Revival seed

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24). Charlie Kirk fell to the ground and died, and seeds are sprouting up all over.

We have had prior revivals in America. Indeed, Calvin Coolidge noted that “America was born in a revival.”

Jonathan Edwards of Great Awakening fame (1730–1745) cited revival’s tangible benefits: “There has been a great alteration among the youth of the town with respect to reveling, frolicking, profane and unclean conversation, and lewd songs. Instances of fornication have been very rare. There has also been a great alteration among both old and young with respect to tavern haunting” (from a letter to Rev. Thomas Prince of Boston).

This is none other than the pleasing socio-cultural by-product of revival. It is what Jesus meant by the parable of the humble sapling grown to so majestic a tree that “the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matthew 13:32).

My favorite illustration of this comes from the Great Revival of 1904–1905, which spread to the four corners of the earth. It began at a small youth group meeting in New Quay, Ceredigion, in Wales, when teenager Florrie Evans declared that she loved the Lord Jesus with all her heart. That was all the invitation the Spirit needed. Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis, a Welsh evangelical speaker, would later say of the event: “In the life of faith in London, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand had arisen in the west.” Here is what happened next: “Drunkenness was immediately cut in half, and many taverns went bankrupt. Crime was so diminished that judges were presented with white gloves attesting that there were no cases of murder, assault, rape, or robbery or the like to consider. Local police became unemployed in many districts. Slowdowns occurred in coal mines, not due to unpleasantness between management and workers, but because so many foul-mouthed miners became converted and stopped using foul language that the horses which hauled the coal trucks in the mines could no longer understand what was being said to them, and transportation slowed until the horses learned the language of Canaan” (J. Edwin Orr, The Re-Study of Revival and Revivalism, 1981).

Once we had a glorious Revolution in this country. Then it was over, and national morality sank to a new low. Following the War of Independence, in the late 1700s, Orr writes, “the typical Harvard student was an atheist; a poll at Princeton discovered only two believers in the student body and only five who did not belong to the ‘filthy speech movement’ of the day. Christians on campuses were so few and so unpopular that they met in secret like a communist cell and kept their minutes in code to avoid any mistreatment. Students burned buildings, forced presidents to resign, destroyed Bibles and profaned public worship.”

French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) predicted that Christianity would be forgotten within 30 years.

In holy alarm, zealous people of God set about to pray. Scottish theologian John Erskine (1721–1803) republished in 1794 Jonathan Edwards’ Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom. The Spirit fell first in the industrial cities of Yorkshire in 1791. It spread throughout Britain, strengthening the hands of British politician William Wilberforce (1759–1833), whose nearly single-­handed turning of the great ship of slave trade is history.

At a gathering years ago I put history professor D. Clair Davis on the spot with the challenge, “Summarize Church history in one sentence.” He answered thoughtfully, “There is a tendency to lose Christ.”

Indeed. God warns us not to “drift away” (Hebrews 2:1). No one ever wakes up in the morning and decides to backslide. He does it slowly and unawares, by “neglecting so great a salvation.” Revivalist preacher George Whitefield (1714–1770) was “all life, fire, wing, force,” in contrast to other men “who seem only to be half alive,” wrote Spurgeon in his autobiography. The Christian in slippage mode is “dead even while she lives” (1 Timothy 5:6).

It may be that my favorite evangelists are always just the last ones I have read. So be it. C.T. Studd (1860–1931) puts the choice most pithily in his short poem, a poem that rings poignantly true in the case of Charlie Kirk: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”