I know that I’ve been talking about a lot of discouraging things lately … there’s a lot to be discouraged about. I’ve got my list and you’ve probably got yours. But today, I want to remind us that it is never too late. There is always … hope!
You see … as crazy as things are right now … as out of control as things seem to be … we … meaning human beings … have been here many, many times before. Not only have we been here before but there is a pattern.
Let’s take the ancient kingdom of Judah, for example. Josiah was only eight years old when he became the king of Judah. His grandfather, Manasseh, is described as one of the wickedest kings in the Bible, up there with the likes of King Ahab, who “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him” (1st Kings 16:30). The Bible says that Manasseh lead the nation of Judah astray, “so that they” … the people of Judah … “did more evil than the nation [that] the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites” (2nd Kings 21:9).
Manasseh himself was only 12 years old when he was made King of Judah … a position that he held for 55 years. During his reign, Judah’s military power became weak and the nation of Judah had sunk into a quagmire of idolatry, occultism, human sacrifice, lawlessness, violence, and moral confusion. As he was coming towards the end of his life and his reign, Manasseh turned to the Lord … but his spiritual conversion came too late and didn’t have much of an impact on the nation.
His son, Amon, became king and followed in his father’s evil footsteps. Amon was assassinated in the second year of his reign, however, by his own servants … which is how Josiah became the king of Judah at the tender age of eight. Unlike his father and grandfather, who “forsook the Lord, the God of [their] ancestors, and did not walk in obedience to Him” (2nd Kings 21:22), Josiah decided to go down a much different path. The Bible says that Josiah “did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of his [ancestor] David; not turning aside to the right or the left” (2nd Chronicles 34:2).
The Bible goes on to say that in the eighth year of his reign, when Josiah was 16 years old, “he began to seek the God of his [ancestor] David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images” that the people had worshipped during the reign of his father and grandfather. As one author pointed out: “It is amazing what God can do with a teenager totally committed to Him! It is better to have a young leader who loves the Lord than an experienced one whose years have not been invested in righteousness” (Jeremiah, D. What in the Word? Nashville, TN: W. Publishing Group; 2016; p. 122).
When Josiah was 26 years old, he began restoring the Temple, which had fallen into disrepair. During the restoration project, the workers found a long-lost treasure … the Book of Law that the Lord had given in Moses. Speechless, the priest, Hilkiah, rushed to the king to show him what they had found. Josiah began reading the Book of Law and realized that the sins of his father and grandfather were far worse than he realized and that the people and the nation of Judah were in far greater spiritual danger than he realized. The Bible says that Josiah tore his clothes in grief and wept (2nd Chronicles 34:27).
Josiah then called the people together, “all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem … and read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which was found in the house of the LORD. Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul” (2nd Chronicles 34:30-31).
Care to guess what happened next?
REVIVAL!
The ensuing revival completely changed the nation of Judah. “Moral trends were turned upside down, spiritual zeal was turned right-side up, and impending judgment was turned aside for a generation” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 124). “All his days,” says the Bible, “[the people of Judah] did not depart part from following the LORD God of their fathers” (2nd Chronicles 34:33).
While Josiah led the revival from the throne, the prophet Jeremiah took it to the streets … preaching revival in the marketplaces, the town squares, and Temple courtyards. He was joined by Zephaniah and Nehum. The fire of revival spread to the youth. The lives of young men like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were shaped by the national reformation that had set their country on fire for the LORD.
Can you imagine what would happen in our land if we could find such a leader … if we could once again re-discover the Book … if revival broke out and we could experience the fire and zeal that Judah did? Well, as I said, we’ve been here before … more times than you probably realize … including … believe it or not … at the very beginning of this great country … all the way back to our founding in the 1600s.
Our country was started by people in pursuit of religious freedoms. They came here on fire with the gospel and hungry for religious liberty. As authors J. Stephen Land and Mark A. Noll observed: “For the early New Englanders, religious and social history were inseparable. It was assumed since the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620 that the settlers were (or should be) Christians, and that God would bless the building up of a godly commonwealth in the new land” (Colonial New England: “An Old Order, New Awakening.” In Christianity Today, June 21, 2016). According to another author, the colonies were “the most Protestant, Reformed, and Puritan commonwealth in the world” (Niemczyk, C. “The American Puritans: Did Your Know?” In Christianity Today, June 21, 2016).
It didn’t take long for the fire to start to die down. In fact, the spiritual and moral conditions of the colonists declined at a rate that alarmed most religious leaders of the time. Listen to a piece of sermon preached in 1702 by Increase Mather and see if this sounds vaguely familiar:
“We are the posterity of godly people, our forefathers who followed the Lord. But look at how the glory is departing. You that are aged can remember fifty years ago when the churches were in their glory. Is there not a sad decay of that glory? What a change there has been! Time was when the churches were beautiful. Many people were converted and willingly declared what God had done for their souls. … But the conversions have become rare in this day. Look into the pulpits and see if there is such a glory as there once was. The glory is gone. The special design of providence in this country seems to be now over. We may weep to think about it” (from Increase Mather’s sermon, “Ichabod, Or, The Glory Departing From New England”; quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans).
Ahhh … but God had other plans for this country. A New Jersey Dutchman named Theodore Frelinghuysen went back to the basics and began preaching that people needed to be saved … to be born again. While the older people rejected his message, surprise, surprise … the young people embraced it and began to spread the message and revival broke out.
The “fire” eventually reached a New England pastor by the name of Johnathan Edwards, the grand son of a revivalist named Solomon Stoddard … a large man who preached powerful evangelistic sermons and believed that God had brought the forefathers to the New World for an exceptional and divine purpose.
On Sunday, July 8, 1741, Rev. Johnathan Edwards preached what is probably the most famous sermon in American history: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” As fiery as the sermon may sound, Edwards delivered his sermon calmly and quietly, warning the unconverted that they were dangling over hell like a spider over the fire. “O sinner!,” he declared, unconverted people “walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they won’t bear their weight, and these places are not seen” (Edwards.yale.edu/ archive). Despite the calm manner in which he delivered his message, the people in the congregation began crying and shouting. Men held on to pews and posts, afraid that they would literally slide into hell … others trembled uncontrollably and rolled around on the floor, crying and begging for God to save them. Five hundred people were converted that night … lighting a revival that would bring thousands into the Kingdom (Morgan, R.J. On This Day. Nashville: Thomas Nelson; 1997.)
What became known as “The Great Awakening” led to the founding of colleges like Princeton, Rutgers, Dartmouth, and Brown to train up new pastors and theologians. Missionaries made their way into the wilderness to spread the gospel to Native Americans. Historian Benjamin Rice Lacy Jr. believes that The Great Awakening set the stage for the American Revolution. “The course of events which led to the Declaration of Independence [and] the enthusiasm and constancy which finally eventuated in the victory of the colonies,” says Lacy, “would not have been possible during the years 1775 – 1788 had there been no Great Awakening” (Revivals in the Midst of the Years. Hopewell, England: Royal Pub. Co.; 1943; p. 32).
And then guess what happened? Christianity began to spiral downward in America after the Revolutionary War. The business of building a new nation occupied the minds and time of the leaders. Large numbers of people began moving inland and populating territories west of the Blue Ridge where there were few churches. People began to drift away from the church and from the Bible and the result was … well … pretty predictable. John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the time, wrote that “the church is too far gone ever to be redeemed” (Sweet, W.W. The Story of Religion in America. New York: Harper and Brothers; 1939; p. 224). French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire predicted that Christianity would disappear in two generations (Mouheb, R.B. Yale Under God: Roots and Fruits; self-published; 2021; p. 84). He was clearly wrong, thank God. So was one of his American disciples, Thomas Paine, whose words inspired the colonists to rise up against a super-power. He hated Christianity with a vengeance. “Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented,” he wrote, “there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists and fanatics” (Paine, T., & Rousseau, J.J. The Theological Words of Thomas Paine: To Which Are Added the Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar. Boston: The Advocates of Common Sense; 1832; p. 149).
Remember all those colleges and universities that were founded during the Great Awakening? Well, according to religious historian Dr. J. Edwin Orr, the typical Harvard student was an atheist. “Christians were so unpopular,” says Dr. Orr, “that they met in secret and kept their [meeting] minutes in code. … The last two decades of the eighteenth century were the darkest period, spiritually and morally, in the history of American Christianity” (Orr, E.J. Campus Aflame: A History of Evangelical Awakenings in Collegiate Communities. Glendale: CA: G/L Pub.; 1971; p. 19).
How did God respond to this decline, this change of heart in His people? Did He turn His back and give up on us? Nope! He started what became known as the “Second Great Awakening” at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. A few students locked themselves in a room for fear that the other students would hear them praying for … a revival! Word of their activity got out, however, and a riot almost broke out instead of a revival. The president of the college took the “offending” students to his office where, to their surprise, he started praying for revival with them. Within a short time, more than half of the student body had been converted … more than half (Orr, Ibid., p. 25). The spirit of revival spread from one campus to another and then swept through the American frontier.
In 1800, a plainspoken evangelist by the name of Rev. James McGready began holding what we call “camp” meetings today. Thousands upon thousands came to southern Kentucky to hear him preach about revival. People began weeping and wailing as they were convicted by the Holy Spirit. James B. Finley visited one of the most famous camp meeting in Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Listen to what he heard and saw: “The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others on wagons. … Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy in the most piteous accents … while others were shouting most vociferously” (Galbraith, R.C. The History of the Chillicothe Presbytery: From Its Organization in 1799 to 1889. Chillichothe: H.W. Guthrie, Hugh Bell, & Peter Platter, 1889; pp. 11-13). Convicted by the Holy Spirit himself at this camp meeting, he became a Methodist pastor, joining the ranks of Peter Cartwright and Charles Finney, who took the gospel to every part of the nation on horseback.
The Second Great Awakening also inspired young people like Adoniram and Ann Judson to sail out of Salem, Massachusetts, and become American’s first foreign missionaries. They were followed by thousands as American churches sent out missionaries around the globe. The Second Great Awakening also inspired people to examine and then work towards the abolition of slavery, prison reform, women’s rights, rescue missions, and child labor laws. Organizations and groups sprang up all over the country to advance education, temperance, world peace, sabbath observance, and overseas evangelism … all of which resulted in organization like the American Bible Society, the American Sunday School Union, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the American Tract Society, the American Temperance Society, and many other societies and movements that took the gospel into the world and around the world.
Bet you can’t guess what happened? Yeah … the revival passed and America once again sank into spiritual lethargy and godlessness. Of course, God inspired another wave of evangelism known as … any guesses? The “Third Great Awakening” … also called the “Fulton Street Revival,” the “Businessman’s Revival,” the “Prayer Revival,” or the “Layman’s Revival” by different historians. This one began when a lay missionary by the name of Jeremiah Lanphier started a prayer meeting at a Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street in New York City on September 23, 1857. Nobody came to the first meeting but within a few months more than 50 thousand people a day were gathering for prayer all over New York. From there the revival spread to Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati. “Between one and two million people are estimated to have found Christ as their Savior” during this third revival (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 133). Get this … at the height of the revival, offices and stores across the nation closed for prayer at noon. Newspapers and telegraph companies set aside certain hours where businessmen could wire the news of the revival for free … hence the name “Businessman’s Revival.” The Third Great Awakening produce an array of new ministries, such as the Young Men’s Christian Association, Moody Bible Institute, and a number of denominational youth organizations such as the MYF.
Sporadic revivals broke out during the Civil War. Approximately 100 to 200 thousand Union soldiers and approximately 150 thousand Confederate troops found faith and found Christ during the war. Sometimes churches would hold preaching and praying services twenty-four hours a day because they could not accommodate the number of soldiers waiting to get inside. These revivals gave birth to the ministry of military chaplains, the most famous of them being an impassioned young evangelist by the name of Dwight L. Moody. One baptism ceremony was reported to have been performed in a pond exposed to enemy fire. Several of the converts were “wounded while the ordinance was being administered” (Jones, J.W. Christ in the Camp. Atlanta: The Marin and Hoyt Co.; 1904; p. 255).
Okay … you all are familiar with the pattern by now and know what happened next, amen? After the Civil War, the lamp of the Church grew dim once more. “America became overwhelmed by the economic, political, and spiritual devastation from the war; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; and the burden and struggles of Reconstruction” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 134). This time, the revival was started by a Welsh coal miner by the name of Evan Roberts. The revival didn’t start here but in Roberts’ home country of Wales and became known as “one of the greatest revivals in Christian history” (Morgan, R.J. On This Day in Christian History: 365 Amazing and Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs, and Heroes. Nashville: Thomas Nelson; 1997; March 29 entry).
Only 17 people showed up for Roberts’ first meeting but by the end of the week, 60 people had given their lives to Christ and a revival broke out. Within three months, “one hundred thousand converts were added to the church in Wales” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 135). From there, Roberts went to Liverpool and started meetings there. Thousands thronged around the Shaw Street Chapel and people poured in from all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland … who then spread it to the United States. The Methodist of Philadelphia reported ten thousand conversions in a single month. So many people were saved in Atlantic City that reporters could only find 50 or so people among a population of 60,000 who did NOT profess faith in Christ. Half of the students at Rutgers University became Christians. Seventy percent of the students at Princeton were swept up in the revival and gave their lives to Christ. Stores, factories, offices, and the state Supreme Court were closed in Atlanta, Georgia, so that people could attend prayer meetings. Can you imagine? “In Louisville, the press reported thousands of conversions, and fifty-eight leading business firms closed at noon for prayer meetings. In Colorado, the State Legislature suspended its proceedings so that its members could attend prayer meetings” (Duewel, W. Revival Fire. Grand Rapids: Zondervan; 1995; p. 182). Revival spread like wild-fire to even the most remote areas of America at the time … like East Tennessee and North Carolina, where hundreds of people were converted between the years of 1905 and 1910. As you may or may not know, many of the little churches that you see around here were started during the 1905 revival. By the end of 1910, the revival had spread to Scandinavia, South Africa, India, Korea, China, Japan, and Brazil.
The last great revival to sweep our country happened in our lifetime and some of you may remember it. To show you that we’ve been here before in our lifetime, let me remind you of the good ol’ sixties and early seventies. It was a crazy time … a dark time … spiritually and morally … much like today, amen? Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll was the motto of a generation. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. There was a “cold” war between us and the U.S.S.R. Racial conflicts and racial tensions led to race riots. Young men burned their draft cards in protest of the Vietnam war. In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, followed by Bobby Kennedy. Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan, Sirhan, was recently granted parole by the way.
Students protested and took over university campuses. We had bombs going off and people getting killed. Institutions of all kinds were being criticized and attacked. Hallucinogenic drugs became popular. Short hair and long skirts were replaced with long hair and short skirts. Transcendental meditation, Eastern Mysticism, and yoga became mainstream forms of spirituality.
Johnson then Nixon became president of the United States, who was then implicated in the Watergate scandal that led to his resignation and plunged this country into even deeper disillusionment and political chaos. Our nation was stunned when four college students were shot to death by National Guard soldiers during a political protest at Kent State in Ohio … remember that? I sure do.
The epi-center of the so-called “Hippie Movement” was San Francisco’ Haight-Ashbury district … a place that had become home to thousands of disillusioned, long-haired youth who spoke their own vernacular and religiously followed Timothy Leary’s advice to get “turned on, tuned in, and drop out.” And believe it or not, that is the EXACT spot that God chose to start a revival that became known as the “Jesus Movement.”
In 1968, a Christian couple opened up a Christian “coffeehouse” called “The Living Room” (A Brief History of the Jesus Movement. The Hollywood Free Paper, June 4, 2016). The idea of “Christian coffeehouses” caught on and they began to appear up and down the West Coast. Evangelism happened over coffee … souls were saved … lives were changed … and revival happened that led thousands of young people to be baptized in the Pacific Ocean. From there it began spreading to other young people across the nation.
The movement was viewed with skepticism at first but that all changed when Billy Graham rode through Pasadena as the grand marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade on January 1st, 1971. A sea of newly converted hippies surrounded him, pointing their index fingers to Heaven and shouting “One way!” Deeply moved, Rev. Graham embraced the movement and began encouraging these young people in their quest to know and follow Jesus. He called them the “Jesus Generation” and wrote a book about his experience with the hippies of the Jesus Movement called “The Jesus Generation” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975).
The media took note of this unorthodox revival that was beginning to make its way across the U.S. Look magazine reported that a crusade had “caught hold in California, and it shows every sign of sweeping east and becoming a national preoccupation” (February 9, 1971). The article went on to describe the new “Jesus Movement” as “an old-time, Bible-toting, witness-giving kind of revival, and the new evangelists are the young” (Look, Ibid.). The article described how entire motorcycle gangs were being converted, dozens of go-go clubs were being converted into Christian coffeehouses where young people could go to sing and pray. Religious clubs formed on high school and college campuses like Stanford, Berkeley, and UCLA. “It’s a revival, there’s no getting around it,” the article concluded. “Jesus is rising in California. He’s the latest movement, the latest thing to groove on” (Look, Ibid.).
Time magazine featured a purple Jesus on the cover of one of its magazines in which they described Jesus Christ as one groovy dude who was the “notorious leader of an underground liberation movement” who bore the appearance of a “typical hippie type” with long hair, a beard, robe, and sandals (“The Alternative Jesus: The Psychedelic Christ.” Time, June 21, 1971).
Thousands of these “Jesus Freaks,” as they were sometimes called, flooded churches where they were welcomed and eventually became incorporated into the mainstream of Christian fellowship. I remember the controversy that blew up in the church where I grew up over the use of guitars during the service. You all remember those days? “What’ll be next,” the old folks cried, “drums?!” The result of the Jesus Movement was a new genre of Christian music known as “praise and worship” music. Some of the Jesus Freaks of the 70s have become influential church leaders, enthusiastic missionaries, and campus crusaders for Christ.
I believe that God can use US to bring about another revival. God knows, we certainly could use some fire from Heaven right now, amen? I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it … the government can’t save this country … academia can’t save this country … science can’t save this country … no political party can save this country … the music industry can’t save this country … the movie industry can’t save this country … sports can’t save this country … Wall street and the banks can’t save this country … but maybe the internet and social media can. Because of the pandemic lock-down, we, this church, discovered a way to use technology to reach beyond our four walls. The means by which the world pipes filth and trash into our homes and into the minds of our young people could be the same means by which God can reach the eyes and ears and hearts and souls of literally billions of people, amen?
As we learned from Josiah’s experience, all we need is humble leadership, a holy book, a hungry people, and a spark from Heaven. In his book, The Secret of Christian Joy, Vance Havner wrote:
“The greatest need of America is an old-fashioned, heaven-born, God-sent revival. Throughout the history of the church, when clouds have hung lowest, when sin has seemed blackest, and faith has been weakest, there have always been a faithful few who have not sold out to the devil or bowed the knee to Ba’al, who have feared the Lord and thought upon His Name, and have not forsaken the assembling of themselves together. … God has always answered such supplication, filling each heart with His love, rekindling each soul with fire from above” (Old Tappan: Fleming H. Revel Co.; 1938; p. 24).
I hope you do realize that Havner is talking about you and me. It doesn’t matter how old or how young you are or how versed in the Bible you are … and the reason for that is that revival doesn’t come from us. We can’t “make” revival happen. “We cannot call fire down from Heaven to light the altar, as Elijah did, but we can get the kindling ready and offer ourselves as Spirit-drenched firewood,” amen? (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 121). In order for us to set the world on fire for Jesus, we must first kindle the spark that God has put in our hearts. “In the middle of a darkened culture, we can confess and turn from sin and let the revival fires of the Holy Spirit burn within us like a divine furnace” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 143).
Are you a divine furnace? Or has your fervor grown dim? Has sin dampened your spiritual zeal and hindered your testimony? Has the world seeped into your soul and into your habits? What changes need to occur in your life to open up your heart so that you can be filled with the Holy Spirit? As the great Scottish preacher Duncan Campbell believes, if we don’t come to God and confess and ask Him to keep the fire of the Holy Spirit burning within us, “other forces will take the field that will sink us deeper into the mire of humanism and materialism” (“Notes of an Address Given at a Meeting for Ministers at Oxford and Manchester.” In Revival in the Hebrides; self-published; 2015, p. 57).
We don’t have to wait for someone else to start the fire, my brothers and sisters. We don’t have to wait for a global or national revival. It can begin with us. We can become the spark that God needs by living in a state of ongoing, person revival. Your prayer to “Revive me” can then turn into prayers of “Revive us!” … which is why I have started opening up the sanctuary every Friday at 6 p.m. I’m making this space available to you so that you can come and pray … pray for yourself, pray for your family, pray from your co-workers, your community, your church family, pray for this nation … pray for revival. As we have seen today, revival can and often does start with a handful of praying people who develop an insatiable desire to plead with Heaven to start a fire … a fire in our hearts that will send sparks out into this darkened world and start a blazing inferno that will burn through the sin of this land and clears the ground for the work of the Holy Spirit. Don’t you want to be a part of that? I sure do!
God’s promise to Josiah then holds just as true for us today: “If My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2nd Chronicles 7:14).
With words that come from Psalm 119, let us pray right now for personal revival … say the words with me:
Lord:
Revive me according to Your Word (v. 25).
Revive me in Your way (v. 37).
Revive me in Your righteousness (v. 40).
Revive me according to Your judgments (v. 156).
Revive me according to Your justice (v. 149).
Revive me according to Your Word (v. 154).
Revive me, O LORD, according to Your loving kindness (v. 159).
Revive us again, O LORD, that Your people may rejoice in You.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Revival doesn’t happen with wishful thinking, my brothers and sisters, but with purposeful prayer, amen?
