Revival Lectures Nine

I thought it'd be a good idea, friends, as we're still in our revival lecture series, to devote some time to some accounts of reading to you some historical revival. Some of the most reflective and spiritually quickening times in my life were my visits to actual locations where historical revival occurred, like the time I stood on Hannah Mount in England, on the exact spot where George Whitefield preached in the open air for the first time to the colliers, where he commented in his journal that as the miners came out into the open and listened to his sermon, the spirit was moving, and they became quite overcome to the point to where their tears made white gutters down their faces. Or how about the time I went to Enfield, Connecticut, and I located the exact spot, the stone marker that commemorates the location of the old meeting house where Jonathan Edwards, in July of 1741, preached his famous sermon, The Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, where an eyewitness recorded that the minister had to desist from preaching because of all the piercing cries and moans throughout the whole house.

Oh, I'm going to hell. Oh, I'm loaded down with sin. Oh, what must I do to be saved? And I walked that little grassy field, that porcelain ground where that old meeting house stood, and I meditated on that terrible scene of revival that took place back during the Great Awakening, and I just thought about the mighty presence of God there, and how I longed for God to move like that in our days once more.

I believe Duncan Campbell summed up our need of revival in the church by saying, how many today are really prepared to face the stark fact that we have been outmaneuvered by the strategy of hell because we have tried to meet the enemy on human levels by human strategy. In this, we may have succeeded in making people church conscious, mission conscious, or even crusade conscious without making them God conscious. And that's what we need today, friends.

We need the churches to have a consciousness of God in our midst again. We need less programs and more of the Spirit of God. Periods of revival are oftentimes of great alarm where sinners are awakened to their lost condition and where they face a holy God and eternity.

And at times, the conviction of sin makes them cry out in alarm, like during the great revival on the big island of Hawaii in 1835 under the preaching of Titus Cohen, who had so many thousands of converts they called him the St. Peter of Hawaii. Listen, friends, to this eyewitness account of that remarkable revival. There was trembling, weeping, sobbing, and loud crying for mercy, sometimes too loud for the preacher to be heard.

And in hundreds of cases, his hearers fell in a swoon. Some would cry out, the two-edged sword is cutting me to pieces. The wicked scoffer who came to make sport dropped like a dog and cried, God has struck me.

I was amazed by the life of D.L. Moody, a simple man whom God used in remarkable ways, especially in revivals in Great Britain. One such instance is recorded of a scene of Moody preaching at Cambridge in England. The choir sang, Just as I am, without one plea.

Moody prayed, every head bowed. Then he asked that all who had received blessing should rise quickly in their places. There was a great sound of men's heels rumbling on the old wooden floor as two hundred rose.

Moody looked up and murmured, My God, this is enough to live for. Listen, friend, you get a good glimpse at eternity and you won't want to live for anything else. I look at men whom God has used in revival and I find a unique breed of men who are selfless, totally sold out to God.

They are otherworldly men gripped with eternity and the souls who are perishing into eternity. They spend their days out on the full stretch for God in a life of surrender to a living Lord. They stay faithful right up to the end and they stay on fire for God right up to the end.

They are single-focused like the Apostle Paul and they are, like Paul, Christ-intoxicated men. Evan Roberts, who was so mightily used to God in the Welsh revival, maintained the embers on the altar of his heart for his Redeemer throughout his life. And as an old man, he was still on fire for God and he wrote the following poem.

Listen, friends, to the last poem of Evan Roberts written shortly before he died. Here I have built my altar The wood I've placed in order The sacrifice is ready now Send thou, O Lord, the fire My soul is weary, weak, and lustful But to the end I will be faithful Though hellish hosts revile forever I'll lay myself on Christ my Savior That poem always stirs my heart, friends It stirs my heart towards my Redeemer And it stirs my heart for a deeper burden To see revival in our day Oh, friends, let me pray Oh, great God, give us a fire Like in Evan Roberts Send us revival, Lord That will grip this community With the awful presence of a holy God Lord, I place my wood on your altar Consume the sacrifice, great King Let me have a fresh anointing Of Thy Spirit, I pray And I pray these things In the strong name of Jesus, Amen