“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength…Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God.” (Deut 6)
With these words the Lord God formed a nation for himself, a people for his praise, through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. …
What does the word ‘reformation’ conjure up in your mind? If you know anything about our Christian heritage, you will probably associate that word with the great period of spiritual renewal that took place in the 16th and early 17th centuries under the leadership of men like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. It was a powerful movement of the Spirit of God, and we are still benefiting from its effects four centuries later.
But that Reformation was not the first or only one. …
‘Oh, yes,’ said the little Indian boy, ‘I know what my conscience is. It is a little three-cornered thing in here’ – he laid his hand on his heart – ‘that stands still when I am good; but when I am bad it turns around, and the corner hurt very much. But if I keep on doing wrong, by and by the corners wear off and it doesn’t hurt any more.’
1. WHAT IS CONSCIENCE?
The nearest to a definition is Rom 2:14-15 This teaches that even when people do not know God’s law, they still have a very good idea about how they ought to behave, and this standard of behaviour is reinforced by the voice of conscience in their hearts. …
Having considered the central place of the Bible and of biblical doctrine in revival, we move on to examine how the word of God is proclaimed during periods of spiritual awakening. R.E. Davies asserts that a factor which constantly recurs in revival and awakening is ‘powerful, urgent, relevant, Christ-centred preaching’. As the same writer reminds us:-
On the Day of Pentecost, the 120 disciples were filled with the Spirit, and immediately began to speak in various languages about the wonderful works of God. …
John 10:1-21 w Ezekiel 34
John’s Gospel has famously been likened to ‘a pool in which children can paddle and elephants can swim.’ These famous words of Jesus are transparently clear and unfathomably deep.
A common figure in ancient Palestine. ‘His life was very hard. No flock ever grazed without a shepherd, and he was never off duty.…
The doctrine of Christ’s return affects everything in the Christian life. It:-
1. encourages us in daily godliness, 1 Thess 1:10; 2:13; 3:13; 5:23; Tit 2:11-14.
2. provides a focus for all church life and worship, 1 Cor 1:7; 11:26; Heb 10:25.
3. gives us confidence in spiritual warfare, Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 6:3; 2 Thess 2:8-12;
Rom 13:11-13; 1 Thess 5:2-8.
4. comforts us in times of persecution, Rom 8:18-25; 2 Thess 1:6-10.
5. consoles us at the loss of loved ones, 1 Thess 4:13-18.…
In this chapter, two closely related aspects of revival will be considered: first, the place of the Bible itself in spiritual awakenings; and second, the place of biblical doctrine.
One of the leading features of revival is that the Bible takes its rightful place as God’s truthful, inspired, and authoritative revelation. The Book which had lain gathering dust on the bookshelf at home is now taken up and read with delight as people realise the importance and vitality of the message it contains. …
It is, perhaps, we lay preachers who are particularly prone to commit exegetical crimes, lacking as many of us do a technical grounding in the original languages of the Bible. ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ when it comes to drawing conclusions about the ‘literal meaning’ or the ‘original meaning’ of words. Here are some of the exegetical fallacies identified by D.A. Carson:-
1. The root fallacy. This based on the assumption that the meaning of a word is inevitably bound up in the ‘basic’, ‘original’, or ‘literal’ meaning of its component parts. …
We now move on to consider a vital element of our subject, namely, the indissoluble link between prayer and the coming of revival:-
…[It] is God’s will, through his wonderful grace, that the prayers of his saints should be one great and principle means of carrying on the designs of Christ’s kingdom in the world…It is revealed that, when God is about to accomplish great things for his church, he will begin by remarkable pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication, Zech 12:10.
Many people know that Albert Einstein said that ‘science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.’ They have rushed from this to enrol the great physicist on the side of theism, as against atheism. However, Einstein had little time for the God of the Bible. Indeed, he once said, ‘I don’t try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.’…
