Real Revival — Richard Owen Roberts

Conflicting Definitions of Revival in the Church

These days, when you meet with an assembly of people and you use the word revival, you don't know whether you're talking to people who have a similar understanding as your own on the subject of revival or people who have some perfectly preposterous notions as to what revival is.

And obviously it's been so long for most people since true revival occurred anywhere around them that they don't have any point of reference to look back to and say that was a real work of God. And it astonishes me the diversity of viewpoints on the subject of revival represented in the church among those who are supposedly evangelical believers.

There are those who say that revival is exclusively an Old Testament subject, nothing about revival in the New Testament. And astonishingly, those who say revival is exclusively a New Testament subject, nothing whatsoever about revival in the Old Testament.

And sometimes it almost makes you dizzy to hear these varying viewpoints and the arguments that are used in defense of them. Fairly recently in a conference that was held in Wheaton, the statement was made that there are no revivals in the Old Testament.

The speaker, who was there for a series, is a highly regarded man, in fact a warm personal friend of mine from another country. And I went up to him afterward and I said, would there be any possibility of our sitting down this week for a chat?

Oh, he said, I've already discovered that your office is just down the street and I told the people that have made the arrangements of this meeting that I must have time to see you. He said, I'm scheduled to be at your place on Friday at one.

I hope that will work. Yes, I said. Well, when he came he said, the others have set up my calendar and they've only given me a half an hour to spend with you. I'm sorry, but let's make the best use of the time we can.

So I said, let me tell you what I think I heard you say. I'll put it in the form of a syllogism. Revival is a plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit. Major premise. Minor premise. There are no plentiful effusions of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.

Conclusion. There are no revivals in the Old Testament. That's it, that's it, you've got it exactly. Well, I said, your problem is you've given revival too narrow a definition. Certainly a plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit is a phrase that has been wonderfully used in the past.

And there isn't any question but what in revival there is a plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit. But to say that's it, and to eliminate revivals from the Old Testament on that basis is simply wrong.

No, I said, look, I know you well. I know you're a man of the book. What authority can you provide for your position? Well, he kind of hemmed and hawed and cited this fellow and that fellow. And, well, I don't know everything, but by the grace of God I do know something.

And I said to him, all those references will not do. You're going to have to come up with something better than that. Well, he couldn't. And I said, now listen, through the centuries these incredibly gracious and wonderful movements in the Old Testament have been described as revival.

You've got to call them something because clearly they are things that did occur. So what name are you wanting to give them? Well, I haven't really thought of that. Well, I've said until you do, I'm going to believe that the Old Testament has a lot of wonderful, helpful material on revival.

As does the New Testament. You know, the difficulty in part that we're facing these days is that really there is an awful lot of downplaying of the Old Testament and not the very careful usage of the New Testament.

Reading Both Testaments Faithfully

And the rather absurd thought that if the New Testament doesn't say precisely what it says in the Old on the subject, then it's irrelevant. It doesn't fit. It doesn't really belong. I'd like to begin this morning by a simple suggestion that our task, and I often do this in public meetings, I take my Bible like this and I kind of open it to about so.

And I say to people, what do you see? Just looking at the page edges, what do you see? Notes. No, no, the page edges. No notes there. A third and two thirds. Yeah, roughly a third and two thirds. And if it's all the Word of God, which I honestly believe it is, then my responsibility is to preach two thirds out of the Old and one third out of the New.

You don't look convinced. I don't think that in our day we are handling the Word of God all right. And I believe that an awful lot of the problems that the church is faced with, we are faced with because we are not treating the Word of God as it is meant to be treated.

My understanding is if a matter is established in the Old Testament, it remains established today unless God himself has made it clear that was simply a type. Now we have the reality and the type is no longer in place.

But other than that, it seems to me we've got to use both Testaments with great precision and care. Now many people have never asked this simple question. What period of time does the Old Testament cover over against the period of time covered in the New Testament?

Now without trying to pin it down to an exact number of years, obviously the Old Testament is covering thousands of years and the New Testament is covering considerably less than a hundred. Now that's got to enter in to our understanding of such a precious and urgent subject as revival.

Declension and Revival in Biblical History

Sometimes in dealing with perfectly ordinary people, not that you are not perfectly ordinary like me, but I mean in dealing with people who don't have a specific orientation toward revival, I ask the elementary question.

Based upon a median, you can all I'm sure in your minds envision a median. Just think in terms of an eye hook on that wall and an eye hook on that wall and a cable stretched between those two eye hooks and we're going to call that the median line.

Most of us understand that a revival consists of a crossing of that line twice. All revivals include a decline, what is called the declension, the moral and the spiritual declension that precedes revival and then the revival itself.

So once going down the line is crossed, once going up the line is crossed. How many times in the Old Testament did that cycle, that down and up occur? Yeah, that's the best answer that we can give, lots.

I don't think anybody could truly pin it down to a precise number, but that there were many in the book of Judges alone, not less than seven of these cycles. And in the little pamphlet that I produced years ago called the Solemn Assembly, I listed twelve of the major revival events of the Old Testament and I didn't include any of the seven in Judges.

So we'll just simply leave it as many. How many full cycles appeared in the New Testament? Come along, this is the Canadian Revival Fellowship. Have you thought of this? What was that? Yeah, I mean that's exactly it.

There's not one single full cycle in the New Testament. The Old Testament begins above the line with Adam and Eve in fellowship with God, walking and talking with God in the garden. The Old Testament ends below the line.

But many, many times that has been repeated throughout the Old Testament. The New Testament obviously begins where the Old Testament closes, below the line. In Pentecost there is this incredible movement of true revival.

There are warning passages in the New Testament about declension. There are individual churches, say in the Revelation, where there is indication that they have been sinking severely. But obviously when you've got these patterns repeated in one Testament and yet not one full cycle in the New Testament, there's going to be a difference in the teaching.

It is perfectly reasonable that the Old Testament should have an abundance of teaching upon revival, whereas the teaching in the New Testament would not be as distinct, as sharp, as if they had had a series of these ups and downs.

Teaching Revival and Calling the Church to Repentance

Now I mention those things because what we are faced with today is a generation that has no true knowledge of what real revival is. So that our task, or at least as I perceive it, is twofold. First, to teach people the raw elements of true revival.

I don't think there are very many people who honestly even believe that God is God, and that God is sovereign, and that he does as he pleases. The prayers that I listen to, and the sermons that I hear, and the personal statements people make in my presence leads me to think that in their mind God is always equidistant from man.

But there's no variation. We often hear cited, Lo, I am with you always. But we don't hear any explanation of what did James mean when he said, Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you. Seems to me a statement of that sort indicates that God is not always equidistant from his people.

What would be the sense of saying, draw near, if God always were near? But the whole basic concept of God and his sovereignty, of his rights, is so grievously contradicted by the position of the church that there's virtually no true understanding of revival.

I said I believe our task is twofold. We've got to educate people biblically in terms of this incredibly urgent subject of revival. But that's not our sole task. We're not teachers or educators alone.

We are preachers of righteousness. And our task is also to call men and women, boys and girls, back to true Christianity. To turning from sin and self to God. But we don't seem to have been very successful.

Brother, may I ask you, how successful do you think Canadian Revival Fellowship has been? On a scale of one to three. And that's a kindly response. You know, I have a ministry called International Awakening Ministry.

I'm not even sure I would dare to go as high as three. We've done what we could, done everything we knew to do. Done it steadily. Year after year, decade after decade, doing everything we can. But so little has happened that we're almost embarrassed and shamed.

And indeed, at times, people ask us very bluntly, don't you ever get discouraged? I meet people who come up to me and say, how long have you been doing this? And I tell them, well, don't you ever get discouraged?

Well, the honest truth is, no, I don't. I'm doing what I was called to do. I wasn't called to be successful, but faithful. I'd like to be successful, but that's up to God. But obviously, we are in the situation, in the midst of the decline we're in.

We do have to re-examine what we're doing and ask, is there something perhaps additional that we could say or do? Or is there something we're doing that is proven erroneous or so ineffective we could wisely abandon it?

But honestly, when everything is said and done, I think the simple truth is the basic reason why we have so little interest in revival in our two countries is because most people don't have any idea what real revival is and how beautiful.

I'm sure you've been moved, as I have, by those wonderful last words of Psalm 73. The nearness of God is my good. I couldn't catch how many times my soul has been revitalized at that realization, at the enjoyment of the recollections of those seasons in my own life when the nearness of God was perfectly splendid.

Seasons when, in a sense, you almost don't need to walk by faith because the Lord is so near that you almost feel as if you're walking hand in hand with him. But then other seasons when you honestly wonder, did the Lord forget I'm here?

Does he even know and care? We have learned a great deal in our personal experience about the comings and goings of God, but I don't think we are adequately representing these truths to the people. I personally am not ready to give up.

I'd like to do things better and in greater power of the Holy Spirit with greater faithfulness to the Word of God than ever before. And this might be the last time I stand before anybody to speak at my age.

One doesn't do much planning for the future. But as long as I've got life and breath, I want to keep on proclaiming what I am convinced is true and calling people to respond to it as a people ought always to respond to God.

Exodus 32 and the First Detailed Revival Account

So with that as a background, what I'd like to do is to take again an extraordinarily familiar passage to those of us who are engaged in revival ministry and in concern about the well-being of the kingdom of God and again use it as a reminder and I hope even as a prod to inspire us further in the labors to which God has called us.

I make reference now to that first large-scale account of revival in the Old Testament in Exodus chapter 32 and following. Some of you perhaps have read the book by Jonathan Edwards, The History of Redemption.

And he gives some wonderful details and focused attention to that period in Genesis where men began to seek God. And he names that as the first recorded revival. Well, I expect this is the first recorded revival with a great deal of detail and information.

And I'd like to focus upon this passage and draw from it some items of immense consequence that I believe we need to focus upon in our day. So Exodus 32, when the people saw that Moses had delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, Come, makers of God, who will go before us.

As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. What an absurdity. They know perfectly well what had become of him. They knew that he had gone up into the mountain with God.

Aaron said to them, Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me. Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and they brought them to Aaron.

And he took this from their hand and he fashioned it with a graving tool and he made it into a molten calf. And they said, This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Now, when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it.

And Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.

And of course the commentary upon this in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 makes it clear that it was a very filthy sex orgy in which they were engaged. Now, I believe that fundamental to the problem we face and the lack of interest in revival and the lack of fervent prayer for revival among professed Christians is a misinterpretation of the times in which we live.

Revival Is Not Prevented by End-Times Pessimism

And I expect some of you are guilty of fortifying this grievous error. A large percentage of the people I encounter seem to believe that it's too late for anything glorious to happen. They have bought into end times theology to such an extent that you often are with people who say very plainly, I'm just praying that the Lord will hurry up and come.

And innumerable times I have said to someone who spoke words like that to me, do you have any unsafe children? And they will say, well yes, I have a daughter who is far from God. And you, a professing Christian, is hoping that Christ will come and take you out of this rotten mess and don't even care that your daughter is headed straight for hell?

There is something vile about the Christian notion that escapism is desirable. Now don't misunderstand, I'm not speaking against the coming of Christ. I know he's coming. But I also know that at such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man will come.

And I personally have not bought into this end time theology that hints or plainly states that it's too late. I don't believe it is too late. I believe, for instance, that there are some very urgent promises of Scripture that has not yet been fulfilled.

I don't believe that God must have Canada or America, the United States, in order to fulfill his promises. But I do know that we've got an awful lot of Jews living among us who have never yet been provoked to jealousy by a Gentile church so holy and so full of the Holy Spirit and so prominent in displaying the glory of Christ in its ranks that the Jews have said, that's not fair.

He's our Messiah. Why should they have blessings that were intended for us? I can't imagine Christ coming back now to claim the filthy bride that calls itself his church. I know personally I wouldn't want a bride like the Church of North America.

And I personally can't conceive of any way by which the bride could be turned from the soiled, rotten mess it is into the virgin without spot and without blemish that Christ purchased with his own blood.

I can't think of anything that would make an adequate change in the church other than revival. I have personally strong convictions that revival is mandatory and that indeed it will come. Where I have uncertainty is whether it will include us or not.

But I'm not ready to give up on that, as I've already said. And as long as I can, I'm going to keep calling the church to repentance. From my understanding of things, you may wish to correct me and I think perhaps I ought to stop right now and say I believe our time together will be most beneficial if you feel the liberty to interrupt me.

I mean that sincerely. Up until now at least, I have not lost my way when people interrupt. So I'm not fearful of that. But if you have something to interject, if I have made a statement that you think is erroneous or that is unclear and you want clarification, the only thing I would hope for would be that you'd give me a chance to finish the sentence.

So just perhaps a wave of the hand or some indication you have something you'd like to say. Do feel that liberty. I'm most earnest in making that recommendation to you. But there are, I believe, not less than four things that always precede revivals and I think this passage helps us wonderfully in seeing those things.

Moral and Spiritual Decline Before Revival

And the first of these is so incredibly urgent because it appears to me that the bulk of the church is misinterpreting the first of these things. Always prior to revival, there is some grievous form of moral and spiritual decline.

Now in our day, a large portion of the church takes the moral and spiritual decline as evidence that we are at the end of the end. We may be at the end of the end. I'm in no position to say, and you aren't either.

But I don't believe that it's right before God to adopt a pessimistic viewpoint. And especially in the light of those numerous scriptures that remain unfulfilled. But may I say it this way, thanks be to God, our predecessors in the ministry of Christ didn't look at it as if it were too late.

Suppose that at the time of George Whitefield, you know the details, at least some of you. You know that his father ran a tavern in Gloucester, England. That his father died and his mother remarried a rather abusive man.

And that George was consigned to the dirty task in the tavern of emptying the pots, etc. He had an aspiration, a hope for an education. But being a commoner was ineligible for university education. But some older, wealthier man somehow made way.

And Whitefield was admitted to Oxford University, went as a servant of other students, and yet nonetheless as a student in the university. And when he went to Oxford, he had this tremendously great hunger.

Visited various churches, talked with various faculty members, sought spiritual help, found none in the university city. Then met Charles Wesley, who invited him to come and participate in their club that was earning their way to heaven by good works.

And Whitefield perhaps exceeded the rest of them in zealous good works. Pretty well ruined his health in all the fasting and the abstinence in which he engaged and the zeal with which he tried to save himself and others.

Sent home from the university too ill to remain. Offered an opportunity after someone had slipped him that little book by Henry Scarnugo, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Bishop of Gloucester invited him to speak in the cathedral.

And it was said that some 13 or 14 people were driven mad by his sermon, meaning that they came under profound conviction and were weeping and lamenting their sins. The bishop was wise enough to say, I hope it lasts at least until next Sunday.

But you know that the doors of countless churches were thrown open and Whitefield was urged to come and preach. So tense were the throngs that followed him that he had to have guards who broke through the vast crowds for him to move from preaching place to preaching place.

And soon the incredible evangelical revival was underway. Suppose that someone had gotten a hold of young Whitefield just after he had read Scarnugo's book in Men Converted and said to him, now understand George, it's too late for anything good to happen.

Isn't it wonderful that our forefathers, when they saw the moral and the spiritual decline, turned with all their hearts to the Lord in the expectancy of faith that something wonderful would happen. You know perhaps about Timothy Dwight becoming president of Yale College at a time when it was thought there were only two professing Christians in the entire student body.

Now he didn't go to those two and say, look fellas, you've got to realize we're living at the end of the end. Don't hope for anything to happen. No, instead he made chapel attendance mandatory. And he himself preached time after time in the Yale chapel, spent an entire year on the doctrine of God, the sermon still available in Dwight's theology.

And at the end of that first school year, this man of faith was able to acknowledge that it appeared that there were only two, possibly three students in the entire college who had not been converted to Christ and those two or three were seeking the Lord.

Oh, for the kind of hope that expects God to do something incredible. I said there are four things that precede revival. Let me lay out the four. The first I've mentioned and given this brief statement concerning always a terrible moral and spiritual decline that precedes revival.

Number two, there's always some form of a righteous judgment from the Lord. I shall explain that in a moment. Number three, there's always someone or a group of somebody whom God raises up who have an immense burden for God to come again in great power.

And number four, there's always some extraordinary action that is taken on the part of believing people. That, I believe, gives us a picture of what must still happen among us and what has not really truly happened for a very long time.

As already said, in the light of the moral and spiritual decline, many have simply given up and said, Oh, Lord, hurry back. I don't think we are going to gain any ground asking God to hurry back. I believe that the time of Christ's return has long ago been set by the Father.

You remember as well as I do that when Christ was quizzed on the subject, He made it clear that it was not His to announce that it was in the Father's hands. It just seems to me we're making a dreadful mistake wasting time on matters that do nothing but discourage or create a ray of hope in somebody who ought not to hope in that direction.

Their hope ought to be that the Spirit of God will be outpoured and their own children and grandchildren brought gloriously into relationship with Christ. So, I leave the subject of the moral and spiritual decline by simply saying, when we see the moral and spiritual decline, our hearts should brighten.

We should be encouraged because nothing turns up until it is at the bottom. And why not rejoice that we happen to have in the United States right now a political leader who is extraordinarily gifted in bringing America to its knees.

And those who are running against him, I don't think they're quite as well equipped as he is in the area of destruction, but they certainly don't seem to have any answers. But let's weigh number two. There's always some form of a righteous judgment from God.

Righteous Judgment as a Prelude to Revival

Let me turn back to the text. Verse 7. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, And go down at once for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them.

They have made for themselves a molten calf and have worshipped it and have sacrificed to it and said, This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.

Now then, let me alone that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them, and I will make of you a great nation. All revivals preceded by some form of a righteous judgment from God. And so the Lord says to Moses, Get out of the way.

I will go down there and utterly destroy those people. And I will make of you, Moses, you alone, Moses, a people to my name. I'm sure most of you have gotten this straight, but I've been talking with this young couple here and I haven't yet had a chance to find out how much they know, but I expect they know less than I do on this subject.

And maybe they never heard. Are you acquainted with the distinction between final judgments and remedial judgments? Are you familiar with that? Okay, I was right in my assumption. Now look, I'm saying that prior to revivals there's always some form of a righteous judgment.

When you use the word judgment in the church today, most people are thinking of eschatological judgments, that which is down the line, which will accompany the end of time. I'm not speaking about distant or future judgments.

I'm talking about the judgments that are concurrent with sin. I don't know much about Canada, although I have a brother that is a Canadian, lives in Toronto, but unfortunately our schedules... What? Where is that?

Yes, well, I understand. That's like Chicago and saying where's New York. But we live in a society where justice is so thoroughly corrupted that we have almost lost sight of what true justice is. You can have a person observed murdering someone else.

There can be 12 eyewitnesses who saw the murder being committed and 13 years after the murder they can still be toying around in the court pretending to administer justice. We're so used to that kind of injustice called justice that it's difficult for us to realize that God is never even one second late in his administration of justice.

We know the biblical pattern though most churches refuse to follow it. We know that when a person sins they are to immediately judge themselves on a daily basis. I believe the statement let not the sun go down upon your wrath can be taken as a very, very plain principle.

No sin should be taken to bed. Every day I should judge myself. I should appear before the Lord God omnipotent and ask him to pinpoint everything in my life that day that was offensive to him and deal with it then and there.

But what somehow a big portion of the church seems to have forgotten is if I don't judge myself my church is required by God to judge me. But the whole idea of church discipline is largely lost especially to those churches that have attained any numerical strength.

In fact, very frequently a pastor will explain to me you can't practice church discipline today. You might be sued. Well sure you might be sued but it would seem an awful lot safer to be sued by man than condemned by God.

So I'm speaking of the judgments that are concurrent with sin. The pattern that I'm suggesting. I'm required to judge myself daily. In my failure my church is required to judge me. If both fail, you can be certain God will not.

We have the powerful example of David. In those Psalms that he wrote after his sin with Bathsheba and the arrangement of her husband's murder. Psalm 32, Psalm 38. David is describing what his life was like during that season of non-repentance.

God judges sin when it occurs. My own conviction is that the church in America, North America, is under God's judgment. Has been for a long time. I hear occasionally a preacher say if we're not careful God may judge us.

And I want to jump up and say since when have the judgments of God been iffy? And in this passage God says to Aaron get out of the way. I'm going to go down there and utterly destroy those people. Now I ask our friends over here if they knew the difference between final judgments and remedial judgments.

I hope the rest of you all do know. But I do know as a fact that the vast majority of the church don't have the foggiest notion what those terms refer to. A final judgment is a judgment in which there is neither time nor opportunity for repentance.

And if I were to ask what is an outstanding example of final judgment in the New Testament you would say? Yes, of course, Ananias and Sapphira. Peter did not say if you go through that doorway three doors on the left is the prayer room will you make your way to the prayer room and see if you can find some cause for repentance.

No, the lie is told, it's confirmed and the judgment of God falls in death. Now what seems to be confusing so much of the church is we're not destroyed. We're still here. So they think that God has not yet judged us.

But we have these remedial judgments. Remedial is not the word that everybody uses but most educators are familiar with the word in that still today most schools have some form of remedial reading classes.

Remedial meaning gracious. You don't just chop a student down and throw him out of school because his reading skills are way behind the rest. You provide some special opportunity for that student to catch up.

And that's a remedial judgment. And God in incredible grace and mercy provides a wonderful opportunity for those who are tardy in their repentance to bring their repentance up to date. But the thing that has to be kept in mind when a remedial judgment is left unheeded in the course of God's time it becomes a final judgment.

Now we have in North America been under remedial judgment for a long time. And thus far it has been largely disregarded not even noticed I expect by the vast majority of pastors and churches. In this passage God tells Moses to get out of the way and he will execute a final judgment.

But isn't it beautiful? Moses doesn't even really know what he's doing. But instead of getting out of the way look at what we've got here. Verse 11. Then Moses entreated the Lord his God and he said, Lord, why does thine anger burn against thy people whom thou hast brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Why should the Egyptians speak saying with evil intent he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy burning anger and change thy mind about doing harm to thy people.

Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel thy servants to whom thou didst swear by thyself and didst say to them I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever.

So the Lord changed his mind about the harm which he said he would do to his people. What an incredible thing. So a threatened final judgment is set aside because someone had the courage to get in God's face and argue reasonably with God.

He has two basic arguments here as you well know. What will the Egyptians say and how will your promises be fulfilled? What a splendid pattern for us. None of us would dare approach God and say Oh God, don't destroy us.