I have found some very refreshing reading over the last two or three weeks: I’ve been re-visiting some revival themes that I was deeply immersed in for many years but which had gone somewhat on the back burner when the issue of judgement arose. One can never call judgement refreshing, but revival certainly is! One theme in particular came into focus: judgements do not stop or prevent revivals happening. That was very refreshing.
I was looking at the extraordinary number of revivals that had taken place in the twentieth century. Many were small, but some of them were large, very large, like huge stars in a galaxy. The peak points seem to have been the great South American revivals of the 1940s through to the 80s and 90s which brought some 100,000,000 million converts, and the revival in China which still continues and has brought something approaching the same number into the Kingdom. Elsewhere in the revival galaxy are the Welsh Revival, the East African Revival, the Nepalese Revival and a host of others. Just looking at those revival lights is a great tonic, and to see such remarkable outbursts of them such as the twentieth century gave us is very exhilarating.
However, I then put this revival survey into the context of “more normal” history. That context was one of sheer cataclysm (as so many secular historians bear witness). Before the century had reached its halfway mark two world wars had killed well over 100,000,000. More were killed by a 'flu pandemic that had died in the first of those wars. Three massive totalitarian regimes, Nazi Fascism, Russian Communism and Chinese Communism spread an ugly and murderous backcloth to the whole century. They caused untold oppression, distress and death. There were a great many smaller (but still very grievous) tyrannies in many countries. The latter half of the century also saw the world-wide AIDS epidemic spreading its devastation. All this formed the “dark matter” of the galaxy.
If one had known in 1900 what the century would bring in terms of cataclysm one might have been forgiven for thinking that there was little chance for the success of the gospel. But there were many who at that starting point viewed the future with a prophetic eye on the promises of scripture and knew the gospel would triumph. Their descendants at the end of the century might well have looked back to 1900 and said of the century with profound awe, “The light shined in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”.
It was that thought that really refreshed me. I think it’s the thought we need to take into the coming century and with which to face its cataclysms.
Bob
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I was looking at the extraordinary number of revivals that had taken place in the twentieth century. Many were small, but some of them were large, very large, like huge stars in a galaxy. The peak points seem to have been the great South American revivals of the 1940s through to the 80s and 90s which brought some 100,000,000 million converts, and the revival in China which still continues and has brought something approaching the same number into the Kingdom. Elsewhere in the revival galaxy are the Welsh Revival, the East African Revival, the Nepalese Revival and a host of others. Just looking at those revival lights is a great tonic, and to see such remarkable outbursts of them such as the twentieth century gave us is very exhilarating.
However, I then put this revival survey into the context of “more normal” history. That context was one of sheer cataclysm (as so many secular historians bear witness). Before the century had reached its halfway mark two world wars had killed well over 100,000,000. More were killed by a 'flu pandemic that had died in the first of those wars. Three massive totalitarian regimes, Nazi Fascism, Russian Communism and Chinese Communism spread an ugly and murderous backcloth to the whole century. They caused untold oppression, distress and death. There were a great many smaller (but still very grievous) tyrannies in many countries. The latter half of the century also saw the world-wide AIDS epidemic spreading its devastation. All this formed the “dark matter” of the galaxy.
If one had known in 1900 what the century would bring in terms of cataclysm one might have been forgiven for thinking that there was little chance for the success of the gospel. But there were many who at that starting point viewed the future with a prophetic eye on the promises of scripture and knew the gospel would triumph. Their descendants at the end of the century might well have looked back to 1900 and said of the century with profound awe, “The light shined in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”.
It was that thought that really refreshed me. I think it’s the thought we need to take into the coming century and with which to face its cataclysms.
Bob
To make a comment: click on word “comments” below, write your comment in the white box which appears and add your name and e mail address (if you wish), choose “select profile”, click “anonymous” and then continue
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