grace, and just as men will not know the day o f His visitation in glory, it is also true that many do not recog nize Him when He comes in other visitations o f blessing. He has come often in revival and often those who should have been the first to know Him have been blindest. When God visited England in the great Wes leyan revival, a leading churchman declared that he was unable to per ceive any great work o f God going on anywhere. Mr. Wesley said, “ I don’t believe the good man did see anything.” He knew not the day of his visitation and, just as the scribes missed Jesus, there will be even Bible scholars and prophecy experts and rock-ribbed fundamentalists who will miss Him today, because His visita tion is not according to their blue prints. God is working today and it has upset the calculations o f some who declared there never could be another revival. I have read of a man saying to his companion as they stood in front o f a pet shop: “ Look at that stuffed bird in the window. Whoever fixed him up was a poor taxidermist. No bird ever stood on a limb like that.” And just then the bird flew down! The bird is flying down these days to the dis comfiture o f not a few experts. God is moving today and, just as in our Lord’s day, He by-passed the Pharisees and left the ecclesiastical set-up behind to call to Himself through plain apostles the hungry multitudes, so He may do today. He has done it before as in the days o f Wesley and Whitefield and Finney and Moody. He will set aside our pet programs and disregard our little ar rangements and demonstrate that it is not by might nor power but by His Spirit. Our gigantic official religious world is too busy putting its own projects over. God is going over their heads calling sinners to repentance. True, He works as always through His church, but He has not always been able to work through the impos ing organization that calls itself His church. Through the years He has been calling to Himself in all our churches those who mean business, faithful believers who have been pray ing and working for revival. They have made mistakes and blunders and failures such as mar any work in which poor human flesh engages. But God is honoring our faith though it has been weak and our prayers though they have been feeble, and now He seems to be gathering what may be a final harvest before the curtain of the age rings down. He is working according to His own pattern. “ The wind bloweth J U N E , 1 9 5 0
where it listeth.” He will not send a revival made to order, planned after our little diagrams. God is sovereign, His ways are not our ways. It mat ters not how nor when nor where it comes if God is in it. It matters not what preacher He uses. One plants, another waters, but God gives the increase. The important thing for us is to know the time o f our visitation. Pity us if we talk revival for years and don’t know one when it comes! God help us to be ready when Jesus comes by in revival! Let us not be like some orchestras that take more time to tune up than to play! Let us be ready for His visitation. We do not have to wait until a big campaign starts or a much-heralded preacher arrives. Now is the day for individual revival as well as for salvation. In deed, we are not to be gullible, we are to try the spirits whether they be o f God but, on the other hand, let us not be so stubborn as to miss a blessing rather than give up a preju dice. And God grant us the grace to sit at any man’s feet if we may learn the way o f the Lord more perfectly.
wardly we hoped that we would be asked to remain? Jesus is passing by. He is a gentleman. He will not abide uninvited. If we are to know Him better, we must constrain Him. The deeper things o f God pass on if we do not lay hold upon them. Jesus always makes as though He would go further. He does not compel us, we must constrain Him. Yet He longs to abide as our Guest that He may be come our host as He did at Cana. He would sit at our table that we might sit at His, He would sup with us that we may sup with Him. Jesus is passing by day by day and life’s greatest privilege is to know Him and the power o f His resurrec tion and the fellowship of His suffer ings. Let us buy up the opportunity! If a little of God’s grace makes us as happy as it does, why do not we want all we can get! Some have been Christians for years and yet know Christ but little more than at the start. We ought to make our supreme concern to know Him and to make Him known. We waste enough time to gain a working knowledge o f the Bible. We miss enough daily oppor tunities o f prayer, meditation, wit nessing, to make mature Christians o f us, yet we are babes on milk when we should be on meat. It takes time to know God. This age o f aspirin tablets and stomach ulcers does not lend itself to the deeper life. Very few are interested in it. At most we are so busy with the good that we miss the best. Jesus is passing by but He makes as though He would go further. Let us avail ourselves o f the time o f His visitation! This closer walk is the other side o f revival. In fact if we attended to this we should not need revival. Most Christians and churches need a periodic stirring up but it should not and need not be so. God never meant that His people should live by fits and starts, an up and down experience. Some husbands and wives live that way with alternate spells o f quarreling and making up again. How much better is that steady and con stant companionship, not perfect, but faithful and dependable day by day! With churches on every corner why should we have to have a special re viving every year? If we walked with God and kept up to date with Him in our hearts we should never need to call in a preacher to get us back to normal. True revival is simply nor mal New Testament Christianity, not an occasional religious spree. Enoch did not need a “ revival” every year to Page Eleven
Dr. Vance Havner There is another way in which Jesus passes by in a visitation of blessing. He visits us daily in the privilege and possibility o f knowing Him better. Remember how, when He came to the dwelling place o f the Emmaus disciples, “ He made as though He would have gone further.” He did not force Himself upon them. He would have passed on but He longed to manifest Himself and' must have been delighted when they constrained Him to tarry. Have we not, in the company o f one beloved, moved as though we would be going while in
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