Evangelicals then and now

James Buchanan said of revival: 'It properly consists in two things: a general impartation of new life and vigour and power to those who are already of the number of God's people; and a remarkable awakening and conversion of souls who hitherto have been careless and unbelieving; in other words, it consists of a new spiritual life imparted to the dead, and a new spiritual health imparted to the living.'

Revival has nothing to do with national temperament or characteristics. It comes to both the staid English lands and to the more excitable Celtic and Latin countries. In his book The Flaming Tongue, Dr. Edwin Orr traces revivals in the first half of the 20th century. He takes us to Wales, England, Korea, Scandinavia, Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia, South Africa, China and Japan.

Revival is a worldwide phenomenon that knows no boundaries. It touches the very fabric of society and not just the religious scene. Orr says of the 19th century revival in Britain: 'Revived evangelicals mobilised opinion and tackled many social injustices, supported modern trade unions and legislated reform of working conditions. None of this was accomplished by force - all of it by verbal persuasion against which the reactionaries could not stand, even though they resisted strenuously. Along with prevention of social injustice came a multitude of agencies created to care for the unfortunate, until at last the very state itself, the still unregenerate society, began adopting the standards of the New Testament as the norm of civilisation.'

He goes on to say: 'Great Britain was the first of the countries to be industrialised, and its workers were caught in a treadmill of competitive drudgery which kept them straining full 16 hours a day'. Evangelical leaders, including Shaftesbury and members of the Clapham Sect, brought about an end to much of the sorry exploitation and promoted all sorts of social improvements. No less an authority than Prime Minister Lloyd George credited to the Evangelical revival the movement 'which improved the conditions of the working classes in wages, hours of labour and otherwise.' This was paralleled in the United States by what have been called 'Sentimental Years', when organised good works and betterment flourished in the American States.

No developed countries?

In recent years parts of South America and China have experienced remarkable demonstrations of revival power. This is also true of several Asian countries, but not Western Europe. We have to ask ourselves why so many developed countries such as Britain, the USA, Australia or South Africa, can only look back at these events in history instead of them being part of our present experience?

In Great Britain for example, we have seen nothing of revival power for a very long time. At the end of the 1940s there was revival in the Hebrides and before that in 1904-5 in Wales, but for a general revival that touched the whole of Britain, we have to go back to 1859. In January of that year, Charles Spurgeon said: 'We must confess that, just now, we have not the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that we could wish . . . Oh, if the Spirit of God should come upon those assembled tonight, and upon all the assemblies of the saints, what an effect would be produced. We seek not for extraordinary excitements, those spurious attendants of genuine revivals, but we do seek for the pouring out of the Spirit of God . . . The Spirit is blowing upon our churches now with his genial breath, but it is as soft as an evening gale. Oh, that there would come a rushing mighty wind that should carry everything before it. This is the lack of the times, the great want of our country. May this come as a blessing from the Most High'. By the end of that year revival had come.

There are, no doubt, many reasons why revival seems to have disappeared off the religious scene, but I want to suggest three which I believe, cover the rest.

1. A change in evangelical thinking

It is a simple fact of history that up to the middle of the 19th century revivals were fairly frequent in Britain. Dr. Eifon Evans says: 'Between 1762 and 1862 there were at least 15 outstanding revivals in Wales.' But since then Wales has only seen one revival. Why is this?

In those days Christians thought in terms of revival. If there was a period of spiritual drought and things were not well in the church, the leaders immediately called the people to prayer and repentance. They cried to God for a visitation of the Holy Spirit. We have seen this in the above words of Spurgeon. The same was true in America. Eifon Evans tells us: 'On 1 December a three-day convention was called at Pittsburgh under Presbyterian auspices to consider "the necessity for a general revival of religion in all the churches represented and others as well". Charles Hodge preached at the opening session of this convention on Zechariah 4.6: "This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." In the sessions which followed, the matters discussed included firstly, the need for a religious awakening; secondly, hindrances to this, and thirdly, the means to be exercised to secure such a blessing.'

That sort of call is rarely heard today. The end of the 19th century saw the rise of liberal theology, and Christians faced attacks on the Bible and on the supernatural power of God. It is surely significant that 1959 was the year of the last general revival in Britain and also the year that Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species was published. This book exploded the Theory of Evolution in the land, and left the churches in confusion. Evolution caused many nominal Christians to lose what little faith they had, and it caused many true Christians to begin to question the truth of the supernatural power of God. A result of this was that in times of spiritual darkness, instead of looking, as previous generations had done, for an intervention of God in revival, they sought to provide the answers themselves. There arose evangelistic campaigns which were relatively unknown before this.

Many have been converted through campaigns and they certainly have their part in church life - but they are no answer to spiritual drought. The second half of the 20th century saw an unparalleled number of evangelistic campaigns in Britain, but at the beginning of the 21st century the land is more godless than ever.

The thinking of Christians has changed. They do not pray for revival and do not expect it. Instead we call a committee, invite an evangelist and organise publicity. That, by and large, is today's situation and it leads to the second reason.

2. Christians do not believe revival is possible

This has become the general view among evangelicals. We have never experienced it, so the tendency is to think that it was possible 100 years ago, but not now. The thinking is that our days are different, people are better off and more educated, so that what moved our forefathers has no effect now. But this forgets that revival is a supernatural activity of God.

In Malachi 3.10 God makes a promise to his people in a time of great spiritual drought: ' . . . see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it'. The context makes it clear that Israel's problem was not agricultural but spiritual. Their whole relationship to God was wrong. The phrase 'floodgates of heaven' (NIV) or 'windows of heaven' (AV) is significant. It is used very rarely in Scripture and each time depicts an extraordinary activity of God.

In Genesis 7.11 the floodgates of heaven were opened to demonstrate the wrath of God in the Flood. In Malachi 3.10 the floodgates being opened would bring extraordinary blessing. In 2 Kings 7.2 we read the phrase again. Here is a reaction of unbelief on the lips of an ungodly man. The promise of God (7.1) was ridiculed as being impossible, and in our terminology, it is equivalent to 'if pigs could fly'. But the impossible happened and did so by divine intervention. God did it.

This is the answer to those who believe that revival is impossible. God can intervene. Malachi believed this, and the power and glory of God is our reason for also believing in revival. The Lord, who has done it before, can do it again. In the first century he turned the world upside down through the preaching of a handful of uneducated men. In the 18th century he turned England upside down through the preaching of George Whitefield, an innkeeper's son from Gloucester, and through the preaching of John Wesley, a somewhat aloof and intellectual Anglican.

3. Many Christians are afraid of revival

From our safe, calm, tranquil, comfortable port of evangelicalism we view the white-hot fervour of revival with fear. Prayer meetings lasting all night and men crying out in agonies of conviction are all so different from what we know. We fear and talk of too much emotionalism. No one wants carnal emotionalism, but we must be careful not to allow the devil to use this fear to cause us to quench the Spirit. Some equate revival with Pentecostalism or charismatic fervour, and say this is not what we want. This merely reveals an ignorance of church history. Nearly every revival in Britain and the USA has come in and through Calvinistic circles.

Perhaps the greatest fear is the cost to ourselves. Revival strips away all pride and hypocrisy and reveals secret sins long hidden away.

Brian Edwards writes: 'Revival is always a revival of holiness. And it begins with a terrible conviction of sin. It is often the form that this conviction of sin takes that troubles those who read of revival. Sometimes the experience is crushing. People weep uncontrollably, and worse! But there is no such thing as revival without tears of conviction and sorrow.'

Edwards goes on to say: 'But all this is only the beginning. Duncan Campbell declared again and again that true revival is a revival of holiness, and that holiness is more desirable than happiness. One man, converted under the preaching of Campbell, claimed that his conversion cost him $10,000, he had to return to America and work for a year to make restitution for things he had done as a sinner.'

200 years earlier, the great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, commented that one effect of revival is to bring sinners 'immediately to quit their sinful practices'. This deep work of conviction always leads to a freedom and joy in the newfound experience of forgiveness. Following the 'smiting of the heart' come the 'outbursts of the joy of salvation'.

Such happenings are so foreign to our experience that fear is perhaps to be expected. We need to realise that these things are not organised but in revival they are normal. The sense of the Holy Spirit is so real, love for Jesus so precious, an awareness of the holiness of God so intense, that sin cannot remain hidden. Our fears must be taken to God so that we, with saints of previous centuries, can cry to God for revival.

I am not suggesting that if we put these things right we will see revival next week. But I am saying that we must put these things right or we will never see revival. Reformation is our business, but God alone can revive.

Evangelicals Then and Now is published by Evangelical Press at £7.95 (128 pages, ISBN 0 85234 564 X).

No developed countries?

1. A change in evangelical thinking

2. Christians do not believe revival is possible

3. Many Christians are afraid of revival

Peter Jeffery

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