REVIVAL
E.C.Burr
We have been speaking together about the question of formation and I venture to remark that the frequency with which this subject comes before us suggests that the Lord has something to say to us about it. We cannot just rest in what we have read and what we have learned and in the teaching that we have had. What we need is to get ourselves up to formation under the hand of Christ and of the Spirit, so that there is here in testimony what the Father Himself may have pleasure in.
I know I have said before, although I cannot remember where I got the remark from, that unless Christ is reproduced on the earth at the present time, the Father is worse off as far as the earth is concerned by having Christ in heaven. The great thing, beloved, is that we should be formed together before Him, and I have the impression that the Spirit will keep on at that subject. We have grown up together – most of us here have grown up in fellowship together, most of us here have known one another for a long time – but unless Christ is being formed in you, in the end things will decay and die out. The testimony which the Lord revived in the last century will not be maintained by knowledge; it will be maintained by life. Unless there is ministry which ministers to life and the maintenance of life, and for that matter to the maintenance of truth according to life, things will perish. A lot of us who are getting older do not want to see things perish. We want the assurance that as long as the Father’s time continues, as long as the Lord leaves us here, leaves believers here, a testimony in life to the reality of Christ should be maintained. I underline that because there is so much that occurs, so much that happens, so much shortcoming, that one feels that unless there is committal to life according to Christ things will decay, and where there was once a bright and powerful and living testimony there will be only sorrow remaining.
I do not know whether one is allowed to quote the secular poet, but I have often thought of those lines that say:
‘… to see the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop and mend again with worn-out tools’.
But, beloved, the tools are not yet worn out. The Spirit is still here, the Scriptures are still here, and there is still power according to the working of God to bring about and to maintain what is of God here. For this reason, I have read these verses in this chapter and I would like to use them, and perhaps other parts of this prophesy as well, to reinforce the thought of revival.
I just make one or two remarks about this book. Hosea was an interesting man. I think he prophesied for longer than anyone else in the Old Testament. He prophesied under four kings of Judah and one king of Israel. If you look up the table in the beginning of the Bible you will find that he prophesied over about fifty years. He just went on; the kings changed, one succeeded another, and Hosea went on. The background to this prophecy is the background of today. If you look at another chapter in this book you will find what you found in this morning’s newspaper. You will find Hosea’s description of the circumstances in which he lived. He says: “swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery” (ch 4: 2). Have you read the morning paper? That is today! Swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery is the day in which we live. That is the day in which Hosea prophesied, the day in which he wrote the things that he wrote. And he does not in any way disguise the actual condition of the things around him. You will find in his prophecy as you read through it (there are only fourteen chapters) that he is bringing before you the state of things in which he prophesied.
However, there is another side of Hosea, a very blessed side; into it all, he weaves the blessings of God. He does not just talk about the stealing and lying and committing adultery, and all that kind of thing. Into his bringing out the actual, present, moral condition, he weaves “sons of the living God” (ch 1: 10), and singing in “the door of hope” (ch 2:15). He weaves in the scripture that I have just read that “in that day, I will hear, saith Jehovah, I will hear the heavens and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the new wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jizreel”.
There is a word for us in that; do not focus entirely on failure. If you have to speak about failure, weave into it the purpose of God, and the blessings of God, and what God is going to bring out, and what God is going to bring through, and what God will have in another day. Yet God is anticipating that what he will have in another day, He will have now. He will have it.
We may speak about sonship and Paul quotes this very scripture in Romans, “And it shall be in the place it was said to them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called sons of the living God”, Rom 9: 26. We talk about the sons of the living God in privilege; let us have sons of the living God in the eighth of Romans: “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God”, Rom 8: 14.
The history of the prophet is almost, you could say, Israel’s history. Hosea was first of all told to take a wife who was an adulteress and then, as if that were not enough, he was told to take another one who was an adulteress. That takes you right into the eighth of John. The beginning of John 8 is Hosea’s prophecy. They brought before Jesus this woman taken in adultery and they said, “in the law Moses has commanded us to stone such” (v 5). Beloved, let us beware of reaching for the stones. What they were saying is ‘Lo-ruhamah’ – ‘not having obtained mercy’. These, not having obtained mercy, brought her to Jesus and He said, “Neither do I condemn thee” (v 11). You see there ‘Ruhamah’ – ‘having obtained mercy’. That is Hosea in the eighth of John. Let us remember that if you bring to the Lord Jesus someone taken in sin, you may find that He says, “Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more”. The woman disappears but you will not disappear; you will still be there but you will be rejoicing in the mercy that He has shown you.
The brethren will remember, because nearly everyone who is here was at Glasgow last year, that our beloved brother brought this scripture before us on the Lord’s Day as to the bond between the heaven and the earth. It has been said that God began with heaven and earth together and He never intends to give that up. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and at the end John says that he saw a new heaven and a new earth. God is not going to have them separated. What our beloved brother brought before us last year should remain with us. It is very difficult to remember everything you hear in a meeting but something of the atmosphere should cling to you. Like John 12, you went into the house and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. If you had called then, you went away with the odour of the ointment on you. So, you come to the meeting and you may not remember all that was said but you get some fresh impression that God is not going to have the heaven and the earth separated.
There is not much ministry on this chapter but I did find one other commentary on it. According to one interpreter, the earth is crying out to heaven and heaven is crying out to God because of the state of things. Well might that be at the present time, that the earth will cry out to God. The corn and the new wine and the oil are crying out; the earth is crying out to heaven and heaven is crying out to God. That is Romans 8, “the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now” (v 22). You read in the prophet that a day is coming when all that will be turned round and “the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands”, Isa 55: 12. Then again in the Psalm, “The meadows are clothed with flocks, and the valleys are covered with corn; they shout for joy, yea they sing”, Ps 65: 13. So that if there is a negative aspect to the scripture, there is a day coming when it is going to be reversed. Beloved, if you must dwell on the negative aspect of the present order of things, bear in mind that the brethren would like a glimpse of the day that is coming:
The crowning day is coming,
Is coming by and by.
These things should remain in the soul, that there is always, and will always be, a positive aspect to Christianity.
What I want to speak about especially is the corn and the new wine and the oil. These three things run right through the Bible. There is instruction there. The corn and the new wine are in Genesis and the corn and the new wine are in Revelation. What did Isaac bless Jacob with (see Gen 27: 28)? Corn and new wine. Then when Esau came later, Isaac says I have given it all to him, for I have given him the corn and I have given him the new wine. Again, when the man of God is looking at the prospects of Israel, he says, “The fountain of Jacob, in a land of corn and new wine”, Deut 33 :28. That is John 4 – the Fountain of Israel is there. There was corn and new wine in John 4.
There was a Man there who had food to eat that they knew not of. How blessed that was. Somebody got the blessing because the Fountain of Israel was there in a land of corn and new wine.
You find as you read the Scriptures that every scripture is in with another scripture, and the overwhelming power of it is something that brings to you convictingly that the Scriptures are the Word of God. God has one theme through it all and that was that from this earth, which He had created, He was going to have something that would not only satisfy Him but that would satisfy man.
Now the earth – the earth! – will be filled with corn and new wine and oil. Think of that in Jeremiah, “O earth, earth, earth hear the word of Jehovah”, (ch 22: 29). Think of God feeling with the earth. Think of the earth! Hosea does not appeal to the earth to hear but he says the earth will hear. That bears on the nature of your testimony in the world. What does the world hear from you? You go about, you go to work, but what does the earth hear from you? Does it just find someone like itself or does it find somebody different, somebody even whose conduct has something to say to the world? Can you say that?
I know I have spoken of it before, and I attracted some sympathy from a mother when I said that the young people now-a-days are very severely subjected to peer pressure. She said that was just it. If you ask these brethren in the back rows what is life like, they will say: ‘Well, you cannot do this because of the people you work with, and you come under pressure to do this and to do that’, and nearly all that pressure is in the direction of corruption. Beloved, if you do not pray for the young brethren, start now. Pray for those young believers who are with us today. Pray for them that the Lord will keep them and bring them through for Himself. We do not want anybody lost: we do not. We want everybody here retained for Christ and held in the power of what is here.
What is your testimony like? We hear of people going away, and they say: ‘We are going away because you are not evangelical enough’. What they are really trying to say is that you have of private little testimony and you enjoy things in your little company, but what about other people? I know one brother who said to someone who said that: ‘Have you spoken to the people next door about the Lord?’ You say, ‘We ought to be more evangelical’, but have you spoken to the people next door? Well, I have lived next door to the same people for over 30 years and they have changed, but you wish you had said more to them about the Lord.
One thing we do hope is that your conduct is some indication that you live on principles other than what marks the world around you. That is why I refer to the need of testimony in the present day. I add this, that there are two immediate areas of testimony which we usually neglect. One is the testimony I am in my own house to my wife and family. My children have gone and I have grandchildren, but what testimony am I, what testimony are you, beloved brother, beloved sister, in your own house? What testimony are you? Just some legal old parent? Do they say: ‘He always said we had to do this, that or the other and he was always telling us this, that and the other‘? Is your testimony one like God’s who took Israel by the hand and led them out of Egypt? You speak to your children about the world, but have you taken them by the hand and led them out, because that is the nature of your testimony in the household and you are conducting them according to the ways of God?
The other area is our testimony to one another in the meeting. We forget, I forget, that everything I say and am during the meeting is a testimony to the rest of the brethren as to what Christian life means to me. We can talk about doctrine. I have read the Scriptures for over 60 years – I probably know a little bit and you probably know a little bit and if you cannot quote it off-hand you can tell me what book it is in. But, beloved, what testimony are you? Do they see Him, or do they see someone who knows everything by the book and by heart but little by divine inspiration? What we need is life.
Now, I refer to the latter part of what I have read, that is the earth will hear the corn and the new wine and the oil. I would be very glad if even as some small result of what I say this evening, the earth will hear the corn and the new wine and the oil.
We start with the corn. The corn and the new wine and the oil go right through the Bible. The corn comes in in Genesis as everybody knows. (The Bible is better known than some of us give credit for.) The corn is what Jacob felt the need of. They were all hungry but there was corn in Egypt and he sent down to get it. We all know that history that relates the distinctive place that Joseph was to have amongst his brethren, that his brethren would come and bow down unto him; in the end, they would, but they come on account of the corn. The Scriptures go on with the corn – I think it is probable that corn takes up nearly a full column in the concordance – but where is the corn that matters? The corn that matters is in thoughts of God. Unless the grain of what fall into the ground and die it abides alone. Unless it fall into the ground … Some of the brethren here will no doubt have seen the poem which was written by a lady for the millennium. She says:
Grain which fell to earth and perished,
Has brought forth ten thousand fold.
Ten thousand fold! Are you in the ten thousand?
There are interesting references in John’s gospel to the death of Jesus. Of course, every reference to the death of Jesus is interesting, but what I find especially interesting in John’s gospel are the references to His death which are not sacrificial, “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again”, John 10: 17. It is going out of the door of this world into another world where the Father will have that blessed Man for His own enjoyment for ever. The corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying is not sacrificial. He went into death in order that it might bring forth much fruit. Of course, you can never think of the death of Jesus without thinking of its sacrificial aspect but there are references which do not emphasise that sacrificial aspect. The grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying is more than that it might not remain alone but that is might bring forth much fruit. Beloved, are you among them? Are you amongst that people?
One aspect of the death of Jesus is that people who are in the gain of those non-sacrificial aspects come out of the experience of that death different from the way they went in. I think we should be exercised a great deal as to whether our hearing of the preaching of the gospel, week by week, has left us in the same cold state that we were or whether it would form us into a new condition of life, which is demonstrated especially amongst those with whom we walk. The believer’s having to do with the death of Chris has to do with his eternal salvation, but what it also has to produce is somebody walking in newness of life. So that if you once had had to do with Jesus you are a different person thereafter.
Have you ever noticed a change in yourself? You look in the mirror every morning and you say: ‘Same person as he was yesterday!’ But, you have heard the gospel and there was somebody different from what there had been before – somebody in whom God had worked for His own pleasure and for eternity.
May I ask the young people – all this bank of young people at the back – have you had such an experience with Jesus as made you different afterwards? Have you? I ask you. Suppose I said Stand up all those to whom Christ has made a difference. Would I get everybody on their feet? I would love to. That is the corn of wheat going into the ground and dying in order that it might bring forth much fruit. It brings forth fruit after another order altogether: a different kind of person in the same evil world, maintained here on a new basis of life, maintained in the power and life of the Holy Spirit of God and kept in the power of that life.
Beloved, the preaching should make a difference to us. I know I have said this before and I hope people will not mind if I repeat it, but one thing that perplexes me is that we go to the preaching and, if I may use the expression, the preacher may preach his heart out. He may do that, or he may just seem feeble and totter along from one scripture to another. (As I said somewhere the other day: you do not need to apologise if you read several Scriptures for the preaching. They are all there and it is the Word of God). The preacher may even just say: ‘… and then it says’, ‘… and then it says’, ‘… and then it says’. But you have been to the preaching of the gospel, which has to do with eternal issues, and immediately the preaching is over and the brother has said Amen and sat down after his prayer, people start talking to each other. They are wondering: ‘Who is that that has come in this evening?’ or ‘Where are we going to go for tea?’ and all that kind of thing. Beloved, you have been to the preaching: you have had to do with the status of souls for eternity.
It may be someone is going on to death and you are engaged in a semblance of Christianity. Beloved, get serious! The corn of wheat fell into the ground and died and brought forth much fruit and that fruit as far as you are concerned will not be fruit of the old. It will be fruit of another order altogether and you will be different because you will have realised that you have sprung out of the death of Christ.
We come next to the new wine. What is the new wine? It is the ministry of Jesus on earth. He said that new wine has to be put into new skins. The new skins come out of the death of Christ. If we get some grasp of the Scriptures it is quite easy to transfer thought from one thing to another. The new skins come out of the corn of wheat falling in to the ground and dying: the much fruit is the new skins, and that fits with the ministry of Jesus and the new wine.
Young people have you read the Bible? Have you read the gospels right through? Can you go through Matthew from the ‘book of the generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham’ to the end where, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age?”. Can you grasp Matthew like that? Have you begun with the glad tidings of the Son of God and finished up at the end of Mark with power to be here for him? Begun in Luke with writing up a history because somebody else had remembered it and told you about it and come out in the temple, praising and blessing God? Have you begun with the Word became flesh, and, as our brother told us yesterday, ended up with broiled fish? Have you touched these things? The gospels are simple. The simplest gospel of all is John’s gospel. You can remember John. John was very considerate; he virtually confined each chapter to one subject. You will not find it in Luke, and you will not find it too much in Matthew, but you will find it in John that virtually every chapter is confined to one subject – and the ministry of Jesus is the new wine.
The new wine does not come into old skins. It comes into new skins which correspond with much fruit and they will fill, and fill, and fill with the ministry of Jesus. And lest anyone might say you have forgotten the ministry of Jesus glorified I remember that it has been said that John wrote last to show that the ministry of Paul had it’s foundation in the ministry of Jesus. And you have Paul enclosed in John, because there was more because He was glorified, and because the Spirit came, and because there was something new here in the Spirit of God.
Beloved, get filled with that new wine of the ministry of Jesus. Do not be put off with that oft-quoted remark that the gospels are strong meat. You will find them quite simple. The gospels are full of Jesus. Beloved, are you? Have you read the gospels until you are full of that new wine which is Jesus Christ here, come in flesh and available to fill you – all of you. I appeal to young people whether they have had such a touch with Christ that they find that they are entirely satisfied with Him.
Satisfied with Jesus I would be
Finding joy and satisfaction all in Thee
The many, many hymns that I know! They are not in our hymn book but many of them have something really pleasing and valuable.
Get filled with the new wine, He is ministering it still. He ministered through Paul; he ministered through Peter; he also ministered through John and James and Jude and through all these different men that are in the Bible. Sometimes He will minister to you through one of your brethren and He will give you something from them that tastes just like new wine, that you never tasted before – now for two thousand years, vintage wine, what comes to you from Christ, because He is ascended.
Peter, in the Acts, immediately denies that they were filled with new wine. They heard the disciples speaking after the Spirit came and they said, “These men are filled with new wine”. Peter says that this is not new wine; this is the Old Testament that we are on. This is not the ministry of Jesus. This is what the Spirit of God said by the prophet Joel. This is the day that Joel spoke of when ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh’. But Peter really went on almost at once to say that they could have the new wine if they wanted it. He went on to say, “He will give you the sure mercies of David”. And they taste just like new wine. Beloved, these things are worth while. The corn is easily digested; the new wine is stimulating and enlightening and then the oil.
Everyone will tell me that the oil speaks of the Spirit. The Spirit as the oil is greatly needed amongst us.
What is the difference between the Spirit as water and the Spirit as oil? The Spirit is spoken of as both. The corn, the new wine and the oil! But what is the oil? That is the Spirit of God. The water has a great deal to do with the Spirit making a present application to us of the death of Jesus and producing a response in order that we might be purified. The Spirit as oil is what makes things easy to work. I thought of this; I went out of the house door and tried to turn the key in the lock but it would not turn. I had to come back in again, took oil and oiled the lock. The oil makes things work easily. The oil did not change the lock. All the bits were there, the same as before. I did not change the key. But the oil made it easier to work. May I suggest, dear brethren, that we need the Spirit as the One who makes things easier to work. The great lubricating power of the Spirit of God. It comes in in our relations with one another, the Spirit as the One who makes things easy to work. It is easy to illustrate it from Scripture for there is one Spirit. You have the one Spirit and I have the same Spirit and so things are easier to work.
Do not let your relationship with your brethren get rusty. You may find, then, that even the oil will not make it easier to work and you have to be able to take things apart to see where the real fault is, for the proof is the oil. In our relations with one another let us use the oil. One thing it does is to prevent our making mountains out of molehills, although that may seem a mixed metaphor. Because of the Spirit of God there are easier-to-work relations; it is easier to speak to one another about Jesus, because of the oil which you have, and which all the others have. It makes it easier to work.
Beloved, we need the oil: we need the corn, the new wine and the oil. They not only work for revival; they work for easy working together amongst the brethren. They are very productive.
Think of that day spoken about in Revelation chapter 6: it says, hurt not the oil nor the wine. Hurt not the oil! A choenix of wheat for a denarius, and so on – but hurt not the oil! Please do not hurt the oil. Please keep things lubricated among us. Please keep things in easy relations. Please keep the grit out of the machinery. Please keep relationships easy to work. That is what the oil does.
Now, I want to speak about revival, and these things bear on revival. They bear on the third day of Hosea 6. There you will see that “on the third day He will raise us up”. On the third day you will find that there is corn and new wine and oil in abundance. In chapter 1, Hosea takes as wife, Gomer, and they have a son and God says, “Call his name Jizreel because I will visit the blood of Jizreel upon the house of Jehu. I will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease”. Think of that! That was awful. God says He was going to have them under His own hand.
In chapter 2, where we read, you have Jizreel and it means something else. In chapter 1, God is very searching. In chapter 2, the heavens will hear the earth, and the earth will hear the corn and the new wine and the oil, and they shall hear Jizreel. In that day, God will sow. I trust I live long enough to see it, to see God’s sowing amongst us in order that there may be another vital crop for Christ secured here.
The two names, Jizreel in chapter 1 and chapter 2 mean different things: in chapter 1, the sowing will be judgment; in chapter 2 the sowing will be blessing and there God will bring it to you. Do you not long that you might be there in that day when God sows? Pray for it! We go around, we see meetings getting smaller. You know that we are not all the believers that there are in the world. (I trust everybody realises that). When we speak about “all the saints” in Ephesians 3, it is a job to know who they all are, a job to stretch your mind out. Paul does not say for nothing to the Corinthians, “Let your heart also expand itself”. You take in all the saints. God will sow. Beloved, may it be so.
Do you want it? Do you long for it? Are you just clinging to broken pieces of the ship, looking for lifebelts? Beloved, pray for converts. If God sows there will be a crop, and it will be like that corn of wheat that went into the ground and died. It must not abide alone and it will produce fruit for God. I long to be there on that day when God is sowing, not judgment, but God sowing a crop that will enlarge a sense of His glory in the mind of every one of His people. May it be so!
Are you concerned about revival? Do you think that things might just go down that slope? The testimony is not going to go down a slope. It is going to be here, and God will sow and God will reap something that is for His increasing glory in a world which may still be marked by stealing and swearing and lying and killing and committing adultery, but in that you will find that you shine as lights in the world because of what is sown.
These thoughts have been quite simple. I commend to you the reading of the Bible. You will find in it much more than you thought was there. I ventured to read the scripture in Hosea because I was asked to give an address here and the scripture came to me. I know we had it last year, but it has not grown old in the passing year. It has not got rusty. We can look at it from another point of view.
I long to be there when the earth hears the corn and the new wine and the oil and God sows in blessing that, as it says in Malachi, you would not be able to contain. Do you not want to be there as I do? May the Lord help us.
DUNDEE
14 August 1999