Revival Gems — E.A. Johnston

Our message today is not an expository message from Scripture, but rather a call to revival. We need a heaven-sent revival, friends. Our nation needs it. Our churches need it. We need it. As we live out our lives in these last days, how important it is for us to cry out to God to have mercy and send revival in our day.

Revival as a Sovereign Work of Divine Grace

Revival is a sovereign act of God. It is the Almighty who shows favor to His people by sending them plentiful effusions of divine grace. One looks at the church in America in her desperate and barren state, unable to rouse herself to pray, unable to even recognize her own state of spiritual poverty, unable to fully comprehend the desperate hour which faces each of us as all hell is a-popping around us and hell fills with the lost each passing hour.

The average pastor is beat up, worn out, and ready to throw in the towel. We each need a personal revival, and how wonderful it would be if God would indeed send a true revival to us today. A revival would stir the church to mission enterprise.

A revival would awaken believers to their duty of being active witnesses for Christ daily. A revival of religion would ignite lives of holiness unto the Lord. A revival of religion would so shake this nation that thousands of the lost would be gathered in.

Pastors Praying Against Spiritual Darkness

Allow me to share with you friends a story about how a godly group of men pushed back the darkness in their community through prayer and how God answered that prayer through a move of grace. I was having lunch with a pastor from Glasgow, Scotland, and he related to me the following story.

He said that he and a handful of pastors within their city of Glasgow became distressed at the rising levels of wickedness and evil within their community. These Scottish ministers became grieved over the moral and spiritual condition of their city.

He told me that there used to be a city motto which for years was plastered all over the town of Glasgow in banners and signs and the city motto was, Lord, let Glasgow flourish through the preaching of thy word and praising thy name.

That was the city of Glasgow's motto for decades. Then some ungodly civic leaders voted to change the city's motto and leave out the mention of God altogether and the new city motto of Glasgow became, Let Glasgow Flourish.

And if you visit that city today, you will see banners around town saying, Let Glasgow Flourish. I was in Glasgow not too long ago and I saw those banners all around town stating, Let Glasgow Flourish, but the old banner said, Lord, let Glasgow flourish through the preaching of thy word and praising thy name.

And God had honored that sentiment through the years by blessing the city with spiritual outpourings through the preaching of men like D .L. Moody, but now the civic leaders took God's name away. And my pastor friend from Glasgow told me that as soon as that happened, crime began to increase, the rate of teenage pregnancies increased, immorality increased, and wickedness increased to such a degree that it grieved the heart of some local pastors.

Well, these men decided to do something about it, so they began to gather on a regular basis to pray and seek God's face to push back the darkness in their community. My pastor friend told me that in a few months following their desperate prayers, they began to see a spiritual change within their community.

Crime decreased and wickedness decreased. God had seen their tears and had answered their desperate prayers by healing their land. Can we not do the same in America today if the people of God would get right with God and seek the face of God through nights of desperate prayer?

I believe we could make a difference, friends. With that in mind, I would like to bring you today some revival gems, various stories and quotes on revival to encourage you to stir your own heart to pray for revival in our day.

Learning from Historical Revivals

I have been a student of revival for several decades, and through the years I have collected quotes on revival. I have put together different historical accounts on revival. I enjoy reading about revival.

It stirs my own heart to see how God has moved in former times and to pray that in His mercy He will do it again, what He has done in the past, that He will do again to revive His church and bring in a harvest of the lost through a glorious work of grace.

If you are a preacher or a Sunday school teacher, it is good to quote others whom God has used in former times in revival. By making the quote and telling who the quote is from will introduce your hearers to Christians and past generations whom they may not be familiar with.

Mentioning quotes on revival can also be used as a means to stir your congregation to prayer for revival. Vance Havner used to say, Everybody's holding revivals. It's about time somebody let loose of one.

Vance Havner also said, We serve a dynamite God, but too many are living firecracker lives. Leonard Ravenhill said, We don't want revival. We want blessings. I like hearing the quotes of others on revival because it increases my desire to see revival.

In our day, I like hearing stories about how God moved in former times. These stories challenge me to pray more fervently for revival. Listen to this account of a revival which occurred in Hawaii under the preaching of Titus Cone.

Titus Cone was a missionary to the Hawaiian Islands and he was also the cousin of Azahel Nettleton. Listen to what God did in Hawaii in a revival in 1835. There was trembling, weeping, sobbing, and loud crying for mercy, sometimes too loud for the preacher to be heard.

And in hundreds of cases, his hearers fell in a swoon. Some would cry out, The two-edged sword is cutting me to pieces. The wicked scoffer who came to make sport dropped like a dog and cried, God has struck me.

Revival in Africa Under Rhys Howells

Listen friends to another brief account of revival in Africa under the preaching of Rhys Howells. In Pondoland, on one station, I was preaching on the crucifixion on Good Friday. And the spirit brought out those words, away with him, crucify him.

It seemed as though the people saw hell open before them and in one mass the whole congregation rushed forward to get right with God. I was afraid they would push the pulpit over. Perhaps there is a pastor listening to this message and who longs to see revival come to his church.

How Pastors Can Prepare Their Churches for Revival

Did you know pastor that many revivals began when the pastor of a church began to gather his congregation around him and related stories of revivals to them. This is how God sent revival to Scotland during the visit of George Whitfield in 1741.

A local pastor by the name of William McCulloch began to read his congregation accounts of the revival which was going on in America under Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts. These stories so stirred McCulloch's congregation that they began to pray and long for revival themselves.

Soon there were 20 ,000 people standing on the preaching brace beneath the church while McCulloch and Whitfield preached and you could find people on the hills at 2 a .m. in the morning crying out, what must I do to be saved?

You can do the same pastor, gather your people on a regular basis and read them historical accounts of revival. Begin to pray corporately in your church for God to come and visit you with a mighty move of his grace.

Teach your people how to seek the face of God in revival. Begin to preach revival related sermons which focus on the majesty of God, the sinfulness of man and the need for immediate repentance. You may be surprised at how God moves among you after such searching sermons and such desperate prayers.

Stories about revival and quotes about revival are good ways to get us more interested in seeing revival. They get us hungry to see God move in our church like that. They stir our hearts within us to long to see God come to revival in our midst, in our day.

Revival Quotes and the Fire of Gospel Zeal

Well, allow me friends to give you some quotes on revival. I will begin now with some quotes taken from my own three books on revival, Realities of Revival, Call to Revival and The Church in Revival. I hope these quotes will stir your own heart for revival.

Listen friends. The Apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley, Whitefield, Knox, Edwards, Finney, Spurgeon, Moody each shared a common denominator of fire in their belly. Each were so eaten up with the gospel and thirsty for Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost they could not stand idly by while others perished.

They saw nothing but eternity, worshipped the Holy God and served a risen Christ, living not for earth nor its gains but living only for heaven and its rewards. When they preached they linked the devil with sin and the cross with salvation.

They preached hell and its fire and Christ and him crucified. Not one of them feared king, queen or pope and not one of them sought the compliments of men. In 1740 when God moved through New England it was called the Great Awakening.

The Church’s Crisis and the Need for the Holy Spirit

Revival has often been referred to as an awakening. At Gethsemane Jesus faced the crisis point of his earthly ministry and his disciples slept right through it. Today the church is in a crisis point and we are sleeping right through it.

If the church will not defend his holy name then the Almighty must. God will either pour out his blessings in revival to defend his holy name or he will pour out his wrath upon mankind to avenge his holy name.

It will either be a defending or avenging to show forth his glory and remind mankind he alone is the sovereign ruler of all. God's eyes are continually searching the earth for those rare individuals of whom the world was not worthy, men like Moses and John the Baptist, Luther and Calvin, Whitfield and Wesley, Stud and Moody, men who live in a different atmosphere than other mortals, men who have annihilated self with the cross and whose lives are broken alabaster boxes from which fragrances arise to the heavens from the broken pieces of selflessness, self-sacrifice and self-crucifixion.

God is always on the lookout for such men. There can be only one answer to the question, why has the church lost her power? The answer lies in the reality that the church has forsaken the third person of the Trinity replacing him with programs, money and man-centered methodologies.

Our reliance is on self rather than on reliance upon the Holy Spirit to empower us to pray, preach and witness with an endowment from on high. There is a golden thread that weaves its way through revivals and if this purified thread is broken, it has been a bar to revival throughout history to which I refer is the golden thread of a forgiving heart towards others.

Repentance, Grace, and the Cost of Discipleship

When one researches the history of revival, it is plainly shown that many revivals began accompanied by a sudden manifestation of God's presence when Christians began to confess their sins of an unforgiving heart to one another.

Both Wesley and Whitfield preached the law before grace. In fact, George Whitfield would comment that a sinner must first be brought to Mount Sinai before he could be brought to Mount Zion. Today's evangelism says, God loves you, just believe in him and you will go to heaven.

Is there no wonder that our congregations are mixed herds of sheep and goats who cannot get along and bite each other's tails? It was said of the apostolic Christians that they turned the world upside down.

If that was said of us worldly Christians today, we'd be standing on our heads. In Great Britain and America today, the bane of the church is self-indulgence, self-preservation, and self-centeredness.

The gospel message is all about us served on a man-centered platter at a sumptuous banquet laden with delicacies. Other generations knew the price of discipleship and the cost of following a crucified Savior.

John the Baptist had a platter, but his head was upon it. Stephen was baptized with stones as he saw Jesus rise from his throne. Paul finished his ministry not with accolades and applause, but with a fallen axe.

The blood of the martyrs cries out against the self-absorbed church of this generation. God used Finney as a human instrument of revival during the early stages of the Second Great Awakening. Where Finney erred is when he relegated revival from a sovereign act of God in response to man's breaking up the fallow ground of one's heart through repentance and prayer, to a mere methodology whereby man could create revival anytime he wanted as long as it was a thing desired and acted upon.

Self-Denial and Total Consecration

Only God can send revival, but we can align our hearts to receive it when it comes. He said, If I am to use you like few other men, then you will have to live like few men do. This was the final battleground between self and the cross.

It was either future usefulness for God or a life of uselessness for me. Self had to be willingly annihilated daily on the cross, and there had to be a full surrender to his lordship and consecration from that point forward until he came or called.

There was no turning back. For those who claim the name of Christ and yet foolishly believe, they can continue to willfully sin, whereby trampling Christ's blood and abusing God's unmerited grace must be confronted with God's authoritative word which declares, For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remain no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.

If this be the case, friends, should not great and grave attention be placed upon examining ourselves before a just and holy God who will judge every man according to his works? God will always raise up an Elijah whose prayers impact a sleeping nation.

Prayer Warriors and the Power of Intercession

The church in each generation has had individuals who live on their knees whose prayers reached heaven with a holy violence. India had her pray and hide, China her Hudson Taylor, England her Puritans, Scotland her Covenanters, America her fiery E .M. Bounds.

Voices which gained the attention of the throne room startled angels and shook the gates of hell making even the demons quake and tremble with their desperate prayers. Well, friends, I hope these stories on revival and revival quotes have stirred your own heart to pray for revival in your day and mine.

Repentance and God’s Promise to Heal the Land

How we need a move of grace and a spiritual awakening to visit our nation in this desperate hour. Our land needs healing, friends. Our nation needs to turn back to the God of the Bible. Our churches need to arise out of their slumber and seek the face of God in repentance and prayer and in nights of solemn assembly, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, crying out to the God who hears our prayers and who can heal our land.

Listen, the word of God in Second Chronicles tells us how to align ourselves in preparation for a move of God and revival. If my people, which are called by my name, shall 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.

Pray, friends, that the God of revival will be pleased to hear our prayers and heal our land. Oh, God, have mercy on America and send us a mighty revival today.