Chapter 15 - Be Filled With The Spirit
Series: Our Fathers Saw His Mighty Works
As has been recounted in the previous chapters, the
Lutheran Evangelistic Movement was one of God’s mighty tools for revival during
the post World War II years and a witness to many of His wonderful works. Yet the LEM was not, of course, without its
problems and disappointments. Strange to
say, many of those things seemed to surface especially during the years of
revival in the early 1950’s. In fact,
the LEM suffered a sharp decline near the middle of that decade about the same
time that revival on the national scene was beginning to fade. Whether the problems and disappointments
encountered by the LEM were contributing factors to its decline or merely
symptoms of a decline whose roots lay much deeper is uncertain. An analysis in that regard seems impossible
since thorough research for this book yielded strong evidence that the
incidents of most negative impact to the LEM often occurred behind the scenes
and were omitted from official records.
However, a candid presentation of at least the difficulties and
imperfections of the LEM which were recorded seems valuable both as an in-depth
portrayal of the waning of one segment of the larger national movement and as
an example “written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have
come.” (I Corinthians 10:11 NKJV) If
there are any answers at all as to why the mid-century revival ceased (and a
most significant story to that effect from the national scene is told later in
this chapter), God has left them for the benefit of His people today that we
might learn from the past, seek Him anew, and be ready to receive a fresh
stirring from Him in our own hearts.
Criticisms, Contentions, and Crisis in the LEM
As early as 1952, the LEM began publishing criticisms of
the national revival. Although much of
this writing was an accurate analysis of the weaker aspects of the larger-scale
movement, it also contained hyperbolic inaccuracies made for the sake of
emphasis. It seems strange that the LEM,
having generally avoided criticizing the church prior to the revival years,
would now begin doing so while simultaneously seeing the greatest signs of true
revival ever in its own ministry. But a
sampling from the pages of Evangelize reveals that this was so.
“When we met for our first
conference in 1937, we sensed we were living in critical times. There were rumors of wars . . . depression .
. . sin in high places and
low
. . . It looked dark indeed.“ “Since
then, we have fought one world war and are on the brink of another. Things look even darker [now in 1952] than in
1936.”1
“We have heard much about revival in
the last five years [since 1948]. Its
need has been stressed by nearly all the major denominations . . . Great
city-wide evangelistic efforts have been promoted in many cities in hopes that
revival would come. But revival on a
national scale has not come to the Christian Church. There has been an increase in church
membership and attendance, but there has been no revival except in a few
churches and colleges.”2
“The Christian Church in America boasts
that there are more members in the church today than at any other time in
history. It also claims that a larger
percentage of the population than ever before is in the church fold . . . Yet
the Christian Church has never made such a small impact on the community and
the life of the nation as it does now.
Gambling, drunkenness, dishonesty, corruption, immorality, divorce are
on the increase. Our prisons are filled
to capacity. Juvenile delinquency is
appalling. Lawlessness, atheistic
Communism, and materialism are making their inroads into the life of the
nation.”3
“We thank God for such movements as
the Billy Graham campaigns and the synodical evangelistic programs. Some think of these as revivals. They are blessings and stirrings but not
revival. In real deep, community-wide
revivals, wickedness will be checked.“
“Prayer meetings and Sunday night meetings are not growing. When God begins to move in our midst, there
will be a seating problem in our churches on Sunday night.”4
Regarding a college president’s 1953
report that across the nation campus chapels and other nearby churches were
crowded with students every Sunday, “It would be well when people talk of
revival in our day, and great home missions gains, to recognize that there is a
popularity of religion today unrelated to whether the religion preached is true
or false.”5
While
it is very true that much of the national religious movement was quite shallow,
numbers of the LEM’s foregoing claims contradict statistics. For example, the national divorce rate
actually dropped until by the late 1950’s it was approximately half of what it
had been ten years earlier.6
The comprehensive national rate of crime (murder/non-negligent
manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor
vehicle theft) remained nearly level between 1945 and 1955, never exceeding the
rate of the early Depression years.7
The comprehensive state prison population, after dropping during the
peak World War II draft years, increased only slightly from 1945 onward and did
not even regain its prewar level until about 1955.8 That revivals nationwide were few it is
doubtful the LEM could claim with any authority for denominations besides
Lutheran or regions outside the upper Midwest.
Might there not have been similar movements elsewhere of which the
national religious press was unaware as they were of the LEM? If LEM Bible Conferences frequently saw
churches packed to capacity three times on Sundays, might there not have been
similar goings-on far outside of the LEM’s ken?
Another issue which became of special concern to the LEM
during the mid 1950’s was “church union” - the mergers being proposed by the
various Lutheran synods. In spite of the
synods’ claims “that a church made strong and mighty through the consolidation
of its forces will have a mighty impact upon the nation and the world,” the LEM
felt that inherent in large organizations was the “danger of increased
regimentation and dictatorship” which “often stifles and smothers spiritual life
and expression” so that “the free and spontaneous movements inspired by the
Holy Spirit are hindered and discouraged.”9 How church union will “affect free and
independent movements, like the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement . . . is a
question which concerns us much.”10
“Will there be opportunities for the present free movements in the
Church to continue to function and serve . . . ?”11 In reality, no mergers took place until 1960,
a full five years after the LEM had sharply declined.
There were also contentions of various types in which the
LEM was involved during the revival years.
In 1953, they called a meeting with other camp groups “to organize [a]
protest on conditions at Mission Farms,” particularly regarding cleanliness and
insufficient toilet facilities.12
Mission Farms complied by installing fourteen new toilets and
lavatories, but the nature of their response indicated mutual tension: “The
condition of the toilet facilities should be, and is, partially your responsibility. The crowds that come from the city, the
picnickers, and your Tabernacle attendance use these facilities, for which the
Mission has received no compensation for repairs or upkeep. In the Inn and in the Chapel this
non-resident group outnumber the campers living on the grounds.”13 To a complaint about lime discoloration on
drinking glasses, Mission Farms replied that, if required, they would wash
glasses by hand although that was a less sanitary process. A more serious contention was that brought
against the LEM in 1955 by the local Eagle Grove committee which claimed that
the LEM’s annual Bible Conference there had become a gathering place for
cantankerous, negative Christians who belittled the local churches and were
strengthened in doing so by the LEM’s usual program.14 The LEM responded with the assurance that in
the future they would work closely with the local committee to select subjects
and speakers which did not foster such dissension.15 Sad to say, there were even some contentions
during the early 1950’s among the LEM’s leaders themselves as evidenced by
verbal reports which surfaced years later, but neither the amount or nature of
such contentions is clear.
By far the strongest signals of the LEM’s decline were
the cuts and contractions of various sorts which began marking the ministry
from 1953 onward. It was in June of that
year that Executive Secretary Orloue Gisselquist resigned effective October
1st.16 This was not the first
recent major life change for the young man.
Just two months earlier, his 31-year-old wife had died after several
years of poor health.17
Orloue now planned to return to the University of Minnesota for graduate
work. This was a significant blow to the
LEM. Over the previous ten years, the
efficient and capable Orloue had become an integral part of the organization,
serving as managing editor of Evangelize, arranging many conferences
including Midwinter and Deeper Life, arranging and announcing the radio
program, keeping track of the finances, leading the book store work, handling
correspondence, hosting visitors to headquarters, and even speaking at several
conferences.18 But even worse
news was yet to come for the LEM. In May
1954, Rev. Evald J. Conrad resigned as director effective September 1st in
order to accept a call back to Trinity Lutheran Church of Minnehaha Falls which
he believed, after prayer, to be the Lord’s will for him.19 Expressing his joy at the privilege of having
served as director for nearly six years, Conrad pledged to do everything
possible to continue supporting the LEM’s ministry.20 Though he certainly did just that as chairman
and acting director in the years ahead, the resignation of the leader whom many
thought of as “Mr. Lutheran Evangelistic Movement”21 was nonetheless
a tremendous blow to the LEM.
In July 1954, the National Board voted to discontinue the
LEM’s radio ministry until a new director could be found.22 From mid 1953 onward, attendance at some LEM
conferences began being noticeably lower and was blamed on such things as “much
rain,”23 “the lateness of the spring [planting] season,”24
“the extreme heat,“25 or snow and ice making it “difficult to get
around.”26 After two years of
considerably lower attendance during the first of three weeks of Deeper Life,
the National Board decided to return to the two-week program in 1955.27 By 1957, the LEM’s annual report read, “If
our Deeper Life Conference could be promoted and publicized more effectively,
so that Lutherans throughout the land would know about it, [we are] confident
that we would have a much larger attendance.”
Also, “We had hoped . . . for larger crowds at the evening [Midwinter]
services. We feel there is much more
that can be done in enlisting local churches in this area to promote the
Midwinter Conference.”28 Such
comments stand in sharp contrast to that following a packed Deeper Life
Conference just six years earlier: “We are very limited when it comes to
promotional agencies, so we feel it was the Lord who moved people to come.”29 During 1955, the number of LEM Bible Conferences
fell to 24 as opposed to 37, 41, and 38 in 1952-1954 respectively. One factor cited was the overlap of Bible
Conference ministry by the Preaching-Teaching-Reaching (PTR) Missions which had
become so popular within several Lutheran synods.30 Two years later, the number of LEM Bible
Conferences had plummeted to a mere nine and Evangelize subscriptions
had dropped to 5,000 compared with over 7,000 just five years previously.31
For the first time in its eighteen years, the Lutheran
Evangelistic Movement was in crisis. In
a July 1955 letter to members of the National Board, Paul Lindell stated, “Many
people are concerned about the future work and ministry of the LEM. The present pause in the LEM’s advance may
very well be a time when the Lord has some new word of direction for us.”32 The man who had led the work since its
beginning, however, seemed somewhat less optimistic. Addressing the National Board as LEM Chairman
just two weeks later, Rev. Conrad declared, The “LEM has come to a time of crisis. In view of the increased interest in
evangelism in all the Lutheran Synods it is time to ask if the LEM should
consider its mission fulfilled and, if not, what further mission does it have
in the present day?” Furthermore, “the
LEM cannot go on indefinitely without a Director.“33 Though the decades ahead would prove
Lindell’s words to have been more accurate than Conrad’s - for God did indeed
see fit both to revitalize and to partially redirect the LEM’s ministry (see
Appendix 3) - that outcome was uncertain in 1955 and seemed less and less
plausible as the next few years passed.
The Forgotten Message of the Forgotten Revival
As mentioned earlier, the LEM’s sharp decline coincided
with the ebb of the national revival.
The general state of heightened religious interest, so prominent across
the country during the ten or twelve years following World War II, disappeared
entirely before 1960. Causes at play in
its downfall have been variously observed.
Garth Rosell, historian and son of mid-century evangelist Mervin Rosell,
has pointed out that the evangelical community, generally united before 1955,
became increasingly divided from that time onward. The watershed event which solidified
separation between fundamentalists and evangelicals was Billy Graham’s
summer-long 1957 New York City Crusade in which Graham stirred up controversy
by openly cooperating with religious liberals for the sake of proclaiming the
gospel to as many people as possible.34 It was the 1958 observation of a young Martin
Marty, later to gain fame as an interpreter of religious history, that few of
Graham’s listeners seriously thought he was talking about them when he
preached, “You are out of the will of God.”
“. . . While Graham was crusading against a lost community, with a
specific doctrine of God and view of man in mind,” said Marty, “most of his
hearers by first and second hand were performing a casual if intricate act of
translation. No one was ready to read
himself out of the religionized community.
All of them accepted Graham’s God, allowing him a few eccentricities of
expression. No one felt judged.”35
Whereas the mid-century movement has often been called
the revival of the 1950’s or the revival of the Eisenhower years (president
from 1953-1961) and has frequently been criticized for its shallow religiosity
during the mid to latter half of the decade, it has rarely been noted that the
much deeper movement had already ceased years earlier and had been largely
forgotten in the wake of its more superficial successor. This was certainly the analysis of
contemporary revival historian Dr. J. Edwin Orr. Writing in 1953, he remarked,
“The Mid-Century Awakening appears to be in a state of
pause . . . the Twentieth Century Revival, has by no means reached the pitch of
the effectiveness of either its predecessors in the Eighteenth Century or the
Nineteenth.”
“It is still tragically possible that American
Christians may become satisfied with the partial awakening they have
experienced. It is still possible that
the tide which is apparently coming in may recede again.”36
And that was precisely what
happened. This raises the point that,
since the deepest part of the revival seems to have ended almost before it got
started, perhaps the root of the true revival’s ending was to be found in its
beginnings. In this regard, Billy Graham
himself related a fascinating account to one of his early biographers.37 Following the unexpected Boston revival in
January 1950 (recounted earlier in Chapter 13), Graham headed west by train for
a previously-arranged engagement in Toronto in spite of countless invitations
to remain in New England. Twice in
Massachusetts and once more before exiting New York and the country, Graham
felt mightily impelled to get off the train and phone Boston that he would
return for an indefinite amount of time.
Many times the feeling had come to him that, if he stayed in New
England, God might spread a powerful revival from there across all of America. But exhausted, afraid of saying something
wrong to the press, and unwilling to abandon longstanding future engagements,
Graham let those feelings pass. Looking
back sixteen years later, he believed that he had unknowingly disobeyed God’s
voice.
But there is a story predating even Graham’s story above
which contains the most significant answer of all as to why the deepest part of
the revival ended almost as soon as it had begun. It is a little-known story about the origins
of the mid-century revival, origins which for the most part were quickly
discarded and replaced. It might aptly
be called “The Forgotten Message of the Forgotten Revival.”
In 1933 God called a 21-year-old Christian Irishman to
leave his secular job and, with the equivalent of only half a dollar, begin
traveling around the world to urge believers everywhere to pray and prepare for
a coming revival. For three years this
young man lived by faith from miracle to miracle as God provided his every
daily need from food and lodging to transportation and speaking
engagements. He spoke in churches,
chapels, colleges, and any other Christian venue that was open to him. The message God had given him was summarized
in the titles of his talks: “Full Surrender,” “Prayer and the Coming Revival,”
“Hindrances to Revival,” “The Price of
Revival,” and “The Filling of the Holy Spirit.”
Occasionally he was privileged to witness localized revivals of great
intensity under his ministry.
After traveling about 40,000 miles throughout Europe and
Canada, this young man arrived in the United States in late 1935 (about one
year before the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement was born). As usual, he had no prearranged speaking
engagements; but in a mighty stamp of approval from God upon his ministry, his
first three invitations came unsolicited from three of the largest and most
esteemed churches in the nation: Dr. H.A. Ironside’s Moody Church in Chicago,
Dr. Paul Rood’s Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, and Dr. W.B. Riley’s
First Baptist Church in Minneapolis. In
a miraculous whirlwind tour, this young man visited all 48 states in just 100
days, traveling 15,000 miles by train, bus, car, and plane and preaching 200
times. Quite obviously, God was intent
upon calling the nation to revival and to that end had sent a messenger to
deliver His word. The young man’s name
was J. Edwin Orr.38
Following his U.S. tour, Orr carried the revival message
throughout New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa.39 Ninety percent of his ministry was to
Christians and ninety percent of the results he saw were among Christians,
though the ten percent of his ministry to the unsaved resulted in 10,000
professed conversions in one year alone.
With no specific leading from the Lord after his South African travels,
Orr rested briefly and then “set out systematically to become a great
evangelist” by taking a team to Australia where he had seen so many conversions
just the year before. “During this
time,” said Orr,
“I
neglected the ministry to which God had called me - Revival, collective and
individual - and concentrated on direct evangelism . . . the Lord was not with
me in power . . . [my] warmth of interest in the work of the Spirit in reviving
the Church and quickening believers certainly declined. This continued for a couple of years, during
which I had limited blessing by repeating the tactics and ministry of earlier
days, but without their power.”
After several years of more preaching and traveling
interspersed with university studies, Orr served as an Air Force Chaplain
during World War II in the Pacific theater.
There on an island one night early in 1945, having just survived an air
raid, he began to wonder if he would ever get out of the war alive and see his
family again.40 “Sitting
there in meditation,” Orr said, “I had a strange feeling about the future . . .
I felt, in an intense spiritual conviction, that the good Lord would spare my
life to let me become an historian of the great religious awakenings of the
Nineteenth Century, and an eye-witness of the beginnings of the awakenings of
the Twentieth Century.”
Following the war, to fulfill the first part of that
vision, Orr took up residence at Oxford, England, where he spent several years
researching and writing about the 1859 revival in Britain, ultimately earning a
doctorate for his work.41 It
was during his time at Oxford, he said, that “the interest in worldwide revival
grew in my heart as I read the stories of God’s wondrous doings in the
past.” By 1949, his burden had fully
returned “not only for revival, but for the Filling of the Spirit.“42 Having finished at Oxford, he relocated to
southern California and began sharing his message from the Lord particularly
with pastors and evangelists. Sometimes
this was done individually and other times in larger assemblies such as the
ministerial retreats described in Chapter 12.
Orr’s miraculously-sustained travels as a young man, his
war-time conviction that he would see a 20th Century revival, and his 1949
foretelling of revival in Minneapolis (recounted in Chapter 12) are evidences
enough that God had made him a prophet of revival to his generation. Although this humble man would hardly have
referred to himself as a prophet, the above facts and the timing of God’s
giving him the revival message make that message inestimably significant to the
mid-century movement. What were the
specifics of Orr‘s message? It is not
difficult to find out. So many of the
Christian leaders with whom Orr shared it asked for further details and
documentation that he determined, “. . . If, humanly speaking, I had only a
month to live, I would spend it writing down my message.”43 This he did and published it in 1951 as a
book entitled Full Surrender.
After beginning his book with a discussion of sin in the
life of a Christian, Orr moved next to cleansing and sanctification and then
into the heart of his burden which concerned surrender and the filling of the
Spirit. A sampling from his latter
chapters clearly delineates the word which he had received from the Lord.
“The appeal . . . in the opening
verse of Romans 12 is for a full surrender, the surrender of the intellect,
will and emotions to God at a given moment . . . the second verse urges the
continual yielding of the personality day by day.”
“ . . . The moment the believer
resists the work of the Spirit in lifting him to still higher ground, he is in
need of renewal of surrender . . . .”44
“The Apostle Paul tells us: ‘Do not
get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit’
(Ephesians 5:18). In alcoholic
intoxication, a man is possessed by an alien spirit . . . and folks excuse him
by saying that he is not himself, he is intoxicated. The filling of the Holy Spirit is
God-intoxication; not fanaticism, but the possession of a man’s faculties by
the Holy Spirit of God, whereby his acts resemble acts of a Divine Being, who
possesses him.”45
Citing
numerous examples from the book of Acts, Orr explained that the purpose of the
filling of the Spirit is power for service unto God.46 (In other words, the filling is not for
self-gratification but for God’s glory whether the means of serving Him is
full-time Christian ministry or regular daily tasks.) Evidences of the Spirit’s filling include
supernatural power in Christian ministry, the fruit of the Spirit listed in
Galatians 5:22-23, and the gifts of the Spirit listed in I Corinthians 12:4-11.47
“An asking, seeking, knocking
Christian will soon find out for himself what stands in the way of the filling
of his vessel with the Holy Spirit, the clean and righteous and convincing
Spirit who hates sin and unrighteousness and compromise. The Holy Spirit will lead him to seek
forgiveness of his shortcomings through the cleansing blood of Christ, and to
accept by faith His provision for a victorious life, fully surrendering himself
to God. Then, by faith, and only by
faith, the seeker may act upon the promise of God and receive into his must
unworthy vessel the mighty power of the Spirit.”48
“This is individual revival. Multiply it in faith, and there develops
congregational revival, community revival, national revival and worldwide
revival of Christians, with resultant soul winning and missionary endeavor.”49
This was God’s message to the
mid-century church and, as the following paragraphs demonstrate, it was
ultimately this message that sparked the first major outbreak of revival on a
national level.
One of the numerous gatherings at which Orr shared his
revival message was the late summer 1949 Forest Home College Briefing
Conference described briefly near the end of Chapter 12. Orr had been invited as the evening speaker,
and his topics for the week “were, in sequence: God and Students; Revival, the
Work of God; How God Forgives Sins; the Searchlight of God; Sanctification,
Imputed, Critical and Progressive; the Filling of the Spirit; [and] the Impact
of Revival.”50 One of the
conference’s morning speakers was the still-relatively-unknown Billy Graham who
testified later that Orr’s evening messages “were of tremendous blessing in my
own life. His logical development of the
whole subject of full surrender and the outpouring of the Spirit stirred the
entire conference, evening by evening.”51 This was certainly not Orr’s and Graham’s
first interaction. They had met about a
decade earlier, and their acquaintance had “ripened into warm friendship,” to
quote Graham.52 They had
frequently been in touch with each other, Graham having even visited Orr at
Oxford in 1947.
Graham had come to Forest Home with inner struggles over
his own ministry in general, including deep apprehensions about his upcoming
Los Angeles campaign. By the midpoint of
the week-long conference, he had reached the height of his personal
conflict. Late on the night of
Wednesday, August 31, he came to Orr’s cabin to talk.53 He told Orr of “his desire for a renewal of
his consecration and an anointing of the Holy Spirit”54 but that he
had reached an impasse in his quest for those things. Then he revealed quite frankly why he had
come specifically to Orr.55
“Why do you say that I am not a surrendered Christian, Edwin?” Orr protested. “I didn’t say you weren’t a surrendered
Christian, Billy! In fact I thought of
you as an example of one.” “No,”
admitted Graham, “you didn’t say it. But
your message hit me that way. Yet I
don’t know of anything in particular that I’m keeping back from the Lord.” It seems that the Holy Spirit had indicated
to Graham that the hindrance to his filling was a failure in the prerequisite
area of full surrender.
The
two men sat in silence for a while as Orr contemplated what he could possibly
say next. “Then,” he wrote later, “light
came into my mind.” Once again God had
revealed something to his messenger regarding a situation about which, as the
messenger later found out, he was not fully aware at the time. “Maybe, Billy, it isn’t that there is anything
you have to give up to the Lord, but rather something that you must take
up.” Orr went on to give the example of
a Christian who had been thoroughly converted emotionally and volitionally (in
his will) but not intellectually. In his
preaching, this man had laid great emphasis upon a certain Biblical doctrine
while practically excluding another major doctrine because it did not make
complete sense to his current level of finite understanding. When he had become willing to take up and
preach all of God’s Word, whether or not every doctrine fully made sense
to his intellect, he had been thoroughly converted intellectually and was
currently serving God in a fruitful ministry.
“That I can understand, Edwin,” said Billy, “but I don’t see how it
applies to me. I know that I am
converted emotionally, volitionally and intellectually and every other
way. How do I know? I preach Conversion . . . I am as sure of the
Way of Salvation as of anything in my thinking, and more so.” “How about the Way of Surrender, Billy?”
asked Orr. “I mean, God’s provision for
the believer to live on a revival plane, with victory over sin in true
sanctification and surrender to His Will?”
“Well, I’m for it,” replied Graham.
“And I am surrendered, I trust, in every way.” “Yes.
You’re surrendered emotionally, Billy,” said Orr. “You love the Lord with all your heart. You’re surrendered volitionally, too - you’d
[be willing to] quit your job and go and bury yourself in some dirty little
village on the borders of China, wouldn’t you?
But are you intellectually surrendered?”
“What’s the test for that?” queried Graham. “Do you preach the Way [of Surrender]?”
replied Orr. “Are you as sure of the Way
of Surrender as of anything else in your thinking, and more so? That would be a demonstration of intellectual
surrender . . . You’ve got to take it by faith.”
Shortly, Graham left Orr and wandered off to pray alone.56 Orr had given him much to consider. He had suggested, essentially, that Graham’s
hindrance to receiving the filling of the Spirit for power in preaching was due
to his incomplete surrender to God in the realm of his intellect. Furthermore, Orr had suggested that one
specific point on which Graham was intellectually unsurrendered was on the
doctrine of full surrender itself. What
Orr did not know when he spoke with Graham that night was that “Graham’s
intellectual problem involved the question of the authority of Scripture.”57 A few years later Graham wrote,
“In
1949 I had been having a great many doubts concerning the Bible. I thought I saw apparent contradictions in
Scripture. Some things I could not
reconcile with my restricted concept of God.
When I stood up to preach, the authoritative note so characteristic of
all great preachers of the past was lacking . . . I was waging the intellectual
battle of my life.”58
After leaving Orr’s cabin,
Graham walked down a trail and off into the woods, “almost wrestling with God”
and “duell[ing] with [his] doubts.”
“Finally,” he said,
“in
desperation, I surrendered my will to the Living God revealed in Scripture.
“I knelt before the open Bible and
said: “Lord, many things in this book I do not understand. But Thou hast said, ‘The just shall live by
faith.’ All I have received from Thee, I
have taken by faith. Here and now, by
faith, I accept the Bible as Thy word. I
take it all. I take it without
reservations. Where there are things I
cannot understand, I will reserve judgment until I receive more light. If this pleases Thee, give me authority as I
proclaim Thy word, and through that authority convict me[n] of sin and turn
sinners to the Saviour.”59
Having surrendered his
intellect to God that night, Graham immediately received full assurance from
the Holy Spirit not only that he had now been filled with power for preaching
unto the conversion of sinners but also that he would see real revival in his
Los Angeles campaign. At 2:00 in the
morning, he returned to Orr’s cabin with that joyful news.60
Quite obviously, Graham had also now surrendered
intellectually to preaching the doctrines of full surrender and the filling of
the Spirit to Christians as Orr had exhorted him. Just three days later, on the closing Sunday
morning of the College Briefing Conference, Graham was to give the 11:00
message but found himself with just fifteen minutes remaining to preach after a
stirring testimony service had been extended to 12:15. The message he had planned would now be too
long. “I didn’t know what to say,” he
explained later. “I didn’t know which
Scripture to turn to. The Spirit of God
had been moving. And so I turned to a
passage of Scripture in the Word and brought a message that I’d never prepared,
a message that I’d never preached on before, and a message that somehow I
believe came from God for that particular hour.
And we saw another moving of the Spirit of God.”61 Indeed, Graham’s message was not only for
that particular hour at Forest Home but also, much more broadly, for that
particular hour in 1949 when the United States lay on the brink of revival. What were Graham’s words that morning? Once again, God has seen fit to well-preserve
such a significant message. Graham not
only repeated that morning’s message a month later within one of his Los
Angeles campaign sermons which was audio recorded but also included a printed
version of that Los Angeles sermon in one of his earliest books, Revival in
Our Time: The Story of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Campaigns.
As
he neared the end of his Los Angeles sermon entitled, “How to be Filled with
the Holy Spirit,” Graham told his audience, “Now I want you to turn to that
passage of Scripture that I used up at Forest Home that time and I want you to
see what I saw that day.”62
Reading from Luke 11:24-26, Graham continued.
“When the unclean spirit is gone out
of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he
saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and
garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to
him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell
there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
“Here is the story I want you to
get. See this house where the evil
spirit has been cast out. The house has
been swept clean of all cobwebs and dirt; it is clean.
“When you are yielded [i.e.
surrendered] and your sins are confessed, you are in a dangerous position. Do you know why? Because the old evil spirit that left the
house is going to get seven others worse than himself, and then he is going to
look in the window of your house. If he
finds nothing there - the place is still empty - he is going to open the door
and come in. Your state will then be far
worse than it ever was before. You will
have seven demons instead of one; seven sins instead of one; seven troubles
instead of one; seven heartaches instead of one; seven tragedies instead of
one.
“But if you cleanse your heart of
sin and it is then filled with the Holy Spirit, it is an entirely different
matter. The evil spirit can’t get in.”63
That was, in essence, the original message from God for
the mid-century revival. It was an
exhortation to Christians to confess and receive cleansing for their sins, to
fully surrender themselves unto God, and to subsequently receive the mighty
filling of the Holy Spirit for Christian living and service or, if they
refused, to be occupied by something much worse instead. When Graham preached the above sermon in Los
Angeles, he was only a week and a half into his campaign and there were still
no signs of revival. As of yet, he was
displaying no unusual “authority [to] convict men of sin and turn sinners to
the Saviour” as he had prayed for at Forest Home. But the strong conviction which he had
received from God immediately after surrendering to Him that night - namely
that he had been filled with the Spirit’s power for preaching and that he would
see real revival in Los Angeles - were undeniably proven true by subsequent
events. The revivals under Graham’s
ministry in Los Angeles and six weeks later in Boston (both detailed in Chapter
13) were by all accounts the most powerfully concentrated regional movings of
God’s Spirit in the United States in the 40 years preceding them or the 60
years following.
Orr’s and Graham’s message from God concerning the filling
of the Spirit was quite unconventional for its time, due not to its being a
previously unheard-of doctrine but rather to its having oscillated in and out
of popularity during the previous 100 years.
With each wave of revival in the United States from the mid 1800’s and
onward, interest in the filling of the Spirit seemed to mount. It was as if God were impressing this
doctrine upon His people with ever-increasing force. But ultimately each time, it was rejected by
mainline Christianity and taken to extremes by some of its remaining
adherents. History demonstrates these
points. Many well-known Christian
leaders of the mid to late nineteenth century such as Charles Finney, D.L.
Moody, William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army), and Hudson Taylor all gave
specific testimony to the Spirit’s filling in their own lives64 and
displayed evidences of resultant supernatural power in their ministries. Orr continues this line of thought.
“The end of the period of the
nineteenth century revivals, from the Welsh Revival of 1904 to the Korean
Revival of 1907, saw the rise of a great emphasis upon the work of the Spirit
in what afterwards became the Pentecostal movement . . . The declining
[mainline] churches generally rejected the Pentecostal emphasis, driving out
and persecuting its advocates. Rejected
by the churches generally, the Pentecostalists were driven in upon themselves,
and extreme fanaticism developed among some who brought discredit upon the
others.”65
“In the forty years of the
wilderness experience between 1908 and 1948, when spiritual dearth was common,
the teaching that the Filling of the Holy Spirit was only for the early
apostolic days gained great popularity, but without either scriptural or
historical support.” During those four
decades, this doctrine “suffered not only from neglect and contradiction, but
from fanatical teaching and practice.”66
Writing
in 1951, Orr extended his analysis to the then on-going revival.
“Now with the turning of the tide,
it seems that . . . the barriers between the Pentecostal minority and the
non-Pentecostal majority are being lowered, thanks not only to the decline of
fanaticism among those who call themselves Pentecostalists, but also to the
rising interest in the Filling of the Holy Spirit for power and gifts and
fruits for service being brought about by the current evangelical awakening in
America . . . in all the historic Protestant denominations.”67
But it was only a few years,
as Orr soon found out, before mainline interest in the filling of the Spirit
had once again quickly disintegrated while extremism grew among some of its
remaining adherents such as the “phalanx of ‘healing evangelists’” whose
ministries were difficult to objectively assess due to sensationalism68
or the burgeoning group of those who insisted “that the filling of the Holy
Spirit must always be accompanied by speaking in tongues.”69
How did mainline interest in the filling of the Spirit
fade so quickly? A series of three
observations both addresses that question and yields an answer as to why the
revival at mid-century ceased prematurely.
First of all, church historians agree unequivocally that one major
earmark of the 1950’s religious boom was evangelism. Perhaps Armin Gesswein, writing early in that
decade, offered the best analysis in that regard.
“The
present movement seems to be more outside than inside the churches, though
moving toward and often geared to the churches.
Neutral buildings and halls and tents are its dwelling-place. It represents a movement to the church rather than out from the church. With few exceptions the churches are still
not revived. This movement (of
evangelism) at best tends to revive only a small percentage of Christians. It is aimed at the outsider, and from the
outside. Both in message and method it
is 90% or more for the unconverted.”70
The profound implication is
that while the church at large spent so much of its time helping the unsaved to
find forgiveness of sins in Christ (certainly a commendable endeavor) it spent
comparatively little time examining itself for its own need for cleansing, full
surrender, and the filling of the Spirit.
Although the mid-century movement had begun with that exhortational
revival message to Christians, its focus was soon redirected almost exclusively
toward non-Christians.
Secondly,
even when the movement was within the church, its emphasis was mainly on
cleansing from sin with little corresponding emphasis on the filling of the
Spirit for empowered Christian living and service. For example, of the troubled souls
encountered by the LEM, the greater percentage came seeking forgiveness of
sins, assurance of salvation, and daily victory over sin, as evidenced in the
foregoing chapters. While those are of
course very commendable pursuits, they seemed sometimes to be desired as ends
in themselves rather than as means toward the end of being possessed and
controlled by God’s Spirit.
Thirdly,
wherever the church was unfilled by the Holy Spirit, it was left wide open to
be filled by something much worse as Graham had predicted in his message. Christianity’s three major enemies are the
world, the devil, and the flesh; but according to Romans 8 and Galatians 5, the
especial antagonist of the Spirit is the flesh.
Into the void which the Spirit should have filled, the flesh entered and
reigned. Phrases like, “Religion is up
but morals are down,” became commonplace by the mid 1950’s.71 And in the decades which followed, the works
of the flesh as outlined in Galatians 5:19-21 grew increasingly prominent within
a divided church, being evidenced by such extremes as adultery, lewdness, and
drunkenness on the one hand and contentions, outbursts of wrath, and
dissensions on the other. In reality,
the root of the problem was neither immorality nor judgmentalism, as the
accusations frequently ran, but that the flesh had occupied the territory which
the Spirit should have filled. The
gratification and preservation of self had taken precedence over the
glorification of God.
That this was so, Dr. J. Edwin Orr himself realized
increasingly as the years passed. One of
the last projects on which he was working at the time of his death in 1987 was
a revised addition of Full Surrender which was later published
posthumously.72 His primary
revision to the book was an entirely new opening chapter entitled, “The First
Word of the Gospel.” “Is it
not . . . possible,” he
began,
“that
many ills of the Christian life are due to handicapped beginnings in spiritual
birth? That unfortunates, whose
professed conversion was marred by a lack of understanding of what was
involved, might find their spiritual life full of trials and woes not
experienced by the children of God who were well born?”73
“What exactly is involved in
becoming a Christian?” asked Orr. “What
is the first word of the message of the Gospel?”74 Considering that John the Baptist, Jesus, and
the twelve disciples all began their ministries with the same word - which was
also Jesus’ final word at His ascension, Peter’s word of exhortation at
Pentecost, and Paul’s word of exhortation throughout his ministry - that first
word of the gospel unequivocally is repent.75
To
repent “has a moral as well as an intellectual impact.“ According to Paul it involves a revolution of
thinking, a turning to God, and the performing of deeds worthy of a heart’s
change (Acts 26:20).76 But
“sad to say,” Orr continued, “repentance is a missing note in much modern
evangelism. The appeal is not for
repentance but rather for enlistment.”77
“Defective evangelism has become a
national scandal. While evangelistic
enterprises are claiming untold numbers of converts, a national poll announcing
that multi-millions claim to be ‘born-again,’ yet a national newspaper notes
that the ‘so-called evangelical awakening’ seems to have had no effect upon the
morals of the nation, while murder, robbery, rape, prostitution, pornography
and the other social evils are abounding.
The fault must lie in the message, for in the great awakenings of the
past, sinners were urged to repent and believe the Gospel.”78
“It is . . . quite impossible to
believe truly without really repenting.
The difference between true faith and what the Scripture calls false
faith is simple: it is the lack of true repentance.”79
“ . . . Not only is evangelism
defective without the opening word repentance, but
. .
. many baffled believers may be suffering defeat because of the primary neglect
of repentance when they first professed to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”80
Such were some of the last
words given by God to the man to whom He had also given a message for the
mid-century revival so many years earlier.
There is a brilliant ray of hope in all of this which can
most clearly be seen in the fact that God has for so long preserved this
almost-forgotten story of the mid-century revival and the message which
factored so prominently into its origins.
God never teases or taunts. He
does not point out past errors only to announce that there is no solution, much
to the despair of His hearers. He would
not have preserved this story for so many years if it were not still possible
for His people to receive what He offered long ago. The exhortation to be filled with the Spirit
is, according to God’s Word, still applicable for Christians today. The path to receiving that filling might be a
difficult one of repentance, cleansing, and full surrender. But would not the results be well worth those
things? Who knows through what mighty
works God might glorify His name in our own generation? It inspires the imagination to note the
specific wording with which Orr carefully recorded his mid-century vision from
the Lord - that he would be “an eye-witness of the beginnings of the
awakenings of the Twentieth Century.”
What a strange word to receive for a movement that indeed seemed to stop
almost as soon as it had started.
Perhaps the rest of the vision remains yet to be fulfilled, the rest of
the movement yet to be brought to completion.
God alone knows, and His people can find out by first following His word
of cleansing, full surrender, and the filling of the Holy Spirit.
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