Moody and the 1858 Revival: Origins and Impact

But I'd be glad if you'd remember me in your prayers. The Lord will give me strength for the occasion and bless the message that, shall I say, comes hot off the griddle. I just finished jotting these notes down before and after supper.

Now, I take it that you understand that D.L. Moody was a product of a great spiritual awakening. I was talking to Sidney Ahlstrom, the great Lutheran historian, and I told him I was re-researching the story of the 1858 revival. He said, who started that, Moody? I said, no sir. He said, you surprise me. I said, not Moody. I said, Moody didn't start the 1858 revival. The 1858 revival started Moody. There's all the difference in the world.

You know that about 1884, Moody went to Cambridge University for a special meeting. Moody was scared of students. He couldn't spell. He spelled Philadelphia with an F. You don't see this in his books because they were all edited. They thought that publishing Moody as he wrote or spoke was not glorifying to the Lord. So now in these candid days, we have a different attitude. But when the Cambridge students heard that an illiterate American was coming, they determined to show him his place.

First night, when the Rector of St. Mary's led in prayer, the students punctuated with "here, here." That's not proper in church. All right in Parliament. When Sankey sang, they sang a parody along with him. Moody preached on Daniel in the Den of Lions. Maybe he felt that way. But you know that the Hebrew word Daniel has three syllables, Daniel, the English word at least two, Daniel. But Moody pronounced it with one, Danel. Oh, come on now, you've heard of Danel Boone and Danel Webster, haven't you? That was the American way. Every time he mispronounced the name Daniel, that brought the house down. They tramped their feet, they clapped their hands, they cheered, and Moody had to wait for silence. They were having a good time at his expense.

He told Sankey that night, Sankey, I've got no hankering for this crowd, but he was no coward either. A thousand came to the first meeting to rag him. Only a hundred to the second meeting. I think it was a Wednesday morning that Mr. Gerald Lander of Trinity College sent in his visiting card, wished to see Mr. Moody. Moody said, bring him in. When Moody saw this young man, he recognized him as one of the ringleaders. So he said, what can I do for you, sir? He said, Mr. Moody, I was one of those who thought that you were singularly unequipped to speak to gentlemen. But sir, he said, as I observed you on the platform, you were the only gentleman in the meeting. Sir, he said, I wish to apologize. Moody held out his hand, he said, I'll forgive you if you come to the rest of the meetings. Gerald Lander was in the front seat. Moody waited until Friday to give an invitation. First man forward was Gerald Lander, who became Bishop of Hong Kong.

Out of that meeting came the Cambridge Seven. Seven university students who became famous missionaries. They also helped Moody while they were in training in his great campaigns. One of them was W. W. Castles, who became Bishop of Sichuan. Now I want to stress this point. You heard of the Shantung Revival. Miss Olive was there. But that revival was felt in every province of China. And when it reached Sichuan, W. W. Castles summed it up in five words. Surprise? Five words? He said, it is like judgment day.

Now Miss Olive is right here, and she won't mind my referring to her. She remembers what she saw in China when she was a young missionary. It wasn't hooping and hollering. It was like judgment day, with weeping and confessing. A lot of people think that revival is a tremendous time of excitement and a great roll call of converts and so forth. It begins like judgment day, with the Holy Spirit exposing all the sins of the church. Now this is something we don't realize. That first stage of revival, after the prayer, is conviction of sin. Judgment precedes blessing.

Now I've told you stories of the Welsh Revival. A hundred thousand people outside the churches converted and joined the churches in five months. Five years later, someone wrote a book to debunk the movement and complained that after five years only 75% still stood. He said many were lost to mission halls and to the Pentecostals. Some of them couldn't stand the dryness that some people wanted to go back to.

Now have you ever heard of Campbell Morgan? Great Bible teacher. I met him personally. What did he say about the Welsh Revival? He said it was marked by confession. Some very costly confessions. I was preaching in Riga, which is now the capital of Soviet Latvia, in 1935. I was speaking in Aganskalna Baptist Church. The pastor was my interpreter. While I was speaking, a woman suddenly cried out in the middle of the audience and collapsed. Her husband and several deacons and the pastor helped carry her out. I couldn't continue the meeting. I didn't know any Yiddish. The pastor came back. He said, I don't understand. She's one of the pillars of the church. She's our superintendent of Sunday school. Next day he went to visit her. I was thinking, well, what did I say? Why did that happen like that? I had never to that moment, up to that time, seen prostration.

By the way, people have asked me if prostration is the same as being slain in the spirit today. I have to say, not quite. In Kentucky and Tennessee and over here in Spartanburg, South Carolina, people were slain in the spirit. Those who were slain were scoffers, wicked people under conviction of sin who fell on their faces before God. Sometimes they lay helpless for hours. It turned out that this woman and her husband had never been married. Oh, it was quite a story.

And I think back over my own experience, you know that about 1949 there was a wave of revival in colleges throughout the United States. It began in Bethel College, the Swedish Baptists, the general conference, as they're called. What happened in Bethel College? I remember one night in Minneapolis, four of us, Billy Grain, that time president of Northwestern Schools, Bill Dunlap, a Presbyterian, Jack Frank, a Forest Home, and I, four of us, young men, praying that God would send a moving of revival to the students of the Twin Cities. Billy went off for a campaign somewhere, but in Bethel College on the Thursday in Chapel, at the end of the message, a student got up and, ignoring me, spoke directly to the president, Dr. Wingblade. He said, Dr. Wingblade, can I have a week off to go back to Iowa? He said, I stole a thousand dollars and I can't live with this anymore. That was judgment. And every great revival is marked by judgment.

Have you ever thought of the verse that says, if we were to judge ourselves, we should not be judged? If we will engage in self-judgment, we're escaping judgment, either if God should deal with us in this life or at the judgment seat of Christ. We don't hear enough about the judgment seat of Christ these days. Now you have heard the verse, judgment must first begin in the house of the Lord.

I wonder if you've ever heard of a Sunday school teacher called Henrietta Mears. She and I started a group, a sort of Bible study prayer group, for movie stars in Hollywood. I was their first chaplain, the second chaplain was Richard Halverson, who is now chaplain of the United States Senate. And I remember on one occasion, those new converts raised this question, they said, the Bible says, judge not, we should never judge anybody. I said, you must read the scripture. It says, judge not that you be not judged, for the measure you give will be the measure you'll get. It's not a prohibition of judgment, it's a denunciation of hypocrisy, two-facedness. Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye and don't notice the beam in your own? In other words, there's no prohibition of judgment there. It means, don't you judge unless you're prepared to be judged. That's the full sense of that word.

I think I can give you another passage of scripture that would help illuminate this. First Corinthians 5, 9-13. I'm going to read it to you, you can read it in any version, you'll get the same message. By the way, we call this the first epistle to the Corinthians, actually it's the second, and the second is the third, because he says in verse 9, I wrote to you in my letter, that's his previous letter, we don't have a copy of it, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral men, not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers and idolaters, since then you'd need to go out of this world. In other words, before you buy a personal computer from somebody at a store, you don't ask him if he's living right with his wife. You can patronize Christians, sometimes it's wise so to do, but the Apostle Paul makes it quite clear, we're not to separate ourselves from the world. We don't identify with him, we're Christians, they're not. He said, but rather I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother, if he's guilty of immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler or drunkard or robber. Don't even eat with him. In other words, you have to judge those who are defiant of God, but call themselves Christians. Don't associate with them. And he ends up by saying, drive out that wicked person from among you.

Now we'll come back to the detail of that particular man, but you see the difference between an association with the world and an association with a brother. Now, you don't make hasty judgments; you have to listen to all the evidence. But if someone refuses to put things right, you have every right to challenge him, and then you simply withdraw association.

Now, in the old Mennonites among the Anabaptists, you've heard of the Anabaptists. George Peters, a Mennonite professor in Germany, spoke at our Oxford conference, and he said, the Southern Baptists trace their descent to John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan, but we Mennonites are better than that. We trace our descent to Saint Anna, the mother of Mary. That's why we're called Anabaptists. I've got to say that the Mennonites practice shunning. In other words, if you won't behave, I think the Amish still do this. We won't have anything to do with you. They don't shun the world; they shun a defiant believer.

Now, I was once having a conversation with Oswald Smith. I was his associate pastor in Toronto, but a long time after, he came to see me in Los Angeles. I said to Oswald, I have a theory that if the children of God tolerate open sin in the life of a servant of God, the Lord commonly allows that person to be overtaken in some other fault that drives them out of the ministry. Oswald said, how would you illustrate?

Now, I'll give you an illustration from the 1950s. I want to avoid any discussion of issues today in charity. I said there was a very popular young evangelist, as good-looking as Billy Graham, as good a preacher as Billy Graham, popular all over the states, but so greedy for money, that my friend Armand Guesswine, a very mild-mannered man, rebuked him. He said, everywhere I follow you, I find there's a bad smell about your financial practices. And the man laughed in his face. He said, Armand, there are enough big cities in America for me to visit only once. He was prepared to loot the churches and never to go back again. And I found this to be true, that if the children of God tolerate open sin in the life of a servant of God, the Lord allows them to be driven out of the ministry some other way.

Now, this may make you pause and reflect. Why would the children of God tolerate open sin in the life of a servant of God? I'll tell you why. Because he draws a crowd. Guess why? Sometimes sponsors will put up with anything, anything that's not an open scandal. They may know what's gone wrong with the man, but if it's not public, they'll put up with it because he draws a crowd. And why do they want to draw a crowd? Well, they may say they have spiritual reasons, but often it's material reasons, often.

Now, let's take an example of this from the passage in 1 Corinthians that I read to you. Here we have in the fifth chapter, the first verse, it is actually reported that there is immorality among you and of a kind that's not found even among pagans. It was a kind of incest. I was reading the other day that Mary Tipper Gore, wife of Senator Gore, in her crusade against viciousness in the media, pointed out that Elvis Presley used to sing a song called "Little Sister," which sort of celebrated the idea that sometimes when a fellow is dating a girl, he can fall in love with her little sister. That could be still legitimate. He could even end up marrying the little girl and not her older sister. But Mary Gore pointed out that today they're singing about incest between brother and sister. So far has the world fallen. What a descent into shame.

Now, this case in Corinth, Corinth was a very wicked sort of place. But in this passage, it says there's immorality among you, even the sort that you don't find existing among pagans, that a man's found living with his father's wife. Now, there's only one in the congregation guilty of incest. But the Apostle Paul goes on scolding. He said, you're so arrogant, don't you think you ought to mourn? In other words, you're guilty of not being ashamed that this situation should happen among Christians. And he says, let him who has done this be removed from among you. Or as you find at the end of the chapter, drive out the wicked person from among you. Now, that was excommunication on the grounds of flagrant immorality. Our churches used to practice discipline, but there's very little of it today. Generally, things are covered up or hushed up. But judgment is called for in this case.

Now, in case you think this sounds harsh, may I tell you there's a sequel. If you turn with me to this second, or as I think it should be called the third epistle to the Corinthians, the first one being missing, 2 Corinthians 2:5-11. Now, the Apostle raises up the subject of his previous letter. But if anyone has caused pain, he's caused it not to me, but in some measure not to put it too severely to you all. In other words, you've all been hurt by this. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. In other words, they clearly had obeyed the Apostle and had excommunicated this brother. But now he's saying don't overdo it.

I've always been guided by a verse of scripture when I find a brother in trouble. If your brother be overtaken in a fault, let those that are spiritual restore such in one. But repentance is essential. And remember, I think I'm getting to be well known in all sorts of circles besides Southern Baptists for preaching a sermon on repentance. The word repent means to change your attitude; it doesn't mean to feel sorry. The word does not mean to feel sorry; it means to change your attitude. That's the meaning of the word repent.

So he's saying the man has repented. Apparently, he got back a letter updating him with all the information about Corinth. And he says this punishment by the majority is quite enough. He says, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him so that he may not be overwhelmed by excess of sorrow. Sometimes when a person is disciplined by the church or shunned by people who have rebuked him, he's brought to not only repentance but deep depression. He begins to hate himself. So he says, Paul says in verse 8, so I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you're obedient in everything. Now listen, anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I've forgiven, if I've forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, to keep Satan from gaining the advantage over us. For we're not ignorant of his designs. Satan's so clever, he tries to pull a fast one. If he can see any opportunity in the weakness of a brother, or some peccadillo, or some major sin, he'll take advantage of it.

So you see there was a sequel to excommunication. He repented, so he was forgiven, and not only forgiven, comfort him. That means give him strength now, help him, restore him. I remember a friend of mine, years ago, who was very indiscreet in some of his relationships. I wrote to him quite frankly, and I said, if you're repentant, I'll be glad to help you. And I helped him set up a mission board. And for years after that, he did a good work for God.

Now, from this passage, you find what the Apostle Paul is talking about. He says, you have to judge those who are immoral, or covetous. You know what the word covetous means? It's greedy. Or cheating, idolatrous, those who make an idol out of something, reviling, or drunken, that's like addicted. The scripture is very clear about this.

So I'm going to switch to another side. Not merely the question of sexual immorality, but to that of covetousness. I'll speak as frankly as I can. We're cursed today with what I call the prosperity cult. You know how the Buddhists say, Abraham is the type. God wants me to be as wealthy as Abraham. Well, I thought to myself, you know, Abraham had at least 600 people working for him. In fact, he had an army, and he went and defeated several other kings in that area of the world. He had quite a lot of subordinates. They couldn't all be Abraham. And I don't think God calls all of us to be Abrahams. To say that Abraham is the type makes nonsense of the gospel.

I wonder if these people have ever heard the verse, if any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross. Rather than listen to some of them, I frankly would think highly of a Roman Catholic saint, a living one, Mother Teresa, who's denied herself by living in one of the worst slums in the world. I wonder if any of the newspapers today reach Mother Teresa, what she'd think of present controversy. I heard someone say, you know where the Lord has promised for those who are persecuted for his sake, anyone who's given up father or mother or children or houses or lands for my sake and the gospel, shall be restored unto him, father, mother, brethren, and so forth. Now, this verse needs to be interpreted, but I heard this man say, houses and lands. You know what that means, he said? It means that the devil has far too much real estate and we're told to liberate it. How do they liberate it? They take the Lord's money and buy property for themselves. Now, you might say, well, what does the scripture teach?

I once talked to a fellow called, I wonder if you've ever heard of Bill Jones. He used to pay for the presidential prayer breakfasts in Washington. He was a man who gave 90% of his business income to God, kept only 10% for himself. He pointed out to me when I was helping him write a book—he wrote a book on stewardship—and he said the only validation for money-making in the scripture is for stewardship, to help those who are in need. In other words, God will bless anyone who will become a steward for him.

I found something else interesting: seldom does God call one who ministers the word to the ministry of money-making. There are two separate callings. So when you hear of some pastor floating a scheme of developing some oil field somewhere, you know he's headed for disaster. He hasn't enough gumption to run an oil field anyway. So God raises up people to be stewards. Hudson Taylor had his friend who helped finance him in the China Inland Mission. The only reason given in scripture in the New Testament for money-making is to be stewards of God. So I don't go for this so-called prosperity cult.

Now I want to avoid present personalities, so I'm going to mention I had a dear friend in Ireland, Charles Coulter, who was the greatest man of prayer I knew in my young days. He told me, he's dead now, but he told me some years ago, maybe even 20 years ago, that a certain Texan—I just mentioned he was a Texan so that you won't jump to conclusions I'm referring to somebody else from some other state, in other words, I'm camouflaging. I wouldn't even venture, I have a name in the back of my mind, but I'm not even sure that's the person. But this Texan went to the north of Ireland. Now the north of Ireland people are like the Scots, very careful with their money. This man had a campaign, big tent, summertime. He tantalized the crowd by announcing that God had given him a special revelation that week, but had forbidden him to share it with anyone. Well then I thought, why did he tell them? He kept on telling them, curiosity built up. Some people would ask him and he would say, no, God hasn't given me any permission to share this special revelation that I have, until Thursday. He announced that God had given him permission to share it to the men only, at a special breakfast on Saturday morning. Any woman there made sure her husband was at that breakfast.

Now he spoke on tithing, they'd heard things about tithing before, but he said the special revelation deals with this subject. Now he said, I'm going to put a proposition before you. If God gave you a thousand pounds more this year to your income, would you be prepared to give him a hundred? So most of those hard-headed businessmen and farmers said, yeah, if I had a thousand pounds, sure, nine hundred for me, a hundred for God, sure. He said, make a note of that. He said, God gave you ten thousand pounds. Would you give him a thousand? And there they're busy calculating and he was having heads nod and so forth. He said, if you're more modest than that, if God gave you just a hundred pounds more, would you give him ten? And he had agreement. Now he said, that's not the revelation. The revelation is this. You give the money first. In that way, you enable God to do this for you. That releases God so that he can help you. And you know the bottom line. He passed out subscription forms. And my friend, the Irishman, told me he saw a letter from that man back in Texas saying, I sure took in those farmers and businessmen, didn't I?

I had the painful duty of dealing with someone in Christian work not so long ago. One of the most painful experiences I ever had. And because of his deceitful ways, we finally subpoenaed his bank accounts. Found he was a millionaire. And found he was stealing the Lord's money. Putting it into one account, changing to a second account, putting a third account, what we call laundering dirty money. Well, it was the Lord's money, but it was dirtied by his hands. We as a committee asked him to return the money. He defied us. We said, we'll sue you. He said, you can't sue me. Why not? Well, Christians are not allowed to sue each other. I said, you must read the scripture. It says, dare any of you sue each other before the law? Are you not able to settle it yourselves? That's the corollary. Are you all right? You settle it and we won't sue you. Besides, I said, it says in the scripture, if we are going to judge angels, are you not able to settle trivial matters among the brethren? Trivial matters. Embezzlement is not a trivial matter, it's a crime. Would the pastor of a church, if he found a member had committed murder, help to hide the man? No, he'd say, look, give yourself up, man, we'll stand behind you. Whenever we finally took him to court, he countersued me for a quarter million dollars. My wife laughed. I thought she'd cry, but she laughed. He said it was because we interfered with his economic prospects. We sure did. He settled on the courthouse steps, paid back. We didn't get all the $40,000 we'd lost, but about $25,000 back.

I take it you've all heard of Chuck Smith. Chuck Smith does a wonderful work. Last time I preached, but one that was for Chuck Smith to 8,000 people on a Sunday morning. Chuck Smith told me that some time ago, again, I won't mention names, he got a solicitation letter saying that we're facing a financial crisis. It began, my dear Charles, now that would be like writing to Billy Graham and saying, my dear William. Nobody thinks of him as Charles any more than they think of Billy Graham as William. That means he didn't know who he was writing to. In other words, a computer letter, wasn't it? It said how much we'd like to sit with you in your living room and talk face to face, but because we can't do this, this is a letter from my heart to yours. And they said they had a financial crisis, but if everyone on their mailing list would send $25, they could meet the crisis. Chuck Smith wrote back, my dear so-and-so, your letter reminds me of a verse of scripture which says, many with feigned words will seek to make merchandise out of you. However, I wouldn't want to close my heart to a brother in need, but it would help me considerably if you would sell your summer home and raise $750,000. If I give you any more clues, you'll guess who I'm talking about. I told Chuck, of course, that man never saw the letter, and probably never saw your reply, but he's responsible. I told this story to my good friend living up the hill here, and he said, you know, a lot of letters are sent out under my name, but I read every one that's sent out that I sign. God bless him. Isn't it a wonderful thing that God has kept that evangelist clear of scandal?

Now this question of solicitation touches a sensitive nerve of a lot of people. Hudson Taylor never asked money from anyone and did a great work for God. William Booth asked for money from everyone and did a great work for God. I modeled my life on Hudson Taylor, but I certainly don't judge anyone who feels that the proper thing to do is to let the Lord's children who are interested know of the need. The only reason, or maybe I should say the main reason that I did it was, I started in the middle of the worst depression in history and started out with 65 cents, and I stayed that which showed that God could answer prayer. That's been my testimony. But if you're going to solicit, you've got to be accountable. That's the big thing.

So it brings us to the other side, misappropriation of the Lord's money. Let me read some verses to you. Now we turn to the Acts of the Apostles. Chapter five, it refers to property and money. But a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira, they were both in on it, sold a piece of property and with his wife's knowledge kept back some of the proceeds and brought only a part and laid it at the Apostles' feet. The context is this, at that time at Pentecost they held all things in common. Such a crowd had gathered in Jerusalem who were being ministered to that those who had wealth sold it and with the money they gave it to the Lord's work, and of course were greatly appreciated. Now this man made a sort of deal with his wife, we'll sell a piece of property and we'll just give part of it to the Lord, but we'll get credit for all of it. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds of the land? Notice the next point, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? After it was sold, couldn't you do what you liked with it? How then is it you contrive this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God.

Now I'm not going to tell anyone what kind of house he has to live in or what kind of car he has to drive around, yes, but if you tell the Lord's people that they're giving to the Lord's work and use it for your own benefit, you're cheating.

If you're open, say I wanted to buy a Mercedes Benz or whatever, I want it for this or that or the other thing, you can be perfectly open. Now, if you're a member of an organization that is accountable to its constituents, then you're protected. But it says when Ananias heard these things, he fell down and died. What a terrible judgment, and great fear came upon all those who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him.

After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, tell me whether you sold the land for so much? She said, yes, for so much. And Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? You may say, hold on a moment, they had just deceived the church, that was all. It says here that they lied to God and they tempted the Spirit of the Lord. And judgment fell upon this poor woman too. And what happened? Great fear came upon the whole church and all who heard of these things. But it didn't stop the work.

Now put this in a modern context, if this had happened today, we would have had a cover-up committee. Don't allow it to get out to the public. You can take heart, this may be a surprise to you, when God exposes things, misappropriation. I wonder how common it is. People don't drop dead today, but you could certainly say the penalty for trifling is loss of fellowship, not only with God, but with God's people. And one of the outcomes was that when God was vindicated, the work gained strength again.

Now I generally speak to you on some uplifting side of revival. But I come back to my main point. William Cassels from Sichuan in China said revival means judgment day. That's what happened in Shandong. Judgment on missionaries, pastors, people, and then fear fell on the world. And God's name was glorified. And people have such a wrong idea of what revival means. I don't merely mean the misuse of the word revival, like we're holding a revival every Monday or whatever. I don't mean that misuse of the word revival. They think of revival as something triumphant, an overflow of great blessing. It's judgment day for the church. But after the judgment, after things are settled, it's blessing abounding.

At Fuller, a student came to talk to me, a pastor, I think he was working on his, I don't remember his name, he was working on his de-min, came from the East Coast. And he said, Brother Orm, earlier this year I had an outpouring of God's Spirit on my ministry, a reluctant. I had power in preaching, the response was great, there were tears, there were reconciliations, there were confessions, there were humblings. And we felt this is it. We prayed for revival, this is it. So he said, we organized a revival and we brought in an evangelist. And we started our revival and he said the revival stopped. Why? I said, I can't tell you exactly why. But the first thing that comes to my mind was this, you weren't content with what God was doing for you, so you had to organize it. And the man you brought in, I don't know who it was, but he may not have been in the groove. He may not have been in the Spirit. He may have been a good man. In fact, he might have been an evangelist or a pastor whose ministry was at a low ebb and he was hoping for a chance of a good meeting type of thing. God bless him. Evangelists have ups and downs. But I said, what was real revival stopped? Because you didn't let the Lord have his full way. That's what's got to come.

Now, what are you going to make of this? We all know situations, don't we? We all know what we're praying for. We want revival. We're prepared for the excitement of revival, the blessing of revival, but we're not prepared for judgment day. It is a judgment on the church. It always comes that way. In every case, I'm not speaking of evangelism, that's the winning of souls to Christ. I'm speaking of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the body of believers. Therefore, if you want to see something happen, you better pray along those lines. I think the best way to pray is to pray the prayer of Psalm 139: search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting.