Spiritual Revival–the Need of the Church
(No. 2598)
A SERMON
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT WHITEFIELD'S TABERNACLE, TOTTENHAM
COURT ROAD,
AT THE CENTENARY COMMEMORATION, ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 11,
1856.
"OLORD, revive Your work." Habakkuk 3:2.
ALL true religion is pre-eminently the work of God. If He should select
out of His works that which He esteems most of all, He would select
true religion. He regards the works of Grace as being even more
glorious than the works of nature and He is, therefore, especially
careful that this fact shall always be known, so that, if any dare to
deny it, they shall do so in the teeth of repeated testimonies that God
is, indeed, the Author of salvation in the world and in the hearts of
men, and that religion is the effect of Grace and is the work of God. I
believe the Eternal might sooner forgive the sin of ascribing the
creation of the heavens and the earth to an idol, than that of
ascribing the works of Grace to the efforts of the flesh, or to anyone
but Himself. It is a sin of the greatest magnitude to suppose that
there is anything in the heart which can be acceptable to God except
that which He, Himself, has first created there. When I deny God's work
in creating the sun, I deny one Truth of God, but when I deny that He
works Grace in the heart, I deny a hundred Truths in one, for, in the
denial of that one Truth that God is the Author of good in the souls of
men, I have denied all the Doctrines which make up the great articles
of faith–and I have run in direct opposition to the whole testimony of
Sacred Scripture!
I trust, Beloved, that many of us have been taught that if there is
anything in our souls which can carry us to Heaven, it is God's work
and, moreover, that if there is anything that is good and excellent
found in His Church, it is entirely God's work from first to last! We
firmly believe that it is God who quickens the soul which was dead,
positively "dead in trespasses and sins." That it is God who maintains
the life of that soul and God who consummates and perfects that life in
the home of the blessed, in the land of the hereafter. We ascribe
nothing to man, but all to God! We dare not, for a moment, think that
the conversion of the soul is effected either by its own efforts or by
the efforts of others. We know that there are means and agencies
employed by God, but we also hold most firmly that the work is, from
its alpha to its omega, wholly the Lord's. We believe, therefore, that
we are right in applying our text to the work of Divine Grace, both in
the heart of man and in the Church at large. And we think that we can
have no subject more appropriate for our consideration than the prayer
of the text–"O Lord, revive Your work."
Trusting that the Spirit of God will help me, I shall endeavor to apply
the text, first, to our own souls personally. And, then to the state of
the Church at large, for it greatly needs that the Lord should revive
His work in its midst.
I. First, then, I will apply the text TO OUR OWN SOULS PERSONALLY.
In this matter, we should begin at home. We too often flog the Church
when the whip should be laid on our own shoulders. We drag the Church,
like a colossal culprit, to the altar. We bind her hands fast and try
to execute her at once, or, at least, we find fault with her where
there is none and magnify her little errors, while we too often forget
our own imperfections. Let us, therefore, commence with ourselves,
remembering that we are a part of the Church and that our own need of
revival is, in some measure, the cause of that need in the Church at
large. I directly charge the great majority of professing Christians in
these days–and I also take the charge to myself–with a need of
revival of piety. I shall lay the charge very peremptorily, because I
think I have abundant grounds to prove it. I believe that the mass of
nominal Christians in this age need a revival! And my reasons are
these.
In the first place, look at the conduct of too many who profess to be
the children of God. It ill becomes any man who occupies the pulpit to
flatter his hearers and I shall not attempt to do so. The evil lies
with those who unite themselves with Christian Churches and then
practically protest against their own profession. It has become very
common, nowadays, to join a church–go where you may, you find
professing Christians who sit down at some Lord's Table or other, but
are there fewer cheats than there used to be? Are there less frauds
committed? Do we find morality more prevalent? Do we find vice entirely
at an end? No, we do not! The age is as immoral as any that preceded
it. There is still as much sin, although it is more cloaked and hidden.
The outside of the sepulcher may be whiter, but within, the bones are
just as rotten as before–society is not improved one whit! Those men
who, in our popular magazines, give us a true picture of the state of
London life, are to be believed and credited, for they do not stretch
the truth–they have no motive for so doing–and the picture which they
give of the immorality of this great city is positively appalling! It
is a huge criminal, full of sin, and I fearlessly assert that if all
the profession in London were true profession, it would not be nearly
such a wicked place as it is! It could not be, by any manner of means.
My Brothers and Sisters, it is well known–and who dares deny it who is
not too partial, and who will not speak willful lies–it is well known
that it is not in these days a sufficient guarantee even of a man's
honesty that he is a member of a church! It is a hard thing for a
Christian minister to say, but I must say it. Someone must say it and
if friends do not say it, enemies will–and it is better that the truth
should be spoken in our own midst, that men may see that we are ashamed
of it, than that they should hear us impudently deny what we must know
to be true! O Sirs, the lives of too many members of Christian Churches
give us grave cause to suspect that there is none of the life of
godliness in them at all! Why that reaching after money, why that
covetousness, why that following of the crafts and devices of a wicked
world, why that clutching here and grasping there, that grinding of the
faces of the poor, that treading down of the workman and such like
things, if men are truly what they profess to be? God in Heaven knows
that what I speak is true–and too many here know it themselves! If
they are Christians, at least they desire revival! If there is any
spiritual life in them, it is but a spark that is covered up with heaps
of ashes! It needs to be fanned, yes, and it needs to be stirred, also,
that hopefully some of the ashes may be removed and the spark may have
a place to live!
The Church as a whole needs revival in the persons of its members. The
members of Christian Churches are not what they once were. It is now
fashionable to be religious–persecution is taken away and, ah, I had
almost said that the gates of the Church were taken away with it! The
Church has, with few exceptions, no gates now–persons come in and go
out of it just as they would march through St. Paul's Cathedral and
make it a very place of traffic, instead of regarding it as a select
and sacred spot, to be apportioned to the holy of the Lord, and to the
excellent of the earth–in whom is God's delight. If this is not true,
you know how to treat it. You need not confess to sin you have not
committed. But if it is true, and true in your case, oh, humble
yourselves under the mighty hand of God! Ask Him to search and try you,
that if you are not His child, you may be helped to renounce your
profession lest it should be to you but the gaudy pageantry of
death–and mere tinsel and gewgaw in which to go to Hell! If you are
His, ask that He may give you more Grace, that you may abandon these
faults and follies and turn to Him with full purpose of heart, as the
effect of a revived godliness in your soul.
Again, where the conduct of professing Christians is consistent, let me
ask the question, does not the conversation of many a professor lead us
either to doubt the genuineness of his piety, or else to pray that his
piety may be revived? Have you noticed the conversation of many who
think themselves Christians? You might live with them from the first of
January to the end of December and you would never be tired of their
religion by what you would hear of it. They scarcely mention the name
of Jesus Christ at all! On Sabbath afternoon, all the ministers are
talked over–faults are found with this one and the other–and
conversation takes place which they call religious because it is
concerning religious places and Christian people. But do they ever–
"Talk of all He did, and said,
And suffered for us here below.
The path He marked for us to tread,
And what He's doing for us now"? Do you often hear the question
addressed to you by your Christian Brother, "Friend, how does your soul
prosper?" When we step into each other's houses, do we begin to talk
concerning the cause and Truth of God? Do you think that God would now
stoop from Heaven to listen to the conversation of His Church, as once
He did, when it was said, "The Lord hearkened and heard it, and a Book
of Remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord,
and that thought upon His name"? I solemnly declare, as the result of
thorough and, I trust, impartial observation, that the conversation of
Christians, while it cannot be condemned on the score of morality, must
often be condemned on the score of Christianity! We talk too little
about our Lord and Master!
That ugly word, "sectarianism," has crept into our midst and we must
say nothing about Christ because we are afraid of being called
sectarians! Well, Brothers and Sisters, I am a sectarian and hope to be
so till I die and to glory in it, for I cannot see, nowadays, that a
man can be a Christian, thoroughly in earnest, without winning for
himself that title! Why, we must not talk of this doctrine because,
perhaps, such an one disbelieves it! We must not mention such-and-such
a Truth in Scripture because such-and-such a friend doubts or denies
it! And so we drop all the great and grand topics which used to be the
staple commodities of godly talk and begin to speak of anything else
because we feel that we can agree better on worldly things than we can
on spiritual! Is not that the truth? And is it not so common a sin with
some of us that we have need to pray unto God, "O Lord, revive Your
work in my soul, that my conversation may be more Christ-like, more
seasoned with salt and more pleasing to the Holy Spirit"?
My third remark is that there are some whose conduct is all that we
could wish, whose conversation is for the most part as becomes the
Gospel of Christ and savory of truth–but even they will confess to a
third charge, which I must now sorrowfully bring against them and
against myself, namely, that there is too little real communion with
Jesus Christ. If, thanks to Divine Grace, we are enabled to keep our
conduct tolerably consistent and our lives unblemished, yet how much
have we to cry out against ourselves because of our lack of that holy
fellowship with Jesus which is the mark of the true child of God!
Brothers and Sisters, let me ask you how long it is since you have had
a love-visit from Jesus Christ? How long since you could say, "My
Beloved is mine, and I am His; He feeds among the lilies"? How long is
it since He brought you into His banqueting house and His banner over
you was love? Perhaps some of you will be able to say, "It was but this
morning that I saw Him. I beheld His face with joy and was ravished
with His Countenance." But I fear the most of you will have to say,
"Ah, Sir, for months I have been without the shining of His
Countenance!" What have you been doing, then, and what has been your
way of life? Have you been groaning every day? Have you been weeping
every minute? "No." Then you ought to have been! I cannot understand
how your piety can be of any very brilliant order if you can live
without the sunlight of Christ and yet are happy.
Christians will sometimes lose the realization of Jesus. The connection
between themselves and Christ will be, at times, severed as to their
own conscious enjoyment of it, but they will always groan and cry when
they lose that Presence. What? Is Christ your Brother and does He live
in your house and yet you have not spoken to Him for a month? I fear
there is little love between you and your Brother if you have had no
conversation with Him for so long. What? Is Christ the Husband of His
Church and has she had no fellowship with Him for all this time?
Brothers and Sisters, let me not condemn you, let me not even judge
you, but let your own conscience speak! Mine shall and so shall yours.
Have we not too much forgotten Christ? Have we not lived too much
without Him? Have we not been content with the world instead of
desiring Christ? Have all of us been like that little ewe lamb that
drank out of its master's cup and fed from his table and lie in his
bosom? Have we not rather been content to stray upon the mountains,
feeding anywhere but at home? I fear that many of the troubles of our
heart spring from lack of communion with Jesus. Not many of us are the
kind of men who, living with Jesus, learn His secrets. Oh, no, we live
too much without the light of His Countenance and are too content when
He is gone from us! Let us, then, each of us–for I am sure we have,
each of us, need in some measure–put up the prayer, "O Lord, revive
Your work."
Ah, I think I hear one professor saying, "Sir, I need no revival in
myheart. I am everything I wish to be." Down on your knees, my Brothers
and Sisters, down on your knees and plead for that poor soul! He is the
man who most needs to be prayed for! He says that he needs no revival
in his soul, but he needs a revival of humility, at any rate! If he
supposes that he is all that he ought to be and if he knows that he is
all he wishes to be, he has very mean notions of what a Christian is,
or of what a Christian should be–and very untrue ideas concerning
himself! Those are in the most hopeful condition who, while they know
they need reviving, yet groan under their present sad state and pray to
the Lord to revive them.
Now I think I have in some degree substantiated my charge–I fear with
too-strong arguments–so now let us notice that the text has something
in it which I trust that each of us has. There is not only an evil
implied in these words, "O Lord, revive Your work," but there is an
evil evidently felt. You see, Habakkuk knew how to groan about it. "O
Lord," he said, "revive Your work." Ah, we, many of us, need reviving,
but few of us feel that we need it. It is a blessed sign of life within
when we know how to groan over our departure from the living God. It is
easy to find hundreds who have thus departed, but you must count by
ones and twos those who know how to groan over their departure! The
true Believer, however, when he discovers that he needs revival, will
not be happy. He will begin at once that incessant and continuous
strain of cries and groans which will, at last, prevail with God and
bring down the blessing of revival! He will, days and nights in
succession, cry, "O Lord, revive Your work."
Let me mention some groaning times which will always occur to the
Christian who needs revival. I am sure he will always groan when he
looks upon what the Lord did for him of old. When he recollects the
Mizars and the Hermons, and those places where the Lord appeared of old
to him, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love," I know he
will never look back to them without tears. If he is what he should be
as a Christian, or if he thinks he is not in a right condition, he will
always weep when he remembers God's loving kindnesses of old. Whenever
the soul has lost fellowship with Jesus, it cannot bear to think of
"the chariots of Amminadib." It cannot endure to remember the King's
banqueting house, for it has not been there for so long! Or when it
does think of them, it says–
"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?
What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But now I find an aching void
The world can never fill."
When one who is in this state hears a sermon which relates the glorious
experience of the Believer who is in a healthy condition, he puts his
hand upon his heart and says, "Ah, such was my experience once, but
those happy days are gone. My sun has set and those stars which once
lit up my darkness are all quenched. Oh, that I might again behold my
Lord! Oh, that I might once more see His face! Oh, for those sweet
visits from on high! Oh, for the grapes of Eshcol once more!" If this
is your condition, my Friend, you will sit down and weep by the rivers
of Babylon, you will mourn when you remember your goings up to Zion
when the Lord was precious to you, when He laid bare His heart and was
pleased, also, to fill your heart with the fullness of His love. Such
times will be groaning times, when you, "remember the years of the
right hand of the Most High."
Again, to a Christian who needs revival, ordinances will also be
groaning times. He will go up to the House of God, but he will say to
himself when he comes away, "Ah, how changed it all is! When I once
went with the multitude that kept holy day, every word was precious.
When the song ascended, my soul had wings and up it flew to its nest
above the stars! When the prayer was offered, I could devoutly say,
"Amen." The preacher now preaches as he did before, and my Brothers and
Sisters are as profited as they used to be, but the sermon is dry and
dull to me. I find no fault with the preacher. I know the fault is in
myself. The song is just the same–as sweet the melody, as pure the
harmony–but ah, my heart is heavy, my harp strings are broken and I
cannot sing." So the Christian will return from those blessed means of
Grace, sighing and sobbing because he knows he needs revival.
More especially at the Lord's Supper he will think, when he sits at the
Table, "Oh, what seasons of communion I once had here! In breaking the
bread and drinking the wine, my Master was most blessedly present." He
will remind himself how his soul was lifted even to the seventh Heaven
and the building became to him "the House of God, and the gate of
Heaven." "But now," he says, "It is only bread, and dry bread, to me.
It is simply wine and tasteless wine, with none of the sweets of
Paradise in it. I drink, but it is all in vain, for I have no precious
thoughts of Christ. My heart is so heavy that it will not rise. My soul
cannot heave a thought even half way to Him!" And then the Christian
will begin to groan again, "O Lord, revive Your work."
Those of you who know that you are in Christ, but who feel that you are
not in a healthy spiritual condition because you do not love Him
enough, and have not that faith in Him which you desire to have, I
would just ask you this–Do you groan over it? Are you groaning over it
now? When you feel that your heart is empty, is it, "an aching void?"
When you see that your garments are stained, are you ready to wash
those garments with tears if that would do any good? When you realize
that your Lord is gone, do you hang out the black flag of sorrow and
cry, "O my Jesus, my precious
Jesus, are You gone forever?" If you can, then I bid you do it, and may
God be pleased to give you Grace to continue to do it until a happier
era shall dawn in the reviving of your soul!
I remark, in the last place upon this point, that the soul, when it is
really brought to feel its own sad state because of its declension and
departure from God, is never content without turning its groaning into
prayer and without addressing the prayer to the right quarter–"O Lord,
revive Your work." Some of you, perhaps, will say, "Sir, I feel my need
of revival. I intend to set to work this very afternoon, as soon as I
shall retire from this place, to revive my soul." Do not say it and,
above all things, do not try to do it, for you will never do it! Make
no resolutions as to what youwill do–your resolutions will as
certainly be broken as they are made–and your broken resolutions will
but increase the number of your sins! I exhort you, instead of trying
to revive yourself, to offer prayer to God. Say not, "I will revive
myself," but cry, "O Lord, revive Your work." And let me solemnly tell
you, you have not yet felt what it is to decline, you do not yet know
how sad is your state, otherwise you would not talk of reviving
yourself! If you knew your own position, you would as soon expect to
see the wounded soldier on the battlefield heal himself without
medicine, or convey himself to the hospital when his limbs are shot
away, as you would expect to revive yourself without the help of God! I
bid you not do anything, nor seek to do anything until, first of all,
you have addressed Jehovah, Himself, by mighty prayer and have cried
out, "O Lord, revive Your work." Remember, He that first made you, must
keep you alive. And He that has kept you alive can alone impart more
life to you! He that has preserved you from going down to the Pit when
your feet have been sliding, can alone set you again upon the Rock and
establish your goings. Begin, then, by humbling yourself– giving up
all hope of reviving yourself as a Christian! But also begin at once
with earnest supplication to God, saying, "O Lord, what I cannot do,
You do! O Lord, revive Your work!"
Christian Brothers and Sisters, I leave these matters with you. Give
them the attention they deserve. If I have erred, and in anything
judged you too harshly, God shall forgive me, for I have meant it
honestly. But if I have spoken truly, lay it to your hearts and turn
your houses into a Bochim. Weep as in the olden time–men apart, and
women apart, husbands apart, and wives apart. Weep, weep, my Brothers
and Sisters, for it is a sad thing to depart from the living God! Weep,
and may He bring you back to Zion, that you may one day return like
Israel, not with weeping, but with songs of everlasting joy!
II. And now I come to the second part of the subject, upon which I must
be more brief. In THE CHURCH ITSELF, taken as a body, this prayer ought
to be one incessant and solemn liturgy–"O Lord, revive Your work."
In the present era there is a sad decline of the vitality of godliness.
This age has become too much the age of form, instead of the age of
life. I date the hour of life from this day one hundred years ago, when
there was laid the first stone of this building in which we now worship
God. Then was the day of life Divine and of power sent down from on
high! God had clothed Whitefield with power. He was preaching with a
majesty and a might of which one could scarcely think mortal could ever
be capable! Not because he was anything in himself, but because his
Master girded him with strength. After Whitefield, there was a
succession of great and holy men. But now, Sirs, we have fallen upon
the dregs of time. Men are the rarest things in all this world–we have
hardly any men in the government to conduct our politics–and we have
scarcely any men in religion. We have the things that perform their
duties, as they are called. We have the good and, perhaps, the honest
things who, in the regular routine, go on like pack horses with their
bells in the old style. But men who dare to be singular, because to be
singular is generally to be right in a wicked world, are not very many
in this age. Compared even with the Puritan times, where are our
divines? Could we marshal together our Howes and our Charnocks? Could
we gather together such names as I might mention about 50 at a time? I
think not. Nor could we bring together such a galaxy of Grace and
talent as that which immediately followed Whitefield. Think of Rowland
Hill, Newton, To-plady and numbers of others whom time would fail me to
mention! They are gone. Their venerated dust rests in the grave. Where
are their successors? Ask where and echo shall reply, "Where?" God has
not yet raised them up, or, if He has done so, we have not yet found
out where they are.
There is, nowadays, much preaching, but how is it often done? The
preacher says, "O Lord, help Your servant to preach and teach him by
Your Spirit what to say!" Then out comes the manuscript and he reads
it! We have other preaching of this order–it is speaking very
beautifully and very finely, possibly eloquently, in a sense–but where
is there, now, such preaching as Whitefield's? Have you ever read one
of his sermons? You will not think him eloquent–you cannot think so.
His expressions were rough and frequently unconnected–there was very
much declamation about him, it was a great part, indeed, of his
speech–but wherein lay his eloquence? Not in the words he uttered, but
in the tones in which he delivered them! In the earnestness with which
he spoke them, in the tears which ran down his cheeks and in the
pouring out of his very soul! The reason why he was eloquent was just
what the word means–he was eloquent because he spoke right out from
his heart–he caused the Truth of God to flow out of the innermost
depths of his soul. When he spoke, you could see that he meant what he
said. He did not speak like a mere machine, but he preached what he
felt to be the Truth of God and what he could not help preaching! If
you had heard him preach, you could not but help feeling that he was a
man who would die if he could not preach–and that with all his might
he called to men, "Come to Jesus Christ, and believe on Him."
That kind of preaching is just the lack of these times! Where is
earnestness now? It is neither in the pulpit nor yet in the pew in such
a measure as we desire it. And it is a sad, sad age when earnestness is
scoffed at, and when that very zeal which ought to be the prominent
characteristic of the pulpit is regarded as enthusiasm and fanaticism!
I pray God to make us all such fanatics as most men laugh at, such
enthusiasts as many despise. To my mind, it is the greatest fanaticism
in the world to go to Hell–and the worst folly upon earth to love sin
better than righteousness! And I think that they are anything but
fanatics who seek to obey God rather than man, and to follow Christ in
all His ways. To me, one sad proof that the Church needs revival is the
absence of that solemn earnestness which was once seen in Christian
pulpits.
The absences of sound doctrine is another proof of our need of revival.
We can turn back to the records of our Puritan forefathers, to the
Articles of the Church of England and to the preaching of Whitefield,
and we can say of their doctrine, it is the very thing we love! And the
doctrines which were then uttered are–and we dare to say it
everywhere–the very same doctrines that we proclaim now! But because
we proclaim them, we are thought singular and strange! And the reason
is because sound doctrine has, to a great degree, been abandoned! It
began in this way. First of all, the Truths of God were fully believed,
but the angles of them were taken off a little. The minister believed
in election, but he did not use the word for fear it should, in some
degree, disturb the equanimity of the deacon in the green pew in the
corner. He believed that all were, by nature, depraved, but he did not
say so positively, because if he did, there was a lady who had
subscribed so much to the Chapel who would not come again! So, while he
surely did believe it and did preach it in some sense, he rounded it
off a little.
Afterwards, it came to this–ministers said, "We believe these
doctrines, but we do not think them profitable to preach to the people.
They are quite true. Free Grace is true. The great Doctrines of Grace
that were preached by Christ, by Paul, by Augustine, by Calvin and down
to this age by their successors, are true–but they had better be kept
back– they must be very cautiously dealt with. They are very high and
dreadful doctrines and they must not be preached! We believe them, but
we dare not speak them out." After that, it came to something worse.
They said within themselves, "Well, if these doctrines will not do for
us to preach, perhaps they are not true, after all." And going one step
further, they did not actually say so, perhaps, but they began to hint
that they were not true–and then they went on to preach something
which they said was the truth. And now, if they could, they would cast
us out of the synagogue, as if they were the rightful owners of it and
we were the intruders! So they have gone from bad to worse. And if you
read the standard divinity of this age and the standard divinity of
Whitefield's day, you will find that the two cannot, by any
possibility, be made to agree together! We have, nowadays, what is
called a "new theology." New theology? Why, it is anything buta
Theology–it is an ology which has cast out God and enthroned man! It
is the doctrine of man–not the doctrine of the everlasting God.
Therefore, we need a revival of sound doctrine once more in the midst
of the land.
And the Church at large also needs a revival of downright earnestness
in its members. You are not the men to fight the Lord's battles–you
have not the earnestness, the zeal which the children of God once had!
Your forefathers were oak men, but you are willow men. Our people, what
are they, many of them? Strong in doctrine when they are with strong
doctrine men, but they waver when they got with others–and they alter
as often as they change their company! They are sometimes one thing and
sometimes another. They are not the men to go to the stake and die for
the Truth of God! They are not the men who know how to die daily and so
are ready for death whenever it comes.
Look at our Prayer Meetings, with only here and there a bright
exception. There are, possibly, six old women present–scarcely ever do
enough male members come to pray four times. Prayer Meetings they are
called–spare meetings they ought to be called, for sparely enough are
they attended! And very few there are who go to our Fellowship
Meetings, or to any other meetings that we have to help one another in
the fear of the Lord. Are they attended at all as they should be? I
would like to see a newspaper printed, somewhere, containing a list of
all the persons who went to those meetings during the week in any of
our Chapels. Ah, my Friends, if they should comprise all the Christians
in London, you might find that a very few Chapels would hold them all!
We have not earnestness, we have not life as we once had! If we had, we
would be called worse names than we are now–we would have viler
epithets thrown at us if we were more true to our Master! We should not
have all things quite so comfortable if we served God better. We are
getting the Church to be an institution of our land–an honorable
institution. Some think it a grand thing when the Church becomes an
honorable institution, but it shows that the Church has swerved from
the right course when she begins to be very honorable in the eyes of
the world! She must still be cast out, she must still be called evil
and still be despised until that day when her Lord shall honor her
because she has honored Him–when He shall honor her, even in this
world, in the day of His appearing!
Beloved, do you think it is true that the Church needs reviving? Yes,
or no? "No," you say, "at least not to the extent that you suppose. We
think the Church is in a good condition. We are not among those who
cry, 'The former days were better than these.'" Perhaps you are not.
You may be far wiser than we are and, therefore, you are able to see
those various signs of goodness which are, to us, so small that we are
not able to discover them. You may suppose that the Church is in a good
condition. If so, of course you cannot sympathize with me in preaching
from such a text and urging you to use such a prayer as this, "O Lord,
revive Your work." But there are others of you who frequently cry, "The
Church needs reviving." Let me bid you, instead of grumbling at your
minister, instead of finding fault with the different parts of the
Church, to cry, " O Lord, revive Your work." "Oh," says one, "that we
had another minister! Oh, that we had another kind of worship! Oh, that
we had a different sort of preaching!" Just as if that were all–but my
prayer is, "Oh, that the Lord would come into the hearts of the men you
have! Oh, that He would make the plans you use to be full of power!"
You do not need fresh ways or new machinery–you need life in those
that you have!
There is an engine on the railway, but the train will not move. "Bring
another engine," says one, "and another, and another." The engines are
brought, but the train does not stir. Light the fire and get up steam,
that is what you need– not fresh engines! We do not need fresh
ministers, or fresh plans, or fresh ways, though many might be invented
to make the Church better–we only need life and fire in those we have!
With the very man who has emptied your Chapel, the same person that
brought your Prayer Meeting low, God can yet make the Chapel to be
crowded to the doors and give thousands of souls to that very man! It
is not a new man that is needed–it is the life of God in him! Do not
be crying out for something new–it will no more succeed, of itself,
than what you have! Cry, "O Lord, revive Your work!"
I have noticed, in different churches, that the minister has thought
first of this contrivance, then of that. He tried one plan and thought
that would succeed. Then he tried another, but that was no good. Keep
to the old plan, my Friend, but seek to get life into it! We do not
need anything new–"the old is better"–let us keep to it, but we need
life in the old. "Oh," men cry, "we have nothing but the shell." And
they are going to give us a new shell. No, Sirs, we will keep the old
one, but we will have the life in the shell! We will have the old
plans, but we must, or else we will throw the old away, have the life
in the old! Oh, that God would give us life! The Church needs fresh
revivals. Oh, for the days of Cambuslang again, when God's Word was
preached with power! Oh, for the days when, in this place, hundreds
were converted under Whitefield's sermons! It has been known that 2,000
credible cases of conversion have happened under one solitary sermon!
Oh, for the age when eyes would be strained and ears would be ready to
receive the Truth of God and when men would drink in the Word of Life,
as it is, indeed, the very Water of Life which God gives to dying
souls! Oh, for the age of deep feeling–the age of thorough-going
earnestness!
Let us ask God for it! Let us plead with Him for it! Perhaps He has the
man or the men somewhere who will yet shake the world! Perhaps even now
He is about to pour forth a mighty influence upon man which shall make
the Church as wonderful in this age as it ever was in any age that has
passed. God grant it, for Christ's sake! Amen,