Consider Revival IV: Repenting Leaders

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm John Snyder, and with me again is our special guest, Steve Crampton. Good to have you, Steve. Thanks, John. We hope to have Steve as a frequent guest, very helpful as we look at some key themes that we feel would be beneficial to Christians as a whole.

Really, you know, we tend to focus on the experiential aspects of Christianity, but there are just so many within that general theme. So, Steve and I have something in common, other than going to the same church and being Christians, and that is we are the only two Yankees fans in Mississippi, alright?

Actually, there's a couple more in my house. In your house. And as this should be reaching you in the early days of 2022, we just thought that it would be nice, in light of the fact that Teddy James is a rabid Atlanta fan, so much so that when I come to work, I find that he's watching on television some stuff, and he promises me he's still productive, okay?

Of course, of course. So, we wanted to do kind of a congratulation, so a shout out to the Atlanta Braves, and if I weren't a Yankees fan, now I'm not allowed to be a Boston fan. I couldn't live in my house, alright?

Yeah. You know, Dodgers, they're off in California. I might be an.

Atlanta Braves fan. I was certainly rooting for them this year. Yeah, and.

I think, not only because they had a good team this year, but because they're so generous. And here's what I mean. Freddy Freeman, their best player, is now negotiating with the New York Yankees. Oh, there you go.

So, I think that we should just say, thank you, Atlanta. We would gladly buy all of your talent, alright? Well, this week, we're going to finish up a theme that we started about a month ago, and that is the theme of genuine seasons of revival, or times of extraordinary grace.

Times where the presence of God is with His people in an unusual degree, and then the results that are produced are unusual. We are thankful for the day of small things. We are thankful for the wonderful ordinary, and I don't mean the ordinary that perhaps we've grown up with, but the ordinary that we see in Scripture, which to us might at some time seem wonderfully extraordinary.

But there is the wonderful ordinary impact of the gospel, of the prayers of the people of God, of the witness of their lives. So, we are very grateful for that. But there are times in human history where the people of God have felt that the need has risen to the extraordinary, and the only thing that could meet that need morally, in a nation or a denomination, is that God Himself would, in a sense, arise, and for the sake of His name, that He would come and act.

So, we've been looking at that theme through the example of Jonah and Nineveh, and then a couple of times we looked at Hezekiah. Now, we were going to end it there, but we felt that we needed to do one more.

We want to talk about an appropriate response in God's people to this theme. And so, there's a number of things I want to look at before we look at our historical help today, and that comes from a gathering of Scottish ministers in 1651 in Scotland, and these men gathered together to consider the low moral decline, that the low state of the church in Scotland, and shockingly, they came to feel that it was fundamentally at their doorstep, that the blame lay.

That they themselves, as ministers of churches, and the churches as the light to the culture, that they should begin with repentance of their particular sins. So, we're going to look at that in a minute.

One of the things I think that's important when we consider revival is that an unresponsive heart would be very inappropriate. It'd be quite hypocritical to have talks about revival, and prayers for revival, but a life that hasn't altered in any way to be in harmony with that expressed desire.

Now, there are two extremes that we've seen historically, and especially in the last hundred and fifty years or so. We have seen one extreme, and that is the one that we're used to growing up with, is kind of the impact of Charles Finney's views.

And we could kind of simplify Finney's views by saying this, the right use of the right means will produce the right results every time. And that certainly sounds right. So we say, well, that's right.

And you know, I think we do owe it to Finney that he was not willing just to sit back and say, well, maybe one day God will bring revival. There certainly was an earnestness there, but a lot of that zeal was without knowledge and did damage.

And we live in the day where American evangelicalism is, in many ways, an expression of what went wrong during the days of Finney. So, the idea that if we become earnest enough, we can kind of force God's hand, and He will show up.

That's a bad idea. It's not biblical. But the other extreme is probably a danger that we feel is closer to home for us, and that is, especially in churches that might call themselves Reformed, or perhaps, you know, take doctrine, particularly, you know, from the Reformation a little more seriously, there is the constant temptation to feel that in order to honor the sovereignty of God, and to be aware of the depravity of man, the only appropriate response to the theme of revival, if you believe that that's even a possible thing, is inactivity, you know, kind of a Christian fatalism.

We're waiting for God to just do it. And I think that that's an erroneous response. A simple illustration to help us. Imagine a young wife who has a husband in the military, and he's been deployed for a year, and he's coming back now, any day, you know, she's gotten notification, not sure exactly which day, but someday in these next week or so, you know, she'll be...he'll be back.

So, what does she do? She doesn't just shrug her shoulders and say, well, he'll be back when he's back. I mean, she gets the house ready. You know, what does he like to eat? You know, how does he like things?

So, she prepares. And then even beyond that, perhaps she gets in the car and goes to the airport, and just sits and thinks, I wonder if it'll be today. And, you know, someone could say to her, you know that you can't speed his plane up, right?

Sure. And her answer would be, well, of course. I just can't help it, though, you know. I cannot wait to see him. So, I think that, you know, that simple illustration ought to kind of portray the Christian's heart.

There are things that the Scripture would call us to do to prepare our lives for the nearness of God. Things that offend Him that should be removed, things that please Him that should be added. You know, John the Baptist's statement, make a straight road between you and the King.

Fill in the ruts. Remove the rubble, you know, that's.

Clogging the road. Yeah, I think about, too, the scriptural illustrations of time after time when God really did draw near to particular individuals. You know, the great scene in Isaiah, for example, but also with angels.

They fell down on their face like dead men, you know, when the thrice-holy God, we're asking Him to draw near by praying for revival. How dare us think that we should not prepare.

Ourselves? Yeah, and I think one reason that there's a lack of preparation is that we tend to treat revival kind of as a spiritual lottery. You know, like, wouldn't it be wonderful if it happened? But I don't really expect it.

Yeah. So, you know, I remember in the UK when we were studying there, they had their version of the lottery, and so it was the same night of the week each week. So let's say Friday night that they announced the numbers.

So you kind of be walking home after work or studying at the library, and you'd see the pubs, and you'd see all the guys sitting around the bar, and the TV would be on, and they're announcing the numbers.

And, you know, and they're talking. What if? What if? Oh man, I know what I would do if I got that. And then the numbers are announced, and, of course, they lost again. Sure. And so, like, I didn't really think it would happen anyway.

So if that's our view of revival, like, wow, what if God just came and did such a wonderful thing? Well, wouldn't that be wonderful? Yeah, but it doesn't change the way I live today, because I don't think that's gonna happen.

So we treat revival not only as a thing we say, well, it's in God's hands. Well, yes it is. But you have access to Him, and you can plead with Him, and you can prepare the heart. But inactivity is probably an expression not of good Reformed theology, but rather of unbelief.

Let me give two books to illustrate this, because perhaps it sounds strange to you if you haven't studied the theme of revival carefully, but it is the Reformed writers that wrote, by far, the lion's share of theologies on revival prior to 1825.

Here is a very early book. It's called The Fulfilling of Scripture by Robert Fleming. Fleming was a Puritan. This is the first Protestant, and as far as I know, Christian theology of revival. What are we seeing in the history of Christianity when God seems to draw near and to do extraordinary things?

And Fleming talks about that in the context of God fulfilling His promises which are yet to be fulfilled. So this is a book that is mentioned in later Puritan writings, and particularly in the 18th century Great Awakening and evangelical writers like Jonathan Edwards, and that leads us to this.

This is the volume two of that, actually volume one, of Boehner of Truth's two-volume set of Jonathan Edwards' works, and toward the end of this volume, we have the 13th book in this book, is called A History of the Work of Redemption, published after his death from his manuscripts, and this is Jonathan Edwards' explanation of the ebb and flow of Christian history.

He basically starts back with the fall of humanity, and he goes all the way up to the return of Christ, and he talks about Christian history in there, and Edwards' fundamental premise there is that the kingdom moves forward basically in great waves of awakening, and there of course are years in between these waves where there is kind of an incremental growth, or maybe a consolidation of gains where, you know, where baby Christians are grown up.

But in Edwards' view, it was through these waves of revival that the kingdom really moved forward. Now whether you agree with Edwards or not, I just wanted to point these two out to make a point, and that it is the Reformed theologians of the past that gave the most careful thought to the work of the Spirit in revival.

So we want to be careful with that. So we're gonna be looking at the account of the 1651 gathering of Scottish ministers, and their confession, and what they wrote to the Scottish churches, also we're gonna focus only on a few of the sins that they confessed for the ministers.

This was later published in 1653, so let me give you the title. The Causes of the Lord's Wrath Against Scotland, Manifested in His Sad Late Dispensations, Whereunto is Added a Paper Particularly Holding Forth the Sins of the Ministry, in 1653.

So that's a long Puritan title, but what they're saying is this, we're gonna give you a book with two parts. First part, we want to point out, and they give these long articles, we want to point out why God is so angry with Scotland, and the answer is, it's our sin.

But then the wonderful thing about this, and that's so extraordinary, is the second half of the book, where they point to the sins of the ministry in Scotland, so the ministers. Now let me read just a couple of sentences from the opening paragraph, the preface to this.

This is what they write, Although we are not ignorant, that mockers of all sorts may take occasion by this acknowledgement of the sins of ministers, to strengthen themselves in their prejudices toward our persons and callings, and to turn this unto reproach, and that some may misconstrue our meaning herein, as if we did thereby intend to render the ministry of this church base and contemptible, which is far from our thoughts.

We, knowing and being persuaded in ourselves that there are many able, godly, and faithful ministers in the land, yet being convinced that we are called to humble ourselves, and to justify the Lord in all the contempt that He has poured upon us, that they who shall know our sins may not stumble at our judgment when God judges them.

We have thought it our duty to publish this following discovery and acknowledgement of the corruptions and the sins of ministers, that it may appear how deep our hand is in the transgression. Now, by the way, there were a lot of commas there, but no periods, okay?

That was one sentence. So now let me break that down, because I think there are a couple of things that are just extraordinary. First of all, when we publish a book stating hundreds of sins that we feel we're guilty of, we know that those who mock Christianity might take it and say, what a joke, even their leaders are this sinful.

But in spite of that danger that the authors felt, since God has called us to humble ourselves and to bleed out in repentance, we will risk becoming a thing of mockery, and even risk people mocking the Church, because we feel that we have to humble ourselves, and, wonderful, he says this, to humble ourselves and to justify the Lord.

Yeah. If a person looking at the Church, when it is in moral decline, and under the judgment of God, and therefore weak, divided, fractured, confused... Sort of like today's Church. Yes. It is easy to look at that, and for the mocker to say, well, what kind of a Christ, what kind of a God do you have with this kind of Christianity?

And that has to be something that concerns us. And so one of the goals of printing their confession of their own sin was to remove from the Lord that dishonor done to His name. It is not God's fault that the Church stinks.

It's our fault the Church stinks. It's the Christian, it's the Church, and the Church has been judged. God has shown His displeasure, and it is our fault, and we want to justify, or to clarify, that God is in the right in the way He's dealt with us.

Yeah. So, wonderful thing. And then he goes on to say that those who see us being judged will not think wrongly of God, but we want it to appear how deep our hand is in the transgressions, not just of the Church, but of the nation.

So, Steve, why do you think a group of pretty serious ministers who look in the mirror and say, but there are areas where we failed... Yeah. Why would they say our hand is deep in the sin of Scotland?

Why would we say today our hand is deep in the sin of America? Well, for one, I mean, the Church.

Tends to be the conscience of the nation, and when the conscience itself is so marred by sin, so seared to the sensitivity of the wrongs that take us down, who else is more responsible? From a spiritual perspective, it makes all kinds of sense, although from a political one, one would say, they don't have anything to do with it.

They're probably completely uninvolved politically, but.

We understand it spiritually. Yeah, so if the Church is the light of the land, or the conscience of the land, as you said, and the conscience or the light is dim or seared, eventually the culture decays.

You know, the salt and light are not there. The decay and the confusion increase, and if we are looking at a morally decaying and a morally progressively more and more confused nation with confused leaders, instead of pointing our fingers at them first, which they do have guilt, we start with the Church.

Right. Because God has put that upon us, to be salt and light. Now, if they ignore the light and they refuse the purifying effects of salt, then that's on them. That's right. But if the Churches decline in a systemic manner, so we're not talking about just here or there, but really a widespread general pattern of decline, then surely the blame lies first at the feet of the ministers who shepherd them.

And one of the wonderful things of this.

Account, it seems to me, is first, as we'll get into the particulars here momentarily, these are not just your, let's just make up a list, you know, in five-minute sitting-down kind of sins. This reflects deep soul-searching, it seems to me.

These are, I mean, there's a rawness and a realness to their laying these out, which does call for great humility. But also, in the graciousness of God, that He responded, as it were, in this instance, and we see that great movement of a revival that springs forth eventually.

So they are vindicated in their own confession here as well, and there's just that sincerity that really was shocking to me to read. I had never read this list before preparing for this.

Program, so. Yeah, it's not just honest, but there's a real depth there. There's a real depth. It is really surprising to read the depth to which they understood the nature of their own sin. Yes. To the, you know, to the point that really, I guess, you know, a kind of a modern view of sin, even in an evangelical church, might look at these men and say, you know, are you overreacting?

Right, exactly. But these men were tender-hearted, and I think that they really do give us a very safe guide in how to prepare our hearts more fully, more thoroughly, for the nearness of the Lord, and for being a people that God might be pleased to use.

Yes. You know, in a stirring of a church, of a home, of a denomination, of a land. Yeah. Let me shoot you another question, Steve. This is going to be a series of very specific sins of ministers from, you know, over three centuries ago.

So how does that have any practical bearing on our listeners today? Who would you apply.

This to? Well, let me say first that there's nothing unique about ministers in the context of sinfulness. Sin afflicts us all, so there is a universality to it. But secondly, to anyone in leadership, right?

Whether you're a Sunday school teacher, a father at home, you know, parents generally, frankly, Christians everywhere, are we not called to be a kingdom of priests here? So I find the list remarkably poignant and relevant to today's world.

As well, and to where we are. Yeah, and you can think of, if you think of minister as a person, if you kind of widen out the category, anyone that has been entrusted by the Lord with influence, spiritual influence on others.

So a parent, a dad, a mom, a husband, Sunday school teachers, I mean, yeah, you know, elders in a church, certainly, but even older believers that younger believers look up to. So to the degree that God has entrusted you with influence on younger believers, to that degree, you have leadership.

And again, like you said, while these things have a universal application, it is particularly for those who have been allowed to lead in home, or in church, or to influence others, that I think that these are helpful.

Now, we will have a link in our show notes that you can go to, and you can read these specifics. We'll give you one that has, there's ten very, I think about ten long articles that introduce it. That's for the land as a whole.

You bump down to about halfway through the document, and you'll see where it says, now these are the sins of the ministers. Now before we look at some of the specifics, and what Steve and I have done, is we've used a little book right there.

Yes, Words of.

Souls by Horatius. Words to Winners of Souls. Steve can't read.

Upside down and through bifocals. Yeah, this is just impossible. Yeah, it's too much.

Wonderful little book, and this excerpt that we're looking at is chapter four, which would be worth the book itself, it seems to me. Yeah, that is one of my.

All-time favorite books. It's a bit tricky, the title makes you think it's about evangelism, but really it's a number of chapters that are very penetrating to those who are in leadership positions spiritually, and so this forms just one chapter of that.

So before we look at that, and we've each chosen a handful or so of ones that we felt were most penetrating, I want to say that it is so encouraging to see that in 1651, those entrusted with leadership were true leaders, and one mark of true leadership, whether it's a dad in a home, parents, a husband, or church teachers and leaders, one mark of true leadership should be this, that you lead in repentance, that you lead in humility, that when you call other people to repent, you are a repenter, and it is the voice of a repenter that is so effective when a man or a woman turns to others and says, shouldn't we turn back to Christ?

And there is that sweet humility, there is that, you know, the fragrance of the crushed, you know, flower petals, there is something fragrant about a life that is already repenting, that when they tell you, you know, you should consider repentance, that makes it attractive.

Very different than the stench of an arrogant person who refuses to repent, but then hollers out at the culture and says, you people out there,.

You're nuts! Which is all too prevalent in the modern church. Yeah, and I mean,.

Really, while our culture has rejected the Lord, we would say that they have a right to refuse to listen to religious people, preach down at them, when the religious people themselves refuse to repent.

So I don't blame them for that, though they are held accountable for rejecting the Lord.

John, I would throw in one other thing, too. I was at an ordination service this weekend, and one of the things that was pointed out in the charge was, as go the leaders, so go the people, as a general rule.

And we see it in Scripture as well, too. So maybe all the more reason that we should be praying for the leaders in our churches, and in our world across the globe, really, that they would have those tender hearts and turn back to God in a repentant, truly repentant way.

Yeah, I.

Think one great use of these, after you've dealt with yourself, is to use them as a guide for praying for the spiritual leaders in your church, you know, after you've dealt with yourself, so that the heart can be right.

One thing I want to point out before we look at the specifics is that, historically, there are different types of revivals. Even among those that we would consider genuine works of the Lord, they're not always the same.

Mr. Richard R. Roberts has pointed this out in a number of his books, and whenever he speaks, there are word-centered revivals and experience-centered. Now, both have experiences, and both have the Bible in them, but the emphasis is different.

So the Reformation, Puritan movement, Great Awakening, Evangelical revival, those were word-oriented. That is, the fundamental fuel for the revival on the human level was the preaching of God's Word, and the emphasis, you know, the very deep and experiential emphasis of these great doctrines.

So sermons like sermons on the new birth, and the justification by faith, these were oftentimes the very things that God used. Experience-centered, like the 1904 Welsh Revival, well, there were still Bibles, but it tended to be fueled by testimony.

So God did a great work in a group of young people, and they went from church to church to tell, look, this is what God did for me. This is how He saved me. And God used that, then, to spread it. But there's a very different outcome.

When it's word-centered, it tends to be a much deeper, more thorough, and longer-lasting impact compared to experience. But that's also true of the leadership of a.

Revival. So I was gonna ask, aren't most word-centered revivals actually leader-led?

Yeah, so are they top-down or bottom-up? Now, both of them are of the Lord. But if we could say it this way, I don't really like these terms, but if we say clergy and laity, okay, I don't really like those, but everybody understands kind of what we're talking about.

If it is the leaders in the denomination, if it is the pastors in the churches that God has broken their hearts and they have humbled themselves, what we have found is the work that flows from that tends to be historically more lasting, more deep and thorough, less fragmented.

I mean, you know, so if you look at the Great Awakening, although it was not a perfect, you know, nothing that we're involved in is perfect. There are flaws. But if you say, well, what were the great truths emphasized in our Great Awakening, our first Great Awakening?

Well, you can say, well, that's pretty clear, and the impact was pretty clear. But then, if you look at things later in the late 19th century, or like Wales in 1904, when it was basically young college people carrying their testimonies church to church, if you were to say, so what were the great doctrines?

What were the passages? And that's less clear. A lot more splintering. A lot less theological clarity. So one reason I think that is, is fundamentally, God has placed in our lives structures of leadership, and when leaders are obedient, there are blessings or privileges that come from that.

And when leaders are disobedient, even when others have to step up and say, well, I'm not the pastor, but I am no longer willing to see God dishonored, while that is still a wonderful thing, it is not what it might have been.

And we see the consequences of wicked leadership impact even real revivals, you know, for years to come. So when we are looking at this theme, we do want to be praying for the very best. We want a word-oriented, and by the grace of God, we would wish for a leadership-led, pastor-led, you know, return to the Lord.

Well, as we look at the list that we have, even though we have a very small selection of the larger list, Steve and I both feel that it's too much to kind of pack in to the first episode, so we will be back next week to consider some of the specific sins that the ministers confessed, and so we hope you will be able to join us again.