October 31, 2013

• Learning from Church history: the Protestant Reformation was "a number of great revivals"

  If you've been following this blog for any period of time, you know that in addition to the Bible itself, God has greatly used the reading of Church history to the nourishment of my soul. The Protestant Reformation was just one of a series of revivals our God has used throughout the history of His people to reform, renew, and revive His languishing Church.

  My friends, we are in very great need of another such reformation. Today, as we commemorate Martin Luther's nailing the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg door in 1517, as we must be sobered as we look out upon evangelical Christianity and find very few professing Christians who have any real awareness of the need. The valley is full of bones, and the bones are very many and very dry. And yet, our God is the God whose Spirit blew in the midst of that valley and raised the dead to life, and our God is the God who came down in the 15th and 16th centuries and brought light after darkness! Post tenebras lux!

  I recently came across a book by Gilbert Wardlaw (1798-1873). Wardlaw was a minister of the Gospel in Edinburgh in the 19th century. Since I am in constant prayer and on the constant look-out for encouragements to spur me on to persevere in prayer, I couldn't help but be drawn to the book:  "Testimony of Scripture to the Obligations and Efficacy of Prayer; More Especially of Prayer for the Gift of the Holy Spirit:  In Three Discourses."

  After reading a short bit of the book, I actually jumped to a section at the end of the book entitled "Note, on Revivals of Religion." I hope to bring you a couple excerpts from that portion of the book, beginning with one today. My prayer is that God might use Wardlaw's words to encourage you to persevere in prayer and faithfully labor toward the revival we so desperately need.  James 5:7  Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 8  Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh...  10  Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. 11  Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy...16 ... The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 17  Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. 18  And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (KJV)

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  NOTE, ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION. Of those awakenings in religion, which have been generally called revivals, some have no other conception than of scenes of fanaticism and enthusiastic extravagance. Even among many really religious persons in this country [Scotland], a considerable degree of misconception and prejudice on this subject, there is reason to apprehend, prevails. It may be of use to suggest to the attention of such a few considerations, and details of facts, which may tend to show that the prejudice which exists is unfounded, and stands greatly in the way of the most substantial interests of true religion.

  In the first place, general principles are decidedly in favour of the reality and advantage of revivals. A revival has been defined, "the work of the Holy Spirit carried on to a greater extent than usual, in the conversion of sinners and the edification of believers." In this there is surely no thing which ought to awaken prejudice in the minds of any who know what the work of the Spirit is. That this work should be more powerful and extensive in a religious community at one time than at another, we might expect from considering the course of religion in the minds of individuals, and what has been seen in the church in all ages. The life of a believer is one of continual backsliding, to a greater or less extent, and of continual recoveries from backsliding. The history of the church has, from the beginning, been one of the same kind. This is strikingly seen in the case of the children of Israel, in their successive apostasies from God, and their successive reformations; and it has been not less conspicuous in the New Testament church, since it was planted, to this day. The prophets laboured to produce revivals of religion; John the baptist preached for the same object; the day of Pentecost was a remarkable revival of religion; the epistles to the seven churches in Asia were designed to recal them to their first love; the successive witnesses for Christ in the dark ages of papal usurpation were the instruments of successive revivals; the protestant reformation consisted of a number of great revivals in different countries; the religious impulses since given to the church by remarkable individuals, and by several separating bodies of Christians, were occasions of religious revival. In short, there never has been seen in the church that steady and orderly progress of religion, to the idea of which many Christians are so partial. When most prejudiced against revivals, it is probable that we then stand most in need of them. In all times and circumstances, there has existed in the church — and the lessson which it teaches is a most affecting one — a constant tendency to relapse and decline; and true religion has been kept alive in our sinful world by a series of successive recoveries.

  Nor is there any thing in the rapid spread of religious excitement from one to another on these occasions, which ought at all to excite our incredulity as to its genuineness. God has been, in all times, the hearer of prayer. When one Christian has been awakened from slumber, his prayers ascend to God for others around him, and he uses means for impressing divine truth upon their hearts; his prayers and endeavours are successful; praying souls are multiplied; and, in answer to prayer, the Spirit of God is shed forth abundantly both on the church and the world.

  ~ From Gilbert Wardlaw's "Testimony of Scripture to the Obligations and Efficacy of Prayer; More Especially of Prayer for the Gift of the Holy Spirit:  In Three Discourses" (Edinburgh: Waugh & Innes, 1829), 155-158. (HT for the text: https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=IicQAAAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PP9)

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  May our God who has awakened us from slumber, awaken others from slumber. May our God who never sleeps nor slumbers, keep us awake and alert and watching and laboring on the wall. May our God, who ever lives to intercede for us, finish the work He has begun in us, and in His time, shine His face once again upon His Church and revive us again, to the praise of His glorious grace. May the Lamb receive the reward of His sufferings, for He alone is worthy! (Psalm 121; Isaiah 62:6-7; Ephesians 6:17-18; Philippians 1:6.)

   

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