Topic Archives: Revival

Jim Elliff reviews Banner’s biography of Asahel Nettleton, an evangelist whose integrity and zeal marked him out during the Second Great Awakening. The author of The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton, Bennet Tyler, was a pastor for many years in South Britain, Connecticut, where he knew Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844) intimately. He eventually became the […]

Recently I was speaking in a part of the country known for its antagonism to the gospel. Church planting in that area is very hard work. The small number of confessionally strong churches are making headway, but slowly. I admire these pastors, evangelists, and church planters more than I can say; it is a pleasure […]

We need a category for revival in all of our churches. Without it, we may miss out on the great blessing that God offers. Without it, we may spend our lives toiling for the wrong things, and we may shortchange the future generations. Revival, in the historical sense, is an in-breaking of the kingdom of […]

On May 10, 1716, Jonathan Edwards wrote a letter to one of his ten sisters, Mary. Written when he was twelve years old, it is the earliest known letters by Edwards. The very first paragraph was about wakening. That is to say, the earliest sentence that we have from Jonathan Edwards is about awakening. Edwards […]

If My people will. . . pray and seek My face. . . then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and will heal their land. , 2 Chronicles 7:14 We must humble ourselves if we are to see revival; ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ they only, ‘for theirs is the kingdom of […]

This month marks 500 years since the day which is conventionally identified as the beginning of the Reformation. On 31 October 1517, Martin Luther, a monk and theological professor in Wittenberg University, nailed to the church door a set of 95 theses, statements intended for debate. They were provoked by the unscrupulous sale of indulgences […]

Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Jeremiah Lanphier was born in upstate New York in 1809 and moved to the city of New York as a young man where he engaged in the mercantile industry. In 1845 he was converted as he heard the preaching of the gospel at the Broadway Tabernacle, a church built […]

I suppose if we had asked around our churches regarding what we would most like to see in 2015 one prominent answer would be a national revival of true religion. Of course, many definitions could be given of revival, although most of them would be related to historical records, which means that there is the […]

I am the Lord—I will not give My praise to graven images—Sing to the Lord a new song—you islands, and all those who dwell on them. Isaiah 42:8-10 After King Kamehameha consolidated his power in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in the early 1800’s, he ruled with unbridled power. The Kapu religious system demanded human sacrifice […]

Let no one look down on your youthfulness. 1 Timothy 4:12a Jesus was thirty when he began his public ministry (Luke 3:23), and Peter must have been close to Jesus’ age when he began to follow him. Some say Saul of Tarsus was in his twenties when he was converted on the road to Damascus. […]

Then Ezra blessed the Lord the great God. And all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen!’ while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Nehemiah 8:6 God had promised through Jeremiah a return from the exile after seventy years (Jer. 25:11-12, 29:10) and indeed God […]

‘How did we get here?’ is a question that is always relevant and often illuminating. Yet contemporary evangelicals don’t ask it as often as they should. In his book Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858,1 Iain Murray tells a story that helps explain how evangelicals – Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and […]

Renew our days as of old. (Lamentations 5:21) John Girardeau, the Old School Presbyterian1 minister from Charleston, SC, in 1851 turned down the opportunity to pastor a large Presbyterian church in order to begin a church with African slaves, out of Second Presbyterian Church, Charleston. Girardeau’s methodology was to hold a weekly prayer meeting, to […]

Do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5) . . . speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) . . . through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13). The year 1735 was a remarkable one in the western world.1 In January, while her husband Jonathan was off preaching in other places, the Spirit of […]

It is generally agreed that the two most prominent leaders of the 18th century revival in Wales were Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland.1 They had much in common. They were about the same age; the Lord called them both from darkness to light in the same year (1735); they had a common friend in the […]

But I have this against you, that you have left your first love (Revelation 2:4). By 1630 Scotland was in need of another revival, a time of visitation by God when a whole community is soaked with his presence. Such had occurred five years earlier in the town of Stewarton under the ministry of David […]

THE URGENT NEED FOR REVIVAL TODAY ‘Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a mute spirit. And wherever he seizes him, he throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples, that they should cast […]

Let the rich man glory in his humiliation (James 1:10). My reading on revivals over many years has led me to observe at least two characteristics which all of them hold in common. This is true of the revivals or awakenings we find in the book of Acts.1 It is also true of the mighty […]

Summary of a 10-minute address at the Banner of Truth Leicester Ministers’ Conference, 2009. One hundred and fifty years ago the Irish province of Ulster came under the powerful influences of the Spirit of God. The spiritual life of churches was revived and their witness to the gospel strengthened. The unconverted were deeply affected by […]

In the spring of 1856 an English lady by the name of Mrs Colville came to Ballymena from Gateshead because she had ‘time and money to spend for God’. She began a programme of house to house visitation with a view to winning souls for Christ. In November she returned to England in low spirits […]

To talk about revival is to talk superlatives, for revival is Christianity taken to a heightened intensity. God never does more for his church than when he revitalises her with the breath of heaven. In the midst of the years he ‘makes known’ (Habakkuk 3:2). We then experience more of his grace and power than […]

This article is Chapter 2 of the author’s Pentecost – Today?: The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival. ‘For a long time it was supposed by the Church that a revival was a miracle, an interposition of Divine power. It is only within a few years that ministers generally have supposed revivals were to be promoted […]

Henry Ford famously, and fatuously, stated “History is bunk.” Far from being “bunk” however history is the unfolding of God’s redemptive purposes, it bears the imprint of his grace and judgements, and is intended, at least in measure, to awaken us to eternal realities. This conviction confronts us every time we open God’s Word. Again […]