Preparation for Revival

Not only is there weariness in our own attempts, but they always end in disappointment unless God walks with us. In this thing we may quote the words of the psalmist, “Except the LORDbuild the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psa. 127:1). O friends, it is good to have a devout perseverance; it is good to strain every nerve and put forth every effort; but all this must end in the most sorry, heartsickening failure unless the Lord “rend the heavens [and] come down” (Isa. 64:1). I am telling you what you all do know, and what I trust you feel, but it is what we are constantly forgetting. There are many who would build God’s house simply by stress of human effort, but they fail, because God is not there to give them success.

There is yet more: supposing that, in this our attempt at revival, we should not be favored with the presence of God? Then prayer will be greatly dishonored. When a church draws near to God in special prayer, asking any mercy, if she does not receive that mercy on account of some disagreement with God, then her belief in prayer is greatly weakened for the future. This is a most serious evil, for anything that makes men doubt the efficacy of prayer is an injury to their spirituality. To the world at large, the non-hearing of prayer would be a ready argument, either against the existence of God or else against the reality of his promise.

Moreover, every attempt at revival of religion which proves a failure—and fail it must without the presence of God—leaves the Church in a worse condition than it was before. God’s people, being disappointed, have little heart to listen to further exhortations to future zealous action, and they become contented with their Laodicean lukewarmness.

And if a revival should apparently have success and yet God be not in it, perhaps this is even worse. When we think of the incalculable damage that shall be done to us all if the Lord does not visit us, I am sure we must again draw near to the angel and wrestle afresh with this determination that we will not let him go unless he bless us!

This brings me, in the second place, to observe that if we would have the presence of God, it is necessary that we should agree with him. We must be agreed with God as to the purpose of our Christian existence. God has formed us for himself that we may show forth his praise. The main end of a Christian man is that, having been bought with precious blood, he may live unto Christ and not unto himself.

O brethren! I am afraid we are not agreed with God in this. I must say it, painful though it be: there are many professors, and there are some in the Church, who at least appear to believe that the main end of their Christian existence is to get to heaven, to get as much money as they can on earth, and to leave as much as they can to their children when they die.

I am persuaded that too many professing believers forget whose they are and whom they serve. They are living to themselves. They have forgotten who it is that has said, “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold” (1 Peter 1:18). If we be all of that mind, God will walk with us; but every one who is of another mind, and of a divided heart, is a hindrance and an injury to us in our progress.

If we would have God with us, we must be agreed as to the necessity of the conversion of souls. God thinks souls to be very precious, and his own words are, “As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). Are we agreed with God in that? Our God thinks souls to be so precious that if a man could gain the whole world and lose his soul, he would be a loser. Are we agreed with him there?

In the person of Christ, our God wept over Jerusalem ; watered with tears that city which must be given up to the flames. Have we tears, too? Have we compassion, too? If, on the contrary, you and I selfishly say, “We are safe, it does not matter to us whether others are brought to know Christ,” we are not agreed, and God will not work with us.

If we would have the Lord with us, in the next place, we must be agreed as to the means to be used in revival. We are agreed that the first means is the preaching of Christ. We do not want any other doctrine than that we have received—Christ lifted up upon his cross. Our only hope lies in the doctrine of a substitute for sinners, the great fact of the atonement, the glorious truth that Christ Jesus came into the world to seek and to save sinners. God’s great agency is the Holy Spirit. We are agreed, brethren, that we do not want sinners to be converted by our persuasion, we do not want them brought into the Church by excitement—we want the Spirit’s work, and the Spirit’s work alone.

Yet again, dear friends, are we agreed this day as to our utter helplessness in this work? I caught a good sentence the other day. Speaking with a Wesleyan minister, I said to him, “Your denomination during the past year did not increase: you have usually had a large increase to your numbers. You were never so rich as now; your ministers were never so well educated; you never had such good chapels as now; and yet you never had so little success. What are you doing?—knowing this to be the fact, what are you doing? How are the minds of your brethren exercised with regard to this?” He comforted me much by the reply. He said, “It has driven us to our knees: we thank God that we know our state and are not content with it. We have had a day of humiliation, and I hope,” he said, “some of us have gone low enough to be blessed.”

There is a great truth in that last sentence, “low enough to be blessed.” I do fear me that some of us never do go low enough to be blessed. When a man says, “Oh! yes, we are getting on very well, we do not want any revival that I know of,” I fear me he is not low enough to be blessed; and when you and I pray to God with pride in us, with self-exaltation, with a confidence in our own zeal, we have not come low enough to be blessed. A humbleChurch will be a blessed Church; a Church that is willing to confess its own errors and failures, and to lie at the foot of Christ’s cross, is in a position to be favored of the Lord. I hope we are agreed, then, with God, as to our utter unworthiness and helplessness, so that we look to him alone.

And I charge you all to be agreed with God in this thing: that if any good shall be done, any conversions shall occur, all the glory must be given to him. Revivals have often been spoiled, either by persons boasting that such-and-such a minister was the means of them, or else by boasting that the work was done without ministers. God does not care to work for the honor of men, either of ministers or of laymen, or of churches either; and if we should say, “Ah! well, I should like to see the presence of God with us, that we may have many conversions and put it in the magazine and say, that is how things are done at our church,” why, we should not have a blessing that way.

Finally, let us put away all those things which offend God. Before God appeared upon Mount Sinai, the children of Israel had to cleanse themselves for three days. Before Israel could take possession of the promised rest of Canaan , Joshua had to see to it that they were purified by the rite of circumcision. Whenever God would visit his people, he always demands of them some preparatory purging, that they may be fit to behold his presence, for two cannot walk together unless that which would make them disagree be purged out.

A few questions, then, as to whether there is anything in us with which God cannot agree:

•Is there pride in me? Am I puffed up with my talent, my substance, my character, my success?