REVIVAL the MOTHER of WORLD MISSIONS...

?If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is un-obeyed, until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. There is little right giving because there is little right living, and because of the lack of sympathetic contact with God in holiness of heart, there is a lack of effectual contact with him at the Throne of Grace. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together, and a low standard in one means a general debility in the whole spiritual being.? ? Arthur T. Pierson
?The Protestant Churches owe an immeasurable debt to the Evangelical Revival? it added an intense sense of civic responsibility, and this naturally found its expression both in such movements of reform as the campaign for the abolition of slavery and in zeal for missionary endeavour? At a time when all these movements were showing signs of dying down, the Second Evangelical Awakening crossed the Atlantic from America to Britain in 1858. This was undenominational in character, and produced that new phenomenon of the nineteenth century, the interdenominational or undenominational missionary society.? ? Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions

?In regard to our foreign mission, we are at present in need of almost everything. We are greatly in need of money, and we are sorely in need of missionaries; but what we want most is Life and an increase of spiritual power? Money will flow in streams to God?s treasury, and men will offer themselves in companies, and our missionary enterprise will expand into missions worthy of the name, when the enthusiasm of Christ, the fire of the Holy Ghost, possesses the Church - never tilt then.? ? Rev. Archd Scott, The Church of Scotland Home & Foreign Missionary Record

?Missionary work in foreign fields would soon cease to bring forth fruit if it would not have been for special revival seasons.? ? Henry B. Roller, The Twentieth Century Revival (1911)

?The only hope of missions lay in a revival of religion, wide-spread and deep-reaching.? - Arthur T. Pierson, The Crisis of Missions (1886)

?The first work of the Spirit of God at this epoch was to convince men anew of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come; to set before them the heinousness of unbelief in Christ, the possibility of victory over evil through Him, and the certainty of retribution for all that set Him at naught. When the people of Christian lands felt the pressure of these truths on their own conscience, they were not slow to think of the danger of loss and misery that hung over races which had never heard the glad tidings of the Christian salvation.? ? J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel

?It is the century of missions largely, yes mainly, because it has been also, beyond any other, a century of revivals, of quickening and purified spiritual life? In large measure modern missions are the direct product of revivals. ? ? Delavan L. Leonard, A Hundred Years of Missions (published ?1895)

?A passion for missions is the result of a special conviction, a new inward work of the Holy Ghost.? ? James Elder Cumming

?Yes, my friends, it is amidst the effusions of the Spirit of God that men are trained to engage actively and efficiently in the great enterprise of Christian benevolence: here they are to have their hearts and their hands opened in behalf of those who are sitting in the region and shadow of death: here they are to catch that spirit of zeal, and self-denial, and holy resolution, which will lead them to attempt great things, and by God's blessing to accomplish great things, towards the moral renovation of the world?.I hardly need to say that all our great benevolent institutions ? our Missionary, and Bible, and Tract, and Education and all kindred societies, have flourished most when the influence of God?s grace have been most abundantly experienced.? ? ? William B. Sprague , Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1832)

?In every revival there is a reemphasis of the Church's missionary character. Men return to Calvary, and the world is seen afresh through the eyes of Christ. The infinite compassion of Christ fills the heart, and the passion evoked by Calvary demands the whole wide world as the fruit of His sacrifice.? ?John Shearer, Old Time Revivals

?The Revival of 1859 helped to lay the foundations of the modem international and interdenominational missionary structure?Every revival of religion in the homelands is felt within a decade in the foreign mission-fields, and the records of missionary enterprises and the pages of missionary biography following I860 are full of clearest evidence of the stimulating effect of the Revival throughout the world.? ?J. Edwin Orr

?A mighty spiritual revival in the Church is the fundamental need of the hour; it is the only thing that will avail? When it comes the problems of missionary recruits and missionary support will be solved.? - Robert Hall Glover, The Progress of World Wide Missions

?The fact is indisputable that revivals of true Christianity issue in missionary effort. In the absence of revival and of a healthy Church life missionary interest and effort alike languish.? ? S. M. Houghton, Sketches from Church History

? Whenever, in any century, whether in a single heart or in a company of believers, there has been a fresh effusion of the Spirit, there has followed inevitably a fresh endeavor in the work of evangelizing the world.? - A. J. Gordon, The Holy Spirit in Missions

?Following the 1858 Prayer Revival, a world-wide interdenominational student missionary movement began to flourish. In 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement was founded. This movement heightened missions awareness and over the next several decades helped recruit some 20,000 students who went forth to serve on the mission field.? - Timothy K. Beougher, Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions

?It is utterly impossible to divorce the story of student awakenings from the course of missions in countries overseas. From the beginning, one of the most immediate and dramatic effects of college revivals has been the recruitment of personnel for the work of Christ abroad.? -J. Edwin Orr, Campus Aflame

?A mighty spiritual revival in the Church is the fundamental need of the hour; it is the only thing that will avail? When revival comes the problems of missionary recruits and missionary support will be solved.? - Robert Hall Glover, The Progress of World Wide Missions

?Water cannot rise any higher than its source, nor can the mission overseas be any stronger than the supporting church at home. A sick church can never save a dying world?Throughout history, revival at home and missions abroad have always gone together.? ? J. Herbert Kane, A Concise History of the Christian World Mission

?There is need of a great revival of spiritual life, of truly fervent devotion to our Lord Jesus, of entire consecration to His service. It is only in a church in which this spirit of revival has at least begun, that there is any hope of radical change in the relation of the majority of our Christian people to mission work.? - Andrew Murray (1900)

?Awakenings resulted from revivals as the Church moved powerfully into the world in evangelism, social transformation, and mission?The two cannot be separated.? - Paul E. Pierson, Evangelical Dictionary of World missions

?The Evangelical Awakening both founded and established the far-sighted world Protestant foreign missionary movement, this is a fact no student of the period can doubt.? ? J. Wesley Bready, England: Before and after Wesley

?The evangelical revival in the English-speaking world two hundred years ago had vast influence in increasing the confidence that all nations of the earth would yet be turned to the gospel of Christ.? ? Ian Murray, The Puritan Hope

?Not till the eighteenth century began to usher in the great Evangelical Revival did the churches of Reformed Christendom put forth their strength in missionary effort.? - J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel

?The astonishing missionary advance at the close of the eighteenth century and the onset of the nineteenth was a direct consequence of the Evangelical Awakening.? - Skevington Wood, The Inextinguishable Blaze

?The first work of the Spirit of God was to convince men anew of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come? When the people of Christian lands felt the pressure of these truths on their own conscience, they were not slow to think of the danger of loss and misery that hung over races which had never heard the glad tidings of the Christian salvation.? ? J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel

?In times when church work and missionary endeavors have dwindled for lack of support, it has been from revivals that a new supply of manpower has arisen? ? Iain H. Murray, Pentecost ?Today?

?The Church today needs a revival?There is plenty of missionary sentiment; but little of that practical self-denial and burning zeal which impelled the Moravians to go forth without script or purse, to carry the banner of the Cross to the dark places of the earth.? ? Edwin Hodder, The Conquest of the Cross, A Record of Missionary Work throughout the World

?The first work of the Spirit of God was to convince men anew of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come? When the people of Christian lands felt the pressure of these truths on their own conscience, they were not slow to think of the danger of loss and misery that hung over races which had never heard the glad tidings of the Christian salvation.? ? J. P. Lilley, The Victory of the Gospel

?In times when church work and missionary endeavors have dwindled for lack of support, it has been from revivals that a new supply of manpower has arisen? ? Iain H. Murray, Pentecost ?Today?

?The Church today needs a revival?There is plenty of missionary sentiment; but little of that practical self-denial and burning zeal which impelled the Moravians to go forth without script or purse, to carry the banner of the Cross to the dark places of the earth.? ? Edwin Hodder, The Conquest of the Cross, A Record of Missionary Work throughout the World

?Following the 1858 Prayer Revival, a world-wide interdenominational student missionary movement began to flourish. In 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement was founded. This movement heightened missions awareness and over the next several decades helped recruit some 20,000 students who went forth to serve on the mission field.? - Timothy K. Beougher, Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions

?It is utterly impossible to divorce the story of student awakenings from the course of missions in countries overseas. From the beginning, one of the most immediate and dramatic effects of college revivals has been the recruitment of personnel for the work of Christ abroad.? -J. Edwin Orr, Campus Aflame

?The Revival of 1859 helped to lay the foundations of the modern international and interdenominational missionary structure?Every revival of religion in the homelands is felt within a decade in the foreign mission-fields, and the records of missionary enterprises and the pages of missionary biography following I860 are full of clearest evidence of the stimulating effect of the Revival throughout the world.? - J. Edwin Orr

?If I should die, I shall be able to say to the rising generation, God will surely visit you. A work is begun that will not end till the world be subdued to the Savior. ? - Andrew Fuller

?The outpourings of the Spirit will bring about the work of conversion in a wonderful manner. They will result in the calling of new laborers who will be zealous to carry the gospel to the nations of the world.? - Charles L. Chaney, The Birth of Missions in America

 

?When the churches stirred to life near the end of the Eighteenth Century, they gave themselves to missionary organization and action as never before. The dynamic of the renewed efforts was that ?powerful impulse? let loose in America in the Great Awakening. Pious missionaries crossed the mountains, sought out the Indian tribes and invaded the southern frontier. They gathered churches in the cities, preached to the slaves, and ultimately spread out to the islands and continents of the world. The categories that marked the boundaries of their theology came from the Puritans. The under-girding spirit that moved them to action and flavored their theology was that of the Evangelical Revival.? - Charles L. Chaney, The Birth of Missions in America

?Almost all the (missionary pioneers) had come more or less directly under the influence of what we call the Evangelical Revival, that is, that movement of the Spirit of God which? gave a new vitality in the second half of the eighteenth century to personal faith.? ? Ernest A. Payne, The Growth of the World Church

?It is a want of a revived godliness in our church at home which prevents our hoping for any great success abroad. Ah brethren we must till our own vineyards better, or else God will not make us successful in driving the plow across the broad acres of the continents?.Just as the anointing oil was first poured on Aaron?s head, and then went to the skirts of the garment, so must the Holy Spirit be poured on us, and then shall it go to the utmost borders of the habitable earth.? - C. H. Spurgeon

?Revivals and missions have always been closely related. Eighteenth-century awakenings laid the foundation for the modern missions movement. In the next century they brought renewed zeal among the faithful, inspired believers to enter the ministry or become missionaries, and influenced non-Christians to convert.? - A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, Gary B. McGee, Introducing World Missions

?The eighteenth-century evangelical revivals that began in England with Whitefield and Wesley played an important role in awakening Christian leaders and laypeople to the responsibility for evangelism worldwide.? - Ruth A. Tucker

?The times have changed; but the need for the Holy Spirit has not passed away. It is the special need of this age. It would not be difficult to find analogies between the beginning of the last century and the close of the present century. History repeats itself. And just as during the last century salvation was of the Lord, so now salvation must be of the Lord. It is the incoming of God?s life that raises the level, that freshens and invigorates the springs of progress, that improves society, that elevates and strengthens the moral tone, that gives success to the Gospel, that fits and qualifies the Church for the triumphant accomplishment of her mission in the world. And the lesson of the last century?and the lesson of Pentecost and the lesson of all similar seasons of blessing?is that the incoming of God?s life is conditioned by prayer. The preliminary is prayer. The law is prayer; and it is not arbitrary, but in the very nature of things necessary?When, therefore, God?s people ?give? themselves to prayer, compelled by the heart?s longings after God and after the salvation of men, genuine revival is near?

Shall we not, then, supply the condition? Observe the law? Prepare the way? Cast out the stones?? Make it possible for God to bless us and to ?REVIVE His work in the midst of the years?? He is summoning us to the duty, and will therefore help us if we strive to do His will. He is eager to fill us with the Holy Ghost, and is just waiting for us. Oh how much longer will He have to wait? How we are wronging our own souls, and hindering God, and standing in the way of the salvation of men! Let us prostrate ourselves before Him, and acknowledge our offences, and seek the forgiveness that is never denied to the penitent, and ask for the gift unspeakable; and we shall rise up ?endued with power? and instinct with the life of God.? - William Crosbie, The Evangelization of the World

 

?The links between the missionary movement and the Evangelical Revival are remarkably close. Revival largely supplied the men, the motive, and the message? Each of the missionary societies was indebted to it.? - Arthur Skevington Wood

 

?The modern missionary movement as a whole is usually dated from the closing years of the eighteenth century. In 1787, the first mention is made of Missions established by the Methodist Society.? In 1792, the Baptist Missionary Society came into being, mainly through the influence of Carey. Three years later the London Missionary Society was founded?The closing year of the century saw the inauguration of the Church Missionary Society, and also of the Religious Tract Society?That all these agencies were the result of the (Evangelical) Revival cannot be questioned; the leaders In almost every case had come under its influence directly or indirectly; many of them were a part of its fruit. Under the strong constraining love of Christ they felt impelled to think of others, less favored than them selves. Their Master words rang in their ears: ?Go ye into all the World?; they realized that they were ?put in trust with the Gospel,? and in the spirit of loyal and willing obedience they began to see how best they might discharge their trusteeship. Such was the origin of the first effort of Protestantism, on any large organized scale, to evangelize the world.? ? Rev. Bishop E. R. Hasse, The Moravians