REVIVALISTS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 15, 1876

There are some noted revivalists who really do more harm than good, in a long run, though they secure the reputation of doing a great work for the church. They teach the passions of men, and leave their judgments uninstructed; so the people are moved by a blind impulse while the emotional enthusiasm surrounds them, after which they relax into dormancy. While the emotional fever is high, many of them are taken into the church, void of devotion, save what is sympathetic, imparted by the sensational fire of others. When the outward sensation subsides their interest abates, and they are left high and dry on the church banks, as monuments of high-water freshets, never produced by the springs of grace, but by the surface water of human excitement; and there they lie for people to stumble over.

These so-called revivalists study every possible method to produce an excitement on a popular scale, knowing that there is only a surface element of vital religion in the whole programme, instead of dealing honestly with judgment-bound men, in striving for a radical heart-work in the light of revealed truth, which shows men wherein they are lost, what remedy is provided, and what the ultimate redemption will be.

It is one thing to plan and work to produce a short-lived sensation, under the name of “revival,” and quite another thing to persuade men to come to God’s unchangeable plan, and receive a baptism of divinity that will outlive surface excitement. The secret of the gospel is to get men to believe God and obey him—not to blindly float in the element of surface excitement. Men must “believe the gospel”—then what is it?—Bible Banner.