Revival has been defined as a season in the life of the church when God causes the normal ministry of the gospel to surge forward with extraordinary spiritual power…What sets revival apart (writes this student of revival), is simply that our usual efforts greatly accelerate in their spiritual effects. God hits the fast forward button. And the blessing spills out from the church to wash over the nations with an ingathering of many new converts to Christ.
I think it goes without saying that we need this kind of God-sent revival in our nation – especially in our rapidly decaying culture.
But I am convinced that this kind of revival – a season in the life of the church when God causes the normal ministry of the gospel to surge forward with extraordinary spiritual power – must begin with preachers and with their preaching. Revival in the church must begin with revival in the pulpit.
But preaching has fallen on hard times in our day.
What was formerly an earnest, carefully studied and prepared opening up of the Word of God by a man commissioned by Christ as a herald called to bring to people what was, quite literally, a matter of life and death has all too frequently become a rather casual inspirational message that is something of a rather brief appendix to the “worship time” of celebratory singing. God, His glory, His holiness, His sovereign power and grace are rarely (if ever) the focus of such messages. Human beings, their needs, and their success in life take center stage. Hearers are not humbled under the God in whom they live and move and have their very beings, but are lifted up and assured- as if they themselves were the center of the universe. This age becomes far more important than the age to come. And people who, by nature, are under a state of sin and divine wrath are not made to feel that need and flee to Christ as their Refuge, Deliverer, and King; at best, they’re asked to simply add Jesus to their lives and – in that way – be a little happier than they were before the so-called sermon began.
For a God-centered, Gospel-focused, genuinely Holy Spirit-energized revival to begin in our churches, there must be a revival of God-centered, Gospel-focused, and genuinely Holy Spirit energized preachers and – from them – a revival of God-centered, Gospel-focused, and genuinely Holy Spirit energized preaching.
But, for that to come, there must be a revived appreciation of preaching: What it is, by whom it is to be done, why it’s so important, and how it is to be received. To put it simply: We need a revival of understanding of and appreciation and desire for what the Bible says about preaching.
There was another time and place in which the preaching of the Word of God had been depreciated very much as it is in our day. It was a day in which ministers were frequently untrained for the work. Sometimes they didn’ preach at all. And, when they did preach, their messages were often dry, moral lessons with little, if any, reference to the person and work of Christ – the one mediator between sinful humans and the holy God.
And, in not a few cases, the scandalous lives of the ministers became obstacles to people receiving their message – again, not unlike our own day.
That time and place was 17th century England. The ministers were primarily of the Established Church of that nation. And, for the glory of God and the good of the people of that nation, something had to be done.
The Westminster Assembly of Divines – scholarly and godly ministers from England and Scotland – was convened by Parliament with the primary purpose of establishing a church government that would be “more agreeable to the Word of God and bring the Church of England into a nearer conformity with the Church of Scotland and other Reformed Churches abroad.” From the summer of 1643 to the spring of 1653, this eminent body prepared not only a Form of Church Government, but also what we know today as the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms – the most mature statements of the teachings of the Protestant Reformation. In addition, the Westminster Assembly produced a Directory for Public Worship and approved a metrical Psalter for use in the public worship of the Church.
Those facts of history are commonly known.
What is less commonly known is that the Westminster Assembly spent significant time addressing the issue of the reformation of preachers and preaching. What did the Word of God say about the very issues necessary to bring about a revived appreciation of preaching: What it is, by whom it is to be done, why it’s so important, and the way it is to be received? And in answering those questions, the Westminster divines gave us a pathway to a revival of preachers and preaching in our own day.
Our topic on today’s Visit to the Pastor’s Study is God’s Ambassadors: A Revival of Preaching. And please don’t think this program is just for preachers; what we’ll be covering in the hour ahead is crucial as you listen to preaching, as you grow under preaching, and as you call the men who are to be set apart to that all-important work. The topic, like preaching itself, is a matter of life and death.
I’m honored to have Dr. Chad Van Dixhoorn as my guest today. Chad, an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, was born and raised in Canada. He received his Master of Divinity and Master of Theology degrees from Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia and his PhD from the University of Cambridge, England – where his field of study was the Westminster Assembly and its work. He is the editor of the five-volume set The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly and a popular study of the Westminster Confession called Confessing the Faith. In 2013, Dr. Van Dixhoorn was appointed as the Chancellor’s Professor of Historical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Washington, DC. He teaches at other campuses of Reformed Theological Seminary as well.
For our purposes today, Dr. Van Dixhoorn is also the author of God’s Ambassadors, a fascinating study of the Westminster Assembly and the reformation of the English pulpit. I don’t know of anyone better able to help us today as we consider God’s Ambassadors: A Revival of Preaching.
Dr. Van Dixhoorn, welcome to this week’s Visit to the Pastor’s Study…
Listen to the full program here:

Yours in the King of Kings,
Pastor Bill