The Calvary Road – Ch11Forty Years Later – A Personal Interview with the Author

The Calvary Road

By Roy Hession

CHAPTER 11

Forty Years Later – A Personal Interview with the Author

This is a transcript of three interviews between David Mains and Roy Hession on the subject of revival and his book The Calvary Road, recorded in August 1988 and broadcast in November of the same year, which was the Jubilee year of The Chapel of the Air, Wheaton, Illinois.

DAVID MAINS: Hi, good friend. I’m David Mains, greeting you again this anniversary month in the Chapel of the Air. A new beginning – that does sound good doesn’t it? “Being infused with fresh life,” that’s what that word revival means: “life coming back again.” One of the most popular and helpful books on this subject came out way back in 1950. Only a little over a hundred pages, it was called The Calvary Road and it’s still popular today. It was written by Roy Hession, evangelist. And Roy Hession of the West Country, near Plymouth in England, is my Chapel guest this visit and will be for the next two days.

Roy, what has been your experience with personal revival? Can you share that with us?

ROY HESSION: I would be very happy to because it is the one theme that’s been preoccupying me for the last few years. I do evangelistic work, but above all I am concerned for the revival of the church, inasmuch as I had to have, and still have to have, an experience of revival … and that continuously. I had been doing evangelistic work full time – and there is a story as to how I was called to that, but I don’t want to touch on that. I had had some very fruitful years and many had turned to the Lord … much of it, of course, in Great Britain. Then, after a certain hight peak, I found a decline set in and I somehow lost the power of the Holy Spirit and the liberty and power which I had once known in proclaiming the gospel. And what I did was to try to make up for the lack of that power by my own efforts. I prayed longer; I studied harder; I preached more vehemently, but all to no avail: that lack persisted. I little knew at the time, but that very state of decline was making me a fit candidate for the grace of God. It was Finney who said, “Revival always presupposes a declension. Therefore if a man can’t own up to declension, he is no candidate for revival personally.” Well, I was experiencing the declension, but as yet was not willing to admit it. Then it was that God sent back to England some missionaries and African leaders from Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya, and they came back expressly to share with the Christians of England what they had been learning in revival. That was in 1947.

DAVID: And that was from the East African revival which had been going on?

ROY: Yes, they came back from the revival in East Africa, not merely to have a furlough, but to share with us what they had been learning in it. It had been going on for years and it still goes on today, which is over fifty years. But the beginnings had begun and already a discernible movement was taking place. These missionaries themselves were not the fathers of the revival as much as some of its many children. And very often they were brought into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ through the testimony and challenge of the Africans, can you believe it. That revival to this day is far more led by the Africans than by the missionaries.

DAVID: Now how did this touch you?

ROY: Well, that revival touched me because I invited these men to my conference, to be the speakers, and I little knew that they’d get more concerned for the leader of that conference than for anybody else. And they really began to counsel me. They began to share the little they had begun to see of my need – and I was in a state of need! I had come into a state of declension. And I remember one of them said, “Roy, you need to repent.” I said, “Where do I need to repent” In all honesty I didn’t know – I was working so hard, I was praying so much, I was preaching so strong, doing so much. They said, “Well, we don’t know where you need to repent. We could, of course, make a suggestion. You see, we’ve only just got to know you. But we’ve got to know enough to be able to suggest at least one place where you might begin, and that’s in your relationship with your wife. When we came on the campus, you said. ‘Fellows, get in the car, I’ve got to go to one of the other houses to make some arrangements.’ And in that house we

saw you talking to a young lady; we didn’t know by the way in which you spoke to her whether she was your secretary or your wife. We suggest you might begin there, because revival for us began in our most intimate relationship … in the home.” Well, I took it to heart. I had a special “victorious life” message, which had ceased to work. And I said to myself, I’m going to park that message and am just going to respond to current light as it comes. That current light came to show me sin where I hadn’t seen it before, and I began on a path of repentance. Yes, with my wife – my attitude toward her. You see, I was a tense man – and a tense man is a difficult person to live with. And I had to see it wasn’t her fault in this or that, it was mine; and I began to take that to Jesus. And I the evangelist, quite well known in England, began on a new path of calling sin sin and a path of repentance – and that, of course, in turn meant I had to find a new power in the blood of Jesus Christ to deal with all the things that the light was showing in my life.

DAVID: And you deal with that so beautifully in this book, The Calvary Road. Again, it’s been out many years and still continues to be a help to people. Thank you for sharing so personally. There is a certain sense in which that transparency is a part of revival. God works with you and then you share that and He is able to work with others. I appreciate that. We’ve started out on a good footing here and that makes me very comfortable.

In the very beginning of your book you continue this theme. You use the work brokenness. You say that brokenness is always one of those first parts of revival. I need you to define what you mean by “brokenness” when you use the term.

ROY: I think it is very important to do that because it does occur, of course, in Scripture – several places – where the broken and contrite heart is spoken of. But unless we really explain what we we mean, that word could become a cliché. People could get the impression of “many tears” and “terrible experience.” It’s nothing of the sort; it is a matter of the will. Brokenness is the opposite to hardness. Hardness says “It’s your fault,” brokenness says “It’s mine.” And it’s a struggle for a man to be willing to say that, especially when he has professed so loudly that he’s right … the other fellows have got him wrong. When God wins a victory in his life he says, “Fellows, I’m the one who is wrong.” They too may be wrong, but that’s not his business. He is the one who’s wrong and very often the wrong is his reaction to their wrong. They may be wrong in their actions, but he is wrong in his reactions – his anger, his resentment, his jealousy – and nothing is gained by confessing the other fellow’s sins. It’s got to be me, and brokenness is me being willing to do that.

DAVID; You haven’t changed this message – that is what you wrote in this book many, many years ago. Is brokenness something we take care of once and for all, or does brokenness remain a constant, daily necessity?

ROY: It’s a daily necessity, as the light shows things up. The Word talks about walking in the light as He is in the light. Light is that which reveals, darkness that which hides. And when the light of God shows up something that grieves Him, something wrong in me, my business is to say, “Yes, Lord, You’re right, I’m wrong” – and that’s a daily thing. And as I do it, the blood of Jesus Christ is a daily cleansing for me.

DAVID: I think that’s wonderful. Here’s a short quote we used by permission from your book The Calvary Road as this month’s Chapel bookmark. Let me read it for you and then get you to comment on it just a little bit. Here it says: “To be broken is the beginning of revival. It is painful, it is humiliating, but it is the only way. It is being ‘Not I, but Christ,’ and a ‘C’ is a bent ‘I.’ ” What do you mean by that?

ROY: Well, this whole thought of brokenness is set against the Scriptures that speak about the stiff neck. “Be not stiff-necked” comes in one of more places in the Old Testament. And when a man is accused you can almost see his neck going stiff: “That’s not true, you’re not right.” And you know, when at last he says, “It’s all my fault,” well, you can almost see the head bowed too. These brothers who came from East Africa came with a chorus one of them had written. These are the words:

Lord, bend that proud and stiff-necked I, Help me to bow the head and die, Beholding Him on Calvary,
Who bowed His head for me.

DAVID: It’s wonderful. The Lord willing, I’ll talk with Roy Hession again tomorrow about the adventure of walking with Christ – this One who is our example, who humbled Himself even to death on a cross. Join us, please, in the Chapel of the Air.

SECOND INTERVIEW

DAVID: We are beginning our fiftieth year of broadcasting and we are proclaiming the King’s offer of a new beginning for His people. In all places where we are heard we are talking about a fresh start for God’s people, with the option of doing things right this time. Sound good? Join us in our Jubilee celebration here in the Chapel of the Air. Hi again, good friend. David Mains here with my guest, Roy Hession. We have reprinted chapter 2 of your book, Roy, in our monthly Reveille magazine. That chapter is called “Cups Running Over” and it is a word picture about new life in Christ. Now I want you to explain for us, please, what you mean by “cups running over.’ Okay?

ROY: This in an expression that became current in the early days of revival in East Africa. That revival, by the way, continues unabated on a larger scale than ever before, although they have had many painful vicissitudes. “Cups running over” did become a phrase. It is, of course, taken from Psalm 23: “My cup runneth over.” And it was used, and might still be used, to express the joy and liberty that’s come to a person who has been newly washed and made clean in the blood of Jesus Christ. It was first used by a dear friend of mine, Dr. Joe Church, who now lives in retirement in England. He was one of the early leaders of the revival and he gave a special picture at a great open-air conference (we call them conventions) in a natural amphitheater. Thousands and thousands were there, and he gave the picture of Jesus coming into that gathering with a golden water pot on His shoulder in which was the Water of Life. And he suggested that if they needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit that they hold out their hand in the shape of a cup, and he bade them imagine that Jesus was coming down the rows with the golden water pot and He would tilt the water pot and fill the cup until it ran over with the Water of Life. However, he said, He might come to some cup, look in and shake His head sadly and pass on, because that cup was stained and dirty. And before He could fill that cup He would have to cleanse those stains of sin. Some people might say, “Well, this is not sin, it’s just part of my make-up.” “No,” he says, “you must call it sin.” And as you confess it, He cleanses it with His blood and He fills what He has cleansed with the Water of Life. And that came to be a phrase; when a man was newly cleansed he would say, “Praise the Lord, my cup’s now running over” – but only because the blood of Jesus had been applied.

DAVID: You do so well with that in your book The Calvary Road, in chapter 2, “Cups Running Over.” In fact, we reprinted chapter 2 in our monthly Reveille magazine, and here is this picture in detail of Christ filling one’s life … but not being able to do that if sin is there. Are you talking about big sins like murdering someone, or possibly committing adultery, say, or thieving, or are you talking about everyday sins that would keep Christ from filling that cup?

ROY: Everyday sins, the big and the little. There is a difference in His sight. And many of them are not sins of action but sins of reaction. Maybe the wrong action was somebody else’s, but my reaction to their action is wrong too. Jealousy, or anger, or resentment – that is enough to stain the cup and prevent Him from filling it. But if I confess those things as sin, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.

DAVID: Do you think the average Christian today regularly does confess sin, or is this something that is somewhat foreign to Christian thinking?

ROY: Well, it was a bit foreign to my own, evangelist that I was. I wouldn’t have said at that time that repentance was an essential part of my Christian life. And for that reason the blood of Jesus Christ wasn’t all that important to me. But now, this is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus; this is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus. And I have been helped to walk this way, calling things by their proper name and proving there is power, wonder-working power in the blood of Jesus Christ.

DAVID: It’s wonderful. In this chapter “Cups Running Over” you use the term regularly. You talk about continuous revival. Now some people think of revival as happening at a point in time and then you can bask in the warmth of what took place. That’s not what you’re talking about is it?

ROY: No, continuous. I mean, a thing that is in the past is in the past, it is not affecting me in the present. But Jesus is alive in the present and His blood has never lost its power. This revival movement is the biggest demonstration of continuous revival. They have recently celebrated their fiftieth anniversary of revival. They didn’t call it that, but it so happened that certain gatherings were just about the fiftieth year after, and that revival is going on as never before; for one reason, because the blood has never lost its power and they on their part have been willing to go on repenting. Indeed, I have friends who have written to me in the past who have ended their letters, “Yours, repenting and rejoicing.”

DAVID: It’s wonderful. But let’s go back to you personally, Roy. I assume you have held your cup up to Christ recently, if I may use that word picture. When did you do this and how? … just to be very practical for people.

ROY: Well, the Lord recently showed me something that I hadn’t really seen as sin. Now that is God’s dealings; He shows you something to be sin that you hadn’t been seeing as sin. I’ve been living now for the last few years in a seaside town near Plymouth and it has one of the largest Baptist churches in Great Britain, and that is the church I attend. The minister is a friend of mine, and we’ve been there the last few years as I have not been filling my calendar up so much as before … so I’ve had many spare Sundays. I have attended that church and, do you know, I haven’t appreciated it. I haven’t been really blessed by it. I haven’t enjoyed their style of singing. Oh, it’s orthodox, yet I could express reasons – lacks here and lacks there. But the other day the Lord showed me, at the bottom of it all was that I had not been drawn in.

“You,” He said, “have been usually out there at the front, but now you’re just sitting in the pew.” Then some time later I was preparing a message on one of Jesus’ parables – the one that says when you are invited to a feast, don’t sit down in the highest room, but rather sit in the lowest room. And the Lord said to me, “You should have loved that lowest place, for there you would have found me. I took the lowest place for you. But you have been restive because you’ve not been willing to embrace it happily.” I called that sin and put it under the blood, and I find there’s a new something in my heart because of that fact. And that has put me on the track of some other sins in my life, unsuspected forms of self – and every one of them is sin – but the blood of Jesus has never lost its power and is mighty enough, sufficient enough to bring even me into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ again.

DAVID: You live what you preach, don’t you? Bless you, it’s so good to have you as a guest. Have you ever experienced revival beyond just the personal, Roy? Have you ever been in a situation where many, many, many people are experiencing revival, many cups running over?

ROY: Yes, but I hesitate to chalk up successes; that is one of the tendencies that I’ve got to recognize as sin. And if I think too much about that, that’ll be the end of the overflow. And I think one of the reasons people don’t see success more often is that they are wanting it too much. It should be enough to have Jesus, and in Jesus all else. And He will take care of the overflow to others.

DAVID: Beautiful. Your answers are always good. Then, Roy, I have one more question for you. You make this topic sound very simple, the topic of personal revival. Would you say that it really isn’t all that complicated?

ROY: It certainly is not complicated and we don’t really need to introduce anything else than what we find in Scripture. 1 John 1:7 says, “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.” Now in John’s writings light and darkness are not vague synonyms for good and evil. Light, rather, is simply that which reveals, darkness that which hides. And God is light, the All-revealing One – and if we are prepared to walk in His light and say yes to what His light may reveal as sin, we’ll go on in the light. And if we’re prepared to simply walk in the light and say, “Yes, Lord, You’re right and I’m wrong on that matter,” the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin … and we can’t be more right with God than what the blood of Jesus makes us when we call sin sin. Go on doing it and you’ll go on rejoicing.

DAVID: Thank you, Roy Hession. Join me again tomorrow, friend, and we’ll explore further this privilege we have of walking with Christ in our everyday world.

THIRD INTERVIEW

DAVID: Roy, you say that if God is to bless the reader through these pages of your book he must come to them with a deep hunger of heart. He must be possessed with a dissatisfaction of the state of the church in general and of himself in particular – especially of himself. Now I’ve read that in a lot of other places. Why is it that revival so often begins with this sense of dissatisfaction?

ROY: Well, to ask the question is almost to answer it. In the very nature of the case, if you are going to enjoy the meal your wife has prepared for you you’ve got to have a nice appetite, you’ve go to be hungry. And perhaps you need to have a few unfortunate experiences of other people’s cooking, and then you come back to the one whose cooking you know does satisfy. And the same is true here: grace is flowing like a river, millions of others have been supplied … but you’ve got to be hungry, you’ve got to be in need – and I want to tell you those are the times when I get blessed. I do not get blessed when I read my Bible as a matter of duty for a daily quiet time. Rather, when I come feeling bad, those are the times when it speaks, livingly! And again and again I have to say to the Lord, “I want to tell You something: I’m not in spiritual good shape,” “Just fine,” says the Lord, “anything more?” “Well, I haven’t got much peace.” “Anything more? Come on, let it all out.” And when I come like that, grace meets me; because when I admit that I’m in that position, in the very nature of the case I become a candidate for that marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. Grace is not God’s reward for the faithful, it’s His gift for the empty and feeble and failing. When I am feeling like that, I’m just the one who is going to be blessed.

DADID: Take that phrase, “grace meets me.” Explain what you mean by that for someone who maybe doesn’t know what grace is.

ROY: Grace is the undeserved favour of God, and you are no candidate for grace unless you are undeserving. You can’t be too down, too wrong, for grace. That’s where Jesus gets His glory; not in the number of good Christians He pats on the back, but in the failures He restores.

DAVID: Beautiful! Now in The Calvary Road you talk about the self-satisfied Pharisee and the dissatisfied Publican in the parable Christ told. Do you remember the chapter, “Protesting Our Innocence”?

ROY: Yes, well, that is what we all naturally do. We naturally justify ourselves, therefore you’re no candidate for God to justify. God justifies – listen – the ungodly. Have you ever heard a greater apparent contradiction? God who justifies the ungodly! He who commands earthly judges “You shall justify the innocent but condemn the wicked”(Deu 25:1) is here doing the very opposite. “I’m setting My court of grace – it’s in order to justify those who are ungodly.” He declares those to be right who admit they are wrong. And to see that, gives you a bigger incentive than ever before to take the place of the wrong one.

DAVID: So all of self becomes a hindrance to revival, doesn’t it? Whether it’s selfishness, or self-effort, self-indulgence, self-pity, or self-righteousness.

ROY: Yes, the things you’ve mentioned all begin with self. They are all sinful and it’s not without significance that the central letter of the little word sin is “I.”

DAVID: It’s a big problem, isn’t it, to somehow get beyond that? Dissatisfaction – that’s a good thing; when we are dissatisfied we aspire for something more, and God fills that in us. If we don’t have any dissatisfaction we don’t aspire for anything more.

ROY: Well, I don’t like the word “aspire”; that looks as if I’m going to get better. I come empty; my dissatisfaction draws me to the One who has got something good for those who confess they are failures.

DAVID: I agree with what you say; it’s a good correction. Your book The Calvary Road is about revival. You use that word a lot, but you don’t equate the ongoing experience of revival with an emotional high. Now, is revival ever emotional.

ROY: Of course, life is full of emotion; sometimes sad, sometimes glad, sometimes shouting. And you’re given good grounds for which to shout and praise; not that I’m wanting people to shout, necessarily, but there is solid ground for it. When grace shows me that my righteousness is absolutely unassailable before God in the Person of Jesus Christ, that I needn’t go struggling and striving and mourning – that’s something worth praising for! It isn’t just an unaccountable emotion, that’s the point. You’re given solid, rational grounds for your joy.

DAVID: That’s well said; your answers are wonderful. Let’s talk just a little while about the blood of Jesus. You come back to that again and again. I am not sure the average person is conscious of the value of Christ’s blood in terms of daily living. Do you sense Christ’s blood being operative in your life on, say, a daily basis?

ROY: Yes, I don’t think you could have asked a more important question. What is meant by the blood of Jesus? Some people are a bit squeamish when they hear preaching about the blood. And when they are called upon to sing about the blood they lose their enthusiasm – because some people can’t bear the sight of blood. The first time a nurse is present at an operation she will probably faint; and yet the Christian is all the time glorying in the cross and in the blood of Jesus Christ. Now what does it mean? There is a famous Old Testament incident, the Passover. The firstborn died in every house except where that particular Jewish home had taken a lamb, slain it, sprinkled its blood upon the door – not only slain the lamb, but sprinkled the blood, for God had said, “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” Note that in the instructions given for the slaying of the lamb and the sprinkling of its blood these words occur: “And the blood shall be to you for a token.” A token of what? Apparently it wasn’t the physical blood that was important, it was that of which that blood was a token. What is that? It was a token of judgment met. God said, “Judgment is coming on every house”; but the blood said, “A lamb’s been slain here; the judgment that should have fallen on the eldest son has fallen on the lamb, and it can’t come in a second time.” So the blood is a token of that fact, that judgment has been met. It’s as simple as that; it always speaks of the finished work of Christ. There’s a lovely hymn we sing in England:

Jesus the sinner’s Friend,
We hide ourselves in Thee
God looks upon Thy sprinkled blood, It is our only plea.

Yes, the blood is a token that all the judgment that was my due has already been met and finished with. DAVID: Amen, and that’s true in our lives on a daily basis, isn’t it?

ROY: Yes, indeed! There’s the shedding of the blood once for all, but we’ve got to sprinkle it by faith, and claim it for everything that would otherwise put us out of fellowship with God.

DAVID: Am I out of line in asking you what your age is?

ROY: Eighty.

DAVID: You’re eighty; my, and this was written in 1950. That’s a long time ago. You were optimistic about what God was doing among His people when you wrote The Calvary Road. Are you still optimistic about what God is doing?

ROY: Yes, I never knew, or thought, that He would use that book as He has used it. I’ve been absolutely staggered. It is only because – not because of the book but the working of the Lord and the hunger of the saints of God. They are hungry as never before, and I want to spend my remaining days in helping to lead people back to Calvary, back to the blood, back to liberty, back to revival.

DAVID: Amen. And the continuing popularity of the book is a good sign that people are still listening to your message, the message about Christ and His blood. I have one last question for you, Roy Hession – how good to have you here. Its been a privilege to talk to you these last three days. These three visits have gone by much too quickly. In closing, do you have any thoughts that can kind of summarize what we’ve been saying about revival?

ROY: Well, first it must being with the individual; not with the other fellow, but with me. He may be wrong, but I’m wrong too, probably in my reactions to him. Therefore as far as I am concerned, it begins with me. Then secondly, I think I need to repeat what Finney said: “Revival always presupposes a declension”; and therefore, in the nature of the case, the man who is the most ready to admit there has been a declension is the more likely to be a candidate for revival. It’s got to begin with the admission of my need. I would like to say very forcibly, revival is not a green valley getting greener, but a valley full of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) being made to live again, and those bones to stand up a mighty army. Not a good Christian becoming a better Christian, but a man who is prepared to confess “Mine is a valley full of dry bones” being made to live again. I’ve heard people admit it – and it’s broken their hearts. “Mine is a valley full of dry bones; I’m a minister, maybe, but it’s a valley full of dry bones!” Splendid, brother; praise the Lord, that you were ready to confess it. If you realise it, that gives you your qualification for Jesus. He belongs to you if only by your failures; He’s a specialist in sin, is Jesus. This is where He excels. When you take that place, you’re a candidate and you are not going to be disappointed.

DAVID: Sounds very much like your book again. What a great adventure, walking with Christ in our everyday world.

……….ooo000ooo……….

Don’t just be challenged by this book, be changed!

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