The Price and Power of Revival
Duncan Campbell
In this passage, I discover that a power is placed at the disposal of the Church that can outmaneuver and baffle the very strategy of Hell, and cause death and defeat to vanish before the presence of the Lord of Life. Barrenness is made to feel His fertilizing power.
Yet, how is it that while we make such great claims for the power of the Gospel, we see so little of the supernatural in operation? Is there any reason why the Church today cannot everywhere equal the Church at Pentecost? I feel this is a question we ought to face with an open mind and an honest heart. What did the early Church have that we do not possess today? Nothing but the Holy Spirit, nothing but the power of God. Here I would suggest that one of the main secrets of success in the early Church lay in the fact that the early believers believed in unction from on high and not entertainment from men.
One of the very sad features that characterizes much that goes under the name of evangelism today is the craze for entertainment. Here is an extract from a letter received from a leader in youth work in one of your great cities: "We are at our wits' end to know what to do with the young people who made a profession of conversion recently. They are demanding all sorts of entertainment, and it seems to us that if we fail to provide the entertainment that they want, we are not going to hold them." Yes, the trend of the time in which we live is toward a Christian experience that is light and flippant and fed on entertainment.
Some time ago, I listened to a young man give his testimony. He made a decision quite recently, and in giving his testimony this is what he said: "I have discovered that the Christian way of life can best be described, not as a battle, but as a song mingled with the sound of happy laughter." Far be it from me to move the song or happy laughter from religion, but I want to protest that that young man's conception was entirely wrong, and not in keeping with true New Testament Christianity.
"Oh, but," say the advocates of this way of thinking, "how are we to get the people if we do not provide some sort of entertainment?" To that I ask the question, how did they get the people at Pentecost? How did the early Church get the people? By publicity projects, by bills, by posters, by parades, by pictures? No! The people were arrested and drawn together and brought into vital relationship with God, not by sounds from men, but by sounds from heaven. We are in need of more sounds from heaven today.
Pentecost was its own publicity. I love that passage in Acts that tells us that "when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together." What was noised abroad? That men and women were coming under deep conviction. That was God's method of publicity, and until the Church of Jesus Christ rediscovers this and acts upon it, we shall at our best appear to a mad world as a crowd of common people in a common market babbling about common wares. The early Church cried for unction and not for entertainment. Unction is the dire and desperate need of the ministry today.
Further, the early Church put power before influence. The present state of our country presents a challenge to the Christian Church. Those who have eyes to see tell us that at this very hour forces are taking the field that are out to defy every known Christian principle.
In many quarters there is today a growing conviction that unless God moves, unless there is a demonstration of the supernatural in the midst of men, unless we are moved up into the realm of the Divine, we shall soon find ourselves caught up in a counterfeit movement, but a movement that goes under the name of evangelism. There are ominous sighs today that the devil is out to sidetrack us in the sphere of evangelism, and we are going to become satisfied with something less than Heaven wills to give us. Nothing but a Holy Spirit revival will meet the desperate need of the hour.
The early Church, the men of Pentecost, had something be-yond mere human influence and human ingenuity. But what do we mean by influence? The sum total of all the forces in our personality--mental, moral, academic, social, and religious. We can have all these, and we can have them at their highest level, and yet be destitute of power. Power, not influence, was the watchword of the early Church.
While at the Keswick Convention, it was my privilege to spend an afternoon with a leader in foreign mission activity. I was arrested by what that man said to me. Here are his words: "Our Bible schools are turning out young men and young women who are cultured and polished, but who lack power." I want to suggest that he was near to the truth. We may be polished, we may have culture, but the cry of our day is for power from on high.
I could take you to a little cottage in the Hebrides and introduce you to a young woman. She is not educated. One could not say that she was polished in the sense that we use the word, but I have known that young woman to pray heaven into a community, to pray power into a meeting. I have known that young woman to be so caught in the power of the Holy Spirit that men and women around her were made to tremble--not influence, but power.
The Apostles were not men of influence--"not many mighty, not many noble." The Master Himself did not choose to be a man of influence. "He made Himself of no reputation," which is to say that God chose power rather than influence. I sometimes think of Paul and Silas in Philippi. They had not enough influence to keep them out of prison, but possessed the power of God in such a manner that their prayers in prison shook the whole prison to its very foundations. Not influence, but power.
Oh, that the Church today, in our congregations and in our pulpits, would rediscover this truth and get back to the place of God realization, to the place of power. I want to say further that we should seek power even at the expense of influence. What do I mean by that? I mean this: never compromise to accommodate the devil. I hear people say today, "These are different days from the days of the 1859 Revival or the Welsh Revival. We must be tolerant and we must try to accommodate." The secret of power is separation from all that is unclean. We must seek power even at the expense of influence.
Think again of the great Apostle Paul. What an opportunity he had of gaining influence with Felix. Had he but flattered him a little in his sin, he could have made a great impression, and I believe he could have got a handsome donation for his missionary effort by being tolerant, by accommodating the situation. But Paul chose power before influence and he reasoned of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Let Felix say what he will, let Drusilla think as she chooses to think, I must be true to my conscience and to my inner convictions and declare the whole counsel of God and take my stand on the solid ground of separation unto God.
Now the person who will take his stand on that ground will not be popular. He will not be popular with some preachers of today who declare that we must soft-pedal in order to capture and captivate. Here I would quote from the saintly Finney: "Away with your milk and water preaching of the love of Christ that has no holiness or moral discrimination in it, away with preaching a Christ not crucified for sin." Such a collapse of moral conscience in this land could never have happened if the Puritan element in our preaching had not, in great measure, fallen out.
Hear a Highland minister preaching on this very truth: "Bring me a God all mercy but not just, bring me a God all love but not righteous, and I will have no scruples in calling Him an idiot of your imagination." Strong words, but I say words that I would sound throughout our land today, in this age of desperate apostasy, forsaking all the fundamental truths of Scripture. Here you have the Apostles proclaiming a message that was profoundly disturbing. We are afraid of disturbing people today. May God help us; may God have mercy upon us.
I would to God that a wave of real godly fear gripped our land. Let me quote from a sermon delivered by the Rev. Robert Barr of the Presbyterian Church of South Africa: "This is what our age needs, not an easy-moving message, the sort of thing that makes the hearer feel all nice inside, but a message profoundly disturbing. We have been far too afraid of disturbing people, but the Holy Spirit will have nothing to do with a message or with a minister who is afraid of disturbing. You might as well expect a surgeon to give place to a quack who claims to be able to do the job with some sweet tasting drug, as expect the Holy Spirit to agree that the tragic plight of human souls today can be met by soft and easy words. Calvary was anything but nice to look at, blood-soaked beams of wood, a bruised and bleeding body, not nice to look upon. But then Jesus was not dealing with a nice thing; He was dealing with the sin of the world, and that is what we are called upon to deal with today. Soft and easy words, soft-pedaling will never meet the need."
Finally, the early Church believed in the supernatural. Someone has said that at Pentecost, God set the Church at Jerusalem on fire and the whole city came out to see it burn. I tell you if that happened in any church today, within hours the whole of the town would be out to see the burning, and they would be caught in the flames.
It is fire we want. The best advertising campaign that any church or any mission can put up is fire in the pulpit and a blaze in the pew. Let us be honest. We say "God, send revival," but are we prepared for the fire?
I believe we have only to regard and observe those laws and limits within which the Holy Spirit acts, and we shall find His glorious power at our disposal. Surely that was the conviction that gripped an elder in the Isle of Lewis when, in a situation that was difficult and trying, he cried, "You made a promise, and I want to remind You that we believe You are a covenant-keeping God. Your honor is at stake." That man was at the end of his tether; that man was in the place of travail.
Revival is not going to come merely by attending conferences. When "Zion travailed she brought forth children." Oh, may God bring us there, may God lead us through to the place of absolute surrender. Is it not true that our very best moments of yielding and consecration are mingled with the destructive element of self-preservation? A full and complete surrender is the price of blessing; it is the price of revival.
The Door of Vision
"I looked... behold, a door was opened in heaven and, behold a throne... and... I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment... and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God" (Revelation 4.1-5).
Following upon the vision of the closed door of Rev. 3.10, John lifts his eyes towards heaven, and in vision is transported through an open door. The vision must have filled him with a sense of awe and wonder as he is made to gaze upon the throne. How arresting is his description of what he saw -- "a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne" (Rev. 4.2). Suddenly, the sense of awe and wonder is broken by a voice speaking with trumpet clarity to him: "Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter" (Rev. 4.1).
I do not propose to deal with the prophetic aspect of this great passage. My purpose is to direct attention to several thoughts it suggests.
We have here the DOOR OF VISION: "I looked." What a conception John had of the transcendent majesty of God! The throne in heaven immediately suggests authority and power. Here one is reminded of the words of the Psalmist: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre" (Psalm 45.6). That was David's comprehensive description of the throne of God. Behind this declaration is the implied conviction of the almightiness of God.
Here I would record the prayer of a young man during the Lewis revival. A goodly congregation had gathered in the parish church, but so far, revival blessing had not touched the parish. The minister in the pulpit found the going hard, and was about to end the address when he saw a young man strangely moved, and obviously under a burden. The minister closed his Bible and stood in silence -- a silence that was tense. Suddenly that silence was broken by the cry of this young man as he prayed: "God, I am now looking through the open door, and I see the Lamb in the midst of the throne, with the keys of death and hell at his girdle." Again, there is silence in the congregation, to be broken once more by the continued prayer of this young man: "Lord, there is power there; let it loose!" What followed can never be adequately described. "Miracle" would be the only definition! Suddenly, the congregation was gripped by the power of God, and not only the congregation, but every community in the parish, and many souls that night felt the mighty impact of the convicting and converting power of Almighty God. Following this visitation the local press reported that "more were now attending the prayer meetings than had attended public worship before the revival." What was it that brought about this gracious visitation? The sovereignty of God? Yes! But God had found His agent in a young man who had the Throne Vision.
I sometimes wonder if our weakness in face of the problems that confront us, is not due to the fact that we are not in touch with the Throne. How easy it is to develop a mentality that unconsciously ignores the fact that the need of Divine help is greater than we imagine, and especially when we remember that the issues of our words and actions are so influential. How true are the words of McCheyne: "If we are to walk worthy of our high and holy calling, we must live daily in consideration of the greatness and glory of Jesus." This is the prime qualification of any man for the service of Christ's Kingdom, and is clearly set forth in the words of Ananias to Saul of Tarsus: "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of His mouth" (Acts 22.14), i.e. to have personal and intimate communion with Christ. This surely, is the secret of all that is of enduring value and influence. To see the face and hear the voice of that Just One, is to know the vision that inspires, and the fellowship that alone moves the soul to a life of sacrificial service. In the case of Paul, the vision and the voice sent him to be a witness unto all men of what he had seen and heard.
There are few men who do not, more or less, make their own life and character the theme of occasional study. It is good to look back. David found it so: "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies" (Psalm 119.59). Jeremiah calls upon Israel to look back: "See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done" (Jer. 2.23). By so doing, he reminds them of their backslidden state.
It is good that we should ponder Vision in Retrospect. Henry Ward Beecher, surveying the past, and remembering the greatness of God's mercy towards him, writes: "I recall three or four instances in which it seemed to me that if certain occurrences had not taken place just as they did I should have been overthrown. If I had not been taken out of Boston at one time, as I was, I do not see what would have prevented me from going to destruction. I look back upon passionate moments, upon moments of willfulness, which would have led me to worse disaster, had not events in the providence of God transpired to check me in my course and change my career." That, surely, could be the testimony of many of us. As we review our past, we see many instances that would have proved fatal to our character, testimony, and witness if they had been allowed to go undisturbed.
I read somewhere the story of a traveler who, at night, shouted to the keeper of a toll bridge, to let the gate rise in order that he might pass through. A terrible storm was raging and the night was dark. The keeper was prevailed upon to come out and open the gate. When he did so, he found the traveler on the bridge side of the gate, and said to him: "In the name of God, where did you come from?" The traveler replied, "I crossed the bridge." The gate-keeper kept him that night, and in the morning showed him the bridge which he had crossed. The storm had so destroyed the footpath that night, that only one beam remained, and the sure-footed horse had kept to the beam, the rider quite unconscious of how near he was to being hurled into the raging torrent 100 feet below! "See thy way in the valley," said the prophet. And as we look back, some of us see how very narrow and slippery was the path on which we trod, and but for the mercy of God, we would have fallen to destruction. The Psalmist, remembering the sustaining and protecting hand of God, exclaims: "Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!" (Psalm 107.8). That, I am sure, would be the language of many a heart on contemplating the goodness and the sustaining mercy of God. The hymn-writer, Addison, dwelling on the wonder of God's protecting and sustaining grace, pens these imperishable words:
"When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm, unseen, conveyed me safe,
And led me up to man.
"Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently cleared my way;
And through the pleasing snares of vice,
More to be feared than they."
There is another aspect relative to Vision in Retrospect, to which I would draw attention: it is what one might call the Disturbing Vision. Looking back, we see moments that gave birth to great resolutions. We had our dreams, and we aspired to something good and great. The call of Christ was full of appeal, and at that time it appeared easy to sing: "Make me a channel of blessing." As we look back, what is it that we now see: what has the 'way in the valley' recorded? It is true, we had our dreams, and we aspired to a life of usefulness in the cause of Christ, but today, looking back, we cannot record positive achievement. Broken vows and resolutions are the sad reminder of our failure and defeat, and with David we say: "I remembered God, and was troubled" (Psalm 77.3). What caused the failure? Was it that the Throne Vision did not dominate, inspire, and empower? Self-confidence and an unwarranted self-sufficiency that finds expression in the neglect of an utter dependence upon God has blinded the eye of the Throne Vision. How many there are today who began well, whose lives were full of promise, and radiant with hope, but who today live to remember their neglect of the Throne of Grace -- the pathway to the Throne. Oh, how great is our need ever to seek the constant ministry of sustaining grace which alone enables us to stand "in the evil day," and our prayer should ever be that of David:
"Shew me Thy ways, O Lord;
Thy paths, O teach Thou me:
And do Thou lead me in Thy truth,
Therein my teacher be:
For Thou art God that dost
To me salvation send,
And I upon Thee all the day
Expecting do attend" (Psalm 25.4-5).
We come now to consider Vision in Prospect, and here the words of David bring encouragement:
"I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
From whence doth come mine aid.
My safety cometh from the Lord,
Who heaven and earth hath made."
(Psalm 121.1-2).
'Aid' and 'safety' are assured by the Throne Vision. How precious to the man conscious of failure are the words: "And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: And... have the petitions that we desired of Him" (I John 5.14-15). That is the measure of God's provision, and it is our privilege, unworthy though we are, to avail ourselves of all the resources of His saving and sanctifying grace. How frequently we need to remind ourselves of this when faced with temptations and trials that so often beset us. Worthy views of the throne, and all that the throne stands for, are the secret of victorious living, for no man is stronger than what his communion with God makes him. It is the men of faith who see the hand that grips us when tempted to disregard the voice that speaks from the throne. Such are the heroes of faith, who have a God who sits upon the throne as a present help, and who is ever at their side to lead them to victory. Confident in the God who has never failed them, they are not moved from their steadfast purpose.
Here, let it be said that there are occasions in life when faithfulness to the throne involves persecution, and the faithful servant may have to stand alone. It is an easy thing to go with the crowd, and to do as others do, without any reference to God's claims, but the man who takes his directions from on high, will not be moved. "Men of Athens," cried Socrates, "I hold you in the highest reverence and love, but I am going to obey God rather than you."
The story of the Church of God down through the ages is one of conflict, but also of conquest: "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death" (Rev. 12.11). John saw in "the blood of the Lamb" the eternal sign of Satan's defeat, and the assurance of ultimate victory. Here I would quote from an address by the late Gordon B. Watt: "The finished work of Christ is our plea before the throne, and our weapon against the enemy. Our right it is in Christ to ask God to bear witness on the battlefield of life, to the power of the blood and the effectiveness of the Cross against Satan and all his forces. He will not disappoint us. He cannot fail."
Here let me stress one truth: the obedience to the known will of God. It was Christ Himself who declared that entrance to the heavenly kingdom is denied to those who merely say, "Lord, Lord," and is awarded only to those who do the will of the Father. The path of His will may be narrow but it is never obscure, as to His requirements. But the Throne Vision, while it reveals the measure of our responsibility and possibility, also reveals the measure of our resources.
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