That all the people of the earth might
know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your
God for ever. Joshua 4:24
A revival
is something that, when it happens, leads people to say, as the townspeople
said in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, “What is this? What is it?” It is
something that comes like a tornado. It is almost like an overflowing tide; it
is like a flood.
Astounding
things happen, and of such a magnitude that men are left amazed, astonished. Let
me give you an illustration that is one of the most lyrical and one of the most
wonderful. There was a preacher in Scotland three hundred years ago by the name
of John Livingstone of Kilsyth. John Livingstone and a number of others had
been spending Sunday night after the services in prayer. Monday morning came,
and John Livingstone had been asked to preach. He was out in the fields
meditating, and suddenly he felt that he could not preach, that the thing was
beyond him and that he was inadequate. And he felt like running away. But
suddenly the voice of God seemed to speak to him, not in audible language, but
in his spirit, telling him not to do that and that God did not work in that
way, and it made him feel that he must go back. He preached, he tells us, on
Ezekiel 36. And he said, “I preached for about an hour and a half. Then,” he
said, “I began to apply my message,” and as he was beginning to apply it, suddenly
the Spirit of God came upon him, and he went on for another hour in this
application. And as he did so, people were literally falling to the ground, and
in that one service five hundred people were converted. That is the kind of
thing that happens in a revival. And poor John Livingstone says that kind of
thing only happened to him on one other occasion.
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