Reformation or Revival, Which?

To put it simply, revival deals first and foremost with the internal, reformation with the external. The former begins in the heart and works its way out; the latter never gets past the first layer of skin. George MacDonald writes, “Nothing is so deadening to the divine as a habitual dealing with the outside of holy things.”

What today’s “religious moralist” wants is an outward religious and political change, not an inward conversion. Reformation is merely a demon leaving his house briefly, while a new coat of paint is being put on the exterior of things, only to return to it with seven of his worst kind of friends. Reformation has to do with respectability, revival with nobility. Dry-rot on the inside doesn’t concern the moralist.

I am not an authority on revival, but I did spend the biggest part of a fifty-plus year ministry as an evangelist and in revival work. I got in on the afterglow of the forties revival, which was simmering and went out in the fifties. God allowed me to see enough in my meetings to cause me to thirst after a real revival. I’ve seen people pass out and have to be carried to an altar. On numerous occasions there have been four hour invitations, which I did not give, where the people just wanted to repent and worship God. I’ve seen a Lutheran pastor tear his collar off and cry out for God to save him.  There was a youth camp where the youth would wake at three in the morning screaming for God to have mercy. In one large church, so many were getting right that they had to use the restrooms for inquiry rooms, because all the Sunday School rooms were filled  There were many, many more experiences like these, but I trust these will suffice to prove my point.

Yes, many good people long for revival and are praying for one, but on their conditions. And that is why revival will never come to them. Let’s face it; a Bible revival would scare the majority of today’s Christians half to death. It would reach far beyond their elitist group, and things would happen that their human reasoning could not explain. And may I add this note to many of you pastors; you can’t have revival without revival preaching. It seems to me when the evangelists were kicked out of the pulpits of America, revival went with them. May God have mercy! My Bible still says, “And He gave some…evangelists.”