F B Meyer on Revival
The following excerpt is from chapter 2 of “Back to Bethel” by F.B.Meyer:
You are eagerly desirous of a revival of undefiled religion, that your hearts and homes should be full of praise to God. I call on the elders and deacons and leaders in our churches to come into the inner courts that they may be thoroughly cleansed from the filthiness that has accumulated there. Nobody brought it into the temple it just accumulated. And the dust and filthiness of the world has accumulated in our souls, and you and I must deal with it.
Some years ago I met a gray-haired minister who told me the following story from his own life. Said he:
“I was brought up under Finney, and after my seminary course was sent to carry on a decayed work in a distant country district. There had been no revival, no stirring up of the Holy Ghost in those parts for years. I gathered some godly people in the vestry every Friday night to pray for a revival. We kept this up for fifteen months, but the heavens were as brass above us.
“When fall came on, I set apart a day for united prayer. My heart rejoiced as I saw the farmers driving in with their families, until the schoolhouse behind the chapel was filled.
“I explained that we had gathered to pray for a revival. After the opening hymns and prayers the meeting was thrown open.
“The silence of death settled upon the audience. Every one waited. “Presently a leading old elder rose in a front seat, and said:
“‘Pastor, I don’t think there is going to be a revival of the Holy Ghost here so long as Brother Jones and I don’t speak to each other.’
“He left his pew, walked down the aisle and found Brother Jones, and said:
“‘Brother Jones, you and I have not spoken for five years. Let’s bury the hatchet. Here’s my hand!’
“The old man returned to his pew, and sat down. A sob broke from the audience, and then there was silence again.
“Soon another elder rose, and said:
“‘Pastor, I think there will be no revival here while I say fair things to your face and mean things behind your back. I want you to forgive me.”
“We shook hands, and the audience relapsed into stillness again.”
The minister told me that he then witnessed the strangest scene of his life. For ten minutes men and women crept noiselessly about the house, squaring old scores. And God began to visit them. The operatives in a factory nearby heard what was going on in the school-house, and at the lunch hour they came over in such numbers that they were diverted into the church. The pastor preached to them the simple gospel, and within five minutes four of the ringleaders in sin in that community were crying to God for mercy. A revival broke out that swept to and fro over the district for three years.
I told this story at Wandsworth, England, once. A few weeks later, when addressing a gathering of ministers in London, I told it again, and a brother minister rose and said that after I had preached at Wandsworth, as he was going out, a man who owed him twenty-five dollars took his hand, and said: “Forgive my delay in settling that debt. You shall have the money tomorrow.”
We must get back to first principles. We are right with God in the exact proportion that we are right with the men and women around us. Let us test ourselves, not by what we are on Sundays at church, but by what we are to the man whom we like least. That is the true gauge.
