The Calvary Road
The Calvary Road
By Roy Hession
By Roy Hession
This book is assigned reading for new FCA staff. While I have been on staff for eight years, I had never read this book until this summer. I'm glad I did. It's a great (and relatively short) book that paints a portrait of fellowship with Christ through continual repentance and faith - what Hession calls revival. I just took a couple very brief bullet points from each chapter so that I can remember the main outline and points.
By Norman P. Grubb
Revival: "I learned that revival is first personal and immediate. It is the constant experience of any simplest Christian who 'walks in the light'..." (p.8).
"The outward forms of such revivals do, of course, differ considerably, but the inward and permanent content of them all is always the same: a new experience of conviction of sin among the saints; a new vision of the cross of Jesus and of redemption; a new willingness on man's part for brokenness, repentance, confession, and restitution; a joyful experience of the power of the blood of Jesus to cleanse fully from sin and restore and heal all that that sin has lost and broken; a new entering into the fullness of the Holy Spirit and of His power to do His own work through His people; and a new gathering in of the lost ones to Jesus" (p.11-12).
Honest assessment of sin
Humble repentance before Christ
"We want to be very simple in this matter of revival. Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts" (p.21).
The essence of revival
Brokenness at the Cross
"This is revival - the constant peace of God ruling in our hearts because we are full to overflowing ourselves, and sharing it with others" (p.28)
Brokenness ... emptiness
A pure vessel to be filled
"Now the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross was not only to bring men back into fellowship with God, but also into fellowship with their fellow men" (p.35-36).
Fellowship with God and others
Through the light of transparent confession of sin
"Only the broken can enter the Highway. To be broken means to be 'not I, but Christ'... Revival is just you and me walking along the Highway in complete oneness with the Lord Jesus and with one another, with cups continually cleansed and overflowing with the life and love of God" (p.47, 55).
An analogy for the Christian life
Brokenness
Continual choice to repent when I fall
Continual choice to repent and confess with others
"Surely this shows us that the heart of Deity is humility. When the eternal God chose to reveal Himself in His Son, He gave Him the name of the Lamb; and when it was necessary for the Holy Spirit to come into the world, He was revealed under the emblem of the Dove. It is not obvious, then, that the reason why we have to be humble in order to walk with God is not merely because God is so big and we so little, that humility befits such little creatures - but because God is so humble?" (p.58).
The character of the Holy Spirit and of Jesus portrayed in these images
"It was in the home that sin first came. It is in the home that revival first needs to come. Revival is desperately needed in the church... in the country... in the world; but a revived church with unrevived homes would be sheer hypocrisy. It is the hardest place, the most costly, but the most necessary place to begin" (p.68).
It starts in the home
Failure to be open
Failure to love
Continually seek and extend forgiveness in our family
"The love of Jesus poured out in us will make us want to help our brother in this way" (p.78).
"One-another's"
Go to Calvary first
Then to your brother
"Nothing is clearer from the New Testament than that the Lord Jesus expects us to take the low position... When we understand the humbling and self-emptying that is involved in really being a servant, it becomes evident that only those who are prepared to live quite differently under the shadow of Calvary, ever contemplating the humility and brokenness of the Lord Jesus for us, will be willing for that position" (p.83).
"Bondservant"
Three preliminary things (p.84-85)
Five marks of a bondservant (p.86-88)
"The message and challenge of revival... is searching in its utter simplicity. It is simply that there is only one thing in the world that can hinder the Christian's walking in victorious fellowship with God and his being filled with the Holy Spirit - and that is sin in one form or another. There is only one thing in the world that can cleanse him from sin with all that that means of liberty and victory - and that is the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus" (p.91).
Where does the power come from?
How do we experience it?
Are we willing?
"In particular we are in danger of adopting the Pharisee's attitude when God is wanting to humble us at the cross of Jesus, and show us the sins in our hearts that are hindering personal revival" (p.99).
The Pharisee's attitude
God is right about me and my heart
Have I admitted it?