The Cost of Revival

We are in part two of the Evangelism Awakening Revival Institutes, and if you're turning your handouts to session four, The Cost of Revival. In volume two of my biography of George Whitefield, I have a chapter entitled, The Scarred Lion, where I refer to the great British Evangelist as a lion who could still roar, but who had been wounded from many battles. Describing Whitefield in the year 1762, I write, They now saw a man standing before them, who was no longer the handsome, slight youth of grace and energy, but a man like a soldier, who now bore on his chest the colored medallions of conflicts and wars.

He'd become a public figure, hailed and vilified on both continents. There was hardly a man alive in the 18th century, in Great Britain or America, that had not heard the name George Whitefield. Well, when I was researching and writing my volumes on Whitefield's remarkable ministry, I soon learned the cost he paid.

At Moorfields, outside of London, he was severely persecuted as he preached in the open air. Rocks and clods of dirt were thrown at him, as well as pieces of dead cats, and the little children that sat near his feet when he preached often were pelted with rotten eggs that were meant for Whitefield. He was mobbed in Ireland and dragged through a crowd.

In one incident, he was severely injured in the head by Lord Stone, which hit him near his temple, while in an inn near the coast of England, a man burst in his room and cruelly beat him with a cane. George Whitefield was constantly under attack for preaching Christ in the gospel, and like anything in life, what counts costs, and what costs counts. There is a cost in revival.

The personal sacrifices involved in the lives of men of revival are evident when you study them. In fact, there is a common denominator that runs through the lives and men and women used mightily of God, and that common link is suffering. I was having lunch with Stephen Alford one day, and he shared a story with me about how he was invited by a fellow pastor to go hear a new young preacher, who was making some noise within the denomination.

So Dr. Alford rode in a car with this pastor out of town to go hear this young preacher. On the drive home, the pastor asked Stephen Alford what he had thought of the young man's preaching. Dr. Alford waited before he replied, and finally said, Very fine, but he hasn't suffered enough yet.

When I first heard him tell that story, it made little impression on me, because I myself had not suffered enough yet, but now that I am an old man looking back on that time, I can fully relate to it from a life of deep suffering. There is a passage in the book of Isaiah, in chapter 28, which speaks of the farmer and the bread corn. Here the prophet Isaiah uses agriculture as allegory, as he tells of a plowman who scatters his seed in his field, how the farmer refrains from threshing certain seeds, but when it comes to the wheat and barley, it is different.

In verse 27, he states, For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cooman, but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cooman with a rod. But when the prophet Isaiah comes to verse 28, he declares, Bread corn is bruised. This means that if you intend to be used of God in a deep way, then be prepared for some very drastic handling by God.

You will be pressed under the cartwheel. You will be turned up and over and laid bare, because greater suffering means greater usefulness. I was with Adrian Rogers one night, and I asked him what the time was when he felt God's hand was upon his life and ministry.

And he got real serious, and he looked at me painfully in the eye and said, It was right after my little baby boy died. That experience made me seek God in a deeper way, and not long after that, God began to bless my preaching. George Whitefield's only son John died.

Rolf Barnard, who was used of God in many remarkable revivals, suffered the loss of his little four-year-old baby girl. The writer and missionary F.J. Hegel suffered through the death of his four-year-old daughter, who was poisoned by the people Hegel was trying to reach with the gospel. John Song, whom God used to shake China in great revival, lost his little son to death, and John Song endured a life of suffering from inoperable piles.

His daughter Levi writes of him, he would kneel and pray every night, even after a long and grueling day. During his period of convalescence at Fragrant Hills, he would pray on his knees for hours, after Bible study sessions with fellow workers, five hours at a stretch, or not too long for him. He also prayed with his wife every morning after she had changed his dressings.

In the evenings, he led his family in prayer and Bible study. He would kneel on one knee when he found his wounds were too painful to do so on both. We can see from her words that John Song was a great sufferer, but what struck me even more about him when I studied his life was the sacrifice he paid to serve God.

His daughter writes about him, John was away from home for 11 months each year to save souls. He was preaching somewhere. Every time his wife gave birth, he endured hunger and travailed along the way.

At the same time, he faced threats of being evicted and arrested for rebuke and sins. When we study Revival France, we find that many behind the scenes of lives of usefulness were lives of suffering. Bread corn must be bruised.

I am reminded of Stephen Olfert's comments on how God prepares his human instruments. He wrote, I long for men like Jonah, who will emerge from the deep waters of purging and preparation to stride across our cities until it can be said that people believed God proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. One man truly revived, crying out in God's name for repentance can bring a Nineveh to its knees.

And that's true, friends. We will have a written assignment for our next session. I want you to prepare a revival sermon that does something special.

I want you to prepare a revival message that exalts God and exposes sin. And I want all the elements we have learned so far in regard to preaching revival sermons to be present. This exercise will help you immensely and you will preach your sermon for review.

Well, let us now prepare our sermon. This concludes our session today. Our next session will feature our revival message.