Many are praying for revival - for a real genuine spiritual revival in these present days. A number of leaders meet together regularly each month in Inverness with the specific goal of praying for revival. I have been attending these Prayer Meetings for three years. This has made some of us study and read about "revival" What in essence is Revival? That can only be answered and described partially in this brief article.
One man, Duncan Campbell from the Western Isles in Scotland explained it this way. "REVIVAL is a community saturated with God. And so it was in Wales away back in 1904! . Reports speak of "an overwhelming sense of God's presence and holiness at homes, at work, in shops," even in the pubs - even in the bars!
Powerful conviction of sin follows. Many lay flat on the ground in an agony of conviction. Some people fell in a heap and cried out pitifully and loudly for mercy.
Conviction triggers off intense prayer and repentance towards God, but also confession and restitution towards man. The most remarkable confessions of sin were highly costly. Church members and officers publicly confessed hidden sin in their hearts. This resulted in long-standing debts being paid, stolen goods returned, church and family feuds healed and enemies reconciled. O how we need to see that today.
Once sin has been dealt with, the presence of God releases an overwhelming outburst of praise. It always does. A meeting would continue for eight hours with scenes of wild jubilation - but controlled jubilation - nothing outrageous.
Worship, praise, prayer, Bible reading, witnessing - these become the Christian's whole life. Meetings couldn't be closed and went on all night, when Revival broke out across Wales. Men came in their work clothes with their next day's lunch packed. In Wales, we are told, prayer meetings were held in mines, trams and businesses.
Shops sold out of Bibles.
Great numbers of people accept Christ: 70,000 in two months, 85,000 in five, and more than 100,000 in half a year. By the end of the Revival in Wales, around 90 per cent of the people of Wales were attending church.
So the nation is changed. Its values become Christian. In some Welsh districts drunkenness halved, pubs went bankrupt, police had nothing to do, magistrates had no cases to try.
And because "righteousness exalts a nation," prosperity often follows, not least because of honesty in business and work done as unto the Lord God Almighty. Strikes were settled. In one situation, the now-converted trouble-maker asked if he could go back to work. Managers reported their men both better workers and more regular attenders.
Working people took their aged parents home from the workhouse.
But do Revivals last? Dr. Edwin Orr says the Welsh Revival was maintained until 1914 and its converts were "The choicest segment of church life, even in the 1930s." Of course, it lasts if what happened was real and truly of God.
Who wouldn't want this? A tenth of the population newly converted and still going strong 25 years on! Churches crammed to capacity!
Crime greatly diminished! Social problems solved! What Christian would dare to criticise such a wonderful work of God?
O, there were those who criticised. A feature of many Revivals is strong criticism from leading Christians. How very strange!
Sandy Shaw
Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children's Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.
He broadcasts regularly on WSHO radio out of New Orleans, and writes a weekly commentary at http://www.studylight.org entitled "Word from Scotland" on various biblical themes, as well as a weekly newspaper column.
His M.A. and B.D. degrees are from The University of Edinburgh, and he continues to run and exercise regularly to maintain a level of physical fitness.
Sandy Shaw
sandyshaw63@yahoo.com
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