The Spirit’s Power in Revival (Acts Sermon 10)

On Christmas Day 1904, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, stunned his congregation with a highly unusual sermon. His usual approach was expository preaching, moving through passages of scripture in a careful and systematic way. Instead, on that particular Christmas Day, he spoke of a powerful revival that was going on in those days in Wales, 1904. Because he was a very careful man, he had not been willing to take the news of the revival second hand so he traveled to Wales to see for himself. When he returned, he spoke of what he had experienced personally. He said, “I say to you today, beloved, without any hesitation that this whole thing is of God, that it is a visitation in which God is making men conscious of Himself without any human agency.”

What was going on in Wales? God had poured out the power of the Holy Spirit on His people in direct answer to prayer. Dr. Morgan said: “If you and I could stand above Wales looking at it, you would see fire breaking out here and there and yonder and somewhere else without any collusion or prearrangement. It is a divine visitation in which God,” let me say this reverently, “in which God is saying to us, ‘See what I can do without the things you are depending on. See what I can do in answer to a praying people. See what I can do through the simplest who are ready to fall in line and depend wholly and absolutely upon me.'”

The main human agent for the Welsh revival of 1904 was a coal miner, a man named Evan Roberts. He had been raised in a God fearing home and had come to a deep faith in Christ as a young boy. At the age of 12, he had entered the coal mines, as did many Welsh boys. But during his breaks in the coal mine and in the evenings, he fervently studied his Bible. He began praying for a revival to come to Wales and he prayed, listen to this, daily for revival for 13 years every single day. Think about that. 13 years of daily prayer for revival before it ever came. And it wasn’t just this one man, Evan Roberts, who is praying. God actually raised up small groups of praying saints who prayed daily for revival for a year and a half before it finally came.

Effective fervent prayer was essential to the preparation for the Welsh revival. One person wrote this: “If it be asked why the fire of God fell on Wales, the answer is simple: Fire falls where it is likely to catch and spread. As one has said, ‘Wales provided the necessary tinder.’ Here were thousands of believers unknown to each other in small towns and villages in great cities crying out to God day after day for the fire of God to fall. Well, this was not merely a little talk with Jesus, but it was daily agonizing intercession.” The end result of that outpouring of the Spirit was the salvation of thousands of people. Approximately 70,000 people came to saving faith in Jesus Christ in just the first two months of the Welsh revival and over 100,000 over the two years that the Holy Fires burned in Wales.

Why am I beginning this sermon this way? You may have noticed the scripture reading was unusually brief. Did you notice? I thought you did. The reason is that I am deeply desirous of seeing a revival here in Durham, not just in our church, but in all of the excellent churches in this region. I would love to see something like that happen in Durham and in Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

Today we’re focusing on just this one verse in Acts and using it as a gateway to discuss a phenomenon that has been a powerful theme in the history of the Christian church over 20 centuries, and that is the theme of revival. Look again at this one verse, Acts 4:31, “After they prayed, the place where there were meeting was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” This one moment recorded for us in Acts 4 speaks volumes for it seems like a mini Pentecost or like a replay of the day of Pentecost, a minor reenactment of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God on the gathered church that happened that first day is recorded in Acts 2. With it happening again in Acts 4, it seems like a timeless lesson is being taught here on the recurring of Pentecost from time to time and empowering of the church by fresher fusions of the Spirit’s power.

When I was in seminary years ago, I read a very significant book by the famed Welsh Preacher, Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, G. Campbell Morgan’s successor there at Westminster Chapel. The book was called Joy Unspeakable. In it, he argued for this very thing. He called it the baptism of the Spirit, but he said it’s not a once-for-all occasion, but it’s something that God has done again and again in the history of the church, resulting in deep holiness in the part of the church and great in evangelism. He argues based on the text we’re looking at today, Acts 4:31, saying, “Every revival of religion I say is really a repetition of what happened on the day of Pentecost. It is really almost incredible that people should go on saying that what happened at Pentecost was once and for all. I emphasize this because this above everything else is what we need today. Oh, is there any tragedy comparable to the failure of the church to recognize that this is her need, this is her only hope?”

Lloyd-Jones at that time was giving a series of messages on a revival in 1959 on the 100th anniversary of another great revival that swept Great Britain in 1859. His consistent point in a series of sermons that he gave at that time was the church really doesn’t change and neither does the world. The basic issues are always the same; man and his sin, the gospel is the power of God for salvation. The church in a weakened, almost helpless state, unable to meet the challenges of its day, knowing the truth, doing some good ministries, but unable to make any significant progress. Then suddenly, the power of God is poured out from on high, the church is revived, it moves out in power, and many in the world are saved and transformed. He would also say that revivals follow a course. At some point the power is dissipated, the church returns to a weakened state needing the power of God to be poured out again from on high.

I. Defining Revival

What is revival? What does that mean? Here I think we have to begin by distinguishing between the ordinary work of the Spirit and the extraordinary work of the Spirit. The ordinary work of the Holy Spirit of God involves His ongoing work in the world going ahead of the church, preparing sinners to eventually receive Christ as well as His ongoing work in existing Christians in the church, convicting them of their sins, sanctifying them, assuring them, growing them toward Christ-like maturity, filling them with His power to witness day after day and many other such ministries, ordinary ministries of the Holy Spirit of God.

The ordinary converting work of the Spirit is happening every single day on planet Earth, winning individual sinners to faith in Christ. By the ordinary work of the Spirit, for example, in Christian families, the next generation of Christians are even now being raised up in the Gospel, hearing the Gospel proclaimed accurately and with converting power. Children in Christian families are coming to faith in Christ. Also, the ordinary work of the Spirit going on in good Bible preaching churches all over the world is seeing fruit. This is the ordinary activity of the Spirit, and it is powerful and effective. The ordinary work of the Spirit is sufficient to do the vast majority of the spread of the Gospel over the last 20 centuries.

Revival is an extraordinary work of the spirit. This would be my definition of revival. Revival is an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit through an encounter with God resulting in a deep work of holiness in the people of God, boldness and evangelistic proclamation, and significant numbers of conversions among outsiders. That’d be my definition, an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit of God through an encounter with God resulting in a deep work of holiness in the people of God, boldness and evangelistic proclamation, and then significant numbers of conversions among outsiders.

There are many other definitions. Earl Cairns says, “Revival is the work of the Holy Spirit in restoring the people of God to a more vital spiritual life witnessed and worked by prayer and the word after repentance in crisis for their spiritual decline.” J.I. Packer says, “It’s God’s quickening visitation of His people, touching their hearts and deepening His work of grace in their lives.” Robert Coleman said, “Revival is the awakening or quickening of God’s people to their true nature and purpose.”

Lloyd-Jones says very plainly and powerfully, “Revival is something God does to us, something God does to us.” It’s often spoken as being poured out from above or from on high. It’s not man-made, it’s not contrived. Charles Finney, the lawyer turned evangelist who led the second Great Awakening in the middle of the 19th century, had this to say: “A revival is not a miracle, nor is it dependent on a miracle in any sense. A revival is purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means, as much as any other effect produced by the application of means.” He wrote a book called The New Measures, and he studied the science of revival. He was almost like a scientist of these Christian things. It’s like you know how in the laboratory observe certain phenomenon and then you get certain repeated patterns, and then if you do it that same way every time you get the same results. That’s the essence of science, the scientific method. He applied that to religion. I don’t know if you can tell I couldn’t disagree more. I hope you know when I’m giving a bad quote or a negative quote that that’s not what I think.

Closer to home, in Southern Baptist Church, although this is fading, I think, from the SBC culture, revival is an event scheduled in the life of the church, but out of the ordinary pattern consisting of evangelistic preaching, usually from a guest revivalist preacher and unusual meetings like a series of meetings during that week. It’s a revival, and you can schedule it, you can put it on your calendar and then everybody, or many people come to that. Again, that’s a faulty definition of revival based on the revivalism that came after the second Great Awakening and Finney and that whole man-centered approach to revival. It’s not what I’m talking about today, not at all.

Revival is a miracle. It’s something God does to his people.

Revival is a miracle. It’s something God does to his people. But it does have certain tendencies and patterns, and one of the most common is prevailing, heartfelt, passionate, spirit-saturated, scripture-informed prayer that precedes it every time. We see that in the text that we’re looking at today in Acts 4:31. It’s an encounter with the living God, an answer to prayer. Look again at verse 31, “After they prayed, the place where there a meeting was shaken.” What does that mean? It’s a supernatural display of the presence of God at a prayer meeting. Earlier in the day of Pentecost, it was this, Acts 2: 2-3, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them, a supernatural encounter with the living God.”

I picture in my mind that moment when Elijah was in his contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The contest was each of these competing religions were to set up an altar with an animal, a dead animal on the altar, and then the prophets of Baal would cry out to Baal and Elijah would cry out to Yahweh, the true God, and the God that answered by fire from heaven, He was the true God. It was terrible because the people at that time, when Elijah called them before that miracle happened, called on them to worship the true God and make a decision or worship Baal but not keep going between the two opinions, limping between this religion and that religion. Syncretism it’s called; mixing religion of Yahweh and religion of Baal, mixing them together. He said, “How long will you halt or limp between two opinions? If the Lord is God, then follow Him. If Baal is God, then follow him.” But the people remained silent, sinfully silent. Then prophets of Baal carry on for hours and nothing happens.  But then it’s Elijah’s time. He tells them to put water on it and more water and more water and swimming in water. Then he prays a simple prayer and fire falls from heaven, fire falls from heaven on the sacrifice and burned it up, vaporized it, including the stones. When that happened, then all the people fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God.” That’s a picture of revival to me.

II. Tracing Out the History of Revival

An example from church history happened with the first Great Awakening. John Wesley writes about it, January 1st, New Year’s Day, 1734. In his journal entry, he wrote, “Mr. Hall Ingham Whitfield,” [that’s George Whitfield] Hutching and my brother Charles,” Charles Wesley, “were present at our love feast in Fetter Lane with about 60 of our brethren. At about 3:00 in the morning as we are continuing instant in prayer.” I’ll stop right there. 3:00 in the morning, 60 people together for prayer. I would contend the revival’s already started at that point. But anyway, 60 together continuing in prayer. “The power of God came mightily upon us in so much that many cried out for exulting joy and many fell to the ground. And as soon as we recovered a little from the awe and amazement at the presence of God’s majesty, we broke out with one voice. ‘We praise the, oh God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.’” Doesn’t that seem a lot like Acts 4:31 there? Gathered to pray, and the room is shaken with the presence of God, and they worship Him. It’s an overpowering sense of the presence of God.

That’s what Lloyd-Jones said, an overpowering sense of awe and majesty at the presence of God, the consuming fire. The absolute purity and holiness of God comes upon the minds and hearts of the people with transfixing power. Concerning the Welsh revival of 1904, Lloyd-Jones said, “If one were asked to describe in a word the outstanding feature of those days, one would unhesitatingly reply that it was a universal, inescapable sense of the presence of God. The Lord had come down. A sense of the Lord’s presence was everywhere. It pervaded, nay, it created a spiritual atmosphere.”

A Scotsman who went through a revival in his day, William Guthrie, said this: “It is a glorious manifestation of God into the soul shedding abroad God’s love in the heart. It is a thing better felt than spoken of. It is no audible voice, but it is a ray of glory, filling the soul with God as He is life, light, love, and liberty, corresponding to that audible voice saying, ‘Oh man, greatly beloved.’ Putting a man in a transport. This is such a glance of glory that it may be called the first fruits of our heavenly inheritance, for it is a present and sensible discovery of the holy God, almost conforming him unto His likeness, so swallowing Him up that he forgets all things except the present manifestation. Oh, how glorious is this manifestation of the spirit? Faith here rises to so full an assurance that it resolves completely into the sensible presence of God. It’s like one of the first days of heaven just experienced here on earth.”

III. An Encounter with God

Jonathan Edwards had a personal experience in 1737 in the woods in which he had a vision he said of the exalted, glorified Christ in heaven that filled him with such an ardency of soul as if he were emptied and annihilated and swallowed up in a sea of glory. It kept him swimming in tears he thinks for about an hour on the ground there of the forest, one hour swimming in a sense of the presence of Christ. His wife, Sarah Edwards, had an experience another time one night in which she was almost lifted up out of herself and hovering halfway between earth and heaven like a dust speck in a beam of light filled with a sense of pure pleasure, she said, greater than all the pleasures she had ever experienced in her lifetime put together. One moment was like that, the central sense being God’s overwhelming love for her personally in Christ.

D.L. Moody, he had been a Christian, a minister in charge of a mission. He was seeing people converted but he wanted more. He said, “I began to cry as never before for a greater blessing from God. The hunger increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer. I kept crying out all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day in the city of New York, oh, what a day, I cannot describe it. I seldom talk about it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for 14 years. I can only say God revealed Himself to me and I had such an overpowering experience of His love that I had to ask him to stay His hand. I couldn’t take anymore.” That’s what revival is. It’s an encounter with the living God, a direct experience of the Spirit of God unlike anything that these people had ever experienced before or would ever experience again.

Is an experience like this described in scripture? It is. Probably the best for me is in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 17 through 19. There, Paul prays for the Ephesian Christians, and not only for them but for all Christians. “I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and that you would know that love that surpasses knowledge that you would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” It’s like layer upon layer upon layer of phrase that he’s praying for them. “That you would be strengthened in your inner being, that Christ would dwell in you by faith and that you would have a sense of the dimensions of Christ’s love for you. Like the universe, how wide and long and high and deep, that you would have a sense of that love. And that you would,” he said, “know a love that surpasses knowledge.” It’s like it breaks language. I can’t put it into words. I can’t capture in words what it feels like to be loved like that by Christ.

The end result of that is that Christ then has done His mediatorial work of bringing God to you and you to God. He came to bring us to God and that you would be filled with all the fullness that is God. “Now, to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, both now and forever. Amen.” That’s the end of Ephesians 3. I think that captures it.

This encounter with God changes everything for the people who go through it. Don’t you imagine it would? The Apostle Paul was caught up to paradise; heard inexpressible things. Don’t you think if that were you, you’d be different the next day? Your doctrine isn’t changed, you’re not saying, but it’s just, it feels different, doesn’t it?

IV. A Yearning for Holiness

That’s what revival is. …It starts with a yearning for holiness among the people of God.

Central to this experience is a yearning for holiness that comes on the people of God. The revival is you’re taking people already alive, but they’ve drifted, they’ve faded, they’re weaker. It’s not talking about non-Christians. There’s an effect on non-Christians down the road, but it starts with the people of God, and they’re renewed or brought alive again. That’s what revival is. They were alive, but now they’re energized. It starts with a yearning for holiness among the people of God. But that also happens with non-Christians when they come to the preaching services as well. It happens on both sides. There’s a sense of the holiness of God.

When God appeared to Job in a whirlwind and dressed him down like no man has ever been dressed down before by Almighty God such as, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” He has an encounter with God. And what does he say? He says, “My ears have heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” That happens. There’s a sense of innate sinfulness in the presence of God.

Or Isaiah had a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ seated on a throne high and exalted. And what did he say? Is, “Woe is me. I’m ruined, I’m devastated, I’m destroyed, for I’m a man of unclean lips, and I might live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord Almighty.”

Do you remember when Jesus enabled Peter to catch a fish? Jesus had told them to put out the nets and Peter said, “We worked hard all night, didn’t catch anything.” He says, “Go out again.” Peter then comes back with a catch so big that the nets were breaking. Do you remember what Peter did? He fell down in his presence and said, “Go away from me. I’m a sinful man.” You’re in the presence of the holy God. Or I think about Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. That tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Lloyd-Jones said this: “Men and women feel that they’re vile and unclean and utterly unworthy. They feel their utter helplessness to face such a God. They acutely realize that they have never done anything good at all. They fall prostrate and cast themselves upon the love and mercy and compassion of God.” Ian Murray said, “All awakenings begin with a return of a profound conviction of sin. From attitudes of indifference or of cold religious formality, many are suddenly brought by the hearing of the truth to a concern and a distress so strong that it may even be accompanied by temporary physical collapse. The phenomenon of hearers falling prostrate during a service or crying out in anguish is not uncommon at the outset of revivals.”

And sinners find relief only in Jesus Christ. Conviction of sin can last in some hearts for days, even weeks at a time during these revivals. Along with this, they have a clear sense of the love of God for sinners in the cross of Jesus Christ. At last, they’re seeing it clearly. Perhaps they believed it theoretically, but now they feel God’s love for them acutely in Christ. It suddenly becomes very real to them and they feel acutely this truth. In Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Feel that. Jesus died from me. He drank my cup. He took away my sin. My wrath has been atoned for. And I am loved deeply, perfectly, infinitely loved

And with that comes an overwhelming desire to share that truth with lost people. It just pours out. The individual feels that, and now they want to share it with others. It becomes the one thing that absorbs them. If they meet anyone, they talk about it at once. Everybody’s talking about it. It’s the main topic of conversation. The thing absorbs all their interest. Their minds start casting about to lost people around them, lost family members, neighbors, people in the community who are on their way to hell. They lose any fear whatsoever of talking to them about Christ, so consumed are they with a sense of the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the gospel.

V. An Overwhelming Desire to Assemble for Worship

Now, as all this is going on, the people, the Christian people have an overwhelming desire to worship together. They want to get together. They can’t get enough of being together. Lloyd-Jones said this: “You will find that when God sends revival, you do not have to exhort people to come together to worship and to praise and to consider the Word. They insist on it. They come night after night for it. They may stay for hours, even until the early hours of the morning for it. They will go on night after night for months exactly as happened here at the beginning in the Book of Acts. They meet daily. They couldn’t keep away from one another. Of course not, this incredible, marvelous thing has happened. This joy of the Lord has come upon them, and they wanted to get together with the other Christians and thank Him for it. They want to pray together. They want to ask Him to spread it to others, to extend it to others. If this happens to the church, the world outside will be astonished as it always has been in every period of revival and reawakening. This is what is needed, not resorting to doubtful worldly methods to try and gather crowds, trick them, bring them together. No, not at all. What we need is this inward urge, this constraint of the spirit, this coming together of people who are sharing in the same glorious experience.”

Jonathan Edwards at the first Great Awakening said, “The work soon made a glorious alteration in the town of Northampton, Massachusetts so that in the spring and summer following, it seemed that the town, Northampton, was full of the presence of God. It never was so full of love nor so full of joy and yet so full of distress as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy and families on account of salvation being brought to them. Parents were rejoicing over their children as if they were newborn, husbands rejoicing over their wives, wives over their husbands because God had worked transformingly in them. The doings of God were then seen in His sanctuary. God’s day was a delight. His tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful. The congregation was alive in God’s service, everyone earnestly intent on public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth. The assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the word was being preached, some weeping with sorrow and distress, but others weeping with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their lost neighbors.”

VI. Powerful Preaching of the Gospel

Along with all this, of course, is the powerful preaching of the gospel. We see it in our text. Look at verse 31 again, “After they prayed, the place where their meeting was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Look two verses later at verse 33, “With great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.” That’s preaching. That’s the proclamation of the gospel going out powerfully, clearly, boldly. People are hearing it.

Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, they were known as great revival preachers, incredibly effective in the pulpit, but they were not alone. There were many others that were gifted at different times and in different eras when the Spirit pours out, captures a man puts him in the pulpit, and he preaches with incredible power. Robert Murray McCheyne simply had to enter his pulpit, and before he had opened his mouth, people began to weep and were convicted of sin. And why? Because he was immersed in the Word of God and in the Spirit of God, and the Spirit was going ahead of Him like plowing the work, getting it ready. They wanted to hear. They were ready to repent.

During the revival in Wales in 1859, there was a man named David Morgan. He went to a revival meeting, was deeply moved by the Holy Spirit, and he said this: “I went to bed that night as usual David Morgan, but when I woke up the next morning, I realized I had become a different man. I felt like I was a lion. I felt great power.” Then David Morgan began to preach the Gospel with incredible power over the next two years. Then one day it was gone as quickly as it had come. He said to a friend, “One night, I went to bed with this power that had accompanied me for two years. I woke up the next morning and found out I was David Morgan once again.” He continued to be the original David Morgan until he died about 15 years later. It was the power of the Holy Spirit poured out on his preaching during that period of revival.

Now, that coal miner I mentioned, Evan Roberts, the human instrument in the Welsh Revival of 1904, was not a brilliant speaker or preacher, yet his audiences were captivated. They were spellbound by his words. What was the secret of the spell he wields over that audience? Is it learning? Is it eloquence? Nothing of the kind. The secret of his power is that he’s full of faith and love and zeal in the Holy Spirit. The result of this kind of clear proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a vast harvest of souls. Big numbers. Lots of people brought into the kingdom.

The result of this kind of clear proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a vast harvest of souls.

Edwards, in the Great Awakening, said, “A great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the internal world become universal in all parts of the town and among all persons of all degrees and ages.” People in that community talked of nothing else. I’m talking about the unchurched people. “All other talk except that of spiritual and eternal thing,” said Edwards, “was soon thrown by. All the conversation in all companies and upon all occasions was upon these things only unless so much as it was necessary for people carrying on their ordinary secular business.” They seemed to follow their worldly business more as a part of their duty than any disposition they had to it. The temptation for them now seemed to lie on that hand to neglect their worldly business too much and to immerse themselves entirely in discussing things of the gospel.

In the 1904 Welsh revival, quote, “The scene was almost indescribable. Tier upon tier of men and women filled every inch of space where the preaching meetings were being held. Those who could not gain admittance stood outside and listened at the doors. Others rushed to the windows where almost every word was audible. When at 7:00 the service began, quite 2,000 people must have been present. The enthusiasm was unbounded. Women sang and shouted until the perspiration ran down their faces and men jumped up one after another to testify.”

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan said about the Welsh revival, “I can tell you no more except that I personally stood there for three solid hours wedged in so entirely that I could not physically lift my hands at all. If you could but have seen these men, evidently coal miners with the blue seam that told of their work on their faces, clean and beautiful. Beautiful did I say? Many of them were lit with heaven’s own light. They were radiant with a light that was never on sea or land. Today it is awakened, and I see that look on many a face and I know that men did not see men such as Evan Roberts while preaching, but they saw the face of God and they saw eternity. I left that evening after having been in that meeting for three hours, and at 10:30 it’s swept on packed as it was until an early hour next morning. Song, prayer testimony, conversion, confession of sin by leading church members publicly and the putting of it away, all the while, no human leader, no one indicating the next thing to do, no one checking the spontaneous movement.”

VII. A Vast Harvest of Souls

It was the power of God, and a vast harvest of souls comes into the kingdom. In the first great awakening, New England, 50,000 new church members were added to congregational churches in five years. That’s when the population of New England was only 1.5 million. Of course, I could not resist the temptation to do the multiplication for our day. You know who I am. If such proportions happen in the USA today, it would be 11.7 million new church members; almost 12 million people converted. And I can guarantee if that were happening with genuine conversions, it would be all that could be discussed in America.

In the revival of 1857 and ’59, half a million souls joined the church in those three years. Lloyd-Jones says those half a million were tested, catechized, and trained before being admitted into churches. That’s a solid half million genuine converts. In Ulster in UK during that same time, 1857 to ’59, it was 100,000.

And society was transformed as a result of the revival. Things changed in society because of these genuine conversions and the ardency that they had. In the Welsh revival, quote, “It was plainly evident now to everybody that God had answered the agonizing prayers of His people and it sent mighty spiritual upheaval. A sense of the Lord’s presence was everywhere. His presence was felt in the homes, on the streets, in the mines, factories and schools, even in the drinking saloons, the drinking saloons. So great was His presence felt that even in the places of amusement and carousal, they became places of holy awe. Many were the instances of men entering taverns, ordering drinks, and then walking away from the drinks and leaving them untouched.”

Wales, up to that time, was in the grip of football fever, we call it soccer, when tens of thousands of working class men thought and talked of only one thing. They gambled also in the result of soccer games. Now the famous players themselves got converted and joined an open air street meetings to testify to the glorious things the Lord Jesus had done for them. Many of the teams were disbanded as the players got converted and the stadiums were now empty.

This is my unusual sermon. Ordinarily, like G. Campbell Morgan, I go sequentially through texts to the Bible, et cetera, but in the 27 years I’ve been here, I don’t think we’ve ever had a prayer meeting in which I’ve not read Acts 4:31. I was always hoping it would happen to us that time. I still do. And now in the ordinary sequence of preaching, I come to a chance to preach on Acts 41. I may never get a chance to preach on it from this pulpit again.

VIII. Application

What are the applications for us? Well, the same every week. I talk about the ordinary working of the Spirit the same every week. I want to be certain that not one of you leaves this place unconverted. For you, you didn’t come to hear a sermon on revival, you came to hear that Jesus Christ died for your sins and if you repent and believe in Him, you don’t have to go to hell, you will go to heaven forgiven of your sins. All you need to do is trust in Him and believe in Him and that will be yours. But for the church, for the rest of the church, I would love to see God pour out His Spirit on us. Wouldn’t you?

What are we going to do about it? We’re going to pray. We already decided to suspend Wednesday night teaching time on December 5th and have a chance to pray, so you can come to that on December 4th. from 6:30 to 7:30 pm right here. Ask the Lord to pour out His Spirit on us.

Then we’re also going to have four early morning prayer times in January for four weeks starting on January 8th, a week after New Year’s Day, 6:30 to 7:30 am in the mornings or maybe 6:30 am to whenever. If the Lord pours out His Spirit, and you decide not to go to work that day or whatever else you had planned, this is a place where we’re meeting and praying that we would be shaken and we’d all be filled with the Holy Spirit and speak the word of God boldly in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill. And not just our church, but Summit Church and all the other churches in the area, that the Lord would work in them as well and that we would see a vast harvest of souls.

One last thing, I’m about to start teaching BFL class called “Jesus on Prayer.” There’s one thing that Jesus taught on prayer. There’s a lot of things I could quote, but I just want to finish with this quote. “I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find, knock, and the door will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be open. Which of you fathers, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”  [Matthew 7:7-11]

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the chance that we’ve had to look at this incredible historical verse capturing a moment in time when the Spirit shook a room full of praying people and all of the people in that room were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. Father, we pray that you would do in our time what we’ve heard that you’ve done in past times. In this sermon, I’ve quoted from at least seven or eight different revivals that have happened across the centuries, and many, many, many others have happened. God, do it in our midst for your glory and for the salvation of many eternal souls. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

On Christmas Day in 1904, Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, stunned his congregation with a highly unusual sermon. His usual approach was expository preaching, moving through passages of scripture in a careful way. Instead, on that Christmas Day, he spoke of a powerful revival that was going on in those very days in Wales. Because he was a very careful man, he had not been willing to take the news of the revival from second-hand sources. So he traveled to Wales to see for himself. When he returned, he spoke of what he had experienced personally:

“I say to you today, beloved, without any hesitation, that this whole thing is of God, that it is a visitation in which He is making men conscious of Himself, without any human agency”

So… what was going on in Wales? Well, God had poured out the power of the Holy Spirit on his people in direct answer to prayer. Morgan said this:

“If you and I could stand above Wales, looking at it, you would see fire breaking out here, and there, and yonder, and somewhere else, without any collusion or prearrangement. It is a Divine visitation in which God – let me say this reverently – in which God is saying to us: See what I can do without the things you are depending on; see what I can do in answer to a praying people; see what I can do through the simplest, who are ready to fall in line, and depend wholly and absolutely upon Me”

The main human agent for the Welsh revival of 1904 was a coal-miner named Evan Roberts. He had been raised in a God-fearing home and had come to a deep faith in Christ as a young boy. At the age of twelve, he had entered the coal mines as did so many Welsh boys. But at his breaks in the coal mine and in the evenings he fervently studied his Bible. He began praying for revival to come to Wales… he prayed daily for this for 13 years… think about that! Thirteen years of daily prayer for revival before it came! And it wasn’t just Evan Roberts who was praying. God raised up some small groups of praying saints who prayed daily for revival for a year and a half before it came.

Effective fervent prayer was essential to the preparation for the Welsh revival. One person wrote this:

“If it be asked why the fire of God fell on Wales, the answer is simple: Fire falls where it is likely to catch and spread. As one has said, ‘Wales provided the necessary tinder.’ Here were thousands of believers unknown to each other, in small towns and villages and great cities, crying to God day after day for the fire of God to fall. This was not merely a ‘little talk with Jesus,’ but daily, agonizing intercession.”

The end result of that outpouring of the Spirit was the salvation of thousands of people. Approximately 70,000 people came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ in just the first two months of the revival, and over 100,000 over the two-years that the holy fires burned in Wales.

So… why am I beginning this sermon this way? Because I am deeply desirous to see something like that happen here in our region… Durham—Raleigh—Chapel Hill.

Today we are focusing on just one verse in Acts and using it as a gateway to discuss a phenomenon that has be a powerful theme in the history of the Christian church—revival.

Here is the one verse:

Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

This one moment speaks volumes, for it seems like a “mini-Pentecost”… a minor re-enactment of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the gathered church that happened that first day as recorded in Acts 2. With it happening again in Acts 4, it seems like a timeless lesson on the recurring of Pentecost from time to time, an empowering of the church by fresh effusions of the Spirit’s power.

When I was in seminary, I read a very significant book by the famed Welsh preacher, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, called Joy Unspeakable. In it he argued for this very thing… that the baptism of the Spirit is not a once-for-all occasion, but it is something that God has done again and again in the history of the church, resulting in deep holiness on the part of the church and great power in evangelism.

He argues, based on Acts 4:31:

“Every revival of religion, I say, is really a repetition of what happened on the day of Pentecost.  It is really almost incredible that people should go on saying that what happened at Pentecost was once and for all…. [I emphasize this because] this, above everything else is what we need today…. Oh, is there any tragedy comparable to the failure of the church to realize that this is her need, and that this is her only hope?”

Lloyd-Jones was giving a series of messages on revival in 1959, on the hundredth anniversary of the great revival that swept Great Britain in 1859.  His consistent point was that the church really doesn’t change, and neither does the world.  The basic issues are always the same:  man in his sin, the gospel as the power of God for salvation, the church in a weakened, almost helpless state, unable to meet the challenges of its day… knowing the truth, doing some good ministries, but unable to make any significant progress;  suddenly the power of God is poured out from on high, the church is revived, it moves out in power and many in the world are saved and transformed genuinely.  He would also say that revivals follow a course, at some point the power is dissipated, and the church returns to a weakened state needing the power of God to be poured out again from on high.

I. Defining Revival

A. Basic Definitions

My definition: A revival is an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit through an encounter with God resulting in a deep work of holiness in the people of God, boldness in evangelistic proclamation, and significant numbers of conversions among outsiders.

“Revival is the work of the Holy Spirit in restoring the people of God to a more vital spiritual life, witness, and work by prayer and the Word after repentance in crisis for their spiritual decline.” Earle Cairns

“God’s quickening visitation of his people, touching their hearts and deepening his work of grace in their lives.” J. I. Packer

“the awakening or quickening of God’s people to their true nature and purpose.” Robert Coleman

B. Something God Does to Us

It is something God does to his people by the Holy Spirit.

It is often spoken of as being “poured out from above”

C. Not Man-Made

Charles Finney, the lawyer turned evangelist who led the Second Great Awakening in the 19^th century:

“A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means–as much as any other effect produced by the application of means.”

I couldn’t disagree more.

Modern definition (especially in SBC churches): A revival is an event in the life of a church, scheduled but out of the ordinary pattern, consisting of evangelistic preaching and worship, the main focus of which is converting lost people or re-energizing the church life.

Again, a faulty definition, based on the revivalism that came after Charles Finney and others.

No, Mr. Finney… a revival IS a miracle from God. It is something God does.

But it has certain tendencies and patterns, and it seems to be directly the result of the church pleading with God to do it:

Luke 11:9-13  So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  ¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?  ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

II. Tracing Out the History of Revival

·      Again and again in history, God has done this… pouring out his Spirit powerfully on people… drawing them into himself, convicting them of sin and causing them to cry out for holiness… empowering them to pour out into the streets with the gospel flaming on their tongues… resulting in many, many conversions.

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C. Everything Starts with Prayer

III. An Encounter with God

A. God Moves in a Powerful, Supernatural Way

Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.

1. A supernatural display of the presence of God

2. Earlier, on the Day of Pentecost, it was this

Acts 2:2-3  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

3. On Mt. Carmel, when Elijah was contesting against the prophets of Baal, it was this:

1 Kings 18:38  Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

B. The Reaction of the People

1 Kings 18:39  When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD– he is God! The LORD– he is God!”

An example from church history:

John Wesley:  January 1, 1734 Journal entry:  “Mr. Hall, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutching and my brother Charles were present at our Love Feast in Fetter Lane with about sixty of our brethren.  About three in the morning as we were continuing instant in prayer the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exulting joy and many fell to the ground.  As soon as we were recovered a little from the awe and amazement at the presence of His Majesty, we broke out with one voice, ‘We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.”

C. Pervading Sense of the Presence of God

Lloyd-Jones: An overpowering sense of awe and majesty in the presence of God, the consuming fire. The absolute purity and holiness of God comes upon the minds and hearts of the people with transfixing power.

Concerning the Welsh revival: “If one were asked to describe in a word the outstanding feature of those days, one would unhesitatingly reply that it was a universal, inescapable sense of the presence of God. The Lord had come down! A sense of the Lord’s presence was everywhere. It pervaded, nay, it created the spiritual atmosphere.”

Scotsman William Guthrie:

“It is a glorious manifestation of God into the soul, shedding abroad God’s love in the heart. It is a thing better felt that spoken of. It is no audible voice but it is a ray of glory filling the soul with God as he is life, light, love, and liberty, corresponding to that audible voice saying, ‘O man, greatly beloved,’ putting a man in a transport. … This is such a glance of glory that it may be called the firstfruits of our heavenly inheritance, for it is a present and … sensible discovery of the Holy God, almost conforming him unto his likeness, so swallowing him up that he forgets all things except the present manifestation. Oh, how glorious is this manifestation of the Spirit! Faith here rises to so full an assurance that it resolves completely into the sensible presence of God.” [Joy Unspeakable, 105]

Jonathan Edwards:

“As I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that was for me extraordinary, or the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and His wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension.  This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens.  The Person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thoughts and conceptions, which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; such as to keep me a greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud.  I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love Him with a holy and pure love; to trust in Him; to live upon Him; to serve Him and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a heavenly purity.”

D.L. Moody:  [He had been a Christian, a minister in charge of a mission; he was seeing people converted, but he wanted more]  “I began to cry as never before, for a greater blessing from God.  The hunger increased; I really felt that I did not want to live any longer.  I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit.  Well, one day in the city of New York—oh!  What a day!  I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it.  It is almost too sacred an experience to name.  Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years.  I can only say, God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand.”

SO… this is what revival is… an encounter with the living God, a direct experience of the Spirit of God unlike anything that these people had ever experienced before or would ever experience again.

Scripture:

Ephesians 3:17-19  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge– that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Filled with all that God is… filled with a sense of the dimensions of his love for you in Christ… filled with the infinite majesty of the glory of God. That’s the encounter with God.

D. This Encounter with God Changes Everything

Great Awakening: “Eternal issues were discussed freely and unashamedly, and above all, a sense of the presence and holiness of God pervaded every area of human experience, at home, at work in shops and public houses. Eternity seemed inescapably near and real.”

IV. A Yearning for Holiness

A. Overwhelming Sense of Personal Sin

Job 42:5-6  My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.  ⁶ Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

Isaiah 6:5  “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

Luke 5:8  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

Luke 18:13  “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

Lloyd-Jones: Men and women feel that they are vile and unclean and utterly unworthy. They also feel their utter helplessness to face such a God. They acutely realize they have never done anything good at all. They fall prostrate and cast themselves upon the love and mercy and compassion of God.

Iain Murray: “All awakenings begin with the return of a profound conviction of sin.  From attitudes of indifference, or of cold religious formality, many are suddenly brought by the hearing of the truth to a concern and distress so strong that is may even be accompanied by temporary physical collapse.  The phenomenon of hearers falling prostrate during a service or crying out in anguish is not uncommon at the outset of revivals.”  [Revivals and Revivalism, p. 163]

B. Finding Relief only in Jesus Christ

Conviction of sin can last in some hearts for days, even weeks at a time during these revivals. Along with this, they have a clear sense of the love of God for sinners in the cross of Jesus Christ. At last they see it clearly. Perhaps they had believed it theoretically, but now they feel God’s love for them acutely in Christ. It suddenly becomes real to them and they feel acutely this truth:

Galatians 2:20  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

“He died for me… even for ME! MY sins are the ones that are forgiven!” Joy enters their hearts to a depth they had never known before. Praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.”

C. Overwhelming Desire to Share That Truth with Lost People

“And this now becomes for them the one thing that absorbs them. If they meet anyone they talk about it at once, everybody is talking about it. It is the main topic of conversation, the thing that absorbs all their interest.”

Their minds cast about to all the lost people around them… lost family members, neighbors, people in the community who are on their way to hell. They have lost any fear whatsoever of talking to them about Christ, so consumed are they with a sense of the power of the Holy Spirit and of the truth of the gospel.

V. Overwhelming Desire to Assemble for Worship

A. The People Couldn’t Get Enough of Being Together

Lloyd-Jones: “You will find that when God sends revival you do not have to exhort people to come together to worship, and to praise, and to consider the word, they insist on it!  They come night after night, and they may stay for hours, even until the early hours of the morning.  This will go on night after night for months exactly as happened here at the beginning.  They met daily.  They could not keep away from one another.  Of course not!  This marvelous thing had happened, this joy of the Lord, and they wanted to thank him together, and to pray together, to ask him to spread it and to extend it to others.  If this happens to the Church, the world outside will be astonished as it has always been, in every period of revival and re-awakening.  This is what is needed, not resorting to doubtful, worldly methods, to try and gather crowds and to bring people together.  No, what we need is this inward urge, this constraint of the Spirit, this coming together of people who are sharing in the same glorious experience.”  [Revival, 207]

Jonathan Edwards, the First Great Awakening:

“The work soon made a glorious alteration in the town. So that in the Spring and Summer following it seemed that the town (Northampton) seemed to be full of the presence of God. It never was so full of love nor so full of joy and yet so full of distress as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought to them. Parents rejoicing over their children as newborn, husbands over their wives and wives over their husbands. The doings of God were then seen in his sanctuary. God’s day was a delight and his tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful. The congregation was alive in God’s service. Everyone earnestly intent on public worship. Every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth. The assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the Word was preached. Some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbors.”

VI. Powerful Preaching of the Gospel

We see it in our text:

Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Acts 4:33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.

Many examples from church history:

Obviously Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were known for their amazing power in preaching clear sermons on Christ during the First Great Awakening. But they were not alone.

Robert Murray McCheyne: He had simply to enter his pulpit and before he had opened his mouth people began to weep and were convicted of sin. He had not uttered a word. Why? This man had immersed himself in the presence of God before preaching and the Spirit was going ahead of him in power.

During an earlier revival in Wales in 1859, there was a man named David Morgan. He went to a revival meeting and was deeply moved by the Holt Spirit. He said this, “I went to bed that night as usual, David Morgan. But when I woke up the next morning, I realized I was a different man. I felt like a lion. I felt great power.” David Morgan began to preach the gospel with incredible power for over two years. Then one day, it was gone as quickly as it had come. He said to a friend, “One night I went to bed with this power that had accompanied me for two years. I woke up the next morning and found that I was David Morgan once again.” And he continued to be the original David Morgan until he died about fifteen years later. It was the power of the Holy Spirit, poured out on his preaching during that season of revival.

Evan Roberts was not a brilliant speaker or preacher, yet his audiences were captivated by his words. “What is the secret of the spell he wields over that audience? Is it learning or eloquence . . .? Nothing of the kind. The secret of his power is that he is ‘full of faith and love and zeal and the Holy Spirit’”

VII. A Vast Harvest of Souls

A. In a Revival, Non-Christians in Large Numbers Become Concerned for their Souls

Edwards, Great Awakening: “A great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal in all parts of the town, and among persons of all degrees and ages.”  People would talk of almost nothing else

“All other talk except that of spiritual and eternal things was soon thrown by;  all the conversation in all companies and upon all occasions, was upon these things only, unless so much as was necessary for people, carrying on their ordinary secular business.  They seemed to follow their worldly business more as a part of their duty than from any disposition they had to it; the temptation now seemed to lie on that hand, to neglect worldly affairs too much and to spend too much time in the immediate exercise of religion.”

Welsh Revival:

“The scene was almost indescribable. Tier upon tier of men and women filled every inch of space. Those who could not gain admittance stood outside and listened at the doors. Others rushed to the windows, where almost every word was audible. When, at seven o’clock, the service began, quite 2,000 people must have been present. The enthusiasm was unbounded. Women sang and shouted till the perspiration ran down their faces, and men jumped up one after the other to testify.” [Sam Storms article]

G. Campbel Morgan about the Welsh revival:

“I can tell you no more, save that I personally stood for three solid hours wedged so that I could not lift my hands at all. . . If you could but once have seen the men, evidently [coal miners], with the blue seam that told of their work on their faces, clean and beautiful. Beautiful, did I say? Many of them lit with heaven’s own light, radiant with the light that never was on sea and land. . . Today it is awakened, and I look on many a face, and I knew that men did not see men, did not see Evan Roberts, but they saw the face of God and the eternities. I left that evening, after having been in the meeting three hours, at 10:30, and it swept on, packed as it was, until an early hour next morning, song and prayer and testimony and conversion and confession of sin by leading church members publicly, and the putting of it away, and all the while no human leader, no one indicating the next thing to do, no one checking the spontaneous movement”

B. Vast Harvest of Souls Comes into the Kingdom

Great Awakening: In New England, 50,000 new members were added to the congregational churches in five years. That’s when the population of New England was only 1.5 million.

In the revival of 1857-1859: Half a million souls joined churches in America… Lloyd-Jones says they were tested and had given clear evidence of their conversion and went through a process of joining established churches. Half a million in 1857-9!

100,000 just in Ulster in the UK during that same time.

We’ve already quoted the number from the Welsh revival: 100,000 in less than two years.

C. Society was Transformed as a Result

Welsh Revival: “It was plainly evident now to everybody that God had answered the agonizing prayers of His people and had sent a mighty spiritual upheaval. A sense of the Lord’s presence was everywhere. His presence was felt in the homes, on the streets, in the mines, factories and schools and even in the drinking saloons. So great was His Presence felt that even the places of amusement and carousal became places of holy awe. Many were the instances of men entering taverns, ordering drinks and then turning on their heels and leaving them untouched. Wales up to this time was in the grip of football fever when tens of thousands of working-class men thought and talked only of one thing. They gambled also on the result of the games. Now the famous football players themselves got converted and joined the open-air street meetings to testify what glorious things the Lord had done for them. Many of the teams were disbanded as the players got converted and the stadiums were empty.”

VIII. Applications

A. Come to Christ

B. Pray for Revival