Preliminary Work of Revival — E.A. Johnston

I've spent a good part of my life in the state of Tennessee, and I grew accustomed to the sight, sound, and feel of clear, cool mountain streams, particularly up in eastern Tennessee near the Great Smoky Mountains.

There are many lovely waterfalls and trout streams where water gushes over mossy rocks, and it's a place of tranquility and beauty. But if you visit one of those streams after a bad storm, it's a different story.

Often trees are blown down by tornadoes and high winds, and they can block the flow of a mountain stream. Often it's hard work removing the debris to clear out a pathway for where the water can once again flow freely, so nature can return to normal.

The Debris That Blocks Revival

I believe this analogy, friends, can be applied to the nature of revivals. I've studied historical revivals now for four decades, and there seems to be a familiar pattern to revivals as far as the preliminary work that needs to be done for revival.

Entertainment Cannot Replace the Presence of God

The modern church today has replaced the activity of God with flashing lights and loud music, entertaining stories, things to arouse the senses from the flesh. But you can put lipstick and eye shadow on a corpse, put a red dress on it, but there'll still be deadness and death all over it.

The church has gone from being on life support to the mortuary. When the church displays little evidence at all of any vital Christianity, then it's time for revival. But as you have to clear out the rubbish and refuse from a clogged mountain stream, so too preliminary work must be done in the church as well before God can bless with revival.

From Self-Reliance Back to Prayer and Holy Ghost Power

Years ago, the church ran on prayer and holy ghost power, but now it operates on money and manpower. We've become a self-reliant people, and that's a dead church because Jesus said, Without me, you can do nothing.

It's like the deacon praying after a week of evangelistic meetings where there was loud preaching, loud praying, and loud singing at his church, and everybody's emotions were high. And in the midst of this deacon's prayer, he said, My oh my, what a time we've had here this week in church.

Lord, you should have been here to see it. The modern church can get along just fine without God, but there won't be any true conversion. Or any real transformation of life in Jeremiah 6 16 we read, Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, Where is the good way?

And walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. Is that the end of the verse, friends? No, there is more. Well, how did the people respond to the prophet? They said, We will not walk therein.

Returning to the Old Paths and Biblical Holiness

In other words, we're going to go get us a pastor that can scratch our itch, who will entertain us. Or in the very least, he won't disturb us. We have an itch that just needs to be scratched, and we can do fine with a fella.

They'll just be a middleman between us and our Bibles. The self-reliant church is full of activity, but completely void of the presence and power of God. The so-called additions are from people that have made a mere intellectual ascent, where the head is touched, but the heart left unchanged.

And there are no young people around, because they can see right through all the hypocrisy, especially in the lives of their parents, who had one way of church, and another way the rest of the week at home.

There's no reality of God in the life, yet it still goes by the name of Christianity. If we really don't want to see revival, then we really need to not do anything. But if we really, sincerely, want to see revival, then we need to get honest with God, honest with ourselves, and do the necessary preliminary work of revival.

We must get away from preaching easy-believism. We must turn away from antinomianism, which states, Once saved, always saved. Therefore, I can sin all I want to, and still go to heaven. We need to get back to seeking holiness, and purity, and the power of the Holy Ghost in our lives.

Let me tell you something, friend. A thrice-holy God will allow no rebels into His kingdom, who are still pointing a shotgun at Him. We must rebuild the altars in our churches, and bring back the weekly prayer meeting.

Corporate prayer is the missing element in many churches today. We must get back to preaching the great doctrines of the gospel, which are around redemption, repentance, and regeneration. These are hysterical examples of pastors who, once they began preaching the old gospel truths of repentance and regeneration, they saw glorious revival visit their churches.

The Cambuslang Revival and the Doctrine of Regeneration

One in particular was a case in Scotland in the 18th century, in the town of Cambuslang. The pastor was a plain man who gave such boring messages to his congregation, he was labeled the ale minster, because when he rose to preach, the people rose to go to the tavern to have a drink.

Then one day, this minister, William McCulloch, began to read the accounts of the revival occurring in America under Jonathan Edwards and especially George Whitefield, and it stirred his heart. He began to read to his congregation these accounts of the revival, and he began to change his preaching.

He began to preach a series of sermons on the doctrine of regeneration, that you must be born again. He had only 200 congregants in his church when he began, but in six months time, the services had moved outdoors behind the church, where seven ministers were continuously preaching to 30 ,000 people outside on what would become known as the preaching praise.

And during the now famous Cambuslang revival, where George Whitefield preached, George Whitefield wrote in his diary, it outdid anything he saw in America. He said he saw people strewn on the ground on the hillside, moaning and crying out, and he said it looked like a battlefield.

Counting the Cost of Revival

Do we want that today? Are we willing to pay the price to seek the old past, to do the preliminary work of revival? Well, you know, friends, what cost counts and what counts costs, but we must clear out all the debris and worldly refuse in our personal lives and in the life of the church that blocks the flow of the Spirit of God from working, or we will say, like the self-satisfied hearers of old, we will not walk therein because we like the status quo as it is, which is just business as usual.

Listen to me, friend. Our only hope is a heaven-sent revival. Will we make a way for it?