David Lingstone/John Newton/Louis S.Bauman/David Brainerd/John Bunyan/Peter Cartwright/Jonathan Edwards/James Hudson Taylor/Christmas Evans/George Fox/Jonathan Goforth/Evan Roberts/Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield/The Unknown Christian/Pandit Ramabai/William C.Burns/John Sung/William Bramwell/Stonewall Jackson/James Caughey/Gilbert Tannent/E.M.Bounds/Andrew A.Bonar/Mordecai Ham/J.H.Weber
David Livingstone was born the son of deeply religious but humble parents, who lived near Glasgow, Scotland. He studied medicine and theology at the University of Glasgow. Livingstone tried to go to China as a missionary in 1838, but when the Opium War in China closed the doors, he went to South Africa. He had been challenged by Robert Moffat, a missionary to that country, who said, "On a clear morning the smoke of a thousand villages could be seen where the name of Christ had never been heard." He joined Moffat and married his daughter.
Livingstone pushed two hundred miles north of Moffat's assigned station and founded another mission station, Mabosta. Livingstone continued on the mission field and advanced fourteen hundred miles into the interior in spite of the hardships. His purpose was to open the door of Africa to the Gospel. He was attacked and maimed by a lion, his home was destroyed during the Boer War, his body was often racked by fever and dysentery, and his wife died on the field. One morning in May, 1873, a faithful native found Livingstone by his bed, kneeling and dead. The natives buried his heart in Africa as he had requested, but his body was returned to England and buried in Westminster Abbey.
Many felt no single African explorer had done so much for African geography as Livingstone during his thirty years' work. His travels covered one-third of the continent, from the Cape to near the Equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Livingstone was no hurried traveler; he did his journeying leisurely, carefully observing and recording with the eye of a trained scientific observer. His example and his death acted like an inspiration, filling Africa with an army of explorers and missionaries, and raising in Europe so powerful a feeling against the slave trade that through him slavery may be considered as having received its death blow.
It's hard to imagine Africa once being called the "dark continent." Yet this is exactly what it was to the outside world less than 150 years ago. However, thanks to the relentless efforts and commitment of David Livingstone, Africa became a land open not only to civilization but to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mrs. J.H. Worchester writes in her book, David Livingstone: First To Cross Africa With The Gospel, that "as a missionary explorer, [Livingstone] stood alone, traveling 29,000 miles in Africa, adding to the known portion of the globe about a million square miles, discovering lakes N'gami, Shirwa, Nyassa, Morero and Bangweolo, the upper Zambesi and many other rivers, and the wonderful Victoria Falls. He was also the first European to traverse the entire length of Lake Tanganyika, and to travel over the vast watershed near Lake Bangweolo, and through no fault of his own, he only just missed the information that would have set at rest his conjectures as to the Nile's sources."
After hearing of his death, Florence Nightingale said: "God has taken away the greatest man of his generation . . ."
Livingstone was born on March 13, 1813, in Blantyre, Scotland, where he spent the first twenty-three years of his life. His parents, devout Christians, played an important role in his life by introducing him to the subject of missions.
As a young man, he worked in a local mill, but refused any thought of this becoming his destiny. By the time he turned twenty-one, Livingstone had accepted Christ and made up his mind to become a medical missionary.
He heard of Robert Moffat, a missionary to South Africa, tell of the work going on in Kuruman. Within eighteen months, he saved enough money to continue his education. After completing medical school, he accepted a position with the London Missionary Society in South Africa. And on December 8, 1840, he set sail for Kuruman.
A Coast-To-Coast Venture
However, upon his arrival he was disappointed by the small population of Africans living in the region. He was determined to reach a larger population. A year later, he was granted permission to move 700 miles into the African interior to establish another missionary station. Livingstone wasted no time setting things up at Mabotsa.
In 1845, he returned to Kuruman where he met and married Robert Moffat's daughter, Mary. Their marriage lasted eighteen years and witnessed the birth of four children.
Livingstone often took his family with him while crossing the African wilderness. Still, there were many times when they could not be together. The longest period of separation was for three years between November of 1853 and May 1856. Livingstone completed one of the most amazing journeys ever undertaken—a coast to coast venture that covered four thousand miles of unexplored land, most of which was located along the Zambezi River.
Sorrow And Victory
After an extended visit to England, Livingstone and his wife began their last journey together. It was during this adventure that Livingstone faced the severest trial of his life; Mary died in 1862 from complications related to African fever.
Sorrow and discouragement plagued Livingstone: "It was the first heavy stroke I have suffered, and quite takes away my strength. I wept over her, who well deserved many tears. I loved her when I married her, and the longer I lived with her I loved her the more."
After several failed attempts to set up mission stations in the interior and along the coast, Livingstone concluded God was leading him in another direction. No European had ever ventured into North Africa. This would be his next goal and his greatest accomplishment for future missionary work. The charts and maps he left us changed the way we view Africa.
"I am a missionary, heart and soul," wrote Livingstone. "God had an only Son, and He was a missionary and a physician. A poor, poor imitation of Him I am, or wish to be." In this service I hope to live; in it I wish to die." No other person has done more to further mission efforts than David Livingstone.
Marching inland in 1866, Livingstone reached Lake Nyasson on August 8 and began journeying north toward Lake Tanganyika. He wrote: "O Jesus, grant me resignation to Thy will, and entire reliance on Thy powerful hand . . . The cause is Thine. What an impulse will be given to the idea that Africa is not open if I perish now! . . ."
Livingstone was often weakened by bouts of African fever. Months rolled by and then years without the outside world knowing where he was. This is when a New York reporter, Henry Morton Stanley, accepted the challenge to "find Livingstone."
On November 10, 1871, Stanley's caravan, loaded with supplies, reached Ujiji, Africa. A thin, frail Livingstone stepped out to meet him as Stanley bowed, took off his hat, and spoke the now famous words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."
Beloved The World Over
Livingstone was beloved and honored by the world. Yet when Stanley found him, he was weak and undernourished. The two quickly began a friendship. After Livingstone's death, it was Stanley who diligently worked to see missionaries serving in the land his friend had opened.
Death came to David Livingstone on April 30, 1873, after a long illness. His African companions reported they found him kneeling beside his bed where he had said his last earthly prayer. His body, along with his belongings—papers and maps—was transported to Bagamoyo on the coast and then sent to England, where he is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Henry M. Stanley, a newspaper correspondent sent by The New York Herald, set out to find Livingstone after he had not been heard from for a long period of time. Stanley was so impressed with Livingstone that after his death he carried on mission work, leading the king of Buganda to Christ.
John Newton was the son of an English sea captain. His mother, a deeply pious woman, gave him spiritual instruction until she died when he was only 7 years old. At the age of 11, John went to sea and spent the next twenty years as a sailor engaged in slave trading. His life was spent in the lowest sort of wickedness. At one time he himself was the property of an African woman who fed him only that which she threw under her table.
He was nearly killed several times during terrible storms at sea. During one of those storms his wicked life passed before him and deep conviction caused him to cry out to God for salvation. The next several years were spent in preparation for the ministry. He learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; and studied the scriptures intensively.
In 1764 he was appointed pastor in the parish of Olney, England, where he served for sixteen years before moving to St. Mary Woolnoth in the city of London. In addition to his pastoral duties, Newton was an ardent writer. His works included Omicron, Narrative, Review of Ecclesiastical History, and Cardiphonia.
His greatest fame came from his work as a writer of hymns, the most familiar was "Amazing Grace" which depicts in its verses the life story of John Newton.
LOUIS SYLVESTER BAUMAN, pastor, missionary statesman, Bible conference speaker, and author was born on November 13, 1875, died on November 8, 1950 and was buried on his 75th birthday. He was the son of an itinerant Brethren minister and evangelist, William J. H. Bauman. He yielded to the call of God to the Christian ministry in young manhood. After a period of successful ministry, he learned from his mother, "Son, before you were 2 hours old I lifted you in my arms and dedicated you to the Lord for the Christian ministry.
Dr. Bauman served in pastorates at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Mexico; Roann, Indiana; Long Beach, California; and, Washington D.C. His pastorate at Long Beach continued for 34 years, building a membership of over 1,900 and attendances nearing 2,500. During that time many branch churches were started in southern California. And over 150 young men and women entered full-time Christian service, his ministry as an evangelist was blessed of God. Brethren churches from coast to coast credit his early meetings as the beginning of their work.
Early in his pastorate in Philadelphia, a streetcar conductor, James Gribble, was saved. Mr. Gribble became the first brethren pioneer missionary to go to the Central African Republic, a ministry that has produced today almost 500 Brethren churches and a membership of over 80,000 African Christians. Dr. Bauman served on the trustee board and as a missionary editor of the Foreign Missionary Society of the Brethren Church from 1904 to 1950.
His intense desire for the Word of God led him into a demanding Bible conference ministry along with his growing church. He credits Drs. I. M. Haldeman, C. I. Scofield, A. C. Dixon, and Arnold Gabelein with a profound influence upon his understanding of the Word. He was one of the founders of Grace Theological Seminary. He became one of America’s foremost Bible teachers on Biblical prophecy, and was on demand for special prophetic lectures at BIOLA, Moody, Bob Jones, Multnomah, Grace Seminary and other conservative schools.
His gifted pen contributed many articles to the Sunday School Times, King’s Business, Moody Monthly, and The Brethren Missionary Herald. He authored many booklets but is best known for his books: The Faith, Light from Bible Prophecy, Russian Events in the Light of Bible Prophecy, The Time of Jacob’s Trouble, Philemon, An Exposition, The Modern Tongues Movement, and The Approaching End of this Age.
(4) DAVID BRAINERD
1718 - 1747
Missionary to the American Indians DAVID BRAINERD was born April 20, 1718, at Haddam, Connecticut. His early years were spent in an atmosphere of piety though his father died when David was nine, and his mother died five years later. As a young man he was inclined to be melancholy with the welfare of his soul ever before him. His entire youth was divided between farming, reading the Bible and praying. Early in life, he felt the call to the ministry and looked forward almost impatiently to the day when he could preach the Gospel.
His formal education consisted of three years at Yale where he was an excellent student until ill health forced him to return home. He completed his studies privately until he was fitted and licensed to preach by the Association of Ministers in Fairfield County, Connecticut. He turned down the offers of two pastorates in order to preach the gospel to the American Indians. Jonathan Edwards wrote of him, "and having put his hand to the plow, he looked not back, and gave himself, heart, soul, and mind, and strength, to his chosen mission with unfaltering purpose, with apostolic zeal, with a heroic faith that feared no danger and surmounted every obstacle, and with an earnestness of mind that wrought wonders on savage lives and whole communities."
Brainerd did his greatest work by prayer. He was in the depths of the forests alone, unable to speak the language of the Indians, but he spent whole days in prayer, praying simply that the power of the Holy Ghost might come upon him so greatly that the Indians would not be able to refuse the Gospel message. Once he preached through a drunken interpreter, a man so intoxicated that he could hardly stand up, yet scores were converted through that sermon.
Plagued by ill health and the hardships of the primitive conditions, he died at the early age of twenty-nine at the home of Jonathan Edwards, to whose daughter he was engaged. After his death, William Carey read his diary and went to India; Robert McCheyne read it and went to the Jews; Henry Martin read it and went to India. Though it was not written for publication, his diary influenced hundreds to yearn for the deeper life of prayer and communion with God, and also moved scores of men to surrender for missionary work.
(5) JOHN BUNYAN
1628 - 1688
English Baptist preacher and writer, John Bunyan was born in Elstow, England near Bedford where he spent most of his life. Although today he is regarded as a literary genius, he had little formal education. At the age of 16, this rough and profane young man enlisted in the army of Parliament and saw active duty during the English civil war. In 1647 at the age of 19, he married a young woman who persuaded him to attend church with her regularly where he heard the Gospel. After deep and prolonged soul struggle he made a complete surrender to Christ and was converted, after which he was baptized and joined the Baptist church of Bedford.
Soon he began to preach there and also in the surrounding villages which caused the people to recognize in him elements of leadership as well as ability as an expositor of the scriptures. Continuing in his trade as a tinker, he witnessed wherever he went. He spent his holidays and Sundays preaching in barns, shops, village greens, as well as in the open air. Such great crowds began to follow him that it led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1660 for conducting a "conventicle," a religious meeting without the permission of the state church. When offered his freedom if he would promise not to preach, he refused and chose jail. While imprisoned he studied, preached, wrote, and supported his family by making and selling shoe laces.
It was while a prisoner that he wrote his immortal "Pilgrim's Progress." In 1672 he was released and immediately resumed his ministry. During the last sixteen years of his life he was active as pastor, writer, helper, counselor, organizer, administrator, and pastor-in-chief to a multitude of churches and young ministers. Bunyan was a champion for the cause of religious liberty and freedom of conscience in spiritual matters. One who knew him well wrote, "The grace of God was magnified in him and by him, and a rich anointing of the Spirit was upon him; and yet this great saint was always in his own eyes the chiefest of sinners and the poorest of saints." He died in 1688 after riding forty miles in a driving rain on horseback to London to preach. He was always a poor man, yet through his example, his ministry, and especially his pen, he bequeathed inestimable riches to posterity.
Peter Cartwright was born in Amherst County, Virginia. His father was a colonial soldier in the War of Independence. Shortly after the war, the family moved to Kentucky. Peter Cartwright was reared in frontier surroundings, and like many of the young men in that primitive area, engaged in sinful practices. His mother, a devout Christian woman, opened their cabin home for preaching by the Methodist circuit preachers. As a young man of sixteen, Peter was convicted of his sins as a result of these meetings, and after several weeks of deep agony and contrition, he was "soundly converted" at an outdoor revival meeting. His new faith completely changed his life, and Cartwright immediately began to witness for Christ.
One year later he was licensed as an "exhorter" and began riding a circuit of his own. His appointments were few and far between, and he preached wherever people would open their homes, because "meeting houses" were few. This was the beginning of his long career as a circuit-riding Methodist preacher. Cartwright was a "hellfire and brimstone" preacher after the style of Wesley, and his character and personality often matched his sermons. Often he personally thrashed the "rowdies" who disturbed his camp meetings, after which he saw many of them "get religion."
His fearlessness is described in an incident which took place in Nashville. As he was preaching, General Andrew Jackson entered the service. The local preacher whispered the news to Cartwright which prompted him to thunder, "And who is General Jackson? If General Jackson doesn't get his soul converted, God will damn him as quickly as anyone else." Jackson smiled and later told Cartwright that he was a "man after my own heart."
In over fifty years of traveling circuits in Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, Cartwright received ten thousand members into the Methodist Church, personally baptized twelve thousand people, and preached more than fifteen thousand sermons. He was strongly opposed to easy religion, education and culture in the ministry. His equipment consisted of a black broadcloth suit and a horse with saddlebags, while his library was composed of a Bible, a hymnbook, and a copy of Methodist Discipline. He was the epitome of the Methodist circuit riders who firmly planted the "old time religion" in the frontier of the infant United States of America.
American theologian and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards, was born in Connecticut. He entered Yale at the age of thirteen after having mastered Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He was graduated at the age of seventeen and soon after was converted to Jesus Christ.
He served pastorates in Massachusetts during the "Great Awakening," a tremendous revival which began through the influence and preaching of George Whitefield, William Tennant, and others. The revival continued from 1734-1744, with mass conversions adding fifty thousand converts to the churches of New England.
Edwards is perhaps best known for a sermon he preached entitled, "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God" during which "strong men fell as though shot and women became hysterical." Through his preaching thousands were converted to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pioneer missionary, James Hudson Taylor, was born in Barnsley, England, the son of a Methodist minister. After studying medicine and theology, he went to China in 1854 as a missionary under the auspices of the China Evangelization Society.
In 1858, after working in a hospital for four years, he married the daughter of another missionary. He returned to England in 1860 and spent five years translating the New Testament into the Ningpo dialect. He returned to China in 1866 with sixteen other missionaries and founded the China Inland Mission.
In 1870 his wife and two of their children died of cholera. He remained in China and before his death, established two hundred and five mission stations with eight hundred and forty-nine missionaries from England and one hundred and twenty-five thousand witnessing Chinese Christians. He died in Changsha, China, in 1905.
Welsh Baptist minister, Christmas Evans was born near the village of Llandyssul, Cardiganshire, on Christmas day, 1766. His father, a shoemaker, died soon after and Christmas grew up as an illiterate farm laborer in the care of a godless, cruel uncle. At the age of seventeen, he became a servant to a Presbyterian minister in whose church he was converted during a revival meeting. He began to learn to read and to write and to take an interest in spiritual things which caused his former companions in sin to beat him severely and to put out one of his eyes. The Baptists of Llandyssul influenced him greatly, and he joined the Baptist church there.
In 1790 at the age of twenty-four, he was ordained and began to travel the entire country of Wales preaching in churches, in the coal mines, and in the fields. A remarkable manifestation of the Holy Spirit accompanied his ministry, and revival like prairie fire swept the country. Thousands were converted and many thousands of Christians began to openly witness for Christ and to sing hymns publicly as testimony of their salvation. This resulted in the "Welsh Revival."
In spite of his early disadvantages and personal disfigurement, Christmas Evans was a remarkably powerful preacher. To a natural aptitude for this calling he united a nimble mind and an inquiring spirit; his character was simple, his piety genuine, and his faith fervently evangelical. His chief characteristic was a vivid and affluent imagination, which under the control of the Holy Spirit, earned for him the name of "the Bunyan of Wales."
1624 - 1691
George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers), was born at Drayton-In-The-Clay, Leicestershire, England, the son of Puritan parents. Little is known of his early life apart from what he wrote in his journal:
In my very young years I had a gravity and stayedness of mind and spirit not usual in young children: insomuch that when I saw old men behave lightly and wantonly toward each other, I had a dislike thereof raise in my heart, and I said within myself, "If ever I come to be a man, surely I shall not do so, nor be so wanton."
At the age of nineteen he gained deep personal assurance of his salvation and began to travel as an itinerant preacher seeking a return to the simple practices of the New Testament. He abhorred technical theology and preached a faith born of experience, freshly fed, and guided by the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit.
Fox was persecuted almost daily, yet his power of endurance was phenomenal. He was beaten with dogwhips, knocked down with fists and stones, brutally struck with pike staves, hard beset by mobs, incarcerated eight times in the pestilential jails, prisons, castles and dungeons: yet he went straight forward with his mission as though he had discovered some fresh courage which made him impervious to man's inhumanity.
He undertook as far as possible to let the new life in Christ take its own free course of development in his ministry. He shunned rigid forms and static systems and for that reason he refused to head a new sect, or to start a new denomination, or to begin a new church. He would not build an organization of any kind. His followers at first called themselves, "Children of the Light" and later adopted the name, "The Society (or Fellowship) of Friends."
Fox preached and travelled for forty years throughout England, Scotland, Holland, and America. His life demonstrated the truth of his famous saying, "One man raised by God's power to stand and live in the same spirit as the apostles and prophets can shake the country for ten miles around."
Missionary to China. Jonathan Goforth was converted to Christ at the age of eighteen. While attending college he did rescue mission work. He read Hudson Taylor's book about missionary work in China, and it so moved him that he dedicated his life to the Lord as a missionary. He and his wife labored in Honan, China, training hundreds of Chinese pastors and evangelists.
During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the Goforths barely escaped with their lives though suffering severe wounds. They returned to the Orient and helped start a revival in Korea in 1907. This revival seemed to follow them as they went back to China. In 1925 they went to Manchuria and served there for eight years before ill health forced them to return to Canada.
Although Goforth was blind the last years of his life, he and his wife promoted missions until they went home to be with the Lord.
Evan Roberts, leader of the Welsh revival, worked in coal mines, but he walked in the heavenlies. Never without his Bible, he prayed and wept for eleven years for revival in Wales. He entered the preparatory school for the ministry at Newcastle Emlyn when about twenty-six. He never finished. Compelled by the Holy Spirit he returned in November, 1904, to his home village of Loughor to tell of Christ. And fire fell.
Evan did not preach, he led the meetings, praying, "Plyg ni, O Arglwydd!" -- "Bend us, O Lord," and urging, "Obey the Holy Spirit...Obey!" The Calvinistic Methodist Church was moved until all Loughor became a praying, praising multitude. Taverns were emptied, brothels were closed, the churches were filled daily. Fire spread until all Wales was brought in repentance to its knees at the cross.
Roberts' life ministry was burned out in the short months of the 1904-05 Welsh Revival. Broken in health, he retired from public view for the remaining half-century of his life.
Born in Lenawee County, Michigan, August 19, 1843, Cyrus Scofield became one of the foremost names among Bible students. His mother died at his birth, but before she died she prayed that this boy might become a minister. This was not told to Cyrus until after he entered the ministry. His family moved to Tennessee, where he received his early education.
As a boy, Cyrus had a thirst for knowledge and was exceedingly thorough in his investigations. Whenever he came upon a person or event of which he knew little, he would pursue the subject until he became knowledgeable concerning it. This prepared him to become a competent scholar later in life. Although his parents were Christian and the Bible was read in the home, Cyrus didn't consider it a book for investigative study but one to enjoy merely for its stories. His religious experience prior to conversion was superficial.
The Civil War prevented him from entering the university and he never did receive a formal collegiate education. At seventeen he entered the Confederate Army, and because he was an excellent horseman he became an orderly. He frequently carried messages under gunfire. The Confederate Cross of Honor was awarded him for bravery at Antietam.
When the war was over, Scofield studied law in St. Louis, and afterward moved to Kansas, where he was admitted to the bar in 1869. He served in the Kansas State Legislature and at the age of twenty-nine was appointed by President Grant as United States District Attorney for Kansas. Later he returned to St. Louis and reentered law practice. During this time he began to drink heavily. However, his passion for drink was completely removed when he received Jesus Christ through the efforts of Thomas S. McPheeters, a YMCA worker.
Scofield immediately became active in Christian work. He was ordained in Dallas, Texas, October 1883, where he began his ministry as pastor of the First Congregational Church. As a result of diligent and systematic study of the Scriptures during his years of ministry, he produced the Scofield Reference Bible and the Scofield Bible Correspondence Course.
Through the influence of private talks with Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission and also a book by a brilliant journalist traveler, William Eleroy Curtis, Scofield felt God directing his attention toward the Central American region for missionary activity. The church at Dallas began giving more to missionary work than to the home work. They established the Central American Mission in 1890.
Concerning the Reference Bible, he asked himself this question: "What kind of reference Bible would have helped me most when I was first trying to learn something of the Word of God, but ignorant of the very first principles of Bible study?" This was a tremendous undertaking and took a great deal of tedious work and genius. He and his wife made trips to England and the continent while completing the work. The Oxford libraries were opened to him, and the Oxford University Press published it. It was completed in 1907 and presented to the public in January 1909.
In reflecting upon his own lifetime Scofield recalls the two great epochs of his life: "The first was when I ceased to take as final human teachings about the Bible and went to the Bible itself. The second was when I found Christ as Victory and Achievement." Scofield died on Sunday morning July 24, 1921, at Douglaston, Long Island. Hundreds of thousands now appreciate and use his famous Scofield Reference Bible.
This Christian never made the headlines as a great theologian or a silver-tongued orator. He (or she) is a faithful, consecrated, born-again layman. The foot soldier in the Gospel army. He (or she) is a Sunday School teacher, an usher, a singer, a bus worker, a nursery helper, a parking lot attendant, or a prayer warrior. His (or her) service is unheralded but vital in the cause of Christ. His (or her) testimony adorns the Gospel as he (or she) faithfully witnesses daily "in the temple, and in every house," sacrificing time, talent, and tithe to the Lord.
Having served the Lord in the home, the church, and the world, this Christian will one day hear the Master say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." (Matthew 25:21).
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 center 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 30, while Ramabai taught from John 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, that 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 marvelous works which He has done, His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth; . . ." (1 Chron. 16:11,12).
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 help 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 labor 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-laborers. 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 communings 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." Whom among us will STAND In the gap and pray, and then pray again until heaven comes down to earth?
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?" (I 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 labor 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 behavior 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 doctors 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 marvelous 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 lesson the terrible pain. Finally after years of suffering with this affliction, he died at only 43, on August 18, 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).
"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."
It is in a letter written by Mr. Bramwell in 1807 that we get a glimpse of the driving passions that motivated his life and ministry. 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 labored 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. Mr. 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 silver and hidden 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 Holy Spirit, we must follow Mr. Bramwell's example and commit the BEST of our time and energy to seeking the face of Jesus in prayer.
by David Smithers
"And I sought for a MAN among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. - Ezek. 22:30.
The future of a nation is directly dependent upon the choices of its men. It is here that the men of America, as a whole, have failed. Like the individual links of a chain, the immoral choices of our men have truly brought this nation into spiritual bondage. Many men are now squandering the zeal and the strength of their youth on the temporal pursuits of sports and money. Our churches are filled with men who will shout the praises of professional athletes and yet are cowards to praise the King of Kings. Hardened and passive, such men are void of Holy Ghost boldness. Yet God, in His mercy, is still determined to use MEN to stand in the gap.
In General "Stonewall Jackson", God found a true man who would stand in the gap. Both strong and tender, the motto of his life was, "Lord what wilt thou have me to do?" As fervent in the field of battle, so was Jackson on his knees in prayer. "He was a man of prayer, accustomed in all he did to ask the divine blessing and guidance. His aid said that he could always tell when a battle was near at hand by seeing the General get up a great many times in the night to pray." General Jackson did not simply pray, he fervently prayed. The following story gives us some insight in the passion of his prayers. It was told the Rev. William Brown, "the truth is sir, that 'old Jack' (Jackson) is crazy. Why, I frequently meet him out in the woods walking back and forth muttering to himself incoherent sentences and gesturing wildly, at such times he seems utterly oblivious of my presence and of everything else."
"A friend was once conversing with Jackson about the difficulty of obeying the scripture injunction, 'pray without ceasing,' and Jackson insisted that we could so accustom ourselves to it, that it could be easily obeyed. When we take our meals there is the grace. When I take a drink of water, I always pause, as my palate receives the refreshment, to lift up my heart to God in thanks and prayer for the water of life. Whenever I drop a letter into the box at the post office I send a petition along with it for God's blessings upon its mission and upon the person to whom it is sent. When I break the seal of a letter just received I stop to pray to God that He may prepare me for its contents and make it a message of good. When I go to my classroom and await the arrangement of the cadets in their places, that is my time to intercede with God for them. And so of every other familiar act of the day." Though a man of superior abilities, Jackson humbly recognized his need for JESUS in everything he did.
As a general in the Confederate Army, "Stonewall Jackson" had a profound influence over his men. It was his holy and prayerful example that contributed to the great revival among the Southern troops. By midsummer of 1863, revival had spread to all the Confederate armies. A chaplain of the 26th Alabama Regiment said that his unit alone averaged 100 converts a week for several weeks. During this same time another chaplain declared that, 'modern history presents no example of an army so nearly converted. A third of all soldiers in the field were men of prayer and members of some fellowship. J. W. Jones suggested that 150,000 conversions took place in Lee's Army alone. It was this revival that no doubt prepared the South for the humiliation that was to follow their eventual defeat, but best of all the revival prepared thousands of young and old alike to meet Christ in eternity. Truly, General Jackson impacted our history through the power of prayer.
What is our greatest need today in our morally fallen nation? We need a tenacious, tender, tearful and Holy Ghost bold army of true MEN! Oh God, make us MEN!
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 labors 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 labors 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 labors 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 Northeastern 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 amphitheater. 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?
by David Smithers
"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 become 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 labored 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 Bostons 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.
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 labored 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."
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. Majory 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 honored 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 labor 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 endeavoring 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 . . ." Wednesday, 24th, "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!
"What is the secret of the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Does God endue men in a sort of haphazard way? Has He favorites? 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. Mr. Ham 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. Hams 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."
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.
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