Your ShelfYour Projects

Revivals and Revivalists

11%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 14, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 51.

Read the full edition

Revivals and Revivalists

By H. J. FARMAN

H. J. FARMAN
WHY should not Seventh-day Adventists as individuals and as a denomination be revivalists in the truest sense of the word? Have they not a message which should greatly affect the lives of those who receive it? Does it not give life for death, light for darkness, and salvation from sin? Does not this work go on daily? Why, then, are we not revivalists?
The psalmist said: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me.” “Wilt thou not quicken [revive] us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” “Thou which hast showed us many and sore troubles, shalt quicken us again, and shalt bring us up again from the depths of the earth.”
From these scriptures we see there is spiritual reviving in the midst of many troubles, even great rejoicing when the way seems dark. James says: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience.” So we are to be constantly rejoicing—in the midst of a continuous revival.
The word revival seems to be the most expressive term of a living Christian experience. Repeatedly the psalmist prayed, “Quicken me in thy righteousness.”
The prophet Habakkuk, in his psalm of prayer, looking down into these last days, sang: “O Lord, I have heard the report of thee, and am afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” Hab. 3:2.
God has promised greatly to revive his people in this our time. “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.” Isa. 57:15, 16; 61:1-3.
Would it not be well to have more of a revival spirit in all our work?