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"Standing Together, Shoulder To Shoulder, As We Fight the Good Fight of Faith"

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER is a weekly letter of encouragement Bob has written since 1997, covering many topics selected to
motivate people to be strong students of the Word and courageous witnesses of Jesus Christ.  It is a personal letter of
encouragement to you, written solely to help "lift up hands that hang down".

    "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." -- Albert Einstein

    “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have -- a cheap Christianity which offends nobody,
and requires no sacrifice, which costs nothing, -- and is worth nothing.” – J. C. Ryle

Shoulder To Shoulder #1337 -- 4/11/23

Title:  "Is Another Spiritual Awakening Eminent? (Part 9) -- Distinctive Features of Revival (C)"

My Dear Friend and Co-Laborer With Christ:

After numerous delays and distractions, I am finally able to finish today's letter -- one I began writing two weeks ago.  Hopefully, "better late than never" will show my efforts were worth the challenge.  Today is a rather mild day in Yuma with temperatures back down in the 70's after increasing days nearing triple digits.  It's that time of year in the desert Southwest, although it is normally staying consistently in the high 90's.

Hopefully you had a joyous Resurrection celebration last week-end.  Jo Ann and I certainly did as we gathered in our home with some of the remaining Chapel members of our 2022-23 season.  I am currently not scheduled to preach again until June 4th, which is the first service of our Greer Chapel ministry up in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.  Reports are that the winter snowfall throughout the northern and eastern parts of Arizona has been so significant that most of the lakes are back up to full capacity and sometimes overflowing for the first time in probably six or eight years.  Even the lakes of the Gila and Colorado Rivers have had their levels rise significantly -- the water rights controversies notwithstanding.

In the meantime, we concluded the season and our theme on revival here in Yuma, by informally looking at "The Reviving Work of the Resurrected Christ In You".  Paul made a profound statement to the Roman believers when he said, "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." (Rom 8:11).  So, the reality of a continuously revived life is more than a pipe dream.  It is a guaranteed condition.

In that final study, we found that . . .
1.  The death of Christ is the key to deliverance,
2.  The resurrection of Christ is the key to holiness in life,
3.  The ascended reign of Christ is the key to service.
In a sense, it is the work of which Paul wrote, when he stated, . . .

". . . for in Him we live and move and exist, . . ." (Acts 17:28)

Sadly, you and I are sometimes too busy to sit down and read large blocks of scripture in one sitting.  However, if you will, take time to read these texts in order:
Ephesians 1:3-23
Colossians 1:3-20
Romans 5:1-8
Romans 8:1-11
If you will, those three points of our study will unfold before your very eyes.

I keep wondering how many more letters I will write on the topic of revival and spiritual awakening.  I know there are at least three aspects I want to address before I bring this series to some type of conclusion and move on to other things simmering in my heart.  Today, I want to cover the final three of Arthur Wallis' distinctive features of revival that he points out from the Book of Acts in his classic, In The Day of Thy Power.  As an example of all twelve distinctives, I also want to look more closely at one of the most profound and impactful revivals in American history, The Layman's Prayer Revival of 1857-60.

But first, take a little time to consider . . .

THIS 'N' THAT:

+  Archaeology Still Speaks:  I will never get over how archaeology almost always either confirms or enhances biblical texts -- but NOT ONCE has ever proven the Bible to be false.  How interesting to read how this amazing discoveries verifies the reason Noah was commanded to use "pitch" to water seal the ark.  https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/mesopotamian_boat/ .

+  Ten Absurd Myths About Ukraine:  Jo Ann and I made four short-term trips to Ukraine before moving there to live as missionaries in 2003.  Having studied Ukraine's history, the people's persistent fight for freedom and against corruption, and its strategic place in the current global balance of power, I make no apology for sharing important facts about the country and its amazing people.  Today I ran across this exceptional article -- short, but accurate -- about ten misconceptions ("Myths" as the article describes them) that too many people in the west have about Ukraine and the importance of her achieving total victory over Putin and his forces.  I hope you'll read this and pass it on.  Go to https://kyivindependent.com/10-popular-misconceptions-about-ukrainian-history-debunked/

+  Thomas Jefferson's Faith -- Fiction, Fantasy, Fact:  Whether or not Thomas Jefferson had a personal relationship with Christ is clearly still up for debate.  However, his views as to Who Christ was and what He taught are without question:

"I have made this wee-little book ... which I call The Philosophy of Jesus. It is a paradigm of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time and subject.

    "A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me an infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its Author never said nor saw."

-- Thomas Jefferson

https://americanminute.com/blogs/todays-american-minute/jeffersons-views-on-jesus-religious-freedom-rights-of-conscience-government-indians-islam-slavery-more-american-minute-with-bill-federer .

QUOTES FOR THE WEEK:

>  "The Church right now has more fashion than passion, is more pathetic than prophetic, is more superficial than supernatural." -- Leonard Ravenhill

>  "There is a growing conviction everywhere, and especially among thoughtful people, that unless revival comes, other forces will take the field, that will sink us still deeper into the mire of humanism and materialism." -- Duncan Campbell

>  "During true revival, thousands of lost people are suddenly swept into the Kingdom of God. Scenes of the lost coming to the Savior in great, and unprecedented numbers, are common." -- Henry Blackaby

>  "I see no hope for a revival among God's people today. They are so enamored and so cluttered up with Hollywood and newspapers and magazines and parties and bowling alleys and camping trips and everything else. How in the world are they going to get still long enough to see anything from God?" -- Lester Roloff

>  "Revival is the visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God's near presence and holiness. Thence springs a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise of heart in repentance, praise, and love, with an evangelistic outflow." -- J.I. Packer

>  "How we have prayed for a Revival - we did not care whether it was old-fashioned or not - what we asked for was that it should be such that would cleanse and revive His children and set them on fire to win others." -- Unknown

>   "If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned; because we still insist in placing our reliance in human schemes; because we still refuse to face the unchangeable truth that, 'It is not by might, but by My Spirit'." -- Jonathan Goforth

>  "We judge it a grave and a concerning duty to observe the wondrous works of the Lord in our time; yea, to make a diligent search thereafter, that we may tell our posterity some of the great acts of our God. . ." -- Robert Heming (1639-1694)

INCREASING PERSECUTION:

You and I are well aware of the growing tension between good and evil, between contrary political efforts, between polar opposite social views, and even between positions regarding God's chosen people, the Jews.  We certainly are not surprised at this, though perhaps alarmed, because we know this was all predicted in the Bible.  Jesus Himself told us that hatred toward those who claim Him as Lord will exponentially increase until one day it will reach an unstoppable critical mass.

Earlier today I received a report from Family Research Council's (FRC) Mark Harris on the ongoing rise of violent acts against churches.  Because of the troubling increase of such vengeance, FRC started tracking attacks against churches for the past six years.  If the trend for 2023 continues as it appears from the First Quarter, this year will see the highest number of annual attacks thus far.  According to Harris, FRC's research indicates that 2023 saw approximately three times more acts of hostility toward churches as took place in the same time frame last year.

Since 2018 when FRC began keeping record of such violence, here is what they have found:
+  2018: 50 acts of hostility
+  2019: 83 acts of hostility
+  2020: 54 acts of hostility
+  2021: 96 acts of hostility
+  2022: 191 acts of hostility
And in the first quarter of 2023, 69 acts of hostility against churches took place.  That was an average of five attacks per week across America.  According to Harris, . . .
"If this rate continues, 2023 will have the highest number of church incidents of the six years tracked by FRC."

Assuming the trend continues through the end of this year, we can anticipate as many as 550 to 600 such attacks.  Harris concluded his report with the following reminder:

"We must not miss what is behind these attacks on churches. 'For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' (Eph. 6:12 ESV)"

There is an unseen fallout over such trends -- and that is for believers to withdraw from public view, modify their behavior, dilute their convictions, and acquiesce to the culture.  These are exactly the opposite of what Jesus said we must do.  Instead, . . . .

". . . thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."  (I Cor 15:57-58)

The late Lester Roloff said, in his day, . . .

"I see no hope for a revival among God's people today. They are so enamored and so cluttered up with Hollywood and newspapers and magazines and parties and bowling alleys and camping trips and everything else. How in the world are they going to get still long enough to see anything from God?"  

Herein lies the explanation as to why revival is so hard to find, and hard to be prolonged when it is found.  One that is not hard to find, and which should be seriously studied is . . .

THE LAYMAN'S REVIVAL:

I suspect we're both pretty familiar with the legendary revival that got its start in the heart of a New York City businessman, Jeremiah Lanphier and then gained visibility in a single prayer gathering of only six men in the consistory of the Church on September 23, 1857.  During the previous 20 or so years, a number of events took place that helped lay the groundwork for what was to become a nation-changing phenomenon.

+  In 1844, William Miller, a farmer in New England, predicted that Christ would return on October 22, 1844.  He did not, and many of Miller's followers simply abandoned their faith.

+  Two years later the Mexican-America War began (1846), the Gold Rush fever hit in 1849 in California, and a cholera epidemic killed some 150,000 people across the nation.  In response, President Zachary Taylor called for a National Day of Fasting, and the pandemic ended soon thereafter.

+  In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law and the Compromise of 1850, designed to defuse the slavery issue, were passed, and instead intensified it.  Harriet Beecher Stowe tried to counter the pro-slavery crisis by publishing the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

+  In 1853, the U.S. paid Santa Anna $10 million for the Gadsden Purchase, ultimately making it possible for commercial and private rail travel from the Atlantic to the  Pacific coasts, the old wild west steadily no longer "wild" and primitive.

+  Then in 1854, the slavery issue was stirred up again by Illinois Democrat Senator Stephen Douglas who forced the Kansas–Nebraska Act through Congress, causing thousands of pro-slavery Democrats to go west, resulting in what became known as "bleeding Kansas."  That same year as a result of the Democrat sponsored Fugitive Slave Law, Joshua Glover, an escaped slave, was captured and imprisoned in Milwaukee.  Subsequently, 5,000 white Wisconsin men stormed the jail, freeing Glover, and two days later, they formed the Republican Party, committed to ending slavery.

+  By this time, Frederick Douglas, a freed slave-turned-abolitionist-statesman-preacher was acclaimed by anti-slave proponents throughout the U.S., and in 1855, Douglas published his own autobiography, My Bondage -- My Freedom.

+  The following year, 1856, the Irish Wesleyan Methodist minister, William Arthur, published a collection of sermons he had preached, under the title, The Tongue of Fire, or True Power of Christianity.  (https://www.amazon.com/Tongue-Fire-William-Authur-ebook/dp/B005RGHCCG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=).  It was similar in focus to Charles Finney's book, Lectures on Revivals of Region, written in 1835.

Finney's book seriously impacted the culture, resulting in a number of social developments such as George Williams establishing the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association), and William Booth founding the Salvation Army.  British preacher, Charles Spurgeon, read Arthur's book and enthusiastically endorsed it.  The book concluded with the plea that God would Himself, . . .

"... crown this nineteenth century with a revival of pure and undefiled religion ... greater than any demonstration of the Spirit ever vouchsafed to man."

When seen individually isolated from the others, these events seem to have no particular national impact -- particularly spiritually -- but if you see them as "brick by brick" or "precept upon precept", it leads one to conclude that, "something is afoot, here!"  That was certainly the case because . . .

In 1857, financial panic hit America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1857).  Historians and economists generally agree that it was caused by a declining international economy and the over-expansion of the domestic economy.   It also hit especially hard because of the invention of Samuel Morse's telegraph in 1844, resulting in the rapid spread of eastern financial woes across the country.  By the 1850's the world economy was more tightly linked, the Panic of 1857 became known as the first worldwide economic crisis.  This was the third major panic since the nation's founding.

There were major runs on banks which, in turn, failed.  Numerous railroads went bankrupt, thousands of factories closed, and more than 900 business firms in New York City closed their doors.  This left over 30,000 people in New York City alone out of work.  That was out of a population of around 700,000.

Political corruption was rampant in New York City with pay-offs commonplace.  The municipal police force was so corrupt under the mayor that the state legislature abolished the entire force and governing board and replaced them withe Metropolitan Police in the middle of the financial crisis, resulting in the New York City Police Riot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_riot).  While the police and politicians were fighting each other and between themselves, gangs were running rampant and rioting throughout many parts of the city (example: -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rabbits_riot).  Crime was unchallenged and sin was both tolerated by some and fully embraced by others.

It doesn't take a neurosurgeon to see the similarities between 1857 and today, does it.  And it was in that setting in New York City, that Jeremiah Lanphier, who had been converted in 1842 at Charles Finney's Broadway Tabernacle, became a primary catalyst that would eventually lead to what many scholars openly acknowledge as America's "Third Great Awakening".

Lanphier had become a businessman in New York City and also served as a lay missionary with the Dutch Reformed North Church near Fulton and William Streets.  He began inviting business owners, employees, blue-collar workers, bankers, and others to gather in the church consistory for an hour of noonday prayer every Wednesday.  The first Wednesday gathering was on September 23, 1857.  According to church historian J. Edwin Orr, only six people showed up, and most of them came late.

In a 1973 presentation, Orr stated, . . .

"The following week there were fourteen, and then twenty three when it was decided to meet everyday for prayer. By late winter they were filling the Dutch Reformed Church, then the Methodist Church on John Street, then Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway at Wall Street. In February and March of 1858, every church and public hall in down town New York was filled.  Horace Greeley, the famous editor, sent a reporter with horse and buggy racing round the prayer meetings to see how many men were praying. In one hour he could get to only twelve meetings, but he counted 6,100 men attending.

"Then a landslide of prayer began, which overflowed to the churches in the evenings. People began to be converted, ten thousand a week in New York City alone. The movement spread throughout New England, the church bells bringing people to prayer at eight in the morning, twelve noon, and six in the evening. The revival raced up the Hudson and down the Mohawk, where the Baptists, for example, had so many people to baptize that they went down to the river, cut a big hole in the ice, and baptized them in the cold water. When Baptists do that they are really on fire!

In a blog this week William J. Federer stated the following on his "American Minute" website:

    "Spreading across the nation, there were over a million converts praying day and night in the next two years. Vice and crime decreased, criminals returned stolen money, wealthy helped the poor, sailors openly prayed, and when ungodly shipmates mocked them, the presence of God caused them to kneel in repentance.  A religious journal reported in March of 1858: 'The large cities and towns from Maine to California are sharing in this great and glorious work. There is hardly a village or town to be found where "a special divine power" does not appear displayed.'

"Run by lay leadership, the revival spread: 
"New York City - 50,000 of the city's 800,000 population became new converts;
"Utica, New York - daily prayer meetings filled the First Presbyterian Church, overflowing the balconies;
"Albany, New York - the New York State Capitol had prayer in the halls every morning beginning at 8:30am;
"Newark, New Jersey - 3,000 came to Christ, with nearby towns seeing almost their entire populations converted; 
"Boston, Massachusetts - leading businessmen and commoners attended, as a witness recorded, '"Publicans and sinners" are awakened, and are entering the prayer meetings of their own accord. Some of them manifest signs of sincere repentance';

    "Haverhill, Massachusetts - crowds came to the daily, weeping in repentance. Every family had someone seeking God; 
"Washington, DC - prayer meetings were held five times a day to accommodate the scores of seekers;
"Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 4,000 met in Jayne's Hall, as witnessed by philanthropist John Price Crozer, 'I have never, I think, been present at a more stirring and edifying prayer meeting, the room quite full, and a divine influence seemed manifest. Many hearts melted, many souls devoutly engaged';
"Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 6,000 attended prayer meetings;

    "Kalamazoo, Michigan - a woman wrote a prayer request to be read publicly at the meeting for her husband's salvation. When it was read, a man shouted, 'Pray for me. I'm that man'; Charleston, South Carolina - 2,000 prayed at Anson Street Presbyterian Church for over 8 weeks. One night, Dr. John L. Giradeaux dismissed the meeting, but no one left, staying till past midnight.

    "Waco, Texas - as reported in The New York Observer, 'Day and night the church has been crowded during the meeting... Never before in Texas have we seen a whole community so effectually under a religious influence ... thoroughly regenerated';
"Louisville, Kentucky - 1,000 attended the daily union prayer, as one witness wrote, 'The Spirit of God seems to be brooding over our city, and to have produced an unusual degree of tenderness and solemnity in all classes';
"Chicago, Illinois - 2,000 met for noon prayer in Metropolitan Hall, with a common business sign reading, 'Will re­open at the close of the prayer meeting'."

In 1858 of the revival, a traveling shoe salesman, working for the Wiswall Brothers, a young man who had come to Christ three years earlier, arrived in Chicago.  His name was Dwight Lyman Moody.  Because his father died when he was four, he entered the work force long before he was able to finish his education.  He was led to Christ in 1855 by a Sunday school teacher.  Because of this background, he had a special place in his heart for children, and especially orphans and street kids.

He was so burdened that he asked his pastor if he could teach a boys' Sunday School class.  The pastor said, "yes", but he would have to find the boys himself, and find a place to meet.  Moody took him at his word, and gathered up a bunch of underprivileged and immigrant children in the inner city.  He gained the approval of the owner of an abandoned saloon where they could meet, and began teaching the children about Jesus.

A man, William Reynolds, about whom I know nothing other than the following account, wrote about his experience of visiting Moody's class:

"The first meeting I ever saw him at was in a little old shanty that had been abandoned by a saloon-keeper. Mr. Moody had got the place to hold the meetings in at night.  I went there a little late; and the first thing I saw was a man standing up with a few tallow candles around him, holding a negro boy, and trying to read to him the story of the Prodigal Son and a great many words he could not read out, and had to skip.  I thought, 'If the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that for His honor and glory, it will astonish me.'

    "After that meeting was over, Mr. Moody said to me, 'Reynolds, I have got only one talent: I have no education, but I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to do something for him, and I want you to pray for me. . .  It is a masterpiece of the devil to make us believe that children cannot understand religion. Would Christ have made a child the standard of faith if He had known that it was not capable of understanding His words?"

By 1860, Moody's Chicago Bible class had grown to over 1,000 attendees, and many prominent people made a point to visit whenever in Chicago.  One of those guests was President-elect Abraham Lincoln who visited on his way to Washington, DC., on November 25, 1860.

Imagine what it would be like if Jeremiah Lanphier had not started that men's prayer movement that resulted in wave after wave of revival reaching virtually every major city in America, including Chicago where D.L. Moody was so impacted by what he saw and experienced.  In addition to leading thousands of children to Christ, in addition to rebuilding numerous buildings after the Chicago Fire, in addition to leading Mordechai Ham to Christ who led Billy Graham to Christ, and in addition to the creation of what would become Moody Bible Institute, Moody preached to hundreds of thousands across America, holding evangelistic meetings from Boston to New York, to San Francisco and Vancouver.  Records show that on January 19, 1876, U.S. President U.S. Grant and his cabinet attended one of Moody's meetings.

Speaking about the Chicago outpouring, J. Edwin Orr stated that in 1857 the Trinity Episcopal Church in Chicago had only 121 members; three years later in 1860 they had 1,400.  Orr stated that this was typical of almost all the churches. More than a million people were converted to God in one year in Chicago out of a population of 30 million.

When Moody began preaching to crowds in New York, P.T. Barnum let Moody use his Great Roman Hippodrome on Sundays, a day Barnum's circus did not perform.  Even people like J.P. Morgan and railroad industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt, helped transformed Barnum's Great Roman Hippodrome into a revival tabernacle.  Their first service was on February 7, 1876.  7,000 people attended in the main hall, another 4,000 in overflow, plus another estimated 9,000 outside.  The services required 500 ushers, and 1,200 singers who were directed by famed music evangelist, Ira Sankey.  Total attendance that day was nearly 25,000.

All told, during that Layman's Prayer Revival initiated by one lone businessman, Dr. Orr estimated that between 1858­-59 there was a sustained increase in church attendance, profoundly significant moral reform in society, and over a million Americans converting to faith in Christ.  The social impact was unmistakable.  Not only were the Salvation Army and YMCA begun, but much of the area devastated by the Chicago fire was rebuilt due to compassion and generosity fostered by this new spiritual awareness, the abolitionist movement was born, the Protestant social gospel movement to "civilize and Christianize" the world through charitable activities was created, and -- to the shock of many -- the financial collapse lasted little more than two years, as compared to others that lingered on for as long as a decade.

Not only did the Layman's Prayer Revival impact the whole of the United States, but it  jumped the Atlantic, where it broke out in Ireland (Ulster), Scotland and Wales.  It then to England, parts of Europe, and even to South Africa and South India.  Wherever there was an evangelical cause, revival broke out. What began as a simple prayer meeting of six men, grew exponentially across continents, fueled the missionary movement that had begun in 1806 with five young students praying for missions and sent mission pioneers to many countries. Federer assessed the Revival, concluding that the effects were felt for at least forty years. He said, "Having begun in a movement of prayer, it was sustained by a movement of prayer."

In this revival, as in almost all others, the evidence of Arthur Wallis' Twelve Distinctives of Revival is pretty obvious.  So, . . .

REVIEWING ARTHUR WALLIS:

Now, against that backdrop, let's consider Arthur Wallis again.  For the past two letters we looked at the first nine of twelve distinctives seen in the first great revival in the history of the Church, distinctives described in his classic, In The Day of Thy Power (Christian Literature Crusade, 1956).  Wallis, an itinerant British revivalist, is recognized as the "architect" of modern British evangelicalism and the subsequent development of the house church movement in England.  The author of eleven books, he had been deeply impacted by accounts of the 1949 Hebrides Revival on the Isle of Lewis.  Following a visit there, In the Day of Thy Power was written. His subsequent books focused almost entirely on the Christian life, revival, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the restoration of the Church as described in scripture.

Another of Wallis' most informative books, one which I found earlier in my ministry to be profoundly beneficial, was God's Chosen Fast (1968); it is well worth reading if one wants to understand the importance of fasting in the life of the Christian.  It is one of the few books I kept from my 4,000+ volume personal library when we moved to Yuma two years ago.

Perhaps the most popular of all of his books is The Radical Christian (1981) in which he implores Christians to live out their faith radically in ways that change both themselves and others around them.  A downloadable PDF can be "borrowed" at https://archive.org/details/arthurwallisradi0000wall.  However, you can also get a digitized PDF or Word download without format at https://epdf.pub/queue/the-radical-christian.html, compliments of Wallis' son, Jonathan.  The book has long been out of print.

Up to this point, we've considered nine clear distinctives as illustrated in the second chapter of Acts:
+  1.  Divine Sovereignty
+  2.  Spiritual Preparation
+  3.  Anticipated but unexpected "Suddenly-ness"
+  4.  Holy Spontaneity
+  5.  An unexplainable God-consciousness
+  6.  Appointed and Anointed Vessels
+  7.  Supernatural Manifestations
+  8.  Divine Magnetism
+  9.  Apostolic Preaching

As in the Layman's Prayer Revival, we see evidence of Wallis' distinctives. Today I want to cover his final three distinctives, which are also evidenced in that revival, beginning with . . .


+  10.  Bold, Compassionate, Evangelizing.  I said in my last letter that any revival that does not result in people coming to Christ is at least flawed, and probably fraudulent.  We must understand that God never sends revival just so you and I will feel good or so we will have victory over some sin or problem.  It is always to prepare us to hit the harvest fields at full capacity to draw people to Himself.  Frankly, there is no other need for revival of God's people if it doesn't result in so preparing them to enter the harvest fields that there are many who come to Christ.  If all God wants to do with His people is to "revive" them, the best way to do that is to immediately take them to heaven instead of leaving them here on sinful earth.  God keeps us here for two simple reasons ---- honor and glorify Him, and share the message or redemption with those not yet redeemed.

The end result of God's people being brought back to life is society being brought to its senses -- about God, sin, judgment, repentance, a future.  As society is awakened (that's what spiritual awakening is -- society's awakening to spiritual values and principles), multitudes become aware of their great need for a Savior who will forgive and pardon them.  When that happens, many come to personal faith in Christ, being born again by the Spirit of God.  That was the case with the Layman's Prayer Revival of 1857-58.   The salvation of the lost is inevitable in any genuine revival.

If you want to see more people come to Christ in your church, begin by crying out to God for revival right there.  To be perfectly blunt, the main reason lost people seldom come to Christ through local church efforts is because its efforts are coming out of a spiritually dead corpse.  Neither the corpse nor the efforts appeal to lost people who are themselves already dead.  Henry Blackaby said, . . .

"During true revival, thousands of lost people are suddenly swept into the Kingdom of God. Scenes of the lost coming to the Savior in great, and unprecedented numbers, are common."

The legendary J. I. Packer seems to have agreed, stating, . . .

"Revival is the visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God's near presence and holiness. Thence springs a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise of heart in repentance, praise, and love, with an evangelistic outflow."

+  11.  Super-Abundant Blessings and Results.  Wherever a church experiences revival, there will be visible results, and the results will be bountiful.  It may be numeric or it may be changes of character or conduct, but the results will be evident.  And, it matters not whether a person or a business is Christian or pagan; God' blessings pour out on all who are in positions to recognize them and receive them.

1.  Illustrated in Wales: -- When the Welsh miners were converted, even the mules in the mines took notice -- they could not understand the regenerate language of the minors until they became familiar with commands without vulgarity.  The mine administration also noticed, because mine operations slowed down significantly while the mules learned the new language.  After the adjustment took hold, mine production dramatically increased, worker absenteeism was dramatically cut, and accidents and sickness were seriously reduced.

In virtually every place where revival came to God's people, the communities benefited.  Saloons and houses of prostitution closed, alcoholism decreased, crime often came to a near standstill, court dockets were reduced, and jails often sat empty -- in some cases even closed.  This was the case in Wales, the Hebrides Islands, Ireland, and even in Canada and Central and South America.

2.  Illustrated in Canada: -- The revival that swept across the Baffin Islands of Nunavik, in northern Quebec, Canada, impacted the Inuit people.  Where alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide were commonplace, especially among teens, God changed everything -- when revival swept across the frozen tundra in 1996.  Where it is so cold that trees don't grow, God came in power and transformed both hearts, communities, culture, and even the land.

In one village of 500 population, every person including children drank alcohol regularly.  Whenever community gatherings were called, almost everyone came drunk and fights and arguments would break out throughout the entire village.  Throughout the remote villages, teenage suicide became so epidemic in the early 1990's that it made national news in Canada.  It was nearly 20 times the Canadian national average.  Not only did law enforcement prove ineffective, but there were actually no laws in many communities.  Even the land itself had stopped producing, caribou herds disappeared, and fish and seal seemed to evade nets, hooks, and harpoons.  The people were starving both spiritually and physically.

The history of God's visitation is long, reaching back many decades, but in February, 1998 it came to full fruition when God responded to the desperate cries of believers who had tried everything possible.  Whereas drunkenness, alcoholism, theft, shootings, domestic violence, rapes, and suicides had been a constant way of life, nearly all of it disappeared within one year.  Seals, fish, and caribou returned, and civility and the rule of law were reestablished.

3.  Illustrated in Guatemala: -- This is not an isolated case.  Similar things took place in the town of Almolonga, Guatemala.  Where "all of the above" characterized the region, when God sent revival, the entire city was given over to God by city authorities, domestic violence all but ended, alcoholism was reduced by over 90%, churches were packed, thousands came to Christ, crime almost totally disappeared, at three of the four jails closed because there were no prisoners.  The work habits of the people changed, and the agricultural production exploded to just three or four truckloads of produce a month being shipped to other places to 40 or 50 truckloads per week!  Growing season was shortened sometimes to almost half the time needed from seed planting to harvest.  Almolonga became known as "the Vegetable Basket of the  Americas".  You can read a little about the town and its spiritual and economic revival at https://romans1015.com/almolonga/ .

Inevitable Conclusion: -- You see, wherever revival happens -- whether it's merely personal or regional -- God's blessings are poured out.  Spiritual blessings such as joy, peace, generosity, patience, tenderness, love, servitude, . . . these and more will flow like rivers from the lives of those touched by God.  Those qualities will probably, in turn, so attract people that numerical results will also come.  And, in some way, almost always there are occupational and economic blessings.  But, regardless of which comes, how it comes, or which comes first, the blessings of God will be abundantly present.

+  12.  Divine Simplicity.  God never complicates things, nor does He work in complicated and confusing ways.  His purpose and motives remain singular, just as expressed through His Son and intended to be demonstrated through the Church.  Concluding Acts chapter two, we see four simple things that formed the framework of church life . . . the apostles teachings, fellowship, worship, and prayer.  If things get complicated, it's because man is trying to manage, maneuver, or manipulate what God is doing . . . or hinder it.

If you study the history of revivals, one thing is clear -- everything is pretty simple and to the point, namely that God hates sin, He intends for His children to live righteously in every way, He will deal with His children when they live outside His standards, He will use them when they have been restored, and He expects to be worshiped and obeyed throughout the duration of the process.  Anything else has pretty much been added by man, and will be a greater hindrance than a help.

All the records of revival that I have written warn of three distinct things -- 1) Christians standing in God's way for one reason or another,  2) Christians wanting to "add to" whatever God is doing in order to "jazz it up a notch", 3)  Christians wanting the revival to come according to their own tastes or preferences.

God will honor none of that.  In his book, Why Revival Tarries, Leonard Ravenhill identified certain things that hinder revival, among them being . . .
1.  The commercialization of evangelism.
2.  The cheapening of the Gospel.
3.  The carelessness of Christians.
4.  The spirit of fear in hearts of Christians.
5.  The lack of urgency in prayer.
6.  The stealing of God's glory by leaders.

There is nothing complicated about revival -- only our understanding and our efforts to systematize it.  If you examine every moment of revival in any era of time, you will find that at its core is Divine Simplicity.  God doesn't need big sound systems, trained singers, skillful orators, light shows, and coercive pleas for "decisions".

He needs only Himself -- and a desperate, helpless, hopeless saint crying to God for mercy and times of refreshing.  The great preacher under whom Billy Graham was saved, Mordecai Ham, stated, . . .

"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."

FINALLY:

Jonathan Goforth was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary to China.  He was known as the foremost missionary revivalist in early 20th-century China and helped to establish revivalism as a major element in Protestant China missions.  In 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, Goforth was struck with a sword, injuring him and requiring that he and his wife return to Canada.  While recuperating in his homeland, he was deeply spiritually stirred by news of the Welsh revival and Charles Finney's Lectures on Revivals.

In 1907, he saw firsthand the evidence of the great Korean revival ("When the Spirit's Fire Swept Korea" [1943]).  In early 1908, as the Goforth's returned to China through Manchuria, the "Manchurian revival" broke out.  This preceded the Shantung Revival by nearly two decades and was the first such revival to gain nationwide and international publicity. The revival so radically impacted Goforth's life and ministry that, from then on, he ministered primarily as an evangelist and revivalist -- both in China and in Canada.

Despite their age and frailties, Goforth and his wife, Rosalind, were then sent by their Canadian church to begin work in Manchuria, remaining active there into the 1930's until his eyesight failed in 1935.  Together they coauthored Miracle Lives of China in 1931.  After his death in 1936 at age 77, Rosalind wrote the popular classic, Goforth of China (1937).  It was one of the very first books about missionaries I ever read, thanks to my Mother giving it to me when I was about 12 years of age.  In 1940, Rosalind wrote her own autobiography, Climbing: Memories of a Missionary's Wife.

I can only pray that at my age my own passion for revival can at least draw near to that of Jonathan Goforth's.  Two quotes personify his heartcry for revival.

"I love those that thunder out the Word. The Christian world is in a dead sleep. Nothing but a loud voice can awake them out of it." -- Jonathan Goforth

"If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned; because we still insist in placing our reliance in human schemes; because we still refuse to face the unchangeable truth that, 'It is not by might, but by My Spirit'." -- Jonathan Goforth

Today you and I face circumstances more conducive to another great sweeping revival than have been present in more than a century.  My heart oscillates back and forth between doubt and expectation that it can happen -- that it will happen.  There has never been a more opportune time -- nor a more needful time.  Our culture is terminally ill with sin of every form; our societal structures are weak and collapsing from monetary idolatry and corruption; and our world is closer to global chaos than ever in modern history.

Only God's intervention -- by reviving Christians en masse and awakening society to His presence -- can save us.  Whether we die a slow death, a sweeping invasion, or by self-inflicted wounds, the end result is the same.  Revival is our only hope.  But, . . . .

    "As long as we are content to live without revival, we will." -- Leonard Ravenhill

In His Bond, By His Grace, and for His Kingdom,

Bob Tolliver -- Romans 1:11

>>> To access past "Shoulders" letters, listed by date and number, go to https://welovegod.org/guide/forums/forum/shoulders/ <<<

"Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness,
    examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." -- Dr. Luke (Acts 17:11)

"A fire kept burning on the hearthstone of my heart, and I took up the burden of the day with fresh courage and hope." -- Charles F. McKoy

Life Unlimited Ministries
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Copyright April, 2023

"If Jesus had preached the same message that many ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified." -- Leonard Ravenhill

"The time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep,  the Church will have clowns entertaining the goats." -- Charles H. Spurgeon

If this letter has blessed you, feel free to forward it or copy from it, with proper credits, to any and all you wish.

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER is a weekly letter of encouragement Bob has written since 1997, covering many topics selected to
motivate people to be strong students of the Word and courageous witnesses of Jesus Christ.  It is a personal letter of
encouragement to you, written solely to help "lift up hands that hang down".

    "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." -- Albert Einstein

    “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have -- a cheap Christianity which offends nobody,
and requires no sacrifice, which costs nothing, -- and is worth nothing.” – J. C. Ryle

Shoulder To Shoulder #1337 -- 4/11/23

Title:  "Is Another Spiritual Awakening Eminent? (Part 9) -- Distinctive Features of Revival (C)"

My Dear Friend and Co-Laborer With Christ:

After numerous delays and distractions, I am finally able to finish today's letter -- one I began writing two weeks ago.  Hopefully, "better late than never" will show my efforts were worth the challenge.  Today is a rather mild day in Yuma with temperatures back down in the 70's after increasing days nearing triple digits.  It's that time of year in the desert Southwest, although it is normally staying consistently in the high 90's.

Hopefully you had a joyous Resurrection celebration last week-end.  Jo Ann and I certainly did as we gathered in our home with some of the remaining Chapel members of our 2022-23 season.  I am currently not scheduled to preach again until June 4th, which is the first service of our Greer Chapel ministry up in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.  Reports are that the winter snowfall throughout the northern and eastern parts of Arizona has been so significant that most of the lakes are back up to full capacity and sometimes overflowing for the first time in probably six or eight years.  Even the lakes of the Gila and Colorado Rivers have had their levels rise significantly -- the water rights controversies notwithstanding.

In the meantime, we concluded the season and our theme on revival here in Yuma, by informally looking at "The Reviving Work of the Resurrected Christ In You".  Paul made a profound statement to the Roman believers when he said, "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." (Rom 8:11).  So, the reality of a continuously revived life is more than a pipe dream.  It is a guaranteed condition.

In that final study, we found that . . .
1.  The death of Christ is the key to deliverance,
2.  The resurrection of Christ is the key to holiness in life,
3.  The ascended reign of Christ is the key to service.
In a sense, it is the work of which Paul wrote, when he stated, . . .

". . . for in Him we live and move and exist, . . ." (Acts 17:28)

Sadly, you and I are sometimes too busy to sit down and read large blocks of scripture in one sitting.  However, if you will, take time to read these texts in order:
Ephesians 1:3-23
Colossians 1:3-20
Romans 5:1-8
Romans 8:1-11
If you will, those three points of our study will unfold before your very eyes.

I keep wondering how many more letters I will write on the topic of revival and spiritual awakening.  I know there are at least three aspects I want to address before I bring this series to some type of conclusion and move on to other things simmering in my heart.  Today, I want to cover the final three of Arthur Wallis' distinctive features of revival that he points out from the Book of Acts in his classic, In The Day of Thy Power.  As an example of all twelve distinctives, I also want to look more closely at one of the most profound and impactful revivals in American history, The Layman's Prayer Revival of 1857-60.

But first, take a little time to consider . . .

THIS 'N' THAT:

+  Archaeology Still Speaks:  I will never get over how archaeology almost always either confirms or enhances biblical texts -- but NOT ONCE has ever proven the Bible to be false.  How interesting to read how this amazing discoveries verifies the reason Noah was commanded to use "pitch" to water seal the ark.  https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/archaeology-today/mesopotamian_boat/ .

+  Ten Absurd Myths About Ukraine:  Jo Ann and I made four short-term trips to Ukraine before moving there to live as missionaries in 2003.  Having studied Ukraine's history, the people's persistent fight for freedom and against corruption, and its strategic place in the current global balance of power, I make no apology for sharing important facts about the country and its amazing people.  Today I ran across this exceptional article -- short, but accurate -- about ten misconceptions ("Myths" as the article describes them) that too many people in the west have about Ukraine and the importance of her achieving total victory over Putin and his forces.  I hope you'll read this and pass it on.  Go to https://kyivindependent.com/10-popular-misconceptions-about-ukrainian-history-debunked/

+  Thomas Jefferson's Faith -- Fiction, Fantasy, Fact:  Whether or not Thomas Jefferson had a personal relationship with Christ is clearly still up for debate.  However, his views as to Who Christ was and what He taught are without question:

"I have made this wee-little book ... which I call The Philosophy of Jesus. It is a paradigm of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time and subject.

    "A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me an infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its Author never said nor saw."

-- Thomas Jefferson

https://americanminute.com/blogs/todays-american-minute/jeffersons-views-on-jesus-religious-freedom-rights-of-conscience-government-indians-islam-slavery-more-american-minute-with-bill-federer .

QUOTES FOR THE WEEK:

>  "The Church right now has more fashion than passion, is more pathetic than prophetic, is more superficial than supernatural." -- Leonard Ravenhill

>  "There is a growing conviction everywhere, and especially among thoughtful people, that unless revival comes, other forces will take the field, that will sink us still deeper into the mire of humanism and materialism." -- Duncan Campbell

>  "During true revival, thousands of lost people are suddenly swept into the Kingdom of God. Scenes of the lost coming to the Savior in great, and unprecedented numbers, are common." -- Henry Blackaby

>  "I see no hope for a revival among God's people today. They are so enamored and so cluttered up with Hollywood and newspapers and magazines and parties and bowling alleys and camping trips and everything else. How in the world are they going to get still long enough to see anything from God?" -- Lester Roloff

>  "Revival is the visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God's near presence and holiness. Thence springs a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise of heart in repentance, praise, and love, with an evangelistic outflow." -- J.I. Packer

>  "How we have prayed for a Revival - we did not care whether it was old-fashioned or not - what we asked for was that it should be such that would cleanse and revive His children and set them on fire to win others." -- Unknown

>   "If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned; because we still insist in placing our reliance in human schemes; because we still refuse to face the unchangeable truth that, 'It is not by might, but by My Spirit'." -- Jonathan Goforth

>  "We judge it a grave and a concerning duty to observe the wondrous works of the Lord in our time; yea, to make a diligent search thereafter, that we may tell our posterity some of the great acts of our God. . ." -- Robert Heming (1639-1694)

You and I are well aware of the growing tension between good and evil, between contrary political efforts, between polar opposite social views, and even between positions regarding God's chosen people, the Jews.  We certainly are not surprised at this, though perhaps alarmed, because we know this was all predicted in the Bible.  Jesus Himself told us that hatred toward those who claim Him as Lord will exponentially increase until one day it will reach an unstoppable critical mass.

Earlier today I received a report from Family Research Council's (FRC) Mark Harris on the ongoing rise of violent acts against churches.  Because of the troubling increase of such vengeance, FRC started tracking attacks against churches for the past six years.  If the trend for 2023 continues as it appears from the First Quarter, this year will see the highest number of annual attacks thus far.  According to Harris, FRC's research indicates that 2023 saw approximately three times more acts of hostility toward churches as took place in the same time frame last year.

Since 2018 when FRC began keeping record of such violence, here is what they have found:
+  2018: 50 acts of hostility
+  2019: 83 acts of hostility
+  2020: 54 acts of hostility
+  2021: 96 acts of hostility
+  2022: 191 acts of hostility
And in the first quarter of 2023, 69 acts of hostility against churches took place.  That was an average of five attacks per week across America.  According to Harris, . . .
"If this rate continues, 2023 will have the highest number of church incidents of the six years tracked by FRC."

Assuming the trend continues through the end of this year, we can anticipate as many as 550 to 600 such attacks.  Harris concluded his report with the following reminder:

"We must not miss what is behind these attacks on churches. 'For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' (Eph. 6:12 ESV)"

There is an unseen fallout over such trends -- and that is for believers to withdraw from public view, modify their behavior, dilute their convictions, and acquiesce to the culture.  These are exactly the opposite of what Jesus said we must do.  Instead, . . . .

". . . thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."  (I Cor 15:57-58)

The late Lester Roloff said, in his day, . . .

"I see no hope for a revival among God's people today. They are so enamored and so cluttered up with Hollywood and newspapers and magazines and parties and bowling alleys and camping trips and everything else. How in the world are they going to get still long enough to see anything from God?"  

Herein lies the explanation as to why revival is so hard to find, and hard to be prolonged when it is found.  One that is not hard to find, and which should be seriously studied is . . .

THE LAYMAN'S REVIVAL:

I suspect we're both pretty familiar with the legendary revival that got its start in the heart of a New York City businessman, Jeremiah Lanphier and then gained visibility in a single prayer gathering of only six men in the consistory of the Church on September 23, 1857.  During the previous 20 or so years, a number of events took place that helped lay the groundwork for what was to become a nation-changing phenomenon.

+  In 1844, William Miller, a farmer in New England, predicted that Christ would return on October 22, 1844.  He did not, and many of Miller's followers simply abandoned their faith.

+  Two years later the Mexican-America War began (1846), the Gold Rush fever hit in 1849 in California, and a cholera epidemic killed some 150,000 people across the nation.  In response, President Zachary Taylor called for a National Day of Fasting, and the pandemic ended soon thereafter.

+  In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law and the Compromise of 1850, designed to defuse the slavery issue, were passed, and instead intensified it.  Harriet Beecher Stowe tried to counter the pro-slavery crisis by publishing the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

+  In 1853, the U.S. paid Santa Anna $10 million for the Gadsden Purchase, ultimately making it possible for commercial and private rail travel from the Atlantic to the  Pacific coasts, the old wild west steadily no longer "wild" and primitive.

+  Then in 1854, the slavery issue was stirred up again by Illinois Democrat Senator Stephen Douglas who forced the Kansas–Nebraska Act through Congress, causing thousands of pro-slavery Democrats to go west, resulting in what became known as "bleeding Kansas."  That same year as a result of the Democrat sponsored Fugitive Slave Law, Joshua Glover, an escaped slave, was captured and imprisoned in Milwaukee.  Subsequently, 5,000 white Wisconsin men stormed the jail, freeing Glover, and two days later, they formed the Republican Party, committed to ending slavery.

+  By this time, Frederick Douglas, a freed slave-turned-abolitionist-statesman-preacher was acclaimed by anti-slave proponents throughout the U.S., and in 1855, Douglas published his own autobiography, My Bondage -- My Freedom.

+  The following year, 1856, the Irish Wesleyan Methodist minister, William Arthur, published a collection of sermons he had preached, under the title, The Tongue of Fire, or True Power of Christianity.  (https://www.amazon.com/Tongue-Fire-William-Authur-ebook/dp/B005RGHCCG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=).  It was similar in focus to Charles Finney's book, Lectures on Revivals of Region, written in 1835.

Finney's book seriously impacted the culture, resulting in a number of social developments such as George Williams establishing the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association), and William Booth founding the Salvation Army.  British preacher, Charles Spurgeon, read Arthur's book and enthusiastically endorsed it.  The book concluded with the plea that God would Himself, . . .

"... crown this nineteenth century with a revival of pure and undefiled religion ... greater than any demonstration of the Spirit ever vouchsafed to man."

When seen individually isolated from the others, these events seem to have no particular national impact -- particularly spiritually -- but if you see them as "brick by brick" or "precept upon precept", it leads one to conclude that, "something is afoot, here!"  That was certainly the case because . . .

In 1857, financial panic hit America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1857).  Historians and economists generally agree that it was caused by a declining international economy and the over-expansion of the domestic economy.   It also hit especially hard because of the invention of Samuel Morse's telegraph in 1844, resulting in the rapid spread of eastern financial woes across the country.  By the 1850's the world economy was more tightly linked, the Panic of 1857 became known as the first worldwide economic crisis.  This was the third major panic since the nation's founding.

There were major runs on banks which, in turn, failed.  Numerous railroads went bankrupt, thousands of factories closed, and more than 900 business firms in New York City closed their doors.  This left over 30,000 people in New York City alone out of work.  That was out of a population of around 700,000.

Political corruption was rampant in New York City with pay-offs commonplace.  The municipal police force was so corrupt under the mayor that the state legislature abolished the entire force and governing board and replaced them withe Metropolitan Police in the middle of the financial crisis, resulting in the New York City Police Riot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_riot).  While the police and politicians were fighting each other and between themselves, gangs were running rampant and rioting throughout many parts of the city (example: -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rabbits_riot).  Crime was unchallenged and sin was both tolerated by some and fully embraced by others.

It doesn't take a neurosurgeon to see the similarities between 1857 and today, does it.  And it was in that setting in New York City, that Jeremiah Lanphier, who had been converted in 1842 at Charles Finney's Broadway Tabernacle, became a primary catalyst that would eventually lead to what many scholars openly acknowledge as America's "Third Great Awakening".

Lanphier had become a businessman in New York City and also served as a lay missionary with the Dutch Reformed North Church near Fulton and William Streets.  He began inviting business owners, employees, blue-collar workers, bankers, and others to gather in the church consistory for an hour of noonday prayer every Wednesday.  The first Wednesday gathering was on September 23, 1857.  According to church historian J. Edwin Orr, only six people showed up, and most of them came late.

In a 1973 presentation, Orr stated, . . .

"The following week there were fourteen, and then twenty three when it was decided to meet everyday for prayer. By late winter they were filling the Dutch Reformed Church, then the Methodist Church on John Street, then Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway at Wall Street. In February and March of 1858, every church and public hall in down town New York was filled.  Horace Greeley, the famous editor, sent a reporter with horse and buggy racing round the prayer meetings to see how many men were praying. In one hour he could get to only twelve meetings, but he counted 6,100 men attending.

"Then a landslide of prayer began, which overflowed to the churches in the evenings. People began to be converted, ten thousand a week in New York City alone. The movement spread throughout New England, the church bells bringing people to prayer at eight in the morning, twelve noon, and six in the evening. The revival raced up the Hudson and down the Mohawk, where the Baptists, for example, had so many people to baptize that they went down to the river, cut a big hole in the ice, and baptized them in the cold water. When Baptists do that they are really on fire!

In a blog this week William J. Federer stated the following on his "American Minute" website:

    "Spreading across the nation, there were over a million converts praying day and night in the next two years. Vice and crime decreased, criminals returned stolen money, wealthy helped the poor, sailors openly prayed, and when ungodly shipmates mocked them, the presence of God caused them to kneel in repentance.  A religious journal reported in March of 1858: 'The large cities and towns from Maine to California are sharing in this great and glorious work. There is hardly a village or town to be found where "a special divine power" does not appear displayed.'

"Run by lay leadership, the revival spread: 
"New York City - 50,000 of the city's 800,000 population became new converts;
"Utica, New York - daily prayer meetings filled the First Presbyterian Church, overflowing the balconies;
"Albany, New York - the New York State Capitol had prayer in the halls every morning beginning at 8:30am;
"Newark, New Jersey - 3,000 came to Christ, with nearby towns seeing almost their entire populations converted; 
"Boston, Massachusetts - leading businessmen and commoners attended, as a witness recorded, '"Publicans and sinners" are awakened, and are entering the prayer meetings of their own accord. Some of them manifest signs of sincere repentance';

    "Haverhill, Massachusetts - crowds came to the daily, weeping in repentance. Every family had someone seeking God; 
"Washington, DC - prayer meetings were held five times a day to accommodate the scores of seekers;
"Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 4,000 met in Jayne's Hall, as witnessed by philanthropist John Price Crozer, 'I have never, I think, been present at a more stirring and edifying prayer meeting, the room quite full, and a divine influence seemed manifest. Many hearts melted, many souls devoutly engaged';
"Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 6,000 attended prayer meetings;

    "Kalamazoo, Michigan - a woman wrote a prayer request to be read publicly at the meeting for her husband's salvation. When it was read, a man shouted, 'Pray for me. I'm that man'; Charleston, South Carolina - 2,000 prayed at Anson Street Presbyterian Church for over 8 weeks. One night, Dr. John L. Giradeaux dismissed the meeting, but no one left, staying till past midnight.

    "Waco, Texas - as reported in The New York Observer, 'Day and night the church has been crowded during the meeting... Never before in Texas have we seen a whole community so effectually under a religious influence ... thoroughly regenerated';
"Louisville, Kentucky - 1,000 attended the daily union prayer, as one witness wrote, 'The Spirit of God seems to be brooding over our city, and to have produced an unusual degree of tenderness and solemnity in all classes';
"Chicago, Illinois - 2,000 met for noon prayer in Metropolitan Hall, with a common business sign reading, 'Will re­open at the close of the prayer meeting'."

In 1858 of the revival, a traveling shoe salesman, working for the Wiswall Brothers, a young man who had come to Christ three years earlier, arrived in Chicago.  His name was Dwight Lyman Moody.  Because his father died when he was four, he entered the work force long before he was able to finish his education.  He was led to Christ in 1855 by a Sunday school teacher.  Because of this background, he had a special place in his heart for children, and especially orphans and street kids.

He was so burdened that he asked his pastor if he could teach a boys' Sunday School class.  The pastor said, "yes", but he would have to find the boys himself, and find a place to meet.  Moody took him at his word, and gathered up a bunch of underprivileged and immigrant children in the inner city.  He gained the approval of the owner of an abandoned saloon where they could meet, and began teaching the children about Jesus.

A man, William Reynolds, about whom I know nothing other than the following account, wrote about his experience of visiting Moody's class:

"The first meeting I ever saw him at was in a little old shanty that had been abandoned by a saloon-keeper. Mr. Moody had got the place to hold the meetings in at night.  I went there a little late; and the first thing I saw was a man standing up with a few tallow candles around him, holding a negro boy, and trying to read to him the story of the Prodigal Son and a great many words he could not read out, and had to skip.  I thought, 'If the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that for His honor and glory, it will astonish me.'

    "After that meeting was over, Mr. Moody said to me, 'Reynolds, I have got only one talent: I have no education, but I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to do something for him, and I want you to pray for me. . .  It is a masterpiece of the devil to make us believe that children cannot understand religion. Would Christ have made a child the standard of faith if He had known that it was not capable of understanding His words?"

By 1860, Moody's Chicago Bible class had grown to over 1,000 attendees, and many prominent people made a point to visit whenever in Chicago.  One of those guests was President-elect Abraham Lincoln who visited on his way to Washington, DC., on November 25, 1860.

Imagine what it would be like if Jeremiah Lanphier had not started that men's prayer movement that resulted in wave after wave of revival reaching virtually every major city in America, including Chicago where D.L. Moody was so impacted by what he saw and experienced.  In addition to leading thousands of children to Christ, in addition to rebuilding numerous buildings after the Chicago Fire, in addition to leading Mordechai Ham to Christ who led Billy Graham to Christ, and in addition to the creation of what would become Moody Bible Institute, Moody preached to hundreds of thousands across America, holding evangelistic meetings from Boston to New York, to San Francisco and Vancouver.  Records show that on January 19, 1876, U.S. President U.S. Grant and his cabinet attended one of Moody's meetings.

Speaking about the Chicago outpouring, J. Edwin Orr stated that in 1857 the Trinity Episcopal Church in Chicago had only 121 members; three years later in 1860 they had 1,400.  Orr stated that this was typical of almost all the churches. More than a million people were converted to God in one year in Chicago out of a population of 30 million.

When Moody began preaching to crowds in New York, P.T. Barnum let Moody use his Great Roman Hippodrome on Sundays, a day Barnum's circus did not perform.  Even people like J.P. Morgan and railroad industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt, helped transformed Barnum's Great Roman Hippodrome into a revival tabernacle.  Their first service was on February 7, 1876.  7,000 people attended in the main hall, another 4,000 in overflow, plus another estimated 9,000 outside.  The services required 500 ushers, and 1,200 singers who were directed by famed music evangelist, Ira Sankey.  Total attendance that day was nearly 25,000.

All told, during that Layman's Prayer Revival initiated by one lone businessman, Dr. Orr estimated that between 1858­-59 there was a sustained increase in church attendance, profoundly significant moral reform in society, and over a million Americans converting to faith in Christ.  The social impact was unmistakable.  Not only were the Salvation Army and YMCA begun, but much of the area devastated by the Chicago fire was rebuilt due to compassion and generosity fostered by this new spiritual awareness, the abolitionist movement was born, the Protestant social gospel movement to "civilize and Christianize" the world through charitable activities was created, and -- to the shock of many -- the financial collapse lasted little more than two years, as compared to others that lingered on for as long as a decade.

Not only did the Layman's Prayer Revival impact the whole of the United States, but it  jumped the Atlantic, where it broke out in Ireland (Ulster), Scotland and Wales.  It then to England, parts of Europe, and even to South Africa and South India.  Wherever there was an evangelical cause, revival broke out. What began as a simple prayer meeting of six men, grew exponentially across continents, fueled the missionary movement that had begun in 1806 with five young students praying for missions and sent mission pioneers to many countries. Federer assessed the Revival, concluding that the effects were felt for at least forty years. He said, "Having begun in a movement of prayer, it was sustained by a movement of prayer."

In this revival, as in almost all others, the evidence of Arthur Wallis' Twelve Distinctives of Revival is pretty obvious.  So, . . .

Now, against that backdrop, let's consider Arthur Wallis again.  For the past two letters we looked at the first nine of twelve distinctives seen in the first great revival in the history of the Church, distinctives described in his classic, In The Day of Thy Power (Christian Literature Crusade, 1956).  Wallis, an itinerant British revivalist, is recognized as the "architect" of modern British evangelicalism and the subsequent development of the house church movement in England.  The author of eleven books, he had been deeply impacted by accounts of the 1949 Hebrides Revival on the Isle of Lewis.  Following a visit there, In the Day of Thy Power was written. His subsequent books focused almost entirely on the Christian life, revival, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the restoration of the Church as described in scripture.

Another of Wallis' most informative books, one which I found earlier in my ministry to be profoundly beneficial, was God's Chosen Fast (1968); it is well worth reading if one wants to understand the importance of fasting in the life of the Christian.  It is one of the few books I kept from my 4,000+ volume personal library when we moved to Yuma two years ago.

Perhaps the most popular of all of his books is The Radical Christian (1981) in which he implores Christians to live out their faith radically in ways that change both themselves and others around them.  A downloadable PDF can be "borrowed" at https://archive.org/details/arthurwallisradi0000wall.  However, you can also get a digitized PDF or Word download without format at https://epdf.pub/queue/the-radical-christian.html, compliments of Wallis' son, Jonathan.  The book has long been out of print.

Up to this point, we've considered nine clear distinctives as illustrated in the second chapter of Acts:
+  1.  Divine Sovereignty
+  2.  Spiritual Preparation
+  3.  Anticipated but unexpected "Suddenly-ness"
+  4.  Holy Spontaneity
+  5.  An unexplainable God-consciousness
+  6.  Appointed and Anointed Vessels
+  7.  Supernatural Manifestations
+  8.  Divine Magnetism
+  9.  Apostolic Preaching

As in the Layman's Prayer Revival, we see evidence of Wallis' distinctives. Today I want to cover his final three distinctives, which are also evidenced in that revival, beginning with . . .


+  10.  Bold, Compassionate, Evangelizing.  I said in my last letter that any revival that does not result in people coming to Christ is at least flawed, and probably fraudulent.  We must understand that God never sends revival just so you and I will feel good or so we will have victory over some sin or problem.  It is always to prepare us to hit the harvest fields at full capacity to draw people to Himself.  Frankly, there is no other need for revival of God's people if it doesn't result in so preparing them to enter the harvest fields that there are many who come to Christ.  If all God wants to do with His people is to "revive" them, the best way to do that is to immediately take them to heaven instead of leaving them here on sinful earth.  God keeps us here for two simple reasons ---- honor and glorify Him, and share the message or redemption with those not yet redeemed.

The end result of God's people being brought back to life is society being brought to its senses -- about God, sin, judgment, repentance, a future.  As society is awakened (that's what spiritual awakening is -- society's awakening to spiritual values and principles), multitudes become aware of their great need for a Savior who will forgive and pardon them.  When that happens, many come to personal faith in Christ, being born again by the Spirit of God.  That was the case with the Layman's Prayer Revival of 1857-58.   The salvation of the lost is inevitable in any genuine revival.

If you want to see more people come to Christ in your church, begin by crying out to God for revival right there.  To be perfectly blunt, the main reason lost people seldom come to Christ through local church efforts is because its efforts are coming out of a spiritually dead corpse.  Neither the corpse nor the efforts appeal to lost people who are themselves already dead.  Henry Blackaby said, . . .

"During true revival, thousands of lost people are suddenly swept into the Kingdom of God. Scenes of the lost coming to the Savior in great, and unprecedented numbers, are common."

The legendary J. I. Packer seems to have agreed, stating, . . .

"Revival is the visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God's near presence and holiness. Thence springs a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise of heart in repentance, praise, and love, with an evangelistic outflow."

+  11.  Super-Abundant Blessings and Results.  Wherever a church experiences revival, there will be visible results, and the results will be bountiful.  It may be numeric or it may be changes of character or conduct, but the results will be evident.  And, it matters not whether a person or a business is Christian or pagan; God' blessings pour out on all who are in positions to recognize them and receive them.

1.  Illustrated in Wales: -- When the Welsh miners were converted, even the mules in the mines took notice -- they could not understand the regenerate language of the minors until they became familiar with commands without vulgarity.  The mine administration also noticed, because mine operations slowed down significantly while the mules learned the new language.  After the adjustment took hold, mine production dramatically increased, worker absenteeism was dramatically cut, and accidents and sickness were seriously reduced.

In virtually every place where revival came to God's people, the communities benefited.  Saloons and houses of prostitution closed, alcoholism decreased, crime often came to a near standstill, court dockets were reduced, and jails often sat empty -- in some cases even closed.  This was the case in Wales, the Hebrides Islands, Ireland, and even in Canada and Central and South America.

2.  Illustrated in Canada: -- The revival that swept across the Baffin Islands of Nunavik, in northern Quebec, Canada, impacted the Inuit people.  Where alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide were commonplace, especially among teens, God changed everything -- when revival swept across the frozen tundra in 1996.  Where it is so cold that trees don't grow, God came in power and transformed both hearts, communities, culture, and even the land.

In one village of 500 population, every person including children drank alcohol regularly.  Whenever community gatherings were called, almost everyone came drunk and fights and arguments would break out throughout the entire village.  Throughout the remote villages, teenage suicide became so epidemic in the early 1990's that it made national news in Canada.  It was nearly 20 times the Canadian national average.  Not only did law enforcement prove ineffective, but there were actually no laws in many communities.  Even the land itself had stopped producing, caribou herds disappeared, and fish and seal seemed to evade nets, hooks, and harpoons.  The people were starving both spiritually and physically.

The history of God's visitation is long, reaching back many decades, but in February, 1998 it came to full fruition when God responded to the desperate cries of believers who had tried everything possible.  Whereas drunkenness, alcoholism, theft, shootings, domestic violence, rapes, and suicides had been a constant way of life, nearly all of it disappeared within one year.  Seals, fish, and caribou returned, and civility and the rule of law were reestablished.

3.  Illustrated in Guatemala: -- This is not an isolated case.  Similar things took place in the town of Almolonga, Guatemala.  Where "all of the above" characterized the region, when God sent revival, the entire city was given over to God by city authorities, domestic violence all but ended, alcoholism was reduced by over 90%, churches were packed, thousands came to Christ, crime almost totally disappeared, at three of the four jails closed because there were no prisoners.  The work habits of the people changed, and the agricultural production exploded to just three or four truckloads of produce a month being shipped to other places to 40 or 50 truckloads per week!  Growing season was shortened sometimes to almost half the time needed from seed planting to harvest.  Almolonga became known as "the Vegetable Basket of the  Americas".  You can read a little about the town and its spiritual and economic revival at https://romans1015.com/almolonga/ .

Inevitable Conclusion: -- You see, wherever revival happens -- whether it's merely personal or regional -- God's blessings are poured out.  Spiritual blessings such as joy, peace, generosity, patience, tenderness, love, servitude, . . . these and more will flow like rivers from the lives of those touched by God.  Those qualities will probably, in turn, so attract people that numerical results will also come.  And, in some way, almost always there are occupational and economic blessings.  But, regardless of which comes, how it comes, or which comes first, the blessings of God will be abundantly present.

+  12.  Divine Simplicity.  God never complicates things, nor does He work in complicated and confusing ways.  His purpose and motives remain singular, just as expressed through His Son and intended to be demonstrated through the Church.  Concluding Acts chapter two, we see four simple things that formed the framework of church life . . . the apostles teachings, fellowship, worship, and prayer.  If things get complicated, it's because man is trying to manage, maneuver, or manipulate what God is doing . . . or hinder it.

If you study the history of revivals, one thing is clear -- everything is pretty simple and to the point, namely that God hates sin, He intends for His children to live righteously in every way, He will deal with His children when they live outside His standards, He will use them when they have been restored, and He expects to be worshiped and obeyed throughout the duration of the process.  Anything else has pretty much been added by man, and will be a greater hindrance than a help.

All the records of revival that I have written warn of three distinct things -- 1) Christians standing in God's way for one reason or another,  2) Christians wanting to "add to" whatever God is doing in order to "jazz it up a notch", 3)  Christians wanting the revival to come according to their own tastes or preferences.

God will honor none of that.  In his book, Why Revival Tarries, Leonard Ravenhill identified certain things that hinder revival, among them being . . .
1.  The commercialization of evangelism.
2.  The cheapening of the Gospel.
3.  The carelessness of Christians.
4.  The spirit of fear in hearts of Christians.
5.  The lack of urgency in prayer.
6.  The stealing of God's glory by leaders.

There is nothing complicated about revival -- only our understanding and our efforts to systematize it.  If you examine every moment of revival in any era of time, you will find that at its core is Divine Simplicity.  God doesn't need big sound systems, trained singers, skillful orators, light shows, and coercive pleas for "decisions".

He needs only Himself -- and a desperate, helpless, hopeless saint crying to God for mercy and times of refreshing.  The great preacher under whom Billy Graham was saved, Mordecai Ham, stated, . . .

"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."

FINALLY:

Jonathan Goforth was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary to China.  He was known as the foremost missionary revivalist in early 20th-century China and helped to establish revivalism as a major element in Protestant China missions.  In 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, Goforth was struck with a sword, injuring him and requiring that he and his wife return to Canada.  While recuperating in his homeland, he was deeply spiritually stirred by news of the Welsh revival and Charles Finney's Lectures on Revivals.

In 1907, he saw firsthand the evidence of the great Korean revival ("When the Spirit's Fire Swept Korea" [1943]).  In early 1908, as the Goforth's returned to China through Manchuria, the "Manchurian revival" broke out.  This preceded the Shantung Revival by nearly two decades and was the first such revival to gain nationwide and international publicity. The revival so radically impacted Goforth's life and ministry that, from then on, he ministered primarily as an evangelist and revivalist -- both in China and in Canada.

Despite their age and frailties, Goforth and his wife, Rosalind, were then sent by their Canadian church to begin work in Manchuria, remaining active there into the 1930's until his eyesight failed in 1935.  Together they coauthored Miracle Lives of China in 1931.  After his death in 1936 at age 77, Rosalind wrote the popular classic, Goforth of China (1937).  It was one of the very first books about missionaries I ever read, thanks to my Mother giving it to me when I was about 12 years of age.  In 1940, Rosalind wrote her own autobiography, Climbing: Memories of a Missionary's Wife.

I can only pray that at my age my own passion for revival can at least draw near to that of Jonathan Goforth's.  Two quotes personify his heartcry for revival.

"I love those that thunder out the Word. The Christian world is in a dead sleep. Nothing but a loud voice can awake them out of it." -- Jonathan Goforth

"If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned; because we still insist in placing our reliance in human schemes; because we still refuse to face the unchangeable truth that, 'It is not by might, but by My Spirit'." -- Jonathan Goforth

Today you and I face circumstances more conducive to another great sweeping revival than have been present in more than a century.  My heart oscillates back and forth between doubt and expectation that it can happen -- that it will happen.  There has never been a more opportune time -- nor a more needful time.  Our culture is terminally ill with sin of every form; our societal structures are weak and collapsing from monetary idolatry and corruption; and our world is closer to global chaos than ever in modern history.

Only God's intervention -- by reviving Christians en masse and awakening society to His presence -- can save us.  Whether we die a slow death, a sweeping invasion, or by self-inflicted wounds, the end result is the same.  Revival is our only hope.  But, . . . .

    "As long as we are content to live without revival, we will." -- Leonard Ravenhill

In His Bond, By His Grace, and for His Kingdom,

Bob Tolliver -- Romans 1:11

>>> To access past "Shoulders" letters, listed by date and number, go to https://welovegod.org/guide/forums/forum/shoulders/ <<<

"Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness,
    examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." -- Dr. Luke (Acts 17:11)

"A fire kept burning on the hearthstone of my heart, and I took up the burden of the day with fresh courage and hope." -- Charles F. McKoy

Life Unlimited Ministries
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Copyright April, 2023

"If Jesus had preached the same message that many ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified." -- Leonard Ravenhill

"The time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep,  the Church will have clowns entertaining the goats." -- Charles H. Spurgeon

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