A MIGHTY REVIVAL NEEDED-ANDREW MURRAY (1828-1917)

(Andrew Murray was a man greatly used of God in South Africa. He preached there for many years. One of his great burdens was for revival, and he did see one stirred. We find many good things in his work and messages. I decided to share this short excerpt with you).

"Yes, all will answer, nothing less than a mighty revival is needed to rouse and fit the Church for the work to which God calls her. And yet there may be a great difference in what we understand by revival. Many will think of the power of God as it has been manifested in the work of evangelists like Moody and Torrey, and they feel sure that what God has done in the past He can do again. They will perhaps hardly be able to understand us when we say that we need a different and a mightier revival than those were. In them the chief object was the conversion of sinners and, in connection with that, incidentally, the quickening of believers. But the revival that we need calls for a deeper and more entire upheaval of the Church. The great defect of those revivals was that the converts were received into a Church that was not living on a high level of consecration and holiness, and speedily they sank down to the average standard of ordinary religious life. Even the believers who had taken part in the work and had been roused by it, also gradually returned to their former life of clouded fellowship and lack of power to testify for Christ.

The revival we need is the revival of holiness, in which the consecration of the whole being to the service of Christ, and that for the whole life shall be counted possible. And for this there will be needed a new style of preaching, in which the promises of God to dwell in His people, and to sanctify them for Himself, will take a place which they do not now have."

From chapter 12 of “The State of the Church”

BETTER TO BE SICK

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (1600-1661)

Sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to thy bed-side, and draw aside the curtains and say, “Courage, I am thy salvation.” That to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited by God. Worthy and dear lady, in the strength of Christ, fight and overcome. You are now alone, but you may have, for the seeking, three always in your company, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I trust they are near you. 

You are now deprived of the comfort of a lively ministry; so were Israel in their captivity; yet hear God’s promise to them: Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God, although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries where they shall come,”[Ezek 11.16]. Behold a sanctuary! For a sanctuary, God himself, in the place and room of the temple of Jerusalem: I trust in God, that carrying this temple about with you, you shall see Jehovah’s beauty in his house

CARING FOR GOD'S WORD-RICHARD SIBBES

Those that care not for the Word of God reject their comfort; all comfort must be drawn out of the Scriptures, which are the breasts of consolation; many are bred up by education to know the truth and are able to discourse of it, but they lack the Spirit of truth, arid that is the reason why all their knowledge vanishes away in time of trial and temptation.