Revival

Andrew Murray

In our first chapter we spoke of the terrible sin of the Jewish people in robbing God. They withheld from Him what He claimed; He withheld from them what they asked. We also noted that it is the same sin in the Christian Church that withholds the blessing of the Spirit’s working and makes revival so needful. We looked at only one proof of disobedience to God’s command: the neglect of the church to be what God wants it to be— a light to lighten the Gentiles; the refusal of Christians to live wholly and solely for the glory of God in the salvation of men.

We hardly dare say that this neglect, this refusal, is willful. Men do not know they are called to such absolute devotion; that the perishing world is really their charge; that God refuses to bless them because they refuse to live only for Him and their fellowmen. When we ask how it is that with Scripture so constantly read and preached, and with its commands and principles so plain, the truth is not apprehended, we are led to one of the deepest sources of all the evil and failure in the churches. The truth is held, preached, and received in man s wisdom, not in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Listen to what our text teaches concerning this. There is a twofold preaching of Christ and His cross. The one is what Christ forbade—and Paul therefore so emphatically rejected—the preaching in wisdom of words, in Excellency of speech and wisdom, in persuasive words of wisdom. The other is in demonstration of the Spirit and of power—the proof of a direct supernatural divine working. Corresponding to these there is a twofold faith. The one stands in the wisdom of man, is feeble, changeable, and ever dependent upon human support. The other stands in the power of God, which has its root and its strength, on the part of the convert, in the personal communion with God and the experience of His almighty operation. When scriptural truth is studied or heard, is received and held as true, but does not work in power, the chief reason is that it is held in man’s wisdom, in the power of the mind, not of the Spirit of God. There is nothing that so effectually makes void the cross of Christ and robs it of all its power as the wisdom of words and Excellency of speech.

If we ask how it was that the Jews in the time of Malachi could be so ignorant of their sin and so confidently ask, “Wherein have we wearied him? Wherein have we robbed thee?” the only answer is: spiritual ignorance, blindness of heart. In the scribes and Pharisees of our Lord’s time, we see men making their boast of God’s law, priding themselves on their attachment to Scripture, and yet rejecting Him of whom alone it spoke. Having eyes, they saw not. They had received the Word of God in their human wisdom, and remained entire strangers to its spiritual meaning, to its revelation of God’s will; to it’s renewing and sanctifying power. If we ask how Christians now can still rob God, can refuse Him the wholehearted allegiance that He so clearly claims, and can live, not for the glorious work He has entrusted to every one of His people—making God known to their fellowmen—but for themselves and this world, the answer is the same. It is the spiritual ignorance of the meaning and power of all truth that has been learned only in human wisdom.

And if we ask why even the leaders and teachers of the church appear to have so little consciousness of the utter defectiveness of the Christian life of the majority of Christians, and that even what is spoken concerning it has so little effect, the answer is still the same. It is the lack of a truly spiritual apprehension of God’s claim to “the whole tithe”—the whole heart and all the strength in His service. The terrible prevalence and extreme sinfulness of withholding this tithe, and so robbing God of His due, is caused, above everything else, by confidence being placed in man’s wisdom. Scripture is studied, its truth is admitted, is preached and listened to with conviction and pleasure in the power of the human mind without the power of the Holy Spirit to make it effective.

If we study God’s Word carefully, we shall be surprised to find how many things it contrasts with knowing, and the danger in knowing without its leading to that which it was meant to produce, scripture contrasts knowing and believing. The mind can form a conception of the most spiritual truths—the love of God, the atonement of Christ, the power of the Spirit—can be convinced of their truth and value, and so give them a perfect intellectual assent, while the heart does not believe them, does not open to yield itself to their all—controlling influence, scripture contrasts knowing and doing. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord warns against the danger of knowing and not doing. To His disciples He said: “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” James says: “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” Knowing is contrasted with hearing. Just as there is great pleasure in a beautiful picture of some interesting object, so the mind may delight in the contemplation of the divine realities of which the Bible tells—of the love of God, of the beauty of true humility or great devotion to God or man—while the heavenly grace itself is not possessed or hardly desired. Knowing is contrasted with being.

As the science of education advances, the teacher is constantly reminded that his work is infinitely nobler than imparting a certain amount of knowledge, or even than developing the pupil’s power of thought, so that he may be able to acquire knowledge for himself. The true teacher tries to instill into a pupil that character is everything—it is not what a man knows, but what he is that is the real standard. This is infinitely truer in God’s school in which His children are being trained. What we actually are, as humble, holy, believing, devoted children of God, is the only proof that God’s Word has in truth entered into us and done its work.

And knowing is contrasted with living. In each child of God, the power of an endless life is working. God’s own life is secretly striving within him. As the great work of education is to waken a child to the consciousness of its power as a living being, so all the success of the Christian life depends upon the clear and abiding consciousness of a life from God growing within him as surely as the lily is clothed with its beauty by a power from God. The knowledge that occupies and pleases and at length satisfies the mind, without day-by-day leading to the faith, the actions, the character, and the true inner life for which God meant it, is the most dangerous of all enemies.

It may well be asked, How is it possible that men should delight in knowing about what they do not with their heart believe, or do, or possess, and about what they neither are nor live out? There is a double answer. The one points to the expression so often used—the pleasure of the pursuit of knowledge. One of the most wonderful powers with which God has endowed man is the mind, with its power of observing and comparing facts, of discovering and understanding laws, and causes and effects. The exercise of every function has been made by the Creator to be a pleasure. One of the highest pleasures that man is capable of is when all the wonders of nature disclose themselves at the bidding of reason. While some men study science for it’s practical use, there are multitudes who do so simply for the pleasure it gives and its elevating and refining influence. There are spheres of knowledge in which this does no harm. But in the region of morals, where knowledge reveals duty, the result is most disastrous. In knowing what they ought to do, in delighting to have that knowledge put before them while they do not obey and perform, the effect is the blinding of the conscience and the growth of that terrible folly of self-deception by which a man is satisfied and happy in the knowledge of that which condemns him. It is for this reason that the true educationalist is so careful to distinguish between teaching and training. He is not content to tell the child continually what he is to do or be; he watches over him until he has helped him to do and to be it.

In the spiritual realm this pleasure in the power of knowledge is still more dangerous. This brings us to the second answer to the question we asked, how is it that men can delight in knowing about what they neither believe nor do, about a character and a life they do not possess. When a teacher seeks to train his pupil to obedience, diligence, and truthfulness, he is dealing with a life that is capable of these virtues, and has his seeds sown in conscience. But God’s Word and the church have to deal with supernatural realities of a heavenly life in order to apprehend that which nature of itself is incapable. It is because this is not believed or remembered that all our Bible teaching has no larger results in training humble, holy believers wholly living for God, for the supreme and most blessed work of making God known to fallen men.
In I Corinthians, chapter one, Paul speaks about Christ who was made unto us of God’s wisdom, righteousness and sanctification. In regard to the latter, all evangelical Christians believe that we have neither righteousness nor holiness of our own, and that we must find them in Christ—the righteousness through His death, the holiness through His Spirit. But they do not believe that just as little as we have a righteousness for merit or strength for holiness of our own, so little have we any wisdom of our own, nor is our human wisdom capable of apprehending divine things. They do not believe that just as much as our heart has been depraved and our will perverted, so our mind has been deceived and darkened by sin as to spiritual things. They have the impression that if God’s Word is heard and read with interest and intelligence, it will work out its own blessing. No mistake can be more fatal. God has said: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” As little therefore as I with my arm can reach to the stars can I with my human reason reach to the spiritual truth and power of God’s thoughts. I can form conceptions, pictures, shadows of what He thinks, and so apprehend them with the mind. But to apprehend the spiritual and substantial reality, this I cannot except as God is pleased by His Holy Spirit to reveal and give it into the heart and life.

We all know how little Jesus’ instructions really profited His disciples while He was on earth with them. What He taught about His death and resurrection, about humility and love, they could not understand. They knew what He said, but it did not enter their hearts; they could not really apprehend it. When He promised the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth to guide into all truth, it was that they might have a divine teacher who would, dwelling within them as their life, give them the actual possession and enjoyment of what the words contained. And it is only as the church of Christ, and the daily life of believers, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is honored as the only, the absolutely indispensable, the sufficient teacher of God’s Word that the commands of God will be truly understood and come with the power that ensures their obedience. Ordinarily when a teacher or reader of the Bible truth that has been accepted wants to enforce it, he seeks by argument to deepen the impression that has been made. That impression may be a very pleasing one, and apparently deep, but it will not be lasting unless the work of the Holy Spirit is acknowledged and waited on as the one thing needful. It is only and always as the Gospel comes to men “in the Holy Ghost and in power and much assurance” that it will be received, not as the word of man, but as the Word of God, which works effectually in them that believe.

Let us now return to the question: Why is it that Christians have so little sense of their calling to live wholly for God and His work? Why is it that so many touching appeals from the missionary platform and so many solemn consecration addresses do not bear more fruit? Have we not here a sufficient explanation? There is so much speaking and hearing, in which either on the one side or the other, or on both, the Holy Spirit is not honored as alone able in power to make the truth and living in the hearts of God’s children. Plead with men, as you will. But by all that is awful in the fate of the perishing millions and sacred in the honor of God, in the blood and the love and the command of Christ, in the power of the Spirit waiting to work in them, the truths you deal with are so divine, so supernatural, so beyond our mind that without the definite work of the almighty Spirit, little permanent effect is produced. Of all preaching of the cross, of missions, of the entire consecration to God and His work that is in the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ has said it is made void by man’s wisdom. The faith that comes by such speaking stands with the wisdom of men, not in the power of God. And the fruit is according to the root.

What a work opens up before us as we speak of prayer for revival! God asks those who intercede to take knowledge of the real state of His church. If they are to feel the burden, to confess the sin, to point out the evil to others, to prepare the way of the Lord in doing their part to show God’s people what they must ask God’s Spirit to do, what they must be ready to part with and put away before He comes, they need a deep, clear conviction that here indeed is one of the great hindrances of blessing.

Because the Holy Spirit is not honored in his teaching, the clearest commands of God’s Word fall powerless, and God is robbed of His due. Let our prayer for a revival, for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, begin by our yielding ourselves to Him to open our eyes to see things in the light of God, to open our hearts to regard them in the faith of Christ’s love and His mighty power to change all. Let us open our mouths wide in persevering supplication to God and in faithful testimony to our brethren to encourage in them the assured hope that deliverance draws nigh.