REVIVAL
The Church needs a spiritual earthquake to arouse her and send her out on her God-given task.
There is a good deal of talk about “revival” these days, but few persons realize that it is a personal matter, a movement within the Church rather than some manifestation of the work of God outside the bounds of organized Christianity.
To revive means to bring new life to something which is dormant, to bring about activity where all has been quiet, to return to consciousness of life, to restore vigor and strength, to raise from languor or depression, to recover from a state of neglect or disuse, to awaken out of slumber.
A spiritual revival must begin in the Church and one of the aftermaths and corollaries of such a renewing is a new sense of mission, of telling the good news to those who have not heard it.
In many ways the Church today resembles the church in Laodicea—prosperous, rich, and self-satisfied. But in God’s eyes that church was wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. It was a church neutral in matters where there should have been conviction, a church which probably majored on minors and relegated the essential things to a place of secondary consideration.
Frighteningly, she was a church which our Lord was about to cast out of his presence because of her lukewarm attitude to those things about which there should have been burning zeal.
Today too many in the Church are concerned about her organization but indifferent to the content of her message. But in the Scriptures we find that the concern of the New Testament Church was centered on the message of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, while her organization was of secondary rather than primary import.
It is the willingness of some ecumenical leaders to play down Christian doctrine for the sake of a compromised unity which gives many others serious pause. While the Church is an organization, that organization is inexorably based on the faith of those who make up her number, and this faith centers in the person and work of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures.
There has always rightly existed a latitude for different views on many questions of interpretation. Some are strongly convinced that one mode of baptism is essential, others believe in a different method. But few on either side will question the true Christian faith of the other with whom they disagree.
In the Scriptures, there are doctrines which make up the essential content of our faith, and all of them have to do with the person and work of Christ, the Son of God, and these doctrines are to be preached, taught, believed, and obeyed.
Could it be that there is no evidence of wide-spread revival in contemporary Protestantism because, for the sake of an uneasy ecumenical peace, we have played down those things on which the spiritual life and health of the Church depends?
There are two areas where revival must take place—the pulpit and the pew, and it is not a matter of which one can rightly judge the other. We all need a renewal of a vital Christian faith and a complete dedication of our lives to the living Christ.
Because Christianity is a faith to believe and a life to live, it must be founded on the great verities which have their source in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everyone is ready to admit that spiritual power does not depend on organizations, programs, money, great edifices, or unremitting activity. All of these have their rightful place in the economy of the Church, but they are secondary to the faith and commitment of those who bear the name Christian—and there are no true Christians apart from a vital relationship with Christ.
That is why a revival is necessary within the Church, a work of the Holy Spirit which revitalizes listless Christians and converts unconverted church members. To those who think such a statement a reflection on the Church, we would reply that if we, the members of the Church, do not evaluate our own situation and take corrective measures where necessary, rectification will not be done for any other source. Furthermore, we could stand in jeopardy before God if our lukewarmness is not replaced by the healing and empowering outpouring of God’s blessing through repentance and confession of our sins of both omission and commission.
One of the things desperately needed is a fresh understanding and sense of sin, which can never be attained apart from a realization of the price God had to pay to redeem men.
Involved in such a revival is a new understanding of the necessity for and the historical fact of the Son of God’s coming into the world to die for sinners. The “murder of the Son of God” is not a catch phrase but one of deepest significance, for that is exactly what the sinfulness of man necessitated.
The Church through a spiritual revival needs to recapture the significance of words like “repentance,” “confession,” “faith,” “redemption,” “cleansing,” “consecration,” and “turning from sin to righteousness.”
We are now guilty of an unbelievable smugness in regard to our desperate state as sinners confronted by the judgment of God.
There are times when it almost seems as though we consider that we are doing God a favor by attending church and participating in some program of the Church. We need a Spirit-sent jolt out of this sin of pride and indifference, and it can come through a genuine revival within the Church or by the judgment of God on a church which does not recognize her own blindness and nakedness.
If such a revival comes, what will happen?
First of all the Church herself will be transformed from a cold, often largely secular organization, into a living organism which breathes the love and concern of the living Christ.
The outstanding effect will be the shedding forth of the love of Christ in our own hearts and lives and an outreach of that love to others.
Furthermore, such a revival will restore to the Church spiritual power. No longer will we depend on organizations and programs for success. These will continue but we will look to our living Lord to empower and implement our Christian work and walk.
Finally, such a revival will inspire and empower the Church to bear her rightful witness to a lost and dying world. No longer will we try to force men into a mold; rather we will lead them to Christ who makes all things new to those who surrender to him.
Such a revival is possible, and we should pray for it—that it may begin first in us.
L. NELSON BELL
