Murray, Iain H. Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust 1998. 226 pp. $16.50.

Introduction

Biographical and Authorship of Iain Murray

Iain Murray has championed out-of-print books from Reformed and Puritan

authors since the founding of the Banner of Truth Trust in 1957. Before the Trust there

was the Banner of Truth magazine (1955) which Murray edited until 1987.1

Murray was born in Lancashire, England in 1931. He was educated at King

William’s College, Isle of Man and the University of Durham. Murray converted to

Christ at age seventeen after an upbringing in the English Presbyterian Church.

Murray served as an assistant to Lloyd-Jones’ at Westminster Chapel, London

for three years from 1956 to 1959. From 1961 to 1969, Murray served at Grove Chapel,

London and at St. Giles Presbyterian Church, Sydney from 1981-1984. Murray has

travelled extensively to teach and preach, continues his writing ministry and currently

remains the Editorial Director for the Banner of Truth Trust.

Murray has authored several books. His works include biographies: D. Martyn

Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years (1982) and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of

Faith (1990); The Forgotten Spurgeon (1978); Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography

(1988); The Life of Arthur W. Pink (2004); and The Life of John Murray (1984). He has

also written extensively about revivals and church history: The Puritan Hope: Revival

and the Interpretation of Prophecy (1971); Revival and Revivalism: The Making and

Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858 (1994); Evangelicalism Divided: A

Record of Crucial Changes in the Years 1950 to 2000 (2000) and The Old

Evangelicalism: Old Truths for a New Awakening (2005).

Murray and his wife Jean Ann have been married for fifty-four years and live

in Edinburgh, Scotland. They have five children and ten grandchildren.

1

2

Summary of the Book

Murray wrote Pentecost to answer the question, “How are we to understand

‘revival’?” Perhaps it is best to back up one more step. This question assumes there is

such a thing as revivals in church history. We might first ask the question, “Since the

event of Pentecost, is there reason to believe that further outpourings of the Spirit are

necessary?” There is debate here. Some think Pentecost was the once-for-all sufficient

gift of the Spirit’s presence. Believers, they say, must “realize what is already theirs” (7).

Others promise further outpourings or revivals dependent upon human obedience. As one

reviewer said, “it’s feast or famine, depending on us.”2 Murray examines these two

positions in light of Scripture and history.

Murray does believe that God gives “revivals” to the church and defines a

revival this way:

[A]n outpouring of the Holy Spirit, brought about by the intercession of Christ, resulting in a new degree of life in the churches and a widespread movement of grace among the unconverted. It is an extraordinary communication of the Spirit of God, a superabundance of the Spirit’s operations, an enlargement of his manifest power (23-24).

Murray notes that there are many books describing revivals, but few that

undergo the “struggle to establish a biblical theology which explains and justifies the

phenomenon” of revivals (6). Murray’s concern is for more than the increase of revivals.

He wants to make the case for a theological understanding of revivals because he believes

there to be a “direct practical consequence in the life of the church” (6). With an

ecclesiological concern in mind, he then examines current views and judges them against

the teaching of Scripture.

Other Books in the Field

Two “titans” of thought about revival are presented together by Murray. He

compares Finney’s thoughts on revival from his Revivals of Religion with the thoughts of

Edwards’ in Thoughts of the Revival of Religion in New England and other works by both

3

authors. But these are not all the authors. Murray’s “Title Index” reads like a Who’s Who

of Reformed and Puritan writers on the subject. The Index would make a good start for a

bibliography on the subject!

I am somewhat surprised that Murray did not include Lloyd-Jones’ Joy

Unspeakable: Power and Renewal in the Holy Spirit (1984). Murray quotes from other of

Lloyd-Jones’ works to support his case that a revival is an extraordinary “enlargement”

of the Spirit upon the church. In this assessment it does seem that Lloyd-Jones and

Murray agree. Likewise they agree about the sovereignty of God in giving the gift of an

extra measure of power to the church. Neither man would allow for human initiation to

be the determining factor of a revival as would Finney.

Murray and Lloyd-Jones would probably not disagree with what happens to

people when the Spirit is poured out upon them. Lloyd-Jones writes about this more

graphically than does Murray,

. . . what happens invariably is that they are aware of a Presence and of a power, something has come upon them and has happened to them and they are lifted up out of themselves and out of time, they scarcely know where they are, and phenomena take place. I am not talking about speaking with tongues, but about joy and abandon, something so great that people even faint and become unconscious, and great power and liberty, great authority follows in preaching – and that is what is called a revival. . . My dear friends, if you read the history of the church you can come to only one conclusion: this has been God’s way of keeping the church alive . . . When the life has gone he has sent it again; when the power has vanished he sends it again. That has been the history of the Christian church from the first century until today.3

Murray and Lloyd-Jones may have seen eye-to-eye with regard to God’s

sovereignty in giving the gift of revival at various times and places, and even some

degree of agreement with human response to the work of the Spirit, but they differed

greatly over the controversial positions on the teaching of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

In Joy Unspeakable Lloyd-Jones makes the case for a two-stage experience of the Holy

Spirit: one at regeneration and a second at a future time of “the baptism of the Holy

4

Spirit.” Lloyd-Jones seems to have taken the classical Pentecostal and the more

contemporary charismatic position.4 He wrote,

I take it that that is therefore abundantly clear – you cannot be a Christian without having the Holy Spirit in you. But – and here is the point – I am asserting at the same time that you can be a believer, that you can have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, and still not be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now this is the crucial issue.5

In the balance of the chapter, Lloyd-Jones seems to follow the arguments of a

classic Pentecostal position on the baptism as reflected in the official doctrine and

teaching of the Assemblies of God.6 He argues that the baptism with the Holy Spirit

belongs to Jesus but to the Spirit it is given to baptize us into the body of Christ as his

work of regeneration in us. Therefore, Lloyd-Jones concludes that “you can be a child of

God and yet not be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”7 He then supports his position using

texts from Acts 1: 4-8; 2; 8:14; and 19.

Murray spends an entire chapter on the matter of the interpretation of

subjective religious experiences. Within this chapter he addresses various teachings on

the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Murray shows from the Scriptures rather than

experience why the two-stage approach approved by Lloyd-Jones should not be accepted

(112-125). Perhaps his respect for Lloyd-Jones caused him to discretely leave his name

out of the discussion.

Murray’s book Revival and Revivalism (1994) anticipates Pentecost in much

more detail as he traces the evolution toward revivalism in America. Revivals were once

“surprising” but with the emergence of revivalism became “announced [events] in

advance” with revivalists “guaranteeing results” (xviii). Murray links this emergence

with “the low level of biblical instruction . . . Ideas popularized by the spirit of the age

[that were] too strong to be counteracted by preachers who were too few in number, or

inadequately prepared [and a wholesale rejection of the] Calvinistic understanding of the

gospel that had hitherto prevailed among all evangelical Christians.”8 Murray’s Pentecost

seems to fill the void among other books on revival by showing the “all-important

5

distinction between religious excitements, deliberately organized to secure converts, and

the phenomenon of authentic spiritual awakening which is the work of the living God”

(xix).

Summary of Main Points

Murray’s book is laid out in seven chapters and three appendices. He seeks to

build a theological explanation that filters the historic experiences through the lens of the

Scriptures.

Chapter one presents Murray’s understanding of revival as a “larger measure

of the Spirit of God given to the church” (17). He comes to this position as a “third way”

of understanding revivals by examining the two prominent schools of understanding. The

first view “affirms that the whole concept of occasional revivals is not biblical at all” (7).

Because the Spirit is already present, this position asks, “how can he be more present?”

Instead of revivals what believers need is to “realise what is already given” (7). The

second view is that God does give the gift of revivals, but they are dependent upon

human obedience (8). In this view, the people of God must exercise repentance,

surrender, submission, consecration, etc. Second Chronicles 7:14 is often cited as the

foundational text for securing God’s blessing of revival. Murray quotes Finney in this

regard: “A revival is as naturally a result of the use of the appropriate means as a crop is

of the use of its appropriate means.” If used rightly, “revival would never cease.” (8).

Murray’s view is a third way: revivals are a larger measure of the Spirit of God

given to the church (17). In an important segment prior to his view, Murray makes an

important distinction between Old and New Testaments. He claims that the church often

confuses the promises and transposes the old over into the new. The first confusion is the

understanding of the “land” as promise. The NT church “ceases to be connected in any

theocratic manner with any land. Our is ‘the Jerusalem above,’ ‘the heavenly Jerusalem’

6

(Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22)” (15). The second confusion is due to using the OT words for

revive and reviving to describe NT events.

Murray then provides a helpful section on the consequences for the church of

each of the views. The first view stifles prayer for more of the Spirit. The second view

seeks to make the “surprising” normal and can blame the poor state of the church for God

not moving. The third view avoids both these pitfalls and provides a vital lesson: “The

authenticity of any alleged revival is to be judged by the same tests by which the

genuineness of all Christianity is to be tested” (31). This lesson is valuable for testing

1 ?“Iain H. Murray: Biographical Sketch,” [on-line], accessed 28 May 2009, available at http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/bio/iainmurray.html; Internet.

2William Porter, Review of Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival by Iain H. Murray, The Evangelical Quarterly, 72, no 4 (October 2000), 372-374.

3Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable: Power and Renewal in the Holy Spirit (Wheaton: Shaw Publishers, 1984), 274.

4 ?When I say “taken,” I don’t mean adopted. There is no indication that I can see that Lloyd-Jones even referred to classic Pentecostal doctrine, which he certainly could have done during his ministry. Christopher Catherwood tells an interesting story in relation to this question in the introduction of Joy Unspeakable. He relates the conversation with a friend who asked him if it were true that his grandfather, Lloyd-Jones, had “become a Pentecostal?” There was “a rumor spreading from Britain to Canada and from there to an Australian in Borneo!” Catherwood laughed it off saying that his “grandfather regarded a world famous Anglican charismatic leader who lived nearby as the ‘best of a bad bunch.’” Catherwood is right when he says, “Two totally contradictory views about the same man.”

5Ibid., 22.

6The “16 Fundamental Truths” are the “non-negotiable of the faith that all Assemblies of God church adhere to.” Tenets seven and eight explain their doctrinal position of the two stage “experience [of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as] distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth” and that the “baptism of believers in the Holy Spirit is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance.” From The General Council of the Assemblies of God, “16 Fundamental Truths,” [on-line] accessed 29 May 2009; available at http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_full.cfm#7; Internet.

7Ibid., 23.

8Iain Murray, Revivals and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 177.

7

spirituality growing from normal times or extraordinary times because in either instance

it is about what it means to be a Christian. Is there love for God and willing obedience to

the Scriptures? Is there concern to serve Christ and his kingdom? Is there the desire and

effort for personal holiness and compassion for brothers and sisters in Christ as well as

for those outside? A revival may draw attention to itself because of unusual experiences

or manifestations, but the mark of a true revival would be the marks of the Holy Spirit

which are present in anyone who has been regenerated by his working.

Chapter two takes up the controversial theology and practice of Charles Finney

as it influence the church. Murray examines Finney’s theology (and boasting!) and

explains why “the old school” opposed Finney’s “new measures” (49). The adoption of

Finney’s positions over time influenced the church negatively and is with us still today.

With Finney’s theology we are left with a superficial view of conversion based on a

superficial view of sin (50); trust in human instruction necessary to become a Christian

(e.g., trusting in walking forward to the altar to receive Christ) (50); lower standards for

church membership by accepting some worldliness among professing Christians (51);

and a change in the content of revival (52).

Chapter three addresses the biblical tension between God’s sovereignty and

human responsibility in relationship to revivals and accompanying phenomenon. Murray

concludes that God is sovereign in revival. There is comfort for the church in this

chapter. Murray asserts that God is sovereign in his choice of “instruments” (70). These

men may not have been the most profound theological thinkers, or even the most

“correct,” yet God used some “whose teaching was in some respects faulty and

erroneous” (71). Though they may have been “poor theologians [they were] excellent for

burning!” (71).

Chapter four examines the role of the Holy Spirit in preaching. Murray

encourages preachers to plead with God for the anointing of the Spirit (90-99). Chapter

8

five calls the reader to interpret any religious experience, during revival or in normal

times, according to the Scriptures (105-133). Chapter six warns church leaders to be alert

to things that hinder revival and grieve the Spirit. In this chapter, Murray takes a sobering

look at the dangers of fanaticism in revival (134-169). Finally, chapter seven explains six

good things brought by revival. Murray points out that genuine revivals restore: 1) faith

in God’s Word as inerrant, authoritative (and sufficient); 2) a definitiveness to the

meaning of “Christian;” 3) an urgency to advance the gospel with amazing speed; 4) a

moral influence in society; 5) alter (for the good) an understanding of Christian ministry;

and 6) change (also for the good) public worship in church (171-193).

Critical Evaluation

What the Reviewers Said

Not many reviews seem to have been written for Pentecost. My search through

ATLA discovered only three available to me.9 The three authors recognized Murray’s

work as “a work written for the readership of the church at large, rather than for the

academy”10 and appreciated Murray’s “sane, biblical, and immensely practical book on

revival.”11 The same author admitted that he was “pleasantly surprised” and “having [his]

prejudices challenged” by Murray.12 Porter called Pentecost a “rare book” because

Murray “argue[d] the validity of the subject from a historical narrative point of view.”13

9

The third review by Ellis was more like a summary of a few ideas from the book and not

very helpful.

William Porter’s review included three weaknesses of the book that sound like

his own agenda rather than a careful reading of Murray. Porter writes that he believes it is

a “pity that Murray doesn’t engage with sociological analysis of revival.”14 Porter admits

that the omission may be outside Murray’s intention. Indeed it is not Murray’s intention

to deal with a sociological analysis because he makes it plain in the opening pages that

his concern is “to establish a biblical theology which explains and justifies the

phenomenon” (6, my italics). Furthermore, Murray dedicates an entire chapter (five) to

“The Interpretation of Experience” in which he makes two basic points: 1) “We have to

start with Scripture, not with experience”(106); and 2) “For even true experience, when

misinterpreted, becomes the source of wrong teaching. This has sometimes happened in

revivals” (107).

I am not certain what position Porter takes on God’s sovereignty when he

writes, “when looking at why God chooses to give enlarged measures of the Spirit at

certain times in history, rather than face possible sociological explanations [Murray]

seems to hide behind a theology of God’s sovereignty” (374). It seems that Murray might

9E. Earl Ellis, Review of Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival by I. H. Murray, Southwestern Journal of Theology, 43, no. 3, (summer 2001): 95-96.; Tony Gray, Review of Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival by Iain H. Murray, Themelios ns. 25, no. 1 (1999): 126-127; William Porter, Review of Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival by Iain H. Murray, The Evangelical Quarterly, 72, no. 4 (2000): 372-374. I found these reviews in the reference section of Denver Seminary’s library (Denver, CO).

10Gray, “Review of Pentecost,” 126.

11Ibid., 126.

12Ibid., 126.

13Porter, “Review of Pentecost,” 372.

14Ibid., 373.

10

answer, “God chooses because God is sovereign!” This is the point that Murray wants to

drive home throughout the book. Revival cannot be worked up, as Finney believed, but

can be a matter of intense and purposeful prayer and gratefully received when given.

Finally, Porter wants Murray to answer the “complexity” of modern mission

rather than “suggest that the church’s problems . . . with today’s culture will be solved at

a stroke of revival” (374). Once again, this does not seem to be a concern for Murray who

is more intent on knowing the marks of difference between God-given and man-made

revivals. It seems Porter is asking Murray to answer his questions rather than reading

Murray’s concerns.

Personal Analysis

Murray’s book should be read by every pastor who is serious about praying for

revival in his church. Murray will give pastors “tracks to run on” should the Lord bless

your church with an “enlarged measure of the Spirit.” Church leaders will need those

tracks to examine the reality of the experiences, teach the truth of the Christian life and

shepherd the confused through the messy humanness that may appear in the mingling of

“the dirt and the Divine.”15

Where Lovelace addresses the need for ongoing renewal in the life of the

believer and the life of the church, Murray addresses the surprising and sovereign choice

of God to revive his people. Renewal belongs to the disciplines of the normal Christian

life; revivals belong to God.

Pastors will especially appreciate Murray’s helpful distinctions of terminology

in the Scriptures. Murray points out that the term “revival” is not “of biblical origin and

we must not therefore allow inferences from the English word to control our

understanding” (4). Murray points us to what we must agree upon, namely that a revival

15This phrase came in the midst of a conversation with a friend as we discussed the confusions that arose during the so-called “Toronto Blessing” revival of the early 1990’s.

11

is the work of the Holy Spirit and not of any man (4). It is true; men and woman can

hinder revival through unrestrained and mixed emotional responses. Murray warns

against the dangers of “fanaticism.” Perhaps the most serious danger to “unbalanced

religious emotion” (135) is the presence of spiritual pride. (Lovelace also does a good job

at diagnosing this problem and the damage it can cause16). Spiritual pride may appear in

many forms: elitism, subjectivism (special “insider” information directly from God to the

recipient), new practices (so-called “slain in the spirit”) that cannot be questioned

because they came during a revival, anti-intellectualism, etc.

The strength of chapter six lies in the diagnoses given by Murray. Pastors

concerned for the state of their churches, will not want to uncritically accept everything

that happens during a true revival. Murray wrote, “Despite all the blessings of true

revival, a time of revival is never a time of unmixed good” (140). Murray points to the

Welsh Revival (1904-05) as a prime illustration of the dangers of “wildfire.” At that time

the problem was a Christian novice. A young Evan Roberts was not equipped or

adequately accountable for the events that surrounded him. What is helpful about this

historic view is that it serves as a test case for becoming alert to many of the same

“criteria” for the moving of the Spirit present in claims to revival. For example, during

the Welsh revival Roberts encouraged interruptions in the proceedings as evidence of the

work of the Spirit: “There were many instances of ministers being interrupted and

‘drowned out’ by singing or praying as they attempted to speak” (156). If we accept that

the normal method God has chosen to speak to his gathered people is through the

exposition of the Scriptures, then we must conclude that an interruption of preaching is

not God’s idea!

Part of Murray’s intention in writing this book is to link revivals with practices

adopted by local churches. An uncritical praise of events in revival may spread in such a

16Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity, 1979), 239-270.

12

way as to alter church life to its harm. Drawing again from the failings of the Welsh

revival, it is a word of caution that pastors understand the human responses to the work of

the Spirit. Pastors, give attention to the revival and be good shepherds who examine the

sheep for evidences of God’s grace (Acts 11:23). Make sure they are not being deceived

by the devil or their own flesh, but the marks of true Christianity are present.

Murray’s emphasis on the sovereignty of God should not only be believed it

should be taught to our congregations in such a way that it does not interfere with or deny

human responsibility. Murray makes another helpful distinction between means and

causes of revival. He writes,

God gives promises and duties as instrumental means to blessing, not as causes, for the grace of God is in the means as well as in the result. God’s act does not follow man’s, rather the divine and human agency are conjoined so that we find that what is required of man is also attributed to God” (62).

The prayer of the church for a surprising outpouring of the Spirit must be

submitted to God. To believe that lack of prayer means the absence of revival also

implies that much prayer will secure revival. Murray says that a direct correlation

between prayer and revival is not a necessary truth. “Instead of putting our hopes in the

quantity of prayer . . . our trust needs to be in the God who is himself the prime mover”

(69). God-centered prayer prays in dependence upon God. Prayer is God’s chosen means

of blessing, “not so that the fulfillment of his purposes becomes dependent upon us, but

rather for us to learn our absolute dependence upon him” (69). This view of prayer frees

churches from resignation or fatalism (69) and rather cultivates a spirit of “God-

consciousness” (69).

Furthermore, this kind of prayer may be answered in future generations.

Answers to prayer may be seen in another generation than the one that offered it up to

God. Murray uses an event from history to point us to this rich and encouraging truth

from Spurgeon’s life. Spurgeon called for the church to pray earnestly for the conversion

of England and that “all the nations of earth [would] know the Lord” (77). He called his

13

church to pray for the “advancement and enlargement of the kingdom of Christ in the

world” knowing that the answer as to time and place was in God’s hands. Murray points

out that Spurgeon died before he could see any answer to his prayers that God would

restore a love of sound doctrine. But Spurgeon’s own writings and sermons were

“republished widely after the 1950’s” (77). Surely, this was part of God’s answer.

Brainerd prayed intensely for the expansion of the gospel, but it was not until the 1790’s

that the expansion for which he prayed began.

Should not pastors teach their churches that the prayers we pray might be

answered by God in another generation? In teaching this concept in prayer, we also teach

our congregations that we are part of story of redemption, benefiting from those who

went before and blessing those who follow.

Two other chapters are worth the pastor’s consideration: chapters five and

seven. Pastors who have come out of the charismatic movement will benefit greatly from

the freedom chapter five gives. One of the negative practices of the charismatic and

Pentecostal movements is the uncritical acceptance of experience. The person with an

experience trumps the person with the Scriptures. Experience was not to be questioned.

Whatever one experienced was true. This is a false “truism.” Many pay lip-service to the

rule of Scripture, but too few really apply it to the interpretation of a spiritual experience.

In the chapter, Murray calls for a careful study of the Person and ministry of the Holy

Spirit. But first he calls for a clear understanding of the work of Christ as the ground for

all Christian experience.

Finally, Murray offers six true things that revival brings. Murray has six,

Edwards has twelve and there is some significant overlap.17 Perhaps the most significant

statement Murray makes is his second point: “Revival restores definiteness to the

meaning of ‘Christian’” (175-177). The question pastors need to be asking and answering

17Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, reprinted 2007), 120-382.

14

for their church is not “Who is a Christian?” but “What is a Christian?” In our age, the

lines have been blurred here and are no longer distinct. In Murray’s book, Evangelicalism

Divided, he quotes Billy Graham’s view “about the final make-up of the body of Christ.”

Graham assured the audience at Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral,

I think that everybody that loves or knows Christ, whether they are conscious of it or not, they are members of the body of Christ. . . God’s purpose for this age is to call out a people for his name. And that is what he is doing today. He is calling people out of the world for his name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they have been called by God. They may not know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something they do not have, and they turn to the only light they have and I think that they are saved and they are going to be with us in heaven.18

Evangelicals from the nineteenth century warned that indifference to doctrine

would “gain momentum,”19 thus lowering standards for the definition of a Christian with

the result that “ideas of salvation [would] become vague and inclusivist” (177). But

revivals in history have shown a great concern for defining biblical Christianity.

Whitefield declared, “In our days to be a true Christian is really to become a scandal”

(176).

Conclusion

I enthusiastically recommend the reading of this book for the above reasons,

and for one more: chapter four: “The Holy Spirit and Preaching” (80-104). Murray begins

the chapter with a quote from Samuel Chadwick, “Men ablaze are invincible. The

stronghold of Satan is proof against everything but fire” (80).

As I read this chapter, underlining ideas and quotes, I found myself writing one

kind of note in the margin – “Lord, do this in me!” The kind of preaching for which

pastors must long – in an enlarged time of the Spirit or in normal times – is that kind that

18Iain H. Murray, Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950-2000 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000), 73-74.

19Ibid., 3.

15

fills them with the power of the Spirit and the love of God. Pastors aflame with the love

of God burning in their heart “will never want hearers” (99). Murray writes, “Love and

joy in the pulpit will need no announcement of their presence and where that same spirit

is conveyed to the pew the growth of the church becomes a certainty” (99).

Pastor, if you love your people, love them enough to call them to a “feast of

love, to a heaven which is a world of love, and all in the name of a Saviour who died of

love” (101). And remember how shameful it is “not to enjoy the very things of which we

preach!” (101).

Bob Buchanan Faith Baptist Church Parker, CO

BIBLIOGRAPHYBooks

Edwards, Jonathan. The Religious Affections. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, reprinted 2007.

Lloyd-Jones, Martyn D. Joy Unspeakable: Power and Renewal in the Holy Spirit. Wheaton: Shaw Publishers, 1984.

16Lovelace, Richard F. Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal.

Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1979.

Murray, Iain H. Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000.

_________. Revivals and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994.

Journals

Ellis, E. Earl. Review of Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival by I. H. Murray, Southwestern Journal of Theology, 43, no. 3, (summer 2001): 95-96.

Gray, Tony. Review of Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival by Iain H. Murray, Themelios ns. 25, no. 1 (1999): 126-127;

Porter, William. Review of Pentecost – Today? The Biblical Basis for Understanding Revival by Iain H. Murray, The Evangelical Quarterly, 72, no. 4 (2000): 372-374.