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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature a favorite Southern preacher, Vance Havner, talking about his upbringing. Havner says, my hometown community was called Jugtown because in the early years there were little shops up and down the road where the potters rocked their vessels of clay. I grew up with a Bible in one hand and a bird book in the other. I never knew the day when I didn't feel the need to preach and write. I memorized Bible portions, made little Sunday school talks, and sent my first sermon to our small town newspaper when I was nine. Today, Vance Abner presents a Sermon on Revival. The following material is copywritten by and provided courtesy of the Moody Bible Institute.
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I would lay two familiar verses on your mind. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Luke 22:32 where our Lord said to Simon Peter, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Some time ago I was in meetings in Brunswick, Georgia, which is on the coast and not far from that part of the country where John Wesley labored to convert the Indians back in 1735. The Methodists have a magnificent campground. They call it Epworth by the Sea. I asked the pastor to take me over there one morning and leave me there. Nobody was around the place at that time of year. I said, I just want you to leave me and come back at noon and get me. I just want to stroll around over that place. Imagine any part of the country that could have had the ministry and did at one time, of John Wesley, Charles Wesley and George Whitefield all at the same time. That would be favored territory, wouldn't it? Well, I went over there and spent the morning strolling around and there's a marker there with this inscription on it by Bishop Arthur Moore. Let us read the story of John Wesley again. This cultured, conscientious gentleman, resolute in self denial, punctual in all observances, doing all the good he could and avoiding evil, had everything but peace in his own heart. Then the room in Aldersgate street and his face to face encounter with his Savior. Presently, that masterful little man climbed on his horse to set out on the conquest of England with only one resource, the assurance given him that Christ had taken away his sins. Soon that spark of Grace set 10,000 hearts on fire. As I strolled that morning and meditated, I remembered that John Wesley's mother was one of the grandest Christians who ever lived. His father, both grandfathers and Great grandfather had all been preachers. He was an Oxford man, a man of prayer, deeply religious, and a missionary who had come all the way to America to convert others and kept praying all the while, who will convert me? I don't think a man ever had more qualifications for the ministry without being ready to preach. And not until he returned to England and an evening three years later in that little meeting on Aldersgate street, not until then was he ignited by a spark from heaven and flamed into one of the most amazing human firebrands in church history and saved England from the fate of France. I remember going out to Southwestern Seminary some years ago in Fort Worth for two messages. And I was to speak in First Church, Dallas, at the Southern Baptist Evangelistic Conference. And I had prepared some messages for those occasions, but found myself all the time getting up one on John Wesley without knowing why. I kept asking myself, what are you doing going out to preach to the Baptist, and yet you can't get John Wesley out of your mind? When I got out there, believe it or not, they asked me over to SMU to talk to the preacher boys. I said, there's where I'll use my Wesley sermon. And I said to them what I've just said to you, that with all these qualifications, John Wesley wasn't ready to preach. It's amazing how much a fellow can have and not be ready to preach. Calvin Coolidge said America was born in a revival of religion, and back of that revival were John Wesley, George Whitefield and Bishop Asbury. Then that morning, I thought about another human dynamo, Dwight L. Moody. He could do the work of 10 men and did and would have converted the world by prodigious zeal and hard work if you could do it that way. But one day, Crazy Moody, as some called him, was supercharged by the same voltage that transformed Wesley. He used a different figure of speech. He said, I'd been carrying buckets of water. Now I had a river that carried me. The figure of speech is different, but whether fire or water, it symbolizes that divine invasion that makes the difference between well meant striving in the flesh and the ministry of the Spirit. I came away from Epworth by the sea that morning, smitten with this uneasy suspicion that the professing church today, for all its herculean labors and with so little to show for it, may be a pre Aldersgate Wesley. I remember that John Wesley's mighty works in Georgia were done before his heart was strangely warm. And so today, with education and organization and enthusiasm and Public relations and mass media and all the rest of it. We're out to convert the Indians, but we're not getting much done. And nobody questions the earnestness and the sincerity and the stupendous toil in our religious world today. But somehow it lacks the spark that detonates the charge. We have the facts and we have the formulas and we have the finances, but where's the fire? We have strange fire, and Lord help us, we have stage fire. But where is the flame that set England on fire two centuries go, and then so much of what we're doing today is pre Pentecost. The disciples had known our Lord. They'd walked with him, they'd heard him three years, they'd seen him healed, they'd preached and they'd performed some wonders themselves. But they were not ready to face the world of their day until there came the rushing wind and the tongues of fire. Now, I'm not interested in arguing the theology of all this. With Wesley, it was the witness of the Spirit, and with Moody, it was the filling of the Spirit. But there must be a confrontation with God. It may be as tempestuous as a hurricane, and it may be as calm as an autumn sunset, but something must happen that cannot be supplied by education, personality, ability, or the best of intentions. Pentecost happened once for all as an event in history, but our experience of it can be repeated as often as a Wesley meets his Aldersgate or a Moody is overwhelmed on a street in Chicago. Here's the answer to all our feverish and futile striving today, as Christians and as churches, there's too much pre Aldersgate Wesley about it all, trying to convert the Indians. What he needed was not the challenge that he saw in America, but the change that he felt at Aldersgate. Now he admitted his need of it, and you're getting somewhere when you at least admit the need of it. If we could bring ourselves to our like admission, God might meet us. But we're rich and increased with goods and don't need anything. Thank you. So the revolution that started in 1738 with one man in Shuca nation is still waiting to begin today. Could it be that with all our evangelistic plans and programs to convert others, we need to be converted? There are two kinds of conversion in the New Testament. Matthew 18:3, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. That's conversion unto regeneration. And then there's the other in Luke 22:32, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren, feed the sheep, in other words, as he was told to do also. That's conversion unto renewal. I'm not sure which conversion Wesley had at Aldersgate. I have a very old book of sermons by Dr. Dale, that distinguished Congregational preacher of England. He gave it in a Methodist meeting a long time ago. And he says that Wesley himself thinks later on that he was a servant, but he came into a consciousness of sonship on that occasion. I don't know. But whatever it was, it lit the fuse and it detonated the charge, and it set Wesley afire, and it set England afire, and it set 10,000 tongues singing, my great Redeemers, praise the glories of our Lord and King, the triumphs of His Grace. John Wesley wasn't ready to convert the Indians until John Wesley was converted. I've heard sermons to young people about Isaiah's vision, and I've heard speakers urging young people to say, here am I, here am I. But the trouble is, too many people today are trying to say, here am I before they've ever said, woe is me. That's where Isaiah got off to the right start, and his lips were touched by a fiery coal. And that's not a pleasant experience. There's nothing funny about that. When God operates, he never uses an anesthetic. David didn't say, now I'm going out and teach transgressors God's ways and convert sinners, and that will restore to me the joy of my salvation. My Lord didn't say to Peter, now you get busy out here strengthening the brethren, and that will convert you. That's the approach we take today. We're trying to get people out, busy, do something, do something, do something for the Lord. When they have not the motivation, something needs to happen to them. We do well to look at the circumstances of Peter's conversion. What caused his collapse to begin with? Somebody has said Peter was the most American of all the disciples. I think that's right. Have you noticed that just about everything he said was a mistake? Before this, we have left all to follow thee. What shall we have therefore? This shall not be unto thee sayest thou who touched me. I will never deny you. Let us build here three tabernacles. Thou shalt never wash my feet. No wonder the Bible says Peter said, not knowing what he said. And then on that occasion, when he denied his Lord, he made himself comfortable out in the Courtyard. And Mark 14:16 says, when that servant girl saw Peter warming himself. When a man starts following Jesus Christ afar off, he gets cold. Then he starts looking for a fire, and he ends up warming himself at the wrong fire with the wrong crowd. Now, there is a sense in which my Lord is on trial today and too many are warming at the devil's fire in the courtyard. The devil always has a convenient fire for backsliders just inside the gate when you ought to be outside the camp bearing his reproof. The first step in backsliding is to make yourself comfortable. Oh, William Lowe said, who am I to lie folded up in a bed late of a morning when the farmers are already about their chores, and I'm so far behind with my sanctification. That will do to think over. Dr. Stephen Alford and I have been in a number of evangelistic conferences. Three times in North Carolina and in Florida, and I'm going to and a few weeks up to his own conference in Calvary Church. We have a great time together. I tell you, I don't know of any man that gets under the hides of a crowd of Baptist preachers more than he has in North Carolina and three successive evangelistic conferences through years past. And I remember one time when God worked so marvelously there. And then later on, I met some of those preachers and some of those fellows that had to revise their getting up schedule and their prayer schedule and their Bible schedule. I was amazed at how familiar some preachers are with some television programs. I don't know of any fire in the courtyard of this age where more backsliding preachers are warming themselves than at the wrong kind of television program. Jim Elliot, who died down in Ecuador, wrote in his diary, and it sounds like some old mystic instead of a vigorous young chap. I went to a friend's house the other night to look at television and was convicted by Psalm 100 in 1937. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, he said. I sense the powerful decentralizing effect on my mind and affections. It quickens me in ways not of God, defeating the purpose of prayer to be quickened in ways divine. Lord, grant me a disciplined spirit and an obedient body henceforth. I think when Jim Elliot went to Ecuador to convert the Indians again, by the way, just as John Wesley went to Georgia, I believe he was converted both ways before he went. Have you noticed that Simon Peter was caught between two fires when he denied his Lord? He had warmed himself at the sinner's fire. And then when he met my Lord, the Savior had built a fire on the beach. So he was between the sinner's fire and the Savior's fire. It's altogether possible that there's somebody here this morning or somebody listening to me who's between two fires. You've denied the Lord and you haven't gotten around to the Savior's fire. You need to be brought to conviction as Peter was, and you need to weep bitterly as Peter did. And you need to be converted at the Savior's fire and reinstated. For Peter wasn't a disciple during those days. How do I know? Because the angel at the sepulcher said, go tell his disciples. And Peter. Peter said, I'll be the last one to deny you. And he was the first. We're not ready to strengthen the brethren and feed the sheep. We're not ready to convert Indians. It's easy enough to confess other people's sins and lament the ungodliness of somebody else without ever saying, could there be something the matter with me? Some of you have heard me tell about that lady who went to a psychiatrist and she had a strip of bacon over each ear and a fried egg on top of her head. And she said, I've come to see you about my brother. She needed a little help herself. Now, you sit here this morning and you're a student. You're studying the Bible and you're a preacher, and you don't need anything. Everybody else needs a revival. Mel Trotter had a prayer meeting one time where everybody had prayed but one fellow, and he wouldn't pray. And Mel said, what's the matter with you? Nothing. Well, Mel said, get down there and confess your sins. He said, I'm all right, Mr. Trotter. We said, get down there and confess your sins. He said, I can't think of a thing in the world. Mel said, get down there and guess at it. And he said he got down and guessed it the very first time. Some of you are saying, oh, I wouldn't be at Founders Week if I weren't prayed up and caught up. I'm all right. I pity other folks, but I'm all right. Now wait a minute. You could guess at it and hit it. There are too many pre orders gate Pre Pentecost Wesleys trying to run before they're ready. They're like Ahemias who said, I want to get going. He didn't have anything to say when he got where he was going. Old Joab said, well, you don't have any tidings ready. Nobody wants to go anyhow, so he went. When he got there, what did he report? You know it. I saw a tumult. A lot of difference between Tidings and a tumult. We've got a lot of poor fellows up in the pulpit these days with nothing but a tumult in their head and in their heart because they have no tidings. We talk a lot about crisis, and we talk a lot about challenge, but what's needed is change. Isaiah faced a crisis in Judah, but he wasn't ready till there was a change. Wesley faced a challenge in the Indians, but he wasn't ready till there was a change. My Lord didn't say, bear witness. He said, ye shall be witnesses. There's a lot of difference between bearing a witness and being a witness. You can't talk it if you haven't got it. A witness has seen, something tells about it. There's such a thing as trying to describe what you've never seen. John Wesley before Aldersgate was bearing a witness, but John Wesley, after Aldersgate, was being a witness. Before you look out the window at the world's need, you need another piece of furniture in that room. Before you look out the wind at the need of the world, you need to look in the mirror at your own need. The Wesleyan Revival produced a social revolution. You ought to read that book, this Freedom, whence that traces all the social benefits that followed to that great revival. We're hearing a lot today about social involvement, but it was just the outflow and the overflow of the inflow of the Spirit of God. And it started with one man. We're trying to have the results today before we've had the revival. When Dr. Olford and I were in my hometown in the Evangelistic conference not long ago. Well, a year ago now. Exactly. A dear veteran missionary lady, quite old now, gave to each of us that book on the Shantung Revival in China. I had a one man revival in my own heart when I read that then I was out in First Baptist Church, Colorado Springs, later on, and a dear layman in the church said, brother Havner, I have a tape here I want you to hear. It was given by Dr. Culpepper, who was the outstanding leader in that revival, and he gave it at Southwestern Seminary, and I want you to hear it. We went down in the basement of the church and he played it, and I said, man, I've got to have a copy of that. Well, those missionaries were dedicated people. They thought they were. You're not going all the way to Shantung Province in China. Something hasn't moved you. That's pretty good. And yet things weren't moving at all over there. Then a missionary came through who wasn't a Baptist, believe it or not, Ms. Monson, she began standing at the door of the church after each service. And as everybody went out, she asked them one by one, point blank, have you been born again? That's not exactly the accepted way to greet people going out of church. Then when she met Dr. Culpepper, and there wasn't a saintlier man out there than Dr. Culpepper, she asked him, have you ever been filled with the Spirit? Well, he hemmed and hoed and swallowed, and God began to speak to him. And in this wonderful message he went through several weeks like Daniel in the ninth chapter of Daniel. There's not a black mark against Daniel in the whole Bible. And yet when you read that ninth chapter, you think he's the worst sinner in town. If a man like Dr. Culpepper could confess all the sins that he did before he got ready for God to use him, what about the rest of us? I was down in Greenville, South Carolina, not long ago in a meeting, and I started to tell about this, and bless my heart, if there wasn't in the congregation one old missionary who was with that group in Shantung Province, and she had never been born again. I had her up on the platform and I found out about it. She said I'd gone all the way to China, but I needed to be converted the first way. Things began to happen and God moved marvelously out there. And the head of the foreign mission board of my denomination went out there to check it, to see if there was any wildfire in it. By the time he got through listening to those missionaries testimony, there were tears in his eyes. And he came back and said, keep your hands off that. God is working out there. We're not ready to convert the Chinese or anybody else until we've been converted. I know that there's no stereotyped form of revival. God probably would never reproduce a Welsh revival in England or a Shantung revival in America. There are differences in situations, temperament, both individually and nationally. I don't know what form the next awakening we'll take, if we ever have one. Our God is a God of infinite variety. And he doesn't work the same way identically twice in a row. But one thing I do know, whether individually as Christians, as ministers, or collectively as churches or denominations, we're not ready to convert the Indians, for we've been converted. My own denomination had what we call the Crusade of the Americas. And I think a lot of people got saved. But I told Them in the rallies here and there. We haven't done enough about getting ready. They had three points in it and the first was preparation, the second was evangelization, and then the third was social involvement. And I said we never got ready. We had a conference on evangelism in Minneapolis and I'm sure a lot of good things were said out there, but I'm still hoping somebody will call a congress on revival within the church, which must precede and will produce effective evangelists because we've got a sick church and a sick world today. I know we don't have any perfect churches. We don't have any perfect Christians. You can be healthy without being perfect physically and you can be a healthy Christian without being spiritually perfect. You can be blameless without being faultless. There are healthy churches and there are healthy Christians and we ought to be. But my, my, there are more ailments in the churches today than diseases in the medical dictionary. And one of the besetting ailments is infantile paralysis. We've got so many babies like Paul wrote about to the Corinthians, a normal baby is precious, but a baby that ought to be growing up and doesn't is abnormal. We've got a lot of 150 to 200 pound babies who keep the preacher busy running around with a milk bottle when they ought to be on beef steak a long time ago. And if you measured your church membership today by their spiritual progress, most of the crowd would be in the cradle row, the beginners and the primary. I'll admit some 40 year olds would look funny in the primary department, but that's where they belong. That's why some of them are pretty fussy and hard to please. And if a new preacher comes along, they say, I don't like him, he changed my formula. Then we've got folks who have eye trouble. They see men as trees walking like the man the Lord touched. And we have deaf people in the church. The other kind hearing they hear not. My Lord said, if any man hear my voice, he that hath ears to hear. They hear vocal sounds emanating from the pulpit, but they don't hear the word of God. Then we have some that are dumb. I don't mean stupid, although some of them may be, but I mean speechless. Too many Christians are like arctic rivers. They're frozen at the mouth and they don't have a vocal and an articulate testimony. Then some have asthma, they're out of breath. Then breathed he on them and said, receive the spirit and I meet educational Men and song leaders and preachers, red in the face, puffing and blowing, exhaling all the time without inhaling, giving out without taking in. My Lord said, if we drank of the living water, from within us shall flow rivers of living water. There won't be much outflow and overflow. If there is not inflow, then. Some have sleeping sickness, especially in church on Sunday morning. And it is high time to awake out of sleep. Some come to church to eye the clothes and others come to close the eyes. But whatever they come for, there they sit asleep. And some have malaria, this malarial Christianity. A fever and a chill and a fever and a chill. And they go all the way from wildfire to deep freeze. And some have leprosy broken out with immorality, worldliness, bad habits, uncleanness. Some churches look like giants in the denominational yearbook. But they're rich and increased with goods and in the sight of the Lord, wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. And they keep going by stimulants and shots in the arm and pit pills. Sick and don't know it. And I'm amazed at some of the prescriptions that are offered today. They say, well, we need to get out into evangelism, beloved, we don't need to get out into evangelism until we're ready to evangelize. They say, well, we need to get back to sound doctrine. Certainly we need to, but the Pharisees were orthodox. You can be as straight as a gun barrel theologically and just as empty as a gun barrel spiritually. And how fundamentalist and conservative churches need revival. They get so busy sometimes fighting error that they lose the joy of salvation, the first love. The church at Ephesus illustrates that. Some say we must get back to the work of the Holy Spirit. Of course we must. But the Holy Spirit won't use dirty vessels. There again, there must be confession and conversion, and there must be cleansing. These are the things that are necessary if God is to work among us. John Wesley could have spent the rest of his days in good works. An earnest Church of England priest. But he got converted and the priest became a prophet. This is a good Founders Week. Is it possible that it could be the best? God help us that when it's all over and you've heard the last sermon, you don't do like some people do in church on Sunday morning, after a preacher has preached his heart out, sit there and blithely say, in effect, I move we accept this as information and be dismissed. God wants to do something far beyond anything we can ask or think. God grant that it may be so.
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You've been listening to Vance Havner. Listen to Faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.