 
THE KEYS TO A SPIRITUAL REVIVAL

A look at some of the common themes accompanying Spiritual Awakenings

By Peter McArthur 2012

Published at Smashwords

Chapter 1

What is Revival?

Revival is simply an extra-ordinary move of the Holy Spirit resulting in extra-ordinary results. It is an invasion from Heaven, a grand demonstration of God's power over the wills of men. It's as if a near dead corpse had a sudden inrush of Spirit-breathe. Someone even said revival is like "God's finger pointing at me!" But perhaps the greatest definition is by Charles Finney: "Revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God."

Throughout recent Church history certain terms have been used to express such a great move. Some of the more common ones are:

A Spiritual Awakening

Time of Refreshing

Rending the Heavens

An Outpouring of the Spirit

A Divine Visitation.

Does prayer cause revival?

One of the great questions that arises in the minds of believers hungering for revival is: Will prayer bring revival ? The answer is no, or at least not in the way most people think.

To clarify this let's use the imagery of a pregnant woman ready to deliver her child. Does the baby in the womb cause the labour pains to begin, or does the labour pains make the woman pregnant? The question is almost a ridiculous one. Of course nobody accepts that labour will make a woman pregnant. It's ludicrous! The woman is in labour because the baby is ready to come.

So it is with prayer and revival. Prayer in itself will not bring on a revival. Rather, we are moved to pray for revival because a God-conceived desire is already in the secret place of our heart ready to come forth. When we are moved to seek God for a revival, it's because He has already placed that desire in our hearts. The baby, as it were, is already in the womb; our praying will birth the revival. This might seem like an oversimplification, but this is really at the core of the matter.

The lead-up to Revival

Although we cannot order an Awakening or manufacture a Revival, there are certain conditions that give birth to a revival, and there are certain common themes that mark one. We cannot have an awakening on our own terms. It's only when we fulfil the required conditions that heaven pours forth a divine manifestation of Love, Mercy and Restoration.

The responsibility to enter into prayer is ours, although of course it is He who puts the desire within us initially. He is always the architect of our needs. Wonderful Lord!

1. We need to have an awareness of our need. Before revival breaks forth there needs to be a realisation of our spiritual poverty and lukewarmness. Unless we can see the true state of ourselves and the Church we will never even begin to consider praying for revival.

2. Having a burden. Revival is never born apart from travail in prayer; a spiritual desperation and yearning from deep within. The old saying still holds true: The prayer that doesn't move your heart is unlikely to move God's either. Heart searching after God, calling on Him with a desperate soul brings revival. Insipid praying betrays a lack of belief and burden.

3. Prevailing prayer. History clearly shows the one outstanding requirement for revival is a return to intercessory and prevailing prayer. Anything that substitutes for increased prayer will keep us away from experiencing revival. The prayer meeting is always the first target of Satan and the first group in the Church to be depleted. Every true God-born revival has begun when the saints get on their knees. There never has been, nor will there ever be, such a thing as a prayer-less revival.

4. Revival preaching. It's often been said that if you want a revival in the Church, build a fire in the pulpit first. We could go so far as to say that not only is fiery preaching required, but apostolic preaching. Most awakenings have the common element of fearless and strong proclamations of the whole Gospel message.

5. Repentance. This is a foundational principle of every revival born of God. No known revival has ever bypassed this. The confession of personal, corporate and even national sin is paramount. Sin is the great barrier to revival whether it be personal or corporate.

6. Purity of heart and conduct. God demands in His Word that we have clean hands and a pure heart. We cannot ignore this as if it didn't matter. It does! Revival is always, always related to holiness and separation from sinful ways.

7. Believe the promises of the Word. Because God is true to His word, we need to stand firm on what He has promised those who obey Him. The history of revivals shows that often awakenings happen when believers stand on a specific promise in the Word and persevere in prayer. God is faithful to His covenant promises: we should be faithful in appropriating them.

8. Use your faith as you wait. Faith is that which is solidly based on God's unchanging nature. Faith is not presumptuous but it is bold. As a revival builds in the hearts of expectant believers there comes a waiting time which tests the faith of the seekers.

9. Unity of Spirit essential. Note that this doesn't mean getting together in "unity of purpose" or "unity of doctrine" or even a "unity of convenience." Unity of SPIRIT is the only union God will bless as we gather. Easy to say but hard to do. Humility is the key to all this.

Remember that the Word says we are to "keep the unity of the Spirit" not create it! We should guard against organising programmes, events and meetings that foster unity. This will not work because the Unity is already there simply because God has already ordained it. Unity of Spirit is NOT something we can whip up, manufacture or create; it is already a truth. Do we really appreciate this?
Chapter 2

A formula for Personal Revival

A. W. Tozer, one the 20th century's greatest writers on Christian living, recommended the following principles for engaging in a personal revival. They are well worth considering and taking to heart.

1. Get thoroughly dissatisfied with your present state. Do not become content in any sense of the word, for complacency is the deadly enemy of any spiritual progress. Half-heartedness and any lukewarmness must not be part of your makeup.

2. Determine to set your face like flint toward a sweeping transformation of your life. Do not be timid in this for if you do you are doomed from the outset. Giving up too soon will rob you of the joy that is to come.

3. Place yourself in the pathway of blessing. To de-sire revival and not engage in prayer and devotion is to wish for one thing but walk the opposite way.

4. Thoroughly repent of any sin. Do not make it a hasty thing, rather let it be deep and thereby heal the soul. Make sure this is not a shallow work.

5. Make restitution wherever you can. If you have stolen something, return it. If you are in debt, pay it off. If you have quarrelled, go as far as you can to make amends. As far as possible make the crooked straight.

6. Bring your life into line with the Sermon on the Mount and other similar New Testament texts. These are designed by the Lord to instruct and train you into the ways of godliness.

7. Be serious minded. Let there be a radical change in your lifestyle and habits. Without this there will be little if no advance in your spiritual progress.

8. Narrow down your interests. Deliberately re-focus your concerns and interests. So many of our interests take energy away from our time with God. The mansions of our heart will become larger when the doors are thrown open to Christ and closed against entertainment.

9. Begin to witness and evangelise. Find something to do for the Lord. Make yourself available to Him — learn to obey Him radically.

10. Have faith in God. Begin to expect Him to work wonders in you. Look up; heaven is on your side. The Lord will not disappoint you.

These of course are only suggestions by Tozer, but suggestions that have proved true. When personal revival comes to an individual it's like a bushfire that moves rapidly and thoroughly, sweeping all into its flames as it spreads.

An old adage from revival days will help us to understand this process: "Revival takes place furthest from the eyes of man and closest to the eyes of God."

It is in the secret place of the prayer closet, in the recesses of our own heart that revival begins. It starts with the individual first, then spreads to the corporate body. Listen to some of the prayers and cries of the heart from Revivalists before they felt the surge of the refreshment. They took to heart the need for PERSONAL preparation and believed it to be a key, if not THE key, to a greater outpouring.

Seth Joshua (Welsh Revival of 1904) prayed that God would raise up a young man from the fields or the coal pits just as He had done with Elijah as he ploughed the field. God did exactly that. As a teenager Evan Roberts was moved by the simple prayer of a Church elder who called out: "If the Spirit fell today would you be absent when He did?". From that moment Evan Roberts devoted every spare moment to God's work, sleeping little and evangelising much. Finally he cried out "God bend me". The result was an outpouring that set Wales, England and ultimately many other countries ablaze with Revival. In Wales alone over 100,000 people were converted in the space of five months

Duncan Campbell (revivals of 1949-53 in Lewis and Skye) felt dry inside. His cry was "Lord give me back the years the locust has eaten!" Out of this cry came a mighty personal revival that overflowed to thousands of others as he spoke intently that "God is always the God of new beginnings".

Jonathan Goforth (Korea and China revivals of 1906-1907) determined in his heart that he would "obey God's laws (for revival) no matter what the personal cost." After being convicted to get right with a fellow missionary he felt joy flood into his soul. Dozens of others who knew him saw the immediate fruit of the Spirit at work in him and bent their hearts to God. As a result both Korea and China underwent a mammoth spiritual awakening.

Campbell Morgan (the Welsh revivals of 1900) said: "We cannot organise revival, but we can set our sails to catch the wind from heaven."

Let's do just that!

Two major features of Revivals

Charles Finney, the great American evangelist and revivalist, said "The antecedents, accompaniments and results of revivals are always substantially the same as in the case of Pentecost."

1. One of the common features of any true awakening has been that of Divine Timing. Just as on the Day of Pentecost when it had "fully come" so too revivals break out at the very most appropriate time. Since this is God at work and not man, we should always expect the timing to be His choice, never ours.

In the Welsh revival the Holy Spirit fell on two different groups of praying believers in the north and south at the very same time, even though neither group were aware of the existence of the other. The timing was orchestrated entirely by heaven.

2. The other major characteristic of any revival is the heightened awareness of the Awesome Presence of God. Whether it be the revivals recorded in Scripture, or those noted by historians in more recent centuries, an outstanding feature of ALL revivals is the sense of presence of God.

People fall to their knees, groaning under the manifestation of HIS PRESENCE. In many cases the common surroundings we are used to seem to fade away like mist. Heaven displaces everything around us. We become lost in the wonder of His love and mercy.

However the sense of His presence is definitely not confined to just experiencing a new level of His love, rather it also takes into account an awesome sense of Judgement. Holy fear accompanies such awakenings, to the point that many people shake and swoon at His coming.

It's a time of unpredictable happenings. This is one reason fear and awe takes hold in revival.

"God is here" is a common cry when revival breaks out. People faint at this. Sin is immediately exposed and the horror of its presence bends at the presence of a Holy God. Unsaved people either cry out for mercy or run like the devil! Often people are transfixed and can't seem to move. They are literally fixed to the spot.

Time seems to vanish and it is nothing for a person to be fixed at either a spot on the floor or in a certain pose for hours on end, without any seeming physical after effects — except an increase in spiritual life. This is an awesome experience and those who have tasted it even shake at the remembrance of it.

What we often regard today as "a visitation from God" in a Sunday meeting is absolutely nothing like the real encounter with Him. Someone who experienced a genuine God-sent revival found that what passes for an "anointing" in today's meetings is like comparing fire to smoke. His comment was: "I was born in fire, I cannot live in smoke."

Some Results of Revivals

In any spiritual awakening there are a number of similar consequences flowing out of the refreshing. Some of the more significant and discernible ones are listed below.

1. The spiritual tempo of the believers is markedly quickened.

2. Large numbers of sinners covering every strata of society come into salvation.

3. There is a return to basic New Testament principles of worship, preaching and Christian lifestyle.

4. Prayer increases markedly, with a particular emphasis on personal, family and group prayer. The so-called Family Altar is one clearly identified area.

5. Apostolic or missionary endeavours increase. Giving for foreign missionary work or to plant new churches is also a sign of the change.

6. Profound social changes affect the community. The character of the town, or even the nation, is greatly influenced, and many of the usual social problems are overturned. Lawlessness and crime quickly fade out.

7. There is an increased unity of Spirit amongst the various denominations in the locality of the revival.

8. New styles of worship erupt, with an emphasis on new songs. Spontaneous worship is also a marked feature.

9. Returning to fundamental Biblical doctrines is paramount, and these are emphasised regularly through revival gatherings.

10. As a result modernist and liberal theological teaching is challenged face to face and exposed for the error it is.

11. Certain unusual signs and manifestations happen, among them much weeping and shaking. Some of these are demonic manifestations occurring in the unsaved; others are of the Holy Spirit as He affects believers.

12. Often signs of physical healing erupt as the revival spreads.

13. The news of the awakening draws interest from both the secular and religious arena. This only helps to spread the message. At this point the leaders of the revival need to be alert to the corruption of pride and elitism.

14. There comes a growing realisation of the Eternal among people.

15. A great outpouring of giftings and callings occur, with many going into pastoral and missionary work. This is particularly so amongst youth.

16. Christ is made central in preaching, evangelism and every aspect of the gathered saints. He becomes pre-eminent.

17. Private devotional and study increases. Usually many small Bible study groups spring up, often in a spontaneous manner.

18. Humility amongst the brethren increases to such a stage that it is quickly obvious to any outsider.

19. People turn from entertainment and other flippant interests and devote much time and energy to things of God. Often theatres and hotels close down as a result.

20. Long term social problems and community issues are often resolved overnight.

The revival often is confined to a certain location or region. Outside of this "boundary of influence" the revival seems to have a less marked affect. Many new endeavours begin especially new Christian organisations and movements. New teaching pours forth and certain passages of the Word are emphasised. A genuine sensitivity to sin becomes predominant in both the saved and unsaved. It will often have a striking effect on a community. Fasting for a continued break-through or for the spread of the revival takes on an urgent sense. People are desperate to keep the awakening going, and desire that it spread to neighbouring regions as well.

Think on this!

It was said of the Welsh awakening of 1904 that you knew revival was on the way when you heard the "Oh" of desperation and urgency in the prayers of the people.

Have we arrived at this point yet?
Chapter 3

Biblical conditions necessary for effective revival prayer

1. FAITH

Mark 11: 23-24

For truly I say to you that whoever shall say to this mountain, Be moved and be cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he said shall occur, he shall have whatever he said. Therefore I say to you, All things, whatever you ask, praying, believe that you shall receive them, and it will be to you.

Matthew 21: 21-22

Jesus answered and said to them, Truly I say to you, If you have faith and do not doubt, you shall not only do this miracle of the fig tree, but also; if you shall say to this mountain, Be moved and be thrown into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.

1 John 5: 14-15

This is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.

2. PERSISTENCE

Luke 18: 1-8

And Jesus spoke a parable to them to teach it is always right to pray, and not to faint, saying, A certain judge was in a certain city, not fearing God, nor respecting man. And a widow was in that city. And she came to Him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary. And he would not do so for a time. But afterward he said within himself, Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, that she not wear me down in the end. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge says, "Shall not God avenge His own elect who cry day and night to Him, though He has been long-suffering over them? I say to you that He will avenge them speedily. Yet when the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the earth?"

Matthew 7: 7-11

Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. For each one who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, if his son asks a loaf of bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a snake? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him?

Luke 11: 5-13

And He said to them, which of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him? And he answering from inside may say, Do not trouble me. The door is now shut and my children are in bed with me. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will arise and give him as many as he needs. And I say to you, Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. And he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks it shall be opened. For what father of you, if the son asks for bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake for a fish? Or if he shall ask for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

3. HOLY LIVING

Psalm 66: 18

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the LORD will not hear.

Isaiah 59: 1-2

Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened so that it cannot save, nor is His ear heavy so that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have come between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, from hearing.

1 John 3: 19-22

And in this we shall know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him, that if our heart accuses us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not accuse us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask, we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

4. HONOR YOUR SPOUSE

1 Peter 3: 7

Likewise, husbands, live together according to knowledge, giving honor to your wife, as to the weaker vessel, as truly being co-heirs together with you of the grace of life, lest your prayers be cut off.

5. PRAYER IS THE WILL OF GOD

1 John 5: 14-15

And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.

6. IN THE NAME OF JESUS

John 14: 13-14 and 26

And whatever you may ask in My name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said to you.

John 16: 23-24

And in that day you shall ask Me nothing. Truly, truly, I say to you, Whatever you shall ask the Father in My name, He will give you. Up to now you have asked nothing in My name; ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.

7. PURE MOTIVES

James 4: 2-3

You desire, and do not have. You murder, and are jealous, and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts.

8. BOLDNESS

Hebrews 4: 16

Therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

9. FORGIVENESS

Matthew 6: 15

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 5: 23-24

Therefore if you offer your gift on the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

The summary of all these nine points is that holy, believing and persevering prayer is an essential part of working with God for the apostolic release of grace in our lives.
Chapter 4

A short overview of Revivalists for encouragement

The following articles are written by David Smithers of "Awake and Go Global Prayer Network"

Girolamo Savonarola 15th century

In James 5:10 we are exhorted to "take the prophets for an example". A careful study of the "Holy Men of Old" can kindle both the fires of self-sacrifice and prayerful devotion. However, prophetic examples are not confined only to the pages of the Scriptures. Though often neglected, maligned and forgotten, God's prophetic torches have always burned throughout the history of the Church. One such burning prophet was Girolamo Savonarola. Through his tears, prayers and passionate preaching, the seeds of reformation and revival took root in Italy.

Born in Ferrara, Italy, September 14th, 1452, Savonarola was the third in a family of seven children - five sons and two daughters. As a boy his devotion and fervour increased as he spent many hours in prayer and fasting. At times he would kneel in church for many hours engaged in earnest prayer. He was very contemplative, and his soul was deeply wounded by the sin and worldliness he saw all around him. The luxury, splendour, and wealth displayed by the rich in contrast with the awful poverty of the lowly peasants weighed heavily on his tender heart. Italy was the prey of petty tyrants and wicked priests, and dukes and popes who strived with each other for political power and control.

These things brought great sorrow to his young soul which was burning for holiness and truth. He talked little, and kept to himself. He loved to wander in lonely places to sing or more often weep, giving vent to the strong emotions which tore at his heart. "Prayer was his one great solace, and his tears would often stain the altar steps, where he sought aid from heaven against the vile and corrupt age".

One day, he saw a vision of the heavens opened, and all the future calamities of the Church passed before his eyes. He then heard God's voice charging him to warn the people. From that moment he was convinced of his prophetic calling, and he was suddenly filled with a new unction and power. His preaching was now with a voice of thunder, and his rebukes against sin were so terrific that the people who listened to him sometimes went about the streets half-dazed, bewildered, and speechless. His listeners were often so overcome with tears that the whole church echoed with the sounds of sobbing and weeping. Workmen, poets and philosophers, all would burst into tears under his passionate preaching.

Savonarola's zeal for prayer seemed to increase day by day. While engaged in prayer, he would sometimes fall into a deep trance. Often he was so completely gripped by the power of the Holy Spirit that he would be forced to retire to a secluded place. Some of his biographers relate that on Christmas Eve, in the year 1486, Savonarola, while seated in the pulpit, remained immovable for five hours, in a trance, and that his face seemed illuminated to all in the church.

The influence of Savonarola eventually grew greater than ever. The people of Florence abandoned their vile and worldly books. All prayed, went to church, and the rich gave freely to the poor. Merchants restored ill-gotten gains. All the people forsook the carnivals and vanities in which they had indulged, and made huge bonfires of their worldly books, obscene pictures, and other things of the kind. The children marched from house to house in a procession, singing hymns in the streets. Soon Savonarola's fearless sermons aroused the anger of many, and especially of the corrupt pope and cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. He was then threatened, excommunicated and finally, in 1498, by express order of Pope Alexander VI, he was beaten, strangled and burned in the public square of Florence, Italy.

The life of Savonarola exemplifies many precious qualities that our fainthearted and distracted age so desperately needs. We are barren and deficient in prayer, patience, purity and most importantly a sacrificial love for Jesus. Until we as the body of Christ return to these holy principles, true reformation and revival will not be realized; Oh Lord, break our hearts and open our eyes!

Richard Baxter 17th century

Many within the Church today feel as if they are drowning in a river of empty words and hollow promises. Demoralized by superficial religion, their hungry hearts are crying out, "Where is the REAL Church, mighty in truth and power?" There are many who can give us a moving definition of revival, but where are the MEN who can move the Church with a demonstration of revival? As the late Leonard Ravenhill once said, "We can all make the menu, but we can't make the meal." Proverbs 27:7 tells us that, "To the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet."

Sadly, multitudes of hungry and disillusioned souls are seeking the bitter bread of a godliness that denies power, or a form of power that denies godliness. Oh, how we need the REALITY of revival, a revival that will restore the Church to Her former apostolic beauty of PURITY and POWER. Nothing less than this REALITY will prepare us to face a dying world and the coming King.

The prince of Puritan pastors, Richard Baxter was an instrument in such a revival. Mr. Baxter possessed that rare combination of a prophet's fiery zeal and a pastor's tender care. In the year of 1647 Baxter was resettled in his old church at Kidderminster. It was here that he sparked and nurtured a mighty revival. When Baxter arrived at Kidderminster it had a population of about 3000 weavers who were reckless, ungodly and content to remain that way. By the end of Baxter's stay, the entire community was miraculously transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Bates reported that "The place before his coming was like a piece of dry and barren earth; but by the blessing of heaven upon his labour, the face of paradise appeared there. The bad were changed to good and the good to better." During this season of revival the church at Kidderminster became so full that five new galleries had to be built to seat the hungry crowds. Mr. Baxter himself writes, "As you passed along the streets on the Sabbath morning, you might hear a hundred households singing psalms at their family worship. In a word, when I came to Kidderminster, there was only about one family in a whole street that worshipped God and called upon His name. When I left, there were some streets where not a family did not do so." Kidderminster became a "colony of heaven" in the days of Richard Baxter.

With tireless zeal, Baxter fanned the flames of revival with the MIRACLE of passionate preaching. Many believe that Baxter was one of the most powerful preachers that ever addressed an English congregation. He was an intense and forceful preacher, he believed that, "If hard hearts were to be broken, it was not stroking but striking that must do it." He purposed to always, "Preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men." His sermons were a combination of cutting and piercing words and a gentle and loving spirit. Baxter consistently spoke like one who had been face to face with Jesus. He drew others to Heaven through his preaching because he had touched Heaven through his praying. In Baxter's classic book The Reformed Pastor, he reminds us that the pulpit is only a reflection of the closet. He writes, "When your minds are in holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of it. They will be able to feel when you have been much with God; that which is most on your heart, will be most in their ears."

Even after Mr. Baxter had delivered his very soul through preaching, he still felt that his work was but half done. He knew that the preaching of the Word must be accompanied by the personal and individual touch of a pastor. "He arranged that every family in his parish should come to his house, one by one...then he took each member apart and urgently, tenderly besought him to make an immediate decision for Christ. Seldom did a family leave Baxter's door without tears."

J. C. Ryle esteemed Baxter as one of the most successful pastors to ever live. He writes, "While some ministers were wrangling about the divine right of Episcopacy or Presbytery, or splitting hairs about reprobation and free-will, Baxter was always visiting from house to house and beseeching men for Christ's sake, to be reconciled to God... While others were entangling themselves in politics, and ' burying their dead' amidst the potsherds of the earth, Baxter was living a crucified life and daily preaching the Gospel." Because of Mr. Baxter's great success among his people he soon became a shepherd of shepherds.

Addressing his fellow ministers, Baxter writes, "We must feel toward our people as a father toward his children; yea, the tenderest love of a mother must not surpass ours. We must even travail in birth, till Christ be formed in them. They should see that we care for no outward thing, neither liberty, nor honour, nor life, in comparison to their salvation... When the people see that you truly love them, they will hear anything from you...Oh therefore, see that you feel a tender love for your people in your hearts, and let them perceive it in your speech and conduct. Let them see that you spend and are spent for their sakes."

Mr. Baxter's passion for souls even reached beyond the shores of England. He hoped to one day see the formation of a college and training centre, where ministers could be prepared to "Undertake the conversion of some of the vast nations of infidels... with the plain and pure gospel." It should not surprise us therefore, that he greatly admired John Eliot, the famous pioneer missionary to the Indians of New England. Such apostolic vision and missionary zeal was very rare among many in the Church in the 17th century, even during the Golden Age of great Puritan preachers.

The pack mules of revival are always the humble and persistent prayers of the saints. The Kidderminster awakening was certainty no exception. It was the grace-empowered prayers of Baxter and a handful of people that prepared the way for revival. Fits of epilepsy, tumours and sins of every kind vanished in answer to the prayers of Baxter's congregation. Hour after hour they poured out their hearts with fervent prayer and fasting during this revival season. Armed with the weapon of PRAYER, Baxter destroyed demonic strongholds and reduced mighty magistrates to tears. With a broken heart and callused knees, Mr. Baxter overcame every obstacle. By fervent prayer, he overcame poor health, slander, rejection, division and even the Great Ejection of 1662.

Richard Baxter considered prayer the first and last thing necessary to be a successful pastor and revivalist. He writes, "Above all be much in secret prayer and meditation. By this you will fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifice: remember you cannot decline and neglect your duty to your own hurt alone, many will be losers by it as well as you."

In light of all the revival promises of the Scriptures, can we truly hope to see revival without such prayer? We need pastors who will not only talk about revival, but who will travail for revival. Today the Church has everything from men's meetings to miracle meetings, but we still don't have revival. Mere meetings and conferences will never be able to substitute for the power and authority of a true shepherd's prayers.

"Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, 'Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: why should they say among the people, Where is their God?'" (Joel 2:17). I fear that many pastors are naively expecting a move of God while neglecting the means of God. The Father longs to visit us. "He will come to us like the RAIN, like the latter and former RAIN to the earth." (Hosea 6:3). Yet, like Elijah, we will have to pray and pray again, before the first rain clouds of true revival are seen. Dear pastors, "ASK the Lord for RAIN in the time of the latter rain." (Zechariah 10:1).

George Fox 17th century

In the year of 1647, a large man with piercing eyes named George Fox started preaching throughout the towns and villages of England. He prayed and fasted often, travelling with no other companion but his Bible. He proclaimed a gospel of purity, power and repentance.

When George Fox began preaching, many churches were dead and bound in man-made traditions and formalism. When the Church drifts into formalism, the world drifts into further ungodliness. The methods and appearance of George Fox to some seemed quite offensive and extreme. It is sometimes necessary for God's prophets to be unconventional in order to thoroughly awaken the indifferent and hard hearted.

Soon after George Fox began to preach, he had a remarkable spiritual experience that lasted fourteen days. A certain Mr. Brown, while on his death bed prophesied many great things concerning Fox. "When this man was buried," says Fox, "a great work of the Lord fell on me." During this mighty baptism of the Spirit, Fox received a remarkable gift of discernment. "He seemed to be able to read the character of men by looking at them." Miraculous healings also accompanied his ministry. Through prayer and the laying on of hands, the sick were often healed and devils were cast out to the glory of Christ. When George Fox preached men would shake and tremble. "The name Quaker was given to Fox and his followers because of the quaking of the men who came to scoff but stayed to pray." This remarkable power seemed to accompany the preaching of Fox wherever he went.

Fox preached that Jesus Christ is the author of a faith which purifies and gives victory over sin. He fervently exhorted men to pursue complete holiness rather than empty religious ceremonies. As a result, he was often beaten, stoned and driven out of town. It is estimated that perhaps no other man since the time of the Reformation was persecuted and imprisoned as often as George Fox. He usually went about the country on foot, dressed in his famous suit of leather clothes, which it is believed he made himself. He often slept outside under a tree or in some haystack. Fox also often pointed out that what was commonly called the Church was only a building. He boldly declared that only the fervent believers of Christ were the living stones of the true Church.

"Above all George Fox excelled in prayer." It was his habit to wait in silence for the movement of the Holy Spirit and then begin to pray, causing whole congregations to be shaken and humbled under the hand of God Almighty. "As he prayed the power of God came down in such a marvellous manner the very building seemed to rock."

Through the ministry of George Fox, a glimmer of apostolic power was revealed to seventeenth century England. He was a man of the Spirit in an age that emphasized theological and scriptural accuracy at the expense of the power of the Holy Ghost. He always stressed the importance of a Spirit filled life and refused to let dead orthodoxy be a veil for the works of the flesh.

If we as believers are content with a gospel that merely comforts our conscience and preserves our traditions, then we are also content to forsake the gospel of Christ and the Apostles. God help us to truly seek the kind of praying and preaching that will once again make men tremble in the presence of Jesus Christ.

Philip Jacob Spener 17th century

In every generation God has had a remnant that strived to restore true Christianity according to the apostolic pattern. 17th century Germany was the home of just such a people known as the Pietist. The Pietist yearned and prayed to see the Church restored to her original purity and power.

The vision and dreams of these earnest Christians found a prophetic voice in the ministry of Philip Jacob Spener. Spener, considered the father of pietism, was a man of both vision and practical direction. Over 300 years ago Spener had a good understanding of the churches needs, and how to mend them. Concepts that are today considered new and innovative in many Christian circles were laid out long ago by this old German prophet.

Philip Jacob Spener, like most 17th century Pietist, was a Lutheran. Spener had become deeply concerned that the teachings of Luther had produced a church only half reformed. Germany was filled with professing Christians who had been instructed in the academics of salvation by faith, but yet lacked the holy fruit of faith. Spener saw that many were void of any trace of loving fear and devotion for the Lord Jesus. A spirit of presumption had come into the church, causing many to take the grace of God for granted.

In 1670 Spener began to bring together small groups of believers who, like himself, were not satisfied with a lifeless religion. They met for the purpose of Bible study, prayer and for the watching over of one another. Before long these meetings were being conducted throughout the city. Persons of like interests in spiritual edification gravitated together to form cells that promoted Christian piety and earnest devotion. Spener did not consider these meetings as a new church but as an extension of the Reformation within the reformation churches. They encouraged the formation of "cell groups," that is little churches, within the Church.

Pietists in the Netherlands were the first to use the term `hues Kirk' or house church for their renewal meetings. In these meetings Spener found expression for the burdens of his heart. With great zeal he preached repentance, declaring the apostasy of the Bride of Christ from her first love. He consistently heralded a message that emphasized the Biblical command for holy character and holy living.

Spener was also a bold advocate of the Lutheran doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. Pietist felt that laymen had not been given sufficient opportunities in the Church. In the home meetings all believers were allowed to express their heart and ask questions. Spener taught that, "Believers are not passive in spiritual matters, but have a responsibility for building one another up in the faith." As a result of Spener's revival efforts, he was severely maligned and persecuted. He was literally driven across Germany. As Spener fled from city to city new house churches sprang up, reviving the dry and formal Lutheran church.

Without a doubt, Philip Jacob Spener is one of the great, though forgotten, revivalist of the Church. Although forgotten, Spener has touched us all through those he personally influenced. It was Spener's apprentice, Francke who inspired the famous George Muller to provide for orphans through simple faith and prayer. He also impacted the young Count Zinzendorf with his powerful teaching and vision of a restored Apostolic Church. Count Zinzendorf in turn led the great Moravian Mission effort to evangelize the world. Included in those won to Christ by the Moravians were John and Charles Wesley. Spener's ministry has truly impacted the world we live in.

The goal of all Spener's efforts was to have the Church of his day reflect the early Apostolic Christian community. Who among us is willing to follow Spener's example in seeking to restore such a Church? Are we willing to strip ourselves of our man pleasing traditions and half reformed ways? Such willingness will cost us much more than we realize, yet in the end it will leave us with fewer regrets.

Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians 18th century Moravian revival in Germany

Throughout the history of the Church, it has always been the most ardent lovers of Jesus who have felt the greatest need for more of His presence. Surely it is with this class of saints that Count Zinzendorf belongs.

For Zinzendorf, loving fellowship with Christ was the essential manifestation of the Christian life. Throughout the Count's life, "His blessed presence" was his all consuming theme. He had chosen from an early age as his life-motto the now famous confession; "I have one passion; it is Jesus, Jesus only."

**A Man of Prayer.** Flowing out of Zinzendorf's passionate love for Christ came a life disciplined in prayer. "Count Zinzendorf had early learned the secret of prevailing prayer. So active had he been in establishing circles for prayer that on leaving the college at Halle, at 16 years of age , he handed the famous professor Franke a list of seven praying societies." Also preceding the great Moravian revival of 1727, it was Count Zinzendorf who was used to encourage prayer for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

John Greenfield describes for us the constant prayer that followed the revival of 1727. "Was there ever in the whole of church history such an astonishing prayer meeting as that which beginning in 1727, went on one hundred years? It was known as the 'Hourly Intercession.' And it meant that by relays of brothers and sisters, prayer without ceasing was made to God for all the work and wants of His church.' The best antidote for a powerless Church is the influence of a praying man. The influence of Count Zinzendorf's prayer-life did not stop with one small community. It ultimately went on to influence the whole world.

**Souls for the Lamb.** As Zinzendorf's passion for Jesus grew, so did his passion for the lost. He became determined to evangelize the world with a handful of saints, equipped only with a burning love for Jesus and the power of prayer. The Moravian Brotherhood readily received and perpetuated the passion of their leader. A seal was designed to express their newfound missionary zeal. The seal was composed of a lamb on a crimson ground, with the cross of resurrection and a banner of triumph with the motto; "Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him."

The Moravians recognized themselves in debt to the world as the trustees of the gospel. They were taught to embrace a lifestyle of self-denial, sacrifice and prompt obedience. They followed the call of the Lamb to go anywhere and with an emphasis upon the worst and hardest places as having the first claim. No soldiers of the cross have ever been bolder as pioneers, more patient or persistent in difficulties, more heroic in suffering, or more entirely devoted to Christ and the souls of men than the Moravian Brother-hood.

**Motivation for World Missions.** The Moravians beautifully explain their motivation for missions in the following 1791 evangelical report. "The simple motive of the brethren for sending missionaries to distant nations was and is an ardent desire to promote the salvation of their fellow men, by making known to them the gospel of our Saviour Jesus Christ. It grieved them to hear of so many thousands and millions of the human race sitting in darkness and groaning beneath the yoke of sin and the tyranny of Satan; and remembering the glorious promises given in the Word of God, that the heathen also should be the reward of the sufferings and death of Jesus; and considering His commandment to His followers, to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, they were filled with confident hopes that if they went forth in obedience unto, and believing in His word, their labour would not be in vain in the Lord. They were not dismayed in reflecting on the smallness of their means and abilities, and that they hardly knew their way to the heathen whose salvation they so ardently longed for, nor by the prospect of enduring hardships of every kind and even perhaps the loss of their lives in the attempt. Yet their love to their Saviour and their fellow sinners for whom He shed His blood, far outweighed all these considerations. They went forth in the strength of their God and He has wrought wonders in their behalf."

The Moravians had learned that the secret of loving the souls of men was found in loving the Saviour of men. On October 8,1732, a Dutch ship left the Copenhagen harbor bound for the Danish West Indies. On board were the two first Moravian missionaries; John Leonard Dober, a potter, and David Nitschman, a carpenter. Both were skilled speakers and ready to sell themselves into slavery to reach the slaves of the West Indies. As the ship slipped away, they lifted up a cry that would one day become the rallying call for all Moravian missionaries, "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering." The Moravian's passion for souls was surpassed only by their passion for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

**They Had All Things In Common.** Another vision of Count Zinzendorf's was that of the restoration of apostolic community. He laboured to establish a community of saints that loved and supported one another through prayer, encouragement and accountability. To a great extent Zinzendorf's vision became a reality in the small village of Herrnhut.

A deep sense of community was maintained through small groups based on common needs and interests, original and unifying hymns and continual prayer meetings. In 1738 John Wesley visited "this happy place" and was so impressed that he commented in his journal "I would gladly have spent my life here . . . Oh, when shall this Christianity cover the earth as water covers the sea?"

**He Had No Other Happiness But To Be Near Him**. By no means was Count Zinzendorf's life flawless, but one cannot help but be moved by his consuming passion and pre-occupation with the person of Jesus Christ.

A glimpse of his burning love for Jesus can be caught in the following letter. "Our method of proclaiming salvation is this: to point out to every heart the loving Lamb, who died for us, and although He was the Son of God, offered Himself for our sins ... by the preaching of His blood, and of His love unto death, even the death of the cross, never, either in discourse or in argument, to digress even for a quarter of an hour from the loving Lamb: to name no virtue except in Him, and from Him and on His account,-to preach no commandment except faith in Him; no other justification but that He atoned for us; no other sanctification but the privilege to sin no more; no other happiness but to be near Him, to think of Him and do His pleasure; no other self denial but to be deprived of Him and His blessings; no other calamity but to displease Him; no other life but in Him.'

The source of Count Zinzendorf's success was bound up in his passion for JESUS CHRIST! Likewise the source of much of the modern Church's failure lies in her half-hearted devotion for the Lover of their souls. Today, Jesus still cries out to us; "Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works. (Rev. 2:4-5)

David Brainerd **:** **The First Great Awakening (1730s-1740's)**

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." (Deut. 6:5). By the grace of God, David Brainerd obeyed this first and great commandment. He prayed with sacrificial passion, pursued perfect holiness and called sinners to repentance; all because he fervently loved the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sad to say, some Christians may have a difficult time understanding David Brainerd's zeal and love for JESUS. "To him the material and physical world had little value. He was of the race of the early martyrs. To him all things were naught that he might attain a deeper spiritual fellowship with God."

Brainerd's diary states, "Thirsting desires and longings possessed my soul after perfect holiness. God was so precious to my soul that the world with all its enjoyments appeared vile. I had no more value for the favour of men than for pebbles."

He spent a great deal of time in prayer and frequently set aside days for prayer and fasting. He loved to retire into the woods to be alone with God. "Prayer became Brainerd's priority and it was his joy to spend two hours at a time in secret communion with Christ. He would rise early in the morning and get alone with God to enjoy His presence. He thirsted for God, the living God and he was not disappointed!"

Determined to share Christ, Brainerd embraced a life of self-denial and sacrifice. He spent as much as twenty hours a week on horseback. His diet consisted of hasty pudding, boiled corn, bread baked in the ashes, and sometimes a little meat and butter. His home was a small log room complete with a heap of straw laid upon boards for a bed.

David Brainerd consistently and fervently interceded for the lost souls of the American Indians. Often he would travail with such earnestness that when he rose from his knees he was covered in sweat and could hardly walk straight. Like the persistent widow in Luke 18, David Brainerd's prayers were finally answered. Entire camps of Indians were converted by the power of God as he proclaimed a message of repentance and grace.

"Old men and women who had been drunken wretches for years; and little children not more than six or seven years of age appeared in distress for their souls. There was almost universal praying and crying for mercy. Many could neither go nor stand."

The countless hours spent in prayer and fasting, his faithfulness in spite of physical weakness and having to endure the most terrible hardships, were now rewarded openly. The fire of the Lord fell. The remarkable thing was that all this happened at a time when he confessed that his hopes were at their very lowest. He had seriously entertained thoughts of giving up while on the very brink of glory and blessing.

Brainerd now saw a remarkable change in the lives of the Indians. He recorded in his diary, "I know of no assembly of Christians where there seems to be so much of the presence of God, where brotherly love so much prevails . . . " David Brainerd poured a lifetime of holy passion, prayer and preaching into four short years. He ministered from 1743-1747, dying of tuberculosis at the age of 29, "Brainerd once wrote in his diary, I longed to be a flame of fire continually glowing in the divine service and building up of Christ's kingdom to my last and dying breath." That prayer was abundantly answered.

Gilbert Tennent: **The First Great Awakening (1730s-1740's)**

"It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes." (Psalm 119:71)

It was upon the bed of affliction that Gilbert Tennent was taught of God. In approximately 1728 this young gifted Presbyterian minister became extremely ill. Uncertain if he would recover, he entered into a deep vision of eternity and time of repentance. He writes, "I was then exceedingly grieved I had done so little for God . . . I therefore prayed to God that He would be pleased to give me one half year more. I was determined to promote His kingdom with all my might and at all adventures."

Mr. Tennent's prayer was answered, and he was revived in both body and spirit. He laboured as never before to, "Sound the trumpet of God's judgment and alarm the secure by the terrors of the Lord." He was a man literally consumed with a vision of the holiness of God. As a result he urgently warned the stubborn sinner and hypocrite of a final judgment and eternal hell. The anointed George Whitefield writes of him, "Hypocrites must soon be converted or enraged at his preaching. He is a son of thunder and does not regard the face of man. He is deeply sensible of the deadness and formality of the Christian church in these parts, and has given noble testimonies against it."

Gilbert Tennent preached as if "never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men." His preaching was far from typical of his day. A historian of the "Great Awakening" describes the average minister's methods, "The habit of the preachers was to address their people as though they were all pious and only needed instruction and confirmation. It was not a common thing to proclaim the terrors of a violated law and insist on the absolute necessity of regeneration."

Mr. Tennent himself describes this kind of popular preaching. "They often strengthened the hands of the wicked by promising them life. They comfort people before they convince them; sow before they plow: and are busy in raising a fabric before they lay a foundation. These foolish builders strengthen men's carnal security by their soft, selfish, cowardly discourses. They have not the courage or honesty to thrust the nail of terror into the sleeping souls!"

From 1736 through the 1740's, Gilbert Tennent's ministry was greatly blessed in promoting revival among the middle colonies in America. His ministry overlapped and supported the ministries of such godly men as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. He carried with him the very seeds of revival, and when he preached, REVIVAL FIRE FELL. It must be remembered that the American church in the 18th century would probably have died of dry rot without the Spirit-filled ministry, of Gilbert Tennent.

During one of Boston's most severe winters, people waded through the snow night and day for the benefit of hearing the fiery Tennent preach. "You could criticize him; you could praise him; but you could not ignore him!" No one slumbered peacefully when he was around; not even the church. Gilbert Tennent was in truth, the voice of one crying in the wilderness - REPENT!

He could boldly warn men of the wrath of God because he had boldly agonized and travailed for their souls, "Often his soul wept in secret for the pride and obstinacy of those who refused to be reclaimed." Throughout Tennent's ministry he kept his zeal and love for Christ fervent through constant prayer. "He made prayer his chief and most delightful employment."

Proverbs 27:1 says, "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." We have no promise of another day or even another hour, yet we too often live and breathe for the things of this world. What we desperately need is a revelation of eternity, of a real hell, and of a God who is to be loved and feared! If we truly had such a vision, we would not let one day go by without urgently warning the sinner and backslider. We would not let one hour go by without fervently praying for a true heaven sent revival.

John Wesley: **The First Great Awakening (1730s-1740's)**

On March 9th, 1791, when John Wesley was carried to his grave, he left behind him a good library of books, a well-worn clergyman's gown, and a much abused reputation. But also, an England moved to the very depths and a Church thrilled through and through with an awakened spiritual life. John Wesley was a man who truly possessed both apostolic vision and gifts, but most importantly he was a man who lived in view of eternity. "Consumed by the thought of the shortness of time, the great work to be done, and the need for haste in doing it, on he marched, preaching, pleading, warning and guiding."

John Wesley was a man mighty in faith and prayer. Time and again people possessed with devils were brought to him and in answer to prayer the demons were cast out. Not only were evil spirits cast out, but the sick were healed as well. As Wesley preached, the power of God often came upon his listeners, and hundreds would fall under the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, in answer, to prayer their souls and bodies were healed. A physician became offended at the cries of many who fell under the power of God. He attended Wesley's meeting and a lady he knew fell under the power. "Great drops of sweat ran down her face, and all her bones shook. But when both her soul and body were healed in a moment he acknowledged the finger of God." On another occasion when Wesley was travelling the preaching circuit, his horse suddenly became lame. With no one near to offer help, he stopped and prayed. "Immediately the horse's lameness was gone."

Wesley pleaded with men to repent and by faith make peace with God or suffer in an everlasting hell. People who had entertained false hopes of salvation had their religious masks torn away by his plain preaching. Wesley believed that those who failed to warn the sinner and backslider, themselves stood under the judgement of Christ. He was determined to declare the whole counsel of God, offering the love of God in Christ and giving warning of the dreadful consequences of rejecting the gospel. Wesley wrote, "Before I can preach love and grace, I must preach sin, law and judgement."

John Wesley, as well as the other early Methodist preachers, was both a bold advocate and a living example of sanctification. Wesley preached with unceasing zeal that complete holiness was the primary fruit of a vibrant faith in Christ. Counselling another minister, Wesley wrote, . . .till you press believers to expect full salvation from sin, you must not look for any revival."

If John Wesley were to make an anonymous visit to the Methodists of today, it is doubtful whether many of its churches would welcome him. They would most likely resent his fervent zeal and enthusiasm. When he was eighty-three he made a note that he was regretful that he could not write more than fifteen hours a day without hurting his eyes. Wesley faithfully preached almost up to the very day he died. Truly his vigour and zeal in old age were the reward of his faithful stewardship of time. He seemed to consider every thought, word and deed in light of eternity.

"Amid all his arduous labours, his innumerable engagements, his coming and going, Wesley lived a hidden life of intimacy with God. When worn out with overwork he often found new strength in answer to prayer." It was Wesley's strict habit to daily spend one hour in prayer in the morning, and then another hour in the evening. John Wesley shook the world by his preaching because he first shook heaven and hell with his praying. His preaching had a sense of eternal urgency because he had touched eternity on his knees.

William Bramwell **: The Evangelical Revival in Britain (1738-1790s)**

"For thus says the Lord...'Seek Me and Live'." (Amos 5:4). The life of William Bramwell is a vivid picture of one who followed hard after God and as a result truly lived. Motivated by a fervent love and a haunting view of eternity, William Bramwell sought the face of Jesus with all his heart. Mr. Bramwell's love for God was always increasing. The beauties of holiness inflamed his soul with an intense desire to be like God and in all things to glorify Him.

In a letter written by Mr. Bramwell in 1807 we get a glimpse of the driving passions that motivated his life. He writes, "Pray, O pray, my brother! never, never quit your hold of the fullness of God; for time is nearly over, and if this fullness be lost it will be lost forever. I am astonished that we do not pray more, yea, that we do not live every moment as on the brink of the eternal world, and in the blessed expectation of that glorious country."

Again he writes, "I grieve that my love is no stronger, and that I am no more like Him. I wonder at His glory, and sink before Him with shame. How is it that the soul being of such value, and God so great, eternity so near and yet we are so little moved?" William Bramwell sought to redeem every moment for the kingdom of God. Therefore he gave himself to prayer and intercession literally day and night. "He would spend two, three, four, five and sometimes six hours in prayer and reflection. He often entered his room at nine o'clock in the morning and did not leave till three in the afternoon."

Like all who enjoy such intense seasons of prayer, Mr. Bramwell exchanged his cares for the cares and sorrows of Jesus Christ. The weight of a lost world and a struggling Church, time and again brought him to his knees in travailing prayer. The Holy Spirit awakened in his heart a deep sympathy for perishing souls. He saw multitudes around him in the broad way to destruction, and longed to snatch them as brands from the fire. He wept over the impenitent and laboured to convince the gainsayers. He brought the terrors of the Law and the mild persuasives of the Gospel to bear upon the hearts of his hearers and thus urged them to flee from the wrath to come.

Year after year Mr. Bramwell's ministry of prayer and preaching produced lasting results. Churches were revived, the sick were healed and sinners were saved to the uttermost. Bramwell's success, without question was the fruit of his ever growing hunger for more of Jesus. By faith he reaped the rewards of his earnest and constant seeking. Are we as believers truly hungry for more of Jesus, or are we merely claiming the revival blessings of God, while never meeting the covenant conditions of a seeking heart? Proverbs 2:3-5 reminds us to cry out and lift up our voice for the riches of Christ.

To seek the ways of God like treasure, and THEN we will be rewarded with the fear and knowledge of God. If we are serious about seeing a real and lasting move of the Spirit, we must follow Bramwell's example and commit the BEST of our time and energy to seeking the face of Jesus in prayer.

John Oxtoby: **The Evangelical Revival in Britain (1738-1790s)**

  (Oxtoby's grave)

A call for revival presupposes the decline and weakness of the Church. The rise of the Primitive Methodists in the 19th century was the result of the decline of England's early Methodism. The Primitive Methodist movement endeavoured to return to the Christianity as taught and practiced by John Wesley. Only sixteen years after John Wesley's death, the English Methodist Conference found itself in conflict with some of its most zealous ministers. These ministers were eventually expelled from the Conference for holding camp meetings and open-air services.

Many in the Conference considered such meetings out of order and void of proper supervision. What had been esteemed by Wesley had become despised by his successors. Like the Wesley's, the Primitive Methodists followed the pillar of fire, rather than the traditions of men which make void the commandments of God. This pillar of revival fire is always best seen from the heights of bent and callused knees.

Chief among the Primitive Methodists' praying men was John Oxtoby, affectionately known as "Praying Johnny". Praying Johnny was not known for his culture or great intellect, he possessed neither. What he possessed was the faith that moves mountains. He was of average height, sharp features, light brown hair and brown eyes. His speech and words were not considered eloquent to the ears of men, yet they were always sweet to the Father's ear. Six hours each day he usually spent on his knees, pleading with God, in behalf of himself, the Church and sinners. The Primitive Methodists loved to preach, pray, sing and shout. John Oxtoby was certainly no exception to this rule. When travailing in anguish for a revival in the neighbourhood in which he was labouring and when deeply anxious to see the glory of the Lord revealed, he spent many hours in secluded retirement; and has sometimes in this manner devoted whole days and nights to God.

Praying Johnny not only exercised the power of prayer in the closet, but also in the public assembly. Often in answer to his public prayers whole assemblies were slain by the power of the Holy Spirit. Strong men struck with conviction fell to their knees and cried for mercy. Through the testimony of John Oxtoby's prayer life, Jesus Christ was seen not only as a God who hears, but also as a God who speaks. On behalf of despairing saints, Praying Johnny touched the heart of Jesus and brought back precise words of direction and encouragement.

The legendary story of Oxtoby's intercession for Filey illustrates his persistence in prayer. The town of Filey had resisted the efforts of many preachers and each one had been driven out until all efforts were abandoned. Oxtoby himself undertook the mission, and when he came within sight of Filey, he fell on his knees in agony of soul. Under a hedge he wrestled in prayer and wept and interceded for the success of his mission. A passing miller heard his voice and stopped in astonishment. The miller heard Johnny Oxtoby say, 'Will thou make a fool of me, God? I told them at Bridlington that thou was going to revive thy work, and thou must, or I shall never be able to show my face among them again, and then what will the people say about praying and believing?' He continued to plead for several hours. The struggle was long and heavy but he would not give in. At last he rose exclaiming, 'It is done, Lord, it is done! Filey is taken!' And it was. Fresh from the presence of God, Oxtoby entered Filey and began singing in the streets. 'Turn to the Lord and seek salvation' was his theme and soon a crowd of rough fishermen flocked to listen. The fire of God fell as he began to preach. Men trembled, hardened sinners wept and while he prayed many fell on their knees crying for mercy.

If our churches and communities are not radically transformed in the same way our Christian liberties will very soon be swept away by a tidal-wave of oppression and sin. Our nation is on the verge of self-destruction, and our only alternative is revival! As a nation we have continued to stray because the Church has stubbornly failed to pray!

John Smith: **The Evangelical Revival in Britain (1738-1790s)**

John Smith has often been called, "The Man with Calloused Knees". Though his name was quite common, there was nothing common about him. He was distinguished from countless others of the same name by the title of, "John Smith - the Revivalist". Like his father before him, he was respected as a zealous and passionate, preacher of the gospel.

He laboured among the Wesleyan Methodists in England, beginning in 1816. Like many of God's mighty men of prayer, Mr. Smith's life seemed to be cut short. After only 15 years of faithful service he died at age 37 in the year 1831.

"Constant communion with God was at the foundation of Mr. Smith's great usefulness. In this he was surpassed by none of any age. Whole nights were often given up to prayer." His day often literally revolved around times of travailing prayer. "He arose at four o'clock in the morning, and throwing himself before the mercy-seat, for three hours wrestled with God in mighty prayer. . . Immediately after breakfast and family worship he would again retire with his bible into his study, and spend until near noon in the same hallowed employment. Here unquestionably was the great secret of his power in public prayer and in preaching. The Lord who sees in secret, rewarded him openly. Every sermon was sanctified by prayer."

Often as he prayed he would wrestle with God till a considerable part of the floor of his study was wet with tears. Some may question if such sacrificial praying was really necessary. The worth of these extended seasons of prayer was obvious once Mr. Smith stepped into the pulpit. The following narrative gives us a brief glimpse of John Smith's anointed preaching. "The Spirit of God descended upon the congregation; the deep attentive silence at the commencement of the discourse was soon interrupted by sobs and moans and followed by loud and piercing cries for mercy as one after another the hearers were pricked to the heart, and the strongholds of Satan were beaten down." At other times as he preached the congregation would suddenly be struck with the reality of Christ's full salvation, and then spontaneously break out in loud shouts of joyful praise and celebration.

"Once towards the close of a meeting when penitents were crying aloud and believers, with scarcely less agony, were seeking a deeper baptism of the Holy Spirit, Mr. Smith's powerful voice might still be heard above the blended weeping and rejoicing, calling upon God for a larger blessing, 'a Pentecostal shower.'" Even after the meeting was closed the majority of the people stayed and prayed throughout the night.

Why did Mr. Smith pray and preach so passionately? Because he had entered into His Master's tender love for the lost and the hopeless souls around him. Mr. Calders stated of John Smith's deep love for the lost, "I have seen him come downstairs in the morning, after spending several hours in prayer with his eyes swollen with weeping - he would soon introduce the subject of his anxiety by saying, 'I am a broken-hearted man; yes, indeed I am an unhappy man; not for myself, but on account of others. God has given me such a sight of the value of precious souls, which I cannot live if souls be not saved. Oh, give me souls or else I die!'"

In these days of sin and perversion who can deny that the Church needs men of prayer like John Smith. The only thing worse than the present condition of our country, is that in the midst of it all, is a Church complacent and seeking the path of least resistance. Where are the men who pray and weep for revival? Where are the men who have strong convictions about something other than sports and business? Where are the men who long for perfect holiness and a burning love for Jesus? A man without godly convictions is not a man at all! He is merely dead weight, which drains his family and church of the precious strength they so desperately need. It's time to -"Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, and be strong." 1 Cor. 16:13.

James Caughey: **The Second Great Awakening (1790-1845)**

J. A. Stewart has rightly said, "Apart from the mighty enduement of the Spirit of Pentecost, all our Gospel services will be in vain. The natural, unregenerate man cannot comprehend the things of the Spirit. His darkened mind can only be enlightened by the divine intervention of God, the Holy Ghost. He cannot be argued, fascinated, bullied or enthused into accepting Christ as Savior. It is not enough that we clearly expound the Gospel. It must be given in the demonstration and power of the Spirit and then applied by Him." It was this burning revelation that radically transformed the ministry of a young Methodist preacher by the name of James Caughey.

James Caughey was born in Northern Ireland on April 9, 1810. The Caughey family later immigrated to America while James was still very young. By 1830 Mr. Caughey was working in a large flour mill in Troy, New York. Between the years of 1830-31, he was soundly converted, along with thousands of others during the Second Great Awakening in the "Burned-over District."

Two years after his conversion, he was admitted as a Methodist preacher into the Troy Conference. He was later ordained in 1834 as deacon and after two more years was finally ordained as an elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Initially he seemed to be merely another sincere but quite ordinary Methodist preacher. His first ministry labours were not distinguished by any uncommon results; therefore his friends and family did not entertain any lofty hopes for his future ministry. However, Mr. Caughey had already begun to embrace his own desperate need for a genuine upper room experience. He resolved to fully yield and entrust his ministry to the power and influence of the Holy Spirit. Burdened and burning with conviction, James Caughey vowed to God to always submit to the following points;

(1) The absolute necessity of the immediate influence of the Holy Ghost to impart power, efficacy, and success to a preached Gospel.

(2) The absolute necessity of praying more frequently, more fervently, more perseveringly, and more believingly for the aid of the Holy Spirit in my ministry.

(3) That my labours will be powerless, and comfortless, and valueless, without this aid; a cloud without water, a tree without fruit, dead and rootless; a sound uncertain, unctionless and meaningless; such will be the character of my ministry. It is the Spirit of God alone which imparts significance and power to the Word preached, without which, as one has expressed it, all the threatenings of the Bible will be no more than thunder to the deaf or lightning to the blind. A seal requires weight, a hand upon it in order to make an impression. The soul of the penitent sinner is the wax; Gospel truth is the seal, but without the Almighty hand of the Holy Ghost, that seal is powerless.

(4) No man has ever been significantly useful in winning souls to Christ without the help of the Spirit. With it the humblest talent may astonish earth and hell, by gathering into the path of life thousands for the skies, while without the Spirit, the finest and most splendid talents remain comparatively useless.

From this time Mr. Caughey's labours were more fruitful, but not so as to distinguish him above many other Methodist preachers of the day. He pastored and occasionally evangelized in the North-eastern United States until 1840. Caughey was then impressed of the Lord to leave his church and go preach in Britain. Almost immediately he began to minister with a new anointing and power. He obtained permission from the Methodist Conference to visit Europe, and quickly set out to bring reformation and revival to the heartland of Wesleyan Methodism. In July 1841, James Caughey arrived in Liverpool England and began an extensive tour of Britain that lasted until 1847. For nearly seven years Caughey was the ordained means of sparking revival in one industrial city after another all across Britain.

Throughout this continuous season of revival, Caughey preached on an average of six to ten times a week, resulting in 22,000 souls converted and thousands more refreshed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Mr. Caughey's revival ministry repeatedly emptied the public drinking houses and miraculously transformed entire communities. Most of his converts were young people, between the ages of sixteen and thirty years old. One of those especially impacted by Caughey's preaching was a tall and gangly youth named William Booth. Mr. Caughey's ministry gave the young Booth hope and courage to step out in faith and start a street preaching ministry in the forgotten city slums of England. This ministry quickly grew and was later officially established in 1878 under the name, "The Salvation Army".

Mr. Caughey's ministry consistently left an intense impact on all those who attended his meetings. Often his services were filled with the sounds of hundreds of hungry souls simultaneously sobbing and crying out for more of Jesus. In the autumn of 1843 in Hull England, Mr. Caughey recalled the following miraculous events:

"At this moment an influence, evidently from Heaven, came upon the people suddenly; it seemed like some mighty bursting of a storm of wind upon some extensive forest. The entire congregation was in motion; some preparing to flee from the place, and others in the act of prostrating themselves before the Lord God of hosts. Cries for mercy, and piercing supplications for purity of heart were heard from all parts of the agitated mass -in the galleries, as well as throughout the body of the chapel; While purified souls were exulting in the loftiest strains of adoration. The scene was, beyond description, grand and sublimely awful. It was God's own house, and heaven's gate. Poor sinners were amazed, and fled; but some of them fell down, some distance from the chapel, in terror and agony. Many however remained, repeating the publican's plea, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' My soul, full of holy awe, trembled before the majesty of God. Like Elijah, who covered his face in his mantle when the Lord passed by, I was glad to have a place of concealment in the bottom of the pulpit. The superintendent minister, the Rev. Thomas Martin, who was with me in the pulpit at the time, was so overpowered, that he could do nothing but weep and adore. Thus it continued for about twenty-five minutes, when the Lord stayed His hand, and there was a sudden and heavenly calm, full of sunshine and glory. The number converted and sanctified on that night was great. It appears the influence was almost as powerful outside the chapel as within. An unconverted man, who was standing outside at the time, waiting to accompany his wife home, said, when she came out, 'I don't know what has been going on in the chapel, or how you have felt, but there was a very strange feeling came over me while I was standing at the door.' A few such shocks of almighty power would turn the kingdom of the devil in any place or city upside down, and go far to convert the entire population."

On occasions the manifestations accompanying Mr. Caughey's ministry went far beyond the accepted norms usually associated with modern, English Methodism. As we have already noted, extended seasons of intense weeping and piercing cries were quite common in Caughey's meetings. However, there were also some occasional instances of a more drastic nature. In Ireland there were manifestations of exuberant jumping and rejoicing accompanied by others being violently overcome with uncontrollable shaking and trembling. As a result, it was not uncommon for Mr. Caughey to be accused of promoting emotional fanaticism by those who were resisting his reforms among the Wesleyan Methodists.

The following comments from Mr. Caughey's book "Revival Miscellanies" are indicative of how he responded to his critics. He writes, "I understand the design of such names as 'fanatics, enthusiasts, madmen, etc.' These names are fastened upon some of the zealous servants of God for the same purpose that the skins of wild beasts were put upon the primitive Christians by their persecutors, that they might more readily be torn in pieces by the hungry lions in the arena of the amphitheatre. Yet they were Christians still, notwithstanding these deforming skins, and so are we, though some cover us from head to foot with the hideous imputations of fanaticism."

Those who were closest to the revivalist were often asked how Mr. Caughey managed to consistently flow in the power of the Holy Spirit. The answer was almost always the same. -Knee work! Knee work! Knee work! This was his secret! James Caughey was a man committed to faith-filled, travailing prayer. "He spent many hours of each day on his knees, with his Bible spread open before him, asking wisdom from on high, and beseeching a blessing from God on the preaching of His Word. This was his almost constant employment between breakfast and dinner." Caughey's anointed ministry was merely the outward fruit of a lifestyle of constant praying in the Holy Ghost.

Mr. Caughey's lengthy revival ministry in Britain had brought about an unexpected refreshing among the common people of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. As a result, his ministry naturally empowered the growing, Methodist reform movement. These Methodist reformers sought to encourage spiritual renewal and ministry-participation among the common English people. They understood that a lasting revival would prepare and empower the common man to take his rightful place in the Church. Thus, they strongly supported James Caughey, as he challenged the Wesleyan people to return to the apostolic roots of John Wesley's Methodism. Eventually, Mr. Caughey was stubbornly opposed and censored by England's Methodist leadership. Finally, in 1847 Caughey reluctantly consented to close his revival meetings in England and quietly return to America.

Revivals are seasons of intense and rapid spiritual growth, and such growth always involves change. Growing children demand new and larger garments, just as growing trees need room for their expanding roots. The sincere seekers of lasting revival must be willing to change and yield to the Spirit's control. The wind, water, and fire of the Holy Ghost are ever moving elements that require plenty of room to breathe. We must beware of quenching and smothering the influence of the Holy Spirit by our predetermined preferences and stiff religious traditions. True revival will not come through our fleshly might or organizational power, but ONLY by God's Spirit! Have we given the Holy Spirit permission to change US?

Christmas Evans: **The Second Great Awakening (1790-1845)**

Mr. Evans, often called "the John Bunyan of Wales", was born on Christmas Day in 1766. "He was eminently a man of prayer. Prayer was his daily bread, the very breath of his spirit. He considered himself entitled, through Christ, to all the blessings of the gospel, and came boldly to the throne of grace in every time of need. During his whole ministerial life, much of his time was spent in the closet. It was his custom for many years, to retire for devotion three times during the day, and rise regularly for the same purpose at midnight."

"When he was about to preach at an association, or any important occasion, he would wrestle for hours with The Angel of the covenant, nor relinquish his hold till he felt himself 'endued with power from on high.' Then he came forth to the congregation, as Moses from the Tabernacle, when he had communed with God." This was his secret, to tarry in prayer until the anointing of the Spirit came. Although he was often shabbily dressed and awkward, large crowds came to hear him preach and often there were tears, weeping and an uncontrollable excitement.

"On his arrival in Angleses, he found ten small Baptist societies, in lukewarm and distracted condition; himself the only minister, and no brother to aid him within a hundred and fifty miles. He commenced his labours in earnest. One of his first movements was the appointment of a day of fasting and prayer in all the preaching places. He soon had the satisfaction to realize an extensive revival, which continued under his faithful ministry for many years."

Those who witnessed this great season of spiritual blessing reported that the people were often so affected by Evans' sermons that they literally danced for joy. As a result they were nicknamed, "Welsh Jumpers". Others said the people seemed like the inhabitants of a city shaken by an earthquake, they rushed into the streets, falling upon the ground, screaming and calling upon God.

"In 1794, the South West Baptist Association was held in Carmarthenshire. Mr. Evans was invited, as one of the preachers on the occasion. It was a journey of about 200 miles. He undertook it on foot, with his usual fortitude, preaching at different places as he went along. The meeting was to commence with three consecutive sermons, the last of which was to be preached by Mr. Evans. The service was outdoors, and the heat was very oppressive. Mr. Evans arose and began his sermon. Before he had spoken fifteen minutes, scores of people were on their feet, some weeping, some praising, some leaping and clapping their hands for joy. Nor did the effect end with the discourse. Throughout the evening, and during the whole night, the voice of rejoicing and prayer was heard in every direction; and the dawning of the next day, awakening the few that had fallen asleep from fatigue, only renewed the heavenly rapture."

Christmas Evans knew how to pray and therefore knew the power of the Holy Ghost. He viewed prayer, not as a passive or a casual thing, but as a responsibility that must be PRACTICED. In a sermon preached on the Holy Spirit, he reminds us of this often neglected truth. "Christ is making intercession on our behalf without us and independently of us. But the Holy Spirit is making intercession through us, pleading in our prayers with groanings that cannot be uttered. He never acts without us. He inspires us to pray, but the act of prayer is our own. He works in us to will and to do His good pleasure. But He does not will and do for us!" If we are going to see revival WE must pray!

Charles G. Finney: **The Second Great Awakening (1790-1845)**

Like the prophet Jeremiah, Charles G. Finney was anointed of God to "root out" and to "plant" in the Lord's vineyard, (Jer. 1:10). He was a man of intense prayer, purity and passion. Emptied of self, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. His sermons were chain lightning, flashing conviction into the hearts of the stoutest sceptics. Simple as a child in his utterances, he sometimes startled his hearers by his unique prayers.

He could thunder the judgments of God upon sin with great liberty and power and then offer the mercy of the gospel with tenderness and tears. Without question he was a prophetic voice to 19th century America. His ministry consistently produced revivals, even in areas considered hardened and unreceptive to the gospel. Finney's autobiography is filled with accounts of powerful manifestations of the Spirit. On one occasion when Finney was preaching in a school house, "suddenly an awful solemnity fell upon the assembly and the congregation fell from their seats, crying for mercy." Finney said, "If I had had a sword in each hand I could not have cut them off as fast as they fell. I think the whole congregation was on their knees or prostrated in two minutes." The crying and weeping of the people was so loud that Finney's exhortation of Christ's mercy could not even be heard.

Finney seemed so anointed with the Holy Spirit that people were often brought under conviction of sin just by looking at him. When holding meetings at Utica, New York, he visited a large factory. At the sight of him one of the workers, and then another, and then another broke down and wept under a sense of their sins, and finally so many were sobbing and weeping that the machinery had to be stopped while Finney pointed them to Christ.

Finney seems to have had the power of impressing the conscience of men with the necessity of holy living in such a manner as produced lasting results. "Over eighty-five in every hundred persons professing conversion to Christ in Finney's meetings remained true to God. Whereas seventy percent of those professing Christ in meetings of even so great an evangelist as Moody afterward became backsliders.

Such results were the fruit of hours and hours of prayer. It was not Finney's prayers alone that secured such heaven sent revivals. Finney's was supported by the prayers of two of God's hidden treasures. It was the hidden, yet powerful intercessions of "Father Nash" and Abel Clary that laid the ground work for these mighty moves of God. "Abel Clary was converted about the same time as Finney, and was licensed to preach also, but he had such a burden of prayer that he could not preach much. His whole time and strength was given to prayer. He would writhe and groan in agony, unable to stand under the weight." "After Clary's death Finney discovered Clary's prayer journal. Finney found in the exact order of the burden laid upon Clary's heart was the order of blessing poured upon his ministry.

Father Nash lived a life of almost continual intercession. He joined himself with Finney, kept a prayer list and was no doubt the secret of much of Finney's marvellous success. He did not preach and often did not go to the meetings, but remained in his room, or in the woods, wrestling with God in mighty prayer. Often before daybreak people could hear Father Nash for half a mile or more in the woods, or in a church praying, and the sense of God's presence was overwhelming. The Church must do more than esteem the history of men like Charles Finney, Father Nash and Able Clary. If we are going to experience revival we must repent and practice the truths they declared; truths of a holy and pure life; truths of hidden intercession and an uncompromising love for Jesus!

Edward Griffin: **The Second Great Awakening (1790-1845)**

On the heels of the First Great Awakening in America came the French and Indian War, the War of Independence, false French philosophies and widespread infidelity. It was a time of great discouragement for the Church in America. Yet, when things seemed the darkest, the fires of revival once again broke forth. From the rough western frontier of Kentucky to the halls of Yale and Princeton, the country suddenly seemed to be consumed with only seeking Christ. Beginning in 1790 and continuing for the next 45 years, America entered into a remarkable era called the Second Great Awakening.

One of the forgotten giants of this age of continuous revival was Edward Griffin. The history of his life seems little less than the history of one unbroken revival; and it would perhaps be difficult to name the individual in our country since the days of Whitefield who has been instrumental of an equal number of hopeful conversions. Had Edward Griffin lived at an earlier time, he would have certainly been recognized as a true man of God, yet he came into God's harvest fields during the springtime of revival. He burst upon the scene at the precise moment when all was made ready by divine providence and prayer. Mr. Griffin's ministry was blessed from its inception with great success.

A hearer of Mr. Griffin in New Jersey in 1829 gives us a description of his preaching and of the love and brokenness which gave that preaching its power. During most of the sermon his face was wet with tears, and for nearly an hour he spoke to us with such tender and appealing sentences that it seemed as if his hearers must cry out in an agony of fear and trembling . . . But what a climax the ending was! It was a wonder how he endured the strain so long and that he had not given up physically exhausted. The mental agony, the heartbreaking sympathy, was enough to break an angel down! When he fell on his knees as if he had been knocked on the head with an axe, with outstretched arms, tears coursing down his face, he cried out; 'Oh! my dying fellow sinners, I beseech you to give your heart to the Saviour now. Give your life to Jesus Christ, do not put it off! Do not leave this house without dedicating yourself to His service, lest you be left at last to cry, the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved.'

The instruments of true revival are always fashioned by God in the secret place of prayer. Edward Griffin was always aware of his own need of gaining a daily glimpse of Jesus in prayer. Describing the transforming effects of such moments Mr. Griffin writes, "it is only when with open face we behold the glory of the Lord that we are changed from glory to glory. A view of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ is the faith which purifies and produces good works. When God is seen in all the majesty of His glory, in the awful purity of His holiness, the Christian cannot, dare not wilfully sin. He pants after universal purity with groanings that cannot be uttered. This is the faith 'which worketh by love.' Under the influence of these views the Christian knows what it is to be moved to action by the love of God in Christ. . . "

Even as an old man Edward Griffin was still pursuing a greater degree of intimacy with Christ. Thirsting for more of Jesus he wrote, "I long and pray for high communion with God and for affections more ardent and delightful than I ever felt before." This is the kind of revival we need, a revival of loving and longing for Jesus. As a nation our walls are broken down and our gates are burned. This nation is crumbling from within because the very foundation of the Church has slipped. No longer is Christ alone all-sufficient for all our needs. Jesus has become far less than preeminent among the very ones who claim His name. The brick and mortar of our fleshly methods have failed to repair the spiritual breaches of our walls. How long shall we try in vain to repair our outer walls while God's house of prayer still lies neglected and in ruins?

Edward Payson: **The Second Great Awakening (1790-1845)**

E. M. Bounds in his classic little book "Power Through Prayer", wrote, "What the Church needs today is not more or better machinery, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer."

Edward Payson was just such a man; a man mighty in prayer. He prayed without ceasing and felt safe nowhere but at the throne of grace. He may be said to have studied theology on his knees. Much of his time he spent literally prostrated with his Bible open before him pleading the promise; I will send the comforter and when He, The Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth.

Payson's advice to his fellow ministers was, "prayer is the first thing, the second thing and the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray then my dear brother, pray, pray." It has been well said that the secret of Edward Payson's ministry was that he prayed much in secret. The scars on his bedroom floor testify to this fact. Next to Payson's bed where deep grooves in the hardwood floor were his knees had pressed repeatedly in times of travail.

To read "Praying Payson's diary is to be touched by his heart longings and tender love for Jesus and the lost. On January 4, 1807, he wrote, "I was favoured with a spirit of prayer beyond all my former experience. I was in great agony and wrestled both for myself and others with great power. God seemed to bow the heavens and come down and open all His treasures, bidding me, take what I would."

January 29th, "I never felt such longings after God or such a desire to depart to be with Christ. My soul thirsted for more full communion with my God and Saviour. I do not now feel satisfied as I used to with the manifestations of the divine presence, but still feel hungry and craving."

February 18th, "I was enabled to lie at Jesus' feet and to wash them with the tears of contrition. No pleasure I have ever found in the Christian life is superior to this." February 28th, "I was favoured with great enlargement in prayer. I seemed to be carried out of myself into the presence of God."

Like all true men of prayer, Payson understood the need for true humility. It was the burden of his secret prayers that he might be delivered from pride, from self-seeking, from preaching himself instead of Christ Jesus the Lord. Through humility and fervent prayer he was always in hopes of seeing a fresh wave of revival. The revivals which took place under his labours where numerous and where characterized by a depth and power seldom seen. Often Payson congregation was overwhelmed with a sense of Christ's presence and power and irresistibly brought to tears.

Mr. Payson's diary testifies of the power and necessity of prayer for revival. September 27th, "In the evening I was favoured with great faith and fervency in prayer. It seemed as if God would deny me nothing, and I wrestled for multitudes of souls, and could not help hoping there would be revival here." September 28th, "I was favoured with the greatest degree of freedom and fervency in interceding for others. I seemed to travail in birth with poor sinners and could not help hoping the God is about to do something for His glory and the good of souls." Within days, Praying Payson saw his prayers answered through a fresh work of revival power.

On April 23rd, 1808, Edward Payson wrote, "My heart seemed ready to break with its longings after holiness." Such longings for heart purity, revival power and the person of Jesus are the marks of a healthy and normal Christian life. The lack of these precious things in the modern Church reveal a nominal Christian life. Too much of what is called the Church today is not fit to live or die. The nominal Christian is unfit to deal with our demon possessed age or the coming judgment seat of Christ. Truly the Church's greatest need is for men and women, mighty in prayer. We need men and women who will pray and yearn for revival. Lord make us a praying people!

John Wesley Redfield: **The Second Great Awakening (1790-1845)**

The following from the pen of Catherine Booth should shake all who are lukewarm and indifferent. She writes, "Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. He does not care what we do if he can do that. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don't wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work - to wake people up."

John Wesley Redfield was a man who awakened both the sleeping sinner and careless Christian. When Mr. Redfield prayed or preached men and women were touched by Jesus and went home different than when they came. Under the influence of Mr. Redfield's ministry, the slaves of sin were brought to repentance and totally set free. Wherever he preached, church after church seemed to be effected in the same way.

On one occasion Mr. Redfield entered the pulpit with an especially intense and heavy burden pressing upon his heart. Without hesitation he began his message by clearly describing all those who had lived in the church for years without true saving grace; who had sat under the most searching gospel ministry; who had seen the truth lived out before them and yet rejected it all. With passion he warned all those who had shunned the narrow path of repentance and the cross of Christ.

As Mr. Redfield spoke the Holy Spirit brought a shaking conviction of sin upon the entire congregation. Some cried out, some fell prostrate before they could get to the altar, and others fell at the altar. The slain lay in some places totally helpless, one upon another until the aisles were closed for hours. At this exact same time, people miles away also fell under the power of God in the seclusion of their homes.

John Wesley Redfield said of himself, "God has made me a rough man and given me a rough gospel for rough hearts." He preached holiness forcibly everywhere he went. This sometimes aroused great opposition, but it also brought great results. Dead churches were revived, new ones were built and the sick were often healed. Mr. Redfield's doctrine and anointing were not borrowed from books, but born in prayer. Frequently he would groan as if in the throes of death as he wrestled in prayer; then the victory would come. People shouted, prayed and confessed, many lost their strength and did not regain it until they promised obedience to God.

Such manifestations of God's power frequently followed his ministry. Under Redfield's preaching in New York, people would run out the back doors of the meeting house trying to avoid the conviction of the Holy Spirit. They would then fall helpless in the streets under the power of God. When found later, they were assumed to be drunk and taken to jail. The first night this occurred the officers marvelled, as one after another the once rebellious sinners, recovered, repentant and praising God.

The key to John Wesley Redfield's success was his total and unrelenting dependence upon Jesus Christ. Through many trials he had learned that he could truly do nothing apart from Jesus. Is it not true, that much of our failure to bring forth lasting change lies at the feet of our own self-dependence and pride? We must recover our simplicity and joy of devotion to Jesus. We must repent and put away our methods and programs of self-reliance and once again embrace the "better part" of sitting at the feet of Jesus in humility and prayer. (Luke 10:38-42)

Andrew Bonar: **The Kilsyth Revival in Scotland (1839 -1842)**

Truly great men, seldom recognize their own worth. Such a great man was Andrew Bonar. His diary is a virtual text book on the qualities of brokenness and humility. Almost every page seems to be filled with expressions of his transparency and sense of unworthiness apart from Jesus Christ. For the true saint the path of brokenness leads straight to the throne of grace. Andrew Bonar was no exception to this divine rule.

Marjory Bonar, Mr. Bonar's daughter, describes his diary as a "revelation of one who prayed always and who prayed everywhere." John J. Murray wrote of Andrew Bonar, "He did not believe in any shortcut to holiness and usefulness in the work of God. He knew that the one and only way to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ was daily and hourly communion with the Father and the Son".

Andrew Bonar, himself wrote, "There is too much time taken up with active work for the Kingdom. Surely if God's servants are to speak and preach in the power of the Holy Spirit they must again give themselves continually to prayer."

Andrew Bonar was just one of many Scottish ministers used of God during the Kilsyth Revival of 1839-1840. The ministers most honoured by Christ's presence during this time of refreshing were W. C. Burns, Robert Murray McCheyne, Alexander Moody Stuart and Andrew Bonar. All of these men were close friends who encouraged one another in the practice of constant prayer.

Soon after the decline of the Kilsyth Revival, Andrew Bonar Said, "I have learned by experience that it is not much labour but much prayer that is the only means to success." Mr. Bonar was able to accomplish much with men in public because he spent much time with Jesus Christ in private. The daily entries of Bonar's diary testify of this fact. He wrote on January 3rd, 1856, "I have been endeavouring to keep up prayer at this season every hour of the day, stopping my occupation, whatever it is, to pray a little. I seek to keep my soul within the shadow of the throne of grace and Him that sits thereon." Sabbath, March 8th - "I feel afraid of myself on the ground that I am less prayerful than I used to be, although often more helped in preaching then ever."

On Wednesday, 24th he penned, "Oh my God, never let me walk even in the green pastures, without thee! I feel glad to live as a pilgrim and stranger, and more, far more than before, I seek by prayer and strong crying in secret to see God glorified in the salvation of souls."

In a letter to a close friend Andrew Bonar wrote, "Oh brother pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer, rather neglect friends than not pray, rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, supper and sleep too \- than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer - we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softly while The Virgins Slumber."

Andrew Bonar lived in a time of revival and yet he was always praying for more of God's revival power. His diary again makes this clear. Wednesday, 21st, - "Enabled to spend nearly the whole day in prayer, praise and confession. I was led to deep humiliation for our church, and prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on my people. I spread out several promises before the Lord, and my heart was sore with desire and yet glad with expectation of what this day may obtain for me. But I find true what Samuel Rutherford wrote: 'A bed watered with tears, a throat dry with praying, eyes a fountain of tears for the sins of the land are rarely to be found among us.'"

Andrew Bonar was a man who was intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ. As a result he saw what Jesus saw and therefore cared, wept and prayed like Jesus. Far too often our own eyes are dry because our eyes are blind to the needs around us. Many of us have become blinded by the temporal, till we can no longer see the eternal reality of the holiness of heaven and horrors of hell. Lord draw us back to the prayer closet where blind eyes see and hardened hearts are broken. Lord, have mercy and bring us to brokenness!

William C. Burns: **The Kilsyth Revival in Scotland (1839 -1842)**

In September of 1840 Scotland's famous praying pastor, Robert Murray M'Cheyne wrote a letter to William C. Burns. He writes, "I am deepened in my conviction, that if we are to be instruments in ( A TRUE REVIVAL ) we must be purified from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Oh cry for personal holiness, constant nearness to God by the blood of the Lamb! Bask in His beams, - lie back in the arms of love, - be filled with the Spirit, or all success in the ministry will only be to your own everlasting confusion."

William C. Burns, like M'Cheyne, was not merely a man of hopeful theories and empty words. Through his fervent praying and preaching, literally thousands witnessed the tangible glory of God. From an early age, William C. Burns heart was broken for a lost and dying world. The story is told that when he was seventeen he was brought by his mother from the quiet town of KiIsyth to the bustling city of Glasgow. His mother was separated from her son while she was shopping. After retracing her steps she discovered him in an alley with tears streaming down his face. She could see he was suffering great agony and said, "Willie my boy, what ails you? Are you ill?" With broken cries he replied, "Oh, mother, mother - the thud of these Christless feet on the way to hell breaks my heart"

The spiritual eyes of young William Burns had caught a glimpse of the everlasting horrors of a Christless eternity. This vision no doubt helped shape this young man who would later become one of the key instruments in the great Kilsyth Revival of 1839. He often found himself being driven to his knees in almost constant intercession. "He wept for hours in deep soul agony on behalf of a backslidden church and the lost souls going to hell." His ministry was consistently marked by a divine urgency and intensity. As a result, his preaching produced extraordinary results.

Mr. Burns recalls a time during the Kilsyth Revival when strong men fell powerless under the power of the Gospel hammer. "During the whole time that I was speaking, the people listened with the most solemn attention. At last their feelings became too strong and broke forth in weeping and wailing, tears and groans, intermingled with shouts of glory and praise from some of the people of God. The appearance of a great part of the people gave me a vivid picture of the state of the ungodly in the day of Christ's coming to judgement. Some were screaming out in agony. Strong men fell to the ground as if they were dead. Such was the general commotion even after repeating for some time the most free and urgent invitations of the Lord to sinners."

Later, William C. Burns learned that the night before this powerful meeting a group of believers had gathered to labour in prayer for the lost and ungodly. During those wonderful days of revival glory it was not uncommon for Mr. Burns and many others to fervently pray and travail throughout the night. As a result the glory of God fell day after day. Again, William C. Burns describes for us the miraculous affect of the Spirit of revival. He writes, "At the conclusion of a solemn address to some anxious souls suddenly the power of God seem to descend, and all were bathed In tears. It was like a pent-up flood breaking forth. Tears were streaming from the eyes of many and some fell on the ground crying for mercy... The whole town was moved. The ungodly raged but the word of God grew mightily and prevailed."

Even after being used of God to turn Scotland upside down, William C. Burns' passion for souls was still unsatisfied. He was soon off to China to preach the gospel to those who had never heard the precious name of JESUS! He was recognized as the premier revivalist of his day, and yet he joyfully surrendered himself to a life of obscurity and hardship on the neglected mission fields of China. No other episode in Burns' wonderful life reveals more about his sterling character than this one decision. In so doing he left popularity, prestige, wealth and loved ones all behind. When he was asked when he would be ready to leave for China, his answer was, "NOW".

He boldly declared, "I am ready to burn out for God. I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some. The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard." On another occasion Burns was heard to say, "The longing of my heart would be to go once around the world before I die, and preach one gospel invitation in the ear of every creature." His own mother likened him to a sharp knife that would be worn out by cutting, rather than by rusting; and the young Burns wished that it might be so!

In 1855, William C. Burns unexpectedly met a young missionary in China by the name of James Hudson Taylor. This seemingly random meeting resulted in a great blessing for both men. William Burns found in Hudson Taylor a man after his own heart, and for seven months they walked together as kindred souls and fellow-labourers. Mr. Burns also recognized the warm reception Hudson Taylor received by the Chinese, while ministering in the native Chinese dress. Burns was quick to learn from his new friend and soon adopted this practice for himself. The impact made upon the youthful Taylor by the experienced Scotsman is clearly seen in Hudson Taylor's journals and letters. "Never had I had such a spiritual father as Mr. Burns", wrote Hudson Taylor.

The autobiographical work of Hudson Taylor, "A Retrospect" gives a further account of the deep impression that Burns had on him. He writes, "Those happy months were an unspeakable joy and privilege to me. His love for the Word was delightful, and his holy, reverential life and constant communing with GOD made fellowship with him satisfying to the deep cravings of my heart. His accounts of revival work and of persecutions in Canada, and Dublin, and in Southern China were most instructive, as well as interesting; for with true spiritual insight he often pointed out GOD'S purposes in trial in a way that made all life assume quite a new aspect and value. His views especially about evangelism as the great work of the Church, and the order of lay evangelists as a lost order that Scripture required to be restored, were seed-thoughts which were to prove fruitful in the subsequent organization of the China Inland Mission"

"We were in the habit of leaving our boats, after prayer for blessing, at about nine o'clock in the morning, with a light bamboo stool in hand. Selecting a suitable station, one would mount the stool and speak for twenty minutes, while the other was pleading for blessing; and then changing places, the voice of the first speaker had a rest. After an hour or two thus occupied, we would move on to another point at some distance from the first, and speak again. Usually about midday we returned to our boats for dinner, fellowship, and prayer, and then resumed our out-door work until dusk. After tea and further rest, we would go with our native helpers to some tea-shop, where several hours might be spent in free conversation with the people. Not infrequently before leaving a town we had good reason to believe that much truth had been grasped; and we placed many Scriptures and books in the hands of those interested." Another missionary to China was once asked. "Do you know William Burns?" The missionary replied, "Know him? All China knows him to be the holiest man alive!"

William C. Burns was driven by an all-consuming passion for the Lamb of God. In Burns, God found a man who truly cared. He cared enough to listen, obey, and stay on his knees. William Burns recognized that shallow and superficial praying was one of the greatest hindrances to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He believed that a lack of true endurance in the secret place of prayer gives the victory to Satan.

Burns writes, "Many who do come into the secret place, and who are God's children, enter it and leave it just as they entered, without ever so much as realizing the presence of God. And there are some believers who, even when they do obtain a blessing, and get a little quickening of soul, leave the secret place without seeking more. They go to their chamber, and there get into the secret place, but then, as soon as they have got near to Him, they think they have been peculiarly blessed, and leave their chamber, and go back into the world... Oh, how is it that the Lord's own people have so little perseverance? How is it that when they do enter into their place of prayer to be alone, they are so easily persuaded to be turned away empty; instead of wrestling with God to pour out His Spirit, they retire from the secret place without the answer, and submit to it as being God's will."

In Ezekiel 22:30,31, the prophet warns us of what happens when God cannot find true men and women of broken-hearted prayer and obedience. - "So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found no one. "Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads, says the Lord God." Who among us will STAND In the gap and pray, and then pray again until heaven comes down to earth?

**References:** The Memoirs of William C. Burns by Islay Burn, William C. Burns by James A. Stewart, The Memoirs and Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne by Andrew A. Bonar, Robert Murray McCheyne by Alexander Smellie, Revival Sermons by William C. Burns, The Revival of Religion: Addresses by Scottish Evangelical Leaders delivered in Glasgow in 1840, Narratives of Revivals of Religion in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales by The Presbyterian Board of Publication, Scotland Saw His Glory by W. J. Couper, A Retrospect by J. Hudson Taylor, Hudson Taylor in Early Years: The Growth of a Soul by Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor: The Man Who Believed God by Marshall Broomhall, The Story of the China Inland Mission by M. Geraldine Guinness, The Jubilee Story of the China Inland Mission by Marshall Broomhall

Robert Murray McCheyne: **The Kilsyth Revival in Scotland (1839 -1842)**

"It is not how long you live, but how you live that counts." Robert Murray M'Cheyne was a living example of this often neglected truth. At twenty-three years old he was ordained and inducted into the church of St. Peters at Dundee. At thirty years old he finished his course, dying in the spring of 1843. Like John the Baptist and the Saviour Himself, M'Cheyne ushered in Christ's kingdom in just a few short years. It was during his brief public ministry that Scotland experienced one of its greatest revivals. From 1839-1842 much of Scotland was turned upside down through the Spirit-filled labours of W. C. Burns and Robert Murray M'Cheyne.

For every time M'Cheyne directed men to look at their sins he pointed them ten times to look on Jesus. This was the key to his tender and passionate preaching. To him Christ was not just one of many theological concepts in a message, Christ Jesus was the message! M'Cheyne's power in the pulpit was the result of his intimate knowledge of Jesus. He could boldly say, "I am better acquainted with Jesus Christ than I am with any man in the world." Often as he preached the entire congregation was brought to tears. M'Cheyne's diary and letters describe for us some of these precious meetings. He wrote, "It was like a pent-up flood breaking forth; tears were streaming from the eyes of many, and some fell on the ground groaning and weeping and crying for mercy."

At other times men and women were so overcome with grief and conviction that they literally had to be carried out of the church - "In some areas whole congregations were frequently moved as one man, and the voice of the minister was drowned out by the cries of anxious souls." M'Cheyne's voice, eyes and gestures spoke of the tenderness of Christ. It was not Robert Murray M'Cheyne the people saw, it was Jesus. M'Cheyne declared, "A man cannot be a faithful minister, until he preaches Christ for Christ's sake - until he gives up striving to attract people to himself and seeks only to attract them to Christ."

Perhaps more powerful than M'Cheyne's preaching was his praying. To him the prayer closet was a refuge of fellowship, holiness and intercession. M'Cheyne's diary and letters are replete with examples of his prayerful life. He wrote, "I rose early to seek God, and found Him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company?" "King Jesus is a Good Master. I have had some sweet seasons of communion with the unseen God which I would not give up for thousands worth of gold and silver."

Only a few months before his death M'Cheyne drew up some considerations concerning "Reformation in Secret Prayer". "I ought", said M'Cheyne, "to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. It is my noblest and most fruitful employment." It is said that Robert Murray M'Cheyne had a special place in his church where he would pour over the names on the church role and weep with groans of intercession. Though only a young man, M'Cheyne possessed that rarest of jewels; a TRUE shepherd's heart. M'Cheyne fervently laboured among the people of Dundee, as if he somehow knew he would soon die. He was a man motivated by eternity. He wrote, "As I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell. Oh how I wished that I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear; or that I had a frame like iron, that I might visit every one and say, 'Escape for thy life! Ah sinner! You little know how I fear that you will lay the blame of your damnation at my door.'"

To love Jesus is to love holiness. Many professing Christians shrink from the message of purity and thus draw back from the Savior they claim to love. Robert Murray M'Cheyne understood the necessity of a holy life. He wrote, "Study holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister, a lover of praise, and pleasure, he has ruined your ministry. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear, and your heart is full of God's Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin."

Lying upon his deathbed with a raging fever, M'Cheyne lifted his hands in prayer, he exclaimed, "This parish Lord, this people, this whole place." Robert Murray M'Cheyne ended his life like he lived it, full of fervent prayer.

Alexander Moody Stuart : **The Kilsyth Revival in Scotland (1839 -1842)**

What Adam lost in the garden, through Christ can be found on our knees! Clearly Alexander Moody Stuart was no stranger to this blessed truth. Day and night he enjoyed the paradise of fellowship with the Father through prayer. Agonizing, fervent prayer was his constant habit. "He often seemed to wrestle in prayer like Jacob at Peniel saying, "I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me."' As a result, his congregation was often more deeply affected by his public praying than by his preaching.

Mr. Moody Stuart always considered the weekly prayer meeting as the most vital and effectual service held in the church. "He prayed much both in public and in the family for seasons of revival, and constantly stirred up others to pray and labour for this, being fully aware of the general apathy in regard to it." He ministered with anointed men of God like W. C. Burns and Andrew Bonar during the Scottish Revival of 1839. He also prayerfully supported Brownlow North in the Ulster Revival of 1859.

It is said of Alexander Moody Stuart that when he preached he brought men face to face with God Almighty. Like M'Cheyne, he directed men to look at Christ ten times for every time they looked at themselves. He tenderly pleaded with men to embrace Jesus Christ as one who could be known, loved and trusted. All of this flowed out of his own intimate relationship with the Saviour. Mr. Moody Stuart's Christianity was nothing less than a fervent and longing passion for Jesus.

He spent hours in prayer and instruction with his family and church. He laboured for the lost and perishing with unceasing zeal. But it is obvious from his devotional diary that, "God was far more to him than all else, and all others." His diary reads, "During the night I usually awake every hour and a half or two hours, when I strike a light and read a few verses of the Bible, which seldom fail to bring delight and quickening, with food for meditation and prayer...Last night I read the words of Christ, 'Behold My hands and My feet, that is I Myself: handle Me and see.' What will it be to handle for ourselves and to kiss those blessed feet, with the prints of the nails that fastened Him to the cross for our redemption and resurrection?"

On another occasion he writes, "On awaking this morning Jesus Christ drew very, very near to me, in a way as never quite the same before. He manifested Himself to me with inconceivable loving-kindness and tenderness and holy intimacy. He moved and constrained me to answer, 'My Lord Jesus,' with the softening and the love of my whole heart." As Mr. Moody Stuart gave himself to more prayer, he entered into an ever increasing hunger for the tangible presence of Jesus.

He writes, "The hope of eternal life is surprisingly wonderful and glorious; to be with God and in God forever - The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. When a brief time of communion here is so satisfying to the whole heart and mind, and so fills the soul in its inmost recesses to overflowing, what must it be to be filled with the fullness of God throughout all eternity."

Mr. Moody Stuart considered a life spent in sacrifice and prayer as the natural response to Christ's unfailing love. He mourned the fact that "many are willing that Christ should be something, but few will consent that Christ should be everything." His whole ministry was shaped by long hours spent in prayer. He was faithful and loving husband because he had been touched by the Lover of his soul in prayer. He was a tender and patient father because he had an intimate knowledge of God the Father through prayer. He was a faithful pastor to his church because he had beheld the Good Shepherd in times of prayer.

Is it not true that our weakness and failure often come from our desperate lack of knowing Christ in prayer? Oh that we would be a people driven by a consuming love and devotion for Jesus, ever longing for His Holy presence. God help us to be a people given to constant prayer.

**William Booth: The Third Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)**

On April 9th 1865, Lee met Grant in the parlour of a private home at Appomattox Court House. He surrendered his army and brought an end to four long years of death and devastation called the Civil War. In the same year a 36 year old Englishman by the name of William Booth declared war on the powers of darkness by founding the Salvation Army.

One of the most effective weapons in General Booth's arsenal was fervent prayer. It was not unusual for Booth to hold "an all night of prayer" when he came to preach the Word of God. People would flood the altars everywhere he went. "The power of God was wonderfully manifest in the meetings . . . people were frequently, struck down, overwhelmed with a sense of the presence and power of God."

The Salvation Army's success at freeing the captives was uncanny, especially when one considers those who it strived to reach. General Booth's battle cry was "Go for souls and go for the worst." The worst of sinners were saved, saloons were closed and entire cities were shaken. Booth's success attracted not only supporters but also enemies. Those who served in the Army were pelted with hot coals, sprayed with tar and burning sulphur, beat, stoned and even kicked to death in the streets. The Salvation Army resisted their enemies with a cheerful "God bless you", and a prayer. General Booth, himself was often in the thick of it. When spit on during the Midlands tour, Booth encouraged his fellow soldiers, "Don't rub it off - it's a medal!"

Night after night Booth would come home bleeding and bruised after being attacked for preaching in the slums of England. After such nights of testing he would take his wife's hand and say, "Kate, let me pray with you." After praying with Catherine he would rise from his knees armed with fresh courage and hope. Booth needed all the valour his wife Catherine could inspire in him. She encouraged him, "if we get tired we had better go and be done with, anything is better than a dead church." Despite the grinding pressures of the ministry the Booths had a happily united family. The General had nine children and loved to play and romp with them, especially in their favourite game of "Fox and Geese."

Once while travelling, General Booth's car was detained. He took advantage of the opportunity and exhorted some idle factory workers. He said, "Some of you men never pray, you gave up praying long ago. But I'm going to say to you; won't you pray for your children, that they may be different?" Within minutes, 700 men knelt in silent prayer.

At another time, two Salvation Army officers set out to found a new work, only to meet with failure and opposition. Frustrated and tired they appealed to the General to close the rescue mission. General Booth sent back a telegram with two words on it, "TRY TEARS." They followed his advice and they witnessed a mighty revival.

During the course of William Booths ministry he travelled 5,000,000 miles and preached 60,000 sermons. God help us in this desperate and distracted day in which we live to heed the General's advice. "Work as if everything depended upon your work, and pray as if everything depended upon your prayer."

E. M. Bounds: **The Third Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)**

E. M. Bounds in his book "Prayer and Praying Men", wrote "Elijah learned new and higher lessons of prayer while hidden away by God and with God . . " This statement is certainly also true of its author. E. M. Bounds was a man hidden away by God and with God in prayer.

During his lifetime he never attracted a large following or gained the success and reputation that one might expect. After forty-six years of faithful ministry he still was virtually unknown. Out of the eight classics on prayer he wrote, only two were published during his lifetime. Though hidden and unrecognized while alive, E.M. Bounds is now considered by most evangelicals as the most prolific and fervent author on the subject of prayer.

E. M. Bounds was born on August 15th, 1835 and died on August 24th, 1913. Some may be surprised by this fact, assuming Bounds to be a contemporary author, because of his clear and forthright writing style. As a young man E. M. Bounds practiced law until feeling called to the ministry. He was ordained a Methodist minister in 1859. E. M. Bounds also served as a Confederate Army Chaplain during the Civil War. As a result he was captured and held as a prisoner of war for a short time.

After his incarceration, Bounds returned to Franklin, Tennessee, where he and Confederate Troops had suffered a bloody defeat. Bounds could not forget about Franklin, where so many had been ravaged by the Civil War. When Brother Bounds came to Franklin he found the Church in a wretched state. Immediately he sought out a half dozen men who really believed in the power of prayer. Every Tuesday night they got on their knees to pray for revival, for themselves, the Church and the town. "For over a year this faithful band called upon the Lord until God finally answered by fire. The revival came down without any previous announcement or plan, and without the pastor sending for an evangelist to help him.

It became increasingly apparent that E. M. Bounds was gifted in building and reviving the Church. This prophet of prayer often made preachers uncomfortable with his call for holiness and his attacks on lusting for money, prestige and power. His constant call for revival annoyed those who believed that the Church was essentially sound. God gave him a great prayer commission, requiring daily intercession. He laboured in prayer for the sanctification of preachers, revival of the Church in North America and the spread of holiness among professing Christians. He spent a minimum of three to four hours a day in fervent prayer. "Sometimes the venerable mystic would lie flat on his back and talk to God; but many hours were spent on his knees or lying face down where he could be heard weeping."

W. H. Hodge, who is responsible for putting most of Bounds' writings into print, gives us some personal insights into Bounds' life. He writes, "I have been among many ministers and slept in the same room with them for several years. They prayed, but I was never impressed with any special praying among them until one day a small man with gray hair and an eye like an eagle came along. We had a ten day convention. We had some fine preachers around the home, and one of them was assigned to my room. I was surprised early next morning to see a man bathing himself before day and then see him get down and begin to pray. I said to myself, 'He will not disturb us, but will soon finish', he kept on softly for hours, interceding and weeping softly, for me and my indifference, and for all the ministers of God. He spoke the next day on prayer. I became interested for I was young in the ministry, and had often desired to meet with a man of God that prayed like the saints of the apostolic age. Next morning he was up praying again, and for ten days he was up early praying for hours. I became intensely interested and thanked God for sending him. 'At last,' I said, I have found a man that really prays. I shall never let him go. He drew me to him with hooks of steel."

In closing let us consider some of E. M. Bounds' remarks on revival, "Revivals are among the charter rights of the Church. A revival means a heartbroken pastor. A revival means a church on its knees confessing its sins - the sins of the individual and of the Church \- confessing the sins of the times and of the community."

Sarah A. Cooke: **The Third Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)**

Often God's most precious gifts are hidden in the most obscure and common vessels. The costly pearl is found hidden in the plain gray oyster shell, and the Saviour Himself was revealed in the form of a humble carpenter. Yet, we still too often expect to find the glory of God on some grand stage, bathed in bright lights. (1 Cor. 1:26-29)

Sarah Cooke (better known as Auntie Cooke) was one of the Master's hidden pearls. Her ministry was primarily that of fervent intercession. Though frail and small, Auntie Cooke prevailed with God and man through the power of prayer. Her ministry was unseen, yet it influenced those who were highly respected and esteemed. She touched the lives of men like Samuel Brengle, G. Campbell Morgan, B. T. Roberts, John Wesley Redfield, S. B. Shaw and D. L. Moody.

All these and many more were impacted by this one little praying woman. Sarah Cooke recognized true prayer as fervent, earnest and a wrestling in the Spirit. She considered every moment spent in real prayer as a moment spent in the refreshing fire of the Holy Spirit. She was always ready to help support God's reviving work with the weapon of prayer. Mrs. Cooke's autobiography is rich with examples of her prayer ministry.

She writes, "It was at Ross that the work broke out in great power. There seemed to be an outburst of the cloud of mercy. For miles and miles around 'mercy drops' fell on the people. Conviction seized men fifteen miles away, who had not been near the meeting. We passed a place one day where the men had stopped their threshing-machine and were having a prayer-meeting. A little farther on, more reapers had stopped their work, and were down on their knees in prayer . . . There were frequent seasons of earnest, prevailing prayer, lively singing, followed by short burning messages and testimonies. We had no formal, dry services. The blessed Holy Spirit breathed life and power on us in every service. Sudden outbursts of cries for mercy and shouts of praise were heard in most of the meetings."

Another story that describes the fruitfulness of Auntie Cooke's prayer ministry involves the famous D. L. Moody. Mrs. Cooke describes her encounter with the evangelist. "Mr. Moody was an earnest, whole-souled worker, but to me there seemed such a lack in his words. It seemed more the human, the natural energy and force of character of the man, than anything spiritual. I felt he lacked what the apostles received on the day of Pentecost. Dear sister Hawxhurst and myself would, after the evening meetings, talk with him about it. At first he seemed surprised, then convicted. Then he asked us to meet with him on Friday afternoon for prayer. At every meeting he would get more in earnest, in an agony of desire for the fullness of the Spirit."

Soon after these prayer meetings, Mr. Moody was baptized with the Spirit. While walking down Broadway in New York City, "suddenly the Holy Spirit fell upon him, and he staggered under the weight of Glory and the wealth of love. He was so overwhelmed by the revelation of Christ within him that he cried out, 'Oh, Lord, stay Thy hand, stay Thy hand, or the vessel will break.' Moody went back to Chicago and, as he said himself, he preached the same sermons, but where before he had ten converted, he now had hundreds.

All of this can be traced back, in large measure to little Auntie Cooke's constant intercession for Mr. Moody. Samuel Brengle described Sarah Cooke as one of the most jubilant women he ever knew. Jesus was the passion and joy of her soul. She let no opportunity pass by to speak to saint or sinner of Christ's great salvation.

Dr. Campbell Morgan tells how he stepped onto a streetcar one day and saw a man sitting alone in one of the seats. He felt an impulse to speak to him about his soul, but hesitated to gather his courage. When he turned to take the seat he found it occupied by a little woman, who was now earnestly speaking to the man. That little woman was Sarah Cooke.

Mrs. Cooke was many times broken-hearted by the sin of prayerlessness among Christians. In closing, let us open our hearts as Mrs. Cooke describes how prayer is often neglected in the Church. "I was in a meeting in Illinois where more than twenty preachers were present, every day a prayer meeting was held at six o'clock. Three mornings the hour came, but not one of the twenty preachers were there. My soul was stirred within me. If alive to God, would they not have been there to take hold of the blessing of God for the people who would gather there through the day? Awake beloved preacher of the Gospel!" "You have not, because you ask not." James 4:2.

Andrew Murray: **The Third Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)**

Soon after coming to Christ, I was given two small paperbacks written by Andrew Murray, "The Prayer Life" and "Waiting on God". It seemed with each new chapter came fresh insights and new experiences in prayer. As a young believer, these writings greatly helped me to define and establish my personal prayer life. The principles conveyed in those little dog-eared books still continue to have a significant influence upon my prayer life and ministry. Almost twenty years later, I am only now beginning to feel that I truly understand the depth of what Andrew Murray was writing about! Most works on prayer direct you to a process of prayer, but Mr. Murray's writings direct you to the person of prayer - JESUS CHRIST.

**Birthplace and Home**. Andrew Murray was born on May 9th, 1828 in a Dutch Reformed parsonage in Graaff Reinet, South Africa. It was here that his father, the Rev. Andrew Murray, Sr. was ministering to the Dutch settlers. The Murray home was a vibrant and active place filled with the lively sounds of joy, prayer, and worship. Every Friday evening Andrew Murray's father would gather his family together and read them moving accounts of past revivals. He would then retire to his study and pour out his heart in prayer for revival to come to South Africa. This had been his weekly habit since 1822. Young Murray also benefited from several other fine examples of Christian zeal and devotion. Such men as David Livingstone and Robert Moffat frequently passed through their home on their way to the coast.

William C. Burns. In 1838, at the age of ten, Andrew left home with his brother John to study in Scotland. They stayed with their uncle, the Rev. John Murray. In the spring of 1840 the uncle introduced the boys to the revival ministry of William C. Burns. This renowned Scottish revivalist left a deep and lasting impression on the youthful Andrew Murray. The twelve-year-old Murray must have been thrilled when Mr. Burns invited him to carry his Bible and cloak as they walked together to the revival meetings in Aberdeen. Years later, Murray could still vividly recall the power of Burns' godly influence upon his life. His sincerity, fervent praying, and penetrating preaching all helped Andrew Murray define his own personal ministry and calling. The influence of one generation's Spirit-filled ministry often waters the seeds of another generation's harvest.

**Pastor Blumhardt**. After graduating from Marischal College in 1844, the two brothers went to Utrecht, Holland, for the purpose of further study in theology and the Dutch language. Religious life at this time in the Netherlands was at a low ebb and rationalism had crippled many of the pulpits and seminaries. Much like the Wesley brothers and the Holy Club at Oxford, John and Andrew joined a zealous group at the college called "Sechor Dabar" (Remember the Word). Here they found like-minded brethren, warm fellowship, and true missionary zeal. During a vacation from their classes, the brothers visited Germany, where they had the opportunity to meet Pastor Blumhardt. This remarkable man had been used to bring revival to the Renish province in Germany. This revival was marked by extraordinary manifestations of deliverance and healing the sick through prayer. "Andrew saw firsthand the ongoing work of God's power in his own time."

**The Boy Preacher.** The two brothers were ordained at The Hague on Andrew's twentieth birthday, leaving soon afterwards to begin their work in South Africa. Andrew appeared to be barely more than a child when he first returned to Africa. At twenty years old, he looked much younger than his age. An Old Dutch farmer was once heard to say, "Why, they have lent us a girl to preach to us." Nevertheless, in spite of Murray's fragile appearance, there was no end to his endurance and zeal. He would often go out for weeks at a time on horseback to hold meetings for the Boers, (Dutch-speaking South African farmers). These spiritually hungry farmers would come from literally hundreds of miles to listen to this "boy preacher". A temporary church of reeds would be quickly erected and then surrounded by hundreds of big Dutch farm wagons. It was during such ministry ventures, that the young Mr. Murray began to give expression to the fire and fervency so often associated with his classic writings on prayer and the Deeper Life.

**Preparation for Revival**. In 1860 Andrew Murray accepted a call to pastor the church at Worcester. His induction to the church coincided with a revival and mission's conference made up of 374 South African ministers. The conference was planned for the specific purpose of encouraging spiritual revival and recruiting new workers and missionaries for the Dutch Reformed churches of South Africa. At the beginning of the conference a paper was handed out which traced the news of the recent revival in America and Britain. The attending ministers were strongly encouraged to expect and pray for a similar move of God in South Africa. A Dr. Robertson spoke on their great need for revival, followed by a Dr. Adamson who then gave a detailed report on the recent awakening in America. Andrew Murray, Sr. attempted to address the gathering, but was unable, being overcome with brokenness and tears. Overall, the conference was a great success, encouraging fresh hope and prayer among the attending ministers.

Shortly after the conference, a meeting of young people was held at the church on a Sunday evening. It was at this meeting that the Spirit of revival unexpectedly broke out. The meeting moved along as expected, until an unassuming 15-year-old black girl stood up to pray. Mr. Murray's associate, J. C. deVries, was overseeing the prayer meeting and gives us an eyewitness account of these extraordinary events. "On a certain Sunday evening there were gathered in a little hall some sixty young people. I was the leader of the meeting, which began with a hymn and a lesson from God's Word, after which I prayed. Three or four others gave out a verse of a hymn and prayed, as was the custom. Then a coloured girl of about fifteen years of age, in service with a nearby farmer, rose at the back of the hall and asked if she too might propose a hymn. At first I hesitated, not knowing what the meeting would think, but better thoughts prevailed, and I replied, 'Yes.' She gave out her hymn-verse and prayed in moving tones. While she was praying, we heard, as it were, a sound in the distance, which came nearer and nearer, until the hall seemed to be shaken; with one or two exceptions, the whole meeting began to pray, the majority in audible voice, but some in whispers. Nevertheless, the noise made by the concourse was deafening. A feeling, which I cannot describe, took possession of me..."

**Offended by Revival**. While this meeting was going on, Andrew Murray was preaching in another section of the church. He was not present during the beginning of these events. When his own service was over, an elder passed the door of the prayer meeting, heard the noise, peeked in, and then ran back to get Mr. Murray. J. C. deVries vividly recalls Murray's surprising reaction to the young people's meeting, "Mr. Murray came forward to the table where I knelt praying, touched me, and made me understand that he wanted me to rise. He then asked me what had happened. I related everything to him. Then he walked down the room for some distance and called out as loudly as he could, 'People, silence!' But the praying continued. In the meantime, I kneeled down again. It seemed to me that if the Lord was coming to bless us, I should not be upon my feet but on my knees. Mr. Murray then called loudly again, 'People, I am your minister, sent from God! Silence!' But there was no stopping the noise. No one heard him, but all continued praying and calling on God for mercy and pardon. Mr. Murray then returned to me and told me to start the hymn-verse commencing 'Aid the soul that helpless cries'. I did so. But the emotions were not quieted and the meeting went right on praying. Mr. Murray then prepared to depart, saying, 'God is a God of order, and here everything is confusion!' With that he left the hall."

**Revival Praying and Power**. Prayer meetings were spontaneously organized every evening after that. The order of these meetings was usually the same each time, although no one set it. At the beginning there was generally great silence; no efforts were made to stir up emotions, but after the second or third prayer the gathering would suddenly begin to simultaneously cry out in prayer. This was definitely not the custom of the Dutch Reformed churches at that time, nor did anyone ever teach them to do this. Sometimes the gathering would continue until three in the morning; even then, many wished to stay longer. As the people returned to their homes in the middle of the night they went singing joyously through the streets. The prayer meeting quickly grew and had to be moved to a nearby school building. Eventually, this facility also proved to be far too small for the crowds of God-hungry seekers. "In places where prayer meetings were unknown a year before, now the people complained because meetings ended an hour too soon! Not only weekly but daily prayer meetings were demanded by the people, even three times a day – and even among children." The revival shook the entire countryside. The young and old, rich and poor, blacks and whites were all equally affected by the revival. "It was quite amazing that the awakening was not confined to the towns and villages, but felt in totally isolated places without outside contacts, even on remote farms, where men and women were suddenly seized with emotions to which they had been utter strangers a few weeks or even days before." People were frequently gripped with intense conviction. Strong men cried out in anguish while others fell to the ground unconscious and had to be carried out of the meetings.

**Learning about Revival** . J. C. deVries gives us a further account of Mr. Murray's difficulty in accepting these manifestations as from God. J. C. deVries writes, "On the first Saturday evening in the larger meeting-house, Mr. Murray was the leader. He read a portion of Scripture, made a few observations on it, engaged in prayer, and then gave others the opportunity to pray. During the prayer, which followed his, we heard again the same sound in the distance. It drew nearer and nearer and then suddenly the whole gathering was praying. That evening a stranger had been standing at the door from the beginning of the meeting, watching the proceedings. Mr. Murray descended from the platform and again moved up and down among the people, trying to quiet them. The stranger then tiptoed forward from the door, touched Mr. Murray gently, and said in English, 'I think you are the minister of this congregation. Be careful what you do, for it is the Spirit of God that is at work here. I have just come from America, and this is precisely what I witnessed there."

Andrew Murray had been offended by the intense outbursts of emotional praying, and sought unsuccessfully to control and calm the meetings. However, after this incident he apparently stopped trying to manhandle the Holy Spirit. He learned to accept these sudden outbursts of prayer and strong emotions as the work of God. His father, Andrew Murray, Sr. also confirmed that these stirrings were genuine, stating, "he blessed God that he lived to witness such a work of the Spirit". Mr. Murray's strong reaction seems to stem from the fact that these particular revival manifestations exceeded his own personal experience and sense of propriety. Though he had earnestly prayed for revival, studied reports about revival and even witnessed a measure of revival himself, he still failed to anticipate his own response to the supernatural nature of a revival in his own church.

**Revival and Broken Expectations**. Mr. Murray's expectations about proper church order and that of the Holy Spirit's were obviously quite different. Broken expectations, if left unchecked, can lead to confusion, frustration and even harsh criticism. When the crowd in Jerusalem rushed to observe the miracle of Pentecost, Acts 2: 6 notes that many of the onlookers were "CONFUSED". These feelings of confusion obviously caused some to become offended, resulting later in them openly ridiculing the work of the Holy Spirit. -(Acts 2:6-13). Mr. Murray's new revival experiences eventually taught him not to judge every seemingly confusing situation as the result of a lack of proper order. Often we experience strong feelings of confusion or even frustration when we are suddenly placed in an unexpected or unfamiliar situation. All of us have surely struggled with feelings of confusion or anxiety while trying to find our bearings in an unfamiliar city or country. The source of our confusion was not a lack of proper order, but our own unfamiliarity with our new surroundings and circumstances.

Acts 2:6 is not suggesting that God is the author of disorder and confusion! On the contrary, this verse serves to remind us that our natural sense of protocol and order is sometimes quite different than the divine order of Heaven come down to earth. When we are suddenly surprised or confused by unfamiliar events, we must guard against thoughtlessly rejecting them simply because they are new to our personal experience. Only a PROUD heart rushes in to condemn what it does not understand! We must carefully examine all things according to the Scriptures, rather than by our personal preferences and traditions. Then and only then will we be prepared to hold fast to what is good in the coming days. (1Thess 5:21).

**Revival and the Keswick Convention**. The lessons learned during this revival helped prepare Andrew Murray for his future role in the influential Keswick movement. Mr. Murray attended the Keswick Convention for the first time in 1882. In 1895, he was asked to speak at both the Keswick and Northfield Conventions. Murray was warmly received at these conferences and was later responsible for bringing the Keswick movement to South Africa. The Keswick Convention was itself, the indirect fruit of this wonderful season of awakening. The revival touched at least four different continents, bringing with it a renewed faith and vision for personal holiness and the Spirit-filled life. It was this liberating message that soon became synonymous with Andrew Murray's personal ministry.

The birth of the Keswick Convention united the emerging European Holiness Movement and thereby helped to channel the fire and energy of what became known as the "Third Great Awakening". However, the Keswick Convention did much more than merely unifies and preserves the remaining fruit of this great revival. With a clear call to personal holiness through faith in Christ, the Keswick movement helped to prepare a new generation for the next move of God.

Those attending the conventions were always strongly encouraged to embrace a lifestyle of holiness, unity and prayer. In the 1902 Keswick Convention, five thousand Christians agreed to form home prayer circles for a worldwide outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of these Keswick praying bands was no doubt realized through the Welsh Revival of 1904. R. B. Jones, Jessie Penn-Lewis, and F. B. Myer all considered the Keswick Convention as one of the hidden springs of the Welsh revival. Through the biblical teaching of men like Andrew Murray, J. Elder Cumming, Evan Hopkins, F. B. Myer and many others, thousands of Christian workers and missionaries were empowered and purified to enter a new millennium of global harvest. James Hudson Taylor, A. T. Pierson, Samuel Zwemer and many other missionary mobilises regarded the Keswick Convention as one of the finest "hunting grounds" for the best missionary recruits. Here again we find it to be true, that the influence of one generation's Spirit-filled ministry often waters the seeds of another generation's harvest.

**Andrew Murray's Closing Days**. On January 18th, 1917, Andrew Murray crossed over into Glory. He entered into Heaven the same way he lived on earth, praying and urging others to pray. Few men have ever impacted more souls for the cause of the Spirit-filled life than Andrew Murray. He was arguably the Church's most prolific writer on the subject of prayer and the Deeper Life, publishing some 240 books between 1858 and 1917. Several of these books have been translated into as many as fifteen different languages. Soon after the Christian Literature Society for China translated Mr. Murray's book, "The Spirit of Christ" into Chinese, revival reportedly broke out in Inland China. Even today his writings are still shaping the way multitudes of hungry Christians think about prayer and the Spirit-filled life.

**Learning from our Forefathers!** Andrew Murray unquestionably was a man of rare gifts and deep spiritual insight, yet he almost quenched a genuine revival. He was raised in a home where his father had faithfully prayed for more than 30 years for revival. Nevertheless, for a time he stubbornly opposed the long-awaited answer to his father's prayers. As a boy he had delighted in the revival ministry of William C. Burns and while in Germany he witnessed the miraculous ministry of Pastor Blumhardt. Yet, when personally confronted with revival manifestations in his own church, he opposed them. I do not write these things to dishonour the memory of one of our respected fathers of the faith, but rather to pose an important and timely question. If such a gifted man as Andrew Murray could fail to recognize the Spirit of revival, while in the midst of preparing for revival, how much more are we capable of making the same mistake? This generation of Christians must be willing to learn from the experiences, insights, and errors of our spiritual forefathers if we are to be prepared for the next move of God. Are you willing to LEARN?

**Resources:** The Life of Andrew Murray of South Africa by J. Du Plessis, Andrew Murray and His Message by W. M. Douglas, Andrew Murray: Apostle of Abiding Love by Leona Choy, "THE LIFE OF FAITH, JANUARY 26,1967" St. Andrew of South Africa by N. L. Cliff, Andrew Murray by Dr. William Linder,Jr. Northfield Echoes Vol. 6 Northfield Conference Addresses for 1899 Edited by Delavan L. Pierson, Evangelical Awakenings in Africa by J. Edwin Orr, The Fervent Prayer: The Worldwide Impact of the Great Awakening of 1858 by J. Edwin Orr, The Holiness Revival of the 19th Century by Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Keswick Convention: Its Message, Its Method and Its Men by C. F. Harford, Keswick from Within by J. B. Figgis, These Sixty Years: The Story of the Keswick Convention by Walter B. Sloan, So Great Salvation: The History & Message of the Keswick Convention by Steven Barabas, Scotland's Keswick by Norman C. Macfarlane, The Forward Movement of the Last Half Century by A. T. Pierson, Revive Us Again by Herbert Lockyer, Rent Heavens: The Revival of 1904 by R. B. Jones, The Awakening in Wales by Jessie Penn-Lewis.

Charles Spurgeon: **The Third Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)**

The memory of Charles Haddon Spurgeon has been cherished among evangelical Christians for over the past 100 years. Many Christian leaders consider him to be the greatest preacher England ever produced. He is commonly hailed as the "Prince of Preachers". Over 63 volumes of published sermons still bear witness to the richness and success of C. H. Spurgeon's ministry.

Though known as a great preacher, it was not preaching that made Spurgeon great. Mr. Spurgeon repeatedly acknowledged his success as the direct result of his congregation's faithful prayers. "It has often been remarked that the whole church helped produce Spurgeon." When visitors would come to Spurgeon's church he would take them to the basement prayer-room where people were always on their knees interceding. Then Spurgeon would declare, "Here is the powerhouse of this church."

Spurgeon in his autobiography described his gratefulness for being blessed with such a praying church. "I always give all the glory to God, but I do not forget that He gave me the privilege of ministering from the first to a praying people. We had prayer meetings that moved our very souls, each one appeared determined to storm the Celestial City by the might of intercession." Spurgeon regarded the prayer-meeting as the spiritual thermometer of a church. His church's Monday night prayer meeting had a worldwide testimony for many years. Every Monday night a large portion of Spurgeon's sanctuary was filled with earnest and fervent intercessors.

In Spurgeon's eyes the prayer-meeting was the most important meeting of the week. It is here many of us find ourselves in conflict with dear Mr. Spurgeon. We love our meetings for preaching and praising and yet sadly neglect those set aside for praying. One of Spurgeon's greatest concerns was that his people learn to truly pray. He taught his people to pray, doing so far more by his example than by any preaching. People heard him pray with such reality that they became ashamed of their own mere repetition of words. Throughout his entire ministry many hearers remarked that they were moved by his preaching, but yet still more affected by his praying. D. L. Moody after his first visit to England, being asked upon his return to America, "Did you hear Spurgeon preach?" He replied, "Yes, but better still I heard him pray."

A close friend of Spurgeon's, commented on his prayer life, "His public prayers were an inspiration, but his prayers with the family were to me more wonderful still. Mr. Spurgeon, when bowed before God in family prayer, appeared a grander man even than when holding thousands spellbound by his oratory."

Spurgeon fully recognized that the Church's greatest need was not to have another, "Prince of Preachers", but to have more princes of prayer. One of his many published sermons expressed his feelings on this. He wrote, "Shall I give you yet another reason why you should pray? I have preached my very heart out. I could not say any more than I have said. Will not your prayers accomplish that which my preaching fails to do? Is it not likely that the Church has been putting forth its preaching hand but not its praying hand? Oh dear friends! Let us agonize in prayer. "

There has been much talk lately about pockets of revival springing up in our nation. Many are saying they desire such revivals in our own local churches, and cities. Yet, is it not the prayer-meeting which is still most neglected? If Christ Jesus were to visit us today with real revival power, how could such a blessing be sustained where there is no ground work laid in prayer?

To merely exercise our words about revival and not our knees is hypocrisy! It is time to make the prayer-meeting as crowded as our favourite preaching and praise meetings. It is then and ONLY then, that a true revival will come with lasting power! Like Mr. Spurgeon, let us regard the prayer-meeting as our most important meeting!

Uncle John Vassar: **The Third Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)**

The central fact of true Christianity is a Holy and intimate union with Jesus Christ. Uncle John Vassar was never content with anything less than true Christianity. First and foremost he was a loyal lover of Jesus. John Vassar was known as the Apostle of Personal Evangelism because of his fervent and constant witness to the Saviour's worth. Loving Jesus was his principle, his passion and his one antidote against every sin.

"One day he came out of a church where a noted minister had preached and with a grieved, disappointed look and a quivering voice he said, 'Oh he never mentioned the name of Jesus once.'" "Deeper than the love of home, deeper than the love of kindred, deeper than the love of country, aye, deeper than the love of life, was his affection for that Redeemer who had first loved him and given Himself for him. He did not talk so much of heaven as many Christians do. He talked of being with the Lord and like Him."

Out of John Vassar's tender love for Christ grew what was probably the most prominent feature of his life - a constant habit of prayer. A close friend of his describes for us his fervency in prayer. "He absolutely prayed day and night. I have roomed with him night after night, and I rarely went to sleep without hearing him at prayer, or awoke without finding him at prayer. He seldom, if ever, came into my house or study that he did not propose a season of prayer."

Uncle John Vassar's gift of prayer manifested itself along roadsides, in shops and in homes. Wherever a need could be found John Vassar could be found praying. A. J. Gordon, the famous Spirit-filled minister of the 19th, century recalls Vassar's prayer life. "When he came occasionally to work among my flock, he at once took the whole church and people on his heart and began to travail for them in prayer, as though his very life depended on the issue. This intercession continued night and day with tears. He never said he had prayed all night, but I could hear him again and again breaking forth in the darkness with strong crying unto God. I know what the burden was; it was this congregation, strangers to him till today. It was this flock, not one of whom he had ever seen till now. This habitual prayerfulness was something so wonderful that I wish to emphasize it as furnishing the true secret of his life."

Callused knees produce courageous hearts. Uncle John Vassar's prayer habits made him a man of great faith. He did not believe simply in the God of ages ago. He believed in the God of today. He could not be persuaded that the wonderworking Spirit finished His operations at Pentecost. He could not be convinced that the supernatural was no longer to be looked for. He would get a church or a schoolhouse open, and then invite people out. Almost invariably a revival would commence. Often God would triumph gloriously. Converts would be multiplied. There would be apostolic work because it was under laid and pushed with apostolic faith.

John Vassar's zeal and consecration were so intense that it often astonished and offended those who called themselves "Christians". Despised, rebuffed, and persecuted he held right on meekly and joyfully, in his simple and faithful way with his little worn New Testament in hand and his single eye fixed on Jesus. Coldness and insults were nothing to him, save that they made him sad for other's sake. No harshness could quench the ardour of his affection.

Uncle John Vassar's life displays for us the balance of zeal mixed with mercy and passion mixed with patience. Many within the modern Church have strayed, believing that they can choose between such things, pursuing one virtue while neglecting others.

If our churches are to meet the needs at hand, we must, like John Vassar, first be lovers of Jesus given to constant prayer. Second, we must receive joyfully ALL that the Master has laid before us, absolute holiness and joy, purity and patient love. The Church must become one with Christ, balanced with both His goodness and severity.

J. H. Webber: **The Third Great Awakening (1857 – 1860)**

Are we truly Spirit-filled Christians? Does the term "Spirit-filled" describe our doctrine or our devotion? Samuel Chadwick described the fullness of the Spirit in the following way: "Spirit filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They serve with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the fire of God."

The revivalist J. H Weber is a true example of this burning Baptism. His life was distinctly marked by the Holy Spirit's urgency, zeal, and compassion. Yet the most striking feature of Mr. Weber's ministry was not so much his message of methods, it was the fact that he had actually become the message. He warned the sinner and saint alike of the eternal danger of rejecting the love of Jesus Christ. His life was literally a burning trumpet call to repentance toward God. J. H. Weber's ministry brought men to the valley of decision. His plain preaching forced men to choose between "death and victory," the self-life or the Christ-life.

On one occasion when Mr. Weber was preaching on the Judgement Seat of Christ, "the people became terrified and some came very near rushing to the altar before the sermon was done. When the invitation was given it seemed a race as to who should get there first. The altar and front seats were crowded with earnest seekers. The presence of God filled the place..."

Rev. Bennett Mitchel describes another revival scene: "The entire community was greatly stirred. The house was packed from the first to the last service. The devil raged. Men got mad. Some wanted to whip (Mr. Weber), others to tar and feather him. Others stood aghast with mute astonishment, while many came to the Lord and were saved. For the first week his preaching was directed to the church, and he scored the Christian people almost unmercifully. This was fun for the irreligious. They greatly rejoiced while he exposed hypocrisy and denounced the sins in the church. But he suddenly turned attention to them. Some of them were maddened, some slunk away in shame, while many were subdued and brought penitently to the cross. In the congregation men would threaten to strike him, when he would calmly look them in the face and say, 'You dare not do it, I am in God's hands,' and then put his arms around them and pray for them. Women would threaten to spit in his face, but he heeded it not, and persisted in pleading with and praying for them. He visited every family in the town and prayed in nearly every home."

Like all true revivalists, J. H Weber's ministry transformed whole communities. Often in the midst of a revival he would march through the town with hundreds of believers following him singing and praising God. Saloon keepers trembled, businessmen feared; but God was in it. When Mr. Weber led left the town, the church was revived and the last saloon was closed.

In 1884, Mr. Weber wrote in his journal: "Began this year as the previous one, on my knees in the he house of God." J. H Weber was a man who knew the necessity of fervent knee-work. He fasted often, spending whole nights in travailing prayer. When Satan raged or people resisted, Mr. Weber's solution was always the same, to cling to Jesus in prayer. At times he would lay in his tent and pray by the hour, often resulting in a wave of salvation prostrating entire congregations. Because God found a man who would pray, literally thousands were brought to Christ, broken and crying for mercy.

Who among us has seen such glorious events and how many of us yearn to see such things? Have we become content with a nominal and entertaining Christianity? If not, then let us give ourselves to true travailing prayer. For until we get on our knees, we are nothing less than unconcerned and insincere regarding revival. God have mercy and help us to see our great need for a genuine move of the Holy Spirit.

Jonathan Goforth **: The Global Revival of the 20th Century (1904 – 1910)**

"You must go forward on your knees," was the advice Hudson Taylor gave to a young Canadian missionary named Jonathan Goforth. Mr. Goforth faithfully and fervently followed this advice throughout all has missionary endeavours in China. Yet, after thirteen years of faithful praying and preaching, and what most would consider a very successful ministry, Goforth became restless and dissatisfied. It was at this time an unknown party from England began sending pamphlets on the Welsh revival of 1904. Goforth was deeply stirred as he read these accounts. "A new thought, a new conception seemed to come to him of God the Holy Spirit..." He then gave himself to much more prayer and Bible study. Goforth now found himself being driven by a fresh vision, a vision for a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Soon he began to meet daily with other missionaries to pray for revival. These men vowed to God and to one another that they would pray until revival came to China. In 1908 Jonathan Goforth's prayers and dreams began to be realized. Goforth began going to different missionary stations and simply led his fellow missionaries in prayer. Then suddenly earnest prayer gave way to the open confession of sin.

It was when the Christians came clean, confessed and forsook their secret sin, that the Holy Spirit rushed in like a mighty wind. Truly it was this open and honest confession of sin that was the most striking feature of the revival. Everywhere Mr. Goforth went revival would spread, and almost always in the same way.

First prayer was encourage among the Christians, which then spontaneously led to heart- breaking confessions of sin. And then like a flood, the lost were brought into the kingdom by the thousands. "Men were searched as with fire." One after another broken-hearted believers emptied themselves through the uncovering of all secret sin. Mr. Goforth clearly identified unconfessed sin among Christians as a major hindrance to God-sent revival.

Walter Phillips describes for us one of Mr. Goforth's revival meetings: "At once, on entering the church one was conscious of something unusual. The place was crowded to the door and tense, reverent attention sat on every face. The people knelt for prayer, silent at first, but soon one here and another there began to pray aloud. The voices grew and gathered volume and blended into a great wave of united supplication that swelled until it was almost a roar. Now I understood why the floor was so wet - the very air was electric and strange thrills coursed up and down one's body."

When Mr. Goforth preached, "The cross burned like a living fire in the heart of every address." It was the person of Jesus Christ who was exalted throughout the entire revival as a King and Saviour who must be reckoned with. In the midst of this great revival Jonathan Goforth clearly saw that all of his previous sweating and striving had reaped only frustration. He came to the firm conviction that revival is only born through humility, faith, prayer and the power of the Holy Ghost. Goforth writes, "If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned; because we still insist in placing our reliance in human schemes; because we still refuse to face the unchangeable truth that 'It is not by might, but by My Spirit.'"

Mordecai Ham: T **he Global Revival of the 20th Century (1904 – 1910)**

"What is the secret of the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Does God endue men in a sort of haphazard way? Has He favourites? Certainly not! God's difficulty is to find men who are willing to pay the price."

Mordecai Ham was a man who was willing to pay the price and as a result was powerfully anointed by the Holy Spirit. Early on in his ministry he had some striking experiences with the Holy Spirit that helped prepare him for the prophet-revivalist role he would later operate in. He writes, "I had an overwhelming experience of the Lord's presence. I felt so powerfully overcome by the nearness of the Holy Spirit that I had to ask the Lord to draw back lest He kill me. It was so glorious that I couldn't stand more than a small portion of it."

As his spiritual life deepened, his success as a revivalist increasingly spread. An early example of the fruitfulness of Mordecai Ham's ministry is seen in a Jackson, Tenn. newspaper report dated April 1905. The report reads, "Has the spiritual fire of the great Wales revival reached across the ocean and ignited the hearts of the people of Jackson? It begins to look as if it has at the big tent revival conducted by Rev. M.F. Ham."

Mr. Ham's success was not the result of traditional evangelistic methods, but the fruit of apostolic power. Often he would seek out the worst of sinners in the community and then proceed to pray and plead with them until they were surrendered to Christ, resulting in a great in-gathering of the lost. At other times he faced down stubborn opposers of the gospel, declaring he would pray to God to either convert them or kill them.

In Mr. Ham's biography there are several incidents recorded where those who resisted and opposed the Holy Spirit were brought to swift judgment. The evangelist recalls with great reluctance that deaths took place during many of his great campaigns. Ambulances would have to come and carry bodies away from our services. Many persons that openly fought a Ham meeting met with some form of violent death soon after. (Acts 5:1-11). So, as the Holy Spirit was being poured out, some were visited with judgment while others were saved and even physically healed.

Charles Spurgeon rightly said "that a church in the land without the Spirit is rather a curse than a blessing. If you have not the Spirit of God, Christian worker, remember that you stand in somebody else's way; you are a fruitless tree standing where a fruitful tree might grow."

Mordecai Ham's clear understanding of this spiritual principle helped him develop an effective strategy for reaching the lost. On this point he writes, "There are a lot of Christians who are halfway fellows. They stand in the door, holding on to the Church with one hand while they play with the toys of the world with the other. They are in the doorway and we can't bring sinners in. And, until we get some of God's people right, we cannot hope to get sinners regenerated. Now they always accuse me of carrying around a sledge hammer with which to pound the church members. Yes sir, I do pound them, every time I come down, I knock one of the halfway fellows out of the doorway, and every time I knock one out I get a sinner in."

It was this kind of bold Biblical preaching that brought a young 16 year old boy to Christ by the name of Billy Graham. It should be emphasized now that Mr. Ham was always a man of zealous prayer. Sometimes he spent hours in his room wrestling with God. He often encouraged all night prayer meetings to be attended for several consecutive nights in order to lay the proper ground work for the moving of the Spirit. He learned early on that human wisdom could not do the work of the Holy Spirit.

In closing let us consider some of Mr. Ham's thoughts on the hindrances of true revival. "One of our troubles is we are not willing to humble ourselves. We are not willing to give up our opinions as to how things should be done. We want a revival to come just in our way. You never saw two revivals come just alike. We must let them come in God's way. People are ashamed to admit they need a revival. If you are not willing to take the shame on yourself, you then let it remain on Jesus Christ. You must bear the reproach of your sinful state of indifference, or the cause of our Master must bear it."

John Hyde: **The Global Revival of the 20th Century (1904 – 1910)**

It was Seth Joshua who once wrote "All prayer is hidden. It is behind a closed door. The best spade diggers go down into deep ditches out of sight. There are numbers of surface workers, but few who in self-obliteration toil alone with God."

John "Praying" Hyde was one who truly delighted to toil alone with Jesus. One of the most striking features of John Hyde's life was his willingness to remain hidden and unrecognized. He was one of the Father's hidden treasures. It was early on as a young missionary to India that John Hyde went through an intense time of purging of pride and vain ambition. This was no doubt the key to his powerful anointing in prayer. It is common wood, hay and stubble that are found above in full view, while costly gold, silver and precious stones are hidden under the ground. Like the rich, life-giving seed hidden for a season, the prayer life of John Hyde produced an abundant harvest.

Hyde and his fellow intercessors saw that there was one method to obtaining spiritual awakening - by prayer. They set themselves deliberately, definitely and desperately to use this means till they secured the result. The Sialkot revival was neither an accident nor an unsought breeze from Heaven. In any community, revival can be secured from Heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die - or if need be to win and die.

Praying Hyde, as he was called, with a group of friends, spent days and nights in prayer for an awakening throughout India. Their prayers were answered in a series of outpourings of the Spirit in the north-west of India, beginning in 1904 in Sialkot. The victory of the Sialkot meetings was not won in the pulpit but in the closet. Often the glory rested on these meetings in a mighty way, while hidden, out of sight, John Hyde and a faithful few travailed in prayer.

During this revival John Hyde was almost constantly in the prayer room. He lived there as on the Mount of Transfiguration. He received Isaiah 62:6-7 as a command from God. "On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and night they will never keep silent You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves, And give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.""How often in the prayer room he would break out into tears over the sins of the world and especially for God's children.

J. Pengwern Jones recalls the prayer life of John Hyde. "He was always on his knees when I went to bed, and on his knees long before I was up in the morning, though I was up with the dawn. He would also light the lamp several times in the night, and feast on some passages of the Word, and then have a little talk with the Master. He sometimes remained on his knees the whole day. The Spirit made him an object-lesson to us, that we might have a better idea of Christ's prayer life."

John Hyde was one of a company of men who were used of God to usher in apostolic power at the turn of the century. While Evan Roberts was praying down glory in Wales, John Hyde, Jonathan Goforth and Frank Bartleman were praying for an outpouring of God's Spirit that would literally touch every corner of the world.

John Hyde saw the nineteenth century as good, but not up to the level of the apostolic age, but believed that the twentieth century was destined to be one in which the full life of apostolic Christianity would be restored to the Church. His prayer was for a Church holy in life, triumphant in faith, self-sacrificing in service, with one aim, to preach Christ crucified to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Pandita Ramabai: **The Global Revival of the 20th Century (1904 – 1910)**

Fire kindles more fire. In 1904 one of the most significant revivals of the modern Church age swept through Wales. News of the Welsh revival quickly encircled the globe, bringing with it sparks of hope and expectation. Soon revival fires were burning in India, China, Korea and America. Instrumental in the revival in India was a young woman by the name of Pandita Ramabai.

Pandita established a centre for young widows and orphans called "Mukti" meaning - salvation or deliverance. She longed to see a powerful revival among the neglected and helpless widows of India. In December 1904, after receiving word of the Welsh revival, her hunger for an outpouring of the Spirit intensified; she started prayer circles of ten girls each, urging them to pray for the salvation of all nominal Christians in India and across the world. At first there were seventy in her prayer circles. She sent out a call for other prayer circles to be formed among friends and supporters, giving each a list of ten unsaved girls or women for whom to pray. Within six months there were 550 at Mukti who met twice a day to pray for revival.

On June 29, 1905 the Spirit fell upon a large group of girls, with weeping, confession of sin and prayers for empowerment. The next day, June 30th , while Ramabai taught from John chapter 8, the Spirit came in power. All the women and girls began to weep and confess their sins. Many were stricken down under conviction of sin while attending to their daily studies and household duties. Lessons were suspended and the women gave themselves to continual prayer. During these days of heart-searching repentance many girls had visions of the "body of sin" within themselves. They testified that the Holy Spirit came into them with holy burning, which they called a baptism of fire, which was almost unbearable.

Another reporter of these revival incidents stated, "The girls in India so wonderfully wrought upon and baptized with the Spirit, began by terrifically beating themselves, under pungent conviction of their need. Great light was given them. When delivered they jumped up and down for joy for hours without fatigue. They cried out with the burning that came into and upon them, while the fire of God burned the members of the body of sin, pride, anger, love of the world, selfishness, uncleanness, etc. They neither ate nor slept until the victory was won. Then the joy was so great that for two or three days after receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit they did not care for food."

In such times of true revival the most basic dealings of the Holy Spirit suddenly became powerfully intensified. Both the conviction of sin and the joy of salvation are seemingly greatly exaggerated.

G. H. Lang after spending some time at Mukti observing the revival wrote, "Little girls were lost for hours in the transport of loving Jesus and praising Him. Young Christians were counting it a rare privilege to spend many successive hours in intercessory prayer for strangers never seen or known. In one meeting we were seventeen hours together; the following day more than fifteen hours passed before the meeting broke up with great joy." Dr. Nicol MacNicol, the scholarly biographer of Pandita Ramabai reported that these who seemed to have such emotional blessings at the time of the revival were still living steadfast, godly lives twenty years later.

The life of Pandita Ramabai is a strong encouragement for us to apply ourselves diligently to the word of hope. This precious young woman armed only with a God given vision and the news of Christ's fresh work in Wales took heart and set herself to pray like never before. In light of what God has done in the past for His Church have we not reason to hope? The Church is too often hopeless and prayerless because it has forgotten God's mighty acts. "Seek the LORD and His strength, seek His face continually. Remember His marvellous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth." (1 Chron. 16:11-12).

Evan Roberts: **The Global Revival of the 20th Century (1904 – 1910)**

The seeds of revival are always nurtured in the hearts of the humble. And so it was with the great Welsh Revival of 1904. It was in a young coal miner named Evan Roberts that God imparted a burning vision for spiritual revival. Evan Roberts did not possess the gifts of a great intellect or eloquent speech, but simply a burning passion for Jesus. While other young men were sailing boats in the bay, young Roberts was faithfully attending prayer meetings.

Though only 26 years old, Evan Roberts had no time for youthful entertainment and pleasure. Day and night without ceasing, he prayed, wept and sighed for a great spiritual awakening. Roberts writes, "for ten or eleven years I have prayed for revival. I could sit up all night to read or talk about revivals." Eventually Evan Roberts was turned out of his lodging by his landlady who thought that in his enthusiasm he was possessed or somewhat mad. He spent hours praying and preaching in his room until the lady became afraid of him, and asked him to leave.

The role of Evan Roberts in the Welsh revival was anything but conventional. Often he would simply lead the people in prayer or read the Scriptures. Then at other times he sat silent, while, one after another, people confessed their sins or gave testimony of Christ's victory and power. There were also glorious times of worship which lasted literally hours. Roberts merely gave humble instruction from time to time and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. He was a constant example not of how to preach, but of how to be led by the Spirit.

The Welsh revival was a mighty invasion of the Spirit; God's Kingdom radically manifested on earth. The earnings of workmen, instead of being squandered on drink and vice, were now bringing great joy to their families. Outstanding debts were being paid by thousands of young converts. Restitution was the order of the day. The gambling and alcohol business lost their trade and the theatres closed down from lack of patronage. Football during this time was forgotten by both players and fans, though nothing was mentioned from the pulpits about it.

The people had new lives and new interests. Political meetings were cancelled or abandoned. They seemed completely out of the question since nobody was interested. The political leaders from parliament in London abandoned themselves to the revival meetings. The man-made denominational barriers completely collapsed as believers and pastors worshipped their majestic Lord together. One of the outstanding features of the revival was the confession of sin, not among the unsaved only, but among the saved. All were broken down and melted before the cross of Christ.

Throughout the revival, Evan Roberts constantly stressed the necessity of dealing honestly with sin, complete obedience to the Holy Spirit, and the pre-eminence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Evan Roberts was instrumental in bringing healing to an entire country because he cared and wept and prayed. He embraced the broken heart of God and offered it back up to Him through prayer and intercession. As a result "wherever he went, hearts were set aflame with the Love of God!"

W.P. Nicholson: **Irish Revivalist of the 20th Century**

True passionate preaching is the flower and fruit of passionate praying. The fiery preaching that transforms the Church and the market place is first kindled in the secret place. This truth is powerfully illustrated through the life of W. P. Nicholson. In the early 1920's, Northern Ireland passed through a period of great strife and bloodshed. These were times of great despair and apprehension. Fear gripped the heart of many and even spread to the churches and religious community. In the mercy of God, an intervention came from an unexpected source.

There began a series of evangelistic campaigns, which in the course of the following years had a profound effect upon the religious and communal life of the Province. The evangelist used of God during these meetings was W. P. Nicholson. He was a fearless individual, peculiar to some and offensive to others. Nicholson didn't care what others thought of his manner of speech or methods. He had been taught by God Himself in the secret place and as a result was quite unique in his preaching and dealings with men. To be all-out for the Kingdom of God and its interests was his passion. Burning zeal was the chief characteristic of Nicholson's whole life and ministry.

Nicholson used to say that when a mission was begun it was not long before they had either a riot or revival. Sometimes we had more riot than revival, but never a revival without a riot. Nicholson wielded the Sword of the Spirit with a fury. His hearers were always affected one way or another. Some through his preaching were brought to humble repentance, while others resisted God's Word with indignation.

Two favourite themes of Nicholson were "God's love" and "God's hell." W. P. Nicholson always preached the love of God with all the warmth and tenderness he could muster; but for those who rejected this Good News, he offered the only alternative, GOD'S HELL. He preached on every aspect of hell with such zeal and passion that his hearers claimed to be able to almost smell the burning sulphur. Still others, under deep conviction and anxiety, dripped with sweat and unconsciously shredded the hymn books they held in their laps.

Through this kind of fervent preaching, God brought entire communities face to face with the question, "What shall I do with Jesus?" One elderly man who had recollections of the Ulster Revival of 1859 said that some of the effects of Nicholson's meetings even exceeded what happened in '59. Another commentator on Nicholson's work said that he had seen nothing like it since the days of D. L. Moody.

Apart from prayer such revival power is unattainable. Mr. Nicholson was always a man of deep prayer. Prayer might be called his habit, for he loved to pray. His campaigns had nights and half nights of prayer. Praying in the Spirit kept him in the spirit of prayer. From the prayer closet he mounted the pulpit - endued.

Mr. Lindsay Glegg wrote of W. P. Nicholson, "The secret of his power was no doubt in his prayer life. He stayed at our home and he was up in the morning at six o'clock but he never appeared until twelve noon; he spent the hours wrestling with God in prayer. By his own special request he was not disturbed by telephone or visitor, however urgent."

On another occasion the sheets of his bed were found to be torn to shreds. Mr. Glegg again commented; "What had happened was that he unconsciously, agonizing in prayer had ripped the sheets into strips." Yes prayer was surely the secret of his powerful life and ministry.

Perhaps the sweetest fruit of Nicholson's prayer life was the deep familiarity that was produced between himself and the person of Christ. In Nicholson's book, On towards the Goal, he writes, "I do not know anyone in the world that I know better than the Lord. I do not know my wife or my mother the way I know the Lord. I do not know the best friends I ever had the way I know the Lord. We walk together, my Lord and I, because we are in fellowship, and there is nothing that I have but is His." Truly this is the essence and heart of revival, an intimate visitation and fellowship with Jesus Christ. Lord, will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice and delight in You? (Psa. 85:6).

James O. Fraser: **The Great Chinese Revival (1925 – 1937)**

Some of God's most precious servants have gone through life hidden and unnoticed. Forgotten and ignored by the religious masses, they thrive in obscurity and solitude. Their humble lives seem to sweetly sing those neglected lines of Charles Wesley's hymn, "Keep us little and unknown, Prized and loved by God alone." William Jay, the English preacher wrote, "Many who are great in the sight of the Lord are living in cottages and hovels, and are scarcely known..."

James O. Fraser, of the China Inland Mission, was one of those choice servants of God who was content to labour in almost total obscurity. This gifted man was a preacher, linguist, musical genius and engineer. He came to the Yunnan Province of China in 1910 with a heart longing for the souls of the forgotten Lisu tribal people. As Fraser gave himself to the work of reaching the Lisu, he became somewhat forgotten. For years he lived alone, hidden behind the great mountain ranges of China's far west. Few people really knew James Fraser. There was an air of mystery about this talented man who had chosen a primitive pioneers life over the applause of a English concert hall. Some said that it was absolutely wrong for Fraser to waste and bury his gifts on the mission field.

Yet Mr. Fraser was greatly used of God through prayer and loving labour to turn multitudes of Lisu from their slavery of demon-worship to Jesus Christ. After mastering the difficult Lisu language, he developed his own "Fraser Script" and translated the Scriptures into the tribal dialect. By 1916 there was a real move of the Spirit among the Lisu, resulting in sixty thousand baptisms within only two years. The Lisu church continued to grow and eventually became one of the largest tribal Christian bodies in the world.

J. O. Fraser's success was not the result of his impressive talents or giant intellect. Mr. Fraser succeeded where others often fail, because he had learned how to touch God through prayer. Isolated and hidden away behind the mountains, he was compelled to seek God for his every need. To know the real Fraser one needed to hear him in prayer. Prayer was the very breath of life to him, and in prayer he seemed to slip from time into eternity.

For many of us prayer is not a first choice, but a last resort. Fraser had learned out of sheer necessity to pray fervently and continuously. Frequently the mountainside would witness the piercing, importunate pleadings of this man who counted his prayer-time not by minutes but by hours. Fraser was not a man who merely said prayers, he TRAVAILED in prayer. He knew the spiritual necessity of wrestling and agonizing in prayer.

He writes, "How much of our prayer is of the quality we find in Hannah's bitterness of soul, 'when she prayed unto the Lord?' How many times have we ever 'WEPT SORE' before the Lord? We have prayed much perhaps, but our longings have not been deep compared with hers. We have spent much time upon our knees; it may be, without our hearts going out in agony of desire. But real supplication is the child of heartfelt desire, and cannot prevail without it; a desire not of earth nor issuing from our own sinful hearts, but wrought into us by God Himself. Oh for such desires. Oh for Hannah's earnestness, not in myself only but in all who are joining in prayer for these poor heathen aborigines."

To our shame, some of the most basic spiritual disciplines of our godly forefathers have become strange and unfamiliar to many of us. One of the most effective weapons of the praying saints of old was the discipline of, "praying through." J. O. Fraser both encouraged and practiced this powerful reality. Upon this subject Mr. Fraser writes, "We must be prepared for serious warfare, 'and having done all, to stand,' we must fight through, and then stand victorious on the battlefield. Is not this another secret of many unanswered prayers, that they are not fought through? If the result is not seen as soon as expected, Christians are apt to lose heart, and if it is still longer delayed, to abandon it altogether. You know the name they give to places in England when the building (or whatever it is) is abandoned, when only half of it is completed - So and so's 'Folly'. I wonder whether some of our prayers do not deserve the same stigma. Luke 14: 28-30 applies to prayers as well as towers. We must count the cost before praying the prayer of faith. We must be willing to pay the price. We must mean business. We must set ourselves to 'see things through' (Eph. 6:18, 'In all perseverance'). Wrestling with demonic spirits is a daily reality of spiritual survival. Spiritual warfare is not learned in our leisure time, but is thrust upon us as we begin to threaten the kingdom of darkness.

In 1913-1914 James Fraser went through a time of deep spiritual oppression that forced him to deal with issues many would rather ignore. As Fraser reached out to the spiritually blinded Lisu, he became the object of an intense demonic attack. He found himself slipping into a paralysing depression and despair. He soon began to question even the very foundations of his faith in God. "Deeply were the foundations shaken in those days and nights of conflict, until Fraser realized that behind it all were 'powers of darkness', seeking to overwhelm him. He had dared to invade Satan's kingdom, undisputed for ages. At first, vengeance had fallen on the Lisu inquirers, an easy prey. Now, he was himself attacked, and it was war to the death, spiritually.

Fraser was greatly helped in this spiritual struggle by the timely arrival of a magazine produced by Jessie Penn-Lewis called The Overcomer.

"What it showed me," Fraser writes, "was that deliverance from the power of the evil one comes through definite resistance on the ground of The Cross. I am an engineer and believe in things working. I want to see them work. I had found that much of the spiritual teaching one hears does not seem to work. My apprehension at any rate of other aspects of truth had broken down. The passive side of leaving everything to the Lord Jesus as our life, while blessedly true, was not all that was needed just then. Definite resistance on the ground of The Cross was what brought me light. For I found that it worked. I felt like a man perishing of thirst, to whom some beautiful, clear, cold water had begun to flow. People will tell you, after a helpful meeting perhaps, that such and such a truth is the secret of victory. No: we need different truth at different times. 'Look to the Lord,' some will say. 'Resist the devil,' is also Scripture (James 4:7) and I found it worked! That cloud of depression dispersed. I found that I could have victory in the spiritual realm whenever I wanted it. The Lord Himself resisted the devil vocally: 'Get thee behind me, Satan!' I, in humble dependence on Him, did the same. I talked to Satan at that time, using the promises of Scripture as weapons. And they worked. Right then, the terrible oppression began to pass away."

Toward the end of James Fraser's life, he found himself in another kind of spiritual conflict. He began to feel increasingly dissatisfied with what many considered successful ministry. He recognized like never before the tremendous need for true revival on the field and at home. His heart now longed for a powerful visitation of the glory of God. When God creates a fresh desire within us, we can always be confident that He is getting ready to move. While on furlough, Fraser's longings were confirmed through the opportunity to hear the missionary-revivalist Jonathan Goforth.

Mrs. J. O. Fraser describes this important event in Fraser's life. "As the old man of God stood up to preach, an overwhelming sense of the presence of God filled the room, and as he spoke we were all but melted under the power of his words, for Goforth had been endued with a divine unction from God Himself and it was unmistakable. Fraser had heard before of the great revivals Goforth had witnessed in his work in China, but to hear him speak was unforgettable and left a deep burden on his soul. The big question on his mind was whether we were working with the power God had promised us."

Again Mrs. Fraser writes of her husband's new burden, "He saw the teeming millions of unreached Chinese and the tiny handful of missionaries, but great as was the need for more missionaries there was an even greater need, that those of us who were out there should be endued with far greater power."

Somehow Fraser was burdened because the Church both at home and abroad seemed to be making so little real impact on the world. He spent hours in prayer wondering whether we need to turn again to the apostles for our examples and Pentecost for our power. It was now the early 1930's, and Fraser was not alone in his desire for revival. The cry for revival was now rising from the hearts of many missionaries and Chinese Christians alike.

Suddenly God broke forth, raising up His hidden vessels to usher in a powerful revival in northern China. It was here Fraser found some kindred spirits in the revival labourers, Andrew Gih and John Sung of the Bethel Band. They enjoyed powerful times of prayer together that often lasted into the early hours of the morning. Mr. Fraser described this time as his happiest experience in China.

These were the glory days of the Shantung revival with Bertha Smith and Marie Monsen. Anna Christiansen of C. I. M. and Watchmen Nee of "The Little Flock" were also reaping revival fruit at this time. Regardless who the minister was, the message was essentially the same: the exposing of secret sin, a call to thorough repentance, the need for restitution and the hope of total victory through the Blood and the power of the Holy Spirit.

"The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the VIOLENT take it by force." Matthew 11:12. James Fraser's life was a living example of this verse. Like Fraser, we must cloth ourselves in humility as we run to wage war in the fight of faith. Our prayers must go beyond mere sentimental and religious rhetoric. What we need is the violent groans and cries of travailing prayer!

We must learn how to be violent in prayer with both Satan and our own sinful PRIDE. King Jesus is searching for a people who will be subject to Him in all holiness and humility, and yet stand in bold faith against the powers of darkness. (James 4:7). Humility apart from courageous faith becomes despair, and faith apart from broken humility becomes presumption. True revival VICTORY will finally come when the poor in spirit learn how to walk in the authority and power of the Spirit.

John Sung: **The Great Chinese Revival (1925 – 1937)**

The modern Church, much like ancient Israel, has never been very comfortable with God's prophetic people. In every corner of the Church today you can find those who are echoing the words of stubborn King Ahab \- "Is that you, (Elijah) you TROUBLER of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17).

Usually when something tastes unpleasant to us, we try to add something else to sweeten it up. Because contemporary Christendom is so uncomfortable with the prophetic voice of repentance, some are trying to redefine the role of a prophet as one who merely encourages the Church about future events. Prophets are not placed in our midst to sing us sweet lullabies; they are the alarm system for the House of God! Leonard Ravenhill described the role of a prophet this way, "Prophets are God's emergency men for crisis hours. They thrive on perplexity, override adversity, defeat calamity, bring the new wine of the Kingdom to burst withered wineskins of orthodoxy, and birth revival."

One of the most unique prophetic men of the Twentieth Century was the revivalist, John Sung. He operated as a true apostolic evangelist, with countless signs and wonders following his ministry. Unlike any other modern saint that I have ever studied, John Sung epitomizes that rare combination of New Testament purity and power. His life and ministry were powerfully marked by a genuine prophetic anointing. He was the embodiment of a burning zeal, unquenchable passion and an unrelenting fearlessness.

Some called him the "John Wesley of China," while others called him "the Ice-Breaker" or the "Apostle of Revival." Most everyone who has ever witnessed or studied his ministry considers him to be one of the greatest revivalist of our century. Yet to our great shame and loss he has been pitifully forgotten and neglected by most of the Western Church. He is the forgotten prophet of the forgotten Chinese revival of 1927-1937.

John Sung was born on September 27, 1901 in Hinghwa of the Fukien province in southeast China. He was the son of a respected Methodist minister and was converted as a young boy at the age of nine. In 1920 John Sung at age nineteen left for America to study at Wesleyan University of Ohio. He later went on to study at Ohio State University and Union Theological Seminary. Within five years and two months from the day he entered college, he earned three academic degrees: a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy, all while doing menial labour on a full time basis. However, these high honors did not come without taking a great toll on his spiritual life. After a few years in America, sitting under a steady diet of worldly philosophy and liberal theology, John Sung found himself backslidden and doubting everything that his father had taught him.

On February 10, 1927, around the same time when revival was starting to break out in China, John Sung recommitted his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. This was just the beginning of a much deeper work. After repenting of his sins he was suddenly filled with an inexpressible joy. He immediately began to preach to all his classmates and professors. This drastic change in John Sung's behaviour made some believe that he had become mentally unbalanced. He soon found himself being committed to an insane asylum by the seminary authorities. He was allowed to take with him only his Bible and a fountain pen. He would later refer to that asylum as his true theological seminary. John Sung was incarcerated for 193 days, a little more than six months. During that time he read the Bible from beginning to end forty times. He devoted almost every waking hour to reading the Bible and prayer. Through those months of quiet solitude, the Holy Spirit was carefully laying the foundations for John Sung's revival ministry. He was being prepared to participate in one of the mightiest revivals of the twentieth century.

After finally being discharged, John boarded a ship on October 4, 1927 bound for Shanghai. "He had been seven and a half years in the United States. He was now a man of outstanding scholastic attainments, and doubtless any of the national universities of China would have welcomed his services." In spite of all the possible opportunities that his education could afford him, John Sung was determined to go home and preach to his countrymen. He realized that what China needed most was not more science teachers but preachers of the gospel.

One day as the ship neared its destination, he gathered up all his diplomas, medals and fraternity keys and threw them overboard into the ocean. The only exception was his doctor's diploma, which he kept only for the benefit of his father. Like Paul, John Sung could say, "What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ" (Phil. 3: 7). After arriving back in China, John Sung was soon married and then later joined the Bethel Bible School of Shanghai. It wasn't long before he became the school's field evangelist. He allied himself with Andrew Gih and a few other graduates from the school to form the "Bethel Evangelistic Band."

God used this apostolic team mightily to spread the fires of revival all over China as they went forth preaching and singing the gospel. When John Sung was not behind the pulpit, he was reserved and even subdued. However, when preaching he was a man of fervency and intense emotions. He often would pace back and forth across the platform or sometimes leap over the Communion rail. At other times he would walk up and down the aisles to point his finger at someone in the audience and then run back to the front of the church and then stand on the Communion rail to finish his sermon.

He always emphasized repentance and the need for complete restitution where it was at all possible. He fearlessly denounced all sin and hypocrisy wherever he found it, especially among hardened ministers. Yet he also moved audiences with the message of Christ's tender and unfailing love, like few others could. Dr. Sung's meetings were always accompanied by a tremendous amount of conviction and brokenness over sin. It was not uncommon for hundreds of people to be seen with tears streaming down their faces and crying out for mercy. Convicted sinners frequently would rush forward to openly confess their sins before the whole congregation.

In the course of his preaching, Dr. Sung often received the gift of prophecy. On several occasions he pointed out the sins of some backslidden pastor with an incredible and fearful accuracy. Leslie T. Lyall writes, "Sometimes he would single out an individual, a pastor or office bearer in the church, and say, 'There is sin in your heart!' And he was always right."

When John Sung was not actively preaching or organizing a new evangelistic team, he usually could be found writing in his diary or adding to his ever growing prayer list. He carefully prayed over an extensive list of people's needs, which was accompanied by dozens of small photographs. John Sung was a faithful intercessor and always requested a small picture of those desiring prayer in order to help him intercede with a deeper burden. Everywhere he went, he urged the people to give themselves to prayer.

The fact that the Chinese Church is a praying Church today can be attributed in part to the influence and example of this man who prayed. Nothing was allowed to hinder his time in prayer. John Sung made it his regular habit to be up every morning at 5 a.m. to pray for two or three hours. Prayer for John Sung was like a battle. He prayed until the sweat poured down his face. At times he would literally collapse upon his bed and uncontrollably weep and sob under the burden of travailing prayer. John Sung believed that prayer was the most important work of the believer. He defined faith as watching God work while on your knees. Mr. Boon Mark said of John Sung, "He talked least, preached more and prayed most."

Because it was evident that John Sung was a man of great power in prayer, the sick and crippled increasingly came to him to receive prayer for their bodies. John Sung always made time to tenderly pray for their needs. Dr. Sung usually had one meeting in every campaign at which he would give an address on healing and the necessity for sincere repentance before inviting the sick to come forward. Hundreds were instantly healed of every kind of ailment and disease. The blind received their sight; the lame walked, and the deaf and mute were all wonderfully healed as John Sung cried out to Jesus in prayer.

Sometimes he would personally lay hands on and pray for as many as 500-600 people at one time. In spite of the fact that so many marvellous healings followed his ministry, he suffered for years from intestinal tuberculosis. This disease consistently plagued him with painful and infected bleeding ulcers in his colon. Nevertheless he still continued to fervently preach, sometimes in a kneeling position to lessen the terrible pain. Finally after years of suffering with this affliction, he died at only 43, on August 18th , 1944.

John Sung was a true revival pioneer. He lead multiplied thousands of Chinese and Southeast Asians into new realms of spiritual power and reality. The call of revival is a call to be a pioneer! If we are serious about revival, we must be willing to go places were the modern Church has never been or has long forgotten. Therefore we must stop looking to contemporary Christianity for the steps to our revival dreams and visions. We cannot afford to let the Church's present weakness and failure steal our hope and faith for a future revival. God is not calling us to imitate the weak things around us.

He is inviting us to believe Him for the power and purity of the Church as seen in the New Testament! Our seventy years are finished, and it's time for us to stop listening to Sanballat and Tobiah and get busy rebuilding the House of Prayer (Dan 9:1-3, Ezra 1:1-5).

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A.W. Tozer wrote:

"Great industrial concerns have in their employ men who are needed only when there is a breakdown somewhere. When something goes wrong with the machinery, these men spring into action to locate and remove the trouble and get the machinery rolling again.

For these men a smoothly operating system has no interest. They are specialists concerned with trouble and how to find and correct it. In the kingdom of God things are not too different. God has always had His specialists whose chief concern has been the moral breakdown, the decline in the spiritual health of the nation or the church. Such men were Elijah, Jeremiah, Malachi and others of their kind who appeared at critical moments in history to reprove, rebuke and exhort in the name of God and righteousness.

A thousand or ten thousand ordinary priests or pastors or teachers could labor quietly on almost unnoticed while the spiritual life of Israel or the church was normal. But let the people of God go astray from the paths of truth and immediately the specialist appeared almost out of nowhere. His instinct for trouble brought him to the help of the Lord and of Israel. Such a man was likely to be drastic, radical, possibly at times violent, and the curious crowd that gathered to watch him work soon branded him as extreme, fanatical, negative. And in a sense they were right. He was single-minded, severe, fearless, and these were the qualities the circumstances demanded. He shocked some, frightened others and alienated not a few, but he knew who had called him and what he was sent to do. His ministry was geared to the emergency, and that fact marked him out as different, a man apart.

To such men as this the church owes a debt too heavy to pay. The curious thing is that she seldom tries to pay him while he lives, but the next generation builds his sepulchre and writes his biography, as if instinctively and awkwardly to discharge an obligation the previous generation to a large extent ignored."

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