What a great and gracious God we serve! How measureless is His love and matchless His ways. Being so far removed from those great historic revivals of the last couple of centuries we cannot envision what genuine revival is like. Sadly, we have been plagued in more recent times with the cheap, gaudy, and false ‘manifestations’ that have been claimed as being true visitations, but when held up to biblical scrutiny they have failed the test. But when GOD rends the heavens and “comes down” (Isaiah 64:1-3), though you cannot measure those floods of Revival “upon the dry ground” (Isaiah 44:3) there are unmistakable evidences of the Holy Spirit’s quickening work in the Church and the overflowing impact in communities.
God’s initial work is necessarily in the Church. Charles Finney rightly concluded that a revival consists in the return of the Church from her backslidings, and in the conviction of sin and repentance on the part of the Church. Of course, Finney was wrong in his ideas of how revival starts, asserting that it is nothing more than the right use of appropriate means; that it can be planned or programmed like any other series of special meetings – something for man to do! One can see how this could well engender all manner of techniques and gimmicks and human manipulation, resulting NOT in genuine revival but in what is pseudo. David had it right when he pleaded with the Most High: “Won’t you revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you” (Psalm 85:6).
Surely no one will deny that all genuine revivals have stamped upon them the hallmark of God’s sovereignty. They are always the result of divine impulse, never human. When speaking of a movement of GOD in Revival, Arthur Wallis said it:
…bears this mark of spontaneity when men cannot account for what has taken place in terms of personalities, organizations, meetings, preachings, or any other consecrated activity; and when the work continues unabated without any human control.
A movement of the Spirit can only be controlled by a Divine administration (1 Cor.12:4-7), which while awesome, powerful, and profound, it is characterized by simplicity. Looking back to the Church’s glorious beginnings as it moved forward in the power of the Spirit, we are compelled to exclaim with William Cowper (1731-1800), a wonderful hymn-writer and friend of John Newton:
Oh, how unlike the complex works of manHeaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan!No meretricious graces to beguile,No clustering ornaments to clog the pile,From ostentation, as from weakness, free,Majestic in its own simplicity.
I concluded the last article (CETF # 58 pp 4-8) saying that in Revival awesome things occur by God’s sovereignty. Isaiah said that when God came down “You did terrible things that we did not look for.” (64:3) That is, God did awesome things that His people did not look for, or what they had never before witnessed, and which they deemed they had no right to expect.
This was certainly the case in the great Welsh Revivals. From the 17th Century to the beginning of the 20th Century there were some amazing and powerful spiritual awakenings in the Principality of Wales. Beside its political and cultural history there is in Wales a thrilling evangelical Christian history with seasons of exceptional spiritual renewal. What grace on God’s part to raise up such outstanding spiritual leaders and preachers as Howell Harris (1714-1773) and Daniel Rowland (1713-1790), contemporaries and co-workers with George Whitefield and John Wesley in the 18th Century Methodist Revival. Then there was William Williams (1717-1791), who was also a great hymn-writer; and later, John Elias (1774-1841), Thomas Charles (1755-1814), and Christmas Evans (1766-1838), to name but a few. These humble and godly men, in the main Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, were remarkable ambassadors of eternity in the courts of time and greatly used by God!
It is helpful to note the conversion of Howell Harris in 1735. How significant that was in the providence of God. He had come under great conviction of sin while listening to a sermon and received mercy through the blood of Christ. It was on Palm Sunday of that year at the Talgarth Parish Church. During the service the Vicar, announcing that there would be a Communion Service the following Sunday, said that he knew there were many people who did not come to the Communion because they felt they were not fit to partake of it. He went on to say,
If you are not fit to take Communion you are not fit to pray, if you are not fit to pray you are not fit to live, and if you are not fit to live you are not fit to die.'
These words went to the heart of Howell Harris with great force. He had never been a riotous person but he had lived a loose life; so these extraordinary words of the Vicar brought about such deep conviction of sin, which led to an agony of repentance. Howell’s own written testimony was this:
I was convinced, and resolved to leave my outward vanities, for as yet I knew and saw very little of my inward corruption … I knew as yet nothing of the inward self-denial which our Saviour enjoins; I had no knowledge of the blood of Jesus, the only Fountain open for sin and uncleanness (Zech.13:1). I was still a total stranger to the life of faith, and therefore all this while in a damnable state, and in danger of final destruction.”
What a confession! What a testimony! What an insight into the kind of uncompromising preaching by God’s servants in that day. O that we had such faithful preaching in ALL the pulpits of our land today!
Here is the striking detail recorded of that man’s conversion. He immediately began to tell others about what God had done in his life, and to hold meetings in his own home encouraging others to seek the same assurance that he had of Christ's forgiveness. It marked the commencement of a mighty Revival at a time when the spiritual condition of Wales in that early part of the 18th century was very low, with its spiritual darkness, lifeless religion, consequent immorality, and hypocrisy. But GOD “came down” and that Revival had an ongoing impact during the remainder of the 18th century, Howell Harris playing a prominent part in that Awakening. O, what God can do when we earnestly seek Him – whatever be the outward appearance of things! As Adrian Rodgers said,
Study the history of revival. God has always sent revival in the darkest days. Oh, for a mighty, sweeping revival today!
What stands out as significant with these Welsh preachers of the 18th and 19th centuries was their powerful Bible preaching ministries, and their uncompromising proclamation of the Gospel despite the terrible persecution and hardships they endured for the truth. Some were Christian ministers of the established Churches, and were even deprived of their livings by bishops for (as they stated it)“preaching schismatically and dangerously to the people.” God honoured them, and the impact of their ministries can only be explained in terms of the faithfulness and sovereignty of God – the sovereignty of God as regards time, place, and persons; to think that God was at work so wonderfully through these men as they served Him independently of each other.
At almost exactly the same time as God was using Howell Harris, He was doing the same through Daniel Rowland. They had never heard of each other; long distance separated them from one another, but it was taking place at the same time. We also know that things were happening in George Whitefield’s ministry at the same time – and simultaneously a like spiritual Awakening was taking place with Jonathan Edwards in America. What is this? Nothing other than the sovereignty of God at work! This is not man’s work; it is GOD “coming down,” manifesting His glorious Presence and Power, and perfecting His mighty purposes in His church in answer to prayer.
Much could also be said of the movement of God in the 19th century in Wales. God raised up that wonderful yet simple country pastor, David Morgan, who was notably used by God in the beginning and increase of that spiritual awakening. He was 45 years of age when the 1859 Revival broke out. There was also the younger, 26-year old preacher, Humphrey Jones, whom God used greatly in that Revival when more than 100,000 were added to the Churches in Wales in that hallowed time of Divine Visitation. He had earlier applied to be admitted to the Wesleyan ministry – but was rejected cf. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. However, sensing the call of God on him to preach, and his burden for revival in his homeland of Wales, he resolved to preach in spite of this disappointment. God was with him. The evident, and remarkable power and pathos, that attended his praying impacted many as he held meetings for prayer each night. When he preached people were found in tears seeking peace with God. There were occasions when even before he had finished preaching, like at Pentecost (Acts 2:37-38), scores of people were praying aloud, calling on God for mercy, until Humphrey Jones’ voice was drowned by such crying.[8]
One can appreciate something that he wrote about preachers and preaching in a letter to a friend at that time, with a view to seeing the Revival spread. He wrote:
… for one thing, to be a man of fervent prayer in secret; to be there several times a day, wrestling with God; to wrestle each time as though it were the last; refusing to get up from your knees until an earnest had been given that the Lord had heard you. As the Lord in faith, and with great fervency, what to say to the people; going straight from the secret place into the pulpit each time (like Moses from the Mount to the Camp) Then will the anointing follow your preaching, and every word you say will be received as from an angel of God . . . The other thing is to preach pointedly and rousingly, with severity and conviction; aiming continually at the conscience; charging the people with their sins to their very face, giving no regard for men’s good or bad opinions; and avoiding the exhibition of self during the delivery of your sermon; another is, not to say anything to amuse the people. I would wish to preach each time as if I had to die in the pulpit when I had done preaching – as if I had to go direct from the pulpit to judgment.
Profound words of advice from such a young man. Does this characterise our disposition to such a holy stewardship as God has called us to? Is this the pulpit preaching of our churches today? and we wonder why we are in such a deficient spiritual state, generally speaking, what a challenge to us as preachers! God help us!
When I read these histories and how God “came down” I become more and more impressed by the fact that the work of God in true revival is never superficial and passing. It is deep, affecting, and lasting in its fruit in changed lives, transformed church life, family worship receiving tremendous impetus by a renewed God-fearingness, raised moral standards in communities, and the things of God becoming of paramount concern. One of the ministers, Rev. W. Evans of Aberaeron, reported one of the striking characteristics of the 1859 visitation was its effect on young people and even on children. He said:
The youth of our congregations are nearly all the subject of deep religious impressions. Many of them seem as if filled with the spirit of prayer. Very young people, yes, children from ten to fourteen years of age, gather together to hold prayer meetings, and pray very fervently . . . When it happens . . . that children only, or servants profess spiritual piety in a family, they instantly crave permission to have family prayer, and thus Divine Worship is established in nearly every family in the country.
How blessed those Revival days of 1859-60! Ah, if only things would have continued with undiminishing glory! R.B. Jones has an important chapter in his account of the 1904 Revival, where he asks the question, Do Revivals last? He makes this comment: “It seems a great pity that it appears to be the habit of all Revivals that they do not ‘last’.” He then goes on to speak of ”lasting fruit,” and the Revival’s “after-glow,” giving evidence of the Revival’s impact many years afterwards.
One cannot but be reminded of Israel’s history, the times when God met them, restored them and blessed them, only to read later of their spiritual demise and sad departure from their God and Redeemer. In the Book of Judges we have the detail of Israel’s history under no less than thirteen men whom God raised up during the nation’s tragic decline and disunion after the death of Joshua, when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (17:6) There were seven periods of apostasy, seven periods of servitude to heathen nations, yet in faithfulness and mercy God “came down” and wrought by His own power seven extraordinary deliverances. So it was in Wales, with all those gracious Revivals of the earlier years, towards the end of the 19th century there was a marked spiritual decline. But while there appeared to be no deliverance from this hopeless chaos, GOD graciously intervened in sovereignty and divine pity, “bringing a clean thing out of an unclean” (Job 14:4) far beyond human capability, scheme or aspiration.
How we thank God for many dear saints who were wrought upon by God to seek His face again for another divine visitation. By the year 1900, an evangelistic outreach known as the Forward Movement had planted 30 new churches, primarily in South Wales, with an overall attendance of close to 2,000, mostly new converts. Among the leaders of the Forward Movement was the Presbyterian minister, Seth Joshua, noted for his influence before, during, and after the 1904 Revival, and indeed the one chosen of God to have a direct and significant influence on the life and ministry of the young Revivalist, Evan Roberts.
Seth Joshua had been one of those fervent intercessors, reaching out to God for Revival in Wales, and often prayed as he walked along the banks of the River Neath that God would raise up a young man even from the coal mines – which He did, for Evan Roberts was just a boy of 11 years when he left school to become a coalminer with his father, until he was about 20 years old when he became a blacksmith's apprentice with his uncle in nearby Pontarddulais. But he did not stay there very long, for from being a teenager he had strong spiritual desires, praying regularly that God would visit the nation yet again in Revival Power. The day came when, at just twenty-six years of age, he felt compelled to go into the Calvinistic Methodist Ministry and in order to prepare for enrolment in Trefecca Theological College on September 13th 1904 he went to the Newcastle Emlyn Grammar School.
It was just two weeks later he heard Seth Joshua preach at a Convention meeting he attended at Blaenanerch, 5 miles north of Cardigan in West Wales. Little did he realise at that moment that he was at the crossroads of his spiritual experience. It was in that meeting the young Evan heard the evangelist pray “Lord, bend us.” The Holy Spirit said to Evan, “That’s what you need”. During the meeting he kneeled down in the church with his arms over the seat in front of him, and was bathed in perspiration as he agonised before the Lord. He later recalled how he eventually prayed aloud after others had prayed. “I cried out, O Lord, bend me! Bend me! Bend us! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" You can sense the anguish and passion in that cry. That actually became a motto of the revival, 'Bend the church and save the world.' At the following meeting Evan experienced a powerful filling with the Holy Spirit. He testified, “I felt ablaze with the desire to go through the length and breadth of Wales to tell of the Saviour.” Many see this as the beginning of the Revival. It is somewhat significant that the theme Scripture of The Revival, inscribed on the Evan Roberts Memorial monument at Moriah Chapel in Loughor, is Acts 2:38 – "Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Yes, GOD CAME DOWN! And He came in answer to prayer. Revival broke out in Loughor, and within two weeks the Welsh Revival was national news. Whole communities were radically changed as, through the preaching of the Word of God and His awesome convicting presence, men and women found themselves drawn into a powerful experience of God, knowing peace with God and the forgiveness of sin through the precious expiating blood of Jesus. A conservative estimate of 200,000 people were converted to Christ and added to the churches in Wales in a brief period of four to six months. Wales was again a God-fearing nation. GOD had “come down” to meet with those who sought Him for spiritual renewal. Jeremiah 29:11-14 sums up the situation so fittingly:
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then you shall call upon Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart. And I will be found by you, says the LORD.
Not only was there such a powerful manifestation of God in the Principality, but sparks from the fire of such a Divine awakening soon began to ignite fires in more than a dozen other countries. Edwin Orr documents the impact of that Revival as it was felt in each of the five continents of the world! Writing on the subject of Prayer and Revival, he made reference to the 1904 Welsh Revival,
The Welsh Revival was the farthest-reaching of all the Movements of the Awakening, for it affected the whole of the evangelical cause in India, Korea, China, renewed the revivals in Japan and South Africa, and sent an awakening over Africa, Latin America and the South Seas … The story of the Welsh Revival has often been told. Most Christian people, including scholars, have been unaware of the extent of the Awakening in the rest of English-speaking countries, in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, South Africa, Australia and faraway New Zealand.….The Archbishop of Canterbury called for a nation-wide Day of Prayer. Thirty English Bishops declared for the Revival after one of their number, deeply moved, spoke of confirming 950 new converts in a country Parish Church. The Awakening swept Scotland and Ireland… Scandinavia, Germany, North America, Australasia, Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Chile. As always, it began through a movement of prayer.
That latter statement resonates in my heart, especially in a day when the church has abandoned the prayer meeting: “” When will we learn that there is NO other way to Revival? I would emphasize again that it is as you read the history of those great revivals of the past that you discover that God came when concerned saints were pleading in concerted, fervent, and sustained prayer for Him to “come down.” I long for the day when there will be such an awesome manifestation of GOD in our midst, as local churches, that those around will have to confess, “God is truly among you” (1 Corinthians 14:25). Indeed, if we are to be what our Lord intends us to be in our generation, then we must know an energizing by the Holy Spirit – the SPIRIT OF LIFE permeating our beings, sanctifying our natures, revitalizing our spiritual lives, enthusing our hunger for Truth, and impassioning every element of our love for all that is divine and holy. That is what we must long to see in this upward heart-cry to the only one who can bring it to pass: “Will YOU not REVIVE US again, that Your people may rejoice in You?” (Psalm 85:6).
Let me focus your thoughts, then, on the crucial need we have of getting before God IN PRAYER. God has ordained the place of PRAYER. Jesus said, “My House shall be called the house of prayer”? (Matt.21: 13) Let’s be honest: in the changing patterns of Assembly life, the meeting that has suffered most is the prayer meeting! Other aspects of Church life and activity are deemed more important and acceptable to us than the lowly struggles of the prayer-arena. We will do almost anything but pray! I cannot but inquire now, “Why do we need to pray?”
Psalm 85 yields some answers for us, which we do well to pay attention to.
Will you not revive us again...? – verse 6.
That is how revivals are born. You cannot organize them; you have to agonize for them! It’s not simply a matter of trying to stir yourself up. How often have we done this, and it’s not long before we are back in the former state of spiritual apathy and shallowness. God addresses such a condition through HOSEA, a prophet of keen spiritual discernment and an intense devotion to God. In chapter 6:1-3 it appears that Israel has returned to the Lord, but it is such a shallow revival – the result of such shallow repentance. So God exposes their unreality and emptiness, the superficiality of such “revival” in verse 4:
What shall I do to you, O Ephraim? What shall I do to you, O Judah? For your piety is like the morning cloud, and like the dew which goes away early.
Note the imagery here: the “morning cloud” being a dense mist that billowed in at night by those summer Mediterranean winds, but which vanished very quickly with the rising of the morning sun; and “the dew”, distilled in the night, welcome as it was with all its promise, evaporated more quickly than the mist. If God looks for anything, it’s reality and sincerity. He looks for a genuine turn around in repentance, and that is born in the place of prayer, for THAT is God’s own special work. Again and again we are confronted by this truth: only God can revive! Without prolonging the illustration of Hosea let me hasten to say that, even with His great disappointment and displeasure, God reminds His people through His prophet of His loving care and compassion, and the yearning heart of God is seen to break open in amazing and tender mercy (chapter 11:8-9):
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I surrender you, Israel? How can I make you like Admah (and Zeboim)? My heart is turned within Me. My compassions are kindled together. I will not execute my fierce anger ... I am GOD and not man...
Hosea never saw the results of his pleadings with Israel, but God was faithful.
That’s how we must plead with God, for only HE can revive His church. Apart from HIM all human wisdom becomes folly, our intellect is blind, and whatever carnal energies are employed in any work for God, all will prove to be utterly fragile, flimsy, and totally inadequate to promote the eternal cause of a Holy God. Samuel Chadwick was right when he wrote:
The Church that is man-managed instead of God-governed is doomed to failure… There is a superabundance of machinery; what is wanting is power. To run an organization needs no God. Man can supply the energy, enterprise and enthusiasm for things human. The real work of the Church depends upon the power of the Spirit.
We need the Holy Spirit! What a difference He makes. That is why Jesus declared not only that the Holy Spirit would come after He had ascended back into Heaven, but that the Holy Spirit was indispensable—“If I do not go away …[He] … will not come… ” (John 16:7). There’s the truth of the Holy Spirit’s indispensability. The Church needs Him for its virtuous well-being, its vigorous life, and its victorious mission. Pentecost saw the beginning of a new era for the world, a new power for righteousness, a new basis for fellowship, and a new dynamic for mission in a world that must hear of Christ’s Gospel to be saved --Romans 1:16-17 and 10:13-17. And not only so, but with Pentecost came a new dimension in the Church’s prayer-life. Romans 8:26-27. How wonderful, and so merciful of our God – the saint who is in trouble, or who has some pressing burden not knowing just how to articulate it in prayer before God, finding the Divine Paraklete (the Holy Spirit) pleading on his behalf pleading “with unuttered groanings” or with “sighs that baffle words” (Denney) – Romans 8:26. No language is adequate, yet the prayer is understood by Him who searches the heart. Jeremiah 17:10 – “I the Lord search the heart…” What a blessing to know we have a Helper – the Holy Spirit – with us in our prayer life!
Now then: I might say that we are confronted with perhaps one of the greatest of mysteries: Why does God choose to work in this particular way of involving US in prayer for the achieving of His purposes. All I know is that HE DOES. So in relation to prayer and revival why do we need to pray? BECAUSE GOD HAS ORDAINED THIS MEETING PLACE WITH HIMSELF.
This whole Psalm of David (Psalm 85) is a prayer, the intimate outpourings of an enlightened but burdened heart that knows the reality and glory and overwhelming experience of conversing with the Eternal, Infinite, and Holy GOD! This is the place of PRAYER – the meeting place with God, wherever that may be: it can be the home, some quiet spot where you can commune free of interruption with God; and especially the gathering of God’s people, “the HOUSE of PRAYER!”Let us be gripped by this truth: God has ordained a meeting place with Himself for all who know Him.
… let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. ….. there I will meet with you, and I will commune with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel -Exodus 25:8,22.
How awesome!
With David the meeting place with God was well established. In Psalm 27:8 he tells us,
When God said, Seek my face; my heart said to You, Your face, LORD, I will seek.
His many Psalms bear out the fact that David was constantly before the Almighty in prayer, and praise! Will we in this blessed New Covenant era do less? Sadly, so many Churches may have departed from “the old paths” of truth and righteousness, and forsaken the place of intercessory prayer. But I am glad that God has not written us off! He is ever drawing us to seek His face as never before. Just as in this Psalm 85, verses 1-3. We must turn our eyes to HIM and all our prayers fervently directed to Him, knowing REVIVAL comes in answer to prayer cf. 2 Chronicles 7:14 with Habakkuk 3:2.
I do not apologize for repetition. Wherever there has been a REVIVAL, in Biblical or Church history, you will find PRAY-ERS behind it. Pentecost came in answer to prayer--Acts 1:12-14; 2:1-4.
Often there has been witnessed some startling outburst and a deluge of varying proportions and impact, but preceding that there is always a purifying and preparatory process, at the heart of which is such fervent, specific and protracted praying. Some have prayed for years before the breakthrough has come. WHY? Only GOD knows. Revival is a sovereign work of God.
The 1904 Welsh Revival goes back beyond the memorable month of November of that year when God manifested Himself in such power and glory in the Principality, commencing with His remarkable visitation at Moriah Chapel in Loughor, near Swansea, where Evan Roberts came forth as God’s instrument in that visitation. There were evidences of spiritual awakenings earlier in that year in a few places, particularly further west in New Quay. However, more particularly do we need to understand that for a considerable time concerned and burdened souls had been pouring out their hearts before God in intercessory prayer, entreating God to “come down.” Such passionate pleading is the indisputable forerunner of all Revivals. Then comes that crucial moment in God’s providential and renewing activity when His presence and power become openly manifest and mighty things take place that not only shakes the churches but their communities. The Reverend R.B. Jones, whom we have referred to as having given us valuable insights into the ‘O4 Revival’ in Wales, makes it so plain that revivals have their springs in prayer. He wrote:
God seems to have so ordained that most, if not indeed all, of His activities in the moral and spiritual realms should be the responses of His heart and power to the prayers of His people.
I cannot conclude this article without a reference to what is the last significant spiritual awakening in the British Isles, when in the 1950s God “came down” on the Isles of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Scottish Hebrides. God did use Duncan Campbell, yet the Revival was born in faithful, passionate PRAYING. In particular, it was in a small cottage by the roadside in the village of Barvus where two elderly sisters, Peggy and Christine Smith, 84 and 82 years of age respectively, sought the face of God over a protracted period of time for Revival. Peggy was blind, and Christine was bent almost double with arthritis, so that they found it difficult to attend public worship. But their cottage became a prayer sanctuary. AND GOD HEARD THEM. He revealed to Peggy NOT only that revival was coming but also the identity of the instrument God had chosen to use: Duncan Campbell, though he testified to the fact that the Revival was already in progress when he arrived there for meetings. He was supposed to be there for just about three weeks, but remained for three years, to give sound teaching to establish the new converts and to consolidate God’s renewing work through the Word of God. That Hebrides revival was born in prayer.
It’s the same when considering the WELSH Revivals and ALL Revivals: prayer is always predominant; and we will have revival when we are seriously concerned enough about it to spend more time before God in prayer. I feel a pulse of sympathy beating with Charles Haddon Spurgeon, when he said to his London congregation:
Oh! men and brethren, what would this heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would go home and pray for a revival – men whose faith is large enough, and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions that God would appear among us and do wondrous things here, as in the times of former generations.
[To be continued]
AERON MORGAN and wife Dinah, have served the Lord for more than fifty years. They are Welsh and have pastored churches in the UK and Australia, where they now reside. Aeron served on the National Executives of the British and the Australian AoG fellowships. He was the first General Superintendent of the British AoG, and was Principal of the Australian National Bible College for twelve years. He was also an adjunct faculty member of the South Pacific Bible College in Suva, Fiji. Now retired from active pastoral ministry he fulfils an extensive itinerant ministry in many countries speaking at churches, Conferences, ministers' seminars, and short-term teaching in Bible Schools. Aeron has a website - www.aeronmorgan.org
