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By E. M. Bounds
Revivals are among the charter rights of
the church. They are the evidences of its divinity, the tokens of
God's presence, the witness of his power. The frequency and power of
these extraordinary seasons of grace are the tests and preservers of
the vital force in the church. The church which is not visited by
these seasons is as sterile in all spiritual products as a desert,
and is not and cannot meet the designs of God's church. Such
churches may have all the show and parade of life, but it is only a
painted life.
The revival element belongs to the
individual, as well as to the church, life. The preacher whose
experience is not marked by these inflows of great grace may
question with anxious scrutiny whether he is in grace. The preacher
whose ministry does not over and over again find its climax of
success and power in these gracious visitations of God may well
doubt the genuineness of his call, or be disquieted as to its
continuance.
Revivals are not simply the
reclamation of a backslidden church. They do secure this end, but
they do not find their highest end in this important result. They
are to invigorate and mature by one mighty act the feeble saints;
they also pass on to sublimer regions of faith and experience the
advanced ones of God's elect. They are the fresh baptisms-the more
powerful consecration of a waiting, willing, working church to a
profounder willingness, and a mightier ability for a mightier work.
These revivals are the pitched battles and the decisive victories
for God, when the slain of the Lord is many, and his triumph
glorious.
There are counterfeit revivals well
executed, well calculated to deceive the most wary. These are
deceptive and superficial, with many pleasant, entertaining,
delusive features, entirely lacking in the offensive features which
distinguish the genuine ones. The pain of penitence, the shame of
guilt, the sorrow and humiliation of sin, the fear of hell-these
marks of the genuine are lacking in the counterfeit. The test of a
genuine revival is found in its staying qualities. The counterfeit
is but a winter spurt, as evanescent and fitful as the morning cloud
or early dew-both soon gone-and the sun but the hotter for the
mockery of the cloud and because of the fleeting dew. These surface
revivals do more harm than good, like a surface thaw in midwinter
which only increases the hardness and roughness of tomorrow's
freeze. The genuine revival goes to the bottom of things;
the sword is not swaddled in cotton, nor festooned with flowers, but
pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints
and marrow.
A genuine revival marks an era in the
life of the church. It plants the germs of the great spiritual
principles which grow and mature through all the changing seasons
that follow. Revival seasons are favoring seasons, when the tides of
salvation are at their flood, when all the waves and winds move
heavenward...days of emancipation and return and rapture. The church
needs revivals; it cannot live, it cannot do its work without them.
Revivals which will lift it above the sands of worldliness that
shallow the current and impede the sailing. Revivals which will
radicate the great spiritual principles, which are worn threadbare
in many a church. It is true that in the most thorough work some
will fall away, but when the work is genuine and far-reaching, as it
ought to be, the waste will scarcely be felt in the presence of the
good that remains.
The first element, in a revival whose
effects will stay, is that the revival spring from within the
church, the native outgrowth of the spiritual condition of the
church. The so-called revivals do not spring from the repentance,
faith, and prayers of the church, but are induced by foreign and
outside forces. Many of the religious movements of the day have no
foundation in the travailing throes of the church. By outside
pressure, the presence and reputation of an evangelist, of imported
singers and imported songs, an interest is awakened, a passing
impression made, but these are quite different from the concern
aroused by the presence of God and the mighty power of his almighty
Spirit. In the manufactured revival there is an interest which does
not deepen into conviction, which is not subdued into awe, which
cannot be molded into prayer, nor agitated by fears. There is the
utter absence of the spirit of prayer; neither has the spirit of
repentance any place; lightness and frivolity reign; tears are
strange and unwelcome visitors. The church-members,
instead of being on their knees in intercession, or mingling their
wrestling cries with the wrestling penitents, or joining in
rapturous praise with their rapturous deliverance, are simply
spectators of a pleasing entertainment, in which they have but a
momentary interest, the results of which, viewed from a spiritual
stand-point, are far below zero. A revival means a burdened church
and a burdened pastor and burdened penitents.
The revival whose results are
gracious and abiding must spring from the spiritual contact of
pastor and church with God. A season of fasting and prayer of deep
humiliation and confession are the conditions from which a genuine
and powerful work springs.
The nature of the preaching is of the
first importance. Its character will grade the converts and measure
the depth of the work. The word of God in its purity and strength
must be given. The law of God in its spiritual demands must arouse
the conscience, and pierce and lay bare the heart. If there ever is
a time for sentimental anecdotes, for the exercise of wit, if the
preacher is ever justified in pausing to soften the sympathies or
inflame the fancy, it is not at this period.
The object must not be to increase
the impulses, or move on the surface, or work on tender emotions,
but to convict the conscience, search out the sinner and expose his
sins, to alarm the guilty soul, and intensify the faith and effort
of the believer. The word of God is the imperishable and vitalizing
seed. The Spirit of God is the quickening energy that is to be let
loose. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit. The sword must be
unsheathed, and cut with both edges.
The spirit of prayer must be the one
evident and prevailing spirit. The spirit of prayer is but the
spirit of faith, the spirit of reverence, the spirit of supplies, of
grace, and mercy and is increased. This spirit holds in its keeping
the success of the word and power of the Holy Spirit; as the spirit
of prayer fail these fail. If the spirit of prayer is absent or is
quenched, God is not in the assembly. He comes and stays only in the
cloud of glory formed by the incense of a church whose flame of
prayer is ascending to him. All genuine revivals are simply God
coming with great grace to his Church. The revival that springs from
heart contact of the church with God, which is directed and
intensified by the pure preaching of the pure word of God, and in
which, and through which, prayer, mighty prayer, prevails, will be a
revival that will stay in its coming.
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