Revival Lectures Ten

As we conclude our series of Revival Lectures today, friends, I trust there's been some things which have been helpful to you and other things that have increased your own burden to pray for revival in our day. The reading of historical narratives of revival has always stirred my heart and I encourage you, friends, to do the same, to get some good Christian literature, some Christian biographies and read those books on revival and revival men. And I strongly encourage you to get more familiar with God's workings and the two periods of the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening as well as other historical revivals like the 1904 Welsh Revival and the 1949 Isle of Lewis Revival.

Read historical accounts of revival to your congregation, brother, pastor, and set aside time each week for corporate prayer to pray for God and His mercy to send us revival in our day and let a revival begin with you, friend. Well, we are in a real treat today, friends, as I relate to us an incredible scene of revival which occurred under the early ministry of Charles Finney in 1824 in the town of Antwerp, New York. This account which I'm about to read to you was taken from Finney's memoirs, Here Now, or the words of Charles Finney relating that revival.

In passing around the village I heard a vast amount of profanity. I thought I had never heard so much in any place that I had visited. It seemed as if the men in playing ball upon the green in every business place that I stepped into all were cursing and swearing and damning each other.

I felt as if I had arrived upon the borders of hell. I had a kind of awful feeling. I recollect as I passed around the village on Saturday that the very atmosphere seemed to me to be poison and a kind of terror took possession of me.

I gave myself to prayer on Saturday and finally urged my petition till this answer came. Be not afraid to speak, and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in the city. This completely relieved me of all fear.

When I arrived at the appointed hour I found the schoolhouse full and I could only get a stand in place near the door, which stood open, and the windows were all open. I read a hymn, and I cannot call it singing, for they seemed never to have had any church music in that place. However, they pretended to sing, but it amounted to this, each one bawled in his own way.

My ears had been cultivated by teaching church music, and their horrible discord distressed me so much that at first I thought I must go out. I finally put both hands over my ears and held them with the full strength of my arms. But this did not shut out the discords.

I held my head down over my knees, and with my hands on my ears, and shook my head, and tried as far as possible to get rid of the horrible discords that seemed almost to make me mad. I stood it, however, until they were through, and then I cast myself down on my knees, almost in a state of desperation, and began to pray. The Lord opened the windows of heaven, and the spirit of prayer was poured out, and I let my whole heart out in prayer.

I had taken no thought with regard to a text upon which to preach, but waited to see the congregation, as I was in the habit of doing in those days, before I selected a text. As soon as I had done praying, I rose from my knees and said, Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city. I said I did not recollect where the text was, but I told them very nearly where they could find it, and then went on to explain it.

I said that there was such a man as Abraham, and also who he was, and that there was such a man as Lot, and who he was, their relations to each other, their separating from each other, on account of differences between their herdsmen, and that Abraham took the hill country, and Lot settled in the vale of Sodom. I then told them how exceedingly wicked Sodom had become, and what abominable practices they fell into. I told them that the Lord decided to destroy Sodom, and visited Abraham, and informed him what he was about to do, that Abraham prayed to the Lord to spare Sodom, if he found so many righteous there, and the Lord promised to do so for their sakes, that then Abraham besought him to save it for a certain less number, and the Lord said he would spare it for their sakes, that he kept on reducing the number, until he reduced the number of righteous persons to ten, and God promised him that if he found ten righteous persons in the city, he would spare it.

Abraham made no further request, and Jehovah left him, but it was found that there was but one righteous person there, and that was Lot, Abraham's nephew. And the men said to Lot, Hast thou any here besides son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city.

But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law. While I was relating these facts, I observed the people looked at me as if they were angry. Many of the men were in their shirtsleeves, and they looked at each other and at me as if they were ready to pitch in to me and chastise me for something on the spot.

I saw their strange and unaccountable looks, and could not understand what I was saying that had offended them. However, it seemed to me that their anger arose higher and higher as I continued the narrative. As soon as I had finished the narrative, I turned upon them and said that I understood that they had never had a religious meeting in that place, and that therefore I had a right to take it for granted, and was compelled to take it for granted that they were an ungodly people.

I pressed that home upon them with more and more energy, and my heart was full to bursting. I had not spoken to them in the strain of direct application, I should think, more than a quarter of an hour, when all at once an awful solemnity seemed to settle down upon them, and as something flashed over the congregation, a kind of shimmering, as if there were some agitation in the atmosphere itself, the congregation began to fall from their seats, and they fell in every direction, and cried for mercy. If I had had a sword in each hand, I could not have cut them off their seats as fast as they fell.

Indeed, nearly the whole congregation were either on their knees or prostrate, I should think, in less than two minutes from this first shock that fell upon them. Everyone prayed for himself, who was able to speak at all. I, of course, was obliged to stop preaching, for they no longer paid me any attention.

Well, that's the end of the narrative, friends, of Finney in the midst of revival, in the second great awakening. Oh, friends, wouldn't it be wonderful to have days like that again. Let me pray.

Great God, You have done some marvelous works in former days. You have blessed this land of ours tremendously in former times, with outpourings of Your divine effusions of grace and spiritual awakenings upon the land. Great God, what You have done before, do again by Thy power and Thy Spirit.

I pray, great God, that You have mercy upon us. I pray, Lord, that You allow the church to awaken out of her slumber. Oh, great God, stir us, burden us.

Oh, great God, drive us to our knees so we can lay hold of You in desperate prayer to see You move once again in the midst of the people that Your Son Jesus will once again have His preeminence in our sanctuaries and His prominence in our lives. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.