God's Promises to His Church

“I was surprised; so much drunkenness, cursing and swearing (even from the mouths of little children) do I never remember to have seen and heard before in so small a compass of time. Surely this place is ripe for Him who ‘came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’”—John Wesley, 1742

To John Wesley, a wicked city was not a hopeless shipwreck but an opportunity for Christ to usher in His kingdom. Fully convinced of what he said, Wesley began open-air preaching in England and was later able to write, “Great multitudes are everywhere awakened.” George Whitefield, a preacher of the same era in England and America who preached to crowds of thousands, was used by God to stir the kind of revival where bars and brothels go out of business. It seemed that the whole nation would soon genuinely turn to Christ, and Whitefield was convinced that the Lord intended to “set the world in a flame.”

Wesley and Whitefield preached in faith, and God poured out His Spirit. But their faith didn’t come from nowhere. They acted upon what they believed to be true in Scripture. They shared their theology with preachers of the 17^th and 18^th-century revivals in England and Scotland and with the missionaries who initiated the first great endeavors to preach the gospel in Africa, India, China, and the Pacific Islands. These men shook the gates of Hell and claimed the world for Christ!

What did they believe that filled them with such reckless abandon for the gospel? What caused them to expect great outpourings of the Holy Spirit? They believed that God has promised in Scripture a great revival in the world, initiating a time of unprecedented prosperity for the Church. In short, they believed not in a gradual moral decline of the world until Christ’s return, but that “the kingdom of the world [would] become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Rev 11:15), and He would use the Church to do it. For a mind-blowing presentation of the Scriptures supporting this doctrine, listen to Stephen Baker’s sermon from the ClearNote Fellowship 2011 Conference on The Great Commission. Also read The Puritan Hope by Iain Murray, from which the quotes in this post are taken.

What would CNCF look like if we believed in God’s promises in this way? Let’s not mock God by looking at the sin and wickedness at IU and despairing; God’s Church will be victorious and IU is the property of Christ. Even if we die without seeing revival, “The more great and glorious things you expect from God…the more eminently holy in all your ways and actings it becomes you to be.” Pray that we might be able, like Wesley, to say,

“I have never seen so much drunkenness, sexual immorality and unbelief in such a short time. Surely Indiana University is ripe for Him who ‘came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’”