Dear Friends,
We hear again and again things like, “What we need is a revival” or
“revival is our only hope”. But just what us a revival? How could we
recognize one if God gave it? How could we tell it from some form of
hysteria? Would it be just an evangelistic service? These are important
questions and today’s attached devotional quotes one of the great
theologians, Charles Hodge, on the criteria for true revival. Read the
devotional and then pray for true revival. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
John Janney

• Psalm 85:6 (ESV)

  Will you not revive us again,
  that your people may rejoice in you?

“Hodge’s criteria for evaluating genuine revival included several factors: Are the doctrines preached the central doctrines of the Christian faith (such as original sin, regeneration, justification, faith, and repentance)? What kind of experience is evident? Do the converts experience conviction of sin, dependence on Christ for salvation and a desire to live an obedient life before God? Lastly, what are the actual effects of the awakening on people’s lives? These factors will all important to Hodge, because he had personally witnessed the shallowness of nineteenth-century revival which, from his perspective, had borne little fruit.” [S. Donald Fortson III, Charles Hodge, (Faverdale North Darlington, England: EP Books, 2013), p. 50]