This is continued from part one of my story, which I shared last week.

I wonder if my father thought that what had happened the night I said I wanted to become a Christian had been real. I was so young; could I really understand it? Could this short conversation which ended in me praying really make such a difference to me? Could it be true that I had accepted Christ at such a young age?

I do remember being in no doubt about it the next morning when I had an argument with a member of my family. I wanted us to tell my two year old sister, but this grown-up believed she couldn't understand yet. "No one is too young," I argued.

Arguing. Now there's a theme for my life. For not only did I accept the gospel as true, I would spend much of my young adult life arguing about it, and about just what the Bible says, but more of that in another post.

I am sure my parents at times doubted the veracity of my conversion- what parent of a sometimes rebellious child wouldn't? But I resolved that day to prove anyone who ever doubted my determination to follow Christ wrong.

There was something inside that was driving me towards and not away from God. It would never go away. Years later I would realize that it was God who had put it there.

From a young age, I was fortunate enough to attend a new church- part of what was eventually to be called Newfrontiers. Formed from a small group of people who had left an evangelical church because they spoke in tongues, the group originally met in Nigel Ring's house. It was what was then called a house church.

Nigel had struck up a friendship with a man called Terry Virgo, who had trained at London Bible College and been exposed to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' teaching and the charismatic movement. We joined the group just as they started to meet in the same building they still meet at - Clare Hall in Haywards Heath.

As a young child that church made a massive impact on me. Nigel's wife was my Sunday School teacher and I watched her prophesy on Sunday mornings. Soon I desired to prophesy also, and at one stage wrote my life's goals on the back of a postcard- one was to prophesy, and another was to score a goal in football- the second of which I never did quite manage.

Around this time, and while still very young I started to ask to be baptized. I wanted to join the many that were regularly baptized in what was a burgeoning church. My parents and the elders were at first reluctant.

Then, one year, I am fairly sure at the first ever Downs Bible Week, I received the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues. I remember the experience vividly to this day. With arms raised to God during the worship, I was surrendering to him, adoring him, and seeking him. I suddenly felt as though my arms had become a funnel. The love which had been flowing from me to God now returned much more strongly from him to me. My heart raced. I felt a warmth. I was enveloped by God. I was caught up in an incredible sense that he accepted me. I was being filled with the Spirit. I found myself feeling that the English words of the song we were singing just were not full enough to express what I was feeling back to God. I found myself sounding incoherent, but I didn't care. The words themselves were not important any more. I just wanted to praise him, and found that sounds and words I did not understand were coming out of my mouth. I was overwhelmed. The "tongues" weren't the most important bit- rather it was the sense of being loved by God and marked out as being one of his. Somehow I knew that at that moment he was putting a seal on me, and I would be his forever.

I believe that receiving the Spirit is always a conscious thing, and it always has this element of "now I really know God loves me." Many have described this as a form of direct assurance, or empowering for service.

Although I will never forget my first experience of the Holy Spirit, I have been blessed to have many such experiences since. Even as I write this I feel a yearning in my heart to know more of God and a greater sense of his empowering. Send more of your Holy Spirit, Lord, to me and the readers of this blog. As William Booth wrote years ago:

God of Elijah hear our cry
send the fire
to make us fit to live or die
send the fire today.
To make our weak hearts strong and brave
send the fire today....
look down and see this waiting host
we need another Pentecost
the revolution now begin
send the fire today....

There is no doubt in my mind that the greatest need of the church today is for a true revival. Revival is, of course, primarily something God does. It brings great joy and delight. I fear that it has become so alien to us that we almost dare not pray for it. I would love to challenge us to realize that revival is merely the intensification of the Holy Spirit’s normal work in the church. As such, it is possible to experience even a local revival, or a revival in an individual. We should pray that God will wake us up, then try to stir ourselves, for a revival is ultimately about the church rising up to grasp all that God has for her.

I found these words inspiring, and they make great words to pray. But don't merely pray and then be passive. Pray and then open your eyes to what God would have you do right now. It is interesting that the psalmist speaks of the need to go out to sow in tears in order to then reap in joy.

Psalm 126

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like streams in the Negeb!
Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.

May God grant us a revival of the kind of Christianity the Doctor is talking about here:

“It is one thing to believe the truth, it is a very different thing to apply it. We did listen, and apply the truth, initially, otherwise we would not be Christians at all. But it is possible for us … to go on, content with just listening to, or reading the truth, and never applying it to ourselves, or examining ourselves in the light of it. Is this not one of the most alarming possibilities in the Christian life?

… read the life of any man who has ever been used of God … in connection with revival, and you will always find that he was a man who had examined himself, and had become alarmed about himself. It has always been the thing that has led him to God and to prayer — his astonishment at himself. But if we do not examine ourselves we will never truly pray, and our lives will be lived entirely on the surface. Now, how little we hear about self-examination! Oh, we believe in having a quiet time, a short reading of Scripture, a hurried prayer, and we have done everything. But where is self-examination? How much talk is there about mortification of the flesh? (Colossians 3:5, Romans 8:13)

… allow the truth to search you … apply it to yourself … preach to yourself … talk to yourself … meditate about these things … bring yourself under conviction …[do] not let yourself escape. But …do not stop at that … allow the Scriptures to lead you to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the cleansing of His blood. In other words, any Christian who is depressed and morbid and introspective is really failing to apply the doctrine of justification by faith only. If you stop in your sins, if you stop in the dust and the ashes and in the sackcloth, I say, you are not scriptural. You must go on from that and look to Him, and apply again the truth to yourself. You must be certain that you end in a condition of thanksgiving and praise, with a realisation that your sins are covered and blotted out, and that you are renewed, and that you are able to go forward.”

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival (Westchester, Illinois, Crossway Books, 1987), pp. 80-83.

UPDATE- I have found the original source and as it is only now availble on the wayback machine include a copy here.
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The Doctor thinks we are crazy if we reject the notion of God intervenng directly in human history today. This quote makes me want to pray more for him to stretch out his hand and act:

'What is being taught in Christendom today is this, that since we have got the New Testament canon, since we have got the Word now, we do not need these direct interventions, we do not need God to speak to us directly, as He spoke to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and these patriarchs. We have got the Word now! Is this superior to the direct speech of God? I think we are mad! There is no other word for this. We are mad.

We are meant to be in a superior position to every Old Testament saint because of what has happened in our blessed Lord and Saviour! But this teaching would have us believe that we do not need this direct contact with God now, and that all that has come to an end since the formation of the New Testament canon.......remember that the great point of the whole teaching of the Bible, of all you can deduce from it, is to tell you that God is a God who acts. And our only hope this afternoon is that this is still true. He has not finished acting. He is going on....There is only one hope. That is that He is still the living and the acting God. Christ is at His right hand, and He is seated and waiting until His enemies should be made His footstool.......

I have been defending the faith - and people have praised me for doing it. Rubbish! What a miserable failure it has all been! From now on I am determined to do one thing only, and that is to give God no rest nor peace, until He does prove Himself and show Himself. I have expended so much energy in reasoning with the people about this faith. We have got to do that, it is part of preaching. But if we stop at that it will avail us nothing. But what I now am concerned about and I am concentrating on is this - asking God to show Himself, to do something,to give this touch, this manifestation of power. Nothing else will even make people listen to us. ....Nothing is going to call the attention of the masses of the people to the truth of this faith save a great phenomenon, such as the phenomenon of the day of Pentecost, the phenomenon of any one of the great revivals, the phenomenon of a single changed life. This is something that always arrests attention, maybe curiosity - what does it matter? The people come and listen......

We must not be content until we have had some manifestation of the activity of God. We must concentrate on this. This is my plea, that we concentrate on this, because it is the great message of the Bible....... Let us put it like this: Do we really believe that God can still act? That is the question; that is the ultimate challenge. Or have we, for theological or some other reasons, excluded the very possibility? Here is the crucial matter. Do we individually and personally really believe that God still acts, can act and will act - in individuals, in groups of individuals, in churches, localities, perhaps even in countries? Do we believe that He is as capable of doing that today as He was in ancient times - the Old Testament, the New Testament times, the book of Acts, Protestant Reformation, Puritans, Methodist Awakening, 1859, 1904-5? Do we really believe that He can still do it? You see, it is ultimately what you believe about God. If He is the great Jehovah - I am that I am, I am that I shall be, unchanged, unchanging, unchangeable, the everlasting and eternal God - well, He can still do it.

=====COPY OF ORIGINAL SOURCE AVAILABLE ONLINE HERE=============


The Evangelical Magazine of Wales April 1981

Magazine Index

THE LIVING GOD

D. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES

Each year since its inception in 1955 the Doctor attended the annual Ministers' Conference unless prevented from so doing by ill-health or absence from the country. He would chair the open discussions and bring the Conference to a memorable conclusion with a closing address. Here is one such address, delivered in June 1971, but still relevant.

I THANK God for this privilege of being allowed to do this year by year. I always feel it is a great responsibility, and yet it is, as I say, a very great pleasure and I am deeply grateful.

The remark that I want to try to give to you is in many ways a continuation of what we were discussing together on Monday night. The emphasis was that our troubles are mainly due to the fact that there is a lack of life amongst us. Ultimately all our problems can more or less be traced back to that - a lack of life. Now I want to go on from there to ask the question, Why is there this lack of life? Or at any rate, what is the main cause? If I were asked to name one cause, what is it? And I for myself would not hesitate to answer that it is due to a lack of a realization that God is a living God. We are not only in trouble about life in ourselves; we seem at times to forget that there is life in God.

It is this neglect of the living God - the God who acts. That is why I asked our friend Mr. Swann to read that portion of Scripture to us (Acts 13:24-42), because it is one of the many summaries that you have in the Bible that brings out this great point. Have you noticed how that so frequently in the Old Testament and in the New, when there is a crisis, when there is trouble, what the man of God does is to give a review of history. The psalmist does it constantly. You have several instances of it here in this book: Stephen did it in his great defence; Paul does it here in Antioch in Pisidia. A review, a grand review! Why? Just because it brings out the main element.

I feel that, as in the secular world, our greatest danger in the spiritual world is to miss the wood because of the trees. This is a perpetual thing. We are obsessed by details, over-concerned about particulars, and our greatest danger of all is to miss this whole, this grand whole, because of our inordinate preoccupation with these particular trees. I feel that at a time like this, and especially in these conditions, this is perhaps our greatest need. Our discussion which has just finished is, I think, an instance of it. It is inevitable. We cannot help this because we are in the flesh still. But I believe we have to be very careful about it, especially because it ultimately leads to the position in which (though it sounds almost incredible) our greatest sin of all is to fail to realize that God is an acting God - He does act.

Our whole position depends upon that: God's action in the past, God's action in the present, God's action in the future. Now I believe it is important that we should analyse for a moment the ways in which we have tended to forget that God is a God who acts. One, of course, is the danger always of religion. Religion is generally the greatest enemy of the Christian faith. To be a religious person is one of the greatest hindrances to becoming a Christian, because it gives certain satisfactions. And we know today that, speaking of the churches in general in this land, there are congregations with an alarming percentage of people who are religious but who are not Christians. Religion is dangerous, you see, for this reason, that it is always something that puts emphasis upon our activities, our practices - we practise religion. And thereby we tend to think that it is entirely a matter of our activities, our conduct and behaviour, with the result that God is nearly always forgotten - taken for granted, of course, but therefore forgotten.

Then another cause of this - which comes a little bit nearer to us, speaking as evangelical brethren - is that we become so immersed in our activities that we do not stop to think what we are doing, or why we are doing it. Professionalism is the greatest curse of the minister. And although we are born-again men, we are ever in danger of becoming professionals. We are involved in preparation of sermons and preaching them. We are announced to do it; it is a part of the machine. And we have pastoral duties, funerals to take and marriages. The pastor is a very busy man - and this has to go on and on and on. As I think I was saying on Monday night in that story about Wilberforce, one of the easiest things of all is for a man to forget his own soul and to forget God. Of course, he still gets on his knees mechanically and says his prayers, but sometimes he stops at that. Even praying is part of a routine, part of the thing to do, and there is no realization of the living God, this God who acts. So then, that is one of the causes why we are constantly falling into this particular error.

Another one, of course, and a very prolific one, is false evangelism. We are all familiar with this; we have all seen it, perhaps taken part in it. When I talk about false evangelism, I mean that type of evangelism which conceives of itself primarily as a matter of organizing a campaign. The church is losing numbers. What can we do? We can hold a campaign. You decide who to have as your missioner, and so on. The whole outlook is one of activity - what can we do? We must have a campaign. Or if you are eager young people, it is a part of the outlook and the routine, and certain students go on a campaign and decide which town to attack and to evangelize, and so on. That is the mentality. This is the way in which the thinking takes place.

NOW ... AND THEN

Now, you know, we have dealt with this many times in this conference. But there has been a very great departure here from what used to be the custom and the habit of our fathers. I do not mean our immediate fathers; I mean our great-great-great-grandfathers. You have to go back a long time. You see, when things were not going well in the churches, they reacted in a very different way. What they did was to say: 'What's the matter? Why has God left us? Have we offended Him? There must be some cause for this.' So the minister and deacons would talk together and they would decide to call a day of prayer and humiliation. Humiliation was the word used - prayer and humiliation, sometimes accompanied by fasting. And they would tell God. They felt that they had wounded Him and hurt Him, that He was obviously turning His back on them like a wayfaring man. They would acknowledge and confess their sins and they would plead with Him to come back. That was their way. But, you see, that has gone, and it has been missing from the background of most who are troubled here today. Many of us, most of us by now probably, have seen the error of all this. But that has been our background, and these things tend to go on influencing us even though we have seen they are wrong.

Well then, what makes it so terrible is this, that when these arrangements are made and the organizations are set up and they have their committees to deal with this and that, generally, towards the end of the meeting, somebody will say: 'Ah well, of course, we must have some prayer backing.' Prayer backing! God as an afterthought! So you set up a subcommittee for prayer. And it is generally an afterthought, the last thing. You see, the whole approach is in terms of what man can do and human activity. God is only remembered almost casually at the end, and in a perfunctory manner. Then in the actual carrying out of the evangelism, the same thing comes in. The controlling idea has been this. Here is a statement made of the gospel. The people are asked to believe this and to receive it. And if they do so, they are told they are Christians. They take a decision, or they sign a form or a book or do something else. The whole emphasis again is, you see, upon man, upon man's response. A number of doctrines are put before him, and he is asked to receive them and to accept them and to believe them, and he is assured that if he does so he is a Christian. Now we know that that is Roman Catholic teaching. Their view is that what a man does is to accept the body of doctrine and of dogma that is put before him.

It seems to me that evangelicals in this country, speaking very generally, have been doing precisely the same thing. It is put not so much in terms of 'coming into contact with the living God', as of accepting a number of propositions. If you accept those, you are a Christian. 'Do you believe these things? If you do, all is well.' Now again, you see, the departure from the old evangelicalism is quite alarming. There you read, in biographies and church histories and so on, of men coming under conviction of sin, and perhaps it would last a long time. John Bunyan was eighteen months in tremendous agony of soul, searching for God. Now I have often heard evangelical people saying today that this was all wrong, that these people were ignorant. Why didn't they show the man salvation? Why eighteen months of repentance? He could be put right quite simply. Some evangelical organizations could put this man right in a matter of a few seconds. There is a verse - and a verse - one, two, three, four, five - got it all! But you see, the point then was that men conceived of salvation as coming to a knowledge of the living God, not accepting a number of propositions. So while the emphasis is on accepting a number of propositions or a statement, God is really forgotten. I know they all believe in God, they may make statements about God. But what is never brought out is that the essence of this matter is a meeting with God - doing business with God.

The old preachers, you see, brought this out very well. I remember having a most excellent illustration of this in my first year in the ministry in 1927. I had the great privilege of preaching on that occasion with a great old preacher in South Wales, called W. E. Prytherch. We were preaching together at Pyle in Glamorgan, and I had to preach first. The old man went up after me. He would not preach, but he said that I had stated the gospel and that he had a function to perform. And he said that he was just a little agent representing a great master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now what he told the people was this - he didn't simply ask the people to believe what I had been saying-he put it like this: 'This is what I am here for-to tell you that Jesus Christ is in the office now. Come and see Him - the Person - go to your office.' With a break in his voice - and what an extraordinary voice it was - he said, 'Go to your office.' Well, it was the personal encounter. That is the thing that I am concerned to emphasize. We, in our false views of evangelism, tend to put our stress upon the acceptance of a number of statements, and we are then incidentally forgetting God, and forgetting that the main thing is the activity of God.

APOLOGETICS?

But then, coming still nearer to our subject, I have a terrible feeling - and it is terrible, because I am one of the chiefest of the sinners - that nothing has so caused us to forget God and to forget the living, acting God, as our concern about apologetics. We have regarded ourselves as the defenders, the guardians, the custodians of the faith. We are that of course, but I am afraid that we have often stopped at that, and we have given the whole of our time and energy to defending the faith, defending the propositions- and forgetting God. Now you see, it is all a question of balance. We have got to indulge in apologetics. But what worries me, as I look back across my life, is that I have probably given too much time and attention to apologetics. Thirty years ago it was still more necessary than now. It is always necessary, but then we were still fighting the old liberalism up to a point. And quite unconsciously one could be found a sort of an apologete and no more. God was really forgotten, and one got engaged in endless discussions and debates. You were defending the truth at this point and that point, and safeguarding the whole position, steadying the ark and putting your hands on it to steady it - forgetting God! I am quite sure of it, and I plead guilty to it myself. One often indulged in these apologetics in a more or less carnal manner, and one enjoyed scoring points off the other side. But the terrible thing was that God tended to be forgotten. So let us be very careful about this matter of apologetics. Let us keep it in its place. I am almost coming to the conclusion that the only place that apologetics should have is briefly in an introduction to a sermon. If you spend the whole of your time on apologetics, you are really not preaching the gospel. Start with it if you like and just do a little demolition work; but do not pat yourself on the back and go home and have a wonderful meal because you have just pulled down a rotten building! The question is: Have you put anything up? The danger of being negative! And the danger of feeling 'It's our gospel, my church I am protecting, my interests' - and forgetting God!

Or then, still more recently, something else has been happening, which has aggravated this whole tendency to forget God. And this is the new and increasing preoccupation with what is called in general 'the application of the gospel'. Now we are creatures, you see, of reaction. The charge that has been brought for many years against those of us who are evangelical is that we have taken no interest in social and political conditions. This has been the constant attack against us. All our interest was in our little personal souls and their salvation - forgetting the world. We have not had a social emphasis. This attack, of course, was made for years and years upon us. I remember very well in about 1947 reading a book by Dr. Carl Henry, soon afterwards the editor of Christianity Today. He wrote a book with the title of The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, and I read this with great interest. He tells us that the lost note in Fundamentalism was this lack of social interest. I remember feeling at the time what a serious misjudgment this was, what an utterly false diagnosis. He was dealing with American Fundamentalism; and he said the missing note in American Fundamentalism was this lack of a social interest. I remember writing to him at the time and discussing it with him afterwards and venturing to suggest to him that he had missed the point, and that the real trouble - the missing note in American Fundamentalism as I have met it and known it - was a lack of spirituality, a carnality, professional evangelism, professional apologetics. That was the thing that appalled me when I first met American Fundamentalism - the sheer carnality of the outlook. They were more like business men than Christian men.

Well now, you see, the more intellectual men began to react to this criticism, and they said: 'We must bring in this note!' And they have been doing so ever since. So that now it is almost the controlling idea - Christian philosophy! You know, it has been going for a long time in Holland. It was started there by Professors Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven. And this is a teaching which talks about Christian politics, Christian medicine, even Christian mathematics, Christian everything! It is this idea of law and of spheres, and so on. Well now, this has come down in many, many different ways, sometimes almost purely philosophically. I remember attending a conference in the South of France in 1953. And, to be honest and to be helpful, I have got to say this: I had to keep on reminding myself that I was in a Christian conference! I had to remind myself of it, because all the papers were entirely philosophical, and the arguments and disputations were almost entirely on that level. There was virtually no prayer at all. It was all a question of papers and of discussions, but it was a Calvinistic conference.

'CHRISTIANITY AND.........'

This is the thing that has now come in like a flood into evangelicalism, particularly in England. Everybody is talking about the Christian attitude towards this and that. I happened the other day casually to pick up the syllabus of a well-known Christian organization, and I noticed that the next two meetings are to be on these things. The first is to be on 'The Christian attitude towards strikes', and the other on 'The Christian attitude towards art'. You see, this is the thing! We have been missing this. And some of them press it so far as to say that if you want to evangelize the modern world, you have got to know something about politics, you have got to know something about art, you have got to know something about literature, you have got to know something about novels, the modern drama, the modern films - and so on. The argument is that you cannot evangelize the modern man if you cannot speak to him in his own idiom, if you do not know how he thinks. So you have got to familiarize yourself with these things. I do not know that I have told you here of an experience I had about fifteen months ago. I was preaching in a certain place, and a young man and his wife, who were going to be missionaries, were very kindly driving me there and back. They belonged to the church where I was preaching. As we were going home that night, the wife, sitting at the back, suddenly burst upon me, 'Could I ask you a question?' I said, 'Yes, what is it?' 'Now', she said, 'what's your view about reading modern novels?' I was somewhat taken aback, because I knew that she was in a well-known missionary training college. I said, 'Why do you ask that question?' She replied: 'I am in great trouble about it in my college. I am actually being persecuted.' 'What's this?' I asked. 'Well', she said, 'one of our lecturers told us that if we want to evangelize the modern man, we really must know what he reads, what he is talking about, the way in which he thinks.' So now, one of the first things she has to do is to read modern novels. The lecturer had commanded certain novels. 'I read one of them', said this candidate. 'You know, it did me such harm, and it made me so unhappy and so miserable that I decided I should not read another one. I could see no purpose in it and it did me great harm. I refuse to read any more.' She added 'I am now being attacked by my fellow-students and by the lecturers. They say I am not doing my duty, and I cannot be an effective missionary' - because she was not reading these modern novels! I said: 'Didn't they tell you that you ought to spend three to six months in a public house every night, so that you could evangelize drunkards? Did they tell you that?' No, they had not told her that! I said: 'They should have - to be logical - they should have!' - But this is the attitude. What does it mean? It means that God is forgotten. You see, we do it all.

Now, the extraordinary thing about this is that this teaching has come from the Free University of Amsterdam, the great Calvinistic College, founded by Abraham Kuyper in 1880, the great bulwark of the Reformed Faith. That is where it has come from. This is what is so interesting. Calvinism, which has always exalted the sovereignty and the glory of God, has now become thoroughly Arminian in this matter! God is more or less forgotten. And that outlook I met in America two years ago, where even in well-known seminaries they on the whole did not believe in preaching any more. What you do is this: you go to people's houses and you start talking politics to them, and you show the defects in their politics and try to introduce them to Christian politics. Or, if they are interested in art, you see paintings on the wall and you start talking about modern art; you expose the wrongfulness of modern art and its background, and then you tell them about Christian art - and so on. That is the way in which you evangelize. The declaration, such as Paul made in Athens - 'whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you!' - that is out. You do not declare Him with a dialogue! You hold a discussion. So you see, in this way God, I maintain, is being forgotten. The whole emphasis is upon our trying, our becoming well-versed in these various disciplines and interests and aspects of culture today. This is the way. Brethren, I maintain that this is a denial of God - the living, acting God and His sovereignty in all these matters!

THEOLOGICAL SCHOLASTICS

I must go one further step. I believe the same thing is happening in the realm of what I call a 'theological scholasticism' which is beginning to manifest itself amongst us - a 'theological scholasticism' in which we talk about the doctrines of grace instead of talking about God, the doctrines of salvation instead of Christ, the living Saviour. I believe that this is a new form of Deism. I could convict so many today of a new Deism. You know what that means. It took this form at the beginning of the eighteenth century: God was regarded as the great Creator, described as a great watch-maker. He made the watch, He wound it up, and then He put it down and He has no more to do with it. That was their way, you see, of denying miracles. Miracles are nonsense, they said. God does not interfere. He has made the watch, He has put it down, and on it goes; He does not interfere with it. Deism! Well, I suspect a new kind of Deism is with us. I was referring to it partly yesterday in talking about miraculous healing and miracles and things of that kind. On some sort of theological and biblical grounds, as they would claim, they say that miracles cannot happen today, because all this ended with the Apostles. As if to say, 'Oh yes, God acted then; but He hasn't acted like that since.' He is shut out, on a priori grounds, on what they call biblical and theoretical grounds. They say, 'God does not act like that now.' They are shutting Him out. Is not that Deism? Who has given them the right to say this? The Scriptures do not say it, but they are saying it.

The fact is, of course, that there are many such people, who not only will not admit the possibility of miracles today, or at any time since the apostolic era, but equally reject the possibility of demon-possession today. They are dismissing it all as psychological. They will not grant that it is possible for a person to be demon-possessed today. They admit, of course, that it happened in New Testament times; but, they say, not now. I am not imagining all this. I have been involved in discussions about it, and I know that this is their standpoint. They will not accept the possibility of demon-possession today. It is all explained in terms of psychology. This is as if to say, you see, that because, on their understanding of it, God had decided at the end of the apostolic era that He would not interfere any more in a miraculous manner, the devil also very kindly and very politely said, 'Well, I will not act either.' That is what it comes to. You see, the thing is monstrous and ridiculous. In other words, these men have worked themselves into a theoretical and academical theological position in which God is not allowed to act, and the demons are not allowed to act; there is no spiritual activity. What is Christianity? Well, Christianity is an acceptance of a body of doctrine, and a discussion of this and a defence of this, and an attempt to understand it more and more.

Now I say that this shuts out God. The fact that men talk a lot about God does not mean that they really believe in the living God. They are talking about God; they are making statements about God; they are experts on the attributes of God; but they seem to shut out the living God, God Himself, the acting God. By their theories, He is not allowed to act. This is Deism; it is a kind of theological scholasticism. And this is the terrifying thing, that you can be talking about God and His attributes and so on, and yet have no contact with and no personal knowledge of this living God. I am not exaggerating, brethren, I am speaking solemn truths and facts. You can find some of the highest and most orthodox seminaries and collections of Christian men, reformed, Calvinistic, orthodox up to the latest dot, and the guardians of this faith, and some of them never have a prayer meeting and never talk about prayer. As I say, in their actual teaching they exclude the activity of the spiritual realm directly and immediately today, whether from the side of the Holy Spirit, or from the side of the evil spirits.

REVIVAL - DANGEROUS?

In the same way, of course, they are not interested in the whole notion of revival. They never talk about it; in fact, they dislike it. Revivals are regarded as enthusiasm, as something excessive, dangerous, ecstatic. They say this is not what is needed. We have received everything, we are born again, we have the Scriptures. What we need to do is just to go on to understand the Scriptures more deeply. They not only do not expect the Spirit to come upon them, but they do not like teaching which suggests that He can come, and that we should pray for Him to come. All this is disliked. Now I am not imagining this. I could prove this to you. Those of you who have the three volumes of Charles Hodge on Theology, observe the amount of space which he gives to the Holy Spirit in those three volumes; observe the amount of space he gives to revival. You can do the same with the works of Warfield. I say this with profound regret, because of my debt to these men. But I think that was the great weakness in their whole position, as it was still more in the case of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck of Holland. The result is that today institutions that were founded as bastions of orthodoxy have become hotbeds of modernism and liberalism. And I would attribute it entirely to this, that it had become theoretical, intellectual; it has become an intellectualism, God is shut out, even though they are always talking about God. This is the tragedy of the situation, and it reminds us of the subtlety of the devil.

This further shows itself in this way, in an antipietistic attitude. Pietism has become a term of abuse by now. When you talk about the subjective element and the experimental, it is dismissed as Pietism. It has been a word of taboo for years on the Continent, and in Holland in particular, where they call it either Pietism or Methodism. They dislike it; they show bitterness with respect to it. It is astounding that many who claim to be the most biblical of all men should react even with temper and with an element of violence against what they call Pietism. They dislike the eighteenth century, and so on.

GOD WHO ACTS

Well now, these are the ways, I think, in which unconsciously so many of us have been forgetting God, the living God. Why is this so wrong? There is only one answer: because it contradicts the main message of the Bible. The main message of the Bible is to tell us about the activity of God. What did the men filled with the Holy Spirit talk about on the day of Pentecost? Well, fortunately we have the evidence of the people who were there. These men 'were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?' Then the list of the people follows - '. . . Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues' - speak what? the wonderful experiences we have had? No, - 0'the wonderful works of God.' That is the theme of the whole Bible. The Bible is the record of the wonderful works of God. It is not a textbook of theology primarily; it is a history book, the history of the wonderful works of God. The Bible is really the history of the salvation of God. In order to be that, it has to start with the beginning: the creation and so on. But its real message is God's activity in the redemption of a fallen human race. Is not that its message from beginning to end? 'In the beginning God created.' How can we possibly go wrong after that? But we do - we forget that it all begins with God.

Then the story goes on. Every time man acts, he always does something wrong, doesn't he? He sins, he rebels, he goes astray in his cleverness, and so on. And the whole thing had ended, were it not that God comes in. Isn't it amazing how we can miss this? Adam and Eve listen to the devil, you see, and they sin, and they immediately realize they have done wrong, and they are alarmed and they are troubled, and they go and hide. God comes down - God coming down! - in the cool of the evening, and He shouts, 'Adam, where art thou?' And out they come, trembling. God - God coming down! This is a summary of the whole message. I wish I had the time just to take you through the whole thing again. You say that we know all this. I know. The people to whom the psalmist recapitulated the history, they knew. And you remember what old Peter says in his second Epistle. He is going to die, he says. What is he going to do with them? Is he giving them a new message? No. He is reminding them of the things they already know. Why? Well, because although they knew them, they had forgotten them. The greatest need in the Church and the greatest need of ourselves is to be reminded of what we know. 'Though you know them', says Peter, 'and are established in the present truth' - and he keeps on repeating this. Yea, he says, while I am in this tabernacle I am to go on reminding you. Is it not tragic that we need to be reminded of the central thing? We are experts on details, but we have forgotten the centre. So we need to be reminded of all this.

The Bible is full of it. God did not stop acting when He came down to the garden of Eden. He went on acting. The tower of Babel, the flood before the tower of Babel, the call of Abraham - this is God acting, God interfering, God erupting into it all, choosing men, speaking, giving them a message - and on you could go. Go through it all. Those patriarchs: Jacob - that night and the ladder, the living God, the house of God, and the great vision. Are you asking me to believe that Jacob was in a superior position to us? Are you in the position in which you say, 'I wish I was living in the times of Jacob, and that I could have a direct contact with God'? That is what is being taught, you know. What is being taught in Christendom today is this, that since we have got the New Testament canon, since we have got the Word now, we do not need these direct interventions, we do not need God to speak to us directly, as He spoke to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and these patriarchs. We have got the Word now! Is this superior to the direct speech of God? I think we are mad! There is no other word for this. We are mad' We are meant to be in a superior position to every Old Testament saint because of what has happened in our blessed Lord and Saviour! But this teaching would have us believe that we do not need this direct contact with God now, and that all that has come to an end since the formation of the New Testament canon.

Well, go on, read about Moses, read about Joshua and about David. Go and read about the messages as they came to the great prophets. And all is God raising up, God acting, God interfering. Then, 'when the fulness of the time was come, God send forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.' And the whole time we have the law, the finger of God. 'The words I speak, I speak not of myself'. We see His utter dependence upon His Father. He is repeating the message that has been given to Him. He puts His whole emphasis upon the activity of God. This is a part of His self-humiliation. He does not empty Himself of His Godhead, but He empties Himself of some of the prerogatives, and He is living as a man, and He is dependent. That is why He used to pray so much. 'Our Lord had a greater need of prayer than you and I. We can get on much better without prayer than our Lord could!' That is our position! Why? 'We have got the New Testament canon - work out the theology! We do not need this now! We have got the truth; it is understanding of the truth that matters', we say! So we do not pray. So we do not know God!

Well, here it is. This is what I want to emphasize. Our Lord has given this teaching, and He returned to heaven. Has God stopped acting? Read the book of Acts. And it is a book of acts, as has been pointed out; not so much the acts of the Apostles, as the acts of the Holy Spirit, the acts of the risen Lord through these Apostles. That is what they keep on saying. When the people came to Peter and John in the temple and were ready to worship them, they said, 'It is not we. It is His Name, - through the power that is in His Name - that has done this wonderful thing.' All along they pointed people to Him. It is the activity of the risen Lord. Luke at the very introduction speaks of the things which 'Jesus began to do'. He is still doing them! The same Jesus! He has gone back, but He has not stopped acting. They are the acts of the living Lord and on they go. You find it running right through this book of the Acts of the Apostles. Then you get your Epistles with their great expositions. But does this mean that because we have got it all recorded, He has stopped acting? I suggest that that is to deny the message of the Scriptures. He goes on acting. He has not stopped acting. As He did not stop when He rose from the dead, and He did not stop when the Spirit was sent, still less has He stopped because we have got the New Testament canon.

GOD'S METHOD

He has gone on acting subsequently throughout the running centuries. We would not be here this afternoon, if it were not for the living and the acting God. The study of the Scriptures alone would have finished the Church long ago. Your great experts your orthodox men - it was dead - and it would have died! And what has kept the Church alive has been God acting in revival. John the Baptist was not the last man that God called - of course not! The Apostles were not the last men that Christ called. He has been calling men ever since. Brethren, He has called us. It is because of the acting God that we are where we are and what we are. But you see it, of course, supremely in this matter of revival. Jonathan Edwards is surely right when he says, that God's main method throughout the centuries of adding to the Church and adding to the number of the elect has been through revival. I think that this is true. I think the history of the Church proves this. That has been God's main method: the hundreds, the thousands are brought in in revival. There are conversions in the intervening periods, but the great additions - the majority of the people when the final number of the elect is made up and they are counted - you will find that the vast majority have come in during periods of revival. And revival is nothing but the direct activity of God the Holy Spirit, the mighty rushing wind, the Spirit coming down, the Spirit being poured out. It is Christ who does this. He is the One who baptizes with the Spirit. He pours out His Spirit. And this, I say, is what is meant by revival.

Now it sounds as if I am discouraging the study of the Scriptures and theology, which I am not. All I am saying is that if we stop at that, we are excluding God. Do that for all you are worth, but on top of it all, remember that the great point of the whole teaching of the Bible, of all you can deduce from it, is to tell you that God is a God who acts. And our only hope this afternoon is that this is still true. He has not finished acting. He is going on. The number of the elect is going to be made up; all Israel is going to be gathered in. What comfort have you got as you face your modern humanism and materialism, and the various philosophies, and communism, and everything that is so much against us? Is your study in the Scriptures, is your apologetics going to deal with this? If you believe that, you are the biggest fool in Christendom! There is only one hope. That is that He is still the living and the acting God. Christ is at His right hand, and He is seated and waiting until His enemies should be made His footstool. God knows when the end is coming. He alone knows it, but it is coming. It is coming! There is a day coming when Christ will come back conquering and to conquer. Let the world do what it will. Let hell be let loose. It will make no difference; there is nothing that 'can make Him His purpose forgo' - thank God! -'nor sever my soul from His love.'

OUR SUPREME NEED

Very well, what I deduce from all this is this, that our supreme need is the realization of the fact that God is alive, and that God acts and is still acting. History, of course, is so full of this. We are not the first to be fools and to go astray. Remember what they did at the end of the seventeenth, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Things were very bad then much as they are now. Robert Boyle felt that something must be done about it. What did he do? Oh appoint a lectureship; we are going to do it, you see! Lectureship! We are going to defend the truth. Bishop Butler - Butler's Analogy! What is he doing? Oh, defending the truth against the rationalists, Cambridge Platonists, the rationalists and the deists. Defending the truth! Wonderful - great men - great scholars! They are going to defend the truth of God! But do you remember the story of what happened? It was George 1, I think, who asked somebody one day about Bishop Butler: 'Is Bishop Butler dead?' 'No, Sir', said this man, 'he is not dead, but he is buried somewhere in the country.' What a good commentary that is on so much of our scholarship! Very learned, very wonderful, but buried in the country! It did not make the slightest difference. But something did make a difference. What was it? God laid His hand on George Whitefield and something happened. Is it not obvious? Now, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that we do not need apologetics; but it has a very small place - keep it there. This is the thing. What the Boyle lectures and Butler's Analogy did not do and cannot do, nor any other such similar endeavour, God comes in and does. He acts - the living God. He is still the same. And He has done it even since that eighteenth century.

'PROVE ME NOW'

And now it seems to me that it comes to this. I feel that the message that God is giving to us in this conference is in the words of Malachi. I believe He is saying this to us: 'Prove me now' - 'Prove Me. I am there; you prove Me.' This has become a tremendous conviction with me. Maybe because I am facing my last years and I have been defending the faith - and people have praised me for doing it. Rubbish! What a miserable failure it has all been! From now on I am determined to do one thing only, and that is to give God no rest nor peace, until He does prove Himself and show Himself. I have expended so much energy in reasoning with the people about this faith. We have got to do that, it is part of preaching. But if we stop at that it will avail us nothing. But what I now am concerned about and I am concentrating on is this - asking God to show Himself, to do something, to give this touch, this manifestation of power. Nothing else will even make people listen to us. See, you bring out your apologetics; the others will answer. Every time you say something, you may say 'This is unanswerable; nobody can turn this back.' The reviewers wholly dismiss you, say you are a fool, you are ignorant, you do not know what you are talking about. That is what they will say. I can tell you now. You write your books. That is what you will get. I have had it! You see, one scholar . . . and another answers him. And they are satisfied. No, no! Nothing is going to call the attention of the masses of the people to the truth of this faith save a great phenomenon, such as the phenomenon of the day of Pentecost, the phenomenon of any one of the great revivals, the phenomenon of a single changed life. This is something that always arrests attention, maybe curiosity - what does it matter? The people come and listen. And the preacher has his opportunity. Nothing will avail us save this manifestation of the activity of God.

My plea, therefore, is simply this - and with this I close - that we keep this ever in the forefront of all our thinking, all our preparation of sermons, and all our praying in particular. We must not be content until we have had some manifestation of the activity of God. We must concentrate on this. This is my plea, that we concentrate on this, because it is the great message of the Bible, so substantiated by the lessons of history. That is obviously today the only thing that gives us any hope as we face the future. And God seems to be saying that to us. 'Prove Me now. Try Me. Risk your everything on Me. Be fools for My sake. Cast yourselves utterly upon this belief.' Let us put it like this: Do we really believe that God can still act? That is the question; that is the ultimate challenge. Or have we, for theological or some other reasons, excluded the very possibility? Here is the crucial matter. Do we individually and personally really believe that God still acts, can act and will act - in individuals, in groups of individuals, in churches, localities, perhaps even in countries? Do we believe that He is as capable of doing that today as He was in ancient times - the Old Testament, the New Testament times, the book of Acts, Protestant Reformation, Puritans, Methodist Awakening, 1859, 1904-5? Do we really believe that He can still do it? You see, it is ultimately what you believe about God. If He is the great Jehovah - I am that I am, I am that I shall be, unchanged, unchanging, unchangeable, the everlasting and eternal God - well, He can still do it. And I believe He is saying to us. 'Try Me. Prove Me. Cast your all upon Me. Go on until I have given you the proof you desire.' Then we will forget the trees for a while, and we will see the grand power of our God, and God's gracious and eternal purposes in His dear Son. We will first be humbled, and I think many of us will feel that we have never been Christians at all. It will not be true; we are. But what we will experience then will be so great and glorious, so overwhelming, that we will scarcely believe that we have ever known anything about these things at all. May that day soon come!

* The Evangelical Magazine of Wales

I will simply let "The Doctor" speak for himself today. This has to be one of the most challenging quotes from him I have ever read:

". . . The secret of the early Christians, the early Protestants, Puritans and Methodists was that they were taught about the love of Christ, and they became filled with a knowledge of it. Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to witness; he will do it. He will know the power, the constraint, the motive; everything is already there. It is a plain lie to suggest that people who regard this knowledge of the love of Christ as the supreme thing are useless, unhealthy mystics. The servants of God who have most adorned the life and the history of the Christian Church have always been men who have realized that this is the most important thing of all, and they have spent hours in prayer seeking His face and enjoying His love. The man who knows the love of Christ in his heart can do more in one hour than the busy type of man can do in a century. God forbid that we should ever make of activity an end in itself. Let us realize that the motive must come first, and that the motive must ever be the love of Christ.

I end with the question which I asked at the beginning: To which of the circles do you belong? Are you pressing your way right into the centre? . . .

Are we pressing into the innermost circle? Are we seeking the Lord's face? Are we coveting the knowledge of His love? The Apostle prayed for every single member of the Church at Ephesus that he or she 'might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.' How tragic it is that any of us should be living as paupers, out on the cold street, while the banqueting chamber is open and the feast prepared. Let us search for the knowledge of the Lord in the Scriptures and read about it in the lives of the saints throughout the centuries. As we do so, we shall never be content until we are in the innermost circle and looking into His blessed face."

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. An Exposition of Ephesians 3: The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979, pp.247-253.

No, I am not back from my blogging semi-retirement! This blog is still on automatic pilot and is on a STRICT rev-limiter. Until such time as the complete draft of my book is in the hands of my publisher (which should be in 1 months time), I will not be posting more than Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Please pray for me as there is still much to accomplish although I do have a complete draft and am currently honing it in my spare time. Its time to share another quote from Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

If you look back across the history of the Christian Church, you immediately find that the story of the Church has not been a straight line, a level record of achievement. The history of the Church has been a history of ups and downs. It is there to be seen on the very surface. When you read the history of the past you find that there have been periods in the history of the Church when she has been full of life, and vigour, and power. The statistics prove that people crowded to the house of God, whole numbers of people who were anxious and eager to belong to the Christian Church.

Then the Church was filled with life, and she had great power; the Gospel was preached with authority, large numbers of people were converted regularly, day by day, and week by week. Christian people delighted in prayer. You did not have to whip them up to prayer meetings, you could not keep them away. They did not want to go home, they would stay all night praying. The whole Church was alive and full of power, and of vigour, and of might. And men and women were able to tell of rich experiences of the grace of God, visitations of his Spirit, a knowledge of the love of God that thrilled them, and moved them, and made them feel that it was more precious than the whole world. And, as a consequence of all that, the whole life of the country was affected and changed.”

Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1987). Revival (26). Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books

I wonder—when was the last time you heard another Christian preach or speak about conviction of sin? When was the last time you saw someone on the brink of salvation in tears of anxiety and burden because of a distinct awareness of their sinfulness? It seems to me that true conviction is not present as much as it should be today. If Spurgeon is right, if anyone has not experienced it, we should be very concerned about the validity of their salvation.

"First, regeneration will be shown in conviction of sin. This we believe to be an indispensable mark of the Spirit's work; the new life as it enters the heart causes intense inward pain as one of its first effects. Though nowadays we hear of persons being healed before they have been wounded, and brought into a certainty of justification without ever having lamented their condemnation, we are very dubious as to the value of such healings and justifyings. This style of things is not according to the truth. God never clothes men until He has first stripped them, nor does He quicken them by the gospel till first they are slain by the law.

When you meet with persons in whom there is no trace of conviction of sin, you may be quite sure that they have not been wrought upon by the Holy Spirit; for "when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." When the Spirit of the Lord breathes on us, He withers all the glory of man, which is but as the flower of grass, and then He reveals a higher and abiding glory. Do not be astonished if you find this conviction of sin to be very acute and alarming; but, on the other hand, do not condemn those in whom it is less intense, for so long as sin is mourned over, confessed, forsaken, and abhorred, you have an evident fruit of the Spirit. Much of the horror and unbelief which goes with conviction is not of the Spirit of God, but comes of Satan or corrupt nature; yet there must be true and deep conviction of sin, and this the preacher must labour to produce, for where this is not felt the new birth has not taken place."

— C. H. Spurgeon

I have been quoting from Spurgeon's The Soul Winner a fair bit lately. He is like a breath of fresh air. O for God to raise an army of preachers who truly understand the point he makes in the following quote:

"... to win a soul, it is necessary, not only to instruct our hearer, and make him know the truth, but to impress him so that he may feel it. A purely didactic ministry, which should always appeal to the understanding, and should leave the emotions untouched, would certainly be a limping ministry. "The legs of the lame are not equal," says Solomon; and the unequal legs of some ministries cripple them. We have seen such an one limping about with a long doctrinal leg, but a very short emotional leg. It is a horrible thing for a man to be so doctrinal that he can speak coolly of the doom of the wicked, so that, if he does not actually praise God for it, it costs him no anguish of heart to think of the ruin of millions of our race. This is horrible!

I hate to hear the terrors of the Lord proclaimed by men whose hard visages, harsh tones, and unfeeling spirit betray a sort of doctrinal desiccation: all the milk of human kindness is dried out of them. Having no feeling himself, such a preacher creates none, and the people sit and listen while he keeps to dry, lifeless statements, until they come to value him for being "sound", and they themselves come to be sound, too; and I need not add, sound asleep also, or what life they have is spent in sniffing out heresy, and making earnest men offenders for a word. Into this spirit may we never be baptized!

Whatever I believe, or do not believe, the command to love my neighbour as myself still retains its claim upon me, and God forbid that any views or opinions should so contract my soul, and harden my heart as to make me forget this law of love! The love of God is first, but this by no means lessens the obligation of love to man; in fact, the first command includes the second.

We are to seek our neighbour's conversion because we love him, and we are to speak to him in loving terms God's loving gospel, because our heart desires his eternal good.

A sinner has a heart as well as a head; a sinner has emotions as well as thoughts; and we must appeal to both. A sinner will never be converted until his emotions are stirred. Unless he feels sorrow for sin, and unless he has some measure of joy in the reception of the Word, you cannot have much hope of him. The Truth must soak into the soul, and dye it with its own colour. The Word must be like a strong wind sweeping through the whole heart, and swaying the whole man, even as a field of ripening corn waves in the summer breeze. Religion without emotion is religion without life."

— C. H. Spurgeon

Last Monday I shared some of the things that Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones believed we should not do when weighing whether what appear to be gifts of the Spirit are genuinely from God. This week I am sharing his view on the positive ways of testing and examining these gifts. My paraphrase of his tests is as follows:

1. We should use our human reasoning and understanding.

It's interesting to see his stress on wisdom, led, of course, by the Scriptures, but the use of our brains nonetheless. It's a sad indictment on much of the charismatic church, where Christians have often been encouraged to hang their brains on a hook on the way into church. To MLJ, the use of this reason is enabled and enlightened by the Spirit. He says, "It happens like this: the Holy Spirit enlightens the understanding. He does not make us Christians apart from the understanding. What he does is to lift the understanding up to a higher level. There is nothing wrong with reason except that it is governed by a sinful disposition, and that is why it can never bring us into Christianity or into the kingdom. But the Spirit can lift up the mind and the reason. A man is never saved against his reason and his understanding—never! What happens is that his understanding and his reason are enabled to see the truth which he formerly rejected."

2. We should test by comparing what is being said with the Bible.

MLJ made the excellent point that if the end result of any movement is to move away from what the Bible says, or even to study it less, that movement is clearly in error.

Here is a direct quote from him on this subject:

“. . . the answer is not to commit intellectual suicide, nor to stop thinking, nor deliberately to let yourself go and abandon the powers that God has given you. The answer is to trust yourself to the illumination and the guidance of the Spirit. . . .

It is to me one of the most wonderful aspects of this truth—how at one and the same time you can be gripped and lifted up by the Spirit and still be in control. But that is the glory of Christianity, that is what differentiates it from everything that is false and spurious. So I argue that the first thing we have to do is to use our reason and understanding, the very powers that God has given us. Indeed I want to put this as a positive assertion, that it is the very central glory of the Christian salvation that takes up the whole man. It takes up his mind, his heart, and his will.

. . . These, then, are the two main principles involved in testing the spirits. We must use our minds and our understanding, and must never ‘let ourselves go’. We must not abandon ourselves for in doing so we lose the ability to be critical, to evaluate, to prove, and to control. Above all, we must apply the Scriptures. We have the Spirit in us, our mind is enlightened, and we have the Scriptures. We must put these things together. Nothing is more dangerous than to put a wedge between the word and the Spirit, to emphasize either one at the expense of the other. It is the Spirit and the word, the Spirit upon the word, and the Spirit in us as we read the word.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable, (Eastbourne UK: Kingsway Communications, 1995) 199, 201, 205.

A few days ago, I quoted from Spurgeon's The Soul Winner. I thought I would share another quote from that first chapter again today. It is interesting in the context of today that some argue against emotionalism in preaching, while others try and by human effort create an atmosphere. Spurgeon would disagree with both approaches:

"Nor is it soul-winning, dear friends, merely to create excitement. Excitement will accompany every great movement. We might justly question whether the movement was earnest and powerful if it was quite as serene as a drawing-room Bible-reading. You cannot very well blast great rocks without the sound of explosions, nor fight a battle and keep everybody as quiet as a mouse. On a dry day, a carriage is not moving much along the road unless there is some noise and dust; friction and stir are the natural result of force in motion. So, when the Spirit of God is abroad, and men's minds are stirred, there must and will be certain visible signs of the movement, although these must never be confounded with the movement itself. If people imagine that to make a dust is the object aimed at by the rolling of a carriage, they can take a broom, and very soon raise as much dust as fifty coaches; but they will be committing a nuisance rather than conferring a benefit. Excitement is as incidental as the dust, but it is not for one moment to be aimed at. When the woman swept her house, she did it to find her money, and not for the sake of raising a cloud.

Do not aim at sensation and "effect." Flowing tears and streaming eyes, sobs and outcries, crowded after-meetings and all kinds of confusions may occur, and may be borne with as concomitants of genuine feeling; but pray do not plan their production."

— C. H. Spurgeon

As a believer living in the West, I'm constantly reminded of the need to exercise discernment, especially when it comes to matters such as claims of spiritual gifts and the activity of the Holy Spirit. I thought today I would go to one of my favorite works by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable.

Directly before this quote, the Doctor points out that in all ages there are two main dangers confronting Christians when they need to evaluate claims regarding the reappearance or revival of gifts in the church. The first danger, he says, is to immediately reject such reports, which he is not afraid to call "quenching the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19). He goes so far as to call that the more common danger. The second risk is, of course, the opposite to this—uncritical acceptance of everything, which leads to extremism.

He is always very systematic in his thinking, so he goes on to list why we need to be careful to weigh and test everything we hear about. My paraphrased version of his reasons why we need to be discerning are as follows:

1. The Bible tells us to. (See, for example, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22.)
   
   
2. Studying Church history throughout the ages should strongly warn us of the consequences of being naive and accepting everything that is reported to be a "work of God's Spirit."
   
   
3. Clear evidence we hear of demonic activity in the occult. He argues that it is even possible for evil spirits to "heal" people.
   
   
4. The amazing things that hypnotists can make their subjects do.
   
   
5. The clear weakness and suggestability of people as demonstrated to us through modern psychology and what is called "hysteria."
   
   
6. The fact that there is a real devil whose goal is to destroy us, and as a result inspires and empowers his servants.

Matthew 24:24: For false christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible.

He then stresses that he is concerned to warn those who are passionate about God, and open to him acting today in dramatic ways. He is clear in the context that he would count himself among that number. The Doctor was clearly not an extreme cessationist.

In this quote he explains what we should not rely on to enable us to make appropriate judgments. Next week we will examine the tests that the Doctor believes should be applied.

I am speaking particularly to those good, honest, spiritually-minded men and women of any age whatsoever who are longing for revival and reawakening . . . For it is your very anxiety to know the fullness and the baptism of the Spirit that constitutes your danger and exposes you to this possibility of not using your critical faculties as you should. . . .

Do not rely only upon your inward feelings . . . that is entirely subjective, and while I do not discount the subjective altogether, I say it is not enough. You must not rely solely upon some inner inward sense, because that is the very thing the devil wants you to do. That means you are not using your full critical faculties; deciding in a purely emotional and subjective manner.

. . . do not be swayed even by the fact that something reported to you makes you feel wonderful . . .You may say, ‘I have never known such love, I have never known such peace, I have never known such joy’ . . . Do not say ‘I feel this is right, everything in me says this is right . . .’ It is not enough. The devil is as subtle as that . . .

Lastly, do not base your judgment on the people who are . . . making their report to you . . . It is often some of the best, most honest and sincere people who can be most seriously led astray . . . The devil does not waste any of his time and energy with your smug formalist — he is safely asleep, already under the drug of the devil, though he is sitting in a Christian church.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable, (Eastbourne UK: Kingsway Communications, 1995) 193-195. Emphasis mine.

For more information on Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones see this summary post, my Lloyd-Jones page, or the MLJ Recording Trust.

In 10th place is one of the first articles I ever wrote, although it was not published on the blog until more recently. It discusses the "Toronto Blessing."

In at 9th place is my series of posts on New Word Alive 2008.

If you are an avid C. J. Mahaney listener, you may well have heard of a series of talks he did many years ago on people in the Bible who God killed. In which case, I've got a real treat in store for you! But first, let me set the context.

I would like to share with you a few sermons over the coming weeks or months that have impacted me so much that I still remember them. I am convinced that the gentle "drip drip" effect of being continually exposed to good teaching over many years is as important as the moments of great impact and decision. But, by the nature of things, we don't remember those sermons!

Some messages do consciously shape us, however, creating a moment of transaction between us and God. Often we remember how we felt when we heard them as if it were yesterday, even years afterwards. This is one such talk. I would love to hear from others about sermons they remember as having transformed them in a similar way.

To set the scene, I was still a young boy. I had somehow persuaded my parents to let me go into the adults' meeting in a tent at Downs Bible Week, an early Newfrontiers conference.

Mahaney was a phenomenon even back then. He was funny, engaging, easy to understand, and truly passionate. He was speaking about the holiness of God, and by honing in on the people God killed, certainly got my attention. This was a side of God I hadn't really given much attention to.

This talk was very well received. In fact, you could have cut the air with a knife that night because of the sense of the presence of God in the room. It was one of the very few times in my life when I caught something of the smell of revival. That night I experienced for the first time a sense of the weighty presence of God in all his holiness that both attracted and terrified me. I knew then that this was what a revival would feel like. If I had known how seldom I would experience the same sensation in the ensuing years, I would not have wanted to leave that tent. Sometimes today I cry out to God that he would reveal himself in such a way again. When we pray for revival, I'm not entirely sure we know what we are praying for.

Judging by the heavy sense of conviction in the room, many of us were totally undone that night. I know that for me, I would never be able to treat God as flippantly or irreverently again. That night kindled in me a healthy respect for God which has never left me. The Bible both commands us to fear God, and then tells us not to be afraid of him. Or, as Newton puts it:

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved.
One of my most enduring memories of that evening all those years ago was speaking to a member of our church who, with eyes brimming with tears, said that they felt they had just begun their Christian life all over again—if that were possible. There were many who felt the same way, wondering if they had ever been a Christian up until that point.

The sermon seemed as though it was lost to the sands of time. But in response to my appeal for old sermons, I like to imagine that someone was rummaging through their attic and finding an old tape. As a result, here it is! I think it's a VERY important talk and am glad I have been able to (with permission) unleash it on the world once again. You can download it here or listen online using the embedded player:



Here are some extracts from the talk—the first was in the context of talking about whether God's punishment of Adam's sin was excessive.

"I don't in any way believe that that was too harsh. He was warned. God made every provision ... When you sin, you forfeit any claim you had to human existence, because the purpose of his life and Eve's life, and our lives was to represent the holiness of God. I don't believe it's unjust for God to take away the gift of life that he gave freely if it wasn't used for the purpose for which he gave it. Because when we sin, what we are saying is—we are not just making a mistake—we are saying no to God's law; we are saying your law is not good; we're saying—God, your law does not cut it, I'm not under your authority; my judgment is superior to yours; I'm defying and opposing you, who in reality I owe everything to."

"The amazing thing is not that God has judged people in the Bible; it is that God has not judged everybody."

"I have seen some people teach on holiness and they almost seemed happy some people were going to hell."

"God does not delight in sending people to hell ... His judgment is not like our temper that flares up in an instant."

"As soon as that apple hit Adam's lips and Eve's lips, they should have been wasted immediately, but God was merciful . . . justice was delayed so that grace might enter history."

"The issue is not why does God punish sin, but why does he permit the ongoing rebellion of man?"

There was also an endearing moment, when in the midst of some hilarious Mahaney jokes, he turned to my mentor, Henry Tyler, who was on the stage beside him and said, "Henry, I don't think Martyn Lloyd-Jones would have approved of this exegesis, do you?" It was a funny and intimate moment that nicely offset the conviction and passion of much of the sermon. While I am not sure that Lloyd-Jones would have approved of the humor, I like to think he would definitely have approved of the life-transforming effect on one young boy, and I suspect many others sitting in that circus top tent on a racecourse at Plumsted that evening.

Do you remember this sermon or one of Mahaney's other ones on God killing people? What impact did it have on you?

********

This talk is reproduced with the permission of Newfrontiers. Visit their website for further free downloads from a variety of Newfrontiers events.

UPDATE - Todd Bentley has now stepped down from ministry after separating from his wife.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I published some posts last week on the events in Lakeland, Florida. Terry Virgo has now made available online a talk on the subject that he gave on the events at the recent Newfrontiers Prayer and Fasting leaders meeting. You can download it or listen to it here.

UPDATE - Todd Bentley has now stepped down from ministry after separating from his wife.

Over the last few days we have been reflecting on events in Florida. This will be the final post. To read the complete series, please visit the following posts:

• Todd Bentley and the Lakeland, Florida ‘Revival Meetings’
  
  
• Worship at the Lakeland, Florida ‘Revival Meetings’
  
  
• What is Happening in Lakeland, Florida, by Jesse Phillips
  
  
• Terry Virgo Continues His Reflections on the Lakeland, Florida ‘Revival Meetings’
  
  
• Jesse Phillips Reflects on the Lakeland, Florida ‘Revival Meetings’
  
  
• More Reflections from Jesse Phillips on the Lakeland, Florida ‘Revival Meetings’

My dear friend, Jesse Phillips, concludes his report as follows:

“As I conclude, let me say that I have tried hard to withhold coming to many firm conclusions because I was only there one night. There are other things I have heard which have gone on in the past about which I am not going to comment. Instead, I have tried to limit my remarks only to those things that actually happened while I was there. I would have the following two main warnings, which seem pretty basic to me:

First, beware of the tendency to overstate what’s going on. One of the interesting things about this whole event is that it is the first time something of this scale has taken place in the blog era. News about Lakeland is getting out at an amazing rate. After just 45 days, it’s been fascinating to see how quickly the world has learned of it and started talking about it. In my former blogging career, I read a Challies article about how the blogosphere has contributed to a resurgence of interest in reformed doctrine, and I mused at how technology might impact the charismatic aspects of our doctrine as well, renewing an interest in revival.

I guess the caution would be that things look a little different on television than they do when you are there in person. I did watch one night on God TV, just to check it out, and then closed the computer, opened my Bible, and had a pretty significant encounter with the Lord, being filled with the Spirit and ministered to by God so that my faith was increased. No doubt God can use the Internet or a television broadcast to minister to us, speak to us, and fill us. Of course, when I was actually there, I did not have such a significant encounter with God. I guess the caution would be that some of the things that are being said—both good things and bad things—by people who have never actually been present at any of the meetings can tend to overstate what’s actually going on. For example, this has been compared to the Toronto Blessing. When I first heard about it, I wondered if it might be true that God was doing something like he did in Toronto again. But having been there, it really doesn’t seem very much like what happened in the mid-90’s at this point—not that it couldn’t grow into that. But it seems like comparing it to that time of refreshing is an exaggeration. It seems like a smaller group of people are getting more world-wide attention because of technology, although to the degree that it stirs people to pray and thirst for more of God, it can be a good thing.

Second, beware of the tendency to discount everything. Let me end by saying that we should avoid the tendency to write everything off. For example, when I heard about the girl being raised from the dead, my initial response was to say, “Yeah, right.” But I think the Lord kindly asked me why my inclination was immediately to doubt. I do believe that miracles are for today, so why should I find it so difficult to believe it when one actually occurs? Just because there are some oddities or theology that I find unbiblical doesn’t mean that God is not still working. There are many miracles being done. God is healing people. This is something that should be celebrated. This is the kind of thing that the New Testament prescribes as part of our experience; that God apportions various kinds of gifts, including healing and miracles. Therefore, just because we didn’t have an amazing encounter with God, or just because we don’t have a gift of healing, this should not cause us to doubt people who do encounter God at these meetings and give testimony to gifts of healings.

I pray that God uses what is going on and the attention it is receiving to cause the world to begin to pray for revival so that this little shower in Lakeland can grow into a storm.”

— Jesse Phillips
E-mail: me@jessephillips.net

Having shared my own thoughts, along with Jesse's view of the worship, and some other events of the evening, as well as his subsequent reflections, we resume Jesse's report today, beginning with more of his reflections on the meeting he attended.

“Fourth, there was not an emphasis on preaching from a doctrinal standpoint; rather, there seemed to be a great emphasis on faith, wholeness, healing, and inner light. Again, many things were said that are true. But I think what was missing was that the gospel was not preached very clearly. Even in its most basic forms—that Jesus died for my sins so that I don’t have to pay for them, even though I have offended a holy God—the gospel was not mentioned. Instead, something to this effect was said: “Jesus bore the crown of thorns to deliver us from our mental infirmities.” Although it’s true that we can be healed of mental illness through the powerful name of Jesus, the teaching left something to be desired. Many past revivals have centered around strong, anointed preaching. This one seems to have little or no strong preaching at all.

I also have a concern about what seemed to me to be a limited understanding of the nature of sin. The teaching in this meeting seemed to be that sin is primarily something that happens to us, and from which we need to be delivered, not something that first and foremost dwells in us. Some passages about healing through the blood of Christ which seem, in context, to refer at least to spiritual healing were applied in a way that made it seem that they referred exclusively to physical healing. There have also been some reports on YouTube and the God TV broadcast that Mr. Bentley has a personal angel called Emma. Again, I'm not speaking from experience, because nothing about angels ever came up the night I was there, but these reports would be concerning to me because I think they could potentially lead people astray.

During worship, I thought to myself, “With this level of anticipation and faith, imagine the impact a dynamic, theologically rich song like In Christ Alone would have!” My heart was aching to sing of the glorious reality of the blood and suffering of Christ, and then the absolute exultation of the line:

“Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me.”
Then, with an amazing realization of the power of the cross, to proclaim:

“No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.”

In Christ Alone
Words and Music by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty
Instead, we sang about being a generation who will stand and fight.

So often I can be so theologically sound and doctrinal, but lack a sense of urgency, anticipation, and faith. I am lazy and comfortable with where I’m at. Then, in an environment of real faith and excitement, I think of the power that a theologically sound and rich song and the gospel message would have in that context. I was disappointed because, while I think they do well in the faith category, I think more of an emphasis on the anointed preaching of the gospel and God-centered worship, not man-centered songs, would have a tremendous impact to stir religious affections and motivate a lot of the revival that's being prayed for.

I know some people will think I am quenching the Spirit by desiring more of an accurate theology or a clearer description of who this God is that we’re excited about, but why should we have to choose between doctrine and expectation? Why can’t we have it all? Our excitement is baseless and will never last if it is not grounded in the gospel, and all of our theology, however fine-tuned, will never by itself produce revival. I guess what you’re hearing are the longings of a reformed-charismatic who desires the best of both worlds, yet so often sins by doubting such a thing is possible.”

Continued in part 5 . . .

So far, I have shared my thoughts, and my friend, Jesse, has reported on the worship and other events of the evening he attended. Today he begins to reflect on his thoughts, looking back on that experience.

“Those are the events that stand out in my mind as I look back over the evening. I was able to draw out my father-in-law a bit, who has been to Toronto and Kansas City during various times of outpouring, and develop some perspective about the Lakeland Revival. There were several things that stood out to me:

First, there was an inspiring atmosphere of expectancy. As I said earlier, there was an amazing sense of hunger and thirst for God to do something great. Everyone present anticipated seeing amazing evidence of the active presence of God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that a sense of contentment and complacency is a great cause of apathy and hindrance to revival, and there was certainly no contentment present, but hunger. That was convicting. I thought to myself, “How often do you just show up and treat each Sunday like just another Sunday?” In the days after Toronto, I’ve heard, there was such an expectancy for God to work in power, that one pastor said, “I’m never going to look at Sunday the same way again.” Each time we gather, God will honor an atmosphere of faith and anticipation. I say this very hesitantly, but even if there is some bad theology mixed in, I still think God honors our faith and child-like trust in him. So I would encourage anyone who would be tempted to write this whole thing off as demonic, or to call Todd Bentley the anti-Christ, that there does seem to be a strong genuine thirst for revival and faith that God is stirring one up.

My initial thought about the whole thing when I first learned of it was that, like a brief shower during a great drought, this rain that was falling was going to demonstrate just how dry and thirsty the ground really is. That prophetic leaning was confirmed as I was there last night. There are certainly some healings taking place, and I think these outpouring of healings are exciting people and causing them to thirst for more, to desire a genuine outbreak of the presence of God. I was amazed at how many people seemed to be genuinely hungry for God to work wonders.

Second, I did not feel an incredibly strong sense of God’s presence. I’ve been part of meetings where the presence of God seemed so thick you could almost cut it with a knife. On the ride home we were talking about Toronto and how it was like that. There was one time in Toronto when a man from China was asked to intercede in his native tongue. When he started praying, the presence of God was sensed so strongly through the power of the prayer that people who did not even understand the language began weeping. Then, when asked to give the translation, the prayer was interpreted as, “God, the blood of the martyrs cries out to you.” The environment in this meeting was not like that. Again, I’m not saying that God wasn’t present. I know that he was present, but my subjective experience was that while there was certainly much excitement about the healings that had taken place, and people were certainly being rallied up to pursue the fire of the Spirit and healing power, there wasn’t an overwhelming sense of “Wow, God himself has drawn near!” Someone asked me today, “Is there a real move of the Spirit there?” I answered, “I don’t know.” I expected to walk into the room and instantly be aware of God's presence, and that something was 'going on.' That’s what can typically be the experience in seasons of outpouring. To me, the environment seemed more casual than that. It was very electric and excited, but lacking that general overwhelming sense of God’s immanence and holiness that just makes you stop in your tracks and worship.

Third, there were no prophecies. I’m not saying that there have to be prophecies in order for God to really work; I just thought it was interesting that there weren’t any prophecies shared. There was more of an emphasis on healing than hearing. With previous moves of the Spirit there has been a very strong prophetic tone, a great sense of what God was up to, and how each member present was to be a participant, and to be affected. Obviously, I was only there one night, but I must say I was hoping for more of a prophetic dimension. 1 Corinthians 14:1 makes it clear to me that one of the chief gifts of the Spirit to be desired is that of prophecy, when it comes to a large gathering. I’m not saying that there is no place for any other gifts—far from it—but I would have liked for there to have been more prophecy. I kept thinking to myself, “Lord, what are you saying through all of this? What are you doing in all of this?” I thought to myself, “I don’t just want to see God at work, I want to hear his voice also.” Galatians says that miracles come through “hearing with faith” (Galatians 3:5). I think that an added presence of prophecy and the preaching of God’s Word would have greatly complemented the miracles and greatly increased my anticipation as I heard with faith.

Continued in part 4 . . .

UPDATE - Todd Bentley has now stepped down from ministry after separating from his wife.

UPDATE - Terry Virgo has also made the audio of his short talk on Todd Bentley available.

I wanted to continue to post some reflections on the events occurring in Florida. Terry Virgo has now posted the second part of his comments, so I thought I'd share all the links we have so far, and then end the post with some quotes from Terry's latest post. There are also several more posts from Jesse Phillips which you can read by following the link at the end of the second post listed here.

My own reflections:

• Todd Bentley and the Lakeland, Florida 'Revival Meetings'

Jesse Phillips' report:

• Worship at the Lakeland, Florida 'Revival Meetings'
  
  
• What is Happening in Lakeland, Florida, by Jesse Phillips

Terry Virgo's posts:

• Lakeland, Florida (Part 1)
  
  
• Lakeland, Florida (Part 2)

A quote from Terry's second post follows. Terry begins by comparing current events with the 'Toronto Blessing,' about which I have written an extensive article previously. Terry says this:

"One of the features of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that affected so many in ‘94/’95 was the fact that it was something that could be ‘caught’ or ‘transferred.’ People who attended certain meetings became ‘carriers’ of a kind of ‘spiritual contagion’ which subsequently broke out elsewhere.

It would be true to say that this has been a mark of historic revivals. People visited the 1905 Welsh Revival, for instance, and on returning home, found that God’s presence had accompanied them in an extraordinary way . . .

Various phenomenal responses were noted when the Holy Spirit’s presence seemed to be strong. Some fell, some shook, and some laughed. Some seemed to happen in an involuntary kind of way; others perhaps were imitation. The pressure to conform on these occasions can become very great.

What influenced me most significantly was not the extraordinary physical manifestations, but the extraordinary lasting change that I observed in the lives of people I knew. Many displayed a new love and devotion to God and a new sensitivity to the Spirit’s presence. Some embraced a new commitment to Christ and his mission to win the world for his name. The physical manifestations gradually faded, but the transformed lives have remained . . .

How do we evaluate? We must get our doctrine clear.

We often imagine that God’s gifts are proofs of holiness or marks of maturity given only to the most advanced Christians to demonstrate God’s approval of their spiritual progress. But this isn’t the case. God’s gifts aren’t rewards! If that had been the case in Corinth, the church would have been completely devoid of gifts because, as D. A. Carson declares, the believers were ‘wretchedly, unacceptably, spiritually immature’ (The Cross and Christian Ministry, Baker 1993). But Paul said that they ‘didn’t lack any spiritual gift’ (1 Corinthians 1:7). In spite of their immaturity and carnality, God gives gifts freely on the basis of grace. Christ’s righteousness qualifies you to receive amazing gifts of the Holy Spirit . . .

We should pray for 32-year-old Todd Bentley, whose high profile through exposure to daily television broadcasts circling the world would frighten the most experienced preacher. Some of his references to angelic visitations are at least vulnerable to misunderstanding and, tragically, stories of shipwreck associated with previously high profile ministries who spoke frequently of angelic visitation are well documented.

In the midst of what has been historically regarded as authentic and powerful revival, Jonathan Edwards found himself exposed to extraordinary phenomena on all sides. He neither dismissed it all nor accepted it all, but offered his own critique, sometimes defending and sometimes challenging what took place."

Read Terry's complete post . . .

On Sunday Jesse began by speaking about his experience of the worship in the Lakeland, Florida meetings, about which I have also shared my perspective. Today he continues his report of events on the evening he attended:

“After worship, Stephen Strader, pastor of Ignited Church in Lakeland, whose father, Karl, had previously been the pastor of Carpenter’s Home Church, stood up and gave some testimonies, as well as some background on the revival for those of us attending for the first time. He explained how the revival was a melting pot of a bunch of different backgrounds. ‘It’s former rain and latter rain,’ he explained, adding that it consisted of folks from the Jesus Movement, charismatic folks, Pentecostal folks, and even some Quakers and Shakers—all together seeking the Lord. He said the message was a “whole gospel,” not one in which certain parts were cut out. What he seemed to be referring to were people who did not agree in the presence of modern-day healing and some of the other things that were emphasized throughout the night.

Strader stated that this series of meetings is now in its forty-fifth day. It started back on April 2nd when he invited Todd Bentley to come for a series of five meetings or so. Todd ‘made himself at home’ and decided to stay. People had come from at least ten or twelve different countries. There were testimonies of eight people who have been raised from the dead.

Of course, this struck me as amazing, and I waited to hear some explanation. There was a story told of a three-year-old girl named Jaden, who died. The family had begun to make funeral preparations. Lily, a schoolteacher who was part of these meetings, prayed with her class for God to work a miracle. Jaden was an organ donor, and died on Monday. On Tuesday a match was found for someone to accept her organ donation, and on Wednesday her body was in transit to the surgery room for the organs to be removed. On the way there, she coughed and sat up. After telling the story, Strader exclaimed, “Funeral cancelled!” Another story was told about a child who had flat-lined during dialysis. Her testimony was that she had an out-of-body experience, and was sent back down to the earth just before being pronounced dead and sat up praising God.

On the issue of excess and judging the legitimacy of the revival, Strader made the comment, ‘Todd [Bentley] and I know that not everything that’s happening here is of God. There’s a whole lot of flesh going on here as well.’ He then warned the group that if they saw anyone acting out in the flesh they would kick them out. Of course, he said, the surest sign of someone in the flesh was someone refusing to participate, writing off everything as demonic. He encouraged the group using the parable of the tares—that God alone can judge, and at the appropriate time he will separate the wheat from the tares.

I was somewhat disappointed to find out that Todd Bentley, the man who has been primarily leading the meetings, was not present. He was in California. In his place, Keith Miller from Stand Firm World Ministries, was addressing the group. He encouraged us to push to a new depth of faith and belief in God for great things. On one occasion he told an individual to stand up, named the cancer they were suffering, it proved to be an accurate word of knowledge, and then he prayed for that cancer to be healed right then and there. His message seemed to be a bit wild, a mix of different texts being read, interrupted by people coming up on stage, 'throwing' the Holy Spirit to hit people in the back, calling out various ailments and praying for a surge of power to heal. You can watch on God TV to get a feel for yourself of the flavor.”

Continued in part 3 . . .

Yesterday I spoke about my reaction to the little I know about what has been going on in meetings run by Todd Bentley in Lakeland, Florida. Today I begin a special report brought to us by my dear friend, Jesse Phillips, who is a Sovereign Grace pastor in the Florida area. He visited the meetings himself one evening. The following is his unabridged report.

*************************

The thing I was immediately impressed with as we showed up, and throughout the whole night, was the overwhelming sense of anticipation and faith. This is something that, quite frankly, some of us could use a bit more of, myself included. The people at these meetings expect God to do great things when they gather. Too often I expect God to do nothing. My faith was certainly challenged as I thought about my posture in the gathering of my church each week.

We arrived at the meeting a few minutes late, but managed to catch most of the worship. My father-in-law and I estimated that about 4,000 people were gathered in a large arena. The first song was a medium-paced tune that started, “We are the generation who will stand and fight.” It was a song about being a light in the darkness, carrying the light that is within us to shine as a testimony of the power of Jesus’ name. The second song was about Jesus being the way, the truth, and the light of the world. It started “Prepare the way of the Lord,” and the chorus was a repeat of Jesus’ name eight times or so. I didn’t know the song, although it was easy to learn because of its simplicity.

During worship we were repeatedly encouraged to stir up our passion for Christ, to feel the heart of Christ for his Church, to not do church for the sake of doing church, but for a relationship, to seek the face of God.

One interesting thing I noticed during the worship time was that there were several people throughout the arena who had flags. One of them had the crown of a king on it, another had a heart shape printed on the front. People were very expressively waving flags, an element of worship I can’t say I’ve ever seen before. There were also a couple of people who had loud horns that were blown at various times.

Overall worship was very expressive and repetitious. It was forty-five minutes to an hour and consisted of three songs. The last song was called “Revelation Song” and was the most engaging for me, partly because I recognized it, but also because of its content. Whereas the first song focused on us as a generation, this song focused on God and proclaimed “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.” Then, a particularly moving line, “Jesus, Your name is power, breath and living water. Such a marvelous mystery.”

Continued in part 2 . . .

UPDATE - Todd Bentley has now stepped down from ministry after separating from his wife.

UPDATE - I have now also published a number of other posts on Todd Bentley

I have had a number of people ask me about events which are gaining a lot of attention at the moment. In the UK, a series of ‘revival’ meetings being run in Lakeland, Florida by evangelist Todd Bentley are being shown daily on God TV.

Before I get into that, however, apparently British satellite TV now carries ten stations devoted to nothing but Christian teaching, and as far as I know, not one of them is consistently promoting a more Reformed message. “Desiring God TV” anyone? In fact, I don't get to watch any of these channels since having paid the government for the right to own a TV, I object to having to pay a subscription to Mr. Murdoch as well.

What is interesting to me is that the medium of TV and the medium of the Internet appear almost by their nature to attract different kinds of ministries. If an alien from another planet (if such a thing exists!) was to spend a few hours searching for Christian blogs and sermon websites and would compare notes with another who had spent the same amount of time watching Christian TV, I suspect they would come to very different conclusions about the predominant philosophical and theological environment of western Christianity.

Anyway, back to Lakeland and Todd Bentley. As a result of my self-imposed TV channel poverty, I know little or nothing about the events in Florida. For the past few weeks I have been studiously avoiding commenting here on the blog about something I know very little about. I did read a piece over at Pyromaniacs, but felt that I did not want to reject these events which I have not studied.

I heard that someone said recently concerning these events, “I do not want to be an enemy of someone God calls a friend.” But neither do I want to endorse something wholeheartedly that, from what I have heard, has, at the very least, some significant stylistic differences to what I would be comfortable with.

Oddly enough, I had already written this article before reading Terry Virgo's post on Todd Bentley and Lakeland, Florida from earlier yesterday in which he shared his own initial reflections, which begin in a very cautious tone. Terry was rightly concerned about a number of things he saw on the God Channel.

Terry ends his post by speaking of the experiences of another Newfrontiers pastor. “However, a friend of mine who actually attended the Lakeland meetings for several days felt ‘I hate this . . . I want to get out of here,’ but actually went on to be blessed and, as he watched more closely, felt that he saw remarkable compassion and mercy, particularly being expressed to large numbers of poorer people who were flocking to the meetings. Since his return to the UK, he has witnessed a number of healings, as indeed others have."

I suppose my own conclusions for now on what little I know of these events would be as follows:

• We should not rush to either wholeheartedly reject or accept everything that is happening. I suppose I am taking something of a Gamaliel approach, at least for now.
  
  
• It strikes me that if it weren't for TV, we might not even be hearing about these events yet. Time will demonstrate if this is just a localized event or truly something more significant.
  
  
• If we hear reports of God healing and people becoming Christians, it would be wise for us to rejoice, even if we may reserve the right to be discerning about the practices and beliefs of the teachers involved. Paul rejoiced whenever the gospel was preached, even if he knew that the motivations of the preacher were bad.
  
  
• We should resolve to think the best of others as much as we can, without foolishly swallowing everything we see as being all right.
  
  
• We should remember that, as I heard someone say recently, God does not distribute his anointing as a reward for good theology or good behavior. If God can use a donkey in the Bible, we should not be surprised if he uses somebody of whom we do not approve. Fortunately for us, God is much more gracious than we are!
  
  
• The faith and expectancy of others should challenge us to dare to believe that God can act today, and as John Piper recently put it, be “desperate for the supernatural.”

Over the next few days I will be sharing a report of a visit made to the Lakeland ‘revival meetings’ by a dear friend of mine, Jesse Phillips.

UPDATE
I have had the opportunity to record a video interview with Mark Driscoll, and there are also a number of other posts about him you can now read elsewhere on my site.

******************

I wonder. Do you find yourself strongly affected when you hear about God saving people? If so, then go read this post and watch the video about what has just been happening over the Easter weekend in Seattle. When I did, I found myself crying tears of gratitude to God for what he is doing through the Mars Hill Church.  I have spoken to a number of other people who had the same experience.

It seems clear from the post that Mark Driscoll is as surprised by all that God is doing through the church there as anyone else. Like many of the men God chooses to use, Driscoll might not have been man's choice.

I am thrilled to see what God is doing there, having had the joy of interviewing Driscoll by e-mail in 2006, and hearing him preach live in Scotland. We are looking forward so much to him being the main speaker at the Newfrontiers Brighton conference.

Over on Terry Virgo's Blog, his son, Joel, recently interviewed Driscoll in three parts (1, 2, 3). One question Joel asked was whether the astonishing growth that is happening in Seattle should be classified as a revival. Driscoll was understandably reticent to use that word, preferring to leave such judgments to the future, while clearly delighted at what God has, indeed, been doing.

It seems to me that the events of the past weekend at Seattle sound even more like true revival than what has gone before. Here is an extract of what Mark says, but please do go and read the whole thing!

"Something broke this weekend, spiritually. I’m not sure how to explain it, but God’s favor was evident everywhere. We had 8,070 people attend on Sunday, plus however many could not make it into the Eastside Campus or stand up outside the building to listen on speakers because there was no room in the parking lot or on the sidewalk. We had 3,648 for Good Friday services plus however many hundreds got turned away from the 7 p.m. service at Ballard. We had at least 11,718 people altogether this weekend, somewhere near 200 baptisms yesterday alone, and are still trying to figure out how many people got saved. . . .

Yesterday, while singing with the congregation at each of the five services I preach live, I could not stop weeping. People were singing loudly with their hands in the air. They cheered all day as people came forward to give their lives to Jesus and be baptized. The pastors were up front laying hands on people, praying over them, and leading them to Christ by the dozens at every service. I stood off to the side during the singing to watch what God was doing, and multiple people walked up to me weeping and asked me to pray with them to become a Christian."

— Mark Driscoll

No 12 on the list of most-read posts on this blog appeared on May 15, 2005, and examined the events surrounding and subsequent to what came to be known as "The Toronto Blessing."

I published this post from an article I had written many years prior to May of 2005. In some ways it was this article that first stirred the "writing bug" in me. I surveyed the historical events associated with "The Toronto Blessing," and also looked at some biblical and church history data. Some of my reformed friends may be uncomfortable with the fact that I am willing to see good in what happened. No doubt some of my charismatic friends will be unhappy with the fact that I also accept that unhelpful excesses occurred in some places.

In addition to the sections I have republished here ("An Outpouring of the Holy Spirit? What On Earth is Going On?" and the "Origins of the Movement"), I also trace its spread to the UK, similar phenomena in history, what our response should be to these phenomena, and how to test similar movements. You can read my thoughts on those issues by clicking here or on the link provided at the bottom of this post.

I thought I would share with you—for history's sake and in its entirety—an article I wrote almost eleven years ago about the so-called "Toronto Blessing."

An Outpouring of the Holy Spirit? What on Earth is Going On?

In the months following May 1994, there was a sudden wave of bizarre phenomena in many churches in the UK, USA, and elsewhere in the world from a wide variety of backgrounds. Since then, the city of Toronto, Canada, has become closely associated with these events. Much attention has been drawn to all of this in both the secular and Christian press.

Phenomena widely reported with these events included falling over, laughing, crying, shaking, peculiar movements, cries, roars, intoxicating joy, and incoordination. While a dramatic transformation in the life of many of the people affected by these phenomena was observed, a large number of conversions was not reported and most people did not call this a revival.

The falling may, on occasion, have been sudden and violent. I am unaware of any cases of injury resulting. Giddiness was sometimes reported prior to the fall. There usually was not a total loss of consciousness, and most were able to hear, although they might not respond. A feeling of detachment was common—hours could go by and seem like minutes. An apparent spastic or flaccid paralysis was often present in individuals affected. Many reported impressions and visions imparted to them while on the floor. Some felt as if they were physically pinned to the floor and felt quite unable to move.

Likewise, shaking and other apparently involuntary movements took a wide variety of forms. These had to be seen to be believed, but included repetitive leaping to a great height, a heightened physiological tremor, twitching, and being thrown as though hit by an electric charge.

All of the above phenomena occurred in combination with the same individual. They sometimes followed prayer, with laying on of hands, or began spontaneously during worship, preaching, or alone at home. People became so intoxicated with joy that they had to be carried to their cars. Some were carried out rigid, others staggered as though drunk. It was very difficult to observe all of this without wondering, "What on earth is going on?"

A pattern emerged from study of the spread of the these phenomena. People, and especially church leaders, flocked to the affected churches to investigate. Even the skeptical found themselves being affected, much to their surprise. Upon their return home, often before assimilating what had happened, they found similar events breaking out in their own churches. The briefest of statements about God doing strange new things might be followed by a request for any who would like a fresh touch from God to stand. Often at this point an entire congregation would stand to its feet, and following a short prayer, a sudden outbreak of the above phenomena occurred. Those affected might not have even heard of the specific phenomena that had occurred elsewhere!

Origins of the Movement

The center of much of this attention, with 20,000 to 30,000 visitors from around the world in the first six months of 1994, was a tiny building at the end of a runway in Canada where the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church (now Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship) was meeting. John Wimber was the unofficial leader of the Vineyard Movement, of which this church was a member. This was one of several groups of charismatic or "new" churches worldwide. The Vineyard Movement was strongest in the USA, but certainly had churches elsewhere, including London.

Although the controversial John Wimber had seen many of these reported phenomena on a smaller scale in his conferences, he seemed to have had little to do directly with the birth of this movement. Indeed, Mr. Wimber subsequently died.

The first place where these phenomena occurred in the intensity and extent now so well known was actually not Toronto, but in the USA. In 1989, South African evangelist, Rodney Howard-Browne, complained that his meeting was being ruined when many people fell off their seats and began laughing. He soon became convinced that God was to blame. These events followed Howard-Browne and persisted after he had left, spreading rapidly. In April 1993, during meetings in Florida which were attended by 10,000 people, waves of laughter affected the congregation. Subsequently, widespread attention was drawn to these events. Approximately 2,200 people were baptized in water, and 800 new members were added to the host church by the middle of 1994. Another church in the area, whose initially reluctant pastor was suddenly struck to the floor with laughter, reported that by the middle of 1994 the church had grown from 800 to 1,500.

As a result of this meeting, Howard-Browne was invited to preach to 4,000 students later that year. He reported, "One night I was preaching on hell ... [laughter] just hit the whole place. The more I told the people what hell was like, the more they laughed. When I gave an altar call, they came forward by the hundreds to be saved."

The interesting thing has been that far from dying down after this evangelist left town, the phenomena continued and spread. The movement did not appear to be centered in a man, and in terms of its spread to the UK, Howard-Browne played a very limited role.

Since 1991, there has also been a separate outbreak in Argentina, where the phenomena seemed to be associated with a full-scale revival. In November 1993, John Arnott, the pastor of the Toronto Vineyard Church, traveled to Argentina and the United States to see what was happening. He met with another Vineyard pastor, Randy Clark of St. Louis, who had been prayed for by Rodney Howard-Browne and subsequently experienced similar effects in his own church.

On the 20th of January 1994, a meeting with Randy Clark took place in the Toronto Vineyard and the phenomena broke out. Very soon, news spread and the people started coming to investigate. From this church, other Vineyard churches and many other groups were affected.

Read more . . . "The Toronto Blessing" - When The Church Seemed To Be Going Mad

My buddy, Jesse, has recently completed a nine-part series of posts on Signs of the Spirit, in which Sam Storms interprets Jonathan Edwards' classic work on experiential Christianity, The Religious Affections. Here are the links:

1. True spirituality is a hunger for God

2. Public gathering, prayer, preaching, and singing

3. You're not a Christian just because you...

4. Sign 1) A new spiritual 'sense'

5. Sign 2) A love for the things of God

6. Experience, emotion, Edwards and public worship

7. Signs 3-5) Moral excellency, right understanding, conviction.

8. Sign 6) Genuine, evangelical humility

9. Remaining 6 signs of genuine religious affections

Book photo courtesy of Tony S. Reinke, The Shepherd's Scrapbook. Used by permission.

The following passage from the Doctor is a bit reminiscent of an old post of mine entitled, "I Want It All!"

". . . the trouble has generally been . . . that people have emphasised either experience or doctrine at the expense of the other . . . This is something that has been happening in the church from almost the very beginning . . .

When the whole emphasis is placed upon one or the other, you either have a tendency to fanaticism and excess or a tendency toward a barren intellectualism and a mechanical and a dead kind of orthodoxy . . .

As you read the stories of Luther and Calvin and other reformation fathers you will find that they began to fight this war on two fronts. They were fighting a dead, mechanical intellectualism on one hand, and they had to fight these other people who were running to excess and riot on the other.

Then in the seventeenth century you find the same kind of thing in connection with the Puritan movement . . . There were three main sections . . . in the middle you had people like the great John Owen and Thomas Goodwin in London, who constantly emphasised what they regarded as the only true scriptural position . . . which emphasises Spirit and doctrine, experience and definition. You must not say it is either/or; it is both. These, too, had to wage a warfare constantly on the two fronts. They had to fight the dead, barren intellectualism of many in Anglicanism and in the ranks of Puritanism, and the wild excesses of the early Quakers and various others . . .

As Evangelicals we find ourselves fighting on two fronts. We are obviously critical of a pure intellectualism and of a dead mechanical church which lacks any life . . . the gospel of Jesus Christ is a life-giving gospel. That is one side; but on the other side we see certain tendencies and we see certain excesses and we say "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits to see whether they are of God." And thus we seem to be opposing everything, and so we receive criticism from all sides . . .

For myself, as long as I am charged by certain people with being nothing but a Pentecostalist ,and on the other hand charged by others with being an intellectual, a man who is always preaching doctrine, as long as the two criticisms come, I am very happy. But if one or the other of the two criticisms should ever cease, then, I say, is the time to be careful and to begin to examine the very foundations.

The position of Scripture . . . is one which is facing two extremes. The Spirit is essential, and experience is vital. However, truth and definition and doctrine and dogma are equally vital and essential. And our whole position is one which proclaims that experience which is not based solidly upon truth and doctrine is dangerous."

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John, pp. 400-403.

UPDATE
My new pal, Chris, has published the following two quotes on this subject:

“Because some wings of the church have appealed to experience over against revelation, or have talked glibly about ill-defined ‘spirituality’ that is fundamentally divorced from the gospel, some of us have overreacted and begin to view all mention of experience as suspicious at best, perverse at worst. This overreaction must cease. The Scriptures themselves demand that we allow more place for experience than that. . .”

D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities From Paul and His Prayers, Grand Rapids (Baker, 1992), p. 191.

Relative to Romans 5:5, Moo writes:

“The confidence we have for the day of judgment is not based only on our intellectual recognition of the fact of God’s love, or even only on the demonstration of God’s love on the cross . . . but on the inner, subjective certainty that God does love us . . . and it is this internal, subjective, yes, even emotional, sensation within the believer that God does indeed love us - - love expressed and made vital in real, concrete actions on our behalf - - that gives to us the assurance that ‘hope will no disappoint us.’”

Douglas Moo, Commentary on Romans, pp. 312-313.

In this quote, taken once again from the Doctor on Ephesians, we see a strong emphasis on experience. The Christian must KNOW God. Oh, how little we emphasize that today! How poor our experience often is. How few people glow when they speak about their relationship with their precious Saviour. How this challenges me personally once again to seek God!

"There are, unfortunately, even many evangelical Christians who deny that God has any direct dealings with men today, and who hold feeling and emotion at a discount. They frequently substitute for true emotion a flabby sentimentalism. They are afraid of the power of the Holy Spirit, and so afraid of certain excesses which are sometimes found in mysticism and in certain people who claim to have unusual experiences of the Holy Spirit, that they 'quench the Spirit' and never have any personal knowledge of Christ. Indeed, they often go so far as to deny the possibility of such a knowledge.

This is obviously something with which we must deal, for if we hold this particular view we shall clearly never seek the knowledge of which the Apostle is speaking, and therefore shall never have it. How then do we answer this charge?

There is, of course, a false mysticism. This becomes quite clear in books on the subject and especially in the biographies of certain mystics. Beyond a doubt, there were aberrations in the lives of many of them, and much that was morbid and unhealthy. There is a morbid, introspective, selfish, impractical and useless type of mysticism. But because certain mystics have been guilty of such things we should not allow ourselves to be blinded to that which is a true and healthy mysticism, a mysticism which is taught in the Bible itself . . .

. . . we must remind ourselves that this teaching is found, perhaps supremely, in the words of our blessed Lord Himself. In the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel, having told them that He is about to leave them, our Lord says: 'Let not your hearts be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me'. They were troubled when told that He was going to leave them. They had been with Him three years, they had looked into His face, they had seen His miracles, heard His sermons, and could always ask Him questions. But now He is going to leave them, and they feared that they could not possibly continue to live and be happy without Him. His answer was, 'I will come unto you. I will manifest myself to you' (vv. 18, 21, 22). But still more explicitly in the sixteenth chapter we find Him saying, 'It is expedient for you that I go away' (v. 7). It would be good for them that He was going to leave them and to go away from them in the form in which He was then with them, because (as He proceeded to explain) 'if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go away I will send him unto you'. How can it be expedient for the disciples that He should leave them in the flesh and go away from them in the body? How can that be true if it is not possible for the Christian to know Him immediately and directly? Obviously the supreme blessing is to be with Him, in His presence and in His company. What He is really saying is that after He has gone and has baptized them with the Holy Ghost, He will be more real to them than He was at that moment. And this is what actually happened. They knew Him much better after Pentecost than they knew Him before. He was more real to them, more living to them, more vital to them afterwards than He was in the days of His flesh. His promise was literally fulfilled and verified . . .

Nothing stands out more prominently in the life of George Whitefield than his consciousness of the love of Christ. He knew it to an exceptional degree and you will find that it was always after he had had some exceptional experience of Christ that he was given unusual enlargement and liberty in his preaching, and that men and women were broken down and melted before his holy eloquence and his portrayal of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Charles Wesley knew it equally well, and so writes:

Enlarge, inflame, and fill my heart
With boundless charity divine!
So shall I all my strength exert,
And love them with a zeal like Thine.
This has been true of God's greatest servants in all ages, in all centuries, in all places.

. . . The secret of the early Christians, the early Protestants, Puritans and Methodists was that they were taught about the love of Christ, and they became filled with a knowledge of it. Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to witness; he will do it. He will know the power, the constraint, the motive; everything is already there. It is a plain lie to suggest that people who regard this knowledge of the love of Christ as the supreme thing are useless, unhealthy mystics. The servants of God who have most adorned the life and the history of the Christian Church have always been men who have realized that this is the most important thing of all, and they have spent hours in prayer seeking His face and enjoying His love. The man who knows the love of Christ in his heart can do more in one hour than the busy type of man can do in a century. God forbid that we should ever make of activity an end in itself. Let us realize that the motive must come first, and that the motive must ever be the love of Christ.

I end with the question which I asked at the beginning: To which of the circles do you belong? Are you pressing your way right into the centre? You may have seen people in a crowd, when the Queen or some other notable person is passing, trying to push themselves forward in order to have a front-line view. The same thing occurs at various games. There are those who always want to be in the front to have the best view. Are we pressing into the innermost circle? Are we seeking the Lord's face? Are we coveting the knowledge of His love? The Apostle prayed for every single member of the Church at Ephesus that he or she 'might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.' How tragic it is that any of us should be living as paupers, out on the cold street, while the banqueting chamber is open and the feast prepared. Let us search for the knowledge of the Lord in the Scriptures and read about it in the lives of the saints throughout the centuries. As we do so, we shall never be content until we are in the innermost circle and looking into His blessed face."

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. An Exposition of Ephesians 3: The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979, pp.247-253.

For more information see my previous posts on Lloyd-Jones and the MLJ Recordings Trust website.

Today I continue with part three of my interview with Greg Haslam. In part one, Greg told us a little about himself, and in part two he discussed his relationship to Newfrontiers and his move to Westminster Chapel.

Adrian
If Westminster Chapel has stood for anything over the years it is surely the primacy of preaching. Can you tell us a bit more about your own view of preaching and its importance?

Greg
I've said it all in the collection of fifty-two addresses from our Preachers' Conference, now published as Preach the Word! (Sovereign World 2006). Preaching is primary because, along with dependence on the work of the Holy Spirit, just about everything else that's good in the Church and in individual lives flows from it. Done well, through accurate explanation and application of the Scriptures in Spirit-empowered preaching, God's voice is heard, God's people obey him, and incredible life in the Spirit is the certain result. We live at a time of increasing Biblical illiteracy among even lively evangelical Christians. Sick churches are all too numerous. Christians are ignorant of their faith and often too cowardly to defend and share it with others. Preaching goes a long way to remedy these things.

I believe we need to see restored to the Church every “flavor” of word-ministry listed in Ephesians 4:11ff—apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, and didactic—so that our people are theologically well-informed, compassionate, skilled, missional, cutting edge, and truly well-grounded. When we pray for revival we are primarily praying for preachers and a new visitation of the Holy Spirit. Preaching should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed! It's not “any old style of preaching” we need; it is the living voice of Christ speaking his “now word” to his Church. This is why the prophetic dimension to good preaching is essential, whether the preacher is an evangelist, a pastor, a teacher, an apostle, or a prophet, and I believe in the present-day ministry of all five (see my chapter “Ephesians 4 ministries and Church Unity” in Preach the Word!).

Adrian
What do you feel about the state of preaching in the Church as a whole today? Are you encouraged or discouraged?

Greg
Mostly discouraged. Sermons seem to represent some form or expression of “Christianity Lite.” They are short, trendy, adrift from the serious handling of Scripture, apologetic, flirting with post-modernism, fearful of any note of authority, caught up with the “spirit of the age,” often “politically correct,” and mostly ineffective. We tend to sound like the “Court prophets” of Israel in the pay of the king, rather than those who have “been in the counsel of the Most High” and then dare to speak what we have seen and heard! Preaching should convey a sense of awe and fear in the presence of a transcendent God — not just God all-matey but God Almighty!

It was due to my growing perception of the perilous state of preaching in the UK that I gathered nineteen of the best preachers this country has to offer in order to speak at the eight-month conference Preach the Word! in 2003-2004. The result more than met my expectations, and the 650 delegates who enthusiastically attended seemed to share my opinion!

I took less than an hour to plan the contents. I wrote over fifty themes we should address and then picked about twenty top guys to address them. All but two accepted, and what a brilliant job they did! We had outstanding pastors, evangelists, prophets, teachers, and apostles. I basically urged them not to go to their graves along with all of their best secrets! They came up with the goods and shared brilliantly their best insights into preaching and how to do it well. The speakers included many personal heroes like John Stott, Terry Virgo, David Pawson, and Jeff Lucas. In fact, most of them are my much admired friends. I receive testimonies regularly, from home and overseas, as to just how effective this material has proved to be. The event was a true Word and Spirit gathering, and all of our lives were changed by it.

Adrian
How did you manage to bring together such a wide variety of preachers for this conference and book? Did you find that you all agreed about preaching, or did you have a wide range of differing perspectives to discuss?

Greg
They were nearly all extremely enthusiastic and willing to do this. They ranged from fairly conservative evangelicals, through radical charismatics. There were Anglicans, Free Churches, Charismatics, and Restorationists. Some were Arminian, others Calvinistic in theology, and all points in-between. Between them all, there was an accumulation of hundreds of years of experience in leading and preaching ministry (perhaps thousands of years!). They all got on well together, and the atmosphere of each day was terrific. They had differing emphases, but all honored God and the Bible, and all were convinced about the importance and centrality of preaching. The wide range of perspectives present was what made this conference somewhat unique and so invaluable. It fostered the kind of unity I believe in. And some people changed their prejudices, and their minds, on some controversial issues as a result.

Adrian
Can you tell us a bit more about the main message of your book and why my readers should go out and buy it?

Greg
The main message is this: “We need better preaching, biblical preaching, Holy Spirit anointed preaching, effective preaching, with signs following. And here are some big clues as to how this can happen.” What more could you ask?

Continued in part four, "Greg Haslam On Unity Versus Doctrinal Integrity."

To find out more about Greg Haslam, visit Westminster Chapel’s website, or download mp3s of conference messages by Greg Haslam.

Some Christians do not appreciate the value of doctrine. They do not understand why we need to learn so much about God. I fear that the reason for this is that we do not always explain the effects that doctrine can have on our lives. The Doctor was not so foolish. Indeed, he is one of the masters of spiritual diagnostics, and of applying spiritual medicine to us. This example from his work on the book of Ephesians stood out to me. He is speaking about the message of Ephesians 1 and 2, and applies it to our cold hearts and our lack of missional thinking.

Are you worried about the coldness of your heart? I am sure you are, as we all ought to be. Is it not appalling that we can come and eat the bread and drink the wine at the communion table and be so unmoved, that our hearts are not overflowing with love to God? Why are they not overflowing with love? It is because we do not realise the greatness of His love. If you want to love God do not try to work up something inside yourself: realise His love, and pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may realise the pit out of which you have been hauled up, the depths to which you had sunk, your former terrible, precarious, perilous position, and what God has done for you, by His grace, in Christ. That is the way to realise it. ‘We love him because he first loved us’, says John, and it is the same argument. The understanding of these things is essential to a sense of wonder, love and praise.

But come to something still more practical. It is because we do not realise these things as we ought that we do not feel the burden of the souls of others as we ought. Christian people are but a handful in the world today. The masses are outside Christ, outside the Church, in godlessness and irreligion, and in a terrible state of sin. Are we concerned about them? Does their condition burden us? Have we a missionary sense with regard to our fellow citizens in this country? Does the condition of the benighted masses in other lands weigh upon us at all? Are we concerned about the missionary enterprise? Do we think about these things, do they burden us, do we pray to God about them? Are we asking, ‘What can I do, how can I help, what contribution can I make?’ If we are not, there is only one explanation—we have never realised the truth about people who are in a state of sin. We are just irritated by them, we are just annoyed. But that is not enough; we must be concerned about souls, we must be concerned about sin. We must see them as they are, the children of wrath, hell-bound, in this degradation, in this pollution that the apostle here describes. If we only saw it, our hearts would go out to them; we would see them as our Lord saw them, and He had a great heart of compassion for them. The poorness of our missionary and evangelistic zeal is entirely due to this. We have not seen the position of those outside truly—what they are, what they might be, and what Christ has done.

The third thing that it brings home to us is that if we but saw these things truly it would also control our evangelism. The trouble with all false evangelism is that it does not start with doctrine, it does not start by realising man’s condition. All fleshly, carnal, man-made evangelism is the result of inadequate understanding of what the apostle teaches us in the first ten verses of this second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. If you and I but realised that every man who is yet a sinner is absolutely dominated by ‘the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,’ if we only understood that he is really a child of wrath and dead in trespasses and sins, we would realise that only one power can deal with such an individual, and that is the power of God, the power of the Holy Ghost. And so we would put our confidence, not in man-made organisations, but in the power of God, in the prayer that holds on to God and asks for revival and a descent of the Spirit. We would realise that nothing else can do it. We can change men superficially, we can win men to our side and to our party, we can persuade them to join a church, but we can never raise the spiritually dead; God alone can do that. The realisation of these truths would of necessity determine and control all our evangelism.

Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1972). God's Way of Reconciliation (Studies in Ephesians, chapter 2) (10). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

I thought I'd share this hymn with you today. It was written by William Booth, and a modern tune by a friend of mine has made it eminently singable today. Always good to remind ourselves of the need for revival!The music and mp3 are available from Kingsway.

O GOD OF BURNING, CLEANSING FLAME

Send the fire!
Your blood-bought gift today we claim:
Send the fire today!
Look down and see this waiting host,
And send the promised Holy Ghost;
We need another Pentecost!
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

God of Elijah, hear our cry:
Send the fire!
And make us fit to live or die:
Send the fire today!
To burn up every trace of sin,
To bring the light and glory in,
The revolution now begin!
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

It’s fire we want, for fire we plead:
Send the fire!
The fire will meet our every need:
Send the fire today!
For strength to always do what’s right,
For grace to conquer in the fight,
For power to walk the world in white:
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

To make our weak hearts strong and brave:
Send the fire!
To live, a dying world to save:
Send the fire today!
Oh, see us on Your altar lay,
We give our lives to you today,
So crown the offering now we pray:
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!
Send the fire today!

William Booth (1829 –1912)

Many decades ago Smith Wigglesworth shared the following prophecy about my nation. It was read out at the end of Dave Stroud's session earlier today. There was a very strong sense in the room that this prophecy about what would happen in the UK had been shown to be accurate in many ways in the events of the past few decades. There was, therefore, also an expectation that just maybe the end of that word which speaks about a major revival will also prove to be correct. A major revival was the hope of the Puritans and many others who have gone before. As I thought about these words, I was reminded of my trip at the weekend to the church where George Whitefield is buried. I felt that in the room today an incredible expectancy was birthed that just maybe God would move in revival power in our land sooner than we could dare to imagine.

THE GREAT REVIVAL
“During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the Church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it and will be characterised by a restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches.

In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say, ‘This is the great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No, neither is this the great revival, but both are steps towards it.’

When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidenced in the churches something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. When the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed, the world, has ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and the Welsh revivals of former years. The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to the mainland of Europe, and from there, will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.”

— Smith Wigglesworth, 1947

Yesterday it was a delight to see my old friends, Ian and Megan Jukes, and their three lovely kids. We went to visit a church founded by George Whitefield where he preached and is buried under the pulpit. I took loads of photos so have turned them into a slide show for you. If you want to see his burial place, it is at The Old South Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts.The Resurgence also posted a sermon by George Whitefield just recently.

I have to say that this experience was one of the most memorable of any of the historical tourist things I have ever done. We were shown around the church by Norm, one of the elders there. To just stand outside the church and realize that we were standing on the very street where revival had been so strong all those years ago thrilled me. We have pictures of ourselves standing at Whitefield's preaching desk, and handling his Bible.

I have to say that I felt the presence of God in that church building today, and at one point I was praying silently, "Do it again!" It was a special moment to join Ian afterwards in praying that God would once again raise up preachers like George Whitefield.

I find myself very powerfully affected whenever I visit these sites connected with historic revival. Three such visits stand out in my mind. Today's visit, a trip to Wesley Cottage, and some time I spent on our honeymoon speaking with a lady who personally remembered the Lewis Revival. On each occasion I felt a stirring in my spirit, and the same sense of the presence of God was tangible to me. Once again I have been undone. Once again I find myself longing to experience for myself the joy of being present during such a sovereign touch of God's Spirit.

As I woke early this morning, I decided to remind myself of the events of the Lewis revival. Imagine my surprise to find that there are a number of recordings by Duncan Campbell (the preacher used by God on Lewis) available for free online. I listened this morning to a talk given in 1950 by Campbell about revival. It is powerful, engaging, and captured my heart again. The sense of God's Spirit on this talk was tangible to me, almost as though the Spirit himself is somehow contained in the words.

Campbell begins his retelling of the events with which he had been so intimately involved by saying:

"One evening, an old woman 84 years of age and blind, had a vision. Now don't ask me to explain this vision because I cannot, but strange things happen when God begins to move. This dear old lady in the vision saw the church of her fathers crowded with young people, and she saw a strange minister in the pulpit. She was so impressed by this revelation, because a revelation it was, she sent for the minister and told her story. The parish minister was a God-fearing man, a man who longed to see God working. Oh, he had tried ever so many things to get the youth of the parish interested, but not one single teenager attended the church. That was the situation. Well, what did the old lady have to say to him? I'll tell you what she said: "I am sure, Mr. McKay, that you are longing to see God working. What about calling your office bearers together and suggesting to them that you spend two nights a week waiting upon God? You have tried missions, you have tried special evangelists, Mr. Mckay, have you tried God?" Oh, I tell you this is a wonderful old woman. So he meekly obeyed and said, "Yes, I'll call the session together and I will suggest that we meet on Tuesday night and Friday night, and we'll spend the whole night in prayer." I tell you, dear people, here were men who meant business. The dear old lady said, "Well, if you do that, my sister and I will get on our knees at ten o'clock on Tuesday and ten o'clock on Friday and pray until 4 a.m. . . ." And in the prayers, according to the minister, they would say again and again, "God, you are a covenant-keeping God and you must be true to your engagements . . ." One night a very remarkable thing happened. They were kneeliing amongst straw, the straw of a barn house. Suddenly one young man rose and read part of Psalm 24: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord” (vv.3-5a). And then that young man closed his Bible. And looking down at the minister and the elders, he spoke these crude words (but perhaps not so crude in our Gaelic language): “It seems to me to be so much humbug to be praying as we are praying, to be waiting as we are waiting, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God.” And then he lifted his two hands and prayed, “God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?” That dear man got no further, he fell on his knees and then on his face on the straw. In a matter of minutes three of the elders fell into a trance . . . when that happened in the barn . . . a power was let loosed . . . that shook the whole of Lewis. God stepped down. The Holy Spirit began to move among the people . . . God seemed to be everywhere . . . "


— Duncan Campbell

I defy you to listen to that talk and not be moved deeply. The description of revival is amazing, and I can feel the presence of the Spirit as I listen. As I write this, with Campbell's voice resounding in my head, I am not ashamed to say that tears are welling in my eyes. Oh, won't you join me in crying to God, "Do it again! Do what you did on Lewis. Do what you did through George Whitefield. Revive us again!"

Photos from George Whitefield's final resting place.

A recurring theme on my blog this year has been the subject of revival. Most Mondays I take the time to raid my electronic version of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' materials, which is produced by Logos Bible Software. Today's quote explains what revival is and what it looks like.

“What is revival? We can define it as a period of unusual blessing and activity in the life of the Christian Church. Primarily, of course, and by definition, a revival is something that happens first in the Church and amongst Christian people, amongst believers . . . Revival means awakening, stimulating the life, bringing it to the surface again . . . it is only secondly something that affects those that are outside [the Church] . . .

A revival is . . . something that is done to the Church, something that happens to the Church . . . that inevitably and almost instinctively makes one look back and think again of what happened on the day of Pentecost . . .

The essence of a revival is that the Holy Spirit comes down upon a number of people together, upon a whole church, upon a number of churches, districts, or perhaps a whole country. That is what is meant by revival. It is, if you like, a visitation of the Holy Spirit, or another term that has often been used is this — an outpouring of the Holy Spirit . . .

The immediate effect is that the people present begin to have an awareness of spiritual things and clear views of them such as they have never had before . . . They begin not only to see these things clearly but to feel their power.

What are these things of which they become so aware? First and foremost, the glory and the holiness of God . . . And that, as we have seen, leads inevitably to a deep and a terrible sense of sin, and an awful feeling of guilt. It leads men and women to feel that they are vile and unclean and utterly unworthy and, above all, it leads them to realize their utter helplessness face to face with such a God . . .

Suddenly it all becomes real to them and they are given to know that the Son of God has loved them and has given himself for them. It becomes an individual and a personal matter: ‘He died for me, even my sins are forgiven’, and peace comes into their hearts; joy enters into them and they are lost in love and in a sense of praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit . . .

They begin to get a concern for the members of their own family . . . who do not know that they are outside . . . They pray for these people by name and they plead, and they will not let God go, as it were. They are intent on this with a strange urgency.

And then, after a while, hearing of all this and seeing the change in those whom they have known for so long, these others who are outside begin to join the meetings and to say, ‘What is this?’ So they come in, and they go through the same experience. And so it happens and thousands upon thousands are converted. Indeed, the whole neighborhood seems to be full of the Holy Spirit. He seems to be everywhere . . .

That is what happens in revival and thus you get this curious, strange mixture, as it were, of great conviction of sin and great joy, a great sense of the terror of the Lord, and great thanksgiving and praise. Always in a revival there is what somebody once called a divine disorder . . .

Editor’s Note: Lloyd-Jones then illustrates this with a remarkable description of revival from Jonathan Edwards:

“This work soon made a glorious alteration in the town. So that in the Spring and Summer following it seemed, that is to say the town, seemed to be full of the presence of God. It never was so full of love nor so full of joy and yet so full of distress as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought to them. Parents rejoicing over their children as newborn, husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands. The doings of God were then seen in His sanctuary. God’s day was a delight and His tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful. The congregation was alive in God’s service. Everyone earnestly intent on the public worship. Every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth. The assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the Word was preached. Some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbors.”

Jonathan Edwards: Works, London, 1840, volume I, p. 348.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival (Westchester, Illinois, Crossway Books, 1987), p. 99.

The following is a full set of notes, including background information and quotes I used whilst preparing my sermon entitled, "The Reviving Power of God's Word," which was preached at Jubilee Church on the 11th of March 2006. This sermon was the third part of a series on Revival. The earlier messages, "Revival" and "Reviving Prayer" are also available.

Much of this material was never designed to form part of the sermon — instead it is, if you like, part of the "iceberg" that lies beneath the surface supporting what I actually said. You can download the audio (you may need to right click and save the file onto your PC) or listen right here using the following embedded player:

INTRODUCTION
There is a series of adverts on TV that arrests me every time I see them. You see someone crying, hugging a loved one. Your heart goes out to them, even before you begin to hear the words of the commentary. But then the commentary starts, and if you are a big softie like me, you feel like you are about to cry — even if you have seen it before. The person says "when I was diagnosed with cancer . . ." For the first few seconds you hear about the terrible impact those words had on the individual. You can picture them in the doctor's room. Then, the voice says, "Today I was told I have my life back." You suddenly realize that the person is crying for joy, not anguish, and in their tears a smile appears. You see the impact that a single sentence from a doctor can have.

We sometimes talk about “MERE words,” and yet SOME words mean everything — they can literally bring life and death. Words are powerful. They can steal away hope, and they can give it back again.

Words affect us all the time. I remember when I asked Andrée to marry me. I had shocked her by turning up earlier than she expected with a bunch of roses and a ring that I had designed. As I was kneeling there for what seemed like an eternity, first she laughed, then she cried, then she said, "No . . ." Fortunately, she meant this in disbelief rather than as a rejection! I just wanted to hear one word. That was all, one word. And if that word had been “no” and not “yes” I would have been a very different man!

If our words can feel like they take away life and give it back again, is it any wonder that God’s Words can do the same? It's no wonder that Ravi Zacharias made the astute observation: "In the beginning was the Word, not video."

I love the following quote: ". . . in OT times the word was regarded as being alive, and so was portrayed as being sent out of the heart (mind/brain/mouth) of a living person, to leap to the goal at which it was directed. Then, when it arrived, it did the work of the speaker who had sent it forth, for it conveyed the power of the speaker to change the heart or the mind of the hearer of the word." [1]

We as Christians are a people who value words, although we live in a world that values image. Last week,at our joint celebration,we heard about how the image of God is actually described as the Word of God. It is hard to think of a stronger way that God could express Hs high view of “words” than that. The Bible — so-called "mere words" written down on a page — is what God has left us by which to know Him. The Bible is not God — we don’t worship it. But, as we read it, as we listen to it, the God of the Bible leaps off the page at us. These words shape us. They can save us. They teach us how to live, but more than that, they give us life.

Today we are going to look at God’s reviving Word. In revivals, a hunger for God's Word returns. Sermons often become longer — sometimes lasting all day! (As an example of this, see Nehemiah 8 and 9). People cannot hear enough of God's Word. Amazing things happen to people as they hear and read God’s Word during revivals. I could tell you story after story — but I won’t.

If we have learnt anything as we have been studying how God revives us, it is this — what is true of the multitude in a revival can be true of you and I, even outside of a revival. I am convinced that God wants us as a people to become more and more aware of just how God's Word can revive us and help us become the people of faith we are convinced He wants us to be.

What does the Bible say about words, and God's Word in particular? Those of you who have been with us for awhile may remember that during the series we preached on Proverbs there was a message on Proverbs 18:21 which says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue."

It is no wonder that the Apostles declared, "We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." (Acts 6:4)

If there is one place in the Bible that honours God’s Word more than anywhere else, it is Psalm 119. It is the longest chapter in the Bible and it comes just two psalms after the shortest chapter in the Bible — Psalm 117 — which just so happens to be the middle chapter of the Bible. You will find it somewhere in the middle of your Bible.

BACKGROUND ON PSALM 119

• “of David” — a man who loved God “after God's own heart.”

• He loved God's law because it was God's Word. He loved God's Word because it showed him his God.

• For him, the Word of God was almost exclusively the law, and presumably Judges, Ruth, and maybe Job.

• If he can love these bits of the Bible that are only beginning to reveal God, we should love it all, since progressive revelation means that more comes later.

• An acrostic poem — “It consists of twenty-two strophes of eight lines each. Each strophe has the same Hebrew letter at the beginning of every one of its eight lines, going in succession, by strophes, from alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, as the first letter of each line in the first strophe, to taw, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, as the first letter of each line in the last strophe.” [2]

• Eight different Hebrew words are used to speak of the Law . . . The following Hebrew words are used: (1) torah (see "law" and comments, 1.2); (2) ‘eduth (see “testimony” and comments, 19.7c); (3) mishpat (see “judgment,” 7.6); (4) mitswah, always in the plural, except in verses 96, 98 (see “commandment,” 19.8c); (5) choq, always in the plural (see “decree” and comments, 2.7; “statutes,” 18.22); (6) piqudim, a plural form (see “precepts,” 19.8a); (7) dabar; (8) ’imrah (see “promises,” 12.6; 18.30). Torah is always singular and means the whole law of God, the Mosaic Law; dabar and ’imrah mean “word, saying,” and sometimes have the specific meaning of “promise.” The other words refer to rules or commands or instructions . . . All of these eight words are synonyms; they all refer to God’s Law as contained in the Mosaic legislation recorded in the first five books of the Scriptures. The Law is not seen as having a human origin, but always a divine origin; Yahweh is the author of the Torah. It should be noticed that in every one of the 176 verses in this psalm, God is either addressed or referred to.” [3]

• The Psalm in some way reminds me of the Proverbs, because it does not flow well — it is almost a collection of random words or sayings about God’s Word.

• WESLEY — “. . . the word of God is here called by the names of law, statutes, precepts or commandments, judgments, ordinances, righteousness, testimonies, way and word. By which variety, he designed to express the nature and perfection of God's word. It is called his word, as revealed by him to us; his way, as prescribed by him for us to walk in; his law, as binding us to obedience; his statutes, as declaring his authority of giving us laws; his precepts as directing our duty; his ordinances, as ordained by him; his righteousness, as exactly agreeable to God's righteous nature and will; his judgments, as proceeding from the great judge of the world, and being his judicial sentence to which all men must submit; and his testimonies, as it contains the witness of God's will, and of man's duty.” [4]

• SPURGEON – “I have been bewildered in the expanse of the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm . . . Its dimensions and its depth alike overcame me. It spread itself out before me like a vast, rolling prairie, to which I could see no bound, and this alone created a feeling of dismay. Its expanse was unbroken by a bluff or headland, and hence it threatened a monotonous task, although the fear has not been realized. This marvellous poem seemed to me a great sea of holy teaching, moving, in its many verses, wave upon wave; altogether without an island of special and remarkable statement to break it up. I confess I hesitated to launch upon it. Other psalms have been mere lakes, but this is the main ocean. It is a continent of sacred thought, every inch of which is fertile as the garden of the Lord: it is an amazing level of abundance, a mighty stretch of harvest fields. I have now crossed the great plain for myself, but not without persevering, and, I will add, pleasurable, toil. Several great authors have traversed this region and left their tracks behind them, and so far the journey has been all the easier for me; but yet to me and to my helpers it has been no mean feat of patient authorship and research. This great Psalm is a book in itself: instead of being one among many psalms, it is worthy to be set forth by itself as a poem of surpassing excellence. Those who have never studied it may pronounce it commonplace, and complain of its repetitions; but to the thoughtful student it is like the great deep, full, so as never to be measured; and varied, so as never to weary the eye. Its depth is as great as its length; it is mystery, not set forth as mystery, but concealed beneath the simplest statements; may I say that it is experience allowed to prattle, to preach, to praise, and to pray like a child prophet in his own father's house? [5]

• EULOGIUM — “This Psalm is a prolonged meditation upon the excellence of the word of God, upon its effects, and the strength and happiness which it gives to a man in every position. These reflections are interspersed with petitions, in which the Psalmist, deeply feeling his natural infirmity, implores the help of God for assistance to walk in the way mapped out for him in the divine oracles. In order to be able to understand and to enjoy this remarkable Psalm, and that we may not be repelled by its length and by its repetitions, we must have had, in some measure at least, the same experiences as its author, and, like him, have learned to love and practise the sacred word. Moreover, this Psalm is in some sort a touchstone for the spiritual life of those who read it. [6]

• BARCLAY says of this word “Law”: “We must be clear, however, what the word law means in the original Hebrew. We have met it in earlier psalms where we found that it is the word Torah. We found that this word does not mean “law” in the classical Roman sense of lex which has formed the basis of our western legal system. Torah actually means “teaching”, so that it means teaching that has come out of the mouth of the Living God. When the disciple hears the words of his master’s teaching, he receives through it a revelation of what is in the mind of his teacher, and so here, of what is in the mind of God. Torah then means both teaching and revelation, in fact, both these at once—from God!” [7]

ON THE LAW
Although Psalm 119 is really about God’s Word in its widest sense, perhaps partly because so much of the Bible that David would have read would have been the law of Moses, he speaks many times about God’s law. David loves God’s law. This is a very different attitude to what we tend to have. So I cannot avoid giving a very brief introduction here to our view of the law. This is not a sermon about that — one day perhaps we will address this more fully — I did address some of this more in my talks on Galatians last year. But just to help us as we approach this psalm, let's look at how we should view the law.

1. Our Attitude Toward the Law

   • We tend to rebel whenever we hear rules — e.g. “Don’t walk on the grass.” Law teaches us what sin is, and unless empowered by the Spirit, actually provokes us to sin more whilst making us feel condemned.

   • According to Paul, the law exists to lead us to Christ — to make us feel helpless so that we will seek Him for the free gift of salvation which is not dependent on what we have done, but what Christ has done.

   • Those who are Christians tend to say, “We are not under law, but under grace.”

   • Sadly many go one step further and do not want to read the law, nor do they value it as part of God’s Word for us today.

2. Jesus' Attitude Toward the Law

• Is very different to the over-simplified view many of us have today. Listen to what He said:

• "Scripture cannot be broken." (John 10:35)

• "For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:18)
3. The Solution

• God does want us to live righteously, and so the law does have a role for us.

• We are to see the law as revealing God's character and making us fall in love with Him — actually much like David does in this psalm.

• As we fall in love with Jesus, our hearts change and we WANT to keep His commandments.

• Paul calls this the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5)

• Tim Keller puts it this way: "Religion is — I obey so I can be accepted. The gospel is — I am accepted so I can obey."

So, with that bit of introduction over, let’s get into our text — Psalm 119. I think that, on the basis of that introduction, for our purposes in our studies we can replace the word "law" for the word “word” whenever we want to. The psalmist speaks about the law and word interchangeably because that was all he knew of God's Word at that point. If the law was all David knew and he could say all these things about it, how much more should we be able to say the same things of the whole counsel of God, including the law that David knew? So let's turn to Psalm 119.

You will be pleased to know that I am not going to read the whole psalm today, but I would encourage you, in your own time, to read it over several times.

We are going to pick out a number of verses from this psalm today which speak of the effects of God’s reviving word. What exactly does God's Word do for us when we read and listen to it?

1. THE WORD OF GOD BRINGS REVELATION

   "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." (Psalm 119:18)

   The psalmist prays to God — and you will notice how much of this psalm is a prayer, if you like a prayer about God's Word — he asks God to reveal Himself to him in His Word. He says something similar in verse 105: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

   The last time I spoke, I mentioned that the Bible is clear that we are blind and cannot even see God without His help. We need God to shine into our hearts. Like the writer of that great hymn, "Amazing Grace," the Christian is aware that “I once was blind, but now I see.”

   "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6)

   We don’t see the face of Jesus today — how do we see Him? It's in the Scriptures — that is the place for us to meet God! As we read and pray over the Words of this book, let the God of the Bible leap off the page at us!

   Notice that the revelation is about Jesus — Jesus makes this astonishing claim Himself.

   • "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me." (John 5:39)

   Through the Scriptures, we are meant to hear God’s voice. Jesus says this — "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27) He means both spiritual guidance and the Bible — we hear His voice in the Bible. As we read the law, even then we see Jesus. He is revealed. The whole book is about Him.

   This experience of looking to Jesus, of revelation, is not a once-for-all experience. I am sure we can all think of moments when either listening to a sermon or reading from the Bible, it is like a light gets switched on in our heads – “I see it now”
   

   But as we begin to see Jesus there is something else that happens. Remember that God is a reviving God, as we have been saying. So is it any wonder that as we read God's Word, it revives us? Let's see what our next verse has to say.

   QUOTES

   • Chicago Statement — “God who is himself truth and speaks only truth has inspired Holy Scripture (HS) in order thereby to reveal himself...”

   • “Insight into the meaning of God’s law depends not only on prolonged study and meditation; it depends also on God’s guidance. So the psalmist prays, Open my eyes; only in this way can he discover the wonderful truths, or teachings, in the Law. It is God who will enable him to appreciate and understand the Law.” [8]

   • “The word of God is central to the life of God’s people. Our God is a God who speaks and it is the possession of that verbal revelation which marks his people off from all others on earth”. [9]

   • Wesley — “Enlighten my mind by the light of thy Holy Spirit, and dispel all ignorance and error.” [10]

   • Boston:
     1. “That there can be no sufficient knowledge of the duty which we owe to God without the scriptures. Though the light of nature does in some measure show our duty to God, yet it is too dim to take up the will of God sufficiently in order to salvation.
     

     2. That there can be no right obedience yielded to God without them. Men that walk in the dark must needs stumble; and the works that are wrought in the dark will never abide the light; for there is no working rightly by guess in this matter. All proper obedience to God must be learned from the scriptures.

     3. That there is no point of duty that we are called to, but what the scripture teaches, Isaiah. 8:20; men must neither make duties to themselves, or others, but what God has made duty. The law of God is exceeding broad, and reaches the whole conversation of man, outward and inward, Psalms 19; and man is bound to conform himself to it alone as the rule of his duty.” [11]

   • Boston — “The scriptures teach but externally. It is the Spirit that teaches internally. The scriptures externally reveal what we are to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man; but the inward illumination of the Spirit of God is necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the scriptures.”[12]

   • William Cowper — “If it be asked, seeing David was a regenerate man, and so illumined already, how is it that he prays for the opening of his eyes? The answer is easy: that our regeneration is wrought by degrees. The beginnings of light in his mind made him long for more; for no man can account of sense, but he who hath it. The light which he had caused him to see his own darkness; and therefore, feeling his wants, he sought to have them supplied by the Lord.” [13]

   • Spurgeon — “The light which they beg is not anything besides the word. When God is said to enlighten us, it is not that we should expect new revelations, but that we may see the wonders in his word, or get a clear sight of what is already revealed.” [14]

   • "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14)

2. GOD'S WORD REVIVES US

   Verse 25 — "My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!"

   As we recognize our desperate state before a holy God, as we get to the end of ourselves, God in His grace comes to us by His Word and says “LIVE!” Again this is definitely referring to what happens when we become Christians — but it is also an ongoing experience of the Christian who immerses himself in the Word of God with prayer. There are a few other places in the Bible where this is also stated:

   • "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul." (Psalm 19:7).

   • "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4, Deuteronomy 8:3)

   • "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

   We who are privileged to have a complete Bible in front of us should, like David, be always able to find a verse that will sustain us and give us that feeling of a life renewed when we are feeling low. If you are low in energy and life this morning, what do I have to offer you? I can give you a pat on the shoulder and some well-meaning words of support, or I can give you a lifeline from this Book. I know which I prefer!

   This life-giving force of the Bible is also described in a slightly different way in verse 28.

   QUOTES
   "Now we reach the key-word of the whole long psalm. It is the word live. Our biological life is a gift from God. We do not create it ourselves. The Torah, however, uses this word quite differently from Plato and the Greeks. For the Torah, God is the Living God. This Living God offers his children his life, and that is not mere biological life. "It is life in the Spirit, to which physical death has nothing to say." [15]

   Spurgeon — "When there was so little Scripture written, yet David could find out a word for his support. Alas! in our troubles and afflictions, no promise comes to mind. As in outward things, many that have less live better than those that have abundance; so here, now Scripture is so large, we are less diligent, and therefore, though we have so many promises, we are apt to faint, we have not a word to bear us up." [16]

3. GOD'S WORD STRENGTHENS US

   Verse 28 — "My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word."

   God’s Word really is robust and strong enough for us to lean on it when we are feeling weak and depressed. I knew someone who suffered from depression who quite literally used to take God's Word as though it were medicine three times a day. Over time she was strengthened and eventually did not require medication any more. Now, of course, depression can sometimes be biological, and that is not to say that antidepressants do not sometimes have their place. But, there is no doubt that God's Word, if you let it shape you over years, will go a long way towards strengthening you and lifting you up.

   As I was preparing, I felt God drop into my heart that there were some here who have struggled with depression and feel that there is nothing you can do. You feel a failure. Well, I want to tell you that even great men of God like Elijah, and in modern history Spurgeon, suffered from depression, so you are not alone. But God would say to you today, there is something that you can do in addition to taking medication, if that is needed. You can feast yourself on God's reviving and strengthening Word. It may take years — don’t expect a quick fix — but consistent exposure to God's Word will help you — come and talk to us afterwards if this is you, and we would love to give you some ideas about which verses would be especially helpful for you to add to your daily medication list.

   There is another thought that came to me as I was studying these few words. For God's Word to strengthen us reliably it has to be trustworthy and reliable — imagine, if you will, someone who says, "I will cover you" to Jack Bauer and then doesn’t — some today who believe the Bible has errors in it — we addressed this in our Bible study — but I want you to know this is God's Word. If God doesn’t lie, then neither can His Word!

   • "The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever." (Psalm 119:160)

   • "Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar." (Proverbs 3:5-6)

   It is important that we fill our minds with God's truth and not lies. That we focus on righteousness and not sin. That we — as Paul puts it — fill our minds with what is pure. In fact, as we read the Word, it begins to do something to us so that our appetites and desires change. The Word changes us, as we shall see in verse 37.

   QUOTES
   Berkouwer —"There can be no doubt that for a long time during church history certainty of faith was specifically linked to the trustworthiness of Holy Scripture as the Word of God ... From its earliest days the church held that Scripture is not an imperfect, humanly untrustworthy book of various religious experiences, but one with a peculiar mystery" [17]

4. GOD'S WORD CHANGES US

   Verse 37 — "Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways."

   It is interesting that it is mentioned here that God changes our eyes from looking on and valuing things we shouldn’t, and that it is “according to his ways” or words. But, we cannot ask God to do something like this for us and then do nothing about it ourselves! Job puts it this way: "I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?" (Job 31:1)
   
   Paul says: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Philippians 4:8).

   This amazing change that happens on the inside of us — from desiring to look at sinful things and then commit sin, to desiring to do good — is called repentance in the New Testament. But it comes from the Word of God – it is God's message that has the power to change us from sinners to saints.

   • "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." (Romans 1:16)

   Repentance is a gift from God — you may remember that verse in Elijah’s prayer that said it is God that turns us around. There are many others who say the same thing. And yet one of the paradoxes is that God also commands us to repent and “choose life.” The book of Acts, for example, is clear in its instructions to anyone listening who is not a Christian — you are COMMANDED to repent. Our problem is that we are commanded to do the impossible. This is why becoming a Christian is about coming to the end of yourself and asking God to help you. For those of us who are Christians, as we seek the face of God in prayer and in His word, there is a glorious promise for us.

   • "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 3:18)

   Seeking the face of God is a familiar theme in the Scriptures. We become what we eat. We become what we gaze on. Are you feasting on Jesus? As we think about seeing God's very face, as we learn more about God's holy character in the Bible, there is something else that should happen to us. Something that perhaps we don’t like to talk about so much, but it is something that is very much a hallmark of every revival I have read about. Let's see what this is by reading verse 38:

   QUOTE
   Wolfgang Musculus — Notice that he does not say, I will turn away mine eyes; but, "Turn away mine eyes." This shows that it is not possible for us sufficiently to keep our by our own caution and diligence; but there must be divine keeping." [18]

5. GOD'S WORD PRODUCES A HEALTHY FEAR OF GOD
   Verse 38 — "Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared."

   We like the first half of this verse. We want God to fulfill His promises to us. There is great joy in seeing God's promises fulfilled — in seeing God act. But it also has what may seem to us to be a surprising result. Like Peter, who fell at Jesus' feet and said, "Away from me for I am a sinful man," the activity of God reintroduces us to the very biblical concept of the fear of God.

   • " … this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word …" (Isaiah 66:1)

   The thing that marks out historical revivals more than almost anything else is an outbreak of the fear of God. Even in my own experience of a mini-revival, there was something of a sense of the holiness of God which I have rarely experienced before or since.
   
   We see this in the Bible — last time I preached, I mentioned the case of Ananias and Sapphira. We pray “God, send us the experience of the book of Acts," but do we include that experience? Not surprisingly, when they died it is said that great fear fell on the Church. There is a seriousness of God that is felt at those times. C.J. Mahaney once preached a whole series on everyone God killed in the Bible. Not surprisingly, perhaps it led to more salvation than they had seen up until that point, as well as Christians putting their lives straight.
   
   There is much joy in revivals experienced by the newly-saved and the long-time Christian, but there is also many tears experienced by those coming under conviction of sin who have not yet received salvation.
   
   Isaiah 6 is a good illustration of this. Isaiah comes face-to-face with God and says, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"
   
   God is still the same God today and is definitely not to be messed with!
   
   God touches Isaiah’s lips to take away his guilt — only God can deal with guilt — and commissions him. Sadly for Isaiah, incidentally, he is commissioned into a period of time that was precisely the opposite of a generalized revival. He gets personally revived and is sent out to tell others who, he has been warned, will not listen. He must have really struggled with that. Somehow, though, even for Isaiah, God intended him to be full of hope.
   
   We see in verse 49 that hope is one of the outcomes of allowing God’s Word to come to us and joining it with our faith.

   QUOTES
   “The fear of God is distinct from the terror of him that is also a biblical motif (see FEAR). Encompassing and building on attitudes of awe and reverence, it is the proper and elemental response of a person to God. This religious fear of God is a major biblical image for the believer’s faith. In fact, there are well over a hundred references to the fear of God in the positive sense of faith and obedience. To "fear" God or be "God-fearing" is a stock biblical image for being a follower of God, sometimes in implied contrast to those who do not fear him. The very frequency of the references signals that the fear of God is central to biblical faith, and the relative absence of this ancient way of thinking in our culture should give us pause. It is important to note, however, that the preponderance of references occur in the OT, perhaps implying that a permanent change (though not an abrogation) occurred with the incarnation of Christ, who calls his disciples friends rather than servants (John 15:15).
   
   What images should we associate with this mysterious "fear of God?" The actions most frequently associated with fear of God are serving God (Deuteronomy 6:13, 10:20; 1 Samuel 12:24) and obedience to his commandments (Deuteronomy 31:13; 1 Samuel 12:14). The fear of God is linked to wisdom (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10, 15:33) and is part of the covenant between God and his people (Psalm 25:14, 103:17–18). To fear God is to be in awe and reverence of him (Ps 33:8; Malachi 2:5 RSV) and to trust him (Psalm 40:3, 115:11). Fearing God means hating and avoiding evil (Proverbs 8:13, 16:6). It is not too much to say that fearing God is virtually synonymous with having saving faith in him. Deuteronomy 10:12–13 is an apt summary of what is encompassed in the fear of God: "And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees" (NIV).

   The fear of God is a fundamental quality of those who have an experiential knowledge of who he is.” [19]

6. GOD'S WORD GIVES US HOPE

   Verse 49 — "Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope."

   • See also verse 74 — "Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word."

   • And verse 81 — "My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word."

   • So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." (Romans 10:17)

   Hope is infectious . . . as is despair. We should surround ourselves with those who will instill hope into us! But our hope must come from the Scriptures and not a false whipped-up hope.
   
   I can speak personally about how this works. As I was a bit tired out before Christmas, I asked Tope for a break from preaching for awhile. This was a good thing as everyone needs a break from time to time. But I lifted my foot off the accelerator a bit regarding my study of God's Word, and was also not praying as much — obviously when you are preparing to preach you study more and pray more. But what I found was that as my break from the hard work of preaching lengthened, my level of hope was slowly being reduced. I found myself feeling even quite fearful. I remember even having the thought come into my mind, "Perhaps I've forgotten how to preach." But there were also a couple of personal situations where I was beginning to allow fear to have a foothold.
   
   So, how did I deal with this? Well, two things seem to have lifted me. The first was that I received prayer on Saturday morning. The second was that as I went back to a more rigorous Bible study program and begun to pray more, I found that hope began to return and fear subsided.
   
   It is God's Word, soaked in prayer, that gives us hope, that lifts us, that gives us life!
   
   God wants us increasingly to be almost aggressive in how much we place our hope in His Word. Many prayers in the Bible remind God of His promises and almost “sue” him to act. I believe God responds to that kind of prayer — prayer that is mixed with God's own Word.
   
   So far we have seen that God's Word brings revelation, it revives us, it strengthens us, it changes us, as the great hymn says "it teaches our heart to fear," but it also relieves that fear. Is it any wonder that this Word is so precious to the psalmist? What else is there that can do all this to us when we are troubled? What else can comfort us in all our troubles as we see in verse 50?

   QUOTES
   Spurgeon — "The argument is that God, having given grace to hope in the promise, would surely never disappoint that hope. He cannot have caused us to hope without cause. If we hope upon his word we have a sure basis: our gracious Lord would never mock us by exciting false hopes. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, hence the petition for immediate remembrance of the cheering word." [20]

   

   Richard Sibbes — "When we hear any promise in the word of God, let us turn it into a prayer. God's promises are his bonds. Sue him on his bond. He loves that we should wrestle with him by his promises. Why, Lord, thou hast made this and that promise, thou canst not deny thyself, thou canst not deny thine own truth; thou canst not cease to be God, and thou canst as well cease to be God, as deny thy promise, that is thyself. 'Lord, remember thy word' 'I put thee in mind of thy promise, whereon thou hast caused me to hope.' If I be deceived, thou hast deceived me. Thou hast made these promises, and caused me to trust in thee, and 'thou never fullest those that trust in thee, therefore keep thy word to me.'" [21]

7. GOD'S WORD COMFORTS US

   Verse 50 — "This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life."

   What a wonderful verse that is! God comforts us when we are struggling because of His promises. When Mark Dever was trying to summarise the entire message of the Bible, he just said this — the Old Testament is "promises made" and the New Testament is "promises kept," although, of course, we have plenty of promises kept in the Old Testament and made in the New Testament! We should get a hold of God's promises and let them comfort us, revive us, strengthen us, and give us hope.
   
   God's Word really is a comfort — not the latest gadget, nor the bottle, but His faithful Word. The more we see Him being faithful to His Word, the more we will find our faith rising within us. There are now only two more things that I want to address that the Word of God does for us. The first is, in a sense, a summary of all we have said so far. What does God’s Word do? It gives us grace. Verse 58.

   QUOTES
   Spurgeon — "The worldly man clutches his money bag and says, "this is my comfort"; the spendthrift points to his gaiety, and shouts, "this is my comfort"; the drunkard lifts his glass, and sings, "this is my comfort"; but the man whose hope comes from God feels the giving power of the Word of the Lord, and he testifies, "this is my comfort." Paul said, "I know whom I have believed." Comfort is desirable at all times; but comfort in affliction is like a lamp in a dark place. Some are unable to find comfort at such times; but it is not so with believers, their Savior has said to them, "I will not leave you comfortless." [22]

   “What the Word has already done is to faith a pledge of what it shall yet do.” [23]

8. GOD'S WORD GIVES GRACE TO US

   Verse 58 — "I entreat your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise."

   GRACE is what we need to save us — so it is no wonder that Paul said to Timothy that the Scriptures are "… able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15)
   
   It is interesting to see the way that Paul links wisdom and salvation there, for the last thing that I want us to address today from Psalm 119 is, in fact, wisdom. Or as the psalmist says, "good judgment" or discernment (verse 66).

9. GOD'S WORD GIVES US WISDOM

   Verse 66 — "Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments."

   Is it any wonder that the Jubilee membership course says the following:

   The BIBLE is the WORD OF GOD
   • The sole basis of our belief is the BIBLE. We believe that all Scripture is inspired by God and that it was given through men chosen by God.

   • We believe that the Bible, all sixty-six books, contain God's revelation to man, and that the Scriptures are infallible and inerrant.

   • We therefore take all our teaching and insight for living from the Bible."

     — Jubilee Church Membership Course

   "We don’t stand above the Bible, we stand under it."

   — Tope Koleoso

---

Next time I speak to you, God willing, I intend to speak about how practically we stand under the Bible. I will leave you today with one verse that summarises what our response to all this should be:

• "They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so." (Acts 17:11)

Let's receive this reviving Word with all eagerness, and in every way, allow ourselves to be moulded by this wonderful Book God has given us. It’s the only Book that can give life, can save us, can show us how to live. It really is God’s reviving Word. AMEN.
________________

END NOTES
OT=Old Testament
[1] George Angus Fulton Knight, Psalms: Volume 2 (The Daily Study Bible Series, Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2001, c1982), p.223.
[2] Robert G. Bratcher and William David Reyburn, A Translator's Handbook on the Book of Psalms (Helps for Translators,New York: United Bible Societies, 1991), p.996.
[3] Ibid.
[4] John Wesley, John Wesley's Notes One the Bible, Ps 119.
[5] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:1.
[6] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:1.
[7] George Angus Fulton Knight, Psalms: Volume 2 (The Daily Study Bible Series,Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2001, c1982), p.215.
[8] Robert G. Bratcher and William David Reyburn, A Translator's Handbook on the Book of Psalms (Helps for Translators, New York: United Bible Societies, 1991), p.1002.
[9] D. A. Carson, New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition (Revised edition of: The New Bible Commentary, 3rd ed. / edited by D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer. 1970; 4th ed.; Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Illinois, USA: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), Ps 118:24.
[10] John Wesley, John Wesley's Notes On the Bible, Ps 119:18.
[11] Thomas Boston, Thomas Boston Sermons (Joseph Kreifels).
[12] Ibid.
[13] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:18.
[14] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:18.
[15] George Angus Fulton Knight, Psalms: Volume 2 (The Daily Study Bible Series, Louisville: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2001, c1982), p.226.
[16] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David (Joseph Kreifels), Ps 119:25.
[17] G. C. Berkouwer, Holy Scripture (Translation of De Heilige Schrift; ed. Jack Bartlett Rogers; Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Co., 1975), p.11.
[18] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:37.
OT=Old Testament
RSV=Revised Standard Version
NIV=New International Version
[19] Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Electronic edition; Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000, c1998), p.277.
[20] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:49.
[21] Cited in C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, Ps 119:49.
[22] C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, (Joseph Kreifels), Ps 119:50
[23] Robert Jamieson et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (On spine: Critical and Explanatory Commentary; Oak Harbor, Washington: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), Ps 119:50.

The following is a full set of notes, including background information and quotes I used whilst preparing my sermon entitled, "Reviving Prayer," which was preached at Jubilee Church on the 25th of February 2006. Much of this material was never designed to form part of the sermon — instead it is, if you like, part of the "iceberg" that lies beneath the surface supporting what I actually said. You can download the audio (you may need to right click and save the file onto your PC) or listen right here using the following embedded player:

A. INTRODUCTION

Last Sunday at Jubilee we heard about how we believe that God is calling us to be a people of faith — a people who trust in God to do the miraculous. One way in which we express our faith — and in which our faith can grow — is by prayer. I know that for me, as I look back on my life, there are many times when I have wrestled with God in prayer and seen Him answer me. Times when things have been hard, and I have prayed, and suddenly a corner was turned. The time when attempts at moving to a new house didn't happen the way I wanted it, but I prayed and God worked it out so we had a far better house than we originally planned. Times when I have been sick, and prayer led to one of those miracles the doctors call "spontaneous remissions." Times when I felt at the end of my tether, and God intervened and refreshed me, sometimes without even solving the problem.

Sometimes it's not so much our situations that need changing — it's us. Sometimes we might be struggling in a job or a relationship and God wants us to suddenly realize the reason He has put us there. Perhaps you face lots of problems at work and it's getting you down. You might be praying to get out of a job. But God shows you in prayer that if it wasn't for all those problems, they wouldn't be paying your salary. It is often WE that need to be revived from our depressed state.

The kind of prayer I want to look at today is THAT kind of prayer — prayer that changes us. Prayer that revives. There are many great promises attached to prayer in the Bible. One of these is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14:

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 will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

This is a key verse — one you will have probably heard if you have been a Christian for awhile. It is often quoted when we are talking about prayer. In this verse God makes a glorious promise. It is essentially a promise that He will heal and revive us if we will turn and pray.

Last time I spoke we looked at revival and the example in Acts 2 — several points about that passage reflect the "typical" revival as seen in church history. One of these is prayer. This is a pattern that is repeated in Acts and throughout church history. Every revival I have ever read about in Church history started with a prayer meeting.

This quote from a journal which writes exclusively on revival supports the observation that no revival comes without prayer:

" ... let us draw some general lessons from our consideration of the Second Great Awakening . . . It is quite evident that prayer was an essential element in this revival movement, as it is in all revivals. There is no revival without prayer. It would profit us to carefully go over the title of Edwards' thesis on revival praying: "A Humble Attempt" — Every relationship to God must begin with humility, for God gives grace only to the humble (James 4:6; 2 Chronicles 7:14). "For Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People" — An essential condition for revival, as well as an evidence, is unity (Psalms 133; Acts 1:14; Acts 2:1; Acts 4:24ff; Acts 5:12). "For Extraordinary Prayer" — It was Leonard Ravenhill who said, "A church will never have a revival on one prayer meeting a week." May God pour out a "spirit of grace and supplication" upon us! We need first a revival of prayer. (Reformation and Revival Volume 6, 1997)

Let me give a couple of examples of this in church history. During revivals, prayer becomes more intense, and all-night prayer meetings are not uncommon. It is often said of revival times: "You did not have to whip them up to prayer meetings; you could not keep them away." (Martyn Lloyd-Jones).

In revival, even non-Christians come to the prayer meetings and get saved!

Some examples of this:

1. This was my experience at school.

2. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of the place of prayer in revival happened in Coleraine in 1859:

   "A schoolboy in class became so troubled about his soul that the schoolmaster sent him home. An older boy, a Christian, went with him, and before they had gone far, led him to Christ. Returning at once to school, this new convert testified to his teacher, 'Oh, I am so happy. I have the Lord Jesus in my heart.' These artless words had an astonishing effect; boy after boy rose and silently left the room. Going outside, the teacher found these boys all on their knees, ranged along the wall of the playground. Very soon their silent prayer became a bitter cry; it was heard by another class inside and pierced their hearts. They fell on their knees, and their cry for mercy was heard in turn by a girls' class above. In a few moments, the whole school was on their knees! Neighbors and passers-by came flocking in, and all as they crossed the threshold came under the same convicting power. Every room was filled with men, women and children seeking God."

3. Something similar happened that year in New York where a prayer meeting which began with just six people the first week swelled to fill theatres and led directly to 1 million out of 30 million Americans being saved in a year.

This clear link between revival and prayer has led some to think this is an automatic process — that if you do certain things a massive revival is always the result. These words, however, do not remove the sovereignty of God — there is mystery, and the truth is we cannot force God's hand like that. Nor should we stop everything and just pray! Booth said "work as if everything depends on you. Pray as if everything depends on God."

BUT, if people turn and pray, in a certain way I do believe it is almost irresistible to God and He will revive them — even if this does not lead to a widespread "revival." Last time I made the point that I believe that what happens on a global or national scale in revival can be mirrored in an individual church or group of Christians, or even in a single life. God is in the business of reviving those who fear they are almost dead.

So if prayer is what triggers the people of God to be healed and revived, it is also what triggers me personally to be revived as well. How strange it is that we all struggle so much to pray as we ought!

If we were really convinced that prayer changes the way God acts, and that God does bring about remarkable changes in the world in response to prayer, as Scripture repeatedly teaches that He does, then we would pray much more than we do. If we pray little, it is probably because we do not really believe that prayer accomplishes much at all. (Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, p. 377.)

I wish I was more of an expert at prayer. I am not; but I am learning. I wish I knew more about reviving prayer. If there was ever a man who the Bible holds up as an example of fervent reviving prayer, it is Elijah. I would like to introduce us today to a man who certainly knew how to pray. I want to look at the prayer life of Elijah, since the dramatic events of his life are often seen as representing revival — we pray "send the fire" or "send the rain" — he saw both literally. Intriguingly, Solomon, to whom God is speaking in the above promise, had also seen literal fire, as did, of course, the early church in the book of Acts. Fire is very instructive to us about how God the Holy Spirit works.

The New Testament honors Elijah in the book of James:

James 5:16-18. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

So what IS effective prayer? We will look at every recorded prayer of Elijah beginning in 1 Kings 17 where we find the first recorded prayer of Elijah. But before we launch into it, I want you to know that there is no doubt this was not the first prayer of Elijah. We know this for certain because the verse in James we just read tells us that Elijah prayed for the rain to stop. That prayer is not recorded in Scripture, which I think tells us that we must learn to pray in the secret place — I am very sure that Elijah will have prayed for all kinds of small things before he began to pray his "big prayers."

B. WHAT IS REVIVING PRAYER LIKE?

If there is one prayer in the whole Bible that is an example of reviving prayer it is that first recorded prayer of Elijah found in 1 Kings 17. The widow who has been looking after the prophet Elijah during the great drought probably expected some kind of reward from God for doing so. What happened instead? Her son died. This prayer is a prayer that quite literally brought a corpse back to life — it revived the boy. This should be enough to make us sit up and take notice and say, "So what can we learn about prayer from this?" Sometimes we have to be brought into a desperate situation in which we have no "clever" answer in order for us to be driven to prayer.

"He gave no answer to her expostulation, but brought it to God, and laid the case before him, not knowing what to say to it himself." (Matthew Henry)

A REVIVING PRAYER . . .

1 Kings 17:20-21. And he cried to the Lord, "0 Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, "0 Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again."

1. Recognises the situation — doesn't deny it. For example, Abraham (in Romans 4:19)

   ". . . did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb" (or as the NIV puts it) he "faced the facts ... " Essentially, both Elijah and Abraham had one eye on the situation and were being honest and real about it, but also had one eye on God. They both knew that "where God is present, there is nothing that lies outside the realm of possibility."

   "Abraham was fully aware that his own body was as good as dead ("utterly worn out," TCNT). He was, at that time, about one hundred years old (cf. Gen 17:1). Furthermore, Sarah was "past the age of childbearing" (Genesis 18:11). From a common sense standpoint, there was not the slightest possibility that she would bear a child. This, however, did not cause Abraham to weaken in his faith. Faith goes beyond human potentiality. It acknowledges the existence of one who is not bound by the limitations of the created order. 'Conscious of his own utter impotence, Abraham relied simply and completely on the all-sufficient power of God.' Where God is present, there is nothing that lies outside the realm of possibility. The church of Jesus Christ is in desperate need of those who will insist that God is able to bring to pass anything that is consistent with his nature and in concert with his redemptive purposes. Your God Is too small is a sad epitaph inscribed on all too many ecclesiastical groups who, strange as it may seem, claim to worship the Almighty." (Robert H. Mounce, vol. 27, Romans (electronic edition, Logos Library System; The New American Commentary, Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001, (c1995), p. 129.)

2. Cries to God — has a strength about it — challenging God, which almost reminds me of Genesis 32 (Jacob wrestling with God).

   The great thing is that as Elijah cries out to God passionately, his prayer is answered. The boy lives. But something happened here to Elijah — it was one more lesson in the university of prayer. Elijah learnt something, so much so that by the time we get to the very next chapter, we find a bold Elijah, not now hidden in his room, but before the whole nation, standing next to an altar that is soaking wet and a bunch of religious fanatics who have been cutting themselves with swords, trying to persuade Baal to send fire. To make matters worse, he has been mocking them - in clear proof that there ARE jokes in the Bible! So is he nervous? Not a bit of it! Listen to his clear, bold, prayer:

   1 Kings 18:36-39. "0 Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, 0 Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, 0 Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back." Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, "The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God."

3. Calls on the God of history. When we read about what God has done in the past — both in church history and in the Bible — it should make us conclude that the God who acted then can to do the same today; more than that, He wants to do the same today. All we need do is ask. God seems to delight in the kinds of prayers we see often in the Bible which say "do it again, Lord."

   Habbakuk 3:2. "0 Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, 0 Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known;" (ESV)

   The NIV paraphrases this nicely here: "Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, 0 Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known."

4. Desires that God be honoured. When we pray we must examine our hearts and say — "Why am I asking for this?" Is it that I can be more comfortable? Or is it that God can be glorified? How will God be glorified in that new Ferrari you are yearning for?

5. Recognises that repentance is God's work. Some of us have prayed for years for a child who has wandered far away from God, or a friend or relative that never knew Him. Knowing that it is GOD who turns the heart around to follow Him should inspire us to not give up. If we were relying on our friend or family member seeing sense on their own suddenly, how could we believe for that? No, for as 2 Corinthians 4 puts it: "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (v4) — we were all like that once. BUT God didn't leave us like that "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (v6). If you don't know Jesus, you must ask him to do the same — only HE can make you a Christian.

6. Asks God to act "answer me." Too often prayer is simply worrying out loud. We rehearse our woes to God, then feel a bit better for having done so. Like the early church praying for the release of Peter, we are often shocked when our prayers are answered! Peter standing there knocking at the door whilst intense prayer is going on inside has always seemed humorous to me. "No, don't be silly it must be his ghost!" We must actually ASK God to do something and then not be surprised when He does it! Elijah wasn't surprised. Nor did he stop there. He had another prayer to pray ... almost the next verse:

   1 Kings 18:41-46. "And Elijah said to Ahab, 'Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.' So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, 'Go up now, look toward the sea.' And he went up and looked and said, 'There is nothing.' And he said, 'Go again,' seven times. And at the seventh time he said, 'Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.' And he said, 'Go up, say to Ahab, Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.' And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

7. Gets perspective by going high. "No one will ever live higher than their view of God and their view of Jesus Christ."

8. Silent recognition of God's superiority. Bowing before God — in almost every culture, bowing is seen as being subservient — Elijah is recognising God is his king. Of course, any one particular posture in prayer is not critical. It is just as foolish to think we must ALWAYS pray on our knees as it is to NEVER bow our knees before God. When things go well for us — that is the time to make sure we humble ourselves before God once more.

   There was no one posture required for the exercise of prayer. Most often prayer was made standing (e.g., I Samuel 1 :26); the great prayer of the Jewish synagogue was to be called the "standing prayer" (Amidah). On occasion, however, one might pray kneeling (I Kings 8:54), or prostrate (I Kings 18:42), with hands spread out (I Kings 8:22,54; Isaiah 1:15), or lifted up." (Psalm 63:4; 1 Timothy 2:8). (Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia).

9. Is persistent in waiting on God. He doesn't give up!

10. Has the faith that sees a small sign as settling it. Sometimes there comes a point in prayer where we almost feel we need not pray any more. We don't stop praying, but a confidence comes that we know God has settled it. In fact, we sometimes even start to thank Him before we have received! Elijah now knew the rain was coming. But even Elijah didn't live on the mountain top — on a high with God — forever. In the next few words, he is right down in the valley of despair. But even in that despair, he prays.

    We see two prayers that are very different - not entirely for us to copy, but let's not forget that God honored these prayers with a very rare OT manifestation of his presence - in the "still small voice." He cannot have been totally disapproving of them. Thus, I do believe we have something to learn from them.

    1 Kings 19:4. "It is enough; now, 0 Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers."

    1 Kings 19:10. "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away."

11. When at the end of tether, is at least honest before God and engages with Him. However this is an exaggeration — a "me" centered prayer. Look, the point is this — God does not mind if you get to the end of your own strength and cry out to Him in despair. But He certainly doesn't want to leave you there in your despair. Now, for Elijah, suddenly it isn't a dead boy that needs reviving, or a wet sacrifice that needs the fire to fall on it, or the rain clouds that must be summoned. We see here that God is still interested in the man Elijah - who, in this story more than any other, shows us that he was just a weak man like us. When a weak man or woman comes to God, then God is eager to REVIVE them, which is exactly what happened to Elijah. We must remember that it is not merely a matter of what words we use when we pray, or even what emotion we feel. It is more a question of who we are coming to. Elijah comes to the living God. And when the living God meets a man who wants to die, what is the result? Life from death. A new start. A new commission. As I was preparing this, I believe God dropped into my heart that there would be some here who had been this desperate, who like Elijah felt they had been faithful, but like Elijah they believed they had reached the end of the road. Perhaps you even had a "ministry" that is now "over" in your mind. Perhaps you feel you disqualified yourself. God is in the business of restoring and reviving us and wants to do just that to you.

    2 Kings 1:9 "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty. "

12. Declarative prayer. (NB this is an Old Testament prayer - but it did happen to Ananias and Sapphira!)

As I have said earlier, it is NOT a case of "follow this list and you'll get a global revival" because revival comes through a sovereign act of God. I do believe, however, this kind of prayer connects you as an individual with the reviving Spirit of God - and ANYTHING can be the result!

C. TWO MORE THINGS TO LEARN FROM ELlJAH'S LIFE OF PRAYER

1. The invitation to others. 2 Kings 2:9-10. Elijah said to Elisha, "Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you. " And Elisha said, "Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me." And he said, "You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so."

2. The successor's prayer. 2 Kings 2:14. "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?"

Elisha asked, "Where now is the God of Elijah?" We can sometimes ask that same thing today — Where are the miracles? Where are the salvations? Where are the dramatic acts? — Where is God?! The answer is — He is right here in this room! And as we pray, if we are praying in the centre of His will, we can be confident that He will answer. Our God really is the One who answers by fire.

We worship a God who hears our prayers and revives us. I could tell you many stories from my own life. But the one I want to tell you is perhaps close to my mind at the moment because it concerns the first few months of my soon-to-be second youngest son. In my wife's family, there is a tendency towards deafness. Andree has a 30 per cent loss herself, but manages to hear something and covers it up quite well. When our son was born, it was soon clear that he was deaf. A screening test confirmed that there was no response to sound. We observed that, unlike our other babies, he never startled to sound. Suddenly it wasn't just our relatives. It was us! Dreams were shattered. We were clinging onto God, but it was not an easy time. One day I read in the Scriptures a verse that simply said "In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book" (Isaiah 29:18). I shared this with my wife and she said, "We know he will hear one day" - meaning, of course, the final day. This is comforting, but something within me cried out, "Why not now!" So we prayed. This church prayed. Then after just a few days, I had a phone call. My wife said "I think he just startled to noise." I was shocked. To be honest, I didn't believe it. But, sure enough, a few days after that, when we had more detailed tests carried out, his hearing was perfect! Not only that, but all our children’s hearing was also perfect, and from that day to this, none of them have shown any signs of being hard of hearing. We serve a God who heals. We serve a God who revives. Let's stand and pray.

If you are looking for another example of a prayer for revival, why not read Psalms 85:

Lord, you were favourable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

You forgave the iniquity of your people; you covered all their sin. Selah.

You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.

Restore us again, 0 God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us!

Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

Show us your steadfast love, 0 Lord, and grant us your salvation.

D. WHAT DO YOU NEED REVIVED IN YOUR LIFE?

• Restoring of fortunes - e.g. work and/or relationships.

• Forgiveness of sins? For the first time, or because you have drifted away?

• Renewal of relationship with the God you feel is angry with you?

• Renewal of JOY in God - knowing God brings happiness.

• Demonstration of God's love to your hearts?

God moves in a mysterious way. I was thinking about revival and found a talk by John Lanferman on revival. I liked that talk, so I decided to listen to another talk by John Lanferman, which turned out to be on Elijah. Interestingly, I have been thinking about Elijah this week as well! I found the talk to be very encouraging, focusing on the idea of Elijah as a man of purpose. This Old Testament character is well worth spending some time studying and reflecting on his successes and setbacks. He really was a man like us. (James 5:17)

Most Mondays I take the time to raid my electronic version of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' materials, which is produced by Logos Bible Software. Today's quote centers on the way revival demonstrates God’s sovereign power:

“A revival, by definition, is the mighty act of God and it is a sovereign act of God It is as independent as that. Man can do nothing. God, and God alone, does it … A revival is something which, when it happens, leads people to say, as the townspeople said in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, ‘What is this? What is it?’ It is something that comes like a tornado. It is almost like an overflowing tide, it is like a flood. Astounding things happen, and of such a magnitude that men are left amazed, astonished ...

Miraculous things happen, things that are beyond the explanation and the wit of men. And indeed, if you consult the men whom God has used on such occasions, they will all tell you the same thing. They suddenly, like John Livingstone, became conscious of a power coming upon them. Not themselves. Taken up, taken out of themselves. Given liberty. Given authority. Given fearlessness. Speaking as men of God with the boldness of the original apostles. They knew when the power came, they knew when the power went. You will read it in the journals of Whitefield and of Wesley and all the rest. This is the hand of the Lord. This is the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. It was because he knew so much about this that the Apostle Paul says ‘For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:4–5). That is it ...

Do we believe in God coming in and doing things that we not only cannot do, but cannot even understand, nor control, nor explain. Yea, I ask you, do you long to know such things? To see such things happening again today? Are you praying for such a visitation? For believe me, when God hears our prayers and does this thing again, it will be such a phenomenon that not only will the Church be astounded and amazed, but even those who are outside will be compelled to listen and to pay attention, in a way that they are not doing at the present time, and in a way that men left to themselves can never persuade them to do ...

The outstanding temptation—the besetting sin—of every preacher, myself included, is that after you have prepared your sermons you feel that all is well. You have your two sermons ready for Sunday. Well, that is all right. You have your notes, and you can speak, and you can deliver your message. But that is not preaching! That can be utterly useless. Oh, it may be entertaining, there may be a certain amount of intellectual stimulus and profit in it, but that is not preaching. Preaching is in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. And a man has to realise, after he has prepared his sermons, that however perfectly he may have done so, that it is all waste and useless unless the power of the Spirit comes upon it and upon him. He must pray for that.

Yes, but not only he. Those who listen must also pray for that. How many people pray before they go to a service that the Spirit of God might come upon the preacher and use him and his message? The hearers, as well as the preacher, must pray for that, otherwise they are looking to him and to his message. No, all together must look to God and realise their utter dependence upon the power that he alone can give. And whenever there is a revival and God’s power is manifested, you need not urge people to pray, they do. They want to see more and more of it. Revival, then, encourages us to pray, and that is why it is good for us to read these accounts and look back on what God has done, that we may realise that the living God is among us. And we must pray to him to manifest this power.”

Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1987). Revival, p.116ff., Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books.

This past Sunday I preached on revival. You can download the audio or listen right here using the following embedded player. I have shared my notes almost exactly as I preached from them. They might not make a great deal of sense to someone else, for which I apologise. Hopefully the audio is easier to follow. This was a hard sermon to prepare, but one that I really felt assisted by God as I preached.

1. Why do we need revival?

“we begin to die @ birth” ...Death since Adams sin – sickness “half dead”, relationship break down, bad things =“I died on the inside” I needed reviving

God is in the business of reviving, restoring, renewing, returning/bringing back, fixing. GOD IS AN EXPERT IN REVIVAL

God wants this earth to mirror heaven

2. What is Revival?

DEFINITIONS OF REVIVAL

a.dictionary = “the restoring of a near dead being to life” ---

b.web = “a powerful intensification of the Holy Spirit’s normal activity”

NOT DIFFERENT..

- The Spirit of Revival always available – Jesus is the same…

-episodic or WAVES different extent geog and depth…PROGRESSIVE…

"Revival is a sovereign work of God the heavenly Father, manifesting his glory on the earth. It consists of a powerful intensification by Jesus of the Holy Spirit's normal activity of testifying to the Saviour, accentuating the doctrines of grace, and convicting, converting, regenerating, and sanctifying large numbers of people at the same time. It is therefore a community experience.

It is occasionally preceded by an expectation that God is about to do something exceptional; it is usually preceded by an extraordinary unity and prayerfulness among Christians; and it is always accompanied by the revitalisation of the Church, the conversion of large numbers of unbelievers, and the reduction of sinful practices in the community. Stuart Piggin"

c.My own way to define revival is:

“The return of the church to something of the experience of the book of Acts”

Different Perspectives of Revival Let the bible shape our view…PACKED in but few mentions of the word God revives us –eg Eph 2….

>>>>READ>>> ACTS 2 is the model revival.

Judges, etc, OT finishes then 400 years silence….no prophecy then NT Jesus Church is birthed- amazing a revival…. In the upper room – prayer, 3000 people come to Christ. Scared denying Peter had woken up – HE was revived!

Acts 2:1-8, 12-18, 37-41

A simple MODEL pattern (not just a story!) , repeated in revivals – episodic in bible…BUT AVAILABLE NO CONCLUSION – headlines – bad times too!

•Acts 3:19-20 “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord”

•Acts 18:10 " I have many in this city who are my people.”

•1 Thess 1:5 ‘Our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.’

•This is not something that man can manufacture, but learn to ride the waves!

“Its just the bible” but how do you explain what happened in days of

SPURGEON - (why not now…?)

•Preached over 600 times before age of 20.

•20,000 copies of his 3500+ printed sermons sold per week. Translated into 20 languages. Longest ever set of Christian books by a single author

•Led the first modern “mega church” with some 5,000 members. Peak congregations up to 23,000. From 1854 to 1864, the church recorded 3,569 baptisms

•By age 50 had founded 66 organizations.

Shaftsbury said “more than enough to occupy the minds and hearts of fifty ordinary men.” ONE EMPOWERED LIFE…..

1. “I remember, when I have preached at different times in the country, and sometimes here, that my whole soul has agonized over men, every nerve of my body has been strained and I could have wept my very being out of my eyes and carried my whole frame away in a flood of tears, if I could but win souls.”

2. “If Christ commands me to hold up my little finger, and I do not obey Him, it looks like coolness in my love to Him.”

3. RESULT “The Lord gave the people more and more a willingness to hear, and there was no pause either in the flowing stream of hearers, or in the incoming of converts. The Holy Spirit came down like showers which saturate the soil till the clods are ready for the breaking; and then it was not long before, on the right and on the left, we heard the cry, ‘What must we do to be saved?’

We were busy enough, in those days, in seeing converts; and, thank God, we have been so ever since.” CHS 25 years of PERSONAL revival….

•ALSO John Knox, Reformation “God did so multiply our number that it appeared as if men had rained from the clouds.” Almost the whole nation of Scotland converted in 10 years.

•Richard Baxter, 1666 In Kidderminster (UK) the average street had 1 Christian family, after revival 1 family per side of the street not saved

•Wesley and Whitfields, 1700s Revival is credited by historians with saving the UK from a French-style revolution

•America, 1858-59 1 million Americans converted, another million Christians renewed out of 30 million

•Ethiopia,1937 48 known believers, by 1943 when missionaries returned there were 10,000

•Welsh Revival, 1904. At least 150,000 saved in 6 months. Pubs emptied, crime reduced, pit ponies couldn’t work.

•We live in the largest revival ever known

•Churches exist in London today that are bigger than Spurgeon’s was

•54,000 new charismatics per day worldwide

In Africa 9% or 10 /107 million people Christian in 1900, today 46% 361/784 million

Revival is not continuous - Many Times in History that people said the church would die out – then God intervened. The Church has always grown in fits and starts...times of blessing

Why Should We study Revival?

•1. NOT so we can get nostalgic but so Learning about it thrills our hearts and makes us yearn for more.

•2God has great plans for our world - we can learn more about what to expect God saves the best wine till last.... MANY of the great men of the past prophesied that greater things were coming .... “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley,” said Latimer, “and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

“increase of his kingdom their will be no end…” Is 6:7

•Rev 7:9-11 “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God”

•Is 44:3-4 “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.”

Isaiah 54:2-3 “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.”

What about us?

- Are we in a revival?

- Not in one sense, but “ankle deep” or “on the edge of something”

-increasing sense of the presence of God

-God changing lives, measure of growth

-we are in touch with the reviving Spirit….

-BUT we aint seen nothing yet…be realistic but expectant

“When God acts, He can do more in a minute that man with his organizing can do in fifty years” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

- Terry Virgo “God is putting the word revival back on our lips” -prophecies that we as a movement will see exponential growth

- I am convinced God wants to bring revival to this land – alive – not boring churches (Kids) – full of truth – lives changed – in fact he is already reviving individual lives and individual churches…..

-THE CHURCH IS INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE LIKE YOU…not “numbers” exc

Our own story – eg Terrys DVD – revived as a BACKSLIDER…..

-You can be in a revival and miss out. You can have your own personal revival….

Are you at work because God forgot about you? Or because he wants to revive you… - God wants to revive you and make you a secret agent of revival – and to go around spreading it…. We need turning back to God – when the church comes back to God the world comes back

Most Mondays, I take the time to raid my electronic version of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' materials, which is produced by Logos Bible Software. Today's quote centers on the vital place of prayer in revival:

“If you look back across the history of the Christian Church, you immediately find that the story of the Church has not been a straight line, a level record of achievement. The history of the Church has been a history of ups and downs. It is there to be seen on the very surface. When you read the history of the past you find that there have been periods in the history of the Church when she has been full of life, and vigour, and power. The statistics prove that people crowded to the house of God, whole numbers of people who were anxious and eager to belong to the Christian Church.

Then the Church was filled with life, and she had great power; the Gospel was preached with authority, large numbers of people were converted regularly, day by day, and week by week. Christian people delighted in prayer. You did not have to whip them up to prayer meetings, you could not keep them away. They did not want to go home, they would stay all night praying. The whole Church was alive and full of power, and of vigour, and of might. And men and women were able to tell of rich experiences of the grace of God, visitations of his Spirit, a knowledge of the love of God that thrilled them, and moved them, and made them feel that it was more precious than the whole world. And, as a consequence of all that, the whole life of the country was affected and changed.”

Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1987). Revival (26). Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books

In the introduction to the 1859 volume of Spurgeon's sermons we find the following provocative few paragraphs:

In the history of the Church, with but few exceptions, you could not find a revival at all that was not produced by the orthodox faith. What was that great work which was done by Augustine, when the Church suddenly woke up from the pestiferous and deadly sleep into which Pelagian doctrine had cast it? What was the Reformation itself but the awaking up of men's minds to those old truths?

However, far modern Lutherans may have turned aside from their ancient doctrines . . . yet, at any rate, Luther and Calvin had no dispute about predestination. Their views were identical, and Luther's Bondage of the Will is as strong a book upon the free grace of God as Calvin himself could have written . . . . Need I mention to you better names than Huss, Jerome of Prague, Ferel, John Knox, Wickliffe, Wishart, and Bradford?

Need I do more than say that these held the same views, and that in their day anything like an Arminian revival was utterly unheard of and undreamed of? And then, to come to more modern times, there is the great exception, that wondrous revival under Mr. Wesley, in which the Wesleyan Methodists had so large a share; but permit me to say, that the strength of the doctrine of Wesleyan Methodism lay in its Calvinism.

The great body of the Methodists disclaimed Pelagianism, in whole and in part. They contended for man's entire depravity, the necessity for the direct agency of the Holy Spirit, and that the first step in the change proceeds not from the sinner, but from God. They denied at that time that they were Pelagians. Does not the Methodist hold, as firmly as ever we do, that man is saved by the operation of the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost only? And are not many of Wesley's sermons full of that great truth, that the Holy Ghost is necessary to regeneration?

. . . And then, let me say, if you turn to the continent of America, how gross the falsehood that Calvinistic doctrine is unfavorable to revivals. Look at that wondrous shaking under Jonathan Edwards, and others which we might quote. Or turn to Scotland—what shall we say of M'Cheyne? What shall we say of those renowned Calvinists, Dr. Chalmers, Wardlaw, and before them, Livingstone, Haldane, Erskine, and the like?

What shall we say of the men of their school, but that, while they held and preached unflinchingly the great truths which we would propound today, yet God owned their word, and multitudes were saved. And if it were not perhaps too much like boasting of one's own work under God, I might say, personally I have never found the preaching of these doctrines lull this church to sleep, but ever while they have loved to maintain these truths, they have agonized for the souls of men, and the 1,600 or more whom I have myself baptized, upon profession of their faith, are living testimonies that these old truths in Publishers "Introduction,"modern times have not lost their power to promote a revival of religion.

---

Publisher's "Introduction", Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Revival Year Sermons: Preached at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall during 1859 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust). Cited at The Resurgence.

I have a clear memory from a number of years ago of reading a sermon by Spurgeon in which he broke off into an extended passage in which he predicted what he believed would happen in the church in the UK. I remember that he spoke of a period when the Evangelical faith would almost seem to be vanquished. He went on to predict, however, that a future significant move of God would occur that would dwarf anything he had ever seen.

My problem is that I cannot remember anything about the actual words he used, nor about the passage he was preaching on!

I therefore want to set you my readers a challenge. Can anyone shed any more light on this quotation and provide a source and, ideally, the actual wording? Phil Johnson is allowed to reply, but I will hold his comment in the approval queue to give some others a chance - if, in fact, he makes one, given his current blogging interlude.

I suspect that Spurgeon may have spoken in a similar vein more than once, so feel free to keep posting, even if someone has already shared something. If you can't work my comment system, feel free to send me an e-mail at:

adrian.warnock@gmail.com

It is time once more to raid my electronic version of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' materials, which is produced by Logos Bible Software. Today's quote is more from the Doctor on revival - this time it is a list of vital doctrines that are neglected outside of times of revival, yet find their central place during revival. Read them slowly, and carefully, then get a hold of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' book on revival (electronically or in paper form) and read them in full in chapter 3. They sound so very current to today's controversies.

Truths We Neglect at Our Peril

The truth concerning the sovereign, transcendent, living God who acts, and who intervenes, and erupts into the history of the Church, and of individuals. I must start with that. It is the foundation of all doctrines . . . The basis of everything is the sovereign, transcendent, living God, who in His eternal, glorious freedom acts, intervenes, and interferes with the life of the whole Church and of individuals. And if there is anything that is more obvious than anything else in the life of the Church today, it is the failure to start with, and to believe, that truth . . . Their ideas of God that He is a God who does not intervene. He is a God who does not act, a God whom they are always having to approach: they are always moving while He remains away in some distant eternity, absolutely impassive and immovable. He is this remote God. And they consequently do not believe in revival, because that means essentially God acting, God coming in, God breaking in . . . .

The second truth which has been hidden follows from the first. It involves the authority of this book, the authority of the Bible . . . They do not really believe that God has revealed the truth concerning Himself, in propositions, and in statements, as they are recorded in the Bible. What then, is their position? How do they arrive at truth? Their answer is that they arrive at truth by searching for it, by their reasoning, by their understanding and by their speculation.

Now, this can be put very simply. The whole emphasis today is upon man’s search for God, as if God had never revealed Himself at all. But the whole case of the Bible is that God is searching for man, and that He has revealed Himself to man, because man by searching cannot find God. That is its fundamental proposition . . .

If you read the history of all the revivals of the past, you will find that they have been periods when men and women have believed this book to be the Word of God. They have believed it literally, they have regarded it as the revelation of God, and the truth concerning Him, and man’s relationship to Him, and all that is involved. And they have believed that this book has been written by men who have been divinely inspired. They have submitted themselves to it, they have not stood above it as judges, and as those who can decide what is right and what is wrong . . . .

The third great cardinal article of belief which has been ignored is man in sin and under the wrath of God. Here is a doctrine that the natural man abominates. He feels that it is insulting to him. He has always been like that . . . Men and women in the midst of revival are . . . conscious of . . . their own unutterable sinfulness. When you have a revival you see men and women groaning, agonising under the conviction of sin. They are so conscious of their unworthiness, and their vileness, that they feel that they cannot live. They do not know what to do with themselves. They cannot sleep. They are in an agony of soul. If you read the history, you will see that that is the thing which stands out . . . .

Back in March of 2006, I wrote a long post which referred to John Piper’s article about Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I thought I would use this Piper Friday to highlight Dr. Piper’s article once more. You can read Piper’s whole article over on his website.

Piper begins by sharing two quotes that in some ways seem contradictory. Unless, that is, you are a preacher. For many of us the passion of our life is to preach in such a way that many are saved and helped, and yet we are conscious that true preaching is not something we can manufacture. As a result, there is often a sense of holy dissatisfaction that leads us to say — yes, preaching is my highest passion and it is wonderful, but in some ways I feel I have never truly preached as I ought. I remember the Doctor saying elsewhere that he believed he had only ever really preached as he ought twice in his life and, sadly, both times whilst he was dreaming!

"Preaching has been my life's work . . . to me the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called."

"I can say quite honestly that I would not cross the road to listen to myself preaching." (Preface to D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1971.)

Dr. Piper outlines the Doctor’s life and influence on his own preaching very well, and I would encourage you to read the whole article. The following is just a snippet to whet your appetite:

"From the beginning to the end, the life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a cry for depth in two areas - depth in Biblical doctrine and depth in vital spiritual experience. Light and heat. Logic and fire. Word and Spirit. Again and again he would be fighting on two fronts: on the one hand against dead, formal, institutional intellectualism, and on the other hand against superficial, glib, entertainment-oriented, man-centered emotionalism. He saw the world in a desperate condition without Christ and without hope; and a church with no power to change it. One wing of the church was straining out intellectual gnats and the other was swallowing the camels of evangelical compromise or careless charismatic teaching. For Lloyd-Jones, the only hope was historic, God-centered revival . . . .

Lloyd-Jones has done more than any other man in this century, I think, to restore the historic meaning of the word revival."

"A revival is a miracle . . . something that can only be explained as the direct . . . intervention of God . . . Men can produce evangelistic campaigns, but they cannot and never have produced a revival." (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival, Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1987, pp. 111-112).

But for Lloyd-Jones it was a great tragedy that the whole deeper understanding of revival, as a sovereign outpouring of the Holy Spirit had been lost by the time he took up the subject in 1959 at the 100th anniversary of the Welsh Revival. "During the last seventy to eighty years," he said, "this whole notion of a visitation, a baptism of God's Spirit upon the Church, has gone." (Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1990, p. 385).

He gave several reasons why. But he says that the most important theological reason for the prevailing indifference to revival was the view that the Holy Spirit was given once for all on the Day of Pentecost, so that He cannot be poured out again, and prayer for revival is therefore wrong and needless. This is where Lloyd-Jones begins to part ways with some standard evangelical interpretations of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. (John Piper on MLJ)

John Piper then shares and comments on a series of quotes which demonstrate how Martyn Lloyd-Jones clearly linked historical revivalism with the baptism with the Holy Spirit. I will share some of the quotes — you will have to visit Piper’s site for his commentary.

"Here is the first principle . . . I am asserting that you can be a believer, that you can have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, and still not be baptized with the Holy Spirit . . . . The baptism of the Holy Spirit is something that is done by the Lord Jesus Christ, not by the Holy Spirit . . . . Our being baptized into the body of Christ is the work of the Spirit (that's the point of 1 Corinthians 12:13) as regeneration is His work, but this is something entirely different; this is Christ's baptizing us with the Holy Spirit. And I am suggesting that this is something which is therefore obviously distinct from and separate from becoming a Christian, being regenerate, having the Holy Spirit dwelling within you." (Joy Unspeakable, Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois, 1984, pp. 21, 23)

"The difference between the baptism of the Holy Spirit and a revival is simply one of the number of people affected. I would define a revival as a large number, a group of people, being baptized by the Holy Spirit at the same time; or the Holy Spirit falling upon, coming upon a number of people assembled together. It can happen in a district, it can happen in a country." (Joy Unspeakable, p. 51.)

"The purpose, the main function of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is . . . to enable God's people to witness in such a manner that it becomes a phenomenon and people are arrested and are attracted." (Joy Unspeakable, p. 84)

"[We] can produce a number of converts, thank God for that, and that goes on regularly in evangelical churches every Sunday. But the need today is much too great for that. The need today is for an authentication of God, of the supernatural, of the spiritual, of the eternal, and this can only be answered by God graciously hearing our cry and shedding forth again His Spirit upon us and filling us as He kept filling the early church." (Joy Unspeakable, p. 278)

"What is needed is some mighty demonstration of the power of God, some enactment of the Almighty, that will compel people to pay attention, and to look, and to listen. And the history of all the revivals of the past indicates so clearly that that is invariably the effect of revival, without any exception at all. That is why I am calling attention to revival. That is why I am urging you to pray for this. When God acts, He can do more in a minute that man with his organizing can do in fifty years." (Revival, pp. 121-122)

"Let us together decide to beseech Him, to plead with Him to do this again. Not that we may have the experience or the excitement, but that His mighty hand may be known and His great name may be glorified and magnified among the people." (Revival,  p. 117.)

The word revival is back on the lips of people I know — I hadn't even heard it mentioned for a very long time until just recently.

I thought I would share some quotes from Spurgeon on the subject of revival with you today. I hope and pray it inspires you to pray for revival, and to have an eye that is trained to see the signs of God's reviving work that are all around us every day.

"And now, at this time, we want to have the old truths restored to their places. The subtleties and the refinements of the preacher must be laid aside. We must give up the grand distinctions of the school-men, and all the lettered technicalities of men who have studied theology as a system, but have not felt the power of it in their hearts; and when the good old truth is once more preached by men whose lips are touched as with a live coal from off the altar, this shall be the instrument, in the hand of the Spirit, for bringing about a great and thorough revival of religion in the land." (From Pyromaniacs)

"We need a work of the Holy Spirit of a supernatural kind, putting power into the preaching of the Word, inspiring all believers with heavenly energy, and solemnly affecting the hearts of the careless, so that they turn to God and live. We would not be drunk with the wine of carnal excitement, but we would be filled with the Spirit. We would behold the fire descending from heaven in answer to the effectual fervent prayers of righteous men. Can we not entreat the Lord our God to make bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the people in this day of declension and vanity?" (The Kind of Revival We Need)

"What is taught to us by a revival? I think it is just this—that God is absolute monarch of the hearts of men. God does not say here if men are willing; but he gives an absolute promise of a blessing. As much as to say, "I have the key of men's hearts; I can induce the ploughman to overtake the reaper; I am master of the soil — however hard and rocky it may be, I can break it and I can make it fruitful." When God promises to bless his Church and to save sinners, he does not add, "If the sinners be willing to be saved." No, great God! Thou leadest free will in sweet captivity, and thy free grace is all triumphant. Man has a free will, and God does not violate it; but the free will is sweetly bound with fetters of the divine love till it becomes more free than it ever was before. The Lord, when he means to save sinners, does not stop to ask them whether they mean to be saved, but like a rushing mighty wind the divine influence sweeps away every obstacle; the unwilling heart bends before the potent gale of grace, and sinners that would not yield are made to yield by God." (A Revival Sermon based on Amos 9:13)

"Ye may pray, and pray, and pray, but there shall be no conversions, no sense of quickening, until the Spirit's working be distinctly recognized. The minister shall be just as much a preacher of the mere letter as ever he was; the Church officers shall be as formal and official as ever they were; the Church members shall be as inconsistent and as indifferent as they were wont to be; the congregation shall be as uninterested and as unmoved as they were in the worst times, except the Spirit of God work with us.

In this thing we may quote the words of the psalmist, 'Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.' O friends, it is well to have a holy industry and a devout perseverance; it is well to strain every nerve, and put forth every effort; but all this must end in the most sorry, heart-sickening failure, unless the Lord rend the heavens and come down.

I am telling you what you all do know, and what I trust you feel, but it is what we are constantly forgetting; for many are they that go and warfare at their own charges, and so become both bankrupt and defeated; and many be they who would build God's house simply by stress of human effort, but they fail, because God is not there to give them success . . . .

God thinks souls to be very precious, and his own words are, 'As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but had rather that he should turn unto me and live.' Are we agreed with God in that? Our God thinks souls to be so precious, that if a man could gain the whole world and lose his soul, he would be a loser. Are we agreed with him there? In the person of Christ, our God wept over Jerusalem; watered with tears that city which must be given up to the flames. Have we tears, too? Have we compassion, too? When God thinks of sinners it is in this wise: 'How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim?' Can we bemoan sinners in that way? Do we stir our souls to an agony of grief because men will turn from God and will willfully perish in their sin? If, on the contrary, you and I selfishly say, "We are safe, it does not matter to us whether others are brought to know Christ," we are not agreed, God will not work with us; and such of you as feel this indifferentism, this cursed lethargy, are our bane, our burden, our hindrance. God forgive you, and stir you up to feel that your heart will not rest unless poor sinners are plucked as brands from the burning. Are we agreed here?

If we would have the Lord with us, in the next place, we must be agreed as to the means to be used in revival. We are agreed that the first means is the preaching of Christ. We do not want any other doctrine than that we have received — Christ lifted up upon his cross, as the serpent was lifted up upon the pole. This is the remedy which we, in this house of prayer, believe in. Let others choose sweet music, or pictures, or vestments, or baptismal water, or confirmation, or human rites; we abhor them, and pour contempt upon them; as for us, our only hope lies in the doctrine of a substitute for sinners, the great fact of the atonement, the glorious truth that Christ Jesus came into the world to seek and to save sinners.

I think we are agreed with God in this, that the preaching of Christ is the way by which believers shall be saved. God's great agency is the Holy Spirit. We are agreed, brethren, that we do not want sinners to be converted by our persuasion, we do not want them brought into the Church by excitement; we want the Spirit's work, and the Spirit's work alone. I would not bend my knee once in prayer, much less day by day, to win a mere excitement; we have done without it, and we shall do without it by the grace of God; but I would give mine eyes, if I might but know that the Holy Spirit himself would come forth and show what divinity can do in turning hearts of stone to flesh.

In this thing, I think, that we are agreed with God. But God's way of blessing the Church is by the instrumentality of all her members. The multitude must be fed, but it must not be by Christ's hand alone: he gave the bread to the disciples, and the disciples, to the multitude . . .

Yet again, dear friends, are we agreed this day as to our utter helplessness in this work?

. . . An humble Church will be a blessed Church; a Church that is willing to confess its own errors and failures, and to lie at the foot of Christ's cross, is in a position to be favored of the Lord. I hope we are agreed, then, with God, as to our utter unworthiness and helplessness, so that we look to him alone. I charge you all to be agreed with God in this thing, that if any good shall be done, any conversions shall occur, all the glory must be given to him . . . .

Before Israel could take possession of the promised rest of Canaan, Joshua had to see to it that they were purified by the rite of circumcision. Whenever God would visit his people, he always demands of them some preparatory purging that they may be fit to behold his presence; for two cannot walk together, unless that which would make them disagree be purged out.

A few suggestions then, as to whether there is anything in us with which God cannot agree. Here I cannot preach to you indiscriminately, but put the task into the hand of each man to preach to himself. In the days of the great weeping, we read that every man wept apart and his wife apart, the son apart, and the daughter apart, all the families apart. So it must be here. Is there pride in me? Am I puffed up with my talent, my substance, my character, my success? Lord purge this out of me, or else thou canst not walk with me, for none shall ever say that God and the proud soul are friends: he giveth grace to the humble; as for the proud, he knoweth them afar off, and will not let them come near to him. Am I slothful? Do I waste hours which I might usefully employ? Have I the levity of the butterfly, which flits from flower to flower, but drinks no honey from any of them? Or have I the industry of the bee, which, wherever it lights, would find some sweet store for the hive? Lord, thou knowest my soul, thou understandest me. Am I doing little where I might do much? Hast thou had but little reaping for much sowing? Have I hid my talent in a napkin? Have I spent that talent for myself, instead of spending it for thee? Slothful souls cannot walk with God. "My Father worketh," saith Jesus, "and I work"; and you who stand in the market-place idle, may stand there with the devil, but you cannot stand there with God. Let every brother who is guilty of this, purge away his sloth.

Or am I guilty of worldliness. This is the crying sin of many in the Christian Church. Do I put myself into association with men who cannot by any possibility profit me? Am I seen where my Master would not go? Do I love amusements which cannot afford me comfort when I reflect upon them; and which I would never indulge in if I thought that Christ would come while I was at them? Am I worldly in spirit as to fashion? Am I as showy, as volatile, as frivolous as men and women of the world? If so, if I love the world, the love of the Father is not in me; consequently he cannot walk with me, for we are not agreed.

Again, am I covetous? Do I scrape and grind? Is my first thought not how I can honor God, but how I can accumulate wealth? When I gain wealth, do I forget to make use of it as a steward? If so, then God is not agreed with me; I am a thief with his substance; I have set myself up for a master instead of being a servant, and God will not walk with me till I begin to feel that this is not my own, but his; and that I must use it in his fear.

Again, am I of an angry spirit? Am I harsh towards my brethren? Do I cherish envy towards those who are better than myself, or contempt towards those who are worse off? If so, God cannot walk with me, for he hates envy, and all contempt of the poor is abhorrent to him.

Is there any lust in me? Do I indulge the flesh? Am I fond of carnal indulgences by which my soul suffers? If so, God will not walk with me; for chambering, and wantonness, and gluttony, and drunkenness separate between a believer and his God: these things are not convenient to a Christian . . . .

For my own part, I cry unto my Master, that if there be anything that can make me more fit to be the messenger of God to you and to the sons of men, however painful might be the preparatory process, he would graciously be pleased not to spare me of it. If by sickness, if by serious calamities, if by slander and rebuke, more honor can be brought to him, then hail! and welcome! all these things; they shall be my joy; and to receive them shall be delight. I pray you, utter the same desire: "Lord, make me fit to be the means of glorifying thee." (A Preparation for Revival)

 Revival is a word that is on some people's lips once more in my circles.  It is something we are again praying for and crying out to God about.  I came across this quote from The Doctor on my CD of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones materials. The question has to be asked . . .  if revival is like this, are you sure you want it?  I definitely do, but am not so very sure that if it was to come it would be very comfortable for us.

"Sometimes a revival may be powerful and yet more or less quiet. There may be a very deep and a very profound emotion. Large numbers are converted, but quietly

But it is not always like that. Indeed, it comes nearer to being the rule in revival that certain phenomena begin to manifest themselves — phenomena such as these: men and women are not only convicted of sin, but they are convicted by an agony with respect to sin. It is not merely that they see that they are sinners and that they must believe in the Saviour, it comes to them with such overwhelming force that they become even physically ill. They are in a literal agony of soul.

 You remember the story of John Bunyan do you not? He tells in Grace Abounding how he had such an agony of conviction for nearly eighteen months that on one occasion he even felt envious of geese that were grazing in the field. He wished that he had not been born a man at all. This agony, this terrible conviction — you may get that in revival. People are in an agony of soul and groaning. They may cry and sob and agonise audibly. But it does not always even stop at that. Sometimes people are so convicted and feel the power of the Spirit to such an extent that they faint and fall to the ground. Sometimes there are even convulsions, physical convulsions. And sometimes people seem to fall into a state of unconsciousness, into a kind of trance, and may remain like that for hours . . ."

---

Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1987). Revival (p. 110). Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books. Available electronically via Logos Bible Software.

UPDATE
In January 2008, the following post was identified as the 6th all-time most popular post with readers of this blog. The 7th most read post was "What is a Reformed Charismatic?"

As stated below, this post summarized my interview with this gift to the global Church—Dr. Wayne Grudem. Individual segments of the interview would have also made the top 30 in their own right, as would my review of Grudem's supreme Systematic Theology.

***************

At times it looked like it would go on forever, but the Wayne Grudem interview is over. In this post I look back on the whole interview and its aftermath. If you haven't got time to read through the whole thing, this will give you an overview and help you select the parts you may want to read in more detail. I will also share some personal reflections of the interview - some of which, of course, directly resulted in the sudden change to my comment policy.

Part 1 - Personal Matters

If there is one thing that stands out from this whole interview, it's the fact that egalitarians simply don't understand what complementarians like Wayne Grudem are saying. The assumption made by some people seems at least to me to be that anyone who believes in a husband leading and taking responsibility for his wife is effectively a woman-hater. I hope that particular view is indeed rare, but we need to do everything we can to ensure that we are communicating across the divides caused in part by us using words differently.

This quote sums up the man, Dr. Grudem, in my mind, and reveals that - far from being the troublemaker some people think he is - this is a man of deep love and humility. Bizarrely to me given the way I understand the word, some poeple even held this quote up as an example of Dr. Grudem "submitting" to his wife. In reality, it is a great example of him taking the responsibility for a decision that would help his wife and simultaneously hurt his career. Perhaps if this was what every husband meant by leading his wife, the whole feminist issue would evaporate:

"We moved to Phoenix Seminary in Arizona in 2001, primarily because of Margaret’s health. She had been experiencing chronic pain after an auto accident a number of years earlier, and we found that the pain was aggravated by cold and humidity. Well, the Chicago area is cold in the winter and humid in the summer!After a couple of trips to Arizona, which is hot and dry, we realized that Margaret felt much better there. So I phoned the academic dean at Phoenix Seminary and asked if there might possibly be a job opportunity there for me. It is a long and wonderful story of the Lord’s guidance and provision, but the result is that we have been here since June of 2001, Margaret has felt much better, and I also love the seminary where I am now teaching. So we are thankful for God’s blessings in many ways. I am thankful to the Lord that when we were making a decision about whether to move to Phoenix, on the very day we were talking and praying about it, I came to Ephesians 5:28 in my regular schedule of daily Bible reading, and the Lord used this verse strongly in my own decision process: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” After reading that, I thought it was important for me to move for the sake of Margaret’s physical body, her physical health.

Part 2 - Systematic Theology and Controversy

Dr. Grudem's answer to my question about his book, Systematic Theology, further demonstrated his humility, but in other ways was also quite revealing. A big difference between men like Grudem and certain other theologians is that he believes it is his task to make complex theological truths understandable by ordinary "lay" people without theological degrees - people like me. I cannot agree more, as quite frankly, if a theologian cannot write about his ideas and the evidence he bases them on in a way that a person of reasonable education can understand, then there is something very wrong. I thank God for men like Grudem who can do just that.

"I am surprised, and thankful to God for the way the book seems to continue to be a blessing to people – and not just to pastors and seminary students, but lots of other Christians from all walks of life. As you know, I believe that God intended His Word to be understood, not just by specialists, but also by ordinary Christians. The “blessed man” in Psalm 1 is held up as an example for all of us: “His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” (Psalm 1:2)"

Part 3 - Evangelical Feminism - A New Path to Liberalism

At first sight Dr. Grudem's charge that it is inevitable that an evangelical feminist positon will erode confidence in the Bible seemed unduly harsh to many readers. If there was one quote that made his point well, it was this one. In its context he is essentially explaining that it just will not do for us to effectively remove certain passages from the canon of Scripture essentially just because we do not like them - relabeling them as "disputed."

"If I come to a pastor who is wanting to put women on the elder board, or to ordain women as pastors, and I say, “1 Timothy 2:11–14 prohibits that,” and he just says, “I don’t want to hear about that verse because it’s disputed,” then he has really decided that he won’t let that verse speak to the controversy. But that is the most central passage in the whole dispute, the one that speaks most directly to the issue! If we refuse to be subject to passages that speak most directly to an issue, then we are almost guaranteed to come to the wrong decision. I’m not sure if I can think of a better way to come to a wrong decision than excluding from the discussion the verses that speak most directly to an issue."

Part 4 - Ethical Trajectories, Feminism, and Homosexuality

Advocates of evangelical feminism argue for an "ethical trajectory" approach to Scripture, appealing to slavery as an example, shortly to be followed in the debates on the role of women. Grudem made a robust attempt to totally debunk that argument:

"Now today, what worries me about these “trajectory hermeneutic” advocates is that they seem unaware of this entire history of biblical arguments against slavery, and they wrongly assume that the Bible actually supports slavery of the kind seen in the horrible abuses in America in the 18th and 19th centuries. This is preposterous. To say that the Bible supports such evils would be to say that the Bible, at the time of the New Testament, supported things that were morally evil, and I am simply not willing to do that."

Supplement - Wayne Grudem Replies to a Critic

Dr. Grudem's patient, yet methodical, nature comes out in this detailed response to some of the comment critics. Already by this point I am beginning to be irritated rather than helped by the tone of some of the comments. Grudem also shows he is far from being a walk-over in this reply. I think it is a model of how to have a robust disagreement with someone without being rude to them.

Part 5 - Must a Woman Always Remain Silent in Church?

Although anxious to point out that he does not believe that Scripture intends for women to remain totally silent at all times in church, he reserves some strong words for those who want to say that a woman should be allowed to teach provided they are "under the authority" of a male elder.

"I don’t think a pastor can give a woman “permission” to do Bible teaching before the church, because the Bible says not to do that. Would we say a pastor, or a board of elders, could give a woman “permission” to violate the command, “You should not steal”, or to violate any other command of Scripture? No pastor or elder board has authority to give permission to anyone to disobey the Bible. It’s God’s Word and we need to obey it.

Part 6 - Did Steve Chalke Blaspheme About the Atonement?

If you are new to the debate about prominent UK evangelical leader, Steve Chalkes' criticism of the notion of Jesus' death being required to take the punishment for our sin, then this is the jumping off post for you - there are links to more details about the whole issue and a very interesting debate. Dr. Grudem was impacted by reading the comments section, for as a direct result he made a retraction of the word "blasphemy" afterwards. He did not, however, retract his agreement with John Piper's serious concerns about this issue:

"Evangelicals in the academic world battled against liberals in scholarly writings about this issue fifty years ago, and I think that evangelicals like Leon Morris won the argument and won the theological battle. Now Chalke is giving away the hard-won victory. He is giving away the heart of the Gospel. I would never agree to give my approval to anyone who denies penal substitutionary atonement to be an elder at a church I attended, or to be a pastor or Bible teacher, or to teach at a theological seminary where I had influence on the appointment."

Part 7 - Things We Can Agree to Disagree About?

Dr. Grudem appears to be very clear about his theological triage - explaining that he believes that some issues are much more important than others.

"I’m thankful that believers who differ on the issue of baptism can still have wonderful fellowship with one another across denominational lines, and can have respect for each other’s sincerely held views. I certainly do not put the question of baptism in the same category as the denial of penal substitutionary atonement which you mentioned [yesterday] because that seems to me to be a denial of the heart of the Gospel. And, as I mentioned, it seems to me that evangelical feminism involves, implicitly at least, a denial of the authority of the Bible. But differing views on baptism or the millennium do not have serious consequences of that type"

Justin Taylor has highlighted a section of this post in which Grudem explains he is reconsidering his position on baptism - this has led to an interesting discussion over at his place.

Part 8 - What Does the Future Hold for the Church?

Dr. Grudem is optimistic about the immediate future for the church. Sitting where I am, I tend to agree with him.

"I’m very hopeful. I see indications that God is bringing renewal and revival (as well as exposing sin and “cleaning house”) in many churches around the world. I am hoping that God will yet bring a great world-wide revival in our lifetimes, with many millions of people suddenly turning to Christ in genuine faith."

Part 9 - Models of Church Government and Theological Blind Spots

As we drew to an end exploring one of the issues Dr. Grudem and I disagree on, he came back to a point he made much earlier in the interview - it was a point that encouraged me as a preacher and blogger with no theological degrees.

". . . it is always wise to have a governing structure where the highest governing offices in the church and the highest positions of influence are open to lay people as well as ordained people. The denominations where only clergy have the highest of authority seem to be the ones that are never able to be brought back once they drift into liberalism because the ordinary lay people who have common sense and are reading their Bibles every day don’t have any way to regain control of a denomination that has gone astray if it has that kind of structure."

So, the hope for the church is bright if brilliant theologians like Dr. Grudem and jobbing preachers in local churches can forge a partnership. Whilst Dr. Grudem cannot possibly personally relate to the millions of preachers there are in the world, through the Internet something approaching a feeling of partnership can arise. I have had an amazing time interacting with him, and sharing those interactions with you. I hope that you, too, feel a bit more as though you know the man, as well as the theologian, as a result of this interview.

This interview is being serialised over several days. So far I have published part one, which focused on personal issues, and part two, in which we discussed Systematic Theology. In part three, we explored Grudem's charge that feminism inevitably leads to a denial of Scripture's authority. Part four honed in on the "trajectory" arguments used on both sides of this debate. In part five, we looked at the issue of women addressing church congregations. Part six examined John Piper's accusation of Steve Chalke over the atonement. In part seven, Dr. Grudem discussed two areas where we perhaps can agree to disagree - the charismatic and baptism. In today's segment, we will be focusing on Dr Grudem's predictions concerning the future of the Church. The interview is summarised in my post Dr Wayne Grudem Interview - Highlights and Reflections.

Adrian
Do you see any signs that the feminist issue will also similarly be resolved eventually? How do you think churches and denominations can best handle it practically going forward? It seems impractical to expect denominations to allow churches holding both positions to remain together in the same group of churches – Do you agree?

Wayne
I wrote in an earlier book, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Multnomah and IVP-UK, 2004) that I think churches will have to come to one position or another on this issue. Either you have some women elders (in which case the egalitarian position has won and will continue to expand its influence) or you don’t have women elders (in which case the complementarian position has won). It is impossible to have it both ways.

Yes, I have great confidence that this issue will eventually be resolved, and that the vast majority of God’s people who take the Bible as the Word of God will adopt and practice a complementarian position, and will put it in their statements of faith. I am thankful that out of this controversy has come a greater appreciation for women’s gifts and wisdom, and a greater openness to many more ministries for women, but the church will still, by and large, be complementarian until Christ returns. Jesus Christ has not given up on His church, and He has not abandoned it. He is still building His church, and He is purifying it, “so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).

There have been many doctrinal controversies in the history of the church, and God in His providence always eventually guides the vast majority of the people who sincerely believe the Bible to the right conclusion. Then those who hold the wrong position eventually are marginalized, their churches lose God’s blessing, and they then decline or even close. It will be that way in this controversy as well, although it may take some time, and before it is resolved many churches will adopt a feminist position, to the detriment of many marriages and ministries along the way. (I was just told last week of a complementarian church in a major American city that hired an egalitarian pastor; [they] gave in to his demands that all church offices be open to women, and he took the church from 2500 people on Sunday to under 400 today. I think we will see that more and more, though there will be temporary exceptions from time to time.)

Adrian
Given your perspective as being involved in all of these debates, do you feel hopeful or cynical about the future of evangelical Gospel-believing churches? What do you think the Gospel-believing church movements will look like in, say, thirty years' time?

Wayne
I’m very hopeful. I see indications that God is bringing renewal and revival (as well as exposing sin and “cleaning house”) in many churches around the world. I am hoping that God will yet bring a great world-wide revival in our lifetimes, with many millions of people suddenly turning to Christ in genuine faith. I don’t know this for sure, but I am hopeful. I was speaking of this with Terry Virgo in Brighton in July. I am hopeful for both the United States and for the United Kingdom in this regard.

Continued in part nine . . .

Regular readers of my blog will be aware of my love for Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Back in August I did a summary post listing my regular posts from the Doctor. I thought that today I would link to the posts I have written and then speak about an exciting way that you can easily get your hands on a wealth of material from the Doctor. (If you want to cut to the chase see the following two links: Selected Works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Exposition of Ephesians.)

It is important that I stress that the Doctor is not merely someone of interest to one section of the church or another. During his life and subsequently, he was almost unique in his time for his appeal to people from all different denominational backgrounds. He truly was a gift of God to the whole church, and if you have never read or listened to the Doctor you need to right away! So to whet your appetite, here are some posts since August 2006 in which I mention him:

• The Effects of Preaching and Religious Experience
• Blogging the Gifts - Tongues and Interpretation
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 4
• Car-jacking, Missional Swim Trunks, and the Holy Spirit
• So What Did We Miss?
• DG06 - Session 3 - Tim Keller
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 3
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 2
• Something Worth Fighting For, Part 1
• A Love Letter to Bethan
• Preaching to Yourself
• What is the Gift of Tongues?
• The Doctor Changes His Mind

The Doctor was a great believer in the need for us to think carefully and study carefully God's Word. There is no doubt that the books of his sermons and talks are some of the most perceptive, well-argued, and yet passionate materials ever written. As an example of his love for the truth of the Bible here is a quote taken from Authentic Christianity (1st U.S. ed., page 53, Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books.)

"So the first effect of Christianity is to make people stop and think. They are not simply overawed by some great occasion. They say, “No, I must face this. I must think.” That is the work of the Spirit. The people in Acts thought again. They repented—the Greek word is metanoia—they changed their mind completely. The Spirit always leads people to think, and, as I have been showing you, the greatest trouble is that men and women go through life without thinking. Or they think for a moment but find it painful, so they stop and turn to a bottle of whiskey or television or something else—anything to forget.

Is it not obvious that the world, speaking spiritually and intellectually, is in a doped condition? In all sorts of ways men and women evade the facts. They can do this with great energy, they can be very intellectual, but ultimately they end up with nothing.

What does the Spirit make us think about? Well, not first and foremost about ourselves. I must emphasize that Christianity does not start with us. It does not say, “Do you want to get rid of that sin that is getting you down? Do you want happiness? Do you want peace? Do you want guidance?” That is not Christianity. That, again, is the approach of the cults. No, these people in Jerusalem were made to think about Jesus Christ! They were given the objective, historical facts about this person . . .

The next point is that the . . . Spirit now makes us go on to realize the relevance of Jesus Christ, and everything concerning Him, to ourselves personally . . .

You can sit in a chair and read a book about Jesus Christ, you can read about Him in your Bible, and you can read books of theology. Very interesting. To an intelligent person there is no study more entrancing. It has been the occupation of some of the greatest minds of the centuries. But you can do all that and still not be a Christian. It is the Holy Spirit who makes each of us see the relevance of Jesus to ourselves, so that we are no longer spectators, no longer critics, no longer people taking a wonderful, objective view. No, no, I am under criticism myself. The relevance of this has come to me. I see that I am involved in all this, and I had not realized it."

Now, it may well be that having read so many quotes from the Doctor here, you are eager to get a hold of his books. They can, of course, be purchased from Amazon.com, and many of his audio sermons can be downloaded from the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recording Trust. There is no doubt in my mind that reading his material will do you good and help you to, as he puts it, "think".

In the rest of this post, I want to introduce you to another way that you can get a hold of some of the amazing books that have been produced from his sermons. This is, of course, to purchase electronic copies of two fantastic resources from Logos. Logos has two Lloyd-Jones CDs available. The first of these is Selected Works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and is a collection of no fewer than ten separate books by the Doctor, including more than 3,300 pages of Lloyd-Jones' highly relevant and well-loved works. Imagine being able to easily search all the following books at once for either a Bible verse key word, or a specific subject that you are interested in. These are some of the Doctor's most well-known and well-loved works.

• Revival - this book is based on a series of talks given on the 100th anniversary of the Great Revival which started in Wales and swept across England, throughout the United States, and to the far corners of the world. It is a critical book for us to read if we want to understand the biblical view of revival - "I do not think that our age has seen any more powerful or profound treatmentof revival than this book."—Dr. J. I. Packer
• The Assurance of Our Salvation - Based on John 17, this book explores how we as Christians can be sure of our salvation. The book is practical, pastoral, and inspiring.
• Great Doctrines of the Bible (3 vols.) - This is a complete systematic theology written by the Doctor and it will help you grasp the theological and emotional impact of the message of the Bible.
• Studies in the Book of Acts (4 vols.) - These sermons will inspire you as you consider afresh the birth of the church, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the advance of the early church.
• Seeking the Face of God - The Doctor brings his scapel to nine passages from the Psalms. You will discover just why the book of Psalms is so precious to many of God's saints.

The second, Exposition of Ephesians series, is about 3,000 pages worth of in-depth analysis of the book of Ephesians and is one of the most thorough commentaries available on this vital New Testament book. Based on years of careful preaching verse after relentless verse. One of the Doctor's most well-known sermons is contained in this series. He managed to preach an entire sermon on the phrase "But God" from Ephesians 2!

"With these two words we come to the introduction to the Christian message, the peculiar, specific message which the Christian faith has to offer to us. These two words, in and of themselves, in a sense contain the whole of the gospel. The gospel tells of what God has done, God’s intervention; it is something that comes entirely from outside us and displays to us that wondrous and amazing and astonishing work of God which the apostle goes on to describe and to define in the following verses." (Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1972). God's Way of Reconciliation chapter 2, page 59) Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.)

Lloyd-Jones shows how the book of Ephesians gives us a unique overview of Pauls's teaching. Many critical subjects are covered, including our salvation, predestination, the work of the Spirit, the Church, spiritual warfare, and many other aspects.

All these books mentioned above are a treasure trove, but their size makes them somewhat unwieldy - particularly if you want to use them in a 21st century manner. I am sure that for many of my readers going through a big book sequentially is just not something that they are going to do. As helpful as a paper book is for reading from beginning to end, increasingly many of us want instead to dip in and out of a book when we are interested in a particular subject. Locating that passage that you know is in one of your books that you have read is hard enough. Imagine being able to find a highly relevant passage in a book you haven't even read yet!

You can search the entire series of Lloyd-Jones books by word, passage, or topic, so you’ll never have to hunt through countless pages looking for that certain quote. What's more, all Bible references function as hotspots, immediately presenting the cited verse whenever the mouse cursor rolls over them. And by clicking on the citation, your favorite Bible translation will immediately open to the chapter and verse. This transforms your electronic library into a searchable index of amazing passages and chapters that are at your fingertips when you most need them.

Of course, these books work hardest when they are included on the same system as one of the core libraries. Then, you can quite literally type a Bible verse into the passage guide, click "go," and within seconds results will be flooding you from Lloyd-Jones and all your other books! This is not to encourage plagarism which everybody knows is when you copy one person. When you are inspired by and integrate ideas from many people into your own work it is not plagarism, it is scholarly research!

For some reason when I installed these items a collection was not automatically formed - but fortunately it is a simple matter to create one yourself (tools-define collections) and then to include that collection in the resources that are searched on a home page when you click passage guide (preferences on the homepage).

If you love Lloyd-Jones material, these works will stand on their own, but will be so much more useful as an add-on to a fuller Logos library system. At very least, you need a Bible to work with them. Even without what they call a "core library" - a critical mass of Bibles, commentaries, and lexicons - these two resources will still allow you to browse the books, search, annotate, Copy/Paste with Footnotes, Visual Mark-up, Topic Browser, Reference Browser, History, Favorites, Bookmarks, Define Collections, Zoom, and Auto-Lookup. From the right-click menu, standard functions like Copy, Print, Speed Search This Resource, etc. will work.

It really is the search that will wow you - you can search an individual book, the MLJ collection, or your entire library by word, phrase, topic, and Bible verse. Where relevant, there will be hot-linking within and between texts, footnote pop-ups, and Bible reference pop-ups (if you own at least one Bible). For example, simply enter a search like topic (Trinity) and it will find all the places MLJ talks about the topic of the Trinity - some of which may not be where you expect! If such a search doesn't return enough hits, simply search for the keyword "Trinity" instead, perhaps adding an "OR 'Father Son and Holy Spirit'" or something similar!

Navigation within and between the books is a breeze, and the convenience of not needing yet more shelving should mean your spouse's vote is with digital over paper every time! These resources are on sale at Logos and are not part of the 25% reduction given to readers of my blog on core libraries.

To Purchase materials from Logos Bible Software visit

Selected Works of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Exposition of Ephesians.

25% off Logos Core Libraries

More information about Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is availabe from Wikkipedia.

This week I want to direct your attention to an article from 1991 in which Dr. John Piper makes the most charismatic statements I have seen anywhere in his material, and argues for his position very clearly. If you are interested in a more extended explanation of Piper's views, there is also a fourteen-part sermon series on the gifts entitled, "Are Signs and Wonders for Today?" which he preached in 1990. Piper is not your typical charismatic, but is more open to gifts than many assume of him. I share this as part of a list of resources I would recommend for those interested in studying the issues further following our charismatic debate here on the blog.

Like his hero, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, before him, Dr. Piper does not associate extensively with charismatic ministries, nor does he tend to describe himself as a Charismatic or Pentecostal. In understanding the teaching of both Piper and Lloyd-Jones on this issue, it is important that we do not miss their scepticism of much of the modern charismatic movement. In that, I have to say I do largely agree with both of them.

It seems, at least in this article, that Piper goes further than many today by clearly urging us to not merely be "open but cautious," but rather to eagerly desire and cry out to God for an impartation of the Holy Spirit and all His gifts.

I strongly recommend the whole article for a carefully-reasoned argument to support a continuationist position written by the greatest preacher/theologian of our time. It is interesting that — at least as far as I remember — this kind of clear trumpet-call to the church today has not yet made it into one of Piper's published books. But for those willing to spend some time digging at http://www.desiringgod.org/ — or indeed in the archives of my Piper Friday posts — it will become clear that the sentiments of this article are also expressed elsewhere in Dr. Piper's preaching.

"I am one of those Baptist General Conference people who believes that "signs and wonders" and all the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 are valid for today and should be "earnestly desired" (1 Corinthians 14:1) for the edification of the church and the spread of the Gospel. I agree with the words of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preached in 1965:

"It is perfectly clear that in New Testament times, the gospel was authenticated in this way by signs, wonders, and miracles of various characters and descriptions . . . . Was it only meant to be true of the early church? . . . The Scriptures never anywhere say that these things were only temporary — never! There is no such statement anywhere." (The Sovereign Spirit, pp. 31-32)

. . . I want to argue in this section that the New Testament teaches that spiritual gifts (including the more obviously supernatural or revelatory ones like prophecy and tongues) will continue until Jesus comes. The use of such gifts (miracles, faith, healings, prophecy, etc.) give rise to what may sometimes be called "signs and wonders." Therefore, signs and wonders are part of the blessing we should pray for today.

There is no text in the New Testament that teaches the cessation of these gifts. But more important than this silence is the text that explicitly teaches their continuance until Jesus comes, namely, 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 . . . .

. . . Both of these phrases ("seeing face to face" and "understanding as we have been understood") are stretched beyond the breaking point if we say that they refer to the closing of the New Testament canon or the close of the apostolic age. Rather, they refer to our experience at the second coming of Jesus . . . .

This means that verse 10 can be paraphrased, "When Christ returns, the imperfect will pass away." And since "the imperfect" refers to spiritual gifts like prophecy and knowledge and tongues, we may paraphrase further, "When Christ returns, then prophecy and knowledge and tongues will pass away" . . . .

Therefore, 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 teaches that such spiritual gifts will continue until the second coming of Jesus. There is no reason to exclude from this conclusion the other "imperfect" gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. Since these include miracles, faith, healings, etc., with which we associate "signs and wonders," there is clear New Testament warrant for expecting that "signs and wonders" will continue until Jesus comes.

Now add to this conclusion the forthright command in 1 Corinthians 14:1, and you will see why some of us are not only open to, but also seeking, this greater fullness of God's power today. This command says, "Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy." And it is repeated twice: "Earnestly desire the higher gifts" (12:31); "Earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues" (14:39).

I wonder how many of us have said for years that we are open to God's moving in spiritual gifts, but have been disobedient to this command to earnestly desire them, especially prophecy? I would ask all of us: are we so sure of our hermeneutical procedure for diminishing the gifts that we would risk walking in disobedience to a plain command of Scripture? "Earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy."

I have come to the point of seeing that the risk lies in the other direction. It would be a risk not to seek spiritual gifts for myself and my church. It would be a risk not to pray with the early church, "Grant your servants to speak your word with boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through your holy servant Jesus." Disobedience is always a greater risk than obedience.

Much of my experience disinclines me to "earnestly desire spiritual gifts," especially the gift of prophecy. However, I do not base my prayer for such spiritual empowering on experience, but on the Bible. The Scripture is sufficient for all circumstances by teaching us the means of grace to be used in all circumstances. And I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones that one of the means of grace needed in our day is the extraordinary demonstration of power by signs and wonders. Here is what he said:

"What is needed is some mighty demonstration of the power of God, some enactment of the Almighty, that will compel people to pay attention, and to look, and to listen. . . . When God acts, he can do more in a minute than man with his organizing can do in fifty years." (Revival, pp. 121-122)