A Message From God To His Church And People
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 16, 1866, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT
THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"O Lord, I have heard Your speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive Your
work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it
known; in wrath remember mercy." Habakkuk 3:2.
"O LORD, I have heard Your speech!" This is the language of reverent
obedience and is a fit preface to a fervent prayer. If we are not
willing to hear God's voice, we cannot expect Him to hear our voice. It
is an admirable preparation for prayer, first to hearken diligently to
what God the Lord shall speak, and then to be obedient to His commands.
He who would hear God speak needs not to wait long, for God speaks to
men continually by the Scriptures, which are given to us by
Inspiration. Alas that we should be so deaf to its teachings! This
wonderful volume, so full of wisdom, is so little read that few of us
could dare to gaze upon its pages and say, "O Lord, in this Book I have
heard Your speech."
At other times, the Lord speaks by Providence. Both national
Providences and personal Providences have a meaning. Providences that
are afflicting, and Providences which are comforting all have a voice.
But, alas, I fear that oftentimes to us Providence is dumb because we
are deaf. How often, in our stubbornness, we are like the horse and the
mule which have no understanding, and when God speaks to us we do not
regard Him? He therefore multiplies our afflictions, and holds us in
with the bit and bridle of adversity because we will not be governed by
gentler means. Look, my Brethren, at the Providence of God throughout
the whole of your lives, and I am afraid few of you can say of it, "O
Lord, in Providence I have heard Your speech."
The God of Heaven speaks to men by His Holy Spirit. He does this, at
times, in those common operations of the Spirit upon the ungodly, which
they, as did also their fathers, resist. The Spirit strives with men.
He calls, and they refuse. He stretches out His hands, and they regard
Him not. The unregenerate man is like the deaf adder that will not
hear, charm we ever so wisely. Even when the Holy Spirit speaks to us,
His people, we are not always willing and obedient. And though we have
ears to hear we frequently quench the Spirit. We grieve Him. We neglect
His monitions, and, if we do not despise His teachings, yet too often
we forget them, and listen to the follies of earth instead of regarding
the wisdom of the skies. I am afraid that in looking into our own
hearts and studying them in connection with the operations of the Holy
Spirit, not one of us could dare to say, without exception, "O Lord, I
have heard Your speech."
In the text before us we meet with a Prophet whose ears had been
spiritually opened and who, therefore, heard the still, small voice of
Jehovah where others perceived neither sound nor utterance. There are
times even with us when, being under the influence of the Holy Spirit,
we hold near communion with our God. Then are our hearts like wax to
His seal, receiving the impression of the Divine Mind! Are you not
conscious of having been in such a state? It must be so, dear Hearer,
in a measure, with all the Lord's servants! But especially must it be
often so with those of us who are called to bear His messages to the
people!
I have most solemnly sought to hear the speech of Jehovah in my own
soul before I came into this pulpit, and pray that His Divine power may
enable me to convey that speech to you. I have been afraid, this week,
as I have heard the voice of God in this land. Trembling has taken hold
upon me as Jehovah has spoken in thunderclaps and made the whole land
to echo with His terrible accents! I may be to some of you as an
interpreter, and you who are spiritual men, you will discern and judge
whether I have heard the speech of God or not. If you shall find it to
be God's voice to you, I hope you will be led to the farther carrying
out of the language of the text in that much-needed prayer, "O Lord,
revive Your work."
There are three things in the text–an alarming voice, an appropriate
prayer, and a potent argument–"in wrath remember mercy."
I. Hear, with solemn awe, THE ALARMING VOICE! The speech of God demands
your humblest attention. We need not enter into particulars of the
heavy tidings which came to the ear of Habakkuk when he set upon the
tower and watched to see what the Lord would say to him.
Our business, this morning, is to tell you, in all solemnity, what the
voice of God has been saying to us. In my lonely meditations I heard a
voice, as of one that spoke in the name of the Lord. I bowed my head to
receive the message, and the voice said, "Cry," and when I said, "What
shall I cry?" the answer came to me as to Isaiah of old, "All flesh is
grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
the grass withers, the flower fades: because the breath of the Lord
blows upon it; surely the people are grass."
Then I thought I saw before me a great meadow reaching far and wide,
and it was like a rainbow for its many colors, for the flowers of
summer were in their beauty. In the midst of it I marked a mower of
dark and cruel aspect, who with a scythe most sharp and glittering, was
clearing mighty stretches of the field at each sweep and laying the
fair flowers in withering heaps. He advanced with huge strides of
leagues at once, leaving desolation behind him, and I understood that
the mower's name was Death!
As I looked I was afraid for my house, and my children, for my kinsfolk
and acquaintance, and for myself also–for the mower drew nearer and
nearer–and as he came onward a voice was heard as of a trumpet,
"Prepare to meet your God." Moreover, as I mused on I heard a rumbling
in the bowels of the earth, as though the Destroyer were traversing the
dark pathways which the miner has dug, and doing his fearful work among
the stones of darkness which are at the roots of the mountains. I
wondered with sore amazement, and behold, there came up from the mouth
of the pit a thundering cloud of vapor, of smoke and fire, and dust,
and rushing whirlwind, which told to wailing women that they were
widows and their children fatherless! And the Angel of Death again
cried in my ears, "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof
is as the flower of the field: the grass withers, the flower fades:
because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are
grass."
I have come here this morning sorely afraid and much bowed down because
of the mortality of man, and the certainty of death. We shall soon be
gone, every one of us, to his grave. If not by such an alarming
catastrophe as that which has amazed and troubled us during this week,
yet by the common processes of decay. You whom I now see before me are
the meadows, and death is in your midst! You are the flowers, and I
hear the terrible blast, which, alas, must wither even you! I see you,
but there is no joy in my eyes, for the cheek of beauty shall pale, and
the eyes of youth shall grow dim, and the sinews of the strong shall
fail them, and the arms of the mighty shall be powerless in the tomb!
As the autumn leaves are gone, so are our fathers! And as the floods
hasten to the ocean, even so are we hastening away. An irresistible
torrent hurries us to our doom! A mighty wind from the Lord sweeps us
forever onward. While we thus quietly consider it, the great mystery is
being enacted–a thousand graves are being dug and a thousand corpses
are being laid in new-made sepulchers! At this moment hundreds are
wading into the cold, chill stream of Jordan–passing into the
disembodied state to hear the judgment of the Great King.
As I thought upon this matter, and desired to hear God's speech
therein, I saw a precipice whose frowning steep overhung a sea of fire.
Leading up to its brink I saw a road exceedingly broad. A road which
was crowded from side to side with a thronging multitude who pressed
and trod one upon another in their raging zeal to reach the summit of
the crag. They went gaily on, merrily laughing, singing to sprightly
music, many of them dancing, some of them pushing aside their fellows
that they might reach sooner than was imperative upon them the end of
which they knew so little. As I looked at that end which none of them
could see, I saw a waterfall of souls falling in ceaseless, headlong
stream into depths unutterably profound!
As the crowd came on, rank by rank, to the edge of this precipice, they
fell, they leaped over, or were dashed from the treacherous crag and
descended amid cries and shrieks surpassing all imagination into a lake
of fire where they were submerged with an everlasting
baptism–overwhelmed with destruction from the presence of the Lord! I
thought I heard their groans and moans, their shrieks and sighs as they
first caught sight of the terrible abyss and would have shrunk back
from it but were quite unable, for the time to pause was past.
Even now I see before my eyes that terrific Niagara of souls descending
by thousands every hour into the gulf unknown. This is the broad road
of which we had heard so often, where multitudes delight to walk. "Wide
is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many
are they that go in it." Sure and terrible is the doom of everyone who
treads there. Oh that men would forsake it at once and forever! Alas!
Alas! Are not the great mass of our fellow citizens beneath the scepter
of our Queen traveling on this broad road? Even if we could conceive
that all who attend the places of worship were in the narrow way that
leads to eternal life–if we could be charitable enough to believe
that–yet look at the multitude of outsiders!
Look at this city, with far more than a million for whom the sound of
the church-going bell is meaningless! They know not God, neither regard
Him! To them the name of Christ is but a word to curse or to ridicule!
They are going, my Brethren, men of the same country as yourselves, men
of the same race and tribe, speaking our own language–they are going
downward to destruction! Among them your own children! Perhaps your
wives, your husbands, your sons, your daughters, your parents–going in
that motley crew, onward, swiftly onward, towards their dreadful end!
My God will cast them away! Their end will be destruction! They will be
driven from the Presence of the Lord forever!
Let these two thoughts, my Brethren, burn in your souls until all
coldness and indifference are consumed. Men die, and their souls are
lost! Men die and their bodies are laid in the grave, but their souls
descend into Hell! Scarcely were the first death a thing to be mourned
over, if it were not for the second! It might be superfluous to shed so
much as a single tear for all the men that died if we knew that they
rested in the arms of Jesus and were forever blessed. But this is the
sting of death, its bitterness, its wormwood and its gall–that sinners
are condemned by Justice, and driven by Vengeance from the Presence of
Mercy into the place where hope can never follow them! Christian
Brothers and Sisters, hear this voice of God and be afraid!
Over and above all this, there came upon me a horror of great darkness
as I perceived something even more terrible than this! You will say to
me, "How can it possibly be more terrible?" In certain aspects it
seemed so to me. Hear it and judge. What if it is true that within the
last twelve months the Church of the living God has scarcely made the
slightest approach to an advance? What if this is true as respects a
far longer period? Let the first sad fact rise before us with its
proof. For the last twelve months no apparent increase has been made to
the number of professed disciples of the Lord Jesus.
Do you ask me for the proofs? I can prove it, alas, too surely. Our own
body, the Baptist denomination, is, upon the whole, and all things
considered, in as sound and healthy a state as any Christian community
now existing. I am persuaded that in some respects it is more sound and
more healthy. But do you know what will have been the increase during
the twelve months of the entire denomination in England, Scotland, and
Ireland, so far as we can ascertain it? Well, with the exception of
London and the county of Glamorgan, in Wales, there will be no increase
worthy of the name. In many parts of Wales, where we are strongest,
there will be a positive decrease, and I think, in fifteen counties of
England, we shall have lost numbers instead of making any advance!
And when the whole are put together, the good with the bad, and this
London of ours, wherein God has greatly blessed us of late, is counted
with the rest, our entire increase for all the Churches with all their
ministers will not make up four thousand souls. It is true that our
statistics are not very accurate, but if they were more accurate I
believe the result would be more unfavorable. This is the more fearful
to me to contemplate, because the increase of the denomination, which,
by God's Grace, we might naturally look for merely from the increase of
population, should have been very much more than this.
If other Christian Churches have not increased more, and I am persuaded
that most of them have increased less, far less than we have, then I am
correct in saying that positively the Church of God in Great Britain
and Ireland, instead of making any real advance, has, in proportion to
the increase of population, absolutely gone back! And I believe it
would be accurate and truthful, and could be borne out by statistics,
that if at this day there were taken a census of the number of persons
who commune at the Lord's Table, it would be found to be smaller
instead of larger than the number at the corresponding period of last
year.
As for abroad, what have our missions done? Brethren, if there were but
one soul we ought to rejoice, but the result of missions has been of
late so terribly little as to call for great searching of heart. Is it
not a fact that there are missionaries of ten years' standing who have
never had a convert? Is it not also a sad fact that the number of
members in all our native Churches is probably less now than it was
twelve months ago? Where is the nation that has been born in a day in
this year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six? Where are the kings
that have bowed down before King Jesus? Where are the nations that have
called Him "Blessed"?
Is there so much as one little tribe, however insignificant, that has
owned Christ during the past year? Not one, not one! There has been no
visible advance! The armies of the living God have rather suffered a
repulse than gained a victory, and instead of the morning coming and
the light arising, and the sun advancing to a noonday height, it seems
as though at the best he stood still, if the light did not even
retrograde. Surely there is a voice from God here, and as I hear it I
am afraid.
Meanwhile, what kind of an age has this been in which we have lived? Is
it so impassive and thoughtless that progress is impossible? Are we
living in one of those dark ages in which mind is rocked to sleep and
the soul is stupefied? Has this last year been one in which the
sleepiness of the human intellect has prevented our presenting the
Truth of God to the sons of men? I think not! I believe, Brethren, that
this year has been one of the most wakeful in the annals of human
history! At this moment London is like the city of which the Prophet
said, "It is full of stirs." There are political stirs in which the
Christian minister finds no theme for sorrow, for when men's minds are
but awake for anything there is then an opportunity for the propagation
of the Truth of God.
Truth dreads nothing so much as a sleepy audience! Give her but minds
on the wing, and she will train them to the skies. This has been a year
in which both upon politics and religion the human mind has been
active, and had the Christian Churches been filled with the Spirit, and
therefore zealous and faithful, I cannot comprehend that she would, at
the close of the year, have had to cry, "Who has believed our report?"
We have indulged the fancy that we have had a general revival, and that
our churches are in a healthy state, but is it so? Let our non-success
answer the question! In the meantime, while truth slumbers, the legions
of evil spirits cease not their mischievous endeavors.
How swiftly have the locusts of priest-craft ascended from the smoke of
the bottomless pit and covered the land! While we are compelled to fear
that evangelical Truth has made no advance, we cannot say this of
ritualism, for its progress has been perfectly astounding! Though a
Prophet should have told us that this Anglican Popery would have made
so great an advance in so short a time, we would have said,
"Impossible! England is soundly Protestant! She will never bear to have
incense smoking under her nose, and to see the millinery of the Church
of Rome flaunted before her face!"
But she has borne it, and she likes it well. Despite much that has been
said concerning Puseyism being non-English, we are inclined to question
the statement. Where are the greatest crowds in the Establishment? Are
they not at the feet of these priests of Baal? Do not rank and fashion
gather most readily in those places where their senses are delighted
while their souls are deluded? Yes, through the means of our Popish
establishment there has been an onward rush of error which is perfectly
appalling! Watchman, when they ask you, "What of the night?" can you
say, "the morning comes"?
You that love the Savior, will you open your ears to catch the meaning
of all these things? Men dying! Men perishing! The Church slumbering
and error covering the land–does not God say something in all this? Do
you not hear out of this thick darkness the voice saying, "O My people,
I have somewhat against you"? Did I not hear the Lord saying, "They
shall perish, but their blood will I require at the watchman's hands?"
I saw the Church of God folding her hands, given to slumber, saying, "I
am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing."
And all the while she was suffering multitudes to perish for lack of
knowledge, leaving the banner of Truth to be moth-eaten, or to be
trailed in the mire, and permitting the friends of error to ride
roughshod over all the land! As I saw her thus I said within my heart,
Surely the Lord will chasten such a people as this! And I feared that
He would send judgments upon His Church, and perhaps take away her
candlestick out of the place, and give the light unto another people
that might serve Him more faithfully!
Then I felt as Habakkuk did. I heard the voice of the Lord, and I was
afraid. I was afraid for my fellow men, thinking of the multitudes of
them that had already gone beyond recall to the land of darkness and to
the regions of doom, and for the millions hastening to the same end! I
was afraid for the Christian Church, lest it should have a name to live
and be dead, lest the Lord should give up the Church in Britain as He
did His Church in Shiloh, of which He said, "Go you now unto My place
which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I
did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel."
I feared lest He might do for the Church in Britain as He has to the
church in Rome–given it over to become an antichrist, and an
abomination before the eyes of God and men! I was afraid, with
exceedingly great fear, for my fellow ministers, for I feared that all
this people could not have perished without their being guilty of some
of their blood! How could all this ignorance have remained in this land
if the preachers had been faithful? I fear that the blood of souls will
be required at the hands of many a minister. What do I see? A gathering
of ministers. And what is this I see upon their garments? I see blood
on them!
I see blood sprinkled on gray heads, and alas, I see blood upon the
brows of young men who have but lately entered into the work–blood
upon them all! Here do I much fear for myself, lest I, also, addressing
this multitude so constantly, should have much blood upon my clothes
because of my many responsibilities! O God! It is enough to make us
afraid! Why look, my Brethren, when God's servants were truly active,
as the first twelve were, did the cause stand still? Did they win here
and there a soul, and have now and then a conversion? Did the cause of
Christ go back like an army put to the rout? On the contrary, did they
not as soon as ever they received the Truth of God use it like a
fire-brand to set the nations on a blaze?
They met with persecutions which do not stand in our way. They were
assaulted by threats of death which we have not to brave, and yet
nothing could stand against their indomitable zeal! The Omnipotence of
the Holy Spirit rested on them and they went on conquering and to
conquer! And what are we? Oh we are cold and dead where they were full
of fire and life! We are the degenerate sons of glorious fathers. Do
you think the Church could have had it said that she remained a year
without increase if there were not blame somewhere? You may remind me
of Divine sovereignty, if you will, but I remember that Divine
sovereignty always acts with wisdom and with love, and that the Lord
has not said to us, "Labor in vain." If we had labored, and if all the
Christian Church had labored as they should have labored, I believe the
promise would have been proved, "Your labor is not in vain in the
Lord."
II. When one is thus bowed down with the voice of God, the most natural
prompting of the regenerate soul is to pray. So we turn to the second
part of the text which has in it AN APPROPRIATE PRAYER. I wish I had
power this morning to make you feel the weight of what I have already
brought before you! I know I have not put it in such language as I
should have chosen, but it seems to me to be perfectly dreadful that
there should be this constant dying, this constant ruin, this constant
spread of error–and no progress in the Church. I am sure when I heard
it, if a messenger had told me that I was a beggar, that I had lost
everything on earth, I would have been more pleased with such an
announcement than to know that God's Church had not increased in the
space of twelve months.
It seems to me to be a thing to mourn over, a thing to make us go to
God with a humble heart and to feel as if one had been sorely chastened
by the Most High. For the Lord knows some of us have worked with all
our might, and we hope it is not pride when we say the blame does not
rest with us, and yet the question must go to us all. We must deal
faithfully with ourselves and not be flattered. We would honestly
enquire, How much of this lies at my door? How much of this burden of
God ought I to bear today?
Certainly enough to lead us to such prayer as that before us! Habakkuk,
being bowed down, first turns himself to God. His first word is, "O
Lord." To the Most High we must carry both our own and our Church's
troubles. Habakkuk turns not to another Prophet to ask of him, "My
Brother, what shall we do?" He turns to the Master, "O Lord, what will
You do?" It will be well for us to confer with one another as to the
causes of defeat and the means for securing success, but all conference
with flesh and blood is idle unless it be preceded by solemn
conferences with God. For God's Church, God is needed! For God's work,
God's own arm must be made bare!
Is it not delightful to notice how heavy trials drive us to God when we
might not have gone to Him otherwise? The little child, when walking
abroad, runs before his father. But if he meets some strange man of
whom he is afraid, he runs back and takes his father's hand–so should
it be with us. If God had prospered all our Churches, and everything
had gone on as we had desired, we might, perhaps, have grown
self-confident, and have said, "O Lord, You have given us power in
ourselves."
But now that we see the contrary, let us run back to closer fellowship
and nearer communion with our God than ever! And taking hold upon the
arm of His strength, let us stir Him up by our continued and fervent
prayers. Notice next that the prayer of Habakkuk is about God's Church.
He knew that there were dark days coming over Palestine, but he does
not pray about that land in particular. "O Lord," he said, "revive Your
work." Certain would-be prophets tell us that many wonders will occur
in 1866 and 1867, though I notice a propensity to postpone the whole
business to 1877. Is this postponement intended that there may be ten
years longer in which to sell their books?
But whatever is to come–whether the Turkish empire is to be destroyed,
or Louis Napoleon is to annex Germany or whether Rome is to be
swallowed up by an earthquake–it does not seem, to me, to matter so
much as the turn of a button! The great thing to a Christian is not the
fate of earthly empires, but the state of the heavenly kingdom. As to
what is to become of this principality or that empire–what have you
and I to do with these things? We are the servants of a spiritual King
whose kingdom is not of this world! Let the potsherds strive with the
potsherds of the earth, and break each other as they will–our business
is with King Jesus and His throne!
It is delightful to see the Prophet rising beyond the narrow range of
the Jew, getting out of nationalities and praying, "O Lord, revive Your
work." That is the one ship we care for in the storm, that one vessel
in which Jesus Christ is riding at the helm, the Captain of salvation,
and the Lord High Admiral of the seas. Let the nations mix in dire
confusion as they will, God rules over all and brings out His Church in
triumph from all the strife of earth. The one anxiety of our souls
should be the blood-stained banner of the Cross! Will it wave high?
Will King Jesus get to Himself the crown, for we have neither will nor
wish beyond that.
So, Christian men, if you have heard God's voice in the great judgments
that are abroad, let those judgments lead you to pray, "Lord, remember
Your Church–Your Church in England, Your Church in America, Your
Church in France, Your Church in Germany, Your Church anywhere, Your
Church everywhere. O God, look upon Your elect ones! Let the separate
ones, scattered through all nations, receive of Your benediction! As
for all else, in Providence, we leave it to Your will, for You know
what is best."
Observe next that the Prophet uses a word which is singularly
discriminative: "O Lord, revive Your work." He does not say, "Lord,
prosper my work." How often do I go to God in concern about the work
that is going on in this Tabernacle! I am thankful for all the blessing
we have seen, and I grow increasingly anxious lest the Lord should
withdraw His hand. But when one looks abroad upon the world, and upon
all the Lord's people in different denominations, one cannot pray,
"Lord, prosper my work!" At least, one can pray that, but then cover
that over with another–"O Lord, revive YOUR work."
For what about my work? Well, as far as it is mine it is very faulty.
And what about the work of the Baptists? Well, there is doubtless much
that is wrong about it. And what about the work of the Methodists, and
the work of the Congregationalists, and so on? May God prosper them
according as they walk in His Truth! But the way to come to the core of
our prayer is to cry, "O Lord, revive Your work! Whatever is of You,
whatever is Your Truth, whatever is Your Spirit's work in the hearts of
men, whatever is genuine conversion and vital godliness–Lord, revive
it!"
Cannot you, dear Friends, in the presence of death which we have been
speaking of, and in the presence of judgment, and in the presence of
the fact that the Christian Church has not been increased these twelve
months, shake off all the bitterness of everything that has to do with
self, or with party, and now pray, "Lord, revive Your work, and if Your
work happens to be more in one branch of the Church than in another,
Lord, give that the most reviving! Give us all the blessing, but let
Your own purposes be accomplished, and Your own glory come of it and we
shall be well content, though we should be forgotten and unknown. 'O
Lord, revive Your work.' "
Note that the particular blessing he asks for is a revival of God's
work, by which we mean, in our time, that there should be a revival of
the old Gospel preaching. We must have it back! It comes to this–our
ministers must return to the same Gospel which John Bunyan and George
Whitfield preached. We cannot get on with philosophical gospels–we
must bring together all these new geological gospels and neological
gospels, and semi-Pelagian gospels, and do with them as the people of
Ephesus did with the books–we must burn them, and let Paul preach
again to us! We can do without modern learning, but we cannot do
without the ancient Gospel! We can do without oratory and eloquence,
but we cannot do without Christ Crucified! Lord, revive Your work by
giving us the old-fashioned Gospel back again in our pulpits!
It is to be lamented that there are so many who are considered not to
be bad preachers who scarcely ever mention Christ's name, and are very
loose concerning atonement by His precious blood. You will hear people
say they have gone to such-and-such a Chapel, and whatever the sermon
might have been about it certainly was not about the Gospel. Oh may
that cease to be the case! May our pulpits ring with the name of Jesus!
May Christ be lifted up and His precious blood be the daily theme of
the ministry! Oh that thousands might be brought to put their trust in
the Lamb slain, and to find salvation by faith in Him whom God has
appointed to be the Savior of men!
This, however, would not bring back a revival unless there came with it
a revival of the Gospel spirit. If you read the story of the
Reformation, or the later story of the new Reformation under Whitfield
and Wesley, you are struck with the singular spirit that went with the
preachers. The world said they were mad! The caricaturists drew them as
being fanatical beyond all endurance. But there it was, their zeal was
their power! Of course the world scoffed at that of which it was
afraid. The world fears enthusiasm–the sacred enthusiasm which love to
Christ kindles–the enthusiasm which is kindled by the thought of the
ruin of men and by the desire to pluck the firebrands from the flame!
The world fears the enthusiasm which believes in the Holy Spirit, which
believes that God is still present with His Church to do wonders! This
is what the world dreads, and what the Church wants. Pray for it! Pray
to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire! O Lord, send forth
Your unconquerable Spirit! O God, revive Your work!
You perceive that the Prophet desires this gift at once. He does not
say, "at the end of the years," but "in the midst of the years." His
prayer is for a present and immediate revival of genuine religion. Let
it be ours, not from the teeth outward but from the heart outward to
pray for revival! Let us long for it with heart and soul and strength,
and God will give it to us! Once more note that the prayer of Habakkuk
is a very intelligent one, for he indicates the means by which he
expects to have it fulfilled–in the midst of the years make known. It
is by making known the Gospel that men are saved, not by mere thumping
of the pulpit and stamping of the feet, but by telling out something
which the understanding may grasp and the memory may retain.
To publish the doctrine of a reconciled God! To tell men that the Lord
has laid Hell upon Jesus by punishing Him instead of us! To proclaim
that there is life in a look at the Crucified One! To tell them that
the Holy Spirit creates men new creatures in Christ Jesus! To give a
full and comprehensive view of the Doctrines of Grace–these are some
of the surest ways, under God, of promoting a revival of religion! I
cannot talk to you but I think I could pray to God, and I hope many of
you will do so today. O God, send us a revival! This will purge the
blood of souls from our garments– nothing else will! This will roll
back the tides of error–nothing else can! This will give to the
Christian Church triumph of an unusual kind! This will cover the earth
with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the deep–nothing
else can or will!
Gracious God, revive Your work!
III. And now we close with A POTENT ARGUMENT. He uses the argument of
mercy–"in wrath remember mercy." If God were to say to the Churches in
England, "I will have nothing to do with you. You have been so idle, so
worldly, so purse-proud, so prayerless, so quarrelsome, so inconsistent
that I will never bless you again." If God were to say that, the
churches of God in England might remain as astounding monuments of the
justice of God towards the people who forsake His ways.
Sorrowfully, not wishing to be an accuser of the Brethren, it does seem
to me that considering the responsibilities which were laid upon us,
and the means which God has given us, the Church generally, (there are
blessed exceptions!), has done so little for Christ that if "Ichabod"
were written right across its brow, and it were banished from God's
House, it would have its just deserts. We cannot, therefore, appeal to
merit–it must be to mercy. O God, have mercy upon Your poor Church,
and visit her and revive her. She has but a little strength. She has
desired to keep Your Word. Oh, refresh her! Restore to her Your power,
and give her yet to be great in this land.
Mercy is also wanted for the land itself. This is a wicked nation, this
England. Its wickedness belongs not to one class only, but to all
classes. Sin runs down our streets. We have a fringe of elegant
morality, but behind it we have a mass of rottenness. There is not only
the immorality of the streets at night, but look at the dishonesty of
business men in high places! Cheating and thieving upon the grandest
scale are winked at. Little thieves are punished, and great thieves are
untouched! This is a wicked city, this city of London, and the land is
full of drunkenness, and the land is full of fornication, and the land
is full of theft, and the land is full of all manner of Popish
idolatry!
I am not the proper prophet to take up this burden, and to utter a
wailing. My temperament is not that of Jeremiah, and therefore am I not
well-called to such a mission. But I may at least, with Habakkuk,
having heard the Lord's speech concerning it, be afraid and exhort you
to pray for this land, and be asking that God would revive His work in
order that this drunkenness may be given up. That this dishonesty may
be purged out. That this great social evil may be cut out from the body
politic as a deadly cancer is cut out by the surgeon's knife.
God, for mercy's sake, cast not off this island of the seas! Give her
not up to internal distraction! Leave her not in darkness and blackness
forever, but "revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst
of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy." While I have been
addressing Christians, my object has been to bless the ungodly, too,
and I do trust that some here who are not converted will enquire,
"What, then, is God's voice to me?" May you be led to seek salvation,
and remember you shall find it–for whoever trusts Christ shall be
saved!
If there is a man, woman, or child among you who will now humble
himself under the hand of God and look to the crucified Savior, you
shall not perish! Neither shall the wrath of God abide upon you, but
you shall be found of Him in peace in the day of His appearing. God
accept this humble weak testimony for Jesus' sake. Amen.