Are You Ready
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There are certain phenomena which precede and which follow Revivals of Religion. The symptoms of a Revival are the death, corruption, and decay. It is ever the darkest hour before the dawn. The nation always seems to be given over to the Evil One before the coming of the Son of Man. The decay of religious faith, the deadness of the Churches, the atheism of the rich, the brutality of the masses, all these, when at their worst, proclaim the approach of the Revival. Things seem to get too bad to last. The reign of evil becomes intolerable. Then the soul of the nation awakes.
1 But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” 2 Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
3 Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”
5 So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. 6 For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” 7 So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.
8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.
9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.” 10 So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.”
11 Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king’s household. 12 And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’ ”
16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.
That the familiar sight of the reign of sin are with us and abound, no serious observer will dispute. As a nation we have once more stooped to those depths. Drunkenness, gambling, and gluttony, with others of the seven deadly sins, abound. Worldliness is universal. High ideals are eclipsed. Plain living and high thinking are at a all time low. To see as in a mirror the vacuous mind of a generation which has no serious thought you have only to read the popular newspapers and periodicals of the day. Life has become for the comfortable masses little better than a comedy. You look in vain for the courageous, high-spirited youth who scorn delights and live hard-working days in order to achieve something of good for their families. To have a good time is the end-all and be-all of millions.
Britain- 1904
Indolence, indifference, and selfishness so dominate that even the healthy game of football has become little better than a modern substitute for the gladiatorial sports of ancient Rome -- the winter gambling bell that replaces the summer racecourse. Our young men do not play themselves, they look on while professionals play.
Back in my day
8 Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall a land be born in one day?
Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment?
For as soon as Zion was in labor
she brought forth her children.
May 14 1948
15 In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said,
41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
It is interesting to turn over the pages of Green’s History of the English People and to note how invariably the Revival is preceded by a period of corruption and followed by a great advance in the direction of national progress.
14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.
Then came the seventh and best known Revival of all under Wesley and Whitefield. Once again England had gone rotten at the head. In the higher circles of society every one laughs, said Montesquieu on his visit to England, if one talks of religion. Of the prominent statesmen of the time, the greater part were unbelievers in any form of Christianity, and distinguished for the grossness and immorality of their lives. As at the top, so at the bottom.
The masses were brutalized beyond belief. In London, at one time, gin-shops invited every passer-by to get drunk for a penny, and dead drunk for two-pence. But in the midst of this moral wilderness a religious Revival sprang up which carried to the hearts of the people a fresh spirit of moral zeal, while it purified our literature and our manners.
“A new philanthropy reformed our prisons, infused clemency and wisdom into our penal laws, abolished the slave trade, and gave the first impulse to popular education.”
The Revival then was not without many features which caused the sinner to blaspheme. “Women fell down in convulsions; strong men were smitten suddenly to the earth; the preacher was interrupted by bursts of hysteric laughter or hysteric sobbing.” Very foolish and absurd, no doubt, sniggered the superior persons of that day.
19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Until this nation goes to the penitent form, it never really pulls itself together for any serious work.
As a matter of fact, most of the best men of the older generation in Wales today were brought in when quite youths in the great Revival of 1859.
Employers tell me that the quality of the work the miners are putting in has improved. Waste is less, men go to their daily toil with a new spirit of gladness in their labor. In the long dim galleries of the mine, where once the haulers swore at their ponies in Welshified English terms of blasphemy, there is now but to be heard the haunting melody of the Revival music. The pit ponies, like the American mules, having been driven by oaths and curses since they first bore the yoke, are being retrained to do their work without the incentive of profanity.
One report says that the first outward and visible sign that there was a new power and spirit among the people was witnessed at a meeting in a country chapel in Cardiganshire. The preacher, after an earnest appeal to the unconverted, besought those of his hearers whose hearts were moved within them to testify before the congregation their decision to serve the Lord. A long and painful pause followed. Again came the solemn appeal. Again the embarrassing silence. But it was broken after a pause by the rising of a girl, a young Welsh woman, who with trembling accents spoke up and said, “If no one else will, then I must say that I do love my Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart”. The ice was broken. One after another stood up and made public confessions with tears and thanksgiving. So it began. So it is going on. “If no one else, then I must.” It is “Here I am: send me!
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
At all these meetings the same kind of thing went on - the same kind of congregations assembled, the same strained, intense emotion was manifest. Aisles were crowded. Pulpit stairs were packed, and - mirabile dictu! - two-thirds of the congregation were men, and at least one-half young men. “There,” said one, “is the hope and the glory of the movement.” Here and there is a grey head. But the majority of the congregation were stalwart young miners, who gave the meeting all the fervor and swing and enthusiasm of youth.
1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
He spent hours praying and preaching in his rooms, until the lady became afraid of him and asked him to leave.
Bend me Lord
30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
7 The Lord is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
8 But with an overflowing flood
he will make a complete end of the adversaries,
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
9 What do you plot against the Lord?
He will make a complete end;
trouble will not rise up a second time.
Fit to Fight
38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
1 And Saul approved of his execution.
And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.