Last Sunday as we were preparing for worship, just before the service, our guest worship leaders were playing a prelude. The music finished, and as Pastor Garret came forward to begin the welcome and announcements I heard a sweet little voice right behind me loudly proclaim, “again! again!!”
I feel that same cry, “again! again!!”, in my heart this morning as I’ve spent some time reading and preparing for our worship time this morning. Do you know what is special about this Sunday morning? Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day when we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples who had gathered for prayer 50 days after Jesus’ crucifixion.
Revival historian J. Edwin Orr says, “There have been instances in the in the history of the church when telling and retelling of the wonderful works of God have been used to rekindle the expectations of the faithful intercessors and prepare the way for another awakening.” So this morning, that is what I want to do: retell stories of the “wonderful works of God”, with the hope and prayer that it might “rekindle” within us a desire for and action towards experiencing more of God, being more deeply awakened to His presence and purpose, and being transformed by His Spirit. “Again!”
My source for these stories is a book by Elmer Towns and Douglas Porter called, “The Ten Greatest Revivals Ever: From Pentecost to the Present”. http://elmertowns.com/books/online/10Greatest/10Greatest_revivals_ever%5BETOWNS%5D.pdf. Now obviously I can’t tell all the stories of revival from 2000 years of church history. So I’ve selected some from that are a little closer to home, in both time and geography. And as I tell these stories, there is one question I want to ring in your mind and in your soul: If God could do it then, can He do it now?
It Starts With Scripture: Acts 2
The sermon series we are in has been called “Pivotal Moments in the Biblical Story”, and the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples as they met to pray 10 days after Jesus’ ascension to heaven is, without question, a “pivotal moment”. We know and celebrate it as the birth of the church; it is a major turning point in how God has interacted with His people in that now, all believers receive the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, all believers are now considered “priests” in the sense that we can each approach God personally and directly rather than rely on an intermediary – now the only intermediary between us and God the Father is the indwelling and empowering Holy Spirit and our brother Jesus Christ. And it begins here:
“2 On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.
5 At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.
7 They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, 8 and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! 9 Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” 12 They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.
13 But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”
14 Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd…
37 Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 This promise is to you, and to your children, and even to the Gentiles—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” 40 Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all.
42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.
43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity— 47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.”
Does that story stir your soul? Does it leave you crying out, “Again!”? If God could do it then, can He do it now?? Do you want Him to???
Hamilton’s Wesleyan Methodist Revival 1857
It is 1854. A group of Christians in Ontario (or “Upper Canada” as it was known then) invited a well known medical doctor and his wife, Walter and Phoebe Palmer, from New York State, to come and speak at some camp meetings – these were summer time gatherings of groups of rural churches who would gather together to celebrate and worship. On a farm east of the village of Napanee, Ontario, they met for 4 days and the Palmers led and preached. During those four days, 500 people came to faith in Christ.
It went so well that the Palmers were invited back 3 years later, this time to ministry in and around Toronto where they held a whole series of camp meetings in different communities throughout the summer and the fall, reporting crowds of 5000 during the week and up to 20000 on the weekends. Interestingly, the Dr. was not a good speaker, and it was actually his wife, Phoebe, who did most of the preaching…
At the end of this rather intense season, they were looking forward to returning home to New York. Fastest was to catch a train from Hamilton, Ontario; so they sent their luggage ahead of them to Hamilton and followed on a later coach.
They lost their luggage. Or, perhaps, God lost their luggage…
Arriving in Hamilton, the Palmers decided to spend the night in a hotel and then find their luggage and continue home to the US. But a local pastor heard they were in town, tracked them down, and asked them to come and preach in his church that night, Friday, October 9, 1857. Now – remember, they have just spent an entire summer preaching to crowds of up to 20,000. God has been moving powerfully. Now they are on the way home.
They say, “yes”, and can anyone guess how many people showed up to hear them preach in Hamilton, to start what is now known as the “Hamilton Revival of 1857”? Between 50 and 60. But Phoebe noticed something – the people seemed unusually attentive. So she committed to speaking again the next night, and told the people to share their faith and invite their unsaved coworkers. She maybe thought it would take a while to find the luggage… The next night, double that number came, and the revival began. It swept the city, even the mayor was reported to have come and knelt before God and experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Palmers stayed for 6 weeks.
I find the story fascinating – it wasn’t the crowds of 20,000 that started the revival, it was 50-60 people meeting on short notice after some lost luggage. And the impact of the Hamilton revival wasn’t largest just in Hamilton: see, what happened was that the story got picked up in some American newspapers, and a bunch of American pastors and lay people heard the story and started to pray that God might do among them what they were hearing He was doing in Hamilton.
That season of prayer launched an even larger and more impactful season of revival known as “The Fulton Street Prayer Meeting”. Having heard of the Hamilton story, the Fulton Street church handed out some fliers on the street inviting people to a lunch time prayer meeting. The meeting started, and no one came. 20 minutes in, a few people showed up and eventually there were a total of… 6. That could be discouraging… but they kept praying, kept inviting, and within 6 months there were more than 12,000 people meeting on their lunch breaks to pray. It was led by lay people, and they just came together to pray and share stories of God’s working in their lives. Very calm, organized, people were allowed to speak for no more than 5 minutes, and they would pray or sing or share as they chose. By May of 1859, more than 50 000 people had come to faith in Christ through this movement, which carried over into Ireland, Jamaica, and then led into D.L. Moody’s ministry (which is known as one of the great periods of evangelism in America and into Europe as well). And it started with some lost luggage in Hamilton.
Does that story stir your soul? Does it leave you crying out, “Again!”? If God could do it then, can He do it now?? Do you want Him to???
1904 Revival:
The next story flows out of that history, within a generation. Some of the institutions and individuals impacted by the 1860s and 1870s revival started, around the turn of the century, to call for prayer for revival to come again. And it certainly did… prayer for revival began to happen all across the planet – not in any way that was organized by people on earth, but as the Holy Spirit began to awaken prayer in the people of God in different cultures and peoples all over the earth.
Then it began to happen. In South Africa, in Japan, in Australia, in Wales. It spread through Norway and Sweden and Finland and Denmark, then into Germany and France and the other nations in Europe. It went to India and Burma, Africa and Latin America, Korea, Chili and Brazil. It even came to North America.
The most famous story in North America is the Azusa Street revival, which birthed the Pentecostal denomination that is the fastest growing global denomination with more than 500 million members world wide.
It started with a black preacher in 1904, named William Seymour, preaching about experiencing the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, even though he had not yet experienced this. He learned his theology by sitting outside a window of a white Bible school, where black people were not allowed. He moved to LA and was invited to speak at a church there, and when he came back the next day the door was padlocked and he was sent away as a heretic. He moved to a house, preaching the same thing, and soon after there were so many people attending that the weight actually collapsed the porch. Then they moved into an old run down building on Azusa street, where the revival really began.
The space was small. Full of horse flies. No pulpit or altar or pianos. But God showed up, and so did people. By 1906, services were happening almost around the clock, every day, and the power of God was at work. Other pastors and religious leaders came to check it out with the intention of denouncing it as fake, showing up in pride in their fancy suits and ties, and most of them met God and ended up face down in the dirty floor repenting. People came from across the world, and people went from there across the world. And the result is 100s of millions of people in relationship with God.
Does that story stir your soul? Does it leave you crying out, “Again!”? If God could do it then, can He do it now?? Do you want Him to???
New Hebrides to India to Saskatoon:
The final story begins in Scotland shortly after the end of World War II, a place called New Hebrides. The church was dying, empty of young people, but there were a couple of people with a heart to see that change. Peggy Smith and her sister, Catherine, in their 80s and homebound, went to prayer. They prayed and prayed. And God answered… they had a vision of the church full of young people, so they called their pastor (rev. MacKay) to share the vision. He believed them, his wife had had the same vision a week earlier, so called his church and elders to prayer as well. For three months, twice a week, they met to pray. And nothing happened. Then one night, one of the younger elders who had been part of this prayer time, rose and said, “It seems to me to be so much humbug, to be waiting and praying, when we ourselves are not rightly related to God.” He repented right there and then, and God began to move.
The pastor knew he needed some help, so considered reaching out to an experienced Scottish Revivalist named Duncan Campbell. The praying sisters called the pastor and told him to invite Duncan Campbell, not knowing he had already thought of that, and so he did – it seemed like confirmation. But Campbell said no, so the praying sisters prayed some more and refused to give up. Campbell found himself sitting in the front row about to preach at a famous, prestigious Bible conference, when he felt the Holy Spirit tell him to get up and leave immediately for New Hebrides, Scotland, and accept the invitation he had previously turned down. So he did – he walked out on his speaking engagement and caught a boat immediately.
It launched a great revival on that island in 1949, which eventually ended up here, via India. In India, a group of Christians felt led by the Holy Spirit to pray for revival so for two years they prayed for revival to come to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, even though they had no idea where that was. In 1969, 20 years after being part of this Scottish revival, Duncan Campbell was in Canada speaking, and he shared with a few pastors that he felt God was going to bring revival to western Canada through the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Saskatoon. Bill McLoud was the pastor of this church of 200-250, and had been praying for revival in his church for a while, and he was there to hear the vision and pray with Campbell. As he heard the stories from Scotland, he thought, “If God can do that in Scotland, why not in Saskatoon?”
So he returned, and began to pray even more. He called the other pastors of the city together, and they prayed. The churches began to pray also. They committed half an hour to prayer after every worship service, every youth meeting, every ministerial gathering, every board meeting. Initially, nothing happened. But they kept praying…
And in October, 1971, God began to answer. Two evangelists from the US, twins named Ralph and Lou Sutera, were invited and began a week of meetings on Wednesday Oct 13, 1971. It started simply, with just McLoud’s little church, and the first indication of the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit was – are you ready? can you guess??... it was not speaking in tongues. It was not falling face down. It was not miraculous healings. It was two church leaders who had grudges towards each other being convicted of their sin, publicly confessing, forgiving each other, and embracing. Next came 12 Bible school graduates who had been trained by pastor Bill as counselors to others who might respond – they came and repented as well. And from there, the revival took off.
Saskatoon got rocked by the Holy Spirit. Pastor Bill phone the other pastors to share the answers to prayer, and pretty soon his 300 person church was packed. So they moved to the Anglican church that sat 700 and packed it out. So then they moved to the Alliance church that sat 900 and packed it out. So then they moved to the United church that sat 1500 and packed it out. Eventually they were in a civic auditorium that seated 2000 people. Meetings were held every night for seven and a half weeks, and the town was transformed. Taxi drivers were getting calls at midnight to pick people up and take them to church. People started paying bills they had never paid, shoplifters returned stolen merchandise, criminals walked into the police station and turned themselves in. One man that was deeply part of this revival was Henry Blackaby, who God later used to write a book called “Experiencing God” that many hundreds of thousands of people, including many of us, have read and benefited from.
This happened here, within many of our lifetimes.
Does that story stir your soul? Does it leave you crying out, “Again!”? If God could do it then, can He do it now?? Do you want Him to???
Conclusion:
“No church that values its own standards can afford to depreciate revivals of religion. The whole history of the Christian church from its foundation until now is the history of revivals. It should always be borne in mind that real revival is something infinitely higher than a mere gale of religious excitement sweeping over the churches. A genuine revival is a manifestation of supernatural and divine power.” Australian Christian World editorial, 1888.
Here is my point: what God has done before, He can do again. It began in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, and it still happens today, it still happens in Canada, and it can happen again.
G. Campbell Morgan says, “Revival cannot be organized, but we can set up our sails to catch the wind from heaven when God chooses to blow upon His people once again.”
