Revival and Young People — E.A. Johnston

Dear friends, before we proceed, allow me to begin our time together in prayer. This is an important message, and Satan will love nothing better than to rob us of it if he can. Satan hates revival. He hates to see the people of God rekindled with a burning passion for souls and eternity.

Spiritual Warfare and the Power of Revival

Satan strives against the work of revival by aiming all of hell's artillery at it, but he is a defeated foe. Christ Jesus won the victory over sin on Calvary's bloodstained cross, and the enemy of our souls knows his time is short, for the Lord Jesus will soon return for his elect, and then he will wrap an unbreakable chain around the devil's neck and cast him into the sewer of the bottomless pit where he belongs.

Let us pray for God's presence through his Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, you know how enfeebled I am at this hour. You know the straits I have been in, but your word in Hebrews, where you are talking about your heroes of faith, you declare there is strength and weakness, for your word states, out of weakness were made strong.

I give you my weakness, Lord. Give me your strength. I ask you, great God, for an endowment from on high. O Lord, touch me with a hot coal from your altar. May your Holy Spirit empower this message, and may your presence permeate this place to the hearts of these hearers, all for your great glory.

Amen. Well, friends, this message is mainly for the young people. I believe, young friends, that God wants to do a great work in your lives. He is looking for a Samuel among you. He is looking for a man of valor like David.

God's Call to Young People

He is looking for a praying Hannah. He is looking for a fearless Esther. Oh, dear young people, how God wants to use you to reach your generation with the Holy Gospel of His dear Son. He wants to raise up some leaders among you and thrust you out into His harvest, into His harvest field.

He is looking for a young man, a young woman, to so take His word seriously, and to lean on His Spirit entirely, and to live by faith alone, that He can work wonders through your life. Oh, dear young person, the possibilities that lay before you, if you could only believe how God wants to use you to shake the very gates of hell, how God wants to use you to bring in a harvest of souls, all for His glory.

God delights in youth. Look what He did with David. He took a shepherd boy out of the sheepfold and made him a king. Look what God did with a youthful George Whitefield. He shook two continents for God and revival.

Look what God did with Evan Roberts of Wales, a young man, how God took delight in young Evan Roberts in his hidden life of prayer, how God honored those years of hidden prayer by raising him up in a public ministry that startled the nation and shook the world.

He can do that with you, young person. He can do that with you. Do you believe that? Do you? Oh, I hope you do. Listen, young friend, to His promise from the Almighty, it is found in 2 Chronicles in chapter 16 and verse 9.

Consecration and a Heart Perfect Toward God

You can turn in your Bibles there now. I will read it to us. I want you to underline these words in your Bible. Take out a marker now and just underline them, circle it if you can. 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.

Did you hear that? Oh, dear young person, get your heart perfect toward your God. Dear one, consecrate your life to Him. You will never regret it. Oh, how the devil will tell you you were a fool for doing so.

He will mock you, but thrust him through with the Word of God and he will flee from you. God wants to do a great work with you, young person. Listen to this. A young D .O. Moody was sitting on a park bench listening to an older man who made the following comment.

He said, The world has yet to see what God can do through the man wholly consecrated to Him. Moody stood to his feet, and as he walked away, he muttered a prayer beneath his breath. He said, Oh, God, by your grace, let me be that man.

And God took an uneducated Moody, a man who could not properly spell the word bed, and he placed him at the feet of the rich and famous of all of London. He put him in the biggest halls in all of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Moody shook Great Britain for God because he was a man wholly consecrated to God. And our text, young friends, from 2 Chronicles speaks of a heart perfect toward Him. Let me ask you a question right now.

Is your heart perfect toward Him? Let the Holy Spirit shine His pervading spotlight into your heart right this instant and reveal to you right now anything in your life that is out of step with God. For Amos 3 .3 declares, Can two walk together except they be agreed?

Let me ask you, friend, can you have a best friend without being in harmony with that friend? Is not your similar things in common which make up that friendship? How can you have a friend who stands against you?

You cannot. How can you walk with God if your life is against His will for you? You cannot. You must be in complete harmony with the will of God in your life, dear friend. Oh, how He longs to use you in such a fantastic way.

But He cannot because you are not walking with Him. God declares in Malachi, Return to me and I will return to you. Oh, dear friend, realign your life back to God. He wants to use you. When I study historical revivals, I see a common denominator which runs throughout them.

The Lewis Revival and the Prayer of Older Saints

Often the work of grace is centered on the youth of a town or village. The work of God is birthed in prayer, often by some older saints. But the revival blessings begin with the youth. In the Lewis Revival in Scotland, which occurred in 1949 through 1952 under the preaching of Duncan Campbell, it was primarily the teenagers and young people on the island whose lives were touched by the fires of revival.

Many of those youths who were converted at that time became leading ministers of their community for the years to come. On the Isle of Lewis in 1949, there was a growing carelessness toward spiritual things among the younger generation.

In fact, many of the high school kids spoke of conversion as the plague, something to avoid at all costs. They made fun of spiritual things. They thought Jesus was nothing but a killjoy and their interests were focused on the local dance.

But in a small cottage in Barvis lived two elderly women, the Smith sisters. They were 84 and 82 years old, and they longed to see a renewed manifestation of God's power on the island, especially among the youth who were living as if there was no God at all in heaven.

Their sacrificial prayer lives not only brought Duncan Campbell to the Isle of Lewis, but God heard their faith-filled prayers that rose from their little sanctuary of their cottage. Soon a work of grace was occurring among the youth on Lewis.

They became gripped with eternity and convicted of sins. They saw their need of a savior as a substitute for sin. The tiny Isle of Lewis became saturated with the presence of God, and as one walked along the winding roads, often they were greeted with the question, have you done business with God today?

Eternity was on everyone's lips. The agony of conviction gripped men in the field or in the barn. They were so overcome they lay prostrate on the ground before God, crying out, what must I do to be saved?

But it was the teenagers who saw the largest work of grace in their midst. I believe God takes special delight in teenagers' friends. Jesus was a teenager, and he knows the awkwardness of being a teen.

Jesus hung on that bloody cross on Calvary for you, young teenager. Although you believe your whole life is in front of you, you may enter eternity sooner than you realize. For death is no respecter of persons.

Let me ask you a question, young person. Have you done business with God today? This whole matter of revival and young people should be your great concern today, friends. Is not the youth of our nation the strength of its future?

Youth, Leadership, and the Spiritual Condition of America

Is it not a serious matter that those who are youths today will be leaders of tomorrow? And what kind of leaders will they be if they'd be godless atheists? The godless leaders of a nation can turn that nation away from God and send it into utter ruin and destruction.

Look what's happened to America in the last 50 years. Many of the hippies of the 1960s became politicians and judges, and they legislated religion and prayer and God right out of the land. There is a dearth in America today.

It's a godless nation. When I was conducting research on George Whitefield, two British pastors took me to the church in Cambuslang, Scotland, where the pastor had been William McCulloch. Let me tell you about this man, William McCulloch, who God used as an instrument of revival, eventually bringing George Whitefield to Cambuslang, where 20 ,000 people could be found down on the preaching braes beneath the church at 11 o 'clock at night, crying out to God for mercy.

The Cambuslang Revival and a Pastor's Burden for Youth

George Whitefield said it looked like a scene of a battlefield with the wounded lying all about the hills. And this great revival, friends, began with the youth in McCulloch's church. He became burdened for the teenagers in his congregation.

Oh, dear pastor brother, do you have a burden for the teens in your congregation? How desperately they need a vital relationship with Jesus. Anyway, this pastor, William McCulloch, was not much of a preacher.

His preaching was dry and boring, and he was given the nickname of the ale minster because it was said of him, when he rose to preach, the people got up and went to the ale house to drink. But this man McCulloch got such a burden on his heart for the youth in his church that he laid hold of God in desperate prayer for their souls.

He began reading about the revival under Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, New England, which was going on in 1740. He began a written correspondence with Edwards, and they soon became friends. And this man McCulloch would read his congregation these revival stories about what was going on in the revival at Northampton under Edwards and eventually under George Whitefield.

McCulloch contacted Whitefield, and in 1742, George Whitefield came to his parish in Camp Buslang, and a mighty revival occurred. Oh, friends, let me give you the preceding history. Before God came in revival to Camp Buslang, Scotland, there was a great famine from 1739 to 1740 in Scotland.

At least 2 ,000 persons perished of hunger and cold during that time. There was a great hardship occurring. And on June 4, 1740, the Presbytery of Glasgow set aside time for fasting and prayer in regard to the extraordinary drought, which threatened both men and beast.

And this natural calamity of drought and famine coincided with a time of spiritual dearth and drought in the churches. Oh, it was dry there, friends, and how God uses his providence to get our attention.

Men and women in Scotland fell to their knees in prayer that God once again sent an outpouring of his grace to breathe life into the churches. So this man McCulloch was challenged by the many problems that surrounded him.

He became burdened for the young people in his church, so he decided to lay hold of God in prayer. And God answered this man's prayers by changing this man's preaching. Quite suddenly, this man McCulloch began to preach sermons that gripped his hearers.

He preached up the great doctrines of ruin and the sovereignty of God, and he preached such convicting sermons that his hearers became undone. His preaching came with swords thrusts that pierced the hearer's conscience and heart.

His sermons became hammers that broke up all false foundations of carnal security. And God brought a mighty revival to this man's church and saved the youth in the village. One young man in that church said a McCulloch sermon on John 3 -5, preached on a Sabbath in 1741.

That was the first time I heard the call of the gospel come home to me in particular, and that day I thought either the minister or I was changed. Well, friends, soon the manse was filled with seekers who were in tears over their sins, a conviction of sin gripped many into the late hours of the night.

And by the time George Whitfield showed up in Camp Buslang in 1742 and began preaching, it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. People were getting saved all over the place. It was said that at the communion tables, when George Whitfield was serving 10 ,000 people, that his face looked just like an angel.

And just the sight of Whitfield brought strong men to their knees. I have stood on those preaching braes beneath McCulloch's church. I have stood at the dear man's gravestone. There's still a certain solemnity in that place.

It's almost like you can still sense the awful presence of the Almighty. Now listen to me, dear brother pastor, can you see the possibilities here for revival coming to your church? Listen to me, young person, can you see the possibilities for a witness and a meeting with the power of God so thick and a consciousness of God that it permeates the very room?

Revival Is Birthed in Prayer and Faith

It all begins in prayer. All revival is birthed in prayer, carried along by a burden of prayer. Do you wish to be the subject of our text this evening from 2 Chronicles? Do you wish to be the person whom God shows himself strong in your behalf?

Listen, friend, God's arm is not too short to save. God is not far away either, friend. He is near. He is nearer than you think. But do you have the faith necessary to lay hold of him in such a way that you refuse to let go until you, like Jacob of old, receive a blessing?

Ask God to make you the person of 2 Chronicles 16 9, then believe he'll do it. Believe it, friend. Let's take the remainder of our time and be still and go to our knees and cry out to the one who can hear us, the Lord God Almighty, King Jesus.

Hear our prayers. Let us pray.