“We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old” (Psalm 44:1).

We have heard that God has at times done very mighty acts. He has not always permitted his church to go on climbing by slow degrees to victory, but he has been pleased at times to smite one terrible blow and lay his enemies down on the earth.

Have you never read how God won to himself great renown on the day of Pentecost? Peter the fisherman stood up and preached in the name of the Lord his God. A multitude assembled, and the Spirit of God fell on them; three thousand in one day were pricked in their heart by the hand of God, and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And know you not how the twelve apostles with the disciples went everywhere preaching the Word, and the idols fell from their thrones? The cities opened wide their gates, and the messenger of Christ walked through the streets and preached.

It is true that at first they were driven hither and thither, and hunted like partridges on the mountains. But do you not remember how the Lord did get himself a victory, so that in a hundred years after the nailing of Christ to the cross, the gospel had been preached in every nation, and the isles of the sea had heard the sound thereof?

And have you forgotten how the heathen were baptized, thousands at a time, in every river? What stream is there in Europe that cannot testify to the majesty of the gospel? What city is there in the land that cannot tell how God’s truth has triumphed, and how the heathen has forsaken his false gods and bowed his knee to Jesus the crucified?

The first spread of the gospel is a miracle never to be eclipsed. It seemed as if a fire from heaven ran along the ground. Nothing could resist its force. The lightning shaft of truth shivered every pinnacle of the idol temple, and Jesus was worshipped from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.

And have your fathers never told you of the wondrous things that were done hundreds of years afterward, when the black darkness of superstition and Popery covered the earth? Have you never heard how Martin Luther arose and preached the gospel of the grace of God, and how the nations trembled, and the world heard the voice of God and lived?

Have ye not heard of Zwingli among the Swiss, and of Calvin in Geneva, and of the mighty works that God did by them? And have you forgotten the mighty preacher Wickliffe and the wondrous tale of the preachers that he sent forth into every market town and every hamlet of England, preaching the gospel of God?

History tells us that these men were like firebrands in the midst of the dry stubble, and that their voice was as the roaring of a lion. They did push the nations before them. None could stand before them, for the Lord their God had girded them with might.

To come down a little nearer to our own times, truly our fathers have told us the wondrous things which God did in the days of Wesley and of Whitefield. The churches were all asleep. Irreligion was the rule of the day. The very streets seemed to run with iniquity, and the gutters were filled full with the iniquity of sin.

Up rose Whitefield and Wesley, men whose hearts the Lord had touched, and they dared to preach the gospel of the grace of God. Suddenly, as in a moment, there was heard the rush as of wings, with a rushing like mighty winds that are not to be withstood. Within a few years, from the preaching of these two men, England was permeated with evangelical truth. The Word of God was known in every town, and there was scarcely a hamlet into which the Methodists had not penetrated.

We are astonished at these tales, and we think them wonders. Yet let us believe them; they come to us as substantial matters of history. And the wondrous things which God did in olden times, by his grace he will yet do again. He that is mighty has done great things, and holy is his name!

Lessons from Revivals

1. Revivals were sudden.
Many in our churches believe that things must grow gently by degrees, that we must go step by step onward. But the marvel is, revivals happen suddenly.

When Peter stood up to preach, it did not take six weeks to convert the three thousand. They were converted at once and baptized that very day.

So it was in the day of Martin Luther. It did not take Luther centuries to break through the thick darkness of Rome. God lit the candle and the candle burned, and there was light in an instant. If anyone could have stood in Wurtemburg and said, “Can Popery be made to quail? Can the Vatican be made to shake?” the answer would have been, “No; it will take at least a thousand years to do it.”

“Not so,” however, did God say. Freedom came not in the course of years, but in an instant. The people that walked in darkness saw a great light, and upon them that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death did the light shine.

So was it in Whitefield’s day. The rebuking of a slumbering church was not the work of ages—it was done at once. Take as an instance when Whitefield was preaching in the fields at Cambuslang in Scotland. The power of God came on the people, and one after another fell down as if they were smitten. It was estimated that not less than three thousand persons were crying out at one time under the conviction of sin. No tongue can tell the great things God did under that one sermon of Whitefield.

So has it been in all revivals—God’s work has been done suddenly. As with a clap of thunder, God has descended from on high. Men could scarce believe it true, it was done in so short a space of time.

“Well,” says one, “we cannot believe it.” Very likely you cannot, but some of us can, for we have heard it with our ears, and our fathers have told us the mighty works that God did in their days. And we are prepared to believe that God can do like works now.

2. Revivals were carried forward by insignificant instruments.
When he slew Goliath, it was by little David who was but a youth. Consider also Peter, the fisherman at Pentecost; Luther, the humble monk at the Reformation; Whitefield, the potboy of the Old Bell Inn at Gloucester.

And so it must be to the end. God works not by Pharaoh’s horses or chariot but by Moses’ rod. He does his wonders not with the whirlwind and the storm but by the still small voice, that the glory may be his and the honor all his own.

Does this not open a field of encouragement to you and to me? Why may we not be employed in doing some mighty work for God here?

3. Revivals involved great faith.
If God chose to put forth the operations of his own mighty Spirit, not the most obdurate heart would be able to stand against it. “Well,” says one, “but I do not expect to see any great things.” Then, my dear friend, you will not be disappointed, for you will not see them. Men of great faith do great things.

4. Revivals were attended with great prayer.
Have you ever heard of the commencement of the great American revival in 1857–58? Jeremiah Lanphier, a man unknown and obscure, laid it up in his heart to pray that God would bless his country. After praying and wrestling and making the soul-stirring enquiry, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” he hired a room and put up an announcement that there would be a prayer meeting held there at such-and-such an hour of the day.

He went at the proper hour, and there was not a single person there. He began to pray, and prayed for half an hour alone. One came in at the end of the half hour, and then two more, and I think he closed with six.

The next week came round, and there might have been fifty dropped in at different times. Then the prayer meeting grew to a hundred. Then others began to start prayer meetings. At last there was scarcely a street in New York that was without a prayer meeting.

Merchants found time in the middle of the day to pray. The prayer meetings became daily ones, lasting for about an hour. Petitions and requests were sent up; these were simply asked and offered before God, and the answers came. Many were the happy hearts that stood and testified that the prayer offered last week had been already fulfilled.

Then it was, when they were all earnest in prayer, suddenly the Spirit of God fell on the people. The matter spread throughout the northern states, and a quarter of a million people were converted in the short space of two or three months. Sinners were converted not by ones or twos but by hundreds and thousands. The Lord’s name was greatly magnified by the progress of his gospel.

Can you not realize these as literal facts? Do they stand up in all their brightness before your eyes? Then I think the stories you have heard with your ears should have a true and proper effect on your own lives.

Revival in Our Day?

What God has done should encourage us to pray that he would repeat like signs and wonders among us. Oh, brothers, what would this heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would pray for revival! People whose faith is large enough and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions that God would appear among us and do wondrous things here as in former generations. Dear friends, we do not know what God may do for us if we would but pray for a blessing.

The stories of revival should also correct any self-dependence which may have crept into our treacherous hearts. Perhaps we have begun to depend on our numbers and so forth. Now let the stories which our fathers have told us remind us that God saves; that it is not in us to do this, but God must do it all. Place no dependence on the instrument. We shall never get a revival here unless we believe that it is the Lord, and the Lord alone, that can do it.

God alone can know what may come of our prayers if he chooses to bless them. The Word of God may flow and run and rush and get to itself an amazing and boundless victory.

Wrestle in prayer. Meet together in your houses. Go to your private room. Be earnest. Be instant in season and out of season. Agonize for souls, and all that you have heard will be forgotten in what you will see! All that others have told you will be as nothing compared with what you will hear with your ears and behold with your eyes! “Blessed are all they that put their trust in him” (Psalm 2:12).

From C. H. Spurgeon’s Revival Year Sermons, copyright © 1959, 1996, published by The Banner of Truth Trust. Public domain.