The Marks of True Revival
Acts 2:42-47
It has been a long time since America has seen a widespread revival. In fact, any of the researchers are lamenting the decline of Christianity in America. This decline is especially severe in what used to be called the “mainline churches.” Many remedies have been suggested to arrest this decline. What should we do to arrest this death spiral in the church? And what would things look like if revival came to this country?
We are blessed to have the sermons by the Welsh preacher Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones. He preached for several decades in Great Britain, and was an authority on Revival. His book on Revival is a must read. In the 1960’s he started a sermon series on the Book of Acts. A bout with cancer forced his retirement after the 8th chapter, but what he preached about the first 8 chapters on acts are available in Logos Bible Software as well as in print. It was Lloyd Jones’ belief that one should look at the Scripture, especially the Book of Acts to see how we should “do church.” He severely criticized the church growth gimmicks of his day. Why not go back to the only authentic account of the early church and start there.
The methods of trying to revive the relevancy of the church in Great Britain of the 1960’s sounds strangely like the methods being employed in the American church today. The theologians of the churches thought that getting rid of Sunday night services and concentrating on a single Sunday service was the way to go. The service should be early on Sunday so that the rest of the day could be spent in leisure. Sermons should be shorter and engage the perceived needs of people. The role of the Bible should be downplayed. Some even suggested that the minister should preach from a political text rather than the Scripture. Hymns should be replaced by praise music fashioned after the folk music of the day. Dramas and skits, rather than sermons were the way to go. I could go on further here, but you can read Dr. Lloyd Jones for yourself. If you can’t afford the books, some of his sermons can be found at sermonaudio.com.
All these types of things were employed to make the church relevant in Lloyd Jones’ day. But did they work? One can see that the church in the UK continued to decline in spite of these efforts. Today, only a tiny remnant go to services. The only churches who are thriving are those who continued to hold to the traditional and conservative evangelical beliefs. In other words, the churches which remain held fast to the authority of Scripture. This should serve as a warning to us. Neglect the truth of Scripture at one’s own peril, and demise. One cannot save the relevancy of the church by doubling down on the methods which were killing it. This is a call to go back to the solid ground upon which the church was founded.
Having said this, let us look at this passage from Acts 2:42-47. Peter had just finished his sermon on Pentecost. The scoffers had laughed at the assembly. They were drunk on sweet grape juice. They were thought to be acting irrationally. Bu Peter gives a very rational defense to these accusations. He uses Scripture from Joel and the Psalms to demonstrate that this event was prophesied in Scripture. He then goes on to proclaim Jesus. The emphasis of the sermon is on Jesus rather than the experience. He tells them what Jesus did and what they had done to Jesus. The result was that the hearers were pricked in heart. Peter did not have to cajole, beg, psychologize or call the altar to try to persuade them to believe. He simply preached the word. When the people realized they had crucified God’s Messiah, nothing further was needed. They called out to Peter and the others: “What shall we do?” the truth had brought out the emotion, not the emotion the truth. Peter told them to repent, believe and be baptized. Instead of being condemned, they too would receive the Holy Spirit. Three thousand believed and were added on that same day. This is the blueprint of true revival.
This text shows how they were changed. First of all, those who had been saved wanted to know more about the Apostle’s teaching. They eagerly attended to doctrine. This is the first of four marks of true revival. Lloyd Jones emphatically states that it is first. One does not start with fellowship which is the second mark. This is where the modern church goes wrong. The word fellowship is “koinonia” in Greek which is the word for “common.” This means that true fellowship in the church is based upon holding to a common faith, a faith centered in the Apostle’s doctrine. It is not based upon some abstract and nebulous concept of unity. This is the problem of the United Methodist Church in which I pastor. Where is the unity in the church? The church is at the precipice of dissolution because there is really no unity of belief, not in the Bible, nor even in the Book of Discipline. The various factions have little if anything in common as far as belief is common. The only thing which unites us is a common name, The United Methodist Church. But some worldly-wise pundit might say this: “We have nothing in common, but “nothing” can be defined in a dictionary. Therefore “nothing “ is something, and therefore, we are united in this common nothing. “ who wants to belong to such a group?
They say that doctrine divides but love unites. The Bible says that they were united in a common and eager desire to know more of what the Apostles were teaching. The former statement is suffocating the church in a cloud of nothingness. The result of the second is true joy. Which do you prefer? Yes, eager adherence to sound Apostolic doctrine must come first.
The same is true to the third mark, which is the breaking of bread. The Eucharist is also based upon what Jesus did. In other words, breaking bread is just that, breaking bread, apart from the content of the Apostolic doctrine. One can share in the common human need to eat and drink. But if that is all there is, why have church. We can invite people to our house for a meal and have “fellowship” also. But the communion is an acted out sermon, established by Jesus Himself, and generally held as a sacrament or ordinance of the church. The church does not do this just to do it, but to remember Jesus’ death for us as well as to remember that He is returning.
The fourth mark of a revived church is prayer. Lloyd Jones thinks this refers to the common prayer in the church rather than our individual prayers. He wondered why churches were inviting non-Christians to join them in a prayer session. Can Christians pray with Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and even Atheists? The idea here is even though we disagree on so many things, at least we can pray together. What kind of power can come from that kind of prayer? It doesn’t matter what or even if we believe. So why pray at all? Would some sort of “god” up there even care to listen? We see how glib such prayer is when a disaster strikes the nation. The knee-jerk reaction is that we are praying for the victims. No wonder the Atheists laugh at us and note that it would be better to do something about these problems and leave off the prayer. Effective prayer is based upon the Apostle’s doctrine as well. Scripture tells us that God hears the prayer of His people. This is why we ca pray with a sense of boldness.
The description of the church in the following verses is the church we all want to see. The believers held all things in common. They joyfully went from house to house, breaking bread. Prayer was abundant. The people took care of each other to the point that many sold their goods to provide for those who lacked. They were completely united in all they did. There was true love. The people in Israel were hungry for this. They were tired of playing church under the Old Judaism. This was new and exciting. This was life. People were joining the church left and right.
Would we not do well to look carefully at this blueprint. Have the new ways of “doing church” produced this result? Do the old and stale ways of “doing church” produced this kind of result? Of course they cannot. There can be a temporary swell in emotion. We see the thousands of commitments made at Billy Graham style crusades. But how many of these “conversions” stick? I am not saying that Billy Graham did not positively affect many people’s lives. But for many, it was an emotional high. They did not come to church and eagerly study the Bible. They did not follow up on fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer either. Charles Finney had some apparent results in hs revivals as well. He thought that people could be manipulated into revival. This has borne bitter fruit. One can see from what the college he founded, Oberlin, to see that the “revival” he brought was not the revival we see here. Only God can bring true revival.
So in the meanwhile, let us hold fast to sound doctrine, sound fellowship based upon this doctrine as well as break bread and to vigorously pray. There is an aspect of obedience to faith. True revival brings true results. May God send us revival.
