Husbanding the Results of the Perennial Revival
In a former chapter we spoke of the second chapter of Acts as a rich pocket in the great mine of God’s truth, and suggested the HkeHhood of returning to it for illustration again and again in the progress of these pages. Is it not true that verses forty-one to forty-seven of this great chapter are replete with suggestions regarding this subject? Here is the report of a mighty revival, the results of which are so well husbanded that the accessions to the church receive ideal care and illustrate ideal conditions. It has long been the custom of men to regard this old First Church at Jerusalem as a sample, in all respects, of what a church of Christ, wherever found, should be. That the custom is well warranted seems proved by the circumstance that the modern church, partaking of the spirit and adopting the plans which characterized the organization at Jerusalem, has commonly been successful beyond her sisters.
Turning, then, to this text, we hear it said of the new converts: “They, then, that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need. And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.”
Accepting this inspired report as a sample for our behavior toward the results of a revival, some obligations are clearly set forth.
The Duty of Indoctrination
“And they continued stedf astly in the apostles’ teaching.” Every new member of a church needs to be indoctrinated. The apostles’ teaching here was in perfect accord with the word; in fact, it was nothing other than instruction in the word. One cannot read the preceding verses, which give the brief of Peter’s sermon, without discovering how they dealt with the great doctrines of the word.
Doctrine determines character. The religious teaching one receives determines not only his opinion, but his personality. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” By experience and observation we see that statement of the Scripture constantly verified. It is true that “out of the heart are the issues of life “; but it is equally true that the head largely controls the heart, and unless one with the head rightly apprehends the fundamental doctrines of the Scripture his heart is not to- be depended upon; and his character will constantly evince corresponding defects. The somewhat popular opinion, now often and eloquently expressed, to the effect that it makes little difference what one believes if only he is sincere, is not only without the warrant of Scripture, but opposed alike by all observation and experience. The word of God contains more than a trend of thought; it is possible for those who are unprejudiced and obedient students to find in its great sentences “common ground of agreement on definite points,” and so formulate their doctrines and systematize their theology.
By systematizing theology we do not necessarily mean the skeleton that is used in theological seminaries. It was that sort of systematized theology against which Mr. Beecher delighted to hurl his philippics. On one occasion he said: “The doctrines which the schools teach are no more like those of the Bible than the carved beams of Solomon’s temple were like God’s cedar trees on Mount Lebanon. But men cut and hew till they have shaped their own fancies out of God’s timber, and then they get upon them like judgment-day thrones, and call all the world to answer at their feet for heresies against their idols.”
But the doctrines to which dry theologians have given statements are one thing, while the great truths embodied in texts of Scripture are another thing; and it is this latter thing that humble students of the word transmute into temperament and personality. Prof. James Orr, in his volume, “The Christian View of God and the World,” says: “If there is a religion in the world which exalts the office of teaching, it is safe to say that it is the religion of Jesus Christ. It has been frequently remarked that in pagan religions the doctrinal element is at a minimum — the chief thing there is the performance of a ritual. But this is precisely where Christianity distinguishes itself from other positive teaching; it claims to be the truth; it bases religion on knowledge which is only attainable under moral conditions. I do not see how any one can deal fairly with the facts as they lie before us in the Gospels and Epistles without coming to the conclusion that the New Testament is full of doctrine... The gospel is no mere proclamation of ’ eternal truths,’ but the discovery of a saving purpose of God for mankind. executed in time. But the doctrines are the interpretation of the facts. The facts do not stand blank and dumb before us, but have a voice given to them, and a meaning put into them. They are accompanied by living speech, which makes their meaning clear. When John declares that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh and is the Son of God, he is stating a fact, but he is none the less enunciating a doctrine. When Paul affirms, ‘Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,’ he is proclaiming a fact, but he is at the same time giving an interpretation of it.” It makes all the difference between the Spirit-guided and the self -governed man whether one’s course in life is determined by the dogmas of Scripture or not.
Sound doctrine therefore is all-essential. Paul wrote to his children in the faith — the Ephesians — calling upon them to come with him to a more perfect stature in Christ Jesus, and assigned his reason, “That ye may be no longer children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” To the Hebrews he said, “Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings (or doctrines), for it is good that the heart be stablished by grace.” The history that professed Christians are making steadily illustrates the need of that appeal.
Years since, in England, the great Spurgeon, who had stood nearly alone in his defense of the full inspiration of the old Book, speaking to the subject, “A Spiritual Revival the Want of the Church,” said: “The presence of sound doctrine, has, to a great degree, ceased... We have a new theology. New theology! Why, it is anything but a ^A^ology! What we have now is an ology which has cast God off utterly and entirely, and enthroned man, as it is the doctrine of man, and not the doctrine of the everlasting God.” There were plenty of people who thought Spurgeon a croaker and supposed his words had little or no occasion. But the annual reports of English evangelical denominations are bringing the churches of that land to realize more and more the secret of the great preacher’s success, and at the same time they begin to understand the mystery of failure in many churches. It may be easier to compromise with every peer who puts forth a philosophy of religion; but, be it remembered, when one trades the truth of God for a temporary truce he pauperizes himself and does the cause of Christ an irreparable wrong. Ernest Gordon, speaking of his father, the noble pastor of Clarendon Street, said: “His obedience to God was as unquestioning as that of the legionaries to Caesar, Much as he disliked controversy, the imminent probability of trouble never tempted him to curtail or to conceal the least essential of his convictions. [ Better the church militant,’ he said, ’ battling for the truth than the church complaisant surrendering truth for the sake of peace. The Prince of Peace is a Man of war. Let us be less afraid of condemnation for the truth than of communion with error.’” Where the Scriptures speak, let not the Christian be silent! God forbid that any preacher should do other than teach the truth which God has proclaimed! Paul wrote to Timothy, “All scripture is given by inspiration, and is profitable for doctrine,” and the early preachers illustrated that profit. It cannot be reckoned a mere coincidence that those men who were so fruitful in good works were the most faithful to every letter of the divine word.
Eusebius, in his “Church History,” quotes Irenseus as having said: “I can recall the very place where Polycarp used to sit and teach, his manner of speech, his mode of life, his appearance, the style of his address, his frequent references to Saint John and to others who had seen our Lord; how he used to repeat from memory the discourses which he had heard from them concerning our Lord, his miracles and his mode of teaching; and how, being instructed himself by those who were eye-witnesses of the Light of the World, there was in all that he said a strict agreement with the Scriptures.” Do we wonder that Polycarp was a power? Are we surprised that he should be among the church Fathers whose writings are reckoned most sacred and Christian, and whose converts were a multitude? The man of whose teaching it can be said, “There is a strict agreement with the Scriptures,” is God’s prophet indeed. The promise of success will be fulfilled to him, for “he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him godspeed; for he that biddeth him godspeed is partaker of his evil ways.” Our churches have no more solemn duty to-day toward their children, new-born, or better-grown, than to instruct them in the greater truths of Scripture. Some of us have found it well worth while to set apart twenty evenings in the winter months for this solitary purpose. When men know the truth, “the truth will make them free.”
The Furnishing of Fellowship
Returning again to our remarkable mine we find the sacred record saying that they continued not alone in the apostles’ doctrine, but “in fellowship.” The word “fellowship” there ought to imply every phase of friendship that is pure and needful to the new life in Christ.
The church should furnish her nezv converts with social fellowship. They have come tO’ her from the fellowship of the world, from the affection and friendship of the unregenerate. In that fellowship they have found something of pleasure. It is in vain to Insist that men find no gratification in the fellowship of the flesh. There is enjoyment there. One of Satan’s strongest temptations is at this point. To part with the companions of evil is often the hardest requirement for those who are convicted of their need of Christ. This sacrifice is made the more difficult by Satan’s suggestion that the church will furnish nothing as a compensation for their surrender of the world’s fellowship. Would that “the accuser of the brethren” had less occasion to make this suggestion. Christian people ought to give such royal welcome to every convert from the world as to make that temptation longer impossible. For every hand let go when one turns his back upon the old life, there ought to be a score outstretched in friendly grasp. For every place of affection resigned in parting from fleshly associates there ought to be sainted hearts offering unstinted love. It is a blessed thing when a young man, or woman, who has been popular with the world’s set and for Christ’s sake turns from it, can testify to having found larger and truer friendship in the church. There is no time in human experience when the heart hungers for fellowship as in that season which immediately follows conversion. There is no time when one’s whole being is so sensitive to the touch of a friendly hand as when first he confesses Jesus Christ, and there is no time when one is so sensitive to careless and indifferent treatment as then. To our dying day we shall carry fresh in memory the man or the woman who gave us a warm welcome into the fellowship of Christ. No wonder James Montgomery wrote:
People of the living God,
I have sought the world around,
Paths of sin and sorrow trod,
Peace and comfort nowhere found.
Now to you my spirit turns — Turns, a fugitive unblest;
Brethren, where your altar burns.
Oh, receive me into rest.
Lonely I no longer roam,
Like the cloud, the wind, the wave;
Where you dwell shall be my home.
Where you die shall be my grave.
Mine the God whom you adore;
Your Redeemer shall be mine;
Earth can fill my soul no more;
Every idol I resign.
And for every idol given up God’s people ought to furnish a friend.
There is a power for social fellowship which our churches have but poorly improved, and that is the Christian home. We speak now of the house in which we dwell. There can be little question that the better homes of the city are, as a rule, occupied by Christian men and women. Why should not these gifts from our Lord be oftener employed for his cause and the social pleasures of his people? If the most attractive of these homes were opened to church life as the homes of the worldly are constantly open to social gaieties, Satan would not so easily retain his hold upon the people. They would find that for which the young heart yearns, namely, the highest and most attractive social life; and our Saviour would have at his command another and one of the most efifective forces of modern civilization.
A sainted pastor said touching the Scripture, “He hath visited and redeemed his people,” “Four times in the Gospels is our Lord’s advent to earth spoken of as a visit, but it was a visit which never for a moment looked toward his abiding. At his birth he was laid in a borrowed manger; at his burial he was laid in a borrowed tomb, and between the cradle and the grave was a sojourn in which the Son of man had not place to lay his head. The mountaintop, whither he constantly withdrew to commune with his Father, was the nearest to his home, and hence there is a strange, pathetic meaning in that saying: ‘And every one went to his own house — Jesus went into the Mount of Olives.’” Beloved, that was when the world knew him not; that was when the church was poor, and, like its Master, scarce had where to lay its head. To-day we are rich and increased with goods. The palaces of the earth are in our possession. Shall we shut him out of them, or shall we open wide the doors and, calling in his friends, expect him to come and find in the host and hostess faithful followers and friends, who shall say: “Blessed Master, here is our home? It is thine also! Use it to thy glory! Employ it for the improvement of thy people and for the progress of thy church.” The house on the hill of Bethany was a sample after which the homes of the saints should be patterned, that through them Christ might the more speedily conquer, and in them his followers find the sweetest of all social fellowship.
There is no fellowship comparable to fellowship in Christ. John Lord, in his essay on “ Paula,” speaking of the friendship existing between her and Jerome, says: “ A mere worldly life could not have produced such a friendship, for it would have been ostentatious, or prodigal, or vain; allied with sumptuous banquets, with intellectual tournaments, with selfish aims, with foolish presents, with emotions that degenerated into passions. Ennui, disappointment, burdensome obligation, ultimate disgust are the result of what is based on the finite and the worldly... How unsatisfactory and mournful the friendship between Voltaire and Frederick the Great, with all their brilliant qualities and mutual flatteries! How unmeaning would have been a friendship between Chesterfield and Doctor Johnson, even had the latter stooped to all the arts of sycophancy.”
But how different the fellowship of those who are one in the faith that is in Christ; who are moved by kindred purposes, inspired by the same great Spirit, praying for the same noble ends, pressing forward for the same unspeakable prize! Of the early Christians it was said, “ Behold, how they love one another “; and to the presentday Christians the same expression applies. People who are one in faith know the sweetest fellowship on the earth. There is no dearer delight than the communion of real saints. The richest hours of life are those spent in the company of such Christians as excite you to no suspicion, but call you to perfect confidence; whose motives you know to conceal no evil thing, whose spirit you believe to be unselfish, whose secret life you are perfectly convinced is clean, and whose steps and thoughts are ordered of the Lord. Anna Barbauld was thinking of this very thing when she wrote:
How blest the sacred tie that binds,
In sweet communion, kindred minds!
How swift the heavenly course they run,
Whose hearts, whose faith, whose hopes are one!
To each the soul of each how dear!
What tender love, what holy fear!
How doth the generous flame within
Refine from earth, and cleanse from sin!
Their streaming tears together flow,
For human guilt and human woe;
Their ardent prayers united rise,
Like minghng flames in sacrifice.
Nor shall the glowing flame expire,
When dimly burns frail nature’s fire;
Then shall they meet in realms above,
A heaven of joy, a heaven of love.
Into such a fellowship the new converts of a church have a right to come, and if a church fails in any measure to furnish it, it comes short, by so much, of being acceptable to its Saviour and God.
The house of God should be a center of social fellowship. Why should this beautiful building be shut for four or five days a week against its own supporters, and those also who more sadly need Christian influence and fellowship? The keeping open of the house of God every night in the week is not such an additional expense as to make the experiment impossible. Let it be understood that the holy sanctuary is not to be made a playhouse, or a cheap store, where donated ice cream and well-watered lemonade are on sale in the name of sweet charity. Such things never provide for the highest fellowship, and they truly fail to advance spiritual interest. Assemblies called together to study the word of God; suppers served, at actual expense, to be followed by a program that will be instructive to the mind and stimulating to the soul; prayermeetings with specific objects; missionary convocations that look to the support of the work at home and abroad, with an occasional evening in which the people meet solely for the purpose of conversation, acquaintance, and closer fellowship — these we have found to be the affairs that bring content to the new convert, that win many from sin to the Saviour, and that splendidly help the cause of the Son of God, as that cause is represented by the church. Let us continue stedf astly “in fellowship.”
Growth in the Essential Graces
The old First Church at Jerusalem went from the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship to” the breaking of bread and the prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need.
.. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.” (R. V.)
Those early believers emphasized the spiritual culture of the individual. The administration of the Lord’s Supper and the exercise of prayer are divinely appointed means to that end. We can do no better for the new convert than to keep before him the great truth that Christ died for him, and the great necessity of constant communion with the Saviour. These things tend to create an atmosphere in which the individual will experience spiritual progress. Charles Spurgeon, in his volume entitled “The Soul Winner,” says: “Some converts are like certain insects which are the product of an exceedingly warm day, and die when the sun goes down; or, like the salamander, they live only while the fire lasts, and expire at a low temperature.” What business has a church permitting the sun of its spiritual life to go down? What business have we, who are older in the faith, to let the fires die down? Every babe born into the home by his very coming necessitates a temperature in that house which is much beyond the normal; and every soul born into the church of God has a right to expect there a spiritual temperature in which the least and tenderest life can be maintained and increased. It is no surprise that many of the churches of this country report “no baptisms” and that others report “few baptisms,” when one remembers that God might demur at casting new-born Christians into a spiritual ice-chest. We have heard a woman pray for an increase in the spiritual temperature of her church, and announce as a reason: “For, Lord, we long to see souls born from above; but we know that thou wilt not send infants into a snow-bank.” The secret of Pentecost was in the ten days’ prayer-meeting. The spiritual state of that people was such that God could entrust to them three thousand converts. What a suggestion here for the members of churches who are praying for a perennial revival!
Here also is the suggestion of self-sacrifice. “All that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need.” God must have had a purpose in moving this first Christian church to give after such a manner. He must have intended that the churches of all countries and all ages should see in these saints samples of sacrifice for Christ’s sake. This inspired record is a call to the people of the present to “lay by in store on the first day of the week, as God has prospered them”; the rich in greater sums, the poor in smaller, yet divinely proportioned.
In the beginning of 1853 George Müller was in need of funds for his great orphanage. He went to God in prayer, and there came from one person forty thousand dollars; and immediately following it one shilling, seven pence, contributed by two factory girls. The rich and the poor joined in carrying on that mighty work of God, and by their contributions gave equal evidence of their Christianity. “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” To be a Christian at all is “to walk even as he walked.”
The best test of one’s profession of faith is the collection plate. It has been said that “the prayer-meeting is the thermometer of the church’s life.” It may be a thermometer, but the test of the church’s life is the treasurer’s report. The man who communes much with God thereby comes into a sweet fellowship with him, and will, in consequence, sacrifice for him. Contributing to Christ’s cause he will count one of the privileges of his life. In Paris a poor, blind woman put twenty-seven francs into a plate at a missionary meeting, and when one went to her and remonstrated against her giving so much, she said: “ I am engaged with others in straw work. Much of our labor is at night. My friends about me here are at an expense of twenty-seven francs per annum for oil; but, as I am blind, and do not need a lamp, I give what I save out of that circumstance to shed light into the heathen lands to those who are spiritually blind.”
Finally, these new converts became fervent winners of souls. That is evidenced in the language, “The Lord added unto the church day by day such as were being saved.” One need not be in church for many years before attempting to bring others to Jesus. Such an opinion was unknown to the early disciples. So soon as Andrew came to know Jesus, who he was, we read: “He findeth his own brother and saith unto him. We have found the Messias; and he brought him to Jesus.” So soon as Philip accepts the Nazarene as the Son of God, he finds Nathanael. This custom of the early church ought to characterize the churches of Christ tO’ this day. Some years ago, in Owatonna, Minn., a fine young fellow — a student in Pillsbury Academy — came forward at the close of a meeting and confessed Christ. The testimony of others was heard, and a second song was sung. Immediately this young man arose, and walked to the back of the house, and up into the gallery. The evangelist feared that the young student’s heart had failed him, and he had decided to return to his seat rather than longer face the crowd. Shortly this fear was allayed when that young student came forward, bringing with him a friend, who penitently confessed Christ.
When we so well husband the results of a revival as to see the man who has spent but a day with Jesus going after his fellows, telling them of him whom he has found, we shall indeed have introduced a prominent factor in favor of the perennial revival.