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.