Are You Asleep?
“Awake thou that sleepest.” Eph. 5:14 I put before you now a simple question. Look through the pages of this paper and you will soon see why I ask it. “Are you
asleep about your soul?”
There are many who have the name of Christians, but not the character which should go with the name. God is not King of their hearts. They mind earthly things.
Such persons are often quick and clever about the affairs of this life. They are, many of them, good men of business, good at their daily work, good masters, good servants, good neighbors, good subjects of the Queen: all this I fully allow. But it is the eternal part of them that I speak of; it is their never dying souls. And about that, if a man may judge by the little they do for it, they are careless, thoughtless, reckless, and unconcerned. They are
asleep.
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Superficial Revival
1790-1875
I recently came across a small, scarce collection of letters written by Charles Finney toward the end of his life. They are exhortations concerning his perspective of the growing superficiality of church life and revival meetings around the year 1870. As I read, I could not help but mourn over the state of the church as we now experience it 130 years later. It takes little imagination to figure what his response would be to the rock bands, comedy routines, T-shirt sales and empty conversions that typify “revival meetings” of our day.
It is my prayer that this timeless reprimand will spur us in returning not only to the revival fire of the 1830’s, but further still, until the Book of Acts becomes our reality in this day. Below is an excerpt from this collection. --Dean Taylor
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Revival Prayer
In this work Edwards speaks of the promise of God to bless His people when they come together to pray for revival. Throughout history this little work has influenced thousands of people and spurned countless little prayer groups to come together for meaningful revival prayer. Missionary pioneer William Carey tells in his biography that this work was one of the very things that inspired him to the mission field. Take special notice that Edwards challenges the reader not to seek revival per se, but to seek the very presence of God. When God comes, revival is there.
By way of disclaimer, I will say that I believe Edwards envisions more of an end-time “mass revival” movement than I am comfortable with. Perhaps this is due to his understanding of the two kingdoms. From a perspective now of over 250 years later, I would feel that such a “mass-church” concept has propagated an unhealthy ecumenism including such groups as Roman Catholics and sometimes even Mormons. While I believe that in the “last days” a great revival will come, I still believe that comparatively, the church will still look like a remnant—not a mass, one-world church.
Jesus said, “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth” (Luke 18:7-8)? Then there is the Isaiah prophesy, “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:9). Also considering Paul’s thoughts to the Roman Church, “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5).
One more thing…It should not be overlooked that one of the hallmark passages in this litany of revival prophecies quoted by Jonathan Edwards is that the prophecies of this revived church predict that they “will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” I feel that it would be a bit dishonest to take the praying part of the prophecy without the “beating-the-sword-into-plowshares part”. Rival historian, J. Edwin Orr took notice that the progress in the early revivals of the 1900s ended conspicuously when WWI began. Revival did not surface again on a large scale until after WWII. We cannot expect to be praying for revival in the hearts of people in “other lands” if we are shooting them while we pray. Could this be yet one more reason—why revival tarries?
All that being said—regardless of your belief about the size of the end-time revivals, the prophecies of Zachariah and Isaiah still stand; and these passages clearly speak of a praying people who trust the promises of God for His fullness and Holy Spirit outpouring. For that reason, I feel that this work is invaluable for its simple, straight-forward application of God’s design for true heaven-sent revival. The second part of this work is a living example of how revival praying was used to bring about a move of God in Scotland in 1744. I hope to put that in a future issue. ~Bro. Dean Taylor
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