Unromantic Revival!

I have recently been coming to terms with the kind of commitment that revival requires from those evangelists caught up in its midst.

The following quote from Railton’s ‘Heathen England’ expresses a bit of what I mean.

“And once a man is laid hold of he must not be let go for an evening. A hundred public-house doors must be passed ere he gets home from his work. His home may have little attraction at any time. Since his conversion it may have become a very nest of hornets to him. If you want to make it possible for such a man to get established in the ways of God, you must not leave him one leisure evening unprovided for. Reading is not likely to be con¬genial to him even if he had anywhere to go where such reading as he now takes pleasure in could be done in peace. To open any good book at home is to raise a hullabaloo of ridicule if not of blasphemy which, no matter how valiantly withstood, must render profitable reading impossible. You cannot, must not hope to lead poor people to heaven unless you lead them daily.

More than that! The man who is daily fought against must daily fight if he would win, and it makes it unspeak¬ably easier to fight all the working hours alone amongst the immense majority who oppose, if he can at least fight a few hours every evening in line with his comrades.

"You were at that ranting-shop last night, then," said his mate to a man the other day. "Yes, and I'm going again to-night," was the overwhelming rejoinder, "and I mean to keep on going every day as long as I live, for God blesses me there."

How much harder it would have been for that man if days intervened between every attendance at the open-air or indoor service, and if thus each fresh visit became like a separate effort with the prospect of new obloquy and difficulty each time!

But once it is a settled matter that he is coming every day to help to oppose sin and get other people converted, the public-house, the club, the social gathering, the worldly entertainment have lost their chance of catching him. He has no time for such trifles. They are gone - left behind. He is "doing a great work and cannot come down."

Are we up for this? Are we ready to be at the Army every night? Are we ready to spend ourselves in hunting out new converts and chasing them down?

Sometimes we talk about revival as if it were some romantic notion – this is probably because we have never experienced it. Revival when it happens (and it will happen in our lifetime) will involve fierce and constant fighting, it will be tiring, costly – not for the faint hearted or lazy but above else immensely satisfying!

Bring it on!