Dead Christianity: Its Cause and Cure

In The Christ of Every Road, Dr. Stanley Jones writes provocatively:

“The Church is not living in Pentecost. It is living between Easter and Pentecost. Easter stands for a life wrought out and offered. Pentecost stands for life appropriated and lived to its full. The Church stands hesitant between the two. Hesitant, hence comparatively impotent. If the Church would move up to Pentecost, nothing could stop it—NOTHING!”

Not always a safe guide, Dr. Jones’ feet stand on the right path in this case, for here is the secret of the lack of blessing. Here is the reason for the prevalent powerlessness. Here is the cause of carnal and spineless Christianity. But—if we may change the figure—here also is the golden key, the magic open sesame, to the door of revival.

Not in an overhauling of machinery or a revision of methods, not in a better organisation or the improvement of programmes, not in a more liberal supply of men or of money, not in a greater eloquence or oratory, is the vital need of the Church to-day. The paramount need, both of the Church and the Christian, is of a mighty infilling of the Spirit of God. This is an essential and fundamental prerequisite of revival.

The experience of the majority of Christians seems limited to Calvary. They rejoice in the pardon of sin and guilt, but know little of the power of God in daily life. When they were converted, the Holy Spirit took up residence in their bodies, but the residence was limited in actual occupation. Never has He taken full possession of their lives. Of His fulness, they have no knowledge at all. Like the empty lock by the river, they are drained of life, whilst the life-giving river flows by untapped.

Full-orbed Christianity can come only from the infilling of the Spirit of God. There can be no vital experience of Christ, no real spiritual enrichment, no joyful knowledge of the victorious life, apart from that…

The Spirit-filled life will be one from which the streams of blessing will flow out to others. Out of such a man will flow “rivers of living water” (John 7:38) to refresh the hearts of those with whom he comes into contact. A secret spring maintains his spiritual life and floods his whole being with its sparkling freshness. At St. Margaret’s Bay on the Kent coast, there is reputed to be a well which is always covered by the sea at high tide. Yet its water remains fresh and pure and uncontaminated by the ocean. Fed from the hills above, it has a constant supply of fresh water pouring into it, which effectively prevents the sea from flowing in. So with the sanctified Christian. The seas of trouble, trial and adversity may sweep over him and may often submerge him, but never will they find a point of penetration. The living spring within is like a well of water, bubbling up into everlasting life (John 4:14). 

As the river cleanses the rocky bed over which it courses, so the spiritual flood cleanses and sanctifies the child of God. Purity of life is maintained only “by the washing of water by the Word” (in other words, by the application of the Scriptures to heart and conscience by the Holy Spirit). Downcast and depressed, a young man once told a well-known divine of nights of prayer spent seeking deliverance from impure thoughts. “You don’t need prayer,” said the old man. “What you need is the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit.” That power is sufficient to sanctify the yielded life and to maintain the Christian undefiled.

The fulness of the Spirit is the secret of power in the life. No mere natural ability or physical energy can usurp the place of spiritual power, but the mighty energizing of the indwelling Spirit so empowers the Christian that nothing is impossible. On the 13th of August, 1727, a little body of Moravian believers were gathered for prayer in the tiny village of Herrnhut (South Germany), which had been built by the consecrated Count Zinzendorf. As they gave themselves to prayer, so moved were they by the power of the Holy Spirit that they devoted themselves unhesitatingly and unreservedly to His control. A wave of missionary enterprise, set in motion that night, swept over the world. The conversion of the Wesleys, the inspiration of Carey, the formation of the Salvation Army, and many another spiritual movement were all direct or indirect results of that night. And what might not that supernatural power do in this present day if there were a sufficient number of consecrated Christians filled with the Spirit?

The Spirit’s fullness is the secret of successful service for God. Organisation, oratory, talent, and intellectual ability are all inadequate for this. Sufficiency is in the Divine enduement alone. In Power From On High, Charles Finney tells of a visit paid to the weaving department of a large manufacturing establishment. Uttering not a word, he yet perceived that several of the women were so agitated by his presence that they were unable to attend to their looms, and after a few moments, some burst into tears. The owner of the factory (an unconverted man) stopped the machines working and Finney preached to the assembled workers, with the result that nearly all were converted. The power of the indwelling Spirit so filled the man that his very presence was irresistible. As Finney himself wrote, “This power seems sometimes to pervade the atmosphere of one who is highly charged with it. Numbers of persons in a community will be clothed with this power, when the very atmosphere of the whole place seems to be charged with the life of God. Strangers coming into it will be smitten with conviction of sin and, in many instances, converted to Christ.” The amazing power of the Holy Spirit in service for Christ must be experienced to be believed, but effective and successful service is dependent upon that mighty force.

The infilling of the Holy Spirit means a complete change in life. Drabness, monotony, discontent and barrenness are banished as that life-giving flow fills the whole being. Sterility gives way to fertility, fruitlessness to fruitfulness, and lifelessness to life abundant. The Gannel Estuary in Cornwall is at times little more than a sandy waste, through which meanders a trickling stream. But when the tide turns, the sea rushes into the estuary, sweeping over the sandy expanse and converting it almost into a beautiful inland lake—a blue and silver gem set among the verdant Cornish hills and sand-dunes. A life of beautiful, radiant Christianity comes similarly from the floodtides of the Spirit of God. Over the barren waste, there rushes in the mighty ocean of power to bathe everything with a new life of loveliness, and to convert the sandy expanse into a thing of heavenly beauty.

– Frederick A. Tatford, from Revival In Our Time