Revive Thy Work, O Lord

REVIVE THY WORK, O LORD

“O Lord, revive Thy work” (Habakkuk 3:2)

(Photo of Albert Midlane)

      INTRO.:  A hymn which asks the Lord to revive His work is “Revive Thy Work, O Lord.”  The original text was written by a British poet who wrote several hundred hymns, most notably “There’s a Friend for Little Children,” named  Albert Midlane, who was born on January 23, 1825, in Carisbrooke, a village in Newport on the Isle of Wight, England, into a large family. He was the youngest child of James Midlane (who had died in October 1824) and Frances Lawes Midlane. His mother was a Congregationalist, and Midlane attended the church Sunday school from a young age. He was baptized at Castlehold Baptist Church.  A businessman by trade, Midlane credited his Sunday school teacher with inspiring him to write poetry. He first became an ironmonger, and later a Sunday school teacher at St. James Congregational Chapel. In addition to Sunday School work, Mr. Midlane was engaged in preaching the Gospel of God’s grace.  At the age of 23 he joined the Plymouth Brethren, but remained committed to Sunday school teaching and hymn writing.  Midlane was encouraged to start writing at a young age by his teacher, and he wrote his first hymn “Hark! in the presence of our God” in September 1842 while visiting Carisbrooke Castle; it was published in Youth’s Magazine in November 1842 under the name of “Little Albert.”

     Midlane’s first hymn which brought his eventual fame was “God bless our Sunday schools,” written on May 24, 1844, and used the British National Anthem as its tune.  Midlane married Miriam Grainger, daughter of James Grainger of Newport, on March 20, 1851, and they had three children, two sons and one daughter. His most notable hymn, “There’s a Friend for Little Children,” was written on February 7, 1859 and published in December 1859 in a book called Good News for the Little Ones. Its tune was composed by Sir John Stainer, and is called “In Memoriam.” It was composed for the hymn’s appearance in a book entitled Hymns Ancient and Modern, published in 1868.  Midlane wrote over 700 hymns altogether, though none had the success that “There’s a Friend for Little Children” did; it has been translated into around a dozen languages.

     “Revive Thy Work” is dated 1858.  He later published several of his own hymn books, including Jewish Children’s Hymn Book, Bright Blue Sky Hymn Book, Gospel Echoes Hymn Book and The Gospel Hall Hymn Book, each of which contained hundreds of his hymns.  He never accepted any money for his writing, and as such became bankrupt. Generosity from his fans resulted in this being later revoked.  Albert Midlane died of a seizure on February 27, 1909, at his home, Forest Villa, St. John’s Road in South Mall, Newport, Isle of Wight, England, and was buried in Carisbrooke Cemetery on the Isle of Wight.  “Revive Thy Work” was originally written as a hymn in five stanzas and has been set to many tunes, the most common of which was composed by James McGranahan (1840-1907).  McGranahan made some alterations to the text and used the fifth stanza as a chorus to make it a gospel song. Among hymnbooks published by members of the Lord’s church for use in Churches of Christ, “Revive Thy Work, O Lord” has not appeared in any to my knowledge.  I first saw the song in the 1967 Favorite Hymns of Praise, edited by Donald P. Hustad and published by Tabernacle Publishing Company.

     The song encourages us to seek revival from God beginning with His own people.

I. Stanza 1 requests the Lord to bare His mighty arm

Revive Thy work, O Lord,

Thy mighty arm make bare;

Speak with the voice that wakes the dead,

And make Thy people hear.

 A. To bare His mighty arm is indicative of the Lord’s strength: Ps. 89:13

 B. His voice is designed to wake the spiritually dead back to life: Eph. 5:14

 C. He wants His people to hear Him: Matt. 17:5

II. Stanza 2 beseeches the Lord to disturb the sleep of death

Revive Thy work, O Lord,

Disturb this sleep of death;

Quicken the smoldering embers now

By Thine almighty breath.

 A. God does not want us to sleep the sleep of death: Ps. 13:3

 B. Rather, He wants to quicken us, that is make us alive: Eph. 2:1

 C. He does this by His breath, which symbolizes His word: Jn. 20:22

III. Stanza 3 pleads with Lord to create a thirst and hunger in our spirits

Revive Thy work, O Lord,

Create soul-thirst for Thee;

And hungering for the bread of life

Oh, may our spirits be!

 A. We need to be thirsting for the water of life: Jn. 7:37-38

 B. We also need to be hungering for the bread of life: Jn. 6:31-35

 C. Just as we need food and water for our physical bodies, so we need nutrition for our spirits that they may be received of the Lord: Acts 7:59

IV. Stanza 4 strives to have the Lord exalt His name

Revive Thy work, O Lord,

Exalt Thy precious name;

And, by the Holy Word, our love

For Thee and Thine inflame.

 A. When God’s people are revived to do His work, His name is exalted: Ps. 18:46

 B. It is by receiving God’s holy word that we can be saved: Jas. 1:21 (the original read “And, by the Holy Ghost;” it may have been changed to avoid connection with the growing Pentecostal movement which placed great emphasis on the direct operation of the Holy Ghost)

 C. We need to have this word in our hearts as an inflaming fire: Jer. 20:9

     CONCL.:  The chorus continues to beg the Lord to send a revival.

Revive (Thy work), Revive (O Lord),

And give refreshing showers;

The glory shall be all Thine own,

The blessing, Lord, be ours.

The original read “Give Pentecostal showers,” perhaps again changed to avoid connection with Pentecostalism.  As we see our culture moving further and further away from a Judaeo-Christian Biblical worldview toward an almost total secularism, every child of should be praying to the Lord every day, saying, “Revive Thy Work.”