355. Mighty Awakening

Mighty Awakening

Mal_3:1 : ’93Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple.’94

Sometimes a minister’92s subject is suggested by his artistic tastes, sometimes by the events of the previous week, sometimes by the question of a parishioner. My subject comes in no such way, but straight from the throne of God into my own heart. Give me your prayerful and intense listening. I will show you, if the Lord shall help me, that the greatest need of the church and of the world at this time is a mighty spiritual awakening. An ox feeding in a pasture might conclude that the whole world is a clover field, and we, standing in the midst of great religious advantages, might think that all the world is evangelized; but if this platform were the world, so much of it as I cover with my right foot would represent the amount evangelized; or if this whole church were the world, then one pew would represent so much of it as is Gospelized.

While I am just as certain as that there is a God that the whole world is finally to be saved, and that as the world began with a garden so it is going to close with a garden, I am just as certainly impressed with the fact that there needs to be a radical change, and that the Church of God needs to get on some other tack. In the present mode and by the present way the work can never be accomplished. I will show you this morning, as God may help me, that nothing will ever achieve this result but mighty and universal awakening. This is not an abstraction. The first chapter of the Christian Church opens with the account of a revival in which three thousand people joined the church in one day. The day of Pentecost was nothing but a revival. And so the last chapter of the world’92s history is to be the history of a revival. Not ten thousand people converted, or a million people converted, but a nation born in a day. The millennium is only another name for a revival. So, in later ages of the Church, a great awakening came when Robert McCheyne preached at Dundee, and Scotland was shaken; and when Richard Baxter preached at Kidderminster, and England was shaken; and George Whitefield crossed the ocean, and America was shaken.

There are doubtless some still living who can remember 1831. It was a great time of commercial depression in this country, and the shops were closed, and the banking institutions failed, and the whole land was in sadness, and two men appeared at the door of Chatham Street Theatre’97one of the worst and most blasphemous theatres of those days’97and asked the privilege of purchasing the building for a church, and the lessee said: ’93For what?’94 ’93For a church.’94 He said: ’93You can have it, and I will give a thousand dollars toward it myself.’94 It was opened, and at the first prayer-meeting eight hundred people were present, and the barroom was turned into a prayer-room. Mr. Finney preached seventy consecutive nights in that place, and the whole land was shaken. More of us can remember 1857. All the banks of New York, or nearly all of them, closed, the commercial houses going down with a terrible crash, a time of anxiety such as I have never since seen in this country. Then the engine-houses and the theatres were opened for religious service, and James Hall prayer-meeting at noonday, Philadelphia, telegraphed greeting to the noonday prayer-meeting at New York, and the answer went back; and in my village home I waited for the morning newspapers with great and profound interest, wondering what had been done the day before in religious circles. Four hundred thousand entered the kingdom of God, and some say seven hundred thousand. Those times are coming again. We have had the same forerunner, commercial depression. We have the same anxiety on the part of Christian people who realize that something needs to be done, that this world can never be brought to God by this slow process, and that there must be great awakening.

I argue the need of a great awakening, in the first place, because of the lack of enthusiasm and zeal on the part of those of us who preach the Gospel. You see, this is a gun that kicks. Let the pulpit first preach to itself, and then preach to the pew. Called to preach the Gospel in the village church, I knelt, and ten or twelve excellent ministers of religion put their hands on my head and set me apart for the holy ministry; and I declare to you now, as I look back, I have two emotions’97one of gratitude to God, and the other of the deepest dissatisfaction with myself. The field has been so wide, the opportunity has been so magnificent, and I have done so little, compared with the work I ought to have done. And then I remember I had such a glorious starting. Dr. Chambers, of New York, who was her pastor, says in a letter that my mother was the godliest woman he had ever known. My father and mother lived close to God, and nobody ever doubted where they went when they died. I had a glorious starting; and when I think of the opportunities I have had for usefulness, I am amazed that I have done so little! It is in no feeling of cant that I express it, but with deep and unfeigned emotion before God. It is a tremendous thing to stand in a pulpit and know that a great many people will be influenced by what you say concerning God, or the soul, or the great future.

Suppose a man asks of you the direction to a certain place, and you, through carelessness, thoughtlessly tell him the way, and you hear after a while that he got lost on the mountains, and went over the rocks and perished. ’93Oh,’94 you will say, ’93I never could forgive myself that I did not take more time with that man! It is my fault. If I had given him the right direction, he would have gone the right way.’94 And oh, the greater responsibility of standing in a pulpit, and telling people which is the road to heaven! Alas! if we tell them wrong. The temptation is so mighty in this day that no layman can understand it’97the temptation is so mighty in this day to smooth down the truth, and hush up the alarms of the Gospel, and pat men on the shoulder, and sing them on down toward the last plunge, and tell them they are all right. Or, as the poet has put it:

Smooth down the stubborn text to ears polite,

And snugly keep damnation out of sight.

What is the use of telling men they are all right when they know they are not all right? O brothers in the ministry, we cannot afford to hold back any of the truth, and we cannot afford to lack in earnestness! If you fail in this, my brethren, you had better stand away from them in the last day; you had better stand away from that soul that you have neglected lest he tear you to pieces. He will say to you: ’93I admired your philosophic disquisitions and your beautiful gestures and your finely-formed sentences’97multiform and stelliform and curvilinear’97but you never helped prepare me for this judgment day. Cursed be your rhetoric. I am going down now, and I am going to take you with me. Witness, all ye hosts of light and all ye hosts of darkness, it is his fault!’94 And many worlds come up in chorus, saying: ’93His fault, his fault!’94

Oh, that God with a torch would set all the pulpits of England, Scotland, Ireland, and America on fire! If God will forgive me for the past, I will do better for the future.

Tis not a cause of small import

The pastor’92s care demands,

But what might fill an angel’92s heart;

It filled the Saviour’92s hands.

They watch for souls for which the Lord

Did heavenly bliss forego,

For souls that must forever live

In raptures or in woe.

What pulpits we will have, and what prayer-meeting circles we will have, and what fields of usefulness we will have, what Sunday-school classes we will have, when we get our message direct from the throne!

Rev. Samuel Kennedy, an eminent minister of Christ, preached at Baskingridge, New Jersey’97I have often heard my father tell the story’97and that minister of Christ mourned over the coldness in his church, and he resolved to give one whole week to prayer and to prepare the most powerful discourse he could possibly prepare. So the whole week was employed, and he went into the church, as he thought, thoroughly prepared. While they were singing the hymn before the sermon, he turned to the Bible to find his text, but he had forgotten the text, and he had forgotten the subject, and when the hymn closed he said: ’93My dear people, a strange mental accident has happened me, and I cannot preach now. You will sing another hymn.’94 And while they were singing another hymn he took his Bible, glancing his eye from page to page, hoping he might strike upon the text and all would come back to him; but ever and anon his eye would strike upon the passage: ’93The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.’94 He said: ’93I cannot preach on that text; it is a dreadful text,’94 and he turned over more leaves, and kept on looking, and again his eye fell upon the same passage. ’93Oh,’94 he said, ’93I cannot preach on that text!’94 The hymn was finished, and he arose and announced the aforesaid text, and the place was filled with God, and a great revival of religion was started. My grandfather and my grandmother were brought in under that awakening, a line of influence coming down through our family which has blessed my soul.

I feel there is a need of a great awakening in the fact that the majority of religious professors are very cold. If a church have a thousand members, eight hundred are asleep. If a church have five hundred members, four hundred are asleep. A great multitude of Christians perfectly satisfied if they can only keep from dropping the wine cup on communion day, gracefully passing it along to somebody else. If there be an important religious meeting on a certain night, and that night there be an operatic entertainment of great interest, or there be a literary club, or there be a social circle, or there be an Odd-Fellows’92 lodge, or a Freemasons’92 lodge, and the question be between this and between that: who gets it, Christ or the world?

You know, whether you are a professor of religion or not, that the dividing line between the church and the world of today is like the equator, or the arctic or antarctic circle’97a mere imaginary line’97and thousands of professed Christians stand discussing the infinitesimal questions: Shall we dance? Shall we play cards? Shall we go to the theatre? Shall we go to the opera? And all those questions, when there are five hundred millions of the race marching off toward judgment without any warning. Oh, what a thinning out the judgment will make among professors of religion! Thousands going on just touching religion with the tips of the fingers, sauntering on and sauntering on lazily, until after a while they will come in front of the swiftly-revolving mill, and find themselves the chaff which the wind driveth away. Thousands of people who have their names on church books going on thoughtless of what shall become of the human race, and regardless of the betterment of the world’92s condition, until after a while they fall off as Judas did, and as Achan did, and all those will who do not make religion the primordial thing of life, the first and the last. How many there are who do not realize the fact that, though they are professors of religion, if they die as they are, all the communion tables at which they ever sat will, with uplifted hands of blood, cry for their condemnation, and their neglected Bible and prayerless pillows will say: ’93Go down, go down; you broke that sacramental oath; out of the seven days of the week you did not give five hours to God! Go down, go down!’94

O worldly professor of religion, compromising professor of religion, if you realized your true condition you would bite your lip until the blood came, and you would wring your hands until the bones cracked, and you would utter a cry that would start those who heard you to their feet with horror! O worldly professor of religion, wake up before you awake in the barred and flaming dungeon of an awful eternity! Look off upon the Church today, and see how much somnolence, and tell me if I am not right when I say that all the bugles and cymbals and drums and trumpets of the Church need to be sounded, saying: ’93Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee life.’94 Do I not need arousal? Do you not need it? If my heart condemns me, does not your heart condemn you, my brother?

I see also the need of a great awakening in the fact that the cause of God advances so slowly comparatively. I know there are more Christians today than there ever were, and yet the world can never come to God in this way. It is a mathematical impossibility. There are more people born into this world than are bora into the kingdom of God. Now, how long would it take to bring this world to God at that rate? Where there is one man converted to God, ten drop in dissipation. Fifty grog-shops built to one new church established. There are literary journals, full of scum and dandruff and slag, controlled by the very scullions of society who pollute everything they put their hands on. Churches surrendering to spiritualism and humanitarianism and nothingarianism and devilism.

If a man stand in a pulpit and say that unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God, kid gloves, diamonds bursting through, are put up to the face in shame and humiliation. It is not elegant. Men in all churches who do not believe in the Bible, in and in and out and out, from the first word of the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis down to the last word of the last verse of the last chapter of Revelation. Mighty Gospel machinery. A hundred thousand ministers of religion in America, costly music, great Sunday-schools; and yet I declare it, that while the cause of God is advancing, there are a great many regiments falling back and falling back; and if it does not become a complete rout, a positive Bull Run defeat, it will be because here and there a church hurls itself to the front and ministers of religion, trampling upon the favor of the world, and sacrificing everything, shall snatch up the torn and battered banner of Emmanuel and rush on, crying: ’93This is no time to retreat’97forward the whole line!’94

I see, also, a reason for a mighty awakening in the multitudinous going down of the unforgiven. Do you know since you came on the stage of action a whole generation have gone through the gates of eternity? They disappeared from the churches, from the stores, from the offices, from the factories. Some of them went out without an atom of hope. Some of them never offered one prayer for their own salvation. You might have uttered perhaps a saving word, but you did not utter it, O Christian! Just think of that. Where is the fountain where, with sleeves rolled up, we may wash off from our hands the blood of immortal souls? But that forever has ended. The question is now whether we are going to interrupt the other procession marching on’97tens of thousands of clerks coming out of stores, tens of thousands of husbandmen coming off farms, tens of thousands of students coming from the colleges and universities, tens of thousands of operators coming from the factories. On and on, making no preparation for the eternal world, taking everything by storm, overcoming all the obstacles put in the way of their destruction. Who will be brave enough to go out and throw himself in front of that stampede of men and women, and, swinging the sword of God’92s truth, cry: ’93Halt, halt, halt!’94

My brothers and sisters in Jesus, it seems to me the time has come for something almost desperate! Ordinary solicitations will not do the work. You want a momentum gotten by a whole night of wrestling in prayer with the omnipotent God. Catch that soul before it makes the plunge! Put down everything and run to the rescue! To-morrow may be too late; tonight may be too late; three o’92clock this afternoon may be too late. Seize that soul now before it flashes into the great eternal world! There are houses aflame, and no ladder to the window; there are ships going down and no lifeboat. O God, whelm us with these realities! Kill our stupidity. Take from under us our couches of ease. Hurl us into the battle.

I need not rehearse to you the stereotyped illustrations of the fact that God answers prayer; I need not tell you of Hezekiah and the restored fifteen years, or of Elijah and the great rain, or of the post-mortem examination of the apostle James, who, it was found, had his knees calloused by much prayer, or of Richard Baxter, who stained the walls of his study with the breath of prayer, or of John Welch in the midnight plaid, or of Whitefield on his face before God whole nights imploring the divine mercy. I rather turn in upon yourself and have you think of the time when your soul was sinking and you cried to God and he heard you, of the time when your child was at the point of death and you cried to God and he restored the little one, or of that other time when your fortune went and God set into your empty pantry the cruse of oil and the measure of meal. I take the ladder of three rungs! I put that down at your feet, and I ask you to climb up and look off and see the salvation of ten thousand of your fellow-citizens’97a ladder of three rungs: ’93Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.’94 Put your right foot on the lower rung, and that will bring your left foot on the middle rung, and that will bring your right foot on the top rung, and there hold fast’97hold fast until you see the surges of the divine mercy dashing clear above the topgallants.

My brethren, I do not know how you feel in regard to this matter, but my heart breaks with the longing I have for the redemption of this people. It seems to me if God denies me my prayer I cannot endure it. I offer myself, I offer my life to him. Take it, O Lord Jesus! and slay me if that be best. Whether by my life or by my death, let a multitude be brought to glory. If from the mound of my grave a greater multitude can climb into the kingdom of God, then, Lord, let me sleep the last sleep. It is sweet to live for Christ. I suppose it would be sweet to die for him. If eight million perished in the Napoleonic wars’97if one hundred and eighty-seven million were sacrificed in the Roman wars’97do you not think there ought to be some of us willing to be sacrificed for Christ?

Oh, I wish we knew how to pray! I do not. I mean the prayer that always brings the blessing’97always, always. Would that we might be so overborne with desire for the salvation of the people that from ten o’92clock at night until six in the morning we might be sleepless! If such a night as that should come, sleepless because full of prayer, let that be a night of weeping over our sin and of rejoicing in the divine mercy. Let there be wailing, wailing, wailing! Let there be shouting, shouting, shouting! But lest we might not have such a night as that, and lest before the setting of this day’92s sun our accounts should be made up, let us this moment go so low down before God that there shall be no lower depth of humiliation. Oh, that we might have a blood-red prayer, which would bow the heavens and bring all the unforgiven to the feet of a bleeding, dying, sympathetic Jesus, and this place be shaken as with tempest and earthquake, or that it might be as solemn as though we heard the rapturous and agonizing vociferation of three worlds!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage