HISTORICAL IMPACT OF THE WORD OF GOD
In every genuine revival among God’s people the revealed word of the Lord has had a large place. It was so in Josiah’s day, and in the awakening under Hezekiah. It has been so throughout the Church period. It was the recovery of the Word that brought about the Reformation of the 16th century, and every true awakening since has been based upon Bible study and Bible practice. Of no spiritual movement in history could this more truthfully be said than of that special work of God which began almost simultaneously in many parts of Great Britain and Ireland in the first half of the 19th century. Here and there little companies of devoted believers were found gathering together to search the Scriptures, seeking a right way for themselves and their children in the midst of the existing ecclesiastical confusion and dead formality.
[(Ironside, H. A. (1913). Notes on the Book of Nehemiah. (88–89). New York: Loizeaux Bros.) From a sermon by Matthew Kratz, The Season of Celebration, 10/15/2011]