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A powerful sermon on the history of revival and the church’s perspective and responsibility to function as God’s ambassador and authority in the restoration and preservation of this great nation.

By Charles Spurgeon.

“O Lord, revive thy work.” Hab., iii. 2

ALL true religion is the work of God: it is pre-eminently so. If he should select out of his works that which he esteems most of all, he would select true religion. He regards the work of grace as being even more glorious than the works of nature; and he is, therefore, especially careful that it shall always be known, so that if any one dare to deny it, they shall do so in the teeth of repeated testimonies to the contrary, that God is indeed the author of salvation in the world and in the hearts of men, and that religion is the effect of grace, and is the work of God.

I believe the Eternal might sooner forgive the sin of ascribing the creation of the heavens and of the earth to an idol, than that of ascribing the works of grace to the efforts of the flesh, or to any thing else but God. It is a sin of the greatest magnitude to suppose that there is aught in the heart which can be acceptable unto God, save that which God himself has first created there.

When I deny God’s work in creating the sun, I deny one truth; but when I deny that he works grace in the heart, I deny a hundred truths in one; for in the denial of that one great truth, that God is the author of good in the souls of men, I have denied all the doctrines which make up the great articles of faith, and have run in the very teeth of the whole testimony of sacred Scripture I trust, beloved, that many of us have been taught, that if there be any thing in our souls which can carry us to heaven ’tis God’s work, and, moreover, that if there be might that is good and excellent found in his church, it is entirely God’s work, from first to last.

We firmly believe that it is God who quickens the soul which was dead, positively “dead in trespasses and sins;” that it is God who maintains the life of that soul, and God who consummates and perfects that life in the borne of the blessed, in the land of the hereafter. We ascribe nothing to man, but all to God. We dare not for a moment think that the conversion of the soul is effected either by its own effort or by the efforts of others; we conceive that there are means and agencies employed, but that the work is, both alpha and omega, wholly the Lord’s.

We think, therefore, that we are right in applying the text to the work of divine grace, both in the heart and in the church at large; and we think we can have no subject more appropriate for our consideration than the text. ” O Lord, revive thy work!”

First, beloved, trusting that the Spirit of God will help me I shall endeavor to apply the text to our own soul personally, and then to the state of the church at large, for it well needs that the Lord should revive his work in its midst.

I. First, then, to OURSELVES. We should begin at home. We too often flog the church, when the whip should be laid on our own shoulders. We drag the church, like a colossal culprit, to the altar; we bind her, and try to execute her at once; we bind her hands fast, and tear off thongfull after thongfull of her quivering flesh-finding fault with her where there is none, and magnifying her little errors; while we too often forget ourselves. Let us, therefore, commence with ourselves, remembering that we are part of the church, and that our own want of revival is in some measure the cause of that want in the church at large.

Now, I directly charge the great majority of professing Christians-and I take the charge to myself also-with a need of a revival of piety in these days. I shall lay the charge before you very peremptorily, because I think I have abundant grounds to prove it. I believe that the mass of Christian men in this age need a revival, and my reasons are these:

In the first place, look at the conduct and conversation of too many who profess to be the children of God. It ill becomes any man who occupies the sacred place of a pulpit to flatter his hearers, and I shall not attempt to do so. The evidence lies with too many of you who unite yourselves with Christian churches, and in practically protesting against your profession.

It has become very common now-a-days to join a church; go where you may you find professing Christians who sit down at some Lord’s table or another; but are there fewer cheats than there used to be? Are there less frauds committed? Do we find morality more extensive? Do we find vice entirely at an end? No, we do not. The age is as immoral as any that preceded it; there is still as much sin, although it is more cloaked and hidden.

The outside of the sepulcher may be whiter; but within, the bones are just as rotten as before. Society is not one whit improved. Those men who, in our popular magazines, give us a true picture of the state of London life, are to be believed and credited, for they do not stretch the truth-they have no motive for so doing; and the picture which they give of the morality of this great city is certainly appalling. It is a huge criminal, full of sin; and I say this, that if all the profession in London were true profession, it would not be nearly such a wicked place as it is; it could not be, by any manner of means.

My brethren, it is well known and who dares deny it that is not too partial, and who will not speak wilful falsehood? It is well known that it is not these days a sufficient guaranty even of a man’s honesty, that he is a member of a church. It is a hard thing for Christian ministers to say, but we must say it, and if friends say it not, enemies will; and better that the truth should be spoken in our midst, that men may see that we are ashamed of it, than that they should hear us impudently deny what we must confess to be true!

O sirs, the lives of too many members of Christian churches give us grave cause to suspect that there is none of the life of godliness in them all! Why that reaching after money, why that covetousness, why that following of the crafts and devices of a wicked world, why that clutching here and clutching there, that grinding of the faces of the poor, that stamping down of the workman, and such like things, if men are truly what they profess to be? God in heaven knows that what I speak is true, and too many here know it themselves.

If they be Christians, at least they want revival; if there be life in them, it is but a spark that is covered up with heaps of ashes; it needs to be fanned, ay, and it needs to be stirred also, that, haply, some of the ashes may be removed and the spark may have place to live. The church wants revival in the persons of its members. The members of Christian churches are not what once they were. It is fashionable to be religious now; persecution is taken away; and ah! I had almost said, the gates of the church were taken away with it.

The church has, with few exceptions, no gates now; her sons come in, and go out of it, just as they would march through St. Paul’s cathedral, and make it a very place of traffic, instead of regarding it as a select and sacred spot, to be apportioned to the holy of the Lord, and to the excellent of the earth, in whom is God’s delight.

If this be not true, you know how to treat it; you need not confess to sin you have not committed; but if it be true, and true in your case, O humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God; ask him to search and try you, that if you be not his child you may be helped to renounce your profession, lest it should be to you but the gaudy pageantry of death, and mere tinsel and gew-gaw in which to go to hell. If you be his, ask that he may give you more grace, that you may renounce these faults and follies, and turn unto him with full purpose of heart, as the effect of a revived godliness in your soul.

Again: where the conduct of professing Christians is consistent, let me ask the question, Does not the conversation of many a professor lead us either to doubt the truthfulness of his piety, or else to pray that his piety may be revived? Have you noticed the conversation of too many who think themselves Christians? You might live with them from the first of January to the end of December, and you would never be tired of their religion for what you would hear of it. They scarcely mention the name of Jesus Christ at all.

On Sabbath afternoon all the ministers are talked over, faults are found with this one and the other, and all kinds of conversation take place, which they call religious, because it is concerning religious places. But do they ever talk of what be said and did, and what he suffered for us here below? Do you often hear the salutation addressed to you by your brother Christian, “Friend, how doth thy soul prosper?”

When we step into each other’s houses, do we begin to talk concerning the cause and truth of God? Do you think that God would now stoop from heaven to listen to the conversation of his church, as once he did, when it was said, “The Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name?”

I solemnly declare, as the result of thorough, and, I trust, impartial observation, that the conversation of Christians, while it cannot be condemned on the score of morality, must almost invariably be condemned on the score of Christianity.

We talk too little about our Lord and Master. That word sectarianism has crept into our midst, and we must say nothing about Christ, because we are afraid of being called sectarians. I am a sectarian, and hope to be so until I die, and to glory in it; for I can not see, now-a-days, that a man can be a Christian, thoroughly in earnest, without winning for himself the title.

Why, we must not talk of this doctrine, because perhaps such a one disbelieves it; we must not notice such and such a truth in Scripture, because such and such a friend doubts or denies it; and so we drop all the great and grand topics which used to be the staple commodities of godly talk, and begin to speak of any thing else, because we feel that we can agree better on worldly things than we can on spiritual.

Is not that the truth? and is it not a sad sin with some of us, that we have need to pray unto God, “O Lord, revive thy work in my soul, that my conversation may be more Christ-like, seasoned with salt, and kept by the Holy Spirit?”

And yet a third remark here. There are some whose conduct is all that we could wish, whose conversation is for the most part unctuous with the gospel, mid savory of truth ; but even they will confess to a third charge, which I must now sorrowfully bring against them and against myself; namely, that there is too little real communion with Jesus Christ.

If thanks to divine grace, we are enabled to keep our conduct tolerably consistent, and our lives unblemished, yet how much have we to cry out against ourselves, from a lack of that holy fellowship with Jesus which is the high mark of the true child of God Brethren, let me ask some of you how long it is since you have had a love-visit from Jesus Christ-how long since you could say, “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies?” How long is it since “he brought you into his banqueting house, and his banner over you was love?”

Perhaps some of you will be able to say, “It was but this morning that I saw him; I beheld his face with joy, and was ravished with his countenance.” But I fear the greatest part of you will have to say, “Ah, sir, for months I have been without the shinings of his countenance.” What have you been doing, then, and what has been your way of life? Have you been groaning every day? Have you been weeping every minute? “No!” Then you ought to have been.

I can not understand how your piety can be of any very brilliant order, if you can live without the sunlight of Christ, and yet be happy. Christians will lose sometimes the society of Jesus; the connection between themselves and Christ will be at times severed, as to their own feeling of it; but they will always groan and cry when they lose their Jesus. What! is Christ thy Brother, and does he live in thine house, and yet thou hast not spoken to him for a month? I fear there is little love between thee and thy Brother, for thou hast had no conversation with him for so long.

What! is Christ the Husband of his church, and has she had no fellowship with him for all this time? Brethren, let me not condemn you, let me not even judge you, but let your conscience speak. Mine shall, and so shall yours. Have we not too much forgotten Christ? Have we not lived too much without him? Have we not been contented with the world, instead of desiring Christ? Have we been, all of us, like that little ewe lamb that did drink out of the master’s cup, and feed from his table? Have we not rather been content to stray upon the mountains, feeding anywhere but at home?

I fear many of the troubles of our heart spring from want of communion with Jesus. Not many of us are the kind of men who, living with Jesus, his secrets must know. O! no; we live too much without the light of his countenance; and are too happy when he is gone from us. Let us, each of us, then, for I am sure we have each of us need, in some measure, put up the prayer, “O Lord, revive thy work!” Ah! methinks I hear one professor saying, “Sir, I need no revival in my heart; I am everything I wish to be.” Down on your knees, my brethren! down on your knees for him! He is the man that most needs to be prayed for.

He says that he needs no revival in his soul; but he needs a revival of his humility, at any rate. If he supposes that he is all that he ought to be, and if he knows that he is all he wishes to be, he has very mean notions of what a Christian is, or of what a Christian should be, and very unjust ideas of himself. Those are in the best condition who, while they know they want reviving, yet feel their condition and groan under it.

Now, I think I have in some degree substantiated my charge, I fear with too strong arguments; and now let me notice, that the text has something in it which I trust that each of us has. Here is not only an evil implied in these word-“O Lord, revive thy work;” but there is an evil evidently felt. You see Habakkuk knew how to groan about it. O Lord,” said he, “revive thy work!” Ah! we many of us want revival, but few of us feel that we want it. It is a blessed sign of life within, when we know how to groan over our departures from the living God.

It is easy to find by hundreds those that have departed, but you must count those by ones who know how to groan over their departure. The true believer, however, when he discovers that he needs revival, will not be happy; he will begin at once that incessant and continuous strain of cries and groans which will at last prevail with God, and bring the blessing of revival down. He will, days and nights in succession, cry, “O Lord, revive thy work!”

Let me mention some groaning times, which will always occur to the Christian who needs revival. I am sure he will always groan, when he looks upon what the Lord did for him of old. When he recollects the Mizars and the Hermons, and those places where the Lord appeared of old to him, saying, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love,” I know he will never look back to them without tears.

If he is what he should be as a Christian, or if he thinks he is not in a right condition, he will always weep when he remembers God’s lovingkindness of old. O! whenever the soul has lost fellowship with Jesus, it can not bear to think of the “chariots of Aminadab;” it can not endure to think of “the banqueting house,” for it hath not been there so long; and when it does think of it, it says,

“The peaceful hours I then enjoyed,
How sweet their memory still.
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.”

When he hears a sermon which relates the glorious experience of the believer who is in a healthy state, he will put his hand upon his heart, and say, “Ah! such was my experience once; but those happy days are gone. My sun is set; those stars which once lit up my darkness are all quenched;

O! that I might again behold him; O! that I might once more see his face;

O! for those sweet visits from on high; O! for the grapes of Eschol once more.” And by the rivers of Babylon you will sit down and weep. You will weep, when you remember your goings up to Zion-when the Lord was precious to you, when he laid bare his heart, and was pleased also to fill your heart with the fullness of his love. Such times will be groaning times, when you remember “the years of the right hand of the Most High.”

Again, to a Christian who wants revival, ordinances will be also groaning times. He will go up to the house of God; but he will say of himself when he comes away, “Ah! how changed! When I once went with the multitude that kept holy day every word was precious. When the song ascended my soul had wings, and up it flew to its nest among the stars; when the prayer was offered, I could devoutly say, ‘Amen;’ but now the preacher preaches as he did before; my brethren are as profited as once they were; but the sermon is dry to me, and dull.

I find no fault with the preacher; I know the fault is in myself. The song is just the same-as sweet the melody, as pure the harmony; but ah! my heart is heavy; my harp strings are broken, and I can not sing;” and the Christian will return from those blessed means of grace, sighing and sobbing, because he knows he wants revival. More especially at the Lord’s Supper he will think, when he sits at the table, “O! what seasons I once had here!

In breaking the bread and drinking the wine my Master was present.” He will bethink himself how his soul was even carried to the seventh heaven, and the house was made “the very house of God and the gate of heaven.” “But now,” he says, “it is bread, dry bread to me; it is wine, tasteless wine, with none of the sweetness of paradise in it; I drink, but all in vain. No thoughts of Christ. My heart will not rise; my soul can not heave a thought half way to him!” And then the Christian will begin to groan again – “O Lord revive thy work!”

But I shall not detain you upon that subject. Those of you who know that you are in Christ, but feel that you are not in a desirable condition, because you do not love him enough, and have not that faith in him which you desire to have, I would just ask you this: Do you groan over it? Can you groan now? When you feel your heart is empty, is it “an aching void?” When you feel that your garments are stained, can you wash those garments with tears? When you think your Lord is gone, can you hang out the black flag of sorrow, and cry, “O my Jesus! O my Jesus! art thou gone?” If thou canst, then I bid thee do it. Do it, do it; and may God be pleased to give thee grace to continue to do it, until a happier era shall dawn in the reviving of thy soul!

And remark, in the last place, upon this point, that the soul, when it is really brought to feel its own sad estate, because of its declension and departure from God, is never content without turning its groanings into prayer, and without addressing the prayer to the right quarter: “O Lord, revive thy work!” Some of you, perhaps, will say, “Sir, I feel my need of revival; I intend to set to work this very afternoon, as soon as I shall retire from this place, to revive my soul.” Do not say it; and, above all things, do not try to do it, for you never will do it. Make no resolutions as to what you will do; your resolutions will as certainly be broken as they are made, and your broken resolutions will but increase the number of your sins. I exhort you, instead of trying to revive yourself, to offer prayers. Say not, “I will revive myself,” but cry, “O Lord, revive thy work!”

And let me solemnly tell thee, thou hast not yet felt what it is to decline, thou dost not yet know how sad is thine estate, otherwise thou wouldest not talk of reviving thyself. If thou didst know thy own position, thou wouldest as soon expect to see the wounded soldier on the battle-field heal himself without medicine, or convey himself to the hospital when his limbs are shot away, as thou wouldest expect to revive thyself without the help of God. I bid thee not do anything, nor seek to do any thing, until first of all thou hast addressed Jehovah himself by mighty prayer-until thou hast cried out, “O Lord, revive thy work!”

Remember, he that first made you must keep you alive; and he that has kept you alive must restore more life to you. He that has preserved you from going down to the pit, when your feet have been sliding, can alone set you again upon a rock, and establish your goings. Begin, then, by humbling yourself-giving up all hope of reviving yourself as a Christian, but beginning at once with firm prayer and earnest supplication to God: “O Lord, what I cannot do, do thou! O Lord, revive thy work!”

Christian brethren, I leave these matters with you. Give them the attention they deserve. If I have erred, and in aught judged you too harshly, God shall forgive me, for I have meant it honestly. But if I have spoken truly, lay it to your hearts, and turn your houses into a “Bochim.” Weep men apart, and women apart, husbands apart, and wives apart. Weep, weep, my brethren: “It is a sad thing to depart from the living God.” Weep, and may he bring you back to Zion, that you may one day return like Israel, not with weeping, but with songs of everlasting joy!

II. And now I come to the second part of the subject, upon which I must be more brief. In THE CHURCH ITSELF, taken as a body, this prayer ought to be one incessant and solemn litany: “O Lord, revive thy work!”

In the present era there is a sad decline of the vitality of godliness. This age has become too much the age of form, instead of the age of life. I date the hour of life from this day one hundred years ago when the first stone was laid of this building in which we now worship God. Then was the day of life divine, and of power, sent down from on high. God had clothed Whitefield with power: he was preaching with a majesty and a might of which one could scarcely think mortals could ever be capable; not because he was anything in himself, but because his Master girded him with might. After Whitefield there was a succession of great and holy men.

But now, sirs, we have fallen upon the dregs of time. Men are the rarest things in all this world; we have not many left now. We have no men in government, to conduct our politics, and scarcely any men in religion. We have the things that perform their duties, as they are called; we have the good, and, perhaps, the honest things, who in the regular routine go on like pack-horses with their bells, for ever in the old style; but men who dare to be singular, because to be singular is generally to be right in a wicked world, are not very many in this age. Compared with the puritanic times even, where are our divines!

Could we marshal together our Howes and our Charnocks? Could we gather together such names as I could mention about fifty at a time? I trow not. Nor could we bring together such a galaxy of grace and talent as that which immediately followed Whitefield. Think of Rowland Hill, Newton, Toplady, Doddridge, and numbers of others whom time would fail me to mention. They are gone, they are gone; their venerated dust sleeps in the earth, and where are their successors? Ask where, and echo will reply, “Where?” There are none. Successors of them, where are they? God hath not yet raised them up, or, if he have, you have not yet found out where they are.

There is preaching, and what is it? “O Lord, help thy servant to preach, and teach him by thy Spirit what to say.” Then out comes the manuscript, and they read it. A pure insult to Almighty God! We have preaching, but it is of this order. It is not preaching at all. It is speaking very beautifully and very finely, possibly eloquently, in some sense of the word but where is the right down preaching, such as Whitefield’s? Have you ever read one of his sermons? You will not think him eloquent; you cannot think him so. His expressions were rough, frequently very coarse and unconnected; there was very much declamation about him; it was a great part, indeed, of his speech.

But where lay his eloquence? Not in the words you read, but in the tone in which he delivered them, and in the earnestness with which he felt them, and in the tears which ran down his cheeks, and in the pouring out of his soul. The reason why he was eloquent was just what the word means. He was eloquent, because he spoke right out from his heart-from the innermost depths of the man. You could see when he spoke that he meant what he said. He did not speak as a trade, or as a mere machine, but he preached what he felt to be the truth, and what he could not help preaching. When you heard him preach, you could not help feeling that he was a man who would die if he could not preach, and with all his might call to men and say, “Come! come! come to Jesus Christ, and believe on him!”

Now, that is just the lack of these times. Where, where is earnestness now? It is neither in pulpit nor yet in pew, in such a measure as we desire it; and it is a sad, sad age, when earnestness is scoffed at, and when that very zeal which ought to be the prominent characteristic of the pulpit is regarded as enthusiasm and fanaticism. I ask God to make us all such fanatics as most men laugh at-to make us all just such enthusiasts as many despise. We reckon it the greatest fanaticism in the world to go to hell, the greatest enthusiasm upon earth to love sin better than righteousness; and we think those neither fanatics nor enthusiasts who seek to obey God rather than man, and follow Christ in all his ways. We repeat, that one sad proof that the church wants revival is the absence of that death-like, solemn earnestness which was once seen in Christian pulpits.

The absence of sound doctrine is another proof of our want of revival. Do you know who are called Antinomians now, who are called “hypers,” who are laughed at, who are rejected as being unsound in the faith? Why, the men that once were the orthodox are now the heretics. We can turn back to the records of our Puritan fathers, to the articles of the Church of England, to the preaching of Whitefield, and we can say of that preaching, it is the very thing we love; and the doctrines which were then uttered are and we dare to say it everywhere the very self-same doctrines that he proclaimed. But because we choose to proclaim them, we are thought singular and strange; and the reason is, because sound doctrine hath to a great degree ceased. It began in this way.

First of all the truths were fully believed, but the angles were a little taken off. The minister believed election, but he did not use the word, for fear it should in some degree disturb the equanimity of the deacon in the green pew in the corner. He believed that all men were depraved, but he did not say it positively because if he did, there was a lady who had subscribed so much to the chapel-she would not come again; so that while he did believe it, and did say it in some sense, he rounded it a little. Afterward it came to this.

Ministers said, “We believe these doctrines, but we do not think them profitable to preach to the people. They are quite true: free grace is true; the great doctrines of grace that were preached by Christ, by Paul, by Augustine, by Calvin, and down to this age by their successors, are true; but they had better be kept back-they must be very cautiously dealt with; they are very high and dreadful doctrines, and they must not be preached; we believe them, but we dare not speak them out.”

After that it came to something worse. They said within themselves, “Well, if these doctrines will not do for us to preach, perhaps they are not true at all;” and going one step further, they said they dare not preach them. They did not actually say it, perhaps, but they began just to hint that they were not true; then they went one step further, giving us something which they said was the truth; and then they would cast us out of the synagogue, as if they were the rightful owners of it, and we were the intruders. So they have passed on from bad to worse; and if you read the standard divinity of this age, and the standard divinity of Whitefleld’s day, you will find that the two cannot by any possibility stand together. We have got a “new theology.”

New theology? Why, it is anything but a Theology; it is a theology which hath cast out God utterly and entirely, and enthroned man, as it is the doctrine of man, and not the doctrine of the everlasting God. We want a revival of sound doctrine once more in the midst of the land.

And the church at large, may be, wants a revival of downright earnestness in its members. Ye are not the men to fight the Lord’s battles yet. Ye have not the earnestness, the zeal, which once the children of God had. Your forefathers were oaken men; ye are willow men. Our people, what are they many of them? Strong in doctrine when they are with strong doctrine men ; but they waver when they get with others, and they change as often as they change their company; they say sometimes one thing, and sometimes another. They are not the men to go to the stake and die; they are not the men that know how to die daily, and so are ready for death when it comes.

Look at our prayer-meetings, with here and there a bright exception. Go in. There are six women; scarcely ever enough members come to pray four times. Look at them. Prayer-meetings they are called ; spare meetings they ought to be called, for sparely enough they are attended. And very few there be that go to our fellowship-meetings, or to any other meetings that we have to help one another in the fear of the Lord. Are they attended at all?

I would like to see a newspaper printed somewhere, containing a list of all the persons that went to those meetings during the week in any of our chapels. Ah! my friends, if they should comprise all the Christians in London, you might find that a chapel or two would hold them all. There are few enough that go. We have not earnestness, we have not life, as we once had; if we had, we should be called worse names than we are; we should have viler epithets thrown at us, if we were more true to our Master; we should not have all things quite so comfortable, if we served God better.

We are getting the church to be an institution of our land-an honorable institution. Ah! some think it a grand thing when the church becomes an honorable institution! Methinks it shows the church has swerved, when she begins to be very honorable in the eyes of the world. She must still be cast out, she must still be called evil, and still be despised, until that day shall come, when her Lord shall honor her because she has honored him-shall honor her, even in this world, in the day of his appearing.

Beloved, do you think it is true that the church wants reviving? Yes, or no? “No,” you say, “not to the extent that you suppose. We think the church is in a good condition. We are not among those who cry, ‘The former days were better than these.'” Perhaps you are not: you may be wiser than we are, and therefore you are able to see those various signs of goodness which are to us so small that we are not able to discover them.

You may suppose that the church is in a good condition; if so, of course you can not sympathize with me in preaching from such a text, and urging you to use such a prayer. But there are others of you who are frequently prone to cry, “The church wants reviving.” Let me bid you, instead of grumbling at your minister, instead of finding fault with the different parts of the church, to cry, “O Lord revive thy work!”

“O!” says one, “if we had another minister. O! if we had another kind of worship. O! if we had a different sort of preaching.” Just as if that were all! It is, “O! if the Lord would come into the hearts of the men you have got. O! if he would make the forms you do use full of power.” You do not want fresh ways or fresh machinery; you want the life in what you have.

There is an engine on a railway; a train has to be moved. “Bring another engine,” says one, “and another, and another.” The engines are brought, but the train does not move at all. Light the fire, and get the steam up, that is what you want; not fresh engines. We do not want fresh ministers, or fresh plans, or fresh ways, though many might be invented, to make the church better; we only want life in what we have got.

Given, the very man who has emptied your chapel; given, the selfsame person that brought your prayer-meeting low; God can make the chapel crowded, open the doors yet, and give thousands of souls to that very man. It is not a new man that is wanted; it is the life of God in him. Do not be crying out for something new; it will no more succeed, of itself than what you have. Cry, “O Lord, revive thy work!”

I have noticed in different churches, that the minister has thought first of this contrivance, then of that. He tried one plan, and thought that would succeed; then he tried another; that was not it. Keep to the old plan, but get life in it. We do not want anything new; “the old is better”-let us keep to it. But we want the life in the old. “O!” men cry, “we have nothing but the shell; they are going to give us a new shell.” No, sirs, we will keep the old one, but we will have the life in the shell too; we will have the old thing; but we must, or else we will throw the old away, have the life in the old. O! that God would give us life.

The church wants fresh revivals O! for the days of Cambuslang again, when Whitefield preached with power. O! for the days when in this place hundreds were converted sometimes under Whitefield’s sermons. It has been known that two thousand credible cases of conversion have happened under one solitary discourse.

O! for the age when eyes should be strained, and ears should be ready to receive the word of God, and when men should drink in the word of life, as it is indeed, the very water of life, which God gives to dying souls! O! for the age of deep feeling-the age of deep, thorough-going earnestness!

Let us ask God for it; let us plead with him for it. Perhaps he has the man, or the men, somewhere, who will shake the world yet; perhaps even now he is about to pour forth a mighty influence upon men, which shall make the church as wonderful in this age, as it ever was in any age that has passed.

This sermon lays out the facts of where we are as a nation and how it is up to the church and God’s people to get us back on the right track. The attack on Christianity has turned into an all-out “take no prisoners” war. In order to get control over people and make everyone dependent on the government, Christianity has to go.

In order to have a successful socialist nation, you cannot have people who have a faith in a loving God that supplies all of our needs. That’s why the atheists, agnostics, progressives and now Muslims are attacking us on all sides.

By Tim Crooks

I am passionate about restoring America to its greatness. I want to see this country go back to being the nation of yesterday, one that worked hard, gave freely and invested in our future. I have been really thinking lately how I don’t want to be like Eli. Reading this, you are probably wondering who Eli is or at the very least wondering what a priest from Ancient Israel has to do with restoring our nation. In 1 Samuel 3:1-14, the bible gives us the story of a Jewish Priest named Eli. Eli did a great job of ministering to Samuel and raising him up to be a great prophet. Eli was so laser-focused on Samuel he ended up neglecting his own children. He did not give them enough guidance and they ended up, quite literally, going to hell.

As for me, I know I don’t want to spend so much time serving in church or at work that I fail my children and have them end up taking the same road Eli’s children did. In the same way, I am watching our nation also go the same way as Eli’s children. As a nation we are turning our backs on God, His laws, commandments and His love. We are becoming a pagan nation; one that is headed for destruction and ruin, and it will be self-inflicted. But, we can still turn this around, and avoid the destruction and ruin.

In this article, I want everyone to walk away understanding where we are now, how we got here, and what we can do to change the path we are on. Right now, we are on the path to socialism. It’s progressiveness these days, but it’s still just socialism. We are creating a dependency on government. We are over taxing the middle and rich classes and redistributing that money to the poor. The poor are being dumbed down, becoming dependent and losing what work skills needed to be self-sufficient. We are heading for socialized medicine and yet more taxes to cover those costs. There is more government regulation. As of right now, no one is for sure how many federal regulations there are, but it is estimated that there are over 8,000 of them.

At the same time, the attack on Christianity has turned into an all-out “take no prisoners” war. Why? It’s simple, really. In order to get control over people and make everyone dependent on the government, Christianity has to go. In order to have a successful socialist nation, you cannot have people who have a faith in a loving God that supplies all of our needs. That’s why the atheists, agnostics, liberal left progressives, and now Muslims are attacking us on all sides.

Everywhere we turn we are facing persecution for our beliefs. If you are a Christian Conservative in America, you will be called names like bigot, intolerant, hater, and many more I won’t mention here. True Christ followers are nothing like that. Christ followers are the most giving (time, talent and treasure) to help the poor, the fatherless, the widows and orphans, and nations devastated by wars, famines, droughts, etc.True Christ followers are not bigots, but love everyone, because God created us, not because we have to. True Christ followers do not hate people because of lifestyle choices, drug and alcohol addictions, and pornography addictions. True Christ followers take the path Jesus took – we hate the sin, but love the sinner.

We have been facing an epidemic of mass proportions in this country due to our lack of moral values in this nation. Our moral values should be dictated by the Bible, but are now dictated by Hollywood, the media, and politicians that cannot be faithful to their spouses. How can we trust leaders in public service, the media and movies if they can’t keep a promise to someone they love? Do you really think that they have our best interest in mind? We are strangers to these people, and they treat the common people like peasants.

The question I have been wondering for years is how did we get here? This is not an all-encompassing list, but our educational system, development of a promiscuous society, use of movies and television for the moral decay of families and the use of some music has helped bring us to this point. It didn’t just happen overnight. It’s been a well-thought out, planned attack going back at least fifty years or even longer. The removal of God and His Word from our schools began in the early 1960s. In the Engel v. Vitale case (1962), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-1 against New York’s “Regents’ prayer,” a “non-denominational” prayer which state education officials had composed for public schoolchildren to recite.

In 1951 the New York State Board of Regents (the State board of education) approved a 22-word “nondenominational prayer” for recitation each morning in the public schools of New York. It read: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.” The Regents believed that the prayer could be a useful tool for the development of character and good citizenship among the students of the State of New York. The prayer was offered to the school boards in the State for their use, and participation in the “prayer-exercise” was voluntary. In New Hyde Park, New York, the Union Free School District No. 9 directed the local principal to have the prayer “said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of the school day.”

The parents of ten pupils in the New Hyde Park schools objected to the prayer. They filed suit in a New York State court seeking a ban on the prayer, insisting that the use of this official prayer in the public schools was contrary to their own and their children’s beliefs, religions, or religious practices. The State appeals court upheld the use of the prayer, “so long as the schools did not compel any pupil to join in the prayer over his or his parents’ objection.” The Court found the New York Regents’ prayer to be unconstitutional.

Schools were originally created so that children could learn to read and write, but specifically to be able to read the Bible. The first book in the classroom was the Bible. It was central to a child’s education, not only for its content, but the way it was used to build skills. Students learned how to read using the Bible. Much of the school day was devoted to memorizing and reciting passages from it, and passages were copied to learn penmanship. Now, our educational system is set up to train children in the way they shouldn’t go, whether that is to become an atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or some other pagan religion, anything but Christianity. We have also been “dumbing down” our children the past couple of generations, especially since the federal government’s creation of the department of education.

Under President Jimmy Carter, the federal government created the Department of Education. Since inception in the late 1970’s, American children’s test scores have steadily declined and America is not the best educated nation in the world anymore. Chances are, not many high school graduates could pass a basic 8th grade test administered in 1900.Yes, there may be more children in America getting educated in colleges now, but the overall intelligence of our younger generations are not as strong as previous generations. A degree on the wall isn’t nearly as important as what is really on the inside of the minds of the current generation, and the lack of knowledge of the basics has brought us to the point where many teenagers now cannot function without the use of technology.

In the early 1960’s, “The Pill”, for birth control was invented, which was one step further to the development of a promiscuous society. The pill doesn’t prevent conception, but literally makes the environment for the fertilized egg so inhospitable that it cannot possibly survive. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare defined abortion in 1963 as follows:

“All the measures which impair the viability of the zygote at any time between the instant of fertilization and the completing of labor constitute, in the strict sense, procedures for inducing abortion.”
(emphasis added)

Although 1.6 million surgical abortions take place each year in the U.S., Dr. Bogomir Kuhar, a pharmacist concerned about chemical abortion, has calculated that in combining all forms of induced abortion — the IUD, Depo-Provera, Norplant, surgical, and the Pill (and injectables, implants, and oral products that work in a similar fashion), between 9.6 and 13.4 million young lives are terminated in the U.S. alone each year.(Lawrence Roberge, The Cost of Abortion. La Grange, GA: Four Winds, 1995, p 7. )

Abortion, what I call infanticide, came about in 1973, and even though it is technically not legal in the United States, our government has allowed this to happen. Just these two issues have caused millions of American women to surrender their bodies, hearts and minds to a lifestyle that God had not meant for women. Sex has become so casual amongst strangers that social diseases have been running rampant for over 40 years.

The modern feminist movement was also born during this time. Feminists are in full support of both the pill and abortion because they believe it’s a woman’s right. They also hide the truths behind what the pill and abortion do to women, both physically and emotionally. If this movement really cared about women, they wouldn’t try changing the God created natural role for women, but would support the fact that God created women with skills only women possess, in God’s image.

Men also have been under scrutiny for the past 50 years or so. Once upon a time, men had role models like Andy Griffith, Ward Cleaver and plus other fathers in shows like Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, and The Waltons as role models. What have we had in the past 25 years? Shows full of dolts that cannot provide for their families and who seemingly don’t know how to function. Men are portrayed as dummies and their wives are always proving them wrong and chastising him. Examples are easy to find. Just look at Married With Children, The Simpsons, and The King of Queens to mention a few.

Even one of my favorite actors, Jim Belushi was in a show called According to Jim where his character was a dumb-downed buffoon that was always in trouble or coming up with hair-brained schemes to get himself out of the stupid situations he got into. What has this been teaching men over the last quarter of a century? We have learned that no matter what, we are just beer drinking, meat eating dummies that cannot function in society without our wives. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the relationship between a man and a woman is important; the most important relationship one will have outside one’s relationship with Jesus, but get real people. Husbands and wives are to submit to each other, we need to be the husbands and wives of Ephesians 5, not Al and Peg Bundy.

It’s not just television though; it’s in our movies as well. The amount of sex, violence, drug use, alcohol abuse and the use of foul language is affecting all of us that watch movies that contained too much of the above. Seems like movies today all have to have some type of hero that is going to save the world, but that hero isn’t Jesus. It’s Die Hard, Superman, Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Armageddon, and so on that have these “supernatural” humans that save the earth, and make you believe that God is not needed.

There was once in a time, back in the 1950’s and 1960’s that movie makers focused a lot on patriotic movies (think of movies that starred John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, etc.), biblical based movies (Moses, 10 Commandments, Ben Hur, etc.) and just good plain old family entertainment movies from Disney. With the exception of the Kendrick Brothers (Facing The Giants, Fireproof, Courageous), and a few other positive movie influences are few and far between.

Lastly, most in our media have succumbed to the wishes of the progressive movement and support the anti-Christian hatred spread by socialists. Except for the weather, I just about cannot stand what is given to us as news anymore. I really don’t want the opinions of any newscaster, no matter how famous they are or how much money they make. I am not a dumb man, just give me the facts and let me form the opinions on my own. When the media feels like it has to tell us what our thoughts should be on topics, you know that socialism is knocking on America’s door. We need to return to having news anchors give us the facts of the story and not inject their personal or political agendas into the nightly news.

So, what are we going to do about this? Some may believe that America is too far gone to turn back now. I don’t believe that. This isn’t the Titanic, it’s America. God has blessed us, and though we are an imperfect nation, God is willing to help us turn this around. It is in our court now, the ball is in our hands and strength in numbers will succeed.

First, if you are an American citizen that can vote, we can start now by voting in those that really want to restore America, and vote out those worthless lifelong senators and representatives that have done nothing but lined their own pockets and screwed the American people over. We can send a strong message to the court systems throughout the nation; we won’t tolerate legislation from the bench. Follow the federal constitution; follow your state’s constitution. If they cannot follow those, we the people, your bosses will remove you from office and properly charge you with treason.

We need to demand that our federal government and state governments need to be downsized, stop spending money, and stop over-taxing the citizens of this great nation. It’s time to give business and industry more freedom, less regulation, less taxes and more incentive to build, expand and create jobs in this country. Put American pride back in American industry again. It’s not the government that creates jobs. Job creation is the result of hard working American people that start a business on an idea or invention that created this wonderful nation, and God blessed us for it.

It’s time to send the IRS packing. Take America to a flat tax of 5% with no deductions, no refunds. If the federal government cannot live on that money raised, better stop spending. Put more focus on securing our borders, providing a strong military and protect us. Give more power back to the states and let the states make more decisions on their own. Put education back where it belongs, in the hands of the states. No national healthcare, no national welfare, no national unemployment. Let the states provide for their citizens, not by giving handouts, but by helping pick people up on their feet, get them working, and instill American pride back into the citizens.

Next, term limits for Congress. Both the House and Senate serve 4 year terms, at a pay of $50,000 per year. Turn Walter Reed hospital into a dorm for them while Congress is in session. , if you want your own place, fine, pay for it yourself. No retirement paid out of our Social Security. The President’s salary should be reduced to $100,000, a two-term limit and no retirement plan.

Elected officials holding federal offices and their staff should not be allowed to invest in the stock market. If you are caught investing and conducting in insider trading, you get the same fate as Gordon Gecko in Wall Street; a prison sentence. You will be a felon with no chance of being pardoned. It’s time to send a message; you go to Washington to serve and work for the people, period.

I believe in the 1st amendment, so I will let Hollywood create what they want, even if I disagree with what they do. But, we the people can put a ban on movies by not going to see the movie, rent it or buy it. Same thing with television shows. If they put garbage out on television, we stop watching the show, write letters to the network and more importantly write letters to the sponsors, and let them know we will not purchase your products due to your support of this show or movie.

Businesses will change who they sponsor when we the people choose not to spend our money on their products. Once we get their attention, well you know how it works, money talks. We can get shows created like The Waltons, etc. again. There’s power in numbers and if we all pray to God to change the hearts of Washington and Hollywood, we can change the direction.

Same with music, I believe in the 1st amendment, but if some numbskull is going to put out garbage that supports violence, rape, drug or alcohol abuse, and violence toward children, stop buying their music. Start calling radio stations, asking them to stop playing the garbage. Send letters to the sponsors of the radio shows and let them know you will no longer buy their products. I love music, but let’s get real, there is too much junk out there that is bad, let’s focus on keeping it real, keeping it clean and putting God first again.

We need more positive influences like the Irish band U2. My wife introduced me their music years ago, and I have become a huge fan. They are a band of Christian men, spreading the Word that we can have heaven on this earth until Jesus comes again. They have a song that I love listening to; it’s called “The Hands That Built America”. It’s a wonderful song, very relaxing to listen to.

What strikes me funny is this – U2, a bunch of Irish-born musicians, understands what America is really about more than most Americans. Our founding fathers formed this nation, and it has become successful because we are a melting pot. Bono mentions that the hands that built America are; Russian, Sioux, Dutch, Hindu, Polish, Irish, German, Italian, Blacks, Chinese, Jews, Korean, Hispanic, Muslim and Indian. This is true, even though we are a Christian nation; God has used the whole world to build this great country.

Bono’s statement that really makes me think though is this one: Of all the promises, is this one we can keep? Of all the dreams is this one still out of reach?

Remember our heritage. Almost all of us, except for Native Americans, have ancestors that came to America. They didn’t come here for handouts and welfare. They came to escape socialism, monarchies, communists, anti-Christian atheists and ruthless dictators. They came to start families, worship God, and spread the gospel to the entire world. They made sacrifices to establish a home for future generations to live, love, thrive, survive and bless someone else. They laid their lives on the line to give us what we have today; we owe it to them to lay our lives on the line to keep what they passed down to us. They were the hands that built America.

We are standing at a crossroads here in America. Family is no longer regarded as the cornerstone of this country. It’s no wonder that this is happening in America. The decline of true Christianity has led us away from God; away from all that is good. As a whole, Americans have become like Eli in the Old Testament.

How have most Americans become like Eli? Eli was a priest, who focused on his student (Samuel), but did not give his children what they needed. Is this still happening now? Yes and at an alarming rate. How many family members and friends of yours have put their careers first in life? How many people have not gotten married so they could work on their careers? How many have given up their marriages and children for their careers? I can imagine you probably know at least 4-5 people who have done this. That is the “Eli Syndrome”, focusing on your work, not on what matters.

So, what does matter? In order for us to put our families first, we must follow this order; God must be first, our spouses second, our children third (family right after God), then our careers/ministries. That’s how we can do it. We restore the true family structure first.

We can all get back to the basics of this simply by starting in our homes. If each one of us focuses on our own families, raising our children properly, eliminating the garbage from our homes and put patriotism, faith, hope, and love back into our own families. We can put our nation back on the path to righteous and then, God will bless America again. Only then will this generation be able to answer Bono’s question by being “The Hands That Restored America”.