Do You Long for Revival? Pray, Preach, and Publish.

Last year I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo with a small group of pastors and future missionaries. At this moment, conservative estimates note that less than 1% of the Japanese people consider themselves to be evangelical Christians. As I was walking through the streets of Tokyo observing the cultural religiosity of that functionally atheistic people, my soul yearned for the Lord to bring revival to Tokyo. Upon my return to the United States, that yearning for revival grew, not only for Tokyo, but also for where I currently pastor. As I continue to reflect on revival locally and globally, there are at least three components that are normally present: prayer, preaching, and publishing.

Prayer

One of the most influential works to fuel the modern missions movement among my generation of pastors and missionaries is Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper. It opens with this memorable introduction: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”1

You may be asking, What is the connection between revival and missions? Revival is simply God bringing life to places of spiritual death so that he may be worshipped. When we pursue missions, we are going because we long for God to bring life to places where there currently is none. In other words, we go on missions because we long to see revival take place so that God might be worshipped.

Because of this connection between revival and missions, the fuel for each is the same: prayer. To this end, Piper is correct when he asserts, “Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief.”2 The picture that Piper is seeking to illustrate is that prayer places us in the frontlines while giving God the glory as the limitless provider for gospel work (Acts 4:31). The one who supplies the power deserves the praise.3 Therefore, it is through prayer that God provides the power for revival by his grace, both domestically and internationally.

Preaching

The second component that must be present for revival is biblical preaching. Such preaching matters in revival for two important reasons.

First and most significantly, biblical preaching converts sinners into worshippers. This universal reality is unaffected by geographic, political, ethnic, or social boundaries. When the word of God is proclaimed, sinners come alive to the grace of God in his Son, Jesus Christ. He takes his

proclaimed word by the power of his Spirit and stabs sinners’ dead hearts to life in regeneration, resulting in repentance from sin and trust in Christ alone for salvation. The Holy Spirit then indwells new Christians, empowering them to live in joyful obedience to the word of the Lord. They are then baptized as an outward response to this divine work of God. This is the process God uses to make worshippers of his glory across the globe.

We see this process unfold time and time again throughout the book of Acts. For example, in Acts 2 when Peter preaches his Pentecost sermon about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, Luke records the result for us:

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:37-41 ESV, emphasis added).

Revival begins when the preached word pierces hearts, raises the dead to life, and creates new worshippers from converted sinners.

Second, biblical preaching gathers worshippers into churches. This is also clear from the book of Acts. As Paul went on his missionary journeys, his primary objective was to preach the gospel where Christ had not yet been named (Acts 13-14; 15:41-20:38; Rom 15:20). On each of these missionary journeys, Paul proclaimed the gospel, sinners became worshippers, and worshippers were gathered into local ekklesias (assemblies/churches; Acts 14:23, 27; 16:5; 18:22; 19:39-41). As this happens, the church demonstrates “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). If the church is how God demonstrates his manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, how much more so does he use the church to demonstrate his manifold wisdom to the earthly places?

Wherever and whenever the Lord brings forth revival, it will always be traced back to the faithful preaching of God’s word. The Spirit of God works through the word of God to bring about the worship of God among the people of God regardless of geographic location.

Publishing

The third component that is normally present for revival, particularly since the Reformation, is widespread Christian publishing.

When Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press between 1445 and 1450, it revolutionized the way information was disseminated to the populace. Most notably, Martin Luther and the message of the Reformation directly benefited from the printing press as his Ninety-Five Theses was able to be distributed far and wide in a rather short period of time.4

Similarly, in the United States during both the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening, publishing and distribution of Christian literature played a crucial role in the conversion of sinners into worshippers. For example, Benjamin Franklin printed the journals and sermons of George Whitefield and distributed them along the Eastern Seaboard during the First Great Awakening.5 Not to be outdone, Christian newspapers and periodicals played a “central” part in the revivals of Finney, the Methodists, and the Baptists during the Second Great Awakening.6

Popular-level Christian publishing was not the only way for Christian literature to make its way to the populace. Particular churches also utilized Christian literature on smaller levels. In the late 18th century, Charles Spurgeon and Metropolitan Tabernacle in London published his sermons in weekly pamphlets called the Penny Pulpit across Europe, with tens of thousands of readers on average.7 In the 20th century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones had a vision for the importance of Christian publishing when he helped start the Banner of Truth Trust.

More recently, for pastors of my generation, the publication of the ESV Bible and other theological works from Crossway have helped spark renewed affection for sound doctrine and expository preaching, adding fuel to the fire for the Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement of the early 21st century.

These are just a few historical examples showing the importance of Christian publishing as a mechanism for the word of God to go forth in print. Admittedly, for unreached places like Tokyo, starting and strengthening healthy churches through the proclamation of the word of God is one thing; starting a publishing house for Christian literature in the heart language of a people is another. Yet that does not mean we shouldn’t try. Publication supports and amplifies the preaching of the word of God which converts and gathers people into the church.

Conclusion

On one hand, we must admit that all three of these components may be present at any given time and in any given situation, yet God in his sovereignty does not bring revival. But on the other hand, we can also say, normatively speaking, that the Lord brings revival when prayer, preaching, and publishing are present. If we want to see revival take place both in our own churches in the United States and in the darkest places in the world, we would be wise to focus on at least these three components. Therefore, pastor in Atlanta or missionary to Tokyo, seek to pray, preach, and publish for the glory of God. And remember, salvation indeed belongs to the Lord (Ps 3:8; Jonah 2:9).

Footnotes

1. John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions, 30th anniversary ed. (Baker Academic, 2022), 3.

2. Piper, Let the Nations, 33.

3. Piper, Let the Nations, 33.

4. Carlos M.N. Eire, Reformations: The Early Modern World: 1450 to 1650 (Yale Press, 2016), 8.

5. Peter Charles Hoffer, When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield: Enlightenment, Revival, and the Power of the Printed Word (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).

6. Nathan O. Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity (Yale Press, 1989), 141-145.

7. Geoffrey Chang, Spurgeon the Pastor: Recovering a Biblical and Theological Vision for Ministry (B&H Academic, 2022), 11.