October 5, 2009

• Revival resources, etc.

  Recently a good friend asked me for some website resources on revival.

  At the time I sent some links, but as I've reflected more on this, I'd like to expand on and answer that request publicly.

  Let us always remember our first and primary resource is concentrated time in the Word and prayer, to get alone with God and seek His face. As we see God's glory more keenly, we will soon begin to see how far our current state (both individually and corporately) falls so short of His glory and intent of us. We cannot help but see that our light is not so bright and our fire is not so hot, and then begin to lament over that and confess and begin to cry out for God to be gracious and return to us, to rend the heavens and come down and make His Church to be a praise in the earth and a honor to our Savior's Name and precious blood. The revivals of Church history all started in ordinary places with a few ordinary people whom God is raising up to pray.

  After that time with God (for which there is no substitute), there are several other resources I would recommend to you.

  1. To examine Church history: to read Christian biography, to read about past revivals and so forth.

  2. To hear and read good Gospel preaching and teaching, including good sermons on revival and the history of revivals.

  3. To fellowship with similarly burdened brothers and sisters who share your passion for revival so you can pray together and for one another and to encourage one another to persevere in prayer and the ministry of the Word.

  Now to unpack those a bit . . .

  1. Regarding Church history:

  I've read several biographies and autobiographical accounts in the past couple years, but I would say "George Whitefield's Journals" was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, so to speak, earlier this year. Though I'd already begun praying for revival prior to that time, God used it mightily to continue to fuel the fire He had already lit. Another thing was a brief account of the Welsh Revival I read here and then as a result, I picked up and read "Revival Comes to Wales." There are plenty of men and women God has used greatly. If you don't have any idea what to read, I'd recommend your start by reading or listening to John Piper's biographical messages. That's what began to whet my appetite for Christian biography. (Thank you, Dr. Piper!) I urge you to go and find a biography and get reading. And then to get reading about past revivals. Just do a google search for revival, history of revival, whatever. There's plenty of information out there. Also Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones books and messages are chock full of allusions to church history and revival (more on ML-J below). Though my blog is kind of a hodgepodge, you can also check out my posts on revival, church history, bio.

  As I look back, I can see how God had already been laying the ground work in my own life in other ways as well, He was doing work in my heart, to begin break up the fallow ground there so the seeds He would begin planting would take root in my life (of course, His work of sanctification is a continuing work...). For years I'd heard of and knew some people burdened for revival and knew I ought to have a burden but I really didn't and I couldn't work it up. But then God began to put it into me and He won't let me go.
  
  2. Regarding good preaching and teaching resources:

  There are good teachers out there, past and present. Some tests we should be asking of the teachers we hear should include the following: Is their teaching in line with the Scripture? Are they seeking the glory of God? Are they keeping Christ central in their teaching and seeking to lift Him up and nothing else? Are they neither adding to nor subtracting from His glorious Gospel? Are they giving room for the Holy Spirit to work in the Church?

  If you've never visited to Living Grace at oneplace.com I would invite you to do so. Each week they post a new audio sermon from the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Just yesterday they put up a message on Mark 9:28-29 from the series of sermons the Doctor preached on revival in 1959, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Welsh revival. [EDIT 10.11.09 - They will be posting six messages from that series in the next several weeks; the Mark 9 message was the first of those.] All those sermons have been compiled in the book "Revival," and this summer I read through all the sermons and they were so challenging and inspiring. I would highly recommend your getting and reading that book. If you've read my blog for any length of time you know how much "the Doctor" has influenced and impacted me. (BTW: at oneplace.com the previous two weeks' sermons were on false teaching, here and here – definitely two messages I would urge you to go and hear. Please keep in mind oneplace.com only keeps these messages up for a few weeks, so even if you can't listen now, you can download them now for listening later on...or even simpler, just subscribe to the podcast, then the messages will come straight to your computer.)

  You can also listen to six other sermons from that same sermon series at here at sermonindex.com.

  *** Updated ~ February 2013 ***:  Thanks to the MLJ Trust (http://www.mljtrust.org/), as part of their collection of over 1600 of Dr. Lloyd-Jones' sermons (http://www.mljtrust.org/sermons), you now download and listen to the sermons which ML-J preached in his series of sermons on revival in 1959 here:  http://www.mljtrust.org/collections/revival/.

  I know there's a danger of recommending a particular person. I will say I know ML-J was just a man like us; he was a sinner. And I do not agree with his teaching on all things. I do know this: he would not want us to be lifting him up. He knew any good he did was by the grace of God at work in him. He also knew he had no message of his own to give but that which He received from the Scripture. But I will say at this point in my life God has used ML-J's teachings to bless me and help me to go deeper in the Christian life and to give me a greater hunger for God and for revival more than any other human teacher. (I'd say John Piper comes in second. Oh, I don't like ranking these wonderful men of God in that way...)

  Earlier this Spring, as God was putting on my heart a desire to pray for revival, I "happened to find" (no, there are no coincidences in God's economy – not "happened to"!) that series of messages on sermonindex. God had already put on my heart the concept the Doctor described in the sermon "Revival 2 - Preparatory Stages," his sermon on the tent of meeting based on Exodus 33.

  Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.
  

  

  I would encourage you to listen to that sermon, particularly if God is putting a desire in you to pray for revival. That message helped to crystallize things for me and it was not long after that that I opened up website tent of meeting, devoted to prayer for revival. Here's a brief description of my vision for that site:

  I am burdened to pray to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for Christ's church and for revival. The phrase tent of meeting comes from Exodus 33:7: Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. This site is devoted to God first and foremost. In all that is done here, my prayer is that God is glorified and His Name magnified and Christ and Him crucified is lifted up so He might be preeminent and God might receive all the praise, honor and glory due His Holy Name. All who have come to a saving knowledge of our Father by grace through faith in the all-sufficient sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are welcome to enter this tent of meeting to seek the Lord.
  

  You can read more about how that all unfolded and and more about tent of meeting here and here, respectively.

  If God is giving you a burden to pray for and to see revival (again, not that you are feeling obligated or guilty or think you should pray, but if God Himself giving you a burden to pray, there's a difference there...), I invite you to message me and/or to visit tent of meeting.

  I will also recommend you poke around my own blog here. Though I don't write exclusively on revival, by the grace of God, I strive to write in such a way to spur you onto good works and to teach apostolic doctrine, to lift up Christ and Him crucified, which is all laying the ground work for revival. I know there are other places you can also find good teaching as well. My intent and prayer here is to feed you and bless you as God feeds me and blesses me. I so desire that the Church be ignited and passionate for God, the glory of God and His Gospel. We need to be awakened out of our slumber. Too long too many of us have been lukewarm – I know I was for over twenty years. Dull, lifeless and apathetic church members are no glory to our Redeemer who lived and died for us so we might live to Him.

  3. Regarding fellowship with similarly burdened brothers and sisters:

  Pray and ask God to bring people to you and He will honor that prayer. You will know when He does. We need to be supporting one another and praying for and with one another. We need to be upholding one another's arms like Aaron and Hur did for Moses. We don't know when revival will come, but if God has called us to prayer and the ministry of the Word, we must persevere in doing so. Let us not neglect the assembling together of one another for mutual encouragement and edification, even if we may not physically ever meet in person.

  

  * * *

  I hadn't planned to write this, but I am thankful for the opportunity to have done so. I am continuing to pray God will raise up men and women who see the sheep without a Shepherd and have compassion on them so they might respond with fervent effectual prayer to the Lord God Almighty to bring the latter rain and baptize us once more with His Spirit so the Church might bring Him the glory as He has intended for us, that Jesus Christ might be preeminent in the Church once again.

  

  I recently changed the blurb that appears on my home page. This gives you an idea of my passions and vision for what I'm doing here, so I will close with that here as a reminder of what God has me doing and why I'm doing it (I so need to keep reminding myself!) . . .

  Redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ by the free grace of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, blogging to the glory of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, all for your upbuilding, dearly beloved brothers and sisters in Christ. I love God and I have a passion for His Church to be revived again, so my prayer is that He would rend the heavens and come down and breathe life into the dry bones, including my own. I love reading, studying, writing and talking about God's Word. I almost always have a book nearby and enjoy hunting in used bookstores for treasures. I enjoy listening to music as well as walking, sitting and reading and contemplating in parks. Philippians 3:7-16 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. By His grace may I willingly offer myself to dwell wherever He calls me (Nehemiah 11:2).

  Thanks be to God, we know He is continuing to build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail! May our Lord give us willing hearts to offer ourselves to Him to use us however He sees fit in that glorious venture.

  ---

  Related posts:
  
  we are in need of Rain: a prayer for revival
  a famine of hearing the words of the LORD
  Postcards from England: "the fog is lifting on My Church"
  postcards from England: are we excited over a dead fish and a car wreck?
  postcards from England: "The Burden for Revival" (ML-J)
  God uses men with "no outstanding abilities"
  Can anything good come out of Xanga?
  Take 2: Can anything good come out of Xanga?
  

  • 3:37 PM
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