Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy… We, as well as the people of nineteen centuries ago, have an interest in the prophecy of Joel. Whithersoever the quickening influences of the Spirit of God shall come, there shall be spiritual life. And is not this the real want of the age? The term revival is frequently mentioned in these days. I. WHAT IS A REVIVAL? It is the renewal in effect and continuation of what took place under the preaching of the Word at Pentecost, when thousands of spiritually ignorant and perishing men were first quickened. Religion is a life, even the life of God in the soul. Without spiritual vitality there can be no real personal religion. Spiritual life is kindled in the soul by the Spirit of God. The first indications of this life are generally, not invariably, alarm. Its first act is faith. This life requires nourishment, and that is supplied chiefly by the Word of God and prayer. It has its inward growth and its outward manifestations. The spiritual life may be likened to an exotic. Revivals, or what is equivalent to them, are in separate departments of life found to be universally and indispensably needed. The Reformation in Germany was a gigantic revival. About 1743, within two or three years, thirty or forty thousand souls were born into the family of heaven. Numbers object, to extended religious manifestations, because of the excitement which sometimes attends them. Some measure of excitement is, however, in the nature of things, inseparable from a time of awakening, either of one or of many. Many object to seasons of revival, because of the suddenness with which some conversions are effected: but there are various operations of the Spirit. A revival is just the gracious sovereign putting forth of Divine power on a great scale, to effect largely what in ordinary times takes place in one here and there through a community. II. WHAT ARE THE SIGNS THAT A REVIVAL IS NEEDED BY US? Weakness and fainting in some, and death in others. What is Christian life in its essence? It is the implanted, earnest, ever-expanding taste for and aspiration after the living God, reconciled in Christ, as one's all in all. It is that this state may become the state of every one of us, we need a revival. III. WHAT ARE THE HINDRANCES TO A REVIVAL AMONG US? Their name is legion. 1. Hindrances in the Church. Unbelief is the sin which most easily besets us. It is the common crying sin of the Church. We are straitened in our own faith and hope. Dis union. Conformity to the world. 2. Hindrances in the world. Ignorance, indifference, infidelity, intemperance. IV. WHAT ARE THE MEANS BY WHICH WE AND OTHERS MIGHT RECEIVE A REVIVAL? Earnest, scriptural, impressive preaching. Earnest, instant, individual, and social prayer. Domestic discipline, instruction, and family worship. If we are to be Christians at all, we must be growing Christians. There is no such thing as standing still in the Divine life. Life is a battlefield on which the Christian soldier is either gaining ground or losing it. (James Stirling Muir.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: |
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