Revival

O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy. HABAKKUK 3:2

Lloyd-Jones grew up in the shadow of revival. Llangeitho, the village of his boyhood, had been one of the centres of the great eighteenth-century awakening in Wales under Daniel Rowland. His wife’s grandfather had been a preacher of the Welsh revivals of the following century. And he was a small boy when the revival of 1904 and 1905 swept through Wales. He read the history of revivals all his life, and he prayed for revival all his life. In 1959, the centenary of the great revival of 1859 in Wales, Ulster and America, he preached a series of sermons on the subject at Westminster Chapel, afterwards published simply as Revival. A shorter address, What Is Revival?, can be read on Ochorus.

What revival is

He began, characteristically, with a definition. Revival, he said, is a period of unusual blessing and activity in the life of the Christian church. It happens first to the church, to believing people, and only in consequence to those outside. That definition, he argued, clears away a great confusion. A revival is not the same thing as an evangelistic campaign.

An evangelistic campaign, as he put it in effect, is the church deciding to do something for those outside. A revival is something done to the church. It is not organised, advertised or produced. It comes down from heaven. The church does not decide to have one; it is visited.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. ACTS 2:2

He described it as, in a sense, a repetition of the day of Pentecost: the Holy Spirit coming down upon a number of people together — a church, a district, sometimes a whole country — so that they become aware of His presence and power as never before.

The marks of revival

He found the same features in every revival he had read about. The first is an overwhelming awareness of the glory and holiness of God. Things that people had heard a thousand times suddenly become vivid, luminous and unmistakably real. They are filled with awe. There is little lightness in a true revival, he observed, and no need of organisation to produce an effect; there is instead a holy fear.

Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. ISAIAH 6:5

The second, flowing from the first, is a deep conviction of sin. People who had thought themselves respectable see themselves as vile and helpless, and may be held in that distress for days or weeks. The third is a clear sight of the love of God in Christ, and a joy that follows the conviction. The fourth is an outflow to the world: those outside the church, who had been deaf to every appeal, find themselves compelled to listen. Communities are changed. Numbers are added. But the numbers are the fruit, not the root.

Why he distrusted technique

His understanding of revival shaped his attitude to much of the evangelism of his day. He was deeply wary of methods that aimed to produce results by human means — mass campaigns, emotional pressure, appeals to come forward. He did not doubt that some were genuinely converted in such settings. But he feared that the church had come to believe it could do by organisation what only God can do by His Spirit, and that it was mistaking its own activity for the work of God.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. ZECHARIAH 4:6

This conviction gave his ministry its particular character. He did not try to build a large church by methods. He preached, and he prayed, and he waited on God. He believed that the greatest need of the church was not more activity but a visitation from heaven.

Praying for revival

If revival cannot be organised, what can the church do? Lloyd-Jones’s answer was: pray. He pointed to the pattern of Scripture, where revival is so often preceded by God’s people crying out to Him in their need. And he urged the church to pray for it with urgency and with expectation.

Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. ISAIAH 64:1

But he added a note that must not be missed. The motive for praying for revival must be the glory of God, not the excitement of the church. We are not to seek it for the experience, or the sensation, or the numbers, but that His great name may be known and magnified among the people. The address on Ochorus closes on exactly that note.

Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? PSALM 85:6

Sovereign and yet sought

There is an apparent tension here, and Lloyd-Jones embraced it. Revival is sovereign: God sends it when and where He will, and no one can command it. And yet revival is to be sought: God’s people are to pray for it, prepare for it and long for it. He did not think these were contradictory. The farmer cannot make the rain fall, but he can plough his field and pray for rain. The church cannot produce revival, but it can humble itself, repent, and cry to God.

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

Where care is needed

A church can become so preoccupied with praying for revival that it neglects the ordinary means of grace — the steady preaching of the Word, the faithful pastoral care, the patient witness of individual believers. Lloyd-Jones did not intend this, but some who followed him have fallen into it, waiting for heaven to do what heaven has told them to get on with. It is also worth saying that his wariness of evangelistic methods, though it rested on real concerns, could be sweeping, and that God has undoubtedly blessed ministries he viewed with suspicion. The reader may take his longing for revival without taking every one of his judgments about method.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read the account of a historical revival this month — the Welsh revival of 1904 or the awakening of the eighteenth century — and note its marks.

2. Ask whether your church relies more on programmes and methods than on prayer. What would it look like to change the balance?

3. Set aside a regular time, even brief, to pray specifically for a visitation of God upon His church in your land.

4. Examine your motive in wanting revival. Is it for God’s glory, or for the church’s comfort and success?

5. Do not wait for revival to be faithful. Take up one ordinary duty of witness or service this week.

A PRAYER

O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years. We have heard of what You did in former days, and we long to see it again.

Forgive us for trusting in our own methods and activity. Humble us, convict us, and teach us to pray.

Rend the heavens and come down, not for our excitement or our success, but that Your great name may be glorified.

And until You come, keep us faithful in the ordinary work You have given us to do. Amen.