Praying for Revival

Why, brethren, we want every now and then to have a reformation. One reformation will never serve the church; she needs continually to be wound up and set a-going afresh; for her works run down, and she does not act as she used to do. The bold, bald doctrines that Luther brought out began to be a little modified until layer after layer was deposited upon them, and at last the old rocky truth was covered up, and there grew upon the superficial subsoil an abundance of green and flowery errors that looked fair and beautiful, but were in no way whatever related to the truth, except as they were the products of its decay. Then there came bold men who brought the truth out again and said, “Clear away this rubbish; let the light blast upon these deceitful beauties; we want them not; bring out the old truth once more!” And it came out. But the tendency of the church is perpetually to be covering up its own naked simplicity, forgetting that the truth is never so beautiful as when it stands in its own unadorned, God-given glory. And now, at this time, we want to have the old truths restored to their places. The subtleties and the refinements of the preacher must be laid aside. We must give up the grand distinctions of the schoolmen and all the lettered technicalities of men who have studied theology as a system but have not felt the power of it in their hears; and when the good old truth is once more preached by men whose lips are touched as with a live coal from off the alter, this shall be the instrument in the hand of the Spirit for bringing about a great and thorough revival of religion in the land.

But added to this, there must be the earnest prayers of the church. All in vain the most indefatigable ministry, unless the church waters the seed sown, with her abundant ears. Every revival has been commenced and attended by a large amount of prayer.

Photograph by Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock.

Source: Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, Sermons (Sheldon and Company, 1859), 341–342.