More than a Maze?

‘The Moral Maze.’ Such is the title of a BBC Radio programme which attempts to address current moral dilemmas in our UK society.
But we have not simply a moral maze; we have a moral mess.
We need God.

A similar moral slump engulfed the United States after the Revolution in the late 1700s. Drunkards made up 16% of its population of five million. Profanity was appalling. Women were afraid to go out at night. Bank robberies were everyday occurrences.
The churches were in sorry decline, losing members, with a general lack of interest in the Bible, ministers being out of work for lack of congregations. The Chief Justice of the United States said that the Church ‘was too far gone ever to be redeemed.’ Voltaire asserted that, ‘Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years.’
Colleges and universities embodied godlessness in every shape and form; there were only two believers in the evangelical Princeton University.
Students rioted. They held a mock communion at Williams College; they put on antichristian plays at Dartmouth; they burned down the Nassau Hall at Princeton; they forced the resignation of the president of Harvard; they took a Bible out of a local church in New Jersey and burnt it in a public bonfire. Christians were so few on campus in the 1790s that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.

In the 1740s, when godlessness had prevailed, John Erskine, a minister in Edinburgh, published a small book, pleading with the people of Scotland and elsewhere to unite in prayer for the revival of religion.
Not long after, in decadent New England, Jonathan Edwards similarly urged united prayer in the American churches for God’s intervention.
It was not long before God brought thousands into Christ during widespread revival in both Britain and in New England.

Fifty years later, spirituality had again dramatically declined – as in the decadent New England society described above. Consequently, a Baptist minister, Isaac Backus, urged the pastors of every Christian denomination in the United States to engage in united prayer for revival. America became interlaced with a network of prayer meetings similar to the 1740s movement and eventually revival broke out and spread throughout many American states.

Kentucky was notorious for its wild and irreligious population. Lawlessness prevailed to such a degree that its decent people became vigilantes to fight for law and order, and even fought a pitched battle with outlaws.
At that time, James McGready became pastor of three little churches in Kentucky. He wrote in his diary that the most part of the winter of 1799 was ‘weeping and mourning with the people of God.’
He not only promoted the praying of each church on the first Monday of every month, but he urged his own congregations to pray for him at sunset on Saturday evening and sunrise Sunday morning.
In the summer of 1800, the situation changed.
Eleven thousand people came to a communion service!

How much deeper into decadence and godlessness must our society plunge before we are willing to give ourselves to that kind of praying?

Mostly adapted or quoted from ‘Prayer and Revival’ by J Edwin Orr.
For more information, go to J Edwin Orr

Why Be Concerned?

“Why should the church today be so concerned about revival?
There are several good reasons. Nothing exalts God’s glory and demonstrates his sovereign power more than revival. The condition of the Church, the ineffectiveness both of our evangelism and the communication of our message, the all-pervasive poison of secularism, humanism and materialism, the blatant immorality and godlessness of the world, each of these considerations should compel prayer for the intervention of God the Holy Spirit.“
End of quote.

Are those the conditions that prevail in the UK today in 2010?
Sounds pretty accurate to me.
Who said it? Dr Eifion Evans – in his book, ‘Fire in the Thatch.’ It was an article first published in the American magazine, ‘The Wesleyan Advocate.’
When did Dr Evans say it? In 1978!

How much greater and desperate our concern should be today!

“Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
Cause Your face to shine,
And we shall be saved!“
Psalm 80:19 NKJV

John June 12th 2010

‘Fire in the Thatch’ is published by the Evangelical Press of Wales,
Bryntirion, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, CF31 4DX.

The Loathsomeness of Sin

Many years ago, I came across these words in Francis Bottome’s old hymn, ‘Search me, O God.’ Its third verse reads,
“Throw light into
the darkened cells
where passion reigns within;
quicken my conscience
till it feels
the loathsomeness of sin.”

There is something wrong with us if we do not feel that abhorrence of sin; it should drive us to pray for a true Revival in the church.
Charles H. Spurgeon, 1834 – 1892, was for 38 years, pastor of New Park Street Chapel, London, which later became the Metropolitan Tabernacle. In his devotional book, ‘Morning and Evening,’ he powerfully urges upon his readers that same loathsomeness of sin.
His comments are based on David’s words in Psalm 119:53 – “Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.”

“My soul,“ Spurgeon writes, ”do you feel this holy trembling at the sins of others? If you do not, you lack inward holiness.
David’s cheeks were wet with rivers of waters because of prevailing unholiness.
Jeremiah desired eyes like fountains that he might lament the iniquities of Israel.
Lot was deeply troubled by the conduct of the men of Sodom.
Those upon whom the mark was set in Ezekiel’s vision were those who sighed and cried about the sins of Jerusalem.

“Gracious souls cannot help but be grieved to see what pains men take to go to hell. They know the evil of sin in their own experience, and they are alarmed to see others flying like moths into its blaze.
Sin makes the righteous shudder because it violates a holy law that is in every man’s highest interest to keep; it pulls down the pillars of the nation.
Sin in others horrifies a believer because it makes him think of the baseness of his own heart. When he sees a transgressor, he is reminded of his own frailty and vulnerability: ‘He fell today, and I may fall tomorrow.’

“Sin to a believer is horrible because it crucified the Saviour; he sees in every iniquity the nails and the spear.
How troubling it should be when the Christian learns to tolerate rather than shrink from it in disgust.
Each of us must examine his heart. It is an awful thing to insult God to His face. The good God deserves better treatment; the great God claims it; the just God will have it or repay His adversary to his face.
An awakened heart trembles at the audacity of sin and stands alarmed at the contemplation of its punishment. How monstrous a thing is rebellion! How dreadful a doom is prepared for the ungodly!
My soul, never laugh at sin’s fooleries, lest you begin to smile at sin itself. It is your enemy, and your Lord’s enemy. Learn to detest it and to distance yourself from it, for only then can you give evidence of the possession of holiness, without which no one can see the Lord.”

Well over 100 years have passed since Spurgeon wrote this article; it is powerfully relevant today. Revival will not come unless we feel as God feels about our sin.

Oh Lord, give us hearts that can weep as you wept!

John April 27th 2010

From Death unto Life

Rev. William Haslam, 1818-1905, was an Anglo-Catholic clergyman who spent much of his ministry in the southwest of England. In his early ministry, he was obsessed with rituals, forms, and the adorning of church buildings, and he stubbornly insisted that salvation was only available through the ceremonies and sacraments of the Church of England.

In the late 1840s, he moved to the parish of Baldhu, near Truro, Cornwall, UK, and he launched into his new responsibility with great enthusiasm.
He spared no effort to convince his parishioners that the church, its ceremonies and sacraments in the hands of himself, the priest, were their only hope of heaven.
However, he soon came to recognise that those parishioners who claimed to be converted, exhibited a lasting joy and assurance to which he was a total stranger.
Many of the Cornish folk were fervent Methodists, and despite his passionate Anglicanism, their testimonies and prayers slowly affected Rev William Haslam. Many years later in his book, ‘From Death unto Life,’ he wrote, “Conviction was laying hold upon me, and the circle was becoming narrower.”
As his inward struggles increased, he began to fear that he had sent people out of the world resting upon a false hope. He wrote, “I used to grieve over any parishioner who died without the last sacrament, and often wondered how it would fare with Dissenters!”

“My mind was in a revolution,” he said. “I felt as if I were out on the dark, boundless ocean, without light, or oar, or rudder. I endured the greatest agony of mind for the souls I had misled, though I had done it ignorantly. ‘They are gone, and lost forever!’ I justly deserved to go also. My distress seemed greater than I could bear.”
Looking at the graves of some of his faithful Churchmen, he wondered, “Is it really true that they are now cursing me for having misled them?”

On a particular Sunday in 1851, William Haslam felt ill and unfit to take the service. One of the true believers, Mr. Aitken, told him, “If I were you, I would shut the church, and say to the congregation, ‘I will not preach again till I am converted. Pray for me!’ ”

However, he decided to go to church, read the morning prayers and after that dismiss the people. The first part of the service was helpful to him, so he continued with the set order for the day.
“While I was reading the Gospel,” he thought, “I will just say a few words in explanation of this, and then I will dismiss them. So I went up into the pulpit and gave out my text. I took it from the gospel of the day – ‘What think ye of Christ?’ ” (Matt. 22:42).

Haslam writes in his book, “As I went on to explain the passage, I saw that the Pharisees and scribes did not know that Christ was the Son of God, or that He was come to save them. They were looking for a king, the son of David, to reign over them just as they were.
Something was telling me, all the time, ‘You are no better than the Pharisees yourself – you do not believe that He is the Son of God, and that He is come to save you, any more than they did.’
“I do not remember all I said, but I felt a wonderful light and joy coming into my soul, and I was beginning to see what the Pharisees did not.
“Whether it was something in my words, or my manner, or my look, I know not; but all of a sudden a local preacher, who happened to be in the congregation, stood up, and putting up his arms, shouted out in a Cornish manner, ‘The parson is converted! The parson is converted! Hallelujah!’ and in another moment his voice was lost in the shouts and praises of three or four hundred of the congregation. “Instead of rebuking this extraordinary ‘brawling,’ as I should have done in a former time, I joined in the outburst of praise; and to make it more orderly, I gave out the Doxology – ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow’ – and the people sang it with heart and voice, over and over again.
“My Churchmen were dismayed, and many of them fled precipitately from the place. Still the voice of praise went on, and it was swelled by numbers of passers-by, who came into the church, greatly surprised to hear and see what was going on.

“When this subsided, I found at least twenty people crying for mercy, whose voices had not been heard in the excitement and noise of thanksgiving. They all professed to find peace and joy in believing. Amongst this number, there were three from my own house; and we returned home praising God.

“The news spread in all directions that ‘The parson was converted,’ and that by his own sermon, in his own pulpit too. The church would not hold the crowds who came in the evening.
“I cannot exactly remember what I preached about on that occasion; but one thing I said was, ‘That if I had died last week I should have been lost forever.’
“I felt it was true. So clear and vivid was the conviction through which I had passed, and so distinct was the light into which the Lord had brought me. I knew, and I was sure that He had ‘brought me up out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a Rock, and put a new song into my mouth’ (Ps. 40). He had ‘quickened’ me, who was before ‘dead in trespasses and sins.’ ” (Eph. 2:1).

William Haslam’s dramatic conversion was the beginning of a substantial revival in that area of Cornwall.

Haslam’s arrival in Baldhu was at the height of the Methodist awakening. At that time, the Methodists still attended the parish church to receive Holy Communion, even though they held their own meetings elsewhere.
That explains the large congregation that witnessed the parson’s conversion.

Slightly adapted from William Haslam’s book, ‘Death unto Life: Twenty Years of My Ministry.’
It is still available through your local Christian Bookshop.