Show Me Thy Glory

And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. EXODUS 33:18

Evans is a Welshman, and Wales remembers the revival of 1904. His wife’s mother had been a girl in the village where it began; his first pastor’s father came to Christ in it. He grew up on its stories, and a longing for God to visit His people again has burned in him for seventy years. It is the theme of many of his sermons, among them Broken Before the Throne, Four Reasons We Need Revival in North America and Guard the Fire.

The awesome presence

What is revival? Evans tells of sitting with his brother-in-law and sister-in-law in Wales, both of whom had grown up among people converted in 1904, and asking them what had been so special about it. Was it the singing, the preaching, the healings? Both answered at once: it was the overwhelming sense that God Himself was present. That has become Evans’s own definition. Revival is God making His presence manifest among His people.

He is clear that revival is a sovereign act of God. No church can produce it by programmes, and not even by prayer, as though prayer were a lever. And yet Scripture sets out conditions, and he returns constantly to one verse:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 2 CHRONICLES 7:14

The problem with our nations, Evans insists, is not first in their governments but in the church. God’s people must humble themselves and seek His face, not merely His hand. He adds unity, as Jesus prayed in John 17, and a hunger for God as strong as a drowning man’s hunger for air.

Moses, the calf and the tent

His fullest treatment is a sermon on Exodus 32 to 34. Moses came down the mountain to find Israel dancing round a golden calf. Evans draws several lessons. Sin must be dealt with radically; we have grown used to a God who shrugs at our failures, and have lost our sense of how terrible sin is in His presence. Moses identified himself with his people’s sin and interceded for them, offering to be blotted out of God’s book if they were not forgiven; so the church must stop pointing at the nation and confess its own failures.

Then God offered to send an angel before Israel instead of going Himself, and Moses refused.

And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. EXODUS 33:15

Evans asks whether churches have grown so used to being led by good men, good programmes and good organisation that they no longer need the Holy Spirit at all, and whether, if the Spirit withdrew, anything would change. When the people mourned, Moses pitched the tent of meeting outside the camp. Repentance, Evans says, must lead to separation, but true separation is not chiefly away from things. It is coming to Him, to the place of intimacy, just as Christ suffered outside the camp.

Standing on the rock

Moses’ prayer was the cry of a man who had already seen more of God than anyone alive: show me Thy glory. God answered that He knew Moses by name, and that He would proclaim His name before him.

And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. EXODUS 33:21–22

Evans takes the rock as a picture of Christ and the cross. Brokenness at the cross, he says, must come before any sight of the glory. People unwilling to die to themselves will never see God’s glory; at best they will admire their own. Then Moses was told to prepare himself and come up the mountain alone. Revival begins with individuals, prepared and presenting themselves to God.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. PSALM 24:3–4

Why he longs for it

In one sermon Evans gives four reasons for his longing. He needs revival himself, daily. His church needs it, having grown so used to its own impotence that it thinks it normal. His nation needs it. And above all, the Saviour deserves it. He tells how, praying for his grandchildren, he realised that he wanted them saved partly for his own happiness, and how God showed him a better reason: that they should worship the One who is worthy. The same was true of revival. It is not finally about our experience. It is about the Lamb receiving the praise He is due.

Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. REVELATION 5:12

Another spirit

Evans loves Caleb, who at eighty-five asked Joshua for the mountain where the giants lived. God said of him that he had another spirit and had followed the Lord fully. Evans describes the seed of Caleb as worshippers, wholehearted, counter-cultural, renewed in youth like the eagle, hungry for fellowship with God, and willing to face giants, among them the giants of self. He preaches it as an old man who refuses to retire.

But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it. NUMBERS 14:24

Guard the fire

Finally, Evans pleads for the fire to be guarded. He asks worship leaders to lead people into the presence of the King, not merely to sing songs well, and reminds them that they must first have been in that presence themselves. He asks congregations to free their pastors to give themselves to prayer and the Word, as the apostles did in Acts 6. And he asks every believer to guard the fire God has lit, by prayer, by time alone with God, and by refusing to settle for less than His presence.

A reader may find some of his readings of Exodus, such as the distinction he draws between the two Hebrew words for rock, more ingenious than necessary, and his sermons occasionally touch on public events in a way he himself admits is speculative. But the heart of his plea is simply Scripture: God’s people are to seek His face until He comes.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask yourself honestly whether your church would notice if the Holy Spirit withdrew. Pray about what you find.

2. Deal radically with one sin you have tolerated. Confess it and, where needed, remove whatever feeds it.

3. Set aside a regular time, however short, to seek God’s face rather than His hand.

4. Pray 2 Chronicles 7:14 for your church and your nation, beginning with yourself.

5. If you are older, ask God for Caleb’s mountain. If you are younger, find an older believer who still longs for God and learn from them.

A PRAYER

Lord God, I have seen something of Your goodness, and it has made me hungry for more. Show me Your glory.

I do not want an angel to lead us, or good men, or good programmes. If Your presence does not go with us, do not carry us up from here.

Break me before the cross, cleanse my hands and purify my heart, and begin in me the revival I long to see in Your church.

Not for my sake, Lord, but because the Lamb is worthy. Rend the heavens and come down. Amen.