THE 'REVIVAL' OF 1860

THE ‘REVIVAL’ OF 1860

I feel every day more and more that if I do not comprehend the mystery of Christ I do not comprehend the church, and if I do not comprehend the church I do not comprehend what is nearest to the heart of Christ; and to this I may add that the feebler I find myself in nature the greater resource have I in the perfectness of Christ; and, in the answer to the travail of His soul, which my own perfectness as a member of His body the church is, through the Holy Ghost according to the purpose of the Father. I hear daily of conversions, but I have my fears lest souls should be taken up with the display of the power of God, as seen in the revival, so-called, more than with nearness to Him. In every age gift regarded apart from God was a snare to the saints, but at the same time it tested and marked off those who were in their affections clinging to the Lord. The faith of M———— of B———— has been a hindrance to saints, because they were more attracted by the gift than they were by the Lord. I ask you — when your soul is happy in the Lord, whether you would prefer the demonstration of His power and miracles to a silent converse with His love? I think if you had known much of the latter you would, after the exhilaration of the former, feel that you more than ever required to reassure your soul of the placid consolation of the latter. We ought to rejoice in the demonstration of the power of God and its effects, but never to allow it to divert us from our known place of nearness to Him, and our secret dependence on that which is invisible. We ought to be no stranger to any of God’s works. I believe that God is doing a special work now in the conversion of souls, but does it distract me from my place with Christ, or qualify any truth that I have essentially learned from Him? Not one whit! It rather binds me the closer to Him and makes me long the more to be for Him here. I fear that there is an effort abroad to anticipate the work of God in souls, an effort which, if persisted in, will result in much damage to them. I fear that actors in many of the revival prayer ^[p. 237] meetings and preachings are so intent on making an impression that in many cases there may be mere intellectual conviction in the converts, which I need not say is very detrimental to souls. Let us, dear brother, stand in the truth of membership to Christ our Head, and follow His unerring affections towards every soul wrought on by Him, seeking to help each as His love bids and enables us. I can feel no higher or more grateful interest in any soul, than the sense that he is a member of Christ’s body, and loved by Him, and the more I serve such an one the more I respond to that love.

In my course of reading I began Nehemiah this morning, and it interested me much to see a man like Nehemiah, a servant to a Gentile, being so set for God’s object on the earth. There is more interest in this day in the conversion of souls than with God’s purpose respecting them. Nehemiah, if he were like many devoted servants in this day, would have set himself to find out every Israelite; but no! his heart was set on Jerusalem, where every true Israelite had his place, and so should our hearts be set on the church — the body of Christ.