The Instrument of Revival — E.A. Johnston

The Man of Revival and God’s Search for Faithful Instruments

We are in the Evangelism Awakening Revival Institutes, and if you'll turn in your handouts to session 6, the Man of Revival, in this session we will study the Man of Revival. In 2 Chronicles 16 .9 we read, For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

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, Whitefield and Wesley, Finney 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 and self-sacrifice.

God is always on the lookout for such men. In times of revival, God has always raised up his human instruments to carry out his plan of redemption. I am fascinated by men like Mordecai Ham and Sam Jones, men who when they came to town to hold meetings, their ministry completely altered the life of a town.

Mordecai Ham’s Revival Ministry and Its Transforming Effects

It was said of Mordecai Ham that when he preached, mockers were converted, families were restored, bars were closed, laws were changed, churches were filled to overflowing. One even advertised in the paper that no more new converts should attend, as there was not room for them.

Hundreds were called to preach, and crooked politicians either repented or feared the consequences. When some resisted God's work, God withdrew His grace in answer to Ham's prayer, and God's judgment fell.

What message was the message that Mordecai Ham preached that God so honored? Well, he preached hard on man's duty of repentance and the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ. Listen to his own words. I preached the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I allowed for no compromise, but hammered this one thought that Christ Jesus must have first place, first call, and first allegiance. I made this the keynote of all my meetings. My objective has always been to enter a town and change the thinking of the residents toward Christ, to direct their lives to center on Christ.

The Cost of Preaching Christ’s Absolute Lordship

Well, let me tell you, friends, about the price Mordecai Ham had to pay for preaching that message. He was physically attacked all the time. Here's a record. Monday night, September 11th, 1916, at 8 o 'clock, Evangelist Ham was brutally assaulted as he was leaving the Westbrook Hotel, going to the tabernacle to preach.

He was struck from behind on the back of the head, and gashes were cut into the side of his face. Another instance records that one time a mob crazed with liquor marched into the revivalist tabernacle, knocked down all his defenders, seized him, and started up the railroad tracks with a rope, a bucket of tar, and a sack of feathers.

Mr. Ham was saved only from being hanged, tored and feathered, and cast into the river only by the quick action of the mayor of San Benito, who wired Washington, which in turn wired the nearest army base to send a detachment of cavalry and rescue Mr. Ham.

Another time, he was purposely run over by a car as he crossed the street, and he was dragged several blocks. He ended up in the hospital for six months near death. But I like this story about Mordecai Ham the best, friends, because it captures the essence of how his preaching turned entire towns upside down.

The man of revival will turn a town upside down. Listen to his words. The mob shouted and hooted and bellowed as the guards escorted me from the tabernacle to the railroad depot. There he goes! There he goes, they shouted.

When we reached the depot, the train was just backing in, and the guards rushed me into the Pullman and locked me in a lavatory. The train pulled out immediately, without waiting for baggage to be loaded, after eight armed men had also boarded the Pullman.

A Southern Railroad detective stood at one end of the sleeper, holding a gun on the mob, and the Pullman conductor on the other end was also armed. The United States Marshal stood just outside on the station platform, holding two pistols, pointed toward the crowd, and declared that the first man that moves towards this train is a dead man.

The railroad detective sat by my berth all the way to Asheville. En route, he surrendered his heart to Christ. He said, Any man who could go through what you went through tonight, as calmly as you did, has something that I don't have.

God’s Divine Process of Reduction and Pruning

Oh, there's a common denominator, friends, when it comes to men of revival. They are willing to go out on a limb for God and gamble their lives away on the gospel of Christ. They are more than willing to submit to God's divine process.

God builds his servants through his divine process of reducing and decreasing. Gold must be reduced to its purity in the furnace of affliction. A branch must be trimmed back and decreased before it can grow more fruit.

If we desire further usefulness to God, then we must submit both to the refiner's fire and the divine pruning knife. Revival men must be willing to be reduced to nothing so Christ can be everything through them.

It is only the empty and clean channel that the rivers of life flow through as a means of blessings to others. Another man whom God used to change the life of a town was the evangelist, Rolf Barnard. I want to read you some excerpts from my biography on his life entitled, God's Hitchhike Evangelist.

Rolf Barnard as a Fragrance of Christ

In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul states, For we are unto God a sweet saver of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one we are the saver of death unto death, and to the other the saver of life unto life.

Rolf Barnard was both of these things to his congregations, as the following two accounts will relate to you what God can do when he's moving in revival. Here now are the words of Evangelist Barnard, taken from his sermon, Sudden Death.

Barnard’s Account of Opposition and Sudden Judgment

The pastor of a church in a certain place asked me to come and hold meetings. Before I got there, several deacons of that church had come to the pastor and said, Now brother, we're not going to oppose anything, but we don't believe in what you call evangelistic campaigns so we will not be back until this preacher is gone and the meetings are over.

Well, if they had done what they said, it would have been all right, but we couldn't get a crowd for a few nights and we were hitting it pretty hard, so those fellows were glad and got to bragging about how we weren't getting anywhere in the meetings.

They violated their word that they wouldn't oppose us. The pastor came to me and he was broken hearted and he said, Brother Barnard, this is killing me. What can we do? I said, I don't know. Are you game for us to get down on our knees and ask God to save them or kill them?

He agreed and we got down on our knees and said, Lord, you know what these fellows are doing. They're ruining the meeting. They're making fun of the gospel, the church, and the Lord Jesus Christ and God's preachers.

They were just filling the whole town with this and everybody was talking about how the meeting was no good and those seven deacons making fun of it. So we said, Lord, save them or kill them. Well, neither one of us was supposed to tell about that prayer and I don't think I did, but somebody did and those deacons heard about it.

They just heard half of it, though, and so they had a big time. They said, those preachers up there are praying for God to kill us, but we were praying for God to save them or kill them to get them out of the way.

They were bucking God. They were hoarding themselves against God. I think that is dangerous. They just laughed and had a big time about it. But in four days time, the pastor had seven different funerals and they were the funerals of those seven Baptist deacons.

Every one of them died a horrible, sudden death. Well, the next recollection, friends, from Rolf Barnard is a remarkable account of a meeting he had in a small town in Texas in 1928. Here now are his words.

Revival, Repentance, and the Thirty-Three Miners

In Texas, many years ago, while I was a student in Southwestern Seminary, there was a little mining town nearby and I went one summer while I was in school and held what is called revival services. I began the meeting there on Sunday night.

I got up that night and I preached. I remember I preached on hell that night and dismissed the congregation, praying that the Holy Spirit would speak to hearts and disturb people. As we stood there, somebody touched my shoulder.

I looked around and the old white-haired pastor stood there, his face drenched in tears. He said, Brother Preacher, might I say a few words? Well, of course he might, and he said, folks, let's don't go home for a few minutes.

I just can't let you go right now. Somebody happened to look at his watch and exactly 33 minutes later, a lot had happened. That pastor stood there with his face in tears and he pointed men out and called them by their given name.

I'd never seen anything like it. He'd been pastor there for over 30 years and he knew them all by their given name. He said, Bill, I just can't let you go tonight, and he preached to Bill, and here came Bill.

Jim, I can't let you go tonight, and he preached to Jim, and here came Jim, and he did that to 33 men, one by one. Nobody left. He just called those men by name and talked to them, and here they came.

33 minutes later, 33 men were lined up. I don't know whether they got saved or not. I'll find out at the judgment. I simply know this, they claimed to. There was a power there that night. There was somebody there besides us.

We had an old-fashioned handshake, and we hit 33 men. 33 men professing their faith in Christ. Well, everybody made their living in the coal mine, but Monday night, I didn't preach. I was going to preach, but they didn't have service Monday night.

For at 4 .26 p .m. Monday, one of the mines had an explosion and caved in, and some men were buried in that mine, and the whistle blew, and sirens and alarms went off in that little mining town, and all they did was to gather at that mine with all their equipment, and while they worked feverishly, some prayed, some cried, and some cursed, but they worked to get down to where those men were trapped.

The timekeeper, whoever's in charge of time, consulted his books, and he knew there were 33 men trapped down in that mine. They worked feverishly, and finally they got to them, and one by one, they hauled up the bodies of those 33 men who were crushed in that mine.

Every one of them was dead, and they were the 33 men that lined up there and said they had received Christ. Well, we're going to look at more sessions on Revival, friends, but I want us to focus on how God used human instruments in times of Revival, but I want us to get ready now and prepare for Session 7.