America's Greatest Need

 I am reading a Diary of Revival by Kevin Adams on the Welsh Awakening of 1904, and upon reading the introduction; I could not help but to post the last portion. It is an article in a Welsh paper by Dean Howell, printed in 1902. As I read the article I was awed by the reflection his article portrayed of our nation today; it is very striking. I have parenthetically inserted our nation where appropriate and one other parenthetical insertion to a trouble facing our day. The article belongs to Mr. Howell; truly prophetic to our day and I pray would spark an awakening in us all.

What is Wales’ [America’s] greatest need? Some point to the need of political reform…A better educated ministry? A better health service and social services, all things which are important. But are any of these the main need of Wales [America] at this time? In my estimation there is a greater need than all these, something that will reach into the soul of a nation, something that will create a greater effect than all of them, something more lasting in its fruit and all-encompassing in its blessing spiritual and temporal. Spiritual revival, not reformation but revival. And I don’t mean local missions either; rather I’m speaking about the need for a high tide of the Spirit flooding over the whole country that will touch all classes with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This surely is Wales’ [America’s] greatest need at this time.

There has never before been so much preaching, but what of the effects?...From all directions there are complaints that the ministry has lost its power and its convicting edge…The preaching is scholarly, interesting and educational but there is little anointing and convicting in it. Consciences are not pricked as in days gone by, and old phrases of long ago-such as conviction, conversion, repentance, adoption, dying to sin, self-loathing, etc – have become alien and meaningless, while the old experiences that came out of these phrases have become fossilized and without life. 

And the result? Family worship is quickly disappearing…The Sunday school is only just holding its own. Congregations in many places are lessening. Keeping the Sabbath has become a matter for debate and the prayer meeting nearly extinct…The authority of the Bible and the foundational truths of Christianity are being judged in the court of reason and criticism…Unshakeable belief in the unseen, the miraculous and supernatural is questioned openly. Temperance is not as prosperous as it used to be, with the curse of drink [marijuana] rearing its head in town and countryside…The desire for pleasure has totally captivated the age…

But what is the answer? There is no argument about this. If there is such a thing as truth between the covers of the word of God-here it is. The Spirit of God is the only source of Spiritual life. There is no way to produce or revive this life other than by the instrumentality of the Spirit. “Not by might and not by power by my Spirit,” says the Lord of Hosts’…It is man’s fault and not God’s will that there isn’t the same unction and authority in the preaching of the gospel in this generation…

Reader! Will you do your part in this blessed work? Will you give yourself fully to this cause? Morning, midday and night? Will you do your best jointly to work with others so that you can create circles of intercession? Great is your privilege-great too is your responsibility. ‘Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down…’ 

…Take note, if this was to be my last message to my fellow country men throughout the length and breadth of Wales [America] before I am taken to the judgment it would remain thus- the greatest need of my dear nation and country at this time is spiritual revival through a specific outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Jubilee, let me see the break of day. 

In His Grace, 

Piper

 

Piper's Pen and Prose: The Pursuit of The Holy~ My longing is to see the Church transformed

The Pursuit of the Holy by Simon Ponsonby

Chapter One- The Longing to be Holy

~ No, my longing is to see the Church transformed so that we might transform society.

~ “The darkness is deepening.” So said Gandalf in Tolkien’s classic The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. And so it is for us. Faced with an unconvincing Church, society is looking to alternatives.

~ And yet, while sinners are certainly responsible for their own sin, I don’t entirely blame the world. They merely do what is in line with their natures: They Sin. You cannot be surprised when sinners act sinfully- they have no power to purify themselves. Can a godless society be expected to be godly without seeing what godliness is?

~ The Church has all too often blended in in with the world rather than revealed Christ and his ways to the world.

~ Somewhere along the line we have forgotten our vocation—to be a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). Jesus said it is part of the Church’s role through conforming to him and conveying him to the world, to be a sanctifying, salting, influence in society (Matt. 5:13-16).

~ No one will listen to our gospel if we aren’t living it. We cannot influence or infect society with something that has not yet infected us. A saltless salt cannot savor and flavor. The Church cannot light a fire if she is not on fire.

~ We need reformation, a revival—and holiness will be at the heart of it. The Church must again find and follow Jesus—not as a doctrine to be believed but as a Lord to be served and a life to be lived.

~ A holy Church can influence an unholy world. Where Christ is seen, he is attractive, wooing and winning people to himself.

~ And as Paul said, “Through us [God] spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him” (2 Cor. 2:14).

~ The world looks on hateful, self-serving, undisciplined, greedy, impure people who never the less claim to be the people of God and says, “You lie.”

~ It is not as if we are addressing a marginal issue here—it is central. In the latest celebrated “revival” in the West, a feted evangelist suddenly walked off the stage and walked out on his wife. Claims of numerous extraordinary miracles could not be substantiated—not even one. I attended churches and watched ministers manipulate money out of church members for the promise of miracles. Pretense, fabrication, and nonsense were rife. Nothing new here, of course, but I groaned along with many others in the Church: where was the bride of Christ, making herself ready for Christ (Rev. 21:2)?

~ Isaiah spoke more about holiness than any other prophet. It was part of his ministry to call the nations to holiness.

~ The prophet had preached the nation’s guilt only to see his own.

~ And lest we be hypocrites, we ought not do that before we have applied the message to the sinfulness of our own hearts.

~ We must go on to know, as Isaiah knew, a deep cleansing from God’s fire and a commissioning for his service. I do not believe that Isaiah had been a hypocrite—he had said what he saw in the world and what he heard from God; but lest he fall, thinking he stood tall, God also showed him himself. Now his message could be tempered by self-awareness a much-needed humility in the face of burning-coal grace for the sinner.

~ I confess, I resign myself to the presence of sin and weakness rather than feeling wretched or wrestling against it.

~ God is holy. Holiness is his nature and character. It is not an attribute: it is who he is.

~ The language and practices of holiness have atrophied under the impact of modernity and secularization.

~ The holy life is a foretaste of heaven on earth. It is not God’s burden for us but God’s best for us.

~ Any form of holiness that leads to someone looking like they just drank a gallon of vinegar is not biblical holiness; it is more likely Pharisaism. The Church has lost something of this notion of holiness as happiness. We need to look at the Jews celebrating the Sabbath, their holiest of times. Men gather in the streets, linking arms and dancing. Home is turned into a place of wonder, mystery, and glory as families welcome the Sabbath. How much more should the Church now celebrate holiness joyfully, knowing that the Messiah Jesus has in one day, by his death for us at Golgotha, taken away all our sin?

~ The traditional places for the Jewish woman to articulate holiness were in her home and in her diet, making a distinction between the sacred and the profane, offering her life and work as worship to God.

~ Holiness is about having the right clothing to be with the King of Kings (Matt. 22:11-12).