Unit 9 Video Transcripts

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Video Transcript: America's Most Recent Awakening (Dr. Bruce Ballast)

So as we saw last time, ordinary people like Billy Sunday could be used and people like Parham and William Seymour, and people who were not the influential folks, and yet God did extraordinary things through them. Well, in this chapter, we're going to go on to talk about what is sometimes referred to as before awakening, or ongoing revival. Want to set the stage, faith had gone through some challenges, once again, at least the faith in a broad sense of the church. In the 1920s, we became, for the first time an urban nation. Now we've talked about immigration and how the cities were growing and expanding. But it was in the 1920s, that for the first time, more people lived in the cities that lived in the countries, so 51.4%. 1920s were also a time when there was a rise in the standard of living that was unmatched probably in the history of the United States, even though we've always been seen as the place of opportunity. labour laws kept many people from experiencing. But in the 1920s, there began to be agreements between between labour and management, so much so that leisure time became a reality for the first time in many people's lives. Prior to labour laws, of course, you know, you've heard the stories of the sweatshops. And you've heard the stories about the abuse that the labour that was foisted upon children, and now all of a sudden, people were earning a living, and they had time.

And so it's during the 1920s. They're called the roaring 20s for a reason. Entertainment began to a blossom. And so people became household names, like Charlie Chaplin became a household name because people could go to the movies and the movie industry began to blossom during this time, because people were looking for something to do. And so this was an entertaining thing. Charles Lindbergh, there were national heroes like Charles Lindbergh, because his trip across the Atlantic Ocean was covered by the press and, and it was a new time. And so there was this a rise in the standard of living that made people focus on fun and finance and on progress. And there was also a contributing to the downturn in religiosity in the country through the controversy in the church. And what I have in mind, there is the 1925 Scopes trial took place in Tennessee, John Scopes was a recent graduate of a college, and he went into the teaching profession. Now, Tennessee had a law on the books that you could not teach evolution, you had to teach creation, you could not teach evolution. Well, John Scopes from the law, and he was brought up on charges, and there was going to be this great trial called the Scopes trial. Now, in order to make this trial go, some very, very famous people got involved, that's Clarence Darrow. Now, if you live in the United States, and you didn't know anything about history, you probably know the name Clarence Darrow, he was one of the best known lawyers of that day. And the name still resounds in history. And so he was going to be on one side of this trial of this man, he was going to defend John Scopes defend the right to teach to teach evolution in schools. Well, the conservative church group gathering decided that they needed a big name too. So they got Williams Jennings Bryant, one time, a presidential candidate to be on the other side of the trial took place during a hot period of the year. And there are over 2 million words written reporting on this trial, some called it the Monkey trial. 

In other words, would we be would we go back to the whole idea of descending from monkeys? Or do we stand on the church's view of creationism, and in the papers became kind of a national joke. And as a result, you know, the fundamentalist side which was largely represented by William Jennings Bryant came off kind of as ignoring all the scientific advances that had taken place for so many years. And so the church was seen publicly in 2 million words of reporting on it, not all of them from the other side, but seen as you know, kind of behind the times and marginalized in society. So those those kinds of events had a downward trend on the spirituality in our country. Another trend was the Depression of the 1930s. We go to the 1930s. And we find the depression is something anybody who lived through it will tell you story after story. My parents lived through the depression. And I heard stories from my father I'm going door to door to sell needles, packages of needles for a nickel a piece and, and waiting in line at the Civic Auditorium in Grand Rapids, Michigan, because they were handing out oranges and, and he wanted to get some oranges for his family. People working my mother worked as a maid doing everything in the house, from cleaning to meal preparation as a very young teenage girl for 50 cents a day. The depression was very real 1929 the income in this country across the country was $83 billion dollars. By 1932, it was 40 billion less than half 1933, the unemployment ranks swelled in this country to 15 million people out of work. And soup lines became common. You know, people leaving the cities to go out to the country in forage for food. But that became a real problem. Because another force that had an impact on the life of the church was the Dust Bowl. If you've ever seen pictures of that, here's a picture of a town in the Midwest, as one of the dust clouds comes through. During that time, there was little understanding about how in the world you could plow a field to keep the topsoil from blowing away.

And so during those years in the middle 1930s, winds would come up and the dust would just blow all the topsoil away. And that would come in these huge clouds. And as a result, farming was not done much in that area during that period of time. And so that whole middle western portion of the country became kind of a barren wasteland, there was all sorts of foreclosures happening on farms because people couldn't plant a crop that would be there long enough to pay the mortgage on the house and on the farm. And so farms were foreclosed on it was it was an ugly time in the history of the United States, and ugly times have a force on spirituality, they have either the impact of drawing people closer to God are more deeply dependent on Him, or she draws people away from God. And so this period of time was kind of a mixture. There were people in the 20s and 30s, who were growing and deepening in their faith. But there were one who are saying, What's the use of praying to a God when life everything we know of life has just kind of gone away. And then of course, during this period, there were forces described this way by Sidney Alstrom, whom I quoted before as a, as a historian said adding greatly to the uneasiness of church going Americans of all classes was the continued advance of those changes in manners and mores that had made the 1920s a nightmare for rural America. Despite the depression, urban civilization continued to make its conquest, jazz, dancing, feminism, and the Hollywood star system mark the older moral standards, both Catholic and Protestant. Hard times notwithstanding, the automobile continued to transform traditional modes of living and loving. Sabbath keeping was losing ground. So we've got the 20s and 30s, is what he's saying. And the impact on the church or Christianity was that it was losing ground, partly because the whole society was changing. It was changing in that idea of Sabbath keeping. Now up until this time when most of the country lived in the country or lived in farming, agriculturally based communities. Sabbath keeping was a normal thing. People went to church in the morning, and they gathered at grandma's house for the lunch in the afternoon. And they would gather and they would talk about a variety of things. 

But that was a time when the family kind of kept faith by keeping Sabbath. But now there are all these new things going on in the city was the place to be. And Sabbath keeping was something that got in the way of the fun that was being had. And so the impact on the faith aspects of the country was negative. In addition to the dust-bowl, and the depression of the 30s, a theological controversy that was going on as well, was during this time that Neo-orthodoxy came into its own. The picture on the screen is of Carl Barks. He's probably he's called probably the best known theologian of the 20th century, a very influential kind of German theologian, but somebody who's bringing orthodoxy and social gospel and liberalism together. And he was very influential as were some of his disciples. But the overall impact was that it did not renew the church. So yeah, 20s and 30s decline. And then the 1940s, there's war. And war changed everything, December 7 1941, the day that will live in infamy changed the life of America. All of a sudden, we went from a country with no standing army really, very limited to a nation that had to retool toward becoming a nation at war. And so people signing up men signing up by the hundreds, 1,000s to go into the army, to fight against Hitler, and leaving home. And then women having to go into the workplace because we're trying to produce war material. We're trying to produce tanks and jeeps and guns and ammunition. And we weren't geared up for that. So factories have to retool, but now the men are going away. So instead of the young men, young women take their place, and it goes on. And then there are the deaths that start to happen. Hardly a neighbourhood that didn't have a star of some colour, indicating somebody who was out who was deployed, or somebody who had been killed or somebody who had been injured in the war. And so all of this time was a time when the church was still doing well, because those are times when people pray mightily, you know, when they recognize how scary it is, for somebody, you love to be out in harm's way as we refer to it nowadays, people prayed and prayed often, and there was a proof renewal in the church, although it wasn't a revival. And then at the end of the war, the atomic bomb brought everything. 

Everything into sharp relief, everything in society all of a sudden became question, because now we could destroy civilization. I grew up in the 1950s. And I remember crazy stuff, because at that time, after the dropping of the atomic bomb, in watching the devastation that it could cause on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after that, when Russia got the whole ability to produce nuclear weapons, it was the Cold War period. And, wow, that was a time I remember practising in school getting under our desks. At the time, I didn't think of how stupid that would be during a nuclear war that this desk was somehow going to protect me. But there was this fear in cold war and fears like that sometimes can create a climate in which faith can begin to grow. So a bunch of changes that are happening in the 40s, women in the workforce, and then dislocation of families after the war, suburbia starts to become a reality. People are moving to the cities, again, to become part of the workforce, that's there and families are no longer connected to grandma's house. And so that traditional Sabbath keeping starts to break down what had become the family in so that's the 40s. The 50s are some changes as well. You're the anti communism, Joe McCarthy, you know, now it's mocked. 

When you look back in history, you find that emphasis on anti communism and finding communists everywhere and finding communists and the government and communists in the movie industry, and all of that. And it was a time of witch hunting of a sort, and was a highly negative effect on society in general, and people began at first to go along with it, but then they got sick of it. And so anti communism had a force that began to impact our society. But because the communists were anti God, the overall force was that it made us more interested in God. And then, of course, the Korean War in the 50s also have that impact, again, people out in the potential of being killed at any moment. And so it impacted people's pro life, not all of that stuff, the 20s 30s 40s and 50s. Four decades, the churches just kind of going along. It's still doing its thing, but society and the church are becoming more and more divided from each other. Would there be a revival? Now there's some indication during these years that God continued to work in his church. here's just some statistics about what we think were the numbers of people percentage wise attending church in the United States 1910 43%, 1920 43%, 2030 47%, 1940 49%, and 1950 55% now we're in the post second World War 1956 62%, 1960 69%. We're going to get to those decades later, but 1960 69% 1970 62.4%, but the high percentage wise, coming in the 1960s. But during this time, there was a sense of spiritual interest in spiritual renewal. A couple of them that are very, very public is that phrase, in our pledge of allegiance, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That phrase, one nation under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. In 1956, In God We Trust was first put on the coinage in the United States, it still is there. 

Now that had been kind of an unofficial model for the country for a long time. But now it was official that this is our official model In God we trust. Now, during that 40 year period, I just said just now 20s 30s 40s and 50s, there was this sense that the church is continuing, in spite of the fact that there is this divide that's happening between the church and society in general, there is the church going on, and there is a health and vitality in the church and vibrancy in the church. But revivalism kind of goes out of existence. After Billy Sunday, and some of the extremes of the revival as of that day, Billy Sunday, who made his reputation, you know, encouraging people to go to war and encourage people to stop drinking. And then you know, some of the money stuff and all of that stuff led to a decline in revivalism so that during these years, you can hardly read anything about revivalism or revivalists. But after World War Two, suddenly it starts coming back. And the main figure, the one we're going to look at next time, because he deserves a chapter all his own, because his story is unique is Billy Graham. And next time, we're going to look at his story, because it's one that continues to live out today. Now, as I'm speaking today, he is a very old man. And yet his influence and the respect that this country has for him, it still lives on, he is still listed as one of the most respected people in the United States. And so he's somebody we have to get to know if we're going to understand this history of revivals, as God takes another fairly ordinary person and does something extraordinary through him.

Video Transcript: Billy Graham (Dr. Bruce Ballast)

Welcome back. We've been looking at ordinary people doing extraordinary things. So the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. And now we're up to session 12. Today, and as I said, last time, when we get to Billy Graham, we really have to give him a separate chapter, a separate lecture, because Billy Graham has preached to more people than the Apostle Paul could have even imagined preaching to he's given so many invitations throughout the world. He's been the advisor to presidents, he's had such an influence. And he is still today, even though now he is in I believe, his 90s. And he's still today listed on the most admired Americans on any list that is made because he just has had that kind of impact. So today, we're going to look at Billy Graham and his life. Now the story of Billy Graham actually begins in May 1934. At that time, a group of men came to Frank Graham Bell, his father, asking for permission to use one of his fields to hold a revival service, they were going to invite a man named Mordecai Ham, we'll talk about him in just a moment. And they needed a place to do this. And they needed to collect money. They were involved in that process as well to build one of those plywood tabernacles that we talked about last time as well. For a day, the group met to pray about this upcoming revival time in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. And the man who is in charge of it prayed the prayer you see on your screen out of Charlotte, may the Lord raise up someone to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. unlikely that he had any idea that the answer was going to be right in that household of Frank Graham. And it would be the son Billy Frank Graham. Now Mordecai Ham was one of those evangelists who's travelling around yet at that time revivalism was alive and well. 

Yet at this point in the United States, although gone through somewhat of a law, as we've seen, there were still revivalist going around, there were many of them. Mordecai Ham, was one of them. And that's a picture of the cover of his book, the book that his son wrote about him. Now, at the time, he was coming to that area, Billy Graham was 16 years old. By all accounts, he was far more interested in baseball, than he was in spiritual things. In fact, he listed the highlight of his life at that time as shaking the hand of Babe Ruth when he was about 10 years old, and no pictures, unfortunately, that I could find exists of that event. But now he's about a young man of 16. And there were a variety of things that made him what he is, but back to his birth, November 7 1918. At the time he was born, the family was attending the associate Reformed Church, the Associate Reformed Church on was a very conservative kind of congregation, in that they believe that you should only sing the Psalms and so they had very limited musical expression in their church and was a very, very conservative kind of existence. Now, there were some changes that led to the conversion of Billy Graham that began 1933. One of those was the fact that his mother began to attend a Bible study. And in this Bible study, she learned as she reported it for the first time that you can actually have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Up until this time, there had been a kind of assumption of spirituality that involved church attending and keeping the rules living by the 10 commandments, etc. But now she was learning for the first time in her life, she said that this relationship with Jesus Christ was personal. And so that began to be communicated to the children, including Billy. Second event that prepared Billy to listen to the call of the Holy Spirit was his father's accident, does that work one day on farm and a piece of wood was sheared off by a machine and went and it punctured Billy's father, and the doctor came and said that there were very little chance that he was going to live. And her mother began to contact the people around asking for prayer, and in a somewhat miraculous way, not only was his life was fair, but he was restored to health. And so there was a sense in Billy's heart, about the fact that there is a God, a personal God, a personal God who answers prayer. And then the third thing, of course, was the Mordecai Ham visit. 

Now, when you read some of the biographies of Billy Graham, you find that he was somewhat reluctant to even attend these revival meetings. And yet as friends began to put pressure on him, he came as well and he walked what by then was being referred to as the sawdust trails and said sometimes put sawdust down on pieces of plywood in order for people to be able to walk on with less noise. And so there was an invitation given and how Billy Graham responded. Now, even as he tells the story about responding to the invitation to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, he did it with a little bit of hesitation, because he had to think about it. It wasn't an immediate thing that the invitation was given, and he went, in fact, those meetings went on for days at that point, and it took him a few days before he actually went forward, because, as he said, he had a sense that if he was going to make this commitment, it had to be total. 1936, he graduated from high school, and then traces were made about college, went to a college, first of all, but then recognizing that perhaps he might be sensing some kind of call into some kind of ministry, he transferred to what was known as the Florida Bible Institute. There's a picture of it there, as it looked back then with a very small student body, but there was a place where they would study the Bible, as well as other kinds of topics, subjects. And he felt like he was being prepared for a life of service at least didn't know what that would look like at that point, but a life of service. Other significant dates 1936 graduate. In 1938, while at the Florida Bible Institute, he felt that he had to make a decision for ministry. He felt like he was being called in the ministry. But this was not an easy decision for him either. Because once again, he sensed that if he made a decision that he was going to preach for a living, he was going to become a preacher. He was going to become as he thought at the time, a pastor most likely that his commitment had to be total. And in fact, the his Authorized Biography, now many years old, describes his tussle this way. In the night walks alone, he tussled with excuses, is indifferent background would indeed keep him from a me keep him a mediocre preacher, somewhere out in the sticks. Yet any sacrifice appeared trivial beside Christ's sufferings or the world's needs. As for eloquence, the Lord had told Moses go, and I will be with my mouth, and shall teach thee what thou shalt say. 

One night in March 1938, Billy Graham returned from his walk and reach the 18th, green immediately, before the school's front door, the trees were loaded with Spanish moss, and then the moonlight was like a Fairyland. He sat down on the edge of the green, looking up at the moon and stars aware of a warm breeze from the south. The tension snapped. I remember getting on my knees and saying, Oh, God, if you want me to preach, I will do it. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I made this great surrender to become an ambassador for Jesus Christ. So that decision was made in 1938. He graduated in 1940. Now remember what was going on in the world in 1940. That was the time of the Second World War. And Billy wanted to go as a chaplain and serve in the armed forces. But the Armed Forces said they would not take him unless he had a year of experience in ministry somewhere. And so he had to decide what to do after that and thought, okay, if I'm going to do this, I should get some more education first. And so he ended up going to Wheaten Bible school and saying he was going to be a chosen instrument to shine forth His light in the darkness. Men like Luther, John and Charles Leslie Moody, and others who were ordinary men, but men who heard the voice of God. Now this is actually that quote is from the woman who gave the valedictory address at his at his college graduation from the Florida Bible Institute, acknowledging that the men like Luther, John and Charles Leslie, work extraordinary because of themselves, but because of God working in them, and the the prayer was that somebody would be raised up from their class in order to be that kind of person. And the quote goes on. It has been said that Luther revolutionized the world. It was not he but Christ working through him. The time is ripe for another Luther Wesley Moody, there's room for another name on the list. Game we don't have any recollection or any lists somewhere, any quote from her that says later that she realized that the answer to her prayers was sitting in the audience at that time. to further his preparation for ministry, went to Wheaten College. And there he met the person who was going to become his wife, Ruth Bell. Ruth's was the daughter of missionaries. I was deeply committed to Jesus Christ. And when they got to the point that they were talking about engagement and marriage.

She indicated that she was willing to follow him anywhere. That was her commitment to Jesus Christ that a God would use him in preaching, that would be, that would be fine with her wherever the call came, she would be willing to go. Now, upon completing his studies at Wheaten, again, trying to get into the armed forces and not able because he didn't have experience, so he became pastor of the Village Church in Western Springs, Illinois. That's a picture of it there. Some unique things happened at this church. First of all, their total income at that time was $83 and some cents per week. That's what the offering was a billy as the pastor was paid $45 a week. But he began his work for the gusto. And a challenge came when a radio station asked him to host a program. In fact, the date on that, first of all, there's his wedding, August 13 1943. But the program in October of that year was Psalms in the night. And there was an opportunity for him to become the host of that, and to do preaching on the radio. But the problem was, whoever sponsored it had to pay about $100 a week, Billy went back to his church, the Village Church in Western Springs, Illinois, and challenged them to come up with $100 a week. Now remember, their total income per week at the time was $86 and some cents, and they were paying him 45. So at that point, it was a real step of faith for that church to make the commitment to reach out in this relatively new medium for the church, that of radio, and they came up with the money and Billy began hosting Psalms in the night. Now, again, October 1944, I applied to be a chaplain, I had a commission ready for him. 

But at the same time, he was being invited by Youth for Christ to be their speaker at a variety of large events. And he had to make a decision at that point, would he become this full time evangelist because that's what they wanted of him, or what he entered the army and go the way of an army chaplain, come back to pastor a church. He put out a fleece to God about getting out of his commission, to serve as an army chaplain, which indeed, was allowed, and that was kind of the fleece he put out there. And so he made a commitment to speak at these rallies that had the title to them geared to the times, anchored to the rock. So he began preaching regularly for Youth for Christ. And then there came a time in his life very soon, as the crowds were starting to increase. In fact, surprisingly, saw there was a group in Chicago Youth for Christ. Part of that wanted to give soldiers and alternative soldiers who were home on leaving alternative to the bars and the strip joints and that sort of thing, and suddenly decided to start hosting these these meetings regularly. And they want to Billy to speak at them. But then, you know, the question is, how many will come. And in a great step of faith, they rented an auditorium that would seat 3000 people, was hard to believe at that point that 3000 people would actually show up for what basically, was a Bible study. But 2800 people showed up. And so Billy is getting more and more into this and friends of his Grady Wilson, friend from school was was preaching regularly. One of the greatest challenges that Billy Graham then faced, was the question about whether he would be fully committed to the Bible as the Word of God. Would he present that Bible as the Word of God and salvation and Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation? Or would he go the way of another friend of his, a man named Charles Templeton? Charles Templeton, in fact, at that time, was probably the better speaker and certainly was more well known than Billy Graham. And Charles Templeton began looking at the stuff we looked at last time of all the influences of Charles Darwin, etc. And he decided that to look at the Bible, the way that traditionally the church had looked at the Bible as the inspired Word of God was a very narrow, very, very narrow kind of view. And so he began taking a more liberal view in his talks and speeches, more a liberal view of God that didn't involve Jesus being the only way. And in fact, it's reported. Now Charles Templeton son said he never said this. 

But in Billy Graham's Authorized Biography, that he Billy quotes, Charles Templeton on the saying this, poor Billy, if he goes on the way he's going, he'll never do anything for God. They'll be circumscribed to a small little narrow interpretation of the Bible, and his ministry will be curtailed. As for me, I'm taking a different road. All of this had an impact on Billy And he was on a time of retreat at Forest Hills retreat center in Southern California. And he described the resolution of that conflict, the crisis, he was feeling over how he was going to present the Bible. And this is how he himself described it. So I went back and got my Bible. And I went out into the moonlight. And I got to a stump and put the Bible on the stump. And I knelt down and said, Oh, God, I cannot prove certain things. I cannot answer some questions. Chuck is raising Charles Templeton that is, and some of the other people are raising, but I accept this book by faith as the Word of God. And it was at that point, in fact, there's a plaque there if you go to forest on retreat area today you will find a plaque about this is where Billy Graham knelt, and made this commitment to the Bible as the Word of God. Not long after that was the crusade that kind of rocketed Billy Graham international prominence, it was in Los Angeles 1949. There, Billy Graham was following the pretty typical crusade process, one that had been developed by Charles Finney had been honed by Dwight L. Moody. And now Graham was kind of the inheritor of that and they were doing a crusade in Los Angeles, and was going to be a fairly typical crusade. But in this one, some things changed. First of all, was Stuart Hamblin came to faith. He was a well known cowboy personality and Hollywood, he had his own radio program. He was just a well known figure and the fact that he began pushing Billy Graham crusade and testifying to his own faith on the radio, in fact, invited Billy to be part of that.

All of a sudden, people were paying attention. And then there was a well known gangster, who came to faith. And as this gangster, a lot of the word got out that this man became a Christian. Wow, it was all of a sudden explosion. And they extended the Crusade for several days because crowds of people were coming into this large tent that had been erected on a vacant lot. And people were coming to faith in droves. And the name of Billy Graham was all of a sudden in all of the media in the country. That was at that point, Billy Graham, began to do something that has proven to be incredibly wise. He sat down with his team, a small team of people at that point, to look at revivalism. As we looked at last time, there were many criticisms of the process of revivalism of having revival meetings. And so they decided to write down all the criticisms and make plans that would address those criticisms. So here's the here's the criticism that they came up with that the Crusades as they had been known. Certainly, Billy Sunday's day, focused on sensationalism, emotionalism, in other words, it was a pull not to the head, but only to the heart. Not that the emotionalism was bad, but it wasn't balanced. There was an emphasis on prophecy and a lot of talk about the end of the world. And the second coming, there was too much of the preaching an anti intellectualism. In other words, after in all the Scopes trial, and all of that stuff, there was a acknowledgement on many parts of the church that they couldn't battle in the intellectual realm. And so they were going to be anti intellectual. Another criticism was that there was no follow up. In other words, once a crusade came in, they did their thing for a few days, two weeks, and then they were gone. And there wasn't any arrangement with the churches to do organized follow up on people that had come forward. They felt that there was anti church kind of predilection on the part of those who are doing the crusades, at that point, the revivalism and of that was anti clergy, and already back then, now we're talking 1940s, early 50s already back then there was the criticism of too much pay for the revivalist. Now, when you look at each of those, you say, wow, that's some of the stuff that's been criticism of, of televangelists that exists in the United States and, and elsewhere around the world. And so we should have paid attention. But anyway, so Billy Graham and his team began to devise a means that would address each of those in regard to sensationalism, they decided that they would offer excellent music, they would, but it wouldn't be sensational. There wouldn't be the kind of circus atmosphere that often followed Billy Sunday around in regard to emotionalism they, they were going to preach the word though he would preach the word and, and that would be the convicting thing. I emphasis on prophecy. 

They didn't talk about that. They talked about how faith impacts daily life. And Billy came across as somebody was intelligent, and they developed a follow up mechanism so that people who came forward were referred to participating Churches and there was follow up on them. And, and there was a sense of that there had to be a partnership with the church and the clergy. And in fact, meetings would take place prior to any kind of any kind of revival that would include the churches represented as clergy representatives, and too much pay. Billy Graham was put on a salary. He received no more than that salary. And it's those kinds of things that Billy Graham did, as well as some boundaries that his team put on their personal lives, as far as you know, for Billy Graham, how he would relate to women, how he would not relate to women, how he would enforce and hold up his marriage and family and care for them. All of those things have left us looking at Billy Graham, as probably one of the greatest figures in the history of the United States. He was an advisor to at least six presidents in the United States. He's the first person in the history of communism to be invited, preached behind the circles of the iron curtain, and just an honoured person. And so we look at him and say he made a lot of contributions to revivalism. First of all, the invitation. He did it well, probably better than anybody. He used radio and television, the first one to use radio and television. And he was somebody who was known for integrity. And above all, he was somebody who extended revivalism to the second half of the 20th century, and made it acceptable and even effective as a means of bringing the Holy Spirit into the life and growing the churches that exist in the United States. And so whenever you think about revivalism and revivals and revival as the coming to life, I got to think of Billy Graham, and next time, we're going to look at what happened after Billy Graham's methods no longer proved to be effective after Billy Graham began to get older and what's been going on and revivalism since then that'll be next time.

Video Transcript: Declension (Dr. Bruce Ballast)

Welcome back to a consideration of ordinary people and God using those ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Last time, we looked at Billy Graham, certainly one of the prime examples of the title of this series and the title of the book that goes with it, ordinary person, but God used him to do extraordinary things. Now, Billy Graham was really in many senses, the last of the great revivalist. Today in our world in the United States are very few like stadium revivals that were that were Billy Graham specialties. And so the question is, what's going to happen now? In fact, right now, I think there's only one person in the entire United States that is regularly practising and pastor out of Southern California was regularly practicing that kind of revival. And so the question of  this session is, is are we praying for that again? Or, or is God doing something else? Now, just for review, we've seen that there have been these periods of revival in the United States, the Great Awakening 1735 to 1741, Second Great Awakening 1799 to the 1840s, a great revival period of this just a few years, but it really set up the nation for the Civil War, in many ways, as far as going through that spiritually, the post Civil War period with Dwight Moody, and then post World War Two. And that's when we saw Billy Graham reaching his height of influence in the revival History of the United States. Again, as we've seen before, something that happened in the history of these revivals was that things started to decline again, in fact, of the word that we're using is the word of declension. here's the here's the process, we've seen factors that contribute to or prepare for revivals, and then the effect of revivals. There's this time of declension. It's a term which means decline. And it's often used in the literature about revivals, to talk about a decline of spirituality. And because of that decline, God's people for one reason or another, feel called to pray. Now, sometimes that call to pray comes out of desperation. I talked to him a few weeks ago, with leaders of a church. And they are realizing that all of a sudden, they are looking around and seeing a process that's been ongoing for years and years and years. 

They're looking at their church and say, wow, we used to have, you know, 30 children in this one children's ministry, and now we've got three. And how we looked around there, all of a sudden, we realize there's hardly anybody under 50 in the church and, and they're waking up to this fact that they're dying. And the church that used to be filled is now 1/3, empty in the front on Sunday mornings. And, and so they're looking at that, and with a some sense of desperation, they're saying, God, you've got to do something, sometimes it comes out of that kind of motivation of, oh Lord, we need to do something. Now, I'm hopeful that when we're talking about revival, we're looking at people, God's people be called to pray for a little bit more genuine reason. That is, we have a renewed concern for the eternal destiny of people in our areas in our community. So people are called to pray, that's part of the one of the factors that contribute to revivals. And then prayer leads the church to confession of our inability, or our lack of willingness to do that prior to and God in response, sends the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit brings revival about and then out of that revival, and most often come leaders. Now we've seen before that, in the case of John, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, they, they kind of were leaders going into the revival period. But in most cases, as in Charles Finney as in Billy Graham, as in Dwight Moody, those leaders came out of the revival. We're not the instigators of it. And so those are the kinds of things that contribute to revivals. And it's kind of the pattern we've been looking at for the last period of time. Are we primed for another revival? I guess that's the question. Since the 1950s, the height of Billy Graham's popularity as a revivalist. He continued for many years, in fact, kind of a major or the time when things change was a revival, series of revival meetings that he held in, in Seattle. And once again, people who evaluated it noted that the growth of the churches for the five years prior to the revival meetings, was greater than for the five year period after that, and then in other words, the revival actually had a negative impact on church growth. And after that, all of a sudden, there was this decline. And as I said, before you There's hardly anybody doing revivals anymore, but now Are we in that period of decline? That can lead up to revivals. 

Well, there's a lot of evidence out there that says that we are indeed, ready for another revival. For instance, here's some of the evidence of decline in 1957 96% of the people surveyed in the United States, identified with some religious tradition. Kind of the height, as we saw in a previous session, was 62.9%, I think it was of the people who are in the United States were attending church on a weekend. But in 1965, that there began a decline in Christianity here in the United States. This is in spite of the fact as we'll see, in a few moments, there were a lot of good spiritual things happening that were kind of renewal to religion, but it wasn't revival. Now, evidence of that is indicated in the membership of churches, United Methodist Church, from 1965 to 1968, declined, as you see on the screen, 11 million to 9.2 million during that same period, the PCUSA (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), four to 3 million Disciples of Christ 2.1 to 1.1, Episcopal 3.4, to 2.5, Lutheran 5%, this is it, you know that that period of time, the Presbyterian US 7.6 decline, with the decline, there were some mergers in churches. And so some of these denominations have joined together. But the decline has continued. Now, that was a new thing in 1965, to see this kind of decline. And you know, it's not 2012, it's 24 years after those numbers. And now, every major denomination is on a major decline. The domination that I'm a part of the Christian Reformed Church, I just did a study of my area, my region of my church, and then last 10 years, we've seen a 22% decline in baptized members, that means children for us, and 8% decline in the number of adult members. And that's in just a 10 year period. 

And so we're seeing a decline in membership. Now, other indications of that, in the early 2000s, we began to note that more and more leaders are talking about America, the United States being called a post christian nation. Now what that means is, we're in the same kind of setting as Europe, Europe is referred to as post Christian, because once the church had great influence over the activities and the politics of that day in Europe, and just about every European country. In fact, at one point, the pope had more power than any any Emperor or any national leader of that time. And you can read the stories in church history about what the pope would force a king to do, before the pope would give blessing. And the Pope's blessing was necessary for the king to thrive in their country. Well, now, if you go to any European country, you'll find that the attendance is is extremely down. In fact, in some of the countries in Europe, it's listed as 4% of the population is worshipping in church, on any given week, my own ethnic heritage is in the Netherlands, and 2006, my wife and I had the privilege of travelling back there and you know, looking for some of those historical roots of our ancestors, who came many years ago to America. And along the way, I'm interested in churches and church architecture along the way, we'd walk and throughout the city of Amsterdam and sometimes see a church in the distance and we'd start walking toward it, because I'd be interested to see what kind it is. The Netherlands was a hotbed of Reformed theology back prior to World War Two. But now as we've walked toward these churches, we find that one was turned into a series of condos or an apartment building, another was turned into an office building another was a museum. In fact, the one right near the palace was a museum, there wasn't worship services going on, but you could take tours to see what reformed Christians used to do in the Netherlands back when? Well, that's what it's like in Europe. And that's the kind of terminology that they're using to talk about Christianity in America. Whereas once upon a time, we had a lot of influence. The National codes, all referred to our faith and referred to us as Christian. Now that's changed. 2000 census is on your screen. From 1990 to 2000. 

There was an increase of 11% in this country, that's 25 million people. New people being born immigrants coming in 25 million people, but during that same period, the church saw a decline of 10%. How can that be? How can that be? somehow we've lost impact. We've, we've lost influence work, we're not significantly impacting the unchurched population in our country. I've been dealing with this in my own context. And in this area, I serve in a small town in West Michigan, Grand Haven, and recently was looking at the census statistics from 2000 to 2010. In 2000, 35% of my community, said that they had no significant connection with the church. And I interpret that as there are some people maybe have some faith out there, but but they're away from Jesus Christ 35% of the community. And so I was eager, when the 2010 census came up, find out how has that changed. Now, we couldn't get the results of that till somewhere around 2011. But we get the results and find out that in 2011, there's been a very small increase in the number of people in this area in this region. But the percentage of people who have no meaningful connection with the church is still 35%. Now I serve a church here that's been growing. That's it, as it has experienced a lot of great blessing, we are seeing some live change. But the reality is, all the churches in this community, 44 of them have not made any appreciable impact in a 10 year period on the unchurched population of this community. So this is a time of decline of spirituality. The good news is that hasn't increased, I guess. But it's still a time when we have not made a significant impact. So what has contributed to that decline? Well, there are many forces, of course, the 1960s were a time of incredible challenge to a sense of, of the world, and how people in this country viewed the world. It was a time of many things, some of them had to do with famous people. Assassination of John F. Kennedy, that was something that our country could hardly process, you know that someone would actually kill a fairly popular President 1963 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. gunned down, it's a picture of him there and one of the most famous of his meetings at the Washington Memorial. And that's where he gave maybe his greatest speech, the I Have a Dream speech. 

But when he's in Memphis, gunman shoots him and kills him. Later that same year, Robert Kennedy, great hopes for Robert maybe picking up some of the legislation ideas of his brother and maybe bringing back some unity to this country. And he was shot during the campaign appearance. And those kinds of things happening just kind of destroyed trust in our whole processes, and began questions in this country of who are we really, are we? Are we a decent civilization or not? And of course, during the 60s, there were other things that were going on. There were the Watts riots, you know, people looked at what was happening there, not just in Watts, but in Detroit, in Chicago, and in many of the major cities in the country, that there was this, this falling apart of security, that there was this feeling of unsafeness, that's not hardly a word, but this feeling that we're not safe in this country anymore. And the rule of law has been broken down. And where are we going to go from here? Those kinds of things, left people looking in confusion around for meaning. Another thing contributed to the decline was the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was a unique war in the history of this country, in the sense that it's one that wasn't fought to win, it was kind of, you know, if we could just kill more than they, but we weren't trying to take over North Vietnam. So there wasn't a geographical area we were trying to conquer. We were just trying to conquer a people and, and the Vietcong and all the forces that went into the Vietnam War, and the fact that it's referred to as the living room war, because this was the first war where there was live coverage of what was going on. And so people at home in the United States, in their news broadcasts in the evening actually saw, you know, people who were bleeding being carried to helicopters and being operated on in, in mash units and, and etc, etc, etc, that the horror of seeing the reality of war in a way they hadn't seen it before. And the questions about the quality of the war, what why are we there? Is this a just war in the kind of Christian parlance that we call back then? 

That just contributed to more people saying what is life all about anyway? Things kind of came to a head in April of 1965, Time Magazine, right raised the question about, you know, what's happening in theology. And that culminated in October 22. With this being the title of the magazine, the main article, is God dead? And the question is, what is the character of God? Is God involved in day to day things that go on in our world today or not? Or do we maybe have to revise our ideas about God that maybe he created this world? Maybe he got it going, and then he kind of left it this. And maybe that's how we should look at God. Now, of course, among Christians, this case, this brought up a whole lot of bumper stickers and slogans like, you know, if your God is dead, try mine. And God is not dead. I talked to him this morning and those kinds of statements. But this was a theological discussion about among people trying to say as they looked the world kind of falling apart, and its values and saying, Wait a minute. How do we fit God into this? He doesn't seem to be present. Another force inside was liberation theology. Now, this was the theology that said that the main purpose of the church is to bring justice for poor peoples. And this was a time in South America in particular, where the Catholic Church got very involved in the political realm, rather than the theological realm. And that began drawing people away from the doctrines of sin, first of all, and repentance, and accepting Jesus Christ as a way to salvation. So I was another force that led to a decline of spirituality. During this period, as well, there have been all kinds of Supreme Court decisions that have contributed to decline in the influence of Christianity in 1962. The practice was for public school children to read a prayer together in the morning, when school began. 

Now the prayer was usually written by regions in the state, and everybody read it and then the school they would begin. Well, an atheist, avowed atheist, brought a lawsuit against his school district, and it ended up getting to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said, Indeed, that it was unconstitutional to engage people in a written prayer like this. Now 1963 that was expanded, because there was a teacher who was holding a Bible study on school grounds, and therefore, people were gathering in her room to read the Bible and pray and in 1963, that was declared unconstitutional. In Arkansas 1968 there was a case that came out of Arkansas because they had a law state law that you could not teach anything in the public schools that would cause people to question creation theology, and that was struck down as unconstitutional. But the attitudes are really important to catch here. This is a summary of how a newspaper summarize the court case in Arkansas in 1968, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and the New York firm of Skadden Arps attack the Arkansas law with a powerful case. Their brief is so good that there is talk of publishing it. Their witnesses gave brilliant little summaries of several fields of science, history of sciences, history, and religious philosophy. Now that that sounds pretty good. Say these people are brilliant. This is how they described the opposition the people who were arguing for maintaining a, an evidence over a teaching of creation theology. They were they said impassioned believers, rebellious educators and scientific oddities, all but one of the creation scientists came from obscure colleges or Bible schools, the one who didn't send me believe diseases dropped from space, that evolution caused gnats, and that insects may be more intelligent than humans, but are hiding their abilities. What do you think when you read something like that? You think, Wow, the the scientists, these brilliant scientists, and then you've got these nut balls over here, who believe that God created the world. And so those kind of decisions were many. Now as a result of that the schools began to have some challenges in that one, they began to not teach any morals because if you don't have any absolute morality, because that was some of the things that were being attacked if you don't have any absolute authority, as Christians had for in this country for many years in the Bible. 

If you don't have that, then then what is right and what is wrong, and there began to be developed what was called situational ethics. In other words, there is no absolute right and wrong, there are no 10 commandments anymore that we can say this is actually Absolutely right all the time. And this is absolutely wrong all the time. And as a result, we saw in this country an incredible erosion of morality as a result of the Supreme Court decisions. And it raised all sorts of questions about what's right and what's wrong. And this is a quote by a man named Barton Burbidge, which kind of put it succinctly said, if you want to bomb the chemistry department, we'll teach you how to make it. If you want to Cathedral, the Department of Architecture will teach you how to build it. If you want a healthy body, the department's of physiology and medicine will teach you how to attend it. But, when you ask whether and why you should want bonds or cathedrals or healthy bodies, the university is dumb and impotent. It can give help and guidance and all things subsidiary but not in the attainment of the one thing needful.

So some of the results of the Supreme Court decisions about what are the outcomes if you can't teach Bible, if you can't read Bible, if you can't talk about morality, if you can't have the 10 commandments displayed in classrooms and one Supreme Court decision said you can't do that in the school because it might influence the kids to think that this is right, that that's how bad things had gotten by the middle of the 1980s. Like another well known Supreme Court decision in 1984. in Tulsa. That was a powerful case where where the morality of people in that area where a question, a church decided to dismiss someone from membership in that went to the Supreme Court say they can't do that. 1984 there was also a decision about a Creche display, and it was declared unconstitutional. They have a Creche display on public property. Maybe one of the greatest quotes coming out of that 1984 Tulsa case was this one situation there was a woman was living in an adulterous relationship. Her church came to her according to Matthew 18, guidelines came to her confronted her with sin, came with elders to get them involved. There was work with her trying to point out her sin. And it ended up in the 1984 Tulsa case. And, and one of the people who is responding to it put put the feeling of the majority. 

Well, I don't see what right the church has to tell people how to live. Now imagine that this was a church member, and they were acting according to Biblical guidelines. And now the Supreme Court says you can't do that. So decline in spirituality. Christian leader failure is another thing that contributed during this period to the decline in spirituality. You know, some of the names are familiar, right. Jimmy Swaggart, when it was found out that he was hiring prostitutes, and he appeared before his congregation and send those things words with tears, I have sinned. And that was a particularly interesting one, because he refused to give up his pulpit. Now he's part of the he was part of the Assemblies of God denomination, and they suggested that he be removed for a year during a time of restoration. And I refuse to do that. He's still on TV today. But of course, his viewership is much smaller, another famous person, Jim, and Tammy, Faye Baker, they have this very successful television ministry PTL. And I was going very well until the word came out that Jim Baker had had a tryst with somebody who worked in his organization, in a hotel. And then people began looking at the organization and they found just incredible, luxurious excess things like I put a picture up there them with a dog, because one of the things that they found was that they had an air conditioned dog house for their dog. So that kind of failure led to this 7 million to 3 million. That's the viewership of Christian television in those three years in 1986 to 1988. And it led to a mistrust of Christian leaders. And as a result, Christian leaders were suspect during that period during surveys, it found that we were trusted just a little bit less and this means not just those, you know, well known televangelists as it came to be known. But the local Christian leader, the local pastor in the church was trusted at about the same level as a used car salesman. 

That's the way things were. So a lot of decline. Now, during these years, it wasn't just declined. There were some evidences that God was still a work in fact, you know, here is a description from mega trends one of the great books looking at what are the major trends in the world and looking at the the decade of the 2000s is the last time the US experience such a deeply religious period was during the 19th century. When the country's economy changed from agriculture to industry, in this century, we have watched the ideal of progress give way to the return of faith. the worship of science and the rational to the great extent has been thrown over for a religious revival that specifically values the emotional and the non rational. Now, here's some of the evidences of that revival going on in the 1960s, began what was called Neo Pentecostalism gain great ground. In other words, that was the speaking in tongues idea of the Pentecostals, the awareness of the Holy Spirit began to spread beyond the Assemblies of God and the Pentecostal churches that are really kind of marginalized, and began to find a home in mainline denominations not only but in all denominations. And so there was a renewal of the teaching of the Holy Spirit, there was a renewed excitement about a God being a personal God and living within us. And in fact, in my own history, I remember 1973 we engaged in what was called key 73. And that was prayer groups praying for the nation to be renewed and recaptured. And it was all part of this Pentecost, Neo Pentecostalism now, there's not much evidence that it contributes to the growth of the church, but certainly it created a kind of spiritual fervour. And throughout the world during these years, you've got to know that churches that identified themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic, as the more popular term began to grow by leaps and waves by leaps and bounds throughout the world. 

In fact, in Latin America, these were the churches that were growing hugely while other churches missions were struggling along. And so it was a sign that there was a revival going on in the world through Neo Pentecostalism, but it was having a kind of effect here where where it was stewing in all the churches now. The third wave was a move of the 80s and early 90s. Peter Wagner is one of the church growth experts in the United States described this as a third wave of the Holy Spirit. The first one was the beginning of Pentecostalism that we looked at in the previous lecture. And then the second way was Neo Pentecostalism. Well then, you know, some 30 years later, 20 to 30 years later as a third wave of the Holy Spirit that was impacting the churches. And there was a renewal of prayer and renewal of interest in church growth, particularly in the 1980s. And I was studying under Peter Wagner from 1983 to 1986, when I got my Doctorate of ministry from Fuller Seminary, and it was an exciting time because there was a sense that God was about to break out and a revival. That didn't happen. But there was this renewal going on among the churches, growth of mega churches, they became a phenomenon during these years after World War Two. Right now, it's estimated in the United States that 50% of those who go to church in the United States are attending mega churches, that is churches of 2000 people or more. And that's had renewing effect on religion. Now, unfortunately, with that comes the death of many small churches and middle sized churches in the United States are either growing larger or smaller. There's not much in between, that they're staying at two or 300 people. But the mega churches became a force of people like Bill Hybels and Rick Warren became people who provided materials to the larger church and, and guidelines about how you could attract and hold unchurched people. Promise keepers was a movement in the 1990s. That is another sign of renewal. This was a tremendous thing. It was started by a coach at the University of Colorado, and decided he wanted to get men together. And so at first meeting, there were only a small group and then a larger group. And then soon around the country, there were the stadium events. I personally attended one with 45,000 men gathering to sing praises. We were racking Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California. And it was a delightful time and there was a sense that God is doing something God is doing something powerful. Unfortunately, promise keepers had a rather short life and began to decline after a meeting in Washington. And, and there's no evidence that that movement of men significantly impacted the growth of the churches. A 911 2001. You know, that's a day that is famous in our history. For that picture there. The attack on the Twin Towers. Now, as we've seen in past lectures, sometimes, you know, a crisis like a war is something that brings new will and revival and becomes one of the sparks that sets it off. And it looked like that what was going to happen here, in fact, the Sunday after that attack on the Twin Towers. The attendance in churches in the United States went up 40%. 

I tried to picture that 40% more people in church than on the typical Sunday. And it looked like things were going to change dramatically. In fact, I remember listening to Rick Warren speak about strategic planning right after the Twin Towers were attacked. And he said, you know, our strategic planning is now about two weeks out, that as we look out, we're trying to catch this wave that God has brought us of all these new people. And so he and his church were strategizing and how they can best unfold this huge upswing in attendance. But here's the fact that this was renewal and not revival. Six weeks later, attendance was back to the pre-attack levels. And so I didn't result in the growth of the church of Jesus in the United States. So where are we today 20% of people in the United States are unaffiliated with any religious experience 33% of those who are under 30, 18 to 30. Rise of the nuns, those who are in census, mark they are nothing religiously. That is the large the fastest growing segment in the United States. 20 to 30 year olds attend church at one half the rate of their parents think of that 20 to 30 year olds today attend church at one half the rate of their parents, one quarter, the rate of their grandparents. 61% of church, high school graduates. These are people who are part of a church abandon their faith when they get college age, 78 to 80% of children of young people who are in youth groups, when they go to college, abandon their engagement. So it's even higher if you're engaged in the youth group. That's the point there. So if we ever needed a revival, it's now and so the big question is, what will God do in response to this time of spiritual decline? What is going to be God's action? And I don't know. I personally think that there's going to be a revival, but I think it's going to be of a different sort this time. I think rather than kind of the the big events, the crusades, it's going to take place in small groups invading communities as missional communities as what they're being called. I think that's what the Holy Spirit is doing today. But I'm expecting since we've had a period of time now, since the last revival that God's going to do something and the next session is a little more about that.

Video Transcript: Getting Ready for Revival (Dr. Bruce Ballast)

While we come to the final session of ordinary people extraordinary things, I hope that you are catching on to the process that God has used in this country, at least for revival. As we saw last time, there's been a period of declension. And the big question now, for us, I think, here in the United States, as church leaders is this one, is there going to be a revival coming? Or are we going to go the way of Europe. I had the privilege in 2006, to travel back to the Netherlands. My grandparents on the one side immigrated from the Netherlands. And so I was interested to go back there. And I know that as I grew up within a Reformed Church kind of system, I grew up understanding that a lot of the theological underpinnings of what I was being taught in seminary came from Dutch theologians and German theologians. And so it was a great thrill for me to go back to the Netherlands. We got to go back and look for you know, our names my wife and I, at various places, and the villages where her grandparents were from, and then the town where my ancestors supposedly settled in the Netherlands before they some came here. That was a fun trip. But one of the challenging parts of that trip was a walking down the street, we love to walk when we travel, my wife and I, and seeing the church in the distance. And since I'm interested in churches, and church architecture, etc. I don't know how many times it happened four or five, six, that we'd see a church a few blocks away, and we'd start walking toward it. I wanted to see what kind it was. And we'd get there and find out that it was an office building, or in one case, some condominiums, apartments are being were being built. In one case, it was pretty much a museum where you could go there, and it was open for tours occasionally, so you could see what used to be. The percentage of people in the Netherlands, a place of my spiritual heritage with 10 churches, you know, now estimated somewhere around 4 to 7% of the population in the United States going that direction. That's the case in much of Europe, though, the light of the gospel for so many years was centered in Europe, and missionaries went out from there to all over the world with good news, because that was where things were happening. And, and then that light seemed to move to the United States. We were kind of the source for now, decades. are we heading the way of Europe? Or will God give us a new revival? That's the question I want to look at. What can we do as church leaders as people engaged in whatever country you're in? What can you do to prepare for revival? 

Well, as we've been looking at the periods of revival, we see that there have been various periods of time between the times of revival. You look at the Great Awakening those dates 1735 to 1741. And then about 58 years later, you get to the Second Great Awakening. So in that 58 years, there was the decline. And the country being called to prayer or church being called a prayer, and God's sending us Holy Spirit. And the Second Great Awakening, took root took off, and Charles Finney becomes the leader as we looked at him. Then it's 15 years later, as 15 to 16 years later, after the height of the Great Awakening in 1841. And then the great revival occurs, there's not again that decline, and and then that awakening of the great prayer revival. And the leader, we associated with that as Jeremiah Lanphier, as we saw, and then it's about seven years to the Civil War and the end of the Civil War. And that's when Dwight Moody, his ministry really took off and into the early 1900s 1912 1914. That was a period of Billy Sunday. But then, post World War Two, we find the Billy Graham period. And that was finding its height in the 50s. But certainly went through the 60s and the 70s. I remember in the early 60s watching Billy Graham on TV and my mother challenging me, as one of the kids sitting there watching him preach to accept the invitation of Jesus Christ, but now it's been somewhere 60 to 70 years since the last revival. What should we be doing? It's not come. As we've seen last time. Things are pretty bad right now, spiritually in the United States. Pretty bad for the church. attendance rates are lower than they have been in decades at church. 

The influence of the church is limited in ways that we couldn't have foreseen in the 1950s. So what do we do? Well, the first answer to that question is this one. We pray, we pray. As you look through each of the revival period, you found time that prayer played an incredible role in moving the country toward revival or moving the Holy Spirit down to bring revival. However, you want to look at that theologically. In fact, this is the title of one pamphlet, written by Jonathan Edwards, and humble attempt to promote explicit prayer for the revival of religion and the advancement of Christ's kingdom on earth pursuant to Scripture promises and the prophecies concerning the last time you read that you think that's the title along in the book, it was actually a very, very short booklet. But that was the practice back then that the title had to basically explain everything you were going to say. But as Jonathan Edwards looked at the Great Awakening, he saw that it had been preceded by these kind of prayers that he was calling for promoting explicit prayer for the revival of religion, that when you look at the other revival periods, you find that prayer was associated with everyone. The Second Great Awakening, it was that movement of concerts of prayer, as we saw that people agreed around the country to pray on particular days or particular evenings, and then 1857 1858, the prayer meeting revival, that's what it called the Jeremiah Lanphier. Beginning that prayer meeting in that Dutch old Dutch Reformed Church. Charles Finney, fine tune the prayer. You know, he's the one who developed what were called the new methods back then. And part of the new methods was organizing the prayer effort toward the revival, to try to bring prayer to the forefront and to have the city that he was going to hold a revival in bath with prayer beforehand, Dwight Moody, have refined it even more, and Billy Graham, took it to the max as far as a revivalist. And so when we look at these things, we see prayer has been vital. And so what can we do? We can pray. We can pray. Back story is told the man on the left there was a front man for Billy Graham's name is Willis Haymaker, who's a Presbyterian pastor, and he's one of the go ahead into a city for Billy Graham.

And one case, you know, they brought a whole team in there were praying to the city and praying for revival. And his report was, you know, by the time Billy came on, the scene of the revival had been prayed down, all he had to do was get up there, and the Holy Spirit would have broken out just by him getting up there. And so what can we do? We can pray, of course, that's biblical. First falling of the Holy Spirit came as a result of prayer, Acts 1:14, they all join together constantly in prayer. And so we can pray. Today, one of the people who's calling us to prayer, a great deal is one of those ordinary people, through whom extraordinary things are being done. This is the pastor of the Brooklyn tabernacle, in New York City. You probably know him, you've probably heard him if you're a Christian, at some place. He's been one who's been emphatic in prayer. When he came to the Brooklyn tabernacle, he renowned about 14 people. And he said, it was a sense of desperation on one Sunday, when he got up to preach, and there's this little crowd there. And he announced that Tuesday night, we're going to get together and pray because we, there's nothing to do this, this place is dead. Now, Jim Cymbala is his name. He's somebody who was an ordinary person. He wasn't trained for what he was going to do as leading this church. She was there kind of as just fill in, trying to bring it to death. And yet people began to come together and pray. And it became a movement. One of his best known talks, involves the statement by Jesus, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations that's moving and when you hear his symbol as description of how that talk came to be. He didn't know what he was going to speak on the night before. And God began to impress on him this need to talk about prayer. And so when he got up the next day to talk it was he said, it wasn't really me. It was just the Holy Spirit, giving this message to the church, that my house shall be called a house of prayer. It's not going to be called a house of singing. It's not going to be called a house of preaching. It's going to be called a house of prayer. Would that describe your church? 

Would that describe you? Now, you know, surveys of people in the United States are always responded that we pray. In fact, 98% of us in one survey, say we pray almost daily. But then the question is, what are you praying for our Newsweek magazine A while back to the study and said, 82% of us pray for health, and success. And success, usually in our culture, is defined as material success. In other words, we're gaining in material possessions, or we're getting larger houses. So 82% of us pray for that regularly. 75% they said, pray for strength, strength to get through a difficult time or strength to overcome personal weakness that 75% of us pray for strength. Now, this United States recently, 2008 we've gone through what's being referred to as the Great Recession, which sometimes results in people turning back to God, but in the process, millions of people lost their jobs. And so 72% of us said, they really pray for job searches for ourselves, but also for people we know. An interesting little sidelight is 51%, in the Newsweek survey said that they do not pray for their team to win, which rather struck me because that means 49% of us are praying for our team to win. And I don't know how God handles those prayers. But, you know, the big question is, who's praying for revival? If this describes our prayer life? Look how self centered that list is incredibly self centered. Who's praying for those who don't know Jesus Christ, who's praying for the Holy Spirit to come down for a spirit of revival to take place, once again, in this country? Who's doing that? When you look at history, you find, you know, a man, Brian Miller, created an England what was called a prayer triplet, where three people would get together and agree to covenant together to pray over each other's lists of unbelieving friends. And that became the process of prayer prior to some revival. And so, the focus is boy who doesn't believe who's not a Christian? Yeah.

A man who in our time has been very influential in calling the church to Paris, Paul Young, he chose In fact, the Korean Church has been known for its prayer life. I remember years ago, when I was studying church growth at fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. We were in a class on church growth, and we had a lot of Koreans in the, in the class. And in a break time, I remember there were a couple of them. Five of them, as I recall, sitting around talking together, they were all proficient in English and, and so I went to them as somebody who was pastoring, a church then in Southern California and wanting that church to, to grow, wanting to experience revival. I went to them and said, Tell me, what's the secret? See, at that time, in Southern California, it seemed like you could plant three Koreans on a corner and didn't have a thriving church there. And no time. It was just an incredible kind of experience. in their mind, denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, we were taking in all sorts of Korean congregations. And they were beginning because we had a few large churches that we welcomed in, and they were sending people out, and churches were starting right and left in the Korean culture, not just in our denomination, but in several Presbyterian denominations in the Reformed Church of America, etc. So I went to them, these five young men, and I said, What's the secret? And I thought I'd be told, you know, well, it's a program. It's the character. It's the immigrant mentality of these Koreans who are first generation people coming in second generation who've been been here for a while, and the dynamics and how we're working those dynamics. I was hoping for that kind of answer somewhere deep in my heart and soul. And instead, one of them turned to me and said, How is your prayer life. And at that point, I realized I didn't really know how to pray. I really didn't know how to pray. They described me to me at that time, their prayer life. It involved getting up early in the morning and entering the prayer closet, somewhere for five to 6 am. They would gather with people at church every morning to pray, to pray. Friday nights would be an all night prayer time, where they would be at church and there would be people from the church who would commit to praying the whole night through. I went home incredibly convicted and with a very gifted woman in our church, began to teach on prayer in a class and began learning how to pray because I realized that you know, well, I grew up in a Christian home and yet, my understanding of prayer was, you know, God take care of me and my children and my church, etc. 

I didn't know anything about praying, really. And so I began to study men like Dick Eastman began studying his patterns for prayer. And how do I put that to use in my life and began to understand more about that. Paul (David) Yonggi Cho was one of those people who helped Korean pastor of the largest at that time church in the world. Now, obviously, he prays for the things that we tend to as well for health, wealth success, I don't know. But in one of his books, he described his prayer life and how he disciplines his prayer life outward. I'm going to read this quote at some length just to just so that you get a feeling of an answer that question Who's praying for revival. This is how he describes his prayer. I sit before the Lord and begin to thank him for his goodness. After thanking, praising and worshiping God, I can ask his blessing on every appointment, counselings session and meeting I will have that day. In detail, I ask God's blessings upon my associates, I have over 300 associate pastors, or missionaries who are in 40 countries and my elders and deacons. I've been inquire of the Lord for his direction on every decision. after praying for each department of my church, each government official and our national defense, I pray for my family, naming their needs, clearly and specifically to our Lord. Then, using my imagination, I travelled to Japan where we have an extensive ministry, leaving the shores of Japan, I travel the Great Pacific Ocean to America. I pray for the president, the Congress and the other institutions in the United States. I pray for the Christians in America that they may experience revival in their churches. I pray for the 1,000s, who send their prayer request to our New York office. I travel south and pray for Latin America, I then travel across the Atlantic Ocean and pray for Europe, Eastern Europe is a particular concern to me, because of the oppression and opposition which exists. God is most concerned about each Christian who's meeting secretly in Eastern Europe, and I must pray for their safety and success. Africa, Australia, New Zealand are also areas where God desires to move, then there is in my own continent of Asia. And on and on and on.

You get the idea. This is this is a man who recognizes what prayer outward looks like. When I think of the fall of the Soviet Union, and the break down of the Berlin Wall and all of that I remember reading Philip Yancey, and his description of going there, after all of that experiences and meeting all kinds of people who've been praying for a long time for this to happen. And he wrote in one of his books, and never even thought to pray for that. And to realize he received the results of prayers that have been prayed so many years ago. So what can we do? We can pray. We can pray for revival. We can pray combined with fasting. We can pray looking at our communities and looking at the unbelievers there. In my community right now 35% had no meaningful connection with the church. And that number did not change that percentage did not change between the year 2000 in the year 2010, the census in those years. And I wonder how I've been praying for this community. And I've felt challenged to do that. To pray and to go through the streets of this community to go through its institutions, its government. And I pray that God will bring revival here and then to pray through Western Michigan where I live in through the state of Michigan and then throughout the United States, and then missionaries that are supported by my wife and me or my my church, and how are you praying for revival? Sometimes that will involve what's called spiritual warfare prayer. You know, when he fees in chapter six, we're given that wonderful statement by Paul where he says, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, it's against the powers, it's against the authorities and high places, etc, etc, etc. And so sometimes we have to engage in what's called spiritual warfare for that we address the forces of evil because we believe they are there and we believe that they are rejoicing over the spiritual decline in this country or in yours. 

That's all we've got to learn to pray the way Jesus prayed when he gave commands to the enemy to the demons and said, leave, get out. Go, I have to admit, that's not part of my tradition. It's taken a while for me to recognize that and I don't have gifts and discernment. So I have to partner with my wife who does sometimes recognize where is their real evil, but putting on as Paul says, the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil the heavenly realms, we got to do that. And then another thing we can do is beginning to pray as part of our prayer but also looking for leaders. When we look at the leaders who have been part of the, the maintaining of a sense of Christian faith, during this time of spiritual decline, you get some of those statements of God once again, that it's ordinary people he's going to use. One of them is this man, Bill Hybels pastor a Willow Creek Church in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Now, the story of Willow Creek has been told often, but it began as a youth ministry, Bill himself, again, not seminary trained Bible school kind of education. And yet, what was for a while one of the largest churches in the United States, was begun by this man. And then through him, there's been influence on all kinds of churches all over the place, through the Willow Creek Association, mentioned Jim Cymbala. Somebody wasn't trained for the position he took during the 1990s. I mentioned last time, the whole movement of promise keepers. And that was begun by coach Bill McCartney. Again, not a church leader, a football coach who has a vision of men, making promises and keeping those promises to be godly men. So we can be looking for leaders, but looking for them, not usually in the traditional places. No, who is it that God might call, I think of some of the people I am privileged to be engaged with right now in some aspects of ministry in the church I serve. And I look at one and I think, how, look at what's happening as a result of this person is not really an upfront leader kind of leads from behind. And yet as a result of his kind of influence happening various places, men's ministry, and my church is just kind of breaking out in all sorts of different ways men's are gathering in different places, they're serving in surprising ways. Pray, and then look for leaders. And then kind of the biggie is you're going to have to prepare for change.

That's something your church has to do. If you're going to be part of the revival, you got to be ready for change. I met a couple of weeks ago now with a leaders from several different churches. And we were in a small group together. And we were there to pray and talk about ministry in our churches and one man shared that his his church, at an average age of 65, they had no children, no young people, and they knew they were dying. And what they really wanted, if they wanted anything from outside was some help in figuring out when to do that. Now they would financially they were okay, because their building was paid for, and they didn't have a full time pastor, they had retired men and came in and preach for them. So they were happy just getting together. Now, if that church is going to become part of revival, it's going to cause incredible change in that congregation. Another congregation that was represented in this small group of three leaders there, and they're shared how, you know, it just seemed like yesterday that they had like 30 children and their boys program, a cadet program similar to boy Scouts, and now they only have three. And so they recognize as they look around the church, that it's aging, and how if they're going to become part of revival in their community, what changes are going to have to take place in the music and in the structure, including young people. Change is devastating for so many people. And yet, if there's going to be revival is going to come. Revival has always been controversial. In our history, we've seen how there's often a reaction against revivalist as some revival kind of techniques. And some of that was some of that opposition was legitimate. But know that your church is going to have to change. Imagine if you're praying for revival and God brings you 25 people next week, many of whom have needs a background, some great sins, you're gonna have to be ready for that. Prepare for it, talk about what has to be changed, pray together about what needs to be changed. And then I began to read the culture, but Time magazine's Rick Warren. Right after 911. I heard him speak at a conference where he said you know, it changed his whole idea of strategic planning. As somebody who does strategic planning in our church and leads the church in that process that interested me, what do you do? What is Rick Warren do pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Southern California, one of the large, very influential churches in the country, what do you do to strategic plan? And what he said was what he says in his book, The Purpose Driven church, he said, you know, finding out what God is doing is not difficult. 

You just got to look around. Look around carefully. What's he doing in some areas of the culture, he said, and then what you do is like a surfer, you get on that wave and ride it. Your job is not to create the wave, it's simply to acknowledge that the wave exists, and to ride it. Now, as I look around my culture, I'm looking for those things that might be God breaking out in a new way, bringing revival. One of the ideas that's being bandied about in the church world right now is what's called the Great emergence. That's the philosophy behind it. The idea behind it is that every 500 years, Christianity has to go through a major shift in order to be relevant to succeeding generations. And so, you know, 500 years ago, approximately, was the great reformation. And before that 500 years was the split between the Orthodox Church, east and west. But the idea is, is that when the church goes through these great changes, several things happen. One, new expressions of the church come out from the reformation, of course, it was Protestantism. But then a second thing that happens is the original churches renewed in fact, some of the great spiritual writers in the Catholic tradition, tradition came after the Reformation. And then the church goes places it's never gone before. And the suggestion is, we're in one of those times of kind of upheaval of the church, one of those 500 years of correction. So what does the church look like in the future? I don't know. I don't know. I've been pondering that lately. I'm thinking as I look around, that there will be something of the church that will be in a house churches. Now, that's really countercultural right now, because in the United States right now, one statistic. In the United States right now, 50% of those who attend churches at 10 mega churches have members, 2000 members or more. But apparently, that hasn't been doing the job, because our young people are leaving in droves, as we saw last time. So what's going to do it I suspect, going back to a house church kind of models, what's going to do it? I don't know. But the point is, we've got to be looking at the culture and saying, Where is God breaking out?

Where something happening? Where are people coming to faith in powerful in supernatural ways. And as we see those and we grab that wave, we have to trust God to bring revival. So we prepare for change, and we read the culture, and then we just get ready. This has been a joy for me to talk about revival for the last 14 sessions. I'm hopeful that it's coming. I don't know what it's going to look like. I've seen some of those periods that we talked about last time. You know, the promise keeper renewal, the megachurch movement I've seen have been part of some of those things in my years of ministry. I don't know what the next time is going to look like. But I guess I want you to join in prayer wherever you are. And God will bring about revival if you're in Europe, you've got major praying to do but we in the united states do too. If you're in Africa right now you are in a time of great revival. Rejoice and celebrate that many places in Latin America. Just see God breaking out through the Holy Spirit in variety of ways. Celebrate that, but get ready for what God might be doing next, and to Him be glory.