Sermon - Signs of Revival - by Gordon Kegg

Revival in East Anglia, Revival in Azusa Street, Revival in Wales and Revival in India.  All these revivals were in the last Century  and there is a great deal we can learn from them.

Revival Sermon preached by Gordon Kegg on the 8th of November 2009

The people God used

The disciples : Young, uneducated - the neglected and the ignored

Evan Roberts, a young collier was instrumental in the Welsh revival was only twenty six years of age and had not finished his education

William Seymour who was instrumental in the Azusa Street revival was born in 1870 in southern Louisiana - where groups like the Klu Klux Klan terrorized the southern blacks, raping, beating and lynching them.  The Churches denied them equality one publication at the time saying  "There is but one way now to manage the negro.  He is, as a class, amenable neither to reason nor gratitude.  He must be starved into the common perceptions of decency."
An American Historian wrote " Forgotten in the North, manipulated and then callously rejected by the South, rebuffed by the supreme court, voiceless in national AFFAIRS, HE AND HIS DESCENDENTS WERE CONDEMNED  TO LIVE LIVES OF POVERTY, INDIGNITY AND LITTLE HOPE.

'All were equal - no flesh might glory in his presence. These were Holy Ghost meetings , led of the Lord.  It had to start in poor surroundings, to keep out the selfish human element., All , black and white came down in humility together at His feet.,

The Mukti revival in India was visited by a Brethren missionary  who had been working at Coimbatore, in South India, since 1890:
“The writer has spent seventeen days recently at Mukti—( A large Christian centre for girls orphaned or widowed) days of blessing
that, please God, will leave their mark on all his future life. How can one describe the tides of feeling this first contact with the revival begat in the
soul? There was hunger, real pain of hunger, for a share in this visitation
of God; shame, bitter shame, at the ignorance, after long years of Christian life, of what this travailing in prayer, prevailing in prayer, being lost in prayer meant, as it was seen here in many mere children; then there was wonder, praiseful wonder, at the marvels of grace. 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.
Ellis a reporter ' What was remarkable was the prominent place which young girls had in the PRAYING BANDS (Groups of girls who went preaching and teaching in the surrounding villages) - timid, untutored Hindu maidens reared to believe in the complete subjection of women have had in this revival"

Preparation of the People: Spirit at work in submission                          

Peter as a human being was led into complete submission to Jesus-       
It was Jesus who said to him Get behind me Satan when Peter refused to accept that Jesus had to go to Jerusalem to die.  All pretence of being a Godly nab was stripped away.
There was his triple denial when all pretence of being a strong man was stripped away.
There was the time when Jesus had to tell him where to fish that all pretence of being self sufficient was blown away.

Douglas Brown who was instrumental in the East Anglian Revival in 1921/22

God laid hold of me in the midst of a Sunday evening service and He nearly broke my heart while I was preaching. I went back to my vestry and ked the door, and threw myself down on the hearthrug in front of the try fireplace broken-hearted. Why? I do not know. My church was filled I loved my people, and I believe my people loved me. I do not say they ought but they did. I was as happy there as I could be. I had never known a day there for fifteen years without conversions. That night I went home went straight up to my study. My wife came to tell me that supper was y and was waiting. 'You must not wait supper for me,' I said. 'What is matter? she asked. 'I have got a broken heart,' was my reply. It was h-while having a broken heart for Jesus to mend it. I had no supper night. Christ laid his hand on a proud minister, and told him that he had not gone far enough, that there were reservations in his surrender, and wanted him to do a piece of work that he had been trying to evade. I knew what He meant. All November that struggle went on, but I would not give way: I knew God was right, and I knew I was wrong. I knew what it would mean for me, and I was not prepared to pay the price. Then Christmas time came and all the joy round about seemed to mock me. I knew what Jesus wanted. He showed me pictures of my congregation, and Douglas Brown on his knees in the midst of them. I saw Douglas Brown praying for his own folk, to whom he had preached for over fifteen years. I saw it a1l in the picture. The struggle went on, and I said to the Lord, 'You know that this is not my work. I will pray for anyone else who does it, but please - do not give it to me, it will kill me. I cannot get into the pulpit and plead with people. It is against my temperament, and You made me.'

All through January God wrestled with me.  At the end of January I was still like poor Jacob, struggling instead of clinging. I thought that what was wrong was my circumstances, when what was really wrong was Douglas Brown.   After four months of struggle that there came the crisis.   On the Saturday night I wrote out my resignation to my church, and it was marked with my own tears. I loved the church, but I felt that if I could not be holy I would be honest; I felt that I could not go on preaching while I had a contention with God. That night the resignation lay  on my blotter, and I went to bed but not to sleep.

That morning He nearly broke my heart in my study, when I saw all the things that were wrong, and I knew that the only hope of usefulness and power, and joy, and gentleness, and love, was for Jesus Christ to come into my life and absolutely reign; and He showed me that just as I had received a Saviour by an act of faith, so I had to come humbly and penitently to His feet and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

As I knelt there with the tears running down my checks, I said, "Lord Jesus I am not worthy. l feel I ought not to ask for such a thing. Thou mightest strike me dead for presumption; bur, 0 Jesus, Thou hast told me, Thou hast led me, Thou hast brought me to this. for the sake of my church, for the sake of my congregation, for the sake of the men and women that I meet day by day, for the sake of my witness to that wonderful Calvarv, Lord Jesus, I trust Thee, I ask Thee now to give me the Holy Spirit. I would receive Him for a life of purity, a life of power ,a life of loyalty to Jesus, a life of faithful witness. None of these things could ever be mine in my own power. I am a horrible failure, and I know it! 0 Lord, give me Thy Holy Spirit," and He led me, He gave me fire that morning, and I thanked Jesus Christ. Within four days I was in .. Lowestoft; the cloud burst and  souls, were being born again by the score.

The Spirit at work in the individual

Those involved in leading these events had clear encounters with the Holy Spirit
The Welsh Revival 1904 - 1906

The leader of the revival is Mr. Evan Roberts, was a student in a preparatory school when the Spirit came upon him
“One Friday night last spring (1904), when praying by my bedside before retiring, I was taken up into a great expanse, without time or space—it was communion with God. Before this it was a far-off God that I had. I was frightened that night, but never since. So great was my shivering that I rocked the bed and my brother awakened, took hold of me, thinking I was ill. ..... From that hour I was taken up into divine fellowship for about four hours. What it was I cannot tell you, except that it was divine. About five I was allowed to sleep until nine.”

The Spirit fell in such power that he felt impelled to return to his native village of Loughor and tell the people of God’s love for them.
The movement began at Loughor went like a tidal wave over Wales, in five months there
being a hundred thousand people converted throughout the country.

The key figure at Azusa Street was William Seymour.  On Thursday April 12th 1906 William Seymour received his Pentecostal Baptism.  Seymour and a white brother has tarried late seeking the Holy Spirit.  Seymour's companion weary and discouraged said. " It is not he time."  Seymour refusing to quit, replied " Yes it is I'm not going to give up."  In a short time he was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues.  He testified that it was like 'a sphere of fiery white-hot radiance falling upon him."  He fell under the power of the Holy Spirit as if he was dead and spoke in tongues.' Describing the event later he said ' We had prayed all night, when at four o'clock in the morning, God came through the window."

In 1894 Pandita Ramabai who with Minnie Abrams  was at the centre of the Mukti Revival in India 1905 - 1907, had a definite experience described by her niece as 'the blessing of the Holy Spirit' when she was filled with joy and peace " I found it a great blessing to realise the personal presence of the Holy Spirit in me and to be guided and taught by Him'  She was still hungry to enter on a new experience of God's power to , save bless and use'

Prayer

v 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. 'While there has been no organisation, no elaborate preparation for this mission, in the ordinary sense of the word, there is a strong belief that it is the direct result of earnest prayer. A prominent member of a Newport Baptist church, who has followed the movement with close interest and deep thankfulness, declared the other day the revival was the result of the praying by the young women who had been engaged in it for some months. Even Roberts had, he said, been praying for thirteen months for that wave to come, and he related how the young man was turned out of his lodgings by his landlady, who thought that in his enthusiasm he was possessed or somewhat mad. He spent hours praying and preaching in his rooms, until the lady became afraid of him, and asked him to leave.'

The mountains and the hills have broken into singing, and in our generation we have never before heard the like. One of the finest laymen Methodism has in the far North said ' I have been praying for this for years, and l was beginning to fear l should have to die without the sight; but it has come at last, and now won’t I praise Him!

It will give to us all renewed faith in prayer and a new passion for praise. As regards the welsh revival this was emphatically a praying revival. Prayer became so passionate and mighty at Caerphilly that at midnight a number of men formed themselves into a praying “Get-them-out-of-bed brigade”, and in an hour or two three of the sinners prayed for became so miserable in bed that they dressed hurriedly and came on to the service and yielded to Christ there and then. After I have seen over and over again the complete abandonment with which men give themselves up to pleading, as if they were totally unconscious of any presence but that of Christ, and were quite unaffected by anything or anybody else, I can easily believe it. Even when I could not understand a single word I have been indescribably
moved. How, then, must it be with the Father who knows all and loves all? Humanity in Wales is as frail as it is elsewhere, but I have had a new lesson in this text, The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity.

Pandita Ramabai and Minnie Abrams  Mukti Centre India 1905 - 1907. At the time  of revival she was led to write a circular letter and send it to missionaries all over India to increase prayer interest in this respect. More than 3500 copies of this circular were sent out asking for names of people to be prayed for. Many responses were sent in, and in a short time more than 29,000 persons were being prayed for by name. Ramabai said, “When we were Hindus we used to repeat one or two thousand names of the gods daily, as well as several hundred verses from the so-called sacred books, in order to gain merit. This did not hinder our work or study. Why should we not, as Christians, be able to pray for many hundreds of people by name?”

“We are full of praise that we have been allowed to live to hear such sounds in India. Souls in agony, with bitter wailing and moving entreaty seeking the Lord. Hearts overflowing with joy in Jesus abandoned to the luxury of praising Him, sitting on the ground or kneeling, lost to all that goes on around, with clasped hands and upturned faces aglow with love, in the midst of a crowd but apart with Him, exchanging the holiest confidences of affection. This is worship, the worship the Father seeks for, and it is one of the loveliest sights one can conceive out of Heaven. When some hundreds are carried away and can only sing ‘Hallelujah, Hallelujah to the Lamb’ until unable to sing any more, God is surely
getting His own, and His heart is refreshed.”

Prerogative of God: Divine Sovereignty

This first mark is implicit in the statement, “When the day of Pentecost was now come”. Every genuine revival is clearly stamped with the hallmark of divine sovereignty, and in no way is this more clearly seen than in the time factor. The moment for that first outpouring of the Spirit was not determined by the believers in the upper room but by God, who had foreshadowed it centuries before in those wonderful types of the Old Testament. “The slaying of the paschal lamb, the Passover celebration  told to generation after generation, though they did not know it, the day of the year and week on which Christ our Passover should be sacrificed for us. The presentation of the wave sheaf before the Lord ‘on the day after the Sabbath’ (Lev. 23: 11-16 And the command in v16 to Count off (from this presentation of the wave sheaf) fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord which determined the day of Pentecost and became the time of the descent of the Spirit.

But there was something more than the fulfilling of prophecy in the choice of the day of Pentecost for the great outpouring.

It was a strategic moment, which God had foreseen would give to the event of that day the maximum possible effect. God saw to it that this mighty outpouring of the Spirit was felt throughout the world of that day, for the feast had brought to Jerusalem “Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5
Similarly God has His time for every subsequent outpouring, a time that must surely be related to a thousand other plans He has on foot, and therefore a time that He alone can determine.

It has been said of the Welsh Revival, “The outpouring of the Spirit came dramatically with precision, in the second week in November, 1904, on the same day—both in the north and in the south.” Undoubtedly there were those in both regions who had met the conditions and were ready for God to work, but we cannot account for this strange co-ordination apart from that divine strategy which lies behind the sovereign ways of God.
Suddenly

Here is the third feature of God at work and not man , “And suddenly there came. . " (verse 2).

( Extracted from a Book by Arthur Wallis)

No works of man building up to it - no tower of Babel built with weary hands and rebellious hearts - no it is sudden - it is in power and it is GOD.

May God grant us the hearts to yearn for revival