorities and transformed his life. In describing his baptism in the Holy Spirit, Steele says that he “became conscious of a mysterious power exerting itself upon my sensibilities. My physical sensations, though not of a nervous temperament, in good health, alone, and calm, were indescribable, as if an electric current were passing through my body with painless shocks, melting my whole being with a fiery stream of love. The Son of God stood before my spiritual eye in all his loveliness.”

Have we experienced the “fiery stream of love” Steele describes? While each of our experiences will differ greatly, there can be no question that all of heaven longs for us to know and experience divine love.

“I know for the first time I realized ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ.’ Reputation, friends, family, property, everything disappeared, eclipsed by the brightness of his manifestation,” maintains Steele.

He seemed to say, “I have come to stay.” Yet there was no uttered word, no phantasm or image. It was not a trance or vision. The affections were the sphere of this wonderful phenomenon, best described as “the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost.” It seemed as if the attraction of Jesus, the loadstone of my soul, was so strong that it would draw the spirit out of the body upward into heaven. How vivid and real was all this to me! I was more certain that God loved me than I was of the existence of the solid earth and of the shining sun. I intuitively apprehended Christ.

In the manifest presence of God, we are given a more accurate understanding of his penetrating and extravagant love. We are given the grace to intuitively apprehend Christ, and our concept of his holiness deepens.

The prolific Methodist evangelist E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973) was one who discovered the palpable presence of God. Before graduating in 1906 from Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, he experienced a remarkable event.

“Four or five of us students were in the room of another student, Jim Ballinger, having a prayer meeting about ten o’clock at night,” recalls Jones. “I remember I was almost asleep with my head against the bedclothes where I was kneeling, when we were all swept off our feet by a visitation of the Holy Spirit. We were all filled, flooded by the Spirit.” Although none of the students there spoke in tongues, he emphatically states: “Everything that happened to the disciples on the original Pentecost happened to us.”

He admits that he was “tempted to tone down what really happened, or to dress it up in garments of respectability by using noncommittal descriptive terms. In either case it would be dishonest and perhaps worse — a betrayal of one of the most sacred and formative gifts of my life, a gift of God. To some who have looked upon me as an ‘intellectual’ it will come as a shock. But shock or no shock, here goes.”

Being willing to be misunderstood, Jones writes, “For three or four days it could be said of us as was said of those at the original Pentecost. ‘They are drunk.’ I was drunk with God. I say ‘for three or four days,’ for time seemed to have lost its significance.”

Basking within the glorious presence of God, E. Stanley Jones — who would later become one of Methodism’s most cherished cross-cultural missionaries to India — was swept off his feet and became inebriated within the love and peace and righteousness of a merciful God. What was the fruit of the experience? “I was released from the fear of emotion. I had tasted three days of ecstasy — drunk with God,” testifies Jones. “And yet they were the clearest-headed, soberest moments I have ever known. I saw into the heart of reality, and the heart of reality was joy, joy, joy. And the heart of reality was love, love, love.”

This life-altering revelation of the love of God draws us into a deeper walk and a more fruitful ministry. Take, for example, the extraordinary example of Phineas F. Bresee (1838-1916), one of the co-founders of the Church of the Nazarene. He describes an unforgettable encounter with a holy God one evening while he was sitting near the opened door of his parsonage.

As I waited and waited, and continued in prayer, looking up, it seemed to me as if from the azure there came a meteor, an indescribable ball of condensed light, descending rapidly toward me. As I gazed upon it, it was soon within a few score feet, when I seemed distinctly to hear a voice saying, as my face was upturned towards it: “Swallow it; swallow it,” and in an instant it fell upon my lips and face. I attempted to obey the injunction. It seemed to me, however, that I swallowed only a little of it, although it felt like fire on my lips, and the burning sensation did not leave them for several days.

Taken as an isolated incident within the life of this holiness preacher, this experience would leave us all with a great deal more questions than answers — something that God seems quite content to do within our lives. Nevertheless, Bresee goes on to explain that there came within the experience “into my heart and being, a transformed condition of life and blessing and unction and glory, which I had never known before. I felt that my need was supplied.” Although he admits that he said very little publicly in relation to the encounter,

there came into my ministry a new element of spiritual life and power. People began to come into the blessing of full salvation; there were more persons converted; and the last year of my ministry in that church was more consecutively successful, being crowned by an almost constant revival. When the third year came to a close, the church had been nearly doubled in membership, and in every way built up.

Interestingly enough, Henry Clay Morrison (1857-1942), the founder of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, had a very similar experience. He was outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, with his friend, Dr. Young. After debating whether or not to draw some revival meetings to a close, Morrison felt the presence of God.

“Doctor,” said Morrison, “I feel the power of God here in this room right now.”

Later he testified: “At that instant the Holy Ghost fell upon me. I fell over on the divan utterly helpless. It seemed as if a great hand had taken hold upon my heart, and was pulling it out of my body. Dr. Young ran across the room caught me in his arms, and called aloud, but I could not answer.”

Morrison says that just “as I came to myself and recovered the use of my limbs, a round ball of liquid fire seemed to strike me in the face, dissolve, and enter into me. I leaped up and shouted aloud, “Glory to God!” Dr. Young, who was holding Morrison in his arms, threw him back on to the couch and said, “Morrison, what do you mean? You frightened me fearfully. I thought you were dying.”

“Why did you act that way?” asked the doctor. “I did not do anything, Doctor,” said Morrison, “the Lord did it.” Morrison testifies to being “lifted up so closely in touch with the supernatural that I had but little thought of material things. I was floating in what seemed to me a fathomless sea of peace and joy.”

Dr. Young was indignant and cautioned him not to become a fanatic. Nevertheless, Morrison’s ministry was transformed. He reveals that “under my preaching, while I was under the baptism of the Spirit, there was an almost irresistible power. It was never so at any other time. And if we as preachers would keep so close to God as to be ever under this influence, would not his word truly ‘run and be glorified’ and a veritable Pentecost be repeated in these later days?”

3. OFFENDING THE MIND TO REVEAL THE HEART

Whenever I hear the call for the return of New Testament Christianity I am always reminded of the haunting story of Ananias and Sapphira found in Acts 5. This is the story of the husband and wife who sold a piece of property in order to help out the church. In the process, they both lied to the Apostles (and to the Holy Spirit, according to Peter) about how much money they were keeping for themselves. When Ananias heard Peter’s rebuke, he fell down and died. About three hours later, the same thing happened to his wife, Sapphira. “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events,” says the Scripture.

Now, this is New Testament Christianity. And quite honestly, it is terrifying. The holiness of God is not something to be treated lightly. I recalled the Ananias and Sapphira story as I was reading Abel Steven’s HISTORY OF AMERICAN METHODISM, published in 1867. He writes about the persecution that early Methodist preachers faced in Salem, New Jersey, during the Revolutionary War.

A profane club of the town continued the persecution, in burlesque imitations of the Methodist worship, but was suddenly arrested by an appalling occurrence in one of their assemblies,” reports Stevens. “While they were amusing themselves with jocular recitations of hymns and exhortations, a female guest rose on a bench to imitate a Methodist class. “Glory to God!” she exclaimed, “I have found peace, I am sanctified; I am now ready to die!” At the last word, she fell to the floor a corpse. The club, struck with consternation never assembled again, and Methodism became eminently influential in the town and all its vicinity.

Two-hundred pages later, in the chapter dealing with the period of 1796-1804, Stevens recounts another similar incident. This time, Henry Boehm is quoted as reporting on the opposition the Methodists faced in Reading, Pennsylvania. He says that while some men were meeting together,

a young man undertook to mimic the Methodists. He went on to show how they acted in their meetings. He shouted, clapped his hands and then he would show how they fell down. (The Methodists in that day would sometimes fall and lose their strength.) He then threw himself down on the floor, and lay there as if asleep. His companions enjoyed the sport; but after he had lain for sometime they wondered why he did not get up. They shook him in order to awake him. When they saw he did not breathe, they turned pale, and sent for a physician, who examined the man, and pronounced him dead. This awful incident did two things for us: it stopped ridicule and persecution; it also gave us favor in the sight of the people. They believed that God was for us.

It goes without saying that these are not exactly the kinds of stories that we want to share with non-believers in order to persuade them to turn to Christ. Nevertheless, this kind of ominous power is part of the package. “The same love that can ravish us can also consume us by its flames,” observes John White. “And though the idea of being ravished in the flames of holy love may sound poetic, even romantic, we are not sure whether we want such a dangerous kind of love.”

The perilous nature of God’s presence in our midst is still true, even if it makes us uncomfortable. “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions,” observes novelist Annie Dillard. “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”

There is no telling what Annie Dillard would have thought of the Cane Ridge camp meeting held in Bourbon County, Kentucky. In August of 1801, there were crowds estimated from 10,000 to 25,000 gathered. The Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright testifies that he saw “more than a hundred sinners fall like dead men under one powerful sermon, and I have seen and heard more than five hundred Christians all shouting aloud the high praises of God at once; and I will venture to assert that many happy thousands were awakened and converted to God at these camp meetings.” What was the response of the onlookers? “Some sinners mocked, some of the old dry professors opposed,” recalls Cartwright, “some of the old starched Presbyterian preachers preached against these exercises, but still the work went on and spread almost in every direction, gathering additional force, until our country seemed all coming home to God.”

Cartwright reminds us that God will do it however he wants to do it. No matter what the mockers or theologians say or think, God is free to do it however he wants. In describing the common revival phenomena of involuntary bodily jerking, Cartwright stated: “I always looked upon the jerks as a judgment sent from God, first, to bring sinners to repentance; and, secondly, to show professors that God would work with or without means, and that he could work over and above means, and do whatsoever seemeth to him good, to the glory of his grace and the salvation of the world.”

Marching under the banner of “Blood and Fire,” the Salvation Army insisted on going to the least, the last, and the lost. Founded by William and Catherine Booth in the slums of London in 1865, they pursued holiness in their private lives and preached Jesus in the streets. Within Salvation Army history, there emerged a peculiar phenomena known as the “glory fits.” During one meeting led by Commissioner Elijah Cadman, “about a hundred persons were in ‘glory fits.’” According to Cadman, people came up to the leaders saying, “I don’t believe in this,” and while speaking “fell under the strange manifestation of the Divine Presence.” Cadman explains that the “glory fits” were “ecstacies during which the individuals affected were insensible, usually silent, and remained thus for one, or many hours....The prostrations were commoner in Holiness services and nights of prayer. Medical and other means devised to control or restrict the symptoms were useless.”

Cadman described the experience as:

nothing but a complete conquering of the body by the soul in its reach upward to its Creator and Redeemer. It is the condescension of Infinite Love in Christ to so uplift it to Himself for a foretaste of joy with Him in Heaven.”...We could not say when, where, or how they would occur, and we certainly did not know how God worked — we only saw them as signs of His Presence. People were more curious and bothered about them, of course. That’s the way of the human mind. But conversion is much more of a miracle; that is the entire change of a nature and its inclination in a moment, the instantaneous shutting of the door on the power of the Devil and sin, and the opening of blind eyes to the reality of God, His Christ, and Salvation.

Cadman resigned himself to the fact that a sovereign move of God was bursting out in his midst and that it is best to allow the Lord to have His way. He also realized that God was more than willing to offend the mind to reveal the thoughts of the heart.

THE FRUIT OF GOD’S PRESENCE

It is not my intention to make the case for curious revival phenomena such as jerking, laughing, trembling, or falling. It is my intent, however, to make clear that there is a certain unpredictability when we encounter the holiness of God. Strange things can and often will occur. Nevertheless, the most important element of the power encounter with God is to produce good fruit in the lives of those whose hearts are steadfast after him (Matthew 7:20).

Within particular seasons throughout John Wesley’s entire life, he saw people weeping, violently shaking, crying out, losing consciousness, falling down, and occasionally becoming uncontrollably agitated during his meetings. In response to one who was concerned about the “strange work” that occurred in his meetings, Wesley testifies: “I have seen (as far as a thing of this kind can be seen) very many persons changed in a moment from the spirit of fear, horror, despair, to the spirit of love, joy, and peace; and from sinful desire, till then reigning over them, to a pure desire of doing the will of God. These are matters of fact, whereof I have been, and almost am, an eye or ear witness.”

Wesley continues: “I will show you him that was a lion till then, and is now a lamb; him that was a drunkard, and is now exemplarily sober; the whoremonger that was, who now abhors the very garment spotted by the flesh.” Wesley judged by the “whole tenor” of their lives and called these people his “living arguments.”

He then offers the following remarkable explanation for the outward signs:

Perhaps it might be because of the hardness of our hearts, unready to receive any thing unless we see it with our eyes and hear it with our ears, that God, in tender condescension to our weakness, suffered so many outward signs of the very time when he wrought this inward change to be continually seen and heard among us.

Wesley was 81 years old when he recorded the following episode at one of his meetings: “After preaching to an earnest congregation at Coleford, I met the Society. They contained themselves pretty well during the exhortation, but when I began to pray the flame broke out: many cried aloud; many sunk to the ground; many trembled exceedingly; but all seemed to be quite athirst for God, and penetrated by the presence of his power.”

What a scene that must have been in 1784, fully 45 years after the Wesleyan revival began to set England ablaze with the fiery holiness and love of God. Wesley records the phenomenal occurrence almost nonchalantly, as if it was merely one more Methodist meeting.

When Wesley prayed, he says that the flame broke out. That same fire of God’s holiness is available to us today. But we must be like the men and women in Wesley’s meeting: “athirst for God, and penetrated by the presence of his power.”

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Steve Beard is the editor of Good News magazine and the founder of Thunderstruck Online. This essay first appeared in the book, Power, Holiness and Evangelism: Rediscovering God’s Purity, Power, and Passion for the Lost (Destiny Image Publishers 1999). The unpredictability of encountering a holy God

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“For ever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.” (v.89, NKJ)

– For reading & meditation: Psalm 119:89-96

Yet another issue in today’s Church which makes the need for revival urgent is a growing loss of confidence in the Scriptures. Not all churches have moved away from the authority of the Scriptures, but we must face the fact that many have. “We are slowly reaching the position,” says one writer, “where the Christian who is orthodox in his beliefs and convictions, who stands on the Bible and in the central tradition of the Christian faith is considered to be a dogmatic reactionary, a stubborn anti-intellectualist, an obscurantist to be pitied and derided. The gospel which brings men to a personal knowledge of Christ and to the joyful experience of the new birth has to be fought for in the very inner councils of the historic denominations. In conditions such as these it would be a glib and shallow mind that dared to say a revival is not our greatest need.”

Revival brings with it a new confidence in the Bible. People who are moved upon by the Holy Spirit in times of great spiritual awakening invariably find their faith and understanding of the Bible being greatly quickened. An Irishman who was involved in the revival in Ireland in the mid 1800s said: “I used to read the Bible before revival came, but after I came in touch with the Holy Spirit the Bible became a new and different book. It was as if God had taken it up to heaven, rewritten it and handed it back to me. I now know it is inspired because it inspires me.” That is not the only reason, of course, why we know it is inspired but it is a good reason nevertheless.

PRAYER:

Father, it is difficult to see how the battle for the Bible can be won apart from a mighty deluge of Your Holy Spirit. Your people need to be revived, refreshed and enlightened. Let it happen, dear Lord — soon. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

FURTHER STUDY:

2 Tim. 2:1-15; Psa. 119:1-16; Acts 2:42

1. What was Paul’s exhortation to Timothy?

2. What did the early Church continue to do?