Rend the Heavens!

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“Does it not stir up our hearts to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceeding abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness.” – Amy Carmichael

“God send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to you.” – David Livingstone

“This morning about nine, I withdrew to the woods for prayer. I was in such anguish that when I arose from my knees, I felt extremely weak and overcome…I cared not how or where I lived, or what hardships I went through so that I could but gain souls for Christ.” – David Brainerd

“Some may now say that my prayer was finally answered, but that would be incorrect. I received the answer to my prayer the day I prayed it.” – James O. Fraser

Herrnhut, The Lord’s Watch

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David Christian cut down the first tree for the first house for the new community the would call “Herrnhut,” which means the “Lord’s Watch.” The small group now totaled 300. It wasn’t long before Herrnhut began growing and accepted refugees from other doctrinal persuasions. Now there were not only Moravians but also Lutherans, Calvinists, Catholics, Separatists, Reformed, and Anabaptists.

The vision of Count Zinzendorf was that of the restoration of the apostolic community. He worked to establish a community of saints that loved and supports one another through prayer, encouragement, and accountability. John Wesley (founder of the Methodist Denomination) was so enamored with the Moravians that he called Herrnhut the “closest thing to the New Jerusalem that could be.” In 1738, eleven years into the revival, Wesley visited “this happy place” and was so impressed that he commented in his journal: “I would gladly have spent my life here….Oh, when shall this Christianity cover the earth as water covers the sea?”

It wasn’t something that happened overnight. With all the different views and doctrines…trouble soon arose. Many disputes erupted within the other sects over doctrinal language and how the community would support itself. From the start the Herrnhut community showed few signs of spiritual power. Leslie K. Tara described in his book, A Prayer Meeting That Lasted 100 Years, what was happening: “By the beginning of 1727, the community of about 300 people was wracked by dissension and bickering, an unlikely site for revival.” To make matters worse, a new resident, John Kruger, attacked Zinzendorf and his beliefs – preaching that the Count was none other than “the Beast” mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Linda Jacobs writes: “He turned almost the entire community of Herrnhut against their benefactor.” With a pastor’s heart, the Count began going from house to house, counseling each family from the Scriptures. He was teaching and exhorting daily, creating what he called “Bands,” a small group of believers who had “a special affinity” to each other. Before long the small community was becoming one as more and more homes were opening day and night for prayer, fellowship, and teaching. Small groups began holding all-night prayer vigils, and it seemed almost weekly that the spiritual unity and the bonds of love were becoming perceptively stronger. The community pooled their finances for the sick and began distributing goods to the poor among them.

Now that dissension and bickering had vanished, many unbelievers who came to Herrnhut were converted, and on May 12, Zinzendorf covenanted all to pray and labor for revival. The fire of the Spirit on these precious saints was beginning to heat up. Services held at this time usually ended in weeping, deep repentance, and lying prostrate on the floor. By August 5th, anticipation was building to the point where many did not want to sleep for fear that they would miss something God was doing.

Count Zinzendorf and Christian David

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In 1722 Count Zinzendorf and his wife began to settle into the Berthelsdorf Estate they had just purchased. They had both sacrifices their right of nobility and willingly entered into the sacred service of their Savior. the purpose that God had for the Count’s life was about to be fulfilled. Zinzendorf’s life was not flawless, but he was moved with consuming passion and preoccupation with the Person of Jesus Christ: My mind inclined continually toward the cross of Christ…My conversation always turned to that subject.” A glimpse of his burning love for Jesus can be caught in the following letter: Our method of proclaiming salvation is this: to point out to every heart the loving Lamb, who died for us, and although He was the Son of God, offered Himself for our sins…By preaching of His blood and of His love unto death, even the death of the cross, never, either in discourse or in agreement, to digress even for a quarter of an hour from the loving Lamb! To name no virtue except in Him and from Him and on His account to preach no commandment except faith in Him; no other sanctification but the privilege to sin no more; no other happiness but to be near Him, to think of Him and do His pleasure; no other self denial but to be deprived of Him and His blessings; no other life but in Him.

Before long a lone Christian refugee from Moravia showed up at Zinzendorf’s door. His name was Christian David, and he hoped the Count might allow a group of oppressed Moravian refugees a haven on his land. The Count was eager to help. Christian David was brought up as a Catholic but could find no spiritual satisfaction within the organizations teachings. Rick Joyner comments: “At age 20, David obtained a German Bible and began his quest for truth. This resulted in a profound conversion.”

He made many evangelistic trips into Moravia. There he happened upon a group of brethren who longed for the rebirth of the true New Testament Church. After David met Zinzendorf, he returned to Moravia for those oppressed saints and led them to the Zinzendorf estate. The Count called David the “Moravian Moses” because he crossed the borders ten times to lead groups of refugees to the land donated to them by Zinzendorf.

The Moravians Part Two

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“….fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. 2 And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house.” – 2 Chronicles 7:1-2

An entry in the journal of Von Zinzendorf: December 18, 1734 “I was but 10 years old when I began to direct my companions to Jesus as their redeemer. My deficiency in knowledge was compensated by sincerity. Now I am 37 and though I have made various experiences, yet in the main, my mind has undergone no change. My zeal has not cooled….I will continue, as heretofore, to win souls for my precious Savior…I shall endeavor to imitate the labors of my brethren who have the honor of being the first messengers to the heathen…”

The Moravians were honored to be “Ambassadors for Christ,” even though where they were going meant sure death, and they knew it. Up until that day and age, an organized system of spreading the Gospel to the lost of the world was nonexistent, especially to civilizations in the most desperate places. The commission of Jesus, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature…(Mark 16:15), had no relevancy to the European churches. The Protestant churches of that day were too locked in theological debates and internal dissension to even care about the rest of the world. That was about to change. The missionary outreach that would explode out of the “Moravian Revival” was so full of passion, zeal, and compassion for the lost it had to be direct from the heart of God. Sure death meant nothing to them. Many sold themselves into lifelong slavery in places like Suriname in South America just so they could spread the Gospel to closed societies. The Moravians were the first missionaries to the slaves of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. They went to Supland, Greenland, the West Indies, New Guinea, from the Arctic Circle to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. A Zinzendorf hymn reflected their conviction: “Ambassadors of Christ, know ye the way to go; It leads unto the jaws of death, is strewn with thorns and woe.” But a lot had to take place before this unheard-of mission of bold evangelism could be attempted. – Excerpt from The Fire That Once Was, by Frank DiPietro

Count Nikolas Ludwig Von Zinzendorf and the Moravians, Part One

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Count Zinzendorf was born into one of the noblest families in Europe. His inheritance was to sit on one of the continent’s most powerful thrones. He gave all that up and spent his life and fortune to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Zinzendorf was not a Moravian but a devout Lutheran, and from a very early age had a desperate hunger for the Lord. At age six, he made a commitment to the Savior: “I firmly resolved to live for Him alone Who laid down His life for me.” Again, at age 9: “…To have a living communion with Christ, my heart’s affection never departed from my Savior.”

David Smithers tells of Zinzendorf: “His ‘blessed presence’ was his all-consuming theme. He had chosen from an early age as his life’s motto the now famous confession, ‘I have one passion. It is Jesus, Jesus only.” Prevailing prayer was a lifestyle for the Count. Establishing circles for prayer was his daily routine.

When he graduated from the school of staunch Pietist, August Franke in Halle, at the age of 16, he left the famous professor a list of seven praying societies. While at the school, the young Count was exposed to two evangelists who had been sent to India. At meals and daily meetings, these men recounted their experiences preaching the Gospel in foreign lands. To young Zinzendorf, these stories sounded like a modern Book of Acts. It was then that he was stirred with a passion for preaching the Gospel…The road had been paved. These two works of God (Zinzendorf and the Moravians) were about to meet and erupt in an explosion of God’s Presence on the earth. Holy Fire was about to be poured out on these humble, desperate, and hungry souls, and God was going to dwell and walk among His people.

Rend the Heavens

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“Can a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry? Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die? Could a fireman sit idle while men burn and give no hand? Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned? – Leonard Ravenhill

“What God’s truth demands, His Grace will provide.” – Francis Frangipane

“I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace, day or night. You who call upon the Lord, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes….” – Isaiah 62:6-7

“The Scottish revivalist John Knox cried to God, “Give me Scotland or I die!” The cry of the Moravian Fellowship could well have been, “Oh God, give us souls or take us now!” – Frank Di Pietro

“See what the Moravians have done? Cannot we follow their example…and preach the Gospel to the heathen?” – William Carey

“This small group of people, in twenty years, called into being more missions than the whole Church has done in two centuries.” – Dr. Warneck

This missionary work, that would soon fill the Kingdom of God, was birthed by intense intercessory prayer. Perched atop a prayer tower, these nearly forgotten prayer warriors took turns praying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from 1727-1827 – 100 years nonstop! “This intense intercessory prayer pioneered the richest and most daring missionary work in the history of the Church.” – Jim Goll

Prayers for Safe Travels and Breakthroughs

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Micah 2:13 The Breaker [the Messiah] will go up before them. They will break through, pass in through the gate and go out through it, and their King will pass on before them, the Lord at their head.

Kristy Whittington, our resident missionary, is returning from Africa this week and should be on American soil by February 28. Could you keep her in your prayers for safe travels?

Also, our mission team leadership has received the following emergency email from our director of missions on the ground in Nicaragua. She wrote: Dear Bethany Friends, The church that was going to sponsor your team to get into the country as a group has not been able to obtain their government paperwork. The government now requires churches and non-profits to register every two months!  It’s ridiculous bureaucracy that is hard for churches/organizations to achieve. Then, when they don’t have the proper paperwork, they are technically operating illegally and the government uses this reason to shut them down. We have another option that we are pursuing but we REALLY need prayers for this to happen quickly! Thank you, Naomi

Soooo, as you can see Kristy and our Nicaragua Mission Outreach desperately needs your prayers.

Thank you and have a great week.

Rend the Heavens

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Frank Di Pietro: ” The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” – Hudson Taylor

“The Will of God – nothing less, nothing more, nothing else.” – F.E. Marsh

“Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? It is more the question with me whether we – who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not – can be saved?” – C.H. Spurgeon

“If God calls you to be a missionary, don’t stoop to be a king.” – C. H. Spurgeon

“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the action is – where life and death, sin and grace, heaven and hell converge.” – Robert C. Shannon

“My son set out as a missionary of Christ; but alas! He has dwindled down to a mere British ambassador.” – William Carey

“If I had 1000 lives, I’d give them all for China.” – Hudson Taylor

George Whitefield: The Opposition Grows

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Di Pietro: “The authorities and Anglican power brokers were intimidated by his ministry. They felt something had to be done to stop him. They drew the line in the sand and said they were not going to allow his efforts to go unchallenged. Some New England pastors wrongly claimed that Whitefield destroyed, “New Englands’ orderly parish system, communities, and even families.” A prominent newspaper editor in Charleston, South Carolina labeled him, “blasphemous, uncharitable, and unreasonable.” In many of the Colonial pulpits, Whitefield was accused of being an “imposter, a devil, the beast, the man of sin, the antiChrist.” In 1757, while preaching in Dublin, Ireland, a huge Roman Catholic mob rioted and attacked him. These out-of-control people wounded Whitefield severely and smashed his portable pulpit. Opponents threw anything they could get their hands on – rocks, feces, rotten food, and even dead cats. On one occasion, Whitefield was almost killed by a man who beat him with a brass-headed cane. Another time he was assaulted by a woman wielding, “scissors and a pistol, and her teeth.” Whitefield endured numerous public humiliations including the time an opponent climbed a tree and urinated on him.”

Yet, he “was unwavering in his commitment to preach. He stood whether people received his words or not. When the people became harsh, he said, that they were “being hardened as were Pharaoh and the Egyptians.” Any opposition made him more adamant to set God’s people free.”

Rend the Heavens

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“A dead ministry will always make a dead people, whereas of ministers who are warmed with the love of God themselves, they cannot but be instruments of diffusing that love among others.” – George Whitefield

“Men who long ago lost their anointing still minister, using the same cliche’s and mannerisms. But they are not feared in hell; they are just ‘clouds with out water.’ Lord have mercy.” – Leonard Ravenhill

“And as the circumcission in the flesh, and not the heart, have no part in God’s good promises, even so they that are baptized in the flesh, and not in the heart have no place in Christ’s Blood.” – William Booth

The Stirrings of Revival: George Whitefield

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Frank Di Pietro, Rend the Heavens: “At the age of twenty-one, Whitefield gave his first sermon in the church of St. Mary de Crypt. The people were excited to hear him. When he spoke, the congregation was shaken to the core. A presiding Bishop, who was in attendance, said at least fifteen people were “driven mad!” The people were transfixed, and from that day on, Whitefield’s popularity never waned. Together with the Wesley’s, he preached throughout England, Scotland, and Wales. Thousands attended his services. Revival fires were breaking out wherever he preached. Because of the controversies that came with soul-stirring messages, the Church of England, refused to give Whitefield a pulpit – just like they had done to the Wesleys. Never deterred, Whitefield began preaching in out-of-the way places – parks, fields, wagons, tables, balconies, hills, and boats. Everywhere he spoke, enormous crowds gathered. Over the months, the head count continued to grow. Whitefield went to Hackney Marsh race course and preached to 10,000 who were there for the races. The people largely ignored the races and listened to the Gospel as Whitefield proclaimed it. Whitefield went to other race tracks to preach to the masses. In Marylebone Fields, he preached to 30,000 at the Moorefields in London, he preached to 60,000. “

Rend the Heavens: George Whitefield

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Frank Di Petro, Rend the Heavens: “The English colonies were entering a desperate time with the dawning of the eighteenth century. The church had become inconsequential in the affairs of mankind. Christians had become impotent; instituting little to change society. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, “darkness covered the earth and deep darkness the people…” (Isaiah 60:2).”

Enter George Whitefield, the “flame of fire” who preached 18,000 sermons to ten million hearers. George was born December 27, 1714, in Gloucester, England. His parents ran an Inn and Tavern called Bell’s Tavern. It was a gathering place for malcontents and highwaymen – robbers and pimps. (As a result) George was continually around lying, thievery, gambling, and cursing.

As a young man, Whitefield attended Oxford University in England. Here he met a group of students called the “Holy Club” and his life was changed forever. This small group was led by two brothers, John and Charles Wesley. After years of study Whitefield was ordained an Anglican Minster. Meeting other ministers and speaking in churches, he came to the realization that the religion of his day did not address the inner needs of people. In much of the Anglican Church, there was no teaching on having a personal relationship with Jesus. As he was searching for answers, he came upon Henry Scougal’s work, “The Life of God and the Soul of Man.” What he read shook him to the core. Afterward, he wrote the following in his journal: God showed me that I must be born again or be damned! I learned a man may go to church, say his prayers, receive the sacraments, and yet not be a Christian. Shall I burn this book? Shall I throw it down? Or shall I search it? I did search it; and…addressed the God of Heaven and earth.”

Whitefiled began to pray, “Lord, if I am not a Christian, or if I am not a real one, for Jesus Christ’s sake show me what Christianity is that I may not be damned at last.” This was a sincere prayer that defined the rest of his life. Whitefield became desperate for intimacy with the Living God. Casting the world and self aside, he ran toward his Savior in a hungry search for complete conversion.”

Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening

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George Whitefield preached at Jonathan Edwards’ church in Northampton. Many were reminded of the revival they had experienced just a few years earlier. Edwards (1703-1758) was so deeply touched, he wept through the entire service, as did much of his congregation. Shortly thereafter, Edwards preached what would become his most famous sermon: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

Here is an excerpt of that famous message: The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear you in his sight; you are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince, and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not got to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God provoking his pure eye by your sinful, wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell. 

Reverend Stephen Williams was in attendance at the Enfield sermon, with his diary entry for that day containing the following account of the congregation’s reactions during and after the sermon: [B]efore the sermon was done there was a great moaning and crying out through the whole house — “What shall I do to be saved?” “Oh, I am going to hell!” “Oh what shall I do for a Christ?” and so forth — so that the minister was obliged to desist. [The] shrieks and cries were piercing and amazing.

Interestingly enough, “fire and brimstone was not at all indicative of Edwards’ preaching. Most of his sermon’s were focused on God’s beauty and love. Personally, Edwards was a sensitive individual with a soft, tender voice, who meticulously read his sermons. Unlike Whitefield, Edwards was not a powerful preacher, but he was a powerful prayer who often spent days and weeks in prayer, sometimes devoting up to eighteen hours in prayer before delivering a single sermon. The result was a revival that transformed not only a community but an entire nation.”

The Great Awakening

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Pentecost to the Present – Book Two Reformations and Awakenings, Jeff Oliver: “Finally, in 1733, a revival broke out at Jonathan Edwards’ church in Northampton. During one six-month period in 1734, nearly 300 new converts had joined his church. In 1735, he wrote, ‘The town seemed to be full of the Presence of God…There was scarcely a single person in the town, old or young, left unconcerned about the great things of the eternal world.’ The revival featured many miraculous and ecstatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit, which some critics used to try to denounce the revival. This included outbreaks of laughter during the services; some experienced visions or ‘impressions’ and others fell into trances or ‘faintings,’ as Edwards called them. he said, ‘There were some instances of persons lying in a sort of trance, remaining perhaps for twenty-four hours motionless, and with their senses locked up; but in the mean time under strong imaginations, as though they went to heaven and had there visions of glorious and delightful objects.’

A History of the Jerks: Bodily Exercises and the Great Revival

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Douglas Winiarski, University of Richmond, April 9, 2018 writes: Between 1799 and 1805, the backcountry settlements of the early American frontier blazed with religious excitement. From western Pennsylvania to northern Georgia, middle Tennessee to the Carolina piedmont—but especially in the Bluegrass Country of Ohio—tens of thousands of frontier settlers gathered for multi-day, open-air religious meetings in which teams of Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers preached from morning until late at night. Ministers claimed to have converted thousands at camp meetings during the first decade of the nineteenth century. From innovations in theology and hymnody to church organization and denominational proliferation, the Great Revival played a decisive role in the development of early American evangelicalism and the southern Bible Belt.  The revivals also stimulated the development of innovative new religious practices known collectively as the “bodily exercises.” Men and women in the throes of conversion collapsed to the ground, then rose up and began dancing. Others lay insensate for hours, enraptured with dramatic visions of heaven and hell. Camp meeting participants barked liked dogs, scampered up trees, engaged in trance walking, ran headlong through the woods, faced off in mock boxing matches, and burst into uncontrolled peals of holy laughter. Observers witnessed people speaking in unknown tongues and claimed to have heard music issuing miraculously from the chests of young converts.

A History of the Jerks: Bodily Exercises and the Great Revival

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Douglas Winiarski: Of the various somatic religious exercises that spread across the trans-Appalachian frontier and southern backcountry during the Great Revival, none drew more astonished commentary or more virulent opposition than “the jerks”: involuntary convulsions in which the subjects’ heads lashed violently backward and forward. More than half a century before the derisive phrase holy roller was coined to describe the ecstatic worship practices of Holiness and Pentecostal evangelicals in Appalachia, the subjects of these extraordinary bodily fits were known as “Jerkers.” Sometimes these spasmodic “shuddering” gesticulations of neck and head “operated like the hickups.” Other accounts described jerkers bouncing from “place to place like a foot-ball” or thrashing like a “fish, when thrown out of the water.” The “wondrous quickness” with which their necks pivoted back and forth reminded one observer of a “flail in the hands of a thresher.” The jerks purportedly struck riders on horseback, men plowing in the fields, boys at their school desks, young girls drinking tea, families at supper, people in bed, musicians at play, and nursing mothers. They erupted without warning and without regard to age, class, gender, or physical constitution. Pious saints and notorious sinners were “taken,” “seized,” or “attacked” by the jerks, which were often propagated from person to person like a “sympathetic contagion.” Witnesses recounted stories of the jerkers’ preternatural strength: diminutive women hurling 200-pound men to the ground; floundering men leaving imprints of their knuckles on the massive timber walls of pioneer log churches. Samuel Doak’s congregants near Jonesborough, Tennessee, even cut saplings in the woods surrounding their meetinghouse for use as “jerking-posts” to steady the afflicted.

Great Stirrings in America

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Pentecost to the Present – Book Two Reformations and Awakenings, Jeff Oliver: By the 1670’s, New England Puritan leaders began calling out for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit to revive their languishing churches. Samuel Torrey, pastor at Weymouth, Massachusetts, began raising doubts as to whether the churches’ reform efforts were even possible without an effusion of the Holy Spirit and proactive prayer for revival. In 1705, Samuel Danforth, Jr. wrote: ‘We are much encouraged by an unusual and amazing Impression, made by God’s Spirit on all Sorts among us, especially on the young Men and Women.’ Danforth said he had no time for his regular pastoral duties because of constant visits from young people seeking salvation and believed it to be a sign of greater things to come. He said, ‘I think sometimes that the Time of the pouring out of the Spirit upon all Flesh, may be at the Door.’ In 1713, Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts, grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, wrote, ‘The Spirit of the Lord must be poured out upon the People, else Religion will not revive.’ He believed seasons of revival characterized by special outpourings of the Spirit were necessary to quicken believers’ faith, convert sinners, and make disinterested people interested in the things of God. In 1721, Samuel Whiting’s church in Windham (now Maine) saw eighty new people join the church in six months. Observing this, another minister wrote, ‘Pray that the Spirit may be poured out from on High on every part of the land.’ Then in 1727, an earthquake rocked New England. Suddenly churches everywhere were being filled with anxious people seeking salvation as church leaders began wondering if this was not the nature of all revivals to happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Revival did ensue but not for long.

Carnival of Preachers and Informal Prayer

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Pentecost to the Present – Book Two: Reformations and Awakenings: “One remarkable feature of the early camp meetings was the informal prayer groups that formed between the regular meetings. In these prayer groups, any man, woman, child, white or black, educated or not, could spontaneously exhort anyone within hearing distance. This earned the camp meeting its unofficial title ‘a carnival of preachers.’ In the regular meetings, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist preachers took turns speaking as camp meetings were attended by all denominations, and all denominations experienced their fruit. In Kentucky alone between 1800 and 1803, the Baptists added 10,000 to their rolls, while the Methodists added 40,000. Peter Cartwright, an original convert of the Cane Ridge revival, wrote, ‘The work went on and spread almost in every direction gathering additional force till our country seemed all coming to God.‘”

Cane Ridge Revival Spreads

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Pentecost to the Present – Book Two: Reformations and Awakenings: From Kentucky, the camp meetings soon spread into Tennessee, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and throughout the South. Some were as wild as the frontier itself. In North Carolina, yet another Presbyterian congregation held a similar series of meetings in 1801 in anticipation of revival, but nothing happened. Sorely disappointed, the pastor rose to conclude the last meeting when someone from the audience stood and shouted, ‘Stand still and see the salvation of God!’ Immediately, ‘a wave of emotion swept over the congregation like an electric shock.’ The physical manifestations and speaking in tongues reportedly made it ‘like the day of Pentecost and none was careless or indifferent.’ One University of Georgia student told of a meeting in which “they swooned away and lay for hours in the straw prepared for those ‘smitten of the Lord,’ or they started to flee away and fell prostrate as if shot down by a sniper, or they took suddenly to jerking with apparently every muscle in their body until it seemed they would be torn to pieces or converted into marble, or they shouted and talked in unknown tongues.’

Birthing of the American Camp Meeting and the Cane Ridge Revival

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Pentecost to the Present – Book Two: Reformations and Awakenings, Jeff Oliver: “When McGready announced a similar meeting at his Gasper River Church in July, the response was overwhelming. Some came from as far away as a hundred miles, bringing their tents with them. The crowds grew so large they had to clear some underbrush near the church, build a pulpit, and set up log seats outdoors. The American camp meeting was born. Services lasted well into the night. When McGee preached that Sunday night, the Spirit again fell, and many who were seeking God were slain followed by cries and shouts of joy that seemed to drown out the preaching. In 1801, Barton W. Stone (1772-1844), another Presbyterian pastor, who attended the Red River meetings, decided to use McGready’s principles to start a series of meetings near his church in Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Crowd estimates were reported between 15,000 and 20,000. One minister who was present reported 3,000 slain in the Spirit at once with others breaking into loud laughter and still others running, shouting, barking like dogs, and making other strange sounds. One eyewitness reported, ‘The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm. Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy in the most precious accents, while others shouted vociferously. A strange supernatural power seemed to pervade the entire mass of mind there collected…At one time I saw at least five hundred, swept down in a moment as if a battery of a thousand guns had been opened upon them, and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens.’

Birthing of the American Camp Meeting and the Cane Ridge Revival

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Pentecost to the Present: Book Two – Reformations and Awakenings, Jeff Oliver: “In 1796, James McGready (1763-1817), a Presbyterian pastor of three small churches in Kentucky, led his congregations to sign a covenant to pray every Saturday and Sunday morning and to devote the third Saturday of each month to prayer and fasting for revival. Three years later, McGready invited some other denominational ministers to join him at their annual Communion gathering at the Red River Church when the power of God came down. The following summer, they returned on the weekend of June 21-23, 1800, when the Presence of the Spirit became so intense the congregation was reduced to tears. On the third and final day of meetings, the Spirit again lingered. John McGee, one of the Methodist ministers started weeping and others soon followed. McGee then stood up and exhorted the crowd. Several women began shouting, and one in particular shouted above the others. McGee left the pulpit to go to her, but several warned him that the Presbyterians liked order. McGee described what happened as he headed toward the pulpit: ‘I turned to go back and was near falling; the Power of God was so strong upon me. I turned again and, losing sight of the fear of man, I went through the house shouting and exhorting with all possible ecstasy and energy, and the floor was soon covered by the slain.’

Jubilation!?

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Jeff Oliver, Pentecost to the Present: “In Augustine’s Homilies on the First Epistle of John, he repeatedly suggested that tongues had “passed away.” In a time when baptism had been largely reduced to the ceremonial sprinkling of infants, he even poked fun at speaking in tongues. Yet in his Expositions on the Psalms, Augustine spoke of a Christian phenomenon called jubilation, which he described as unpremeditated, incoherent singing that sounded much like modern-day sung glossolalia or singing in tongues: Words cannot express the things that are sung by the heart. Take the case of people singing while harvesting in the fields or in the vineyards or when any other strenuous work is in progress. Although they begin by giving expression to their happiness in sung words, yet shortly there is a change. As if so happy that words can no longer express what they feel, they discard the restricting syllables. They burst into a simple sound of joy; of jubilation. Such a cry of joy is a sound signifying that the heart is bringing birth to what it cannot utter in words. Now who is more worthy of such a cry of jubilation than God Himself, whom all words fail to describe? If words will not serve, and yet you must not remain silent, what else can you do but cry out for joy? Your heart must rejoice beyond words, that your unbounded joy may be unrestrained by syllabic bonds.

At one point Augustine argued that the witness of the Spirit’s Presence was no longer given by miracles but by the love of God in one’s heart for the church. Then as supernatural healings began occurring in public services in his own church and in his own time, and as he began to see and experience miracles in his own life and in the lives of others, his views progressed. In one of Augustine’s later and best known works, the City of God, he wrote: “Even now, therefore miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we read of still performing them, by whom He will and as He will.”

Should we be surprised? 1 Corinthians 14:15 Then what am I to do? I will pray with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will also pray [intelligently] with my mind and understanding; I will sing with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will sing [intelligently] with my mind and understanding also.

The Wind Blows Where It Wishes

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John 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Exodus 1:8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

Regarding the manifestations of the Spirit, from Genesis to our present age, we are in many ways like the new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Often we behave as children scooping up the oceans sand in a pail hoping to bring an ocean home, or as Bobby Conner once stated, “We are too familiar with an unfamiliar God” – (“God in a box” theology void of experiential reality). We become champions of our intelligence missing the glaring fact that it was this very “mountain” that Jesus chose to drive His Cross through.

Jeff Oliver, in Pentecost To The Present, Book One: Early Prophetic and Spiritual Gifts Movements states: So this question begs an answer: If these supernatural gifts never left the Church and if the Holy Spirit has been active throughout Church history, working through each generation to build Christ’s Church since the day of Pentecost, why haven’t we heard more about such activity?

Certainly, nothing in the Gospels or Acts indicated that signs and wonders would cease or that the Spirit of God would become passive or dormant. Indeed, the very notion of an inactive Holy Spirit contradicts everything the Bible teaches about His nature and character. This is like saying the wind hasn’t blown in over two thousand years!….The reasons for the relative historical silence are many, but a few are cited below:

  1. Sometimes historical records can be sketchy at best. Objects close in proximity – whether of space or time – are more easily discerned than objects far off….Today modern archaeology and the Information Age are rewriting history every day. Have you ever heard the term “Dark Ages”? This term was once used to describe a period of alleged intellectual and cultural darkness between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Renaissance (AD 500 – 1300), but starting in the nineteenth century an increased recognition of the accomplishments of that period led to a more restrictive use of the term. By the twentieth century, the term had been further narrowed until most modern scholars finally stopped using it altogether, finding the term false and misleading. In other words, there never really was a “Dark Ages.”
  2. It is not possible to record every miracle or event as it occurs, especially in times of spiritual fervor. Journalists are familiar with the inverted pyramid. Essentially, all important information is placed at the top of a story to capture readers’ interest while all remaining information, for the sake of time and space, is reported in descending order of importance. Likewise when the Spirit of God moved throughout history, it was not always practical or even possible to record every event as it happened.
  3. Until the twentieth century, many of the firsthand participants in spiritual revivals were largely illiterate….Even most early accounts of the twentieth-century Pentecostal movement were written by non-Pentecostals since many early Pentecostals could neither read nor write. Similarly, most information coming from Early and Middle Ages came from church fathers who were among the relatively few who could read and write….Likewise, many early accounts of the Spirit’s activities in the Church are secondhand and often from hostile witnesses. Consider this expose’ written about an historical Christian sect from a previous century: Devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal….Night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howling of worshippers, who spend hours swaying back and forth in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication. They claim to have the gift of tongues and to be able to comprehend the babel. – This excerpt was printed in the Los Angeles Times on April 18, 1906, regarding a “tumble-down shack on Azusa Street” – essentially, the foundation of modern Pentecostalism. 
  4. It is simply human nature to take what we hear at face value, relying on conventional wisdom and prevailing thought for correctness. Few follow the Berean practice of searching the Scriptures daily to verify whether what is said is so….Horace Bushnell, a graduate of Yale during America’s Second Great Awakening, in one of the earliest known works on Continuationism (1858), provided an impetus for this series: It is very commonly assumed and has been since the days of Chrysostom, that miracles and all similar externalities of divine power have been discontinued….The Christian world has been gravitating, visibly, more and more, toward this vanishing point of faith, for whole centuries, and especially since the modern era of science began to shape the thoughts of men by only scientific methods. Religion has fallen into the domain of the mere understanding, and so it has become a kind of wisdom not to believe much, therefore to expect little. 

Strange Fire

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Leviticus 10:1-2 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange and unholy fire before the Lord, as He had not commanded them.2 And there came forth fire from before the Lord and killed them, and they died before the Lord.

In 2013, Pastor John MacArthur, popular, national Christian radio and television teacher, promoted a conference entitled, Strange Fire. It’s purpose? Strange Fire, part of Grace to You’s Truth Matters conference series, evaluates the doctrines, claims, and practices of the modern charismatic movement, and affirms the true Person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. 

In 1833, the Church of Scotland excommunicated Pastor Edward Irving. His crime? He acknowledged that supernatural gifts, especially the gift of tongues, and any other miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit were available to every born-again follower of Jesus. What connection does this have with John MacArthurs’ Strange Fire Conference? In 1882 American Baptist pastor A.J. Gordon described Irving as a man of wonderful endowments” who “was accused of offering STRANGE FIRE upon the altar of his church because he thought to relight the fire of Pentecost.” Several old adages sum up the ironic coincidence: there’s nothing new under the sun, or those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.

Interwoven between my blog excerpts from author Frank Di Pietro I want to bring you up to speed regarding the FIRE of God that manifests in strange ways to those who do not know His History. Obviously God’s Ways are not our ways, and when He draws near He is truly a consuming FIRE. What we consider abnormal and strange is actually normal when it comes to the Presence of God manifested throughout Church history. Through this series of blogs I will introduce you to the writings of Christian historian Jeff Oliver who has written a series of books titled: Pentecost To The Present.

Book One: Early Prophetic and Spiritual Gifts Movements: “Continuationism is a theological term for the belief that gifts of the Holy Spirit like miracles, prophecy, and speaking in tongues, as recorded in Acts, have continued throughout Christian history until this present age. A continuationist or continualist is one who believes the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are still distributed, still in use, and still needed, and that the same Holy Spirit who came on men and women of the Old Testament and on the apostles in the New Testament empowers Christians today with supernatural abilities. The teaching stands in contrast with cessationism, the belief that supernatural gifts ceased with, or sometime after, the original twelve apostles….others acknowledged that miracles continued past the apostolic age, ceasing sometime around the fourth century when the Canon (Bible) was finalized. This idea is based on an erroneous interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. Though “when the perfect comes” clearly points to the Return of Christ, some, over the centuries, believed this phrase pointed to the (Canonization) of the Bible.

So this question begs an answer: If these supernatural gifts never left the Church and if the Holy Spirit has been active throughout Church history, working through each generation to build Christ’s Church since the day of Pentecost, why haven’t we heard more about such activity?

John Wesley argued that, “with the creation of the institutionalized Church, the love of many grew cold. Many practicing heathens became “Christians” and many Christians acted like heathens, thus grieving the Holy Spirit.”

Hebrews 12:25-29 warns of refusing the FIRE of God: See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

As everything in the world has been shaking you can rest assured that the Consuming God of FIRE – the ONE WHO is still speaking and hasn’t lost His Voice – is about to appear and before that event we will see some strange things indeed.

The Death of John Welsh

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King James had by this time assumed the thrones over both England and Scotland, and he vowed to imprison all preachers whose Gospel was not that of the State Church. Harboring for years an anger against the outspokenness of Welsh, the King was ready to make his move. Welsh’s final sermon at Ayr was on July 23, 1605. Its theme was “No Condemnation to God’s Elect.” On ending the sermon Welsh prayed, “Now let the Lord give His blessing to His Word, and let the Spirit of Jesus, Who is the Author of the verity, come in and seal up the truth of it in your hearts and souls, for Christ’s sake.”

Immediately after the sermon, the King’s men summoned him to force him to appear before a council in Edinburgh. Welsh would never see Ayr again. Welsh and other ministers were thrown into prison and indicted to stand trial. They went through the most unjust, illegal, and arbitrary proceedings that ended in a verdict of guilty to being heretics and traitors to the crown with a sentence of death.

Awaiting the date of execution, Welsh was delivered to a most brutal place of confinement called Blackness Castle. Welsh was put in a darkened dungeon that could only be described as “a barbaric foul hole that could only be entered through a hole in the floor.” The Castle still stands to this day, and the dungeon is an uneven floor with shelving rock, sharp and pointed so that a prisoner can neither sit, walk, or stand without pain. It was impossible to find comfort during sleep. There was no fireplace for warmth and no light to read by. For over ten months Welsh was imprisoned in this hell-hole.

After those ten months King James sent a letter to the council commuting the death sentence of the ministers and instead banishing them from the kingdom. Welsh was banished to France.

On arriving in France, Welsh immediately took on the Catholic oppression over the country and preached among the persecuted Protestants there. After years of playing cat and mouse with the church authorities, he was finally summoned to the court of King Louis XIII. The King then demanded of Welsh how he had dared to preach against the true Church on which principles his reign was founded. Welsh replied, “Sir, if your majesty knew what I preached, you would not only come and hear for yourself, but make all France hear it; for I preach not as those men who you are used to hearing. First, I preach that you must be saved by the merits of Jesus Christ, and not your own; next, I preach that you are the King of France, and there is no man on earth above you; but these priests whom you hear, subject you, the King, to a pope of Rome, which I would never do.” This totally disarmed the King of his anger and he instantly received Welsh into his royal favor, making him the King’s royal minister.

Living in relative peace to preach the Gospel, Welsh at this time was seized with an illness which his physicians said could only be removed by his returning to breathe the air of his native country. His wife then sought an interview with King James, who actually agreed to hear her. Dr. M’Crie, in his book the Life of Knox, records her famous interview with the King: “His Majesty asked her, ‘Who is your father?’ She replied, ‘John Knox.’ ‘Knox and Welsh,’ exclaimed the King, ‘the devil never made such a match as that.’ ‘That is quite right, sir,’ said she, ‘for we never asked his advice.’ He then asked her, ‘How many children did your father leave, and were they lads or lasses?’ She said, ‘Three, and they were all lasses.’ ‘God be thanked!’ cried the King, lifting up both his hands, ‘for if they had been three lads, I would never have enjoyed my three kingdoms in peace.’ She again urged her request that the King would give her husband his native air in Scotland. ‘Give him his native air! Give him the devil!’ the King replied. ‘Give the devil to your hungry courtiers,’ said she, offended at his profaneness. He then told her at last, that if she would persuade her husband to submit to the bishops, he would allow him to return to Scotland. Mrs. Welsh, lifting up her apron and holding it toward the King, replied, in the true spirit of her father and husband, ‘Please, your Majesty, I would rather have his head cut off and placed in my apron, than have him betray the truth!”

It took some persuading, but the King did relent, not to permit Welsh to return to Scotland, but to allow him to live in London. On arriving in London, Welsh immediately went to the pulpit and preached, but his time on earth was running out. Not long after that, he preached a long sermon, went home, and two hours later died in prayer in his fifty-third year of life. The doctors of that day said that Welsh died of “ossification of the limbs, brought on by much kneeling in his long and frequent devotional exercises.”

Rend the Heavens!

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“A dead ministry will always make a dead people, whereas of ministers who are warmed with the love of God themselves, they cannot but be instruments of diffusing that love among others.” – George Whitefield

“Men who long ago lost their anointing still ministers, using the same cliche’s and mannerisms. But they are not feared in hell; they are just ‘clouds without water.’ Lord, have mercy.” – Leonard Ravenhill

“What would the devil say about your life – Do they know you in hell like they know your Christ – Are you boiling hot or are you cold as ice. You live your life like a compromise – Holding on to this world you faith slowly dies – The spiritual battle that we fight every day – Are the demons concerned when we get down and pray – Tell me…What would the devil say about your life – Do they know you in hell like they know your Christ – Are you boiling hot or are you cold as ice…?” – Steve Camp, What Would the Devil Say?

“And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded… – Acts. 19:15-16

“And as the circumcision in the flesh, and not the heart, have no part on God’s good promises, even so they that are baptized in the flesh, and not in the heart have no place in Christ’s Blood.” – William Booth

Oh God, Wilt Thou Not Give Me Scotland?!

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Excerpt from The Fire That Once Was: Welsh was now at the point where he would soon take his place as one of he great Reformed Scottish Revivalists. After four years at Kirkcudbright he now journeyed to a town “to which his name has ever after been most closely associated.” In 1600, he arrived at the country-town of Ayr. Welsh would spend less than five years in this town, from August 1600 to July 1605, but it was here that revival fires would blaze.

Ayr, locally called Ayrshire, had over the years gospel seeds planted in her by other Reformed ministers. Even Welsh’s late father-in-law, John Knox, had visited and preached there occasionally. But at this day and age the state of Ayr had deteriorated to a rude and barbarous cesspool. The sanitation of the area was no better. On his way to Ayr, traveling on the King’s Highway, Welsh’s senses were overwhelmed with the sight of mounds and mounds of offal (piles of decaying animal parts) and other filth accumulated on each side of the road. The people of Ayr were, as expected, crude, barbaric, immoral, and ignorant. Common people feared to venture out of doors as gangs of ruffians controlled the streets. Welsh saw all this and his spirit was stirred within him: What a nation so polluted with all abominations and murders as thou art? Thy iniquities are more than the sand of the sea, the cry of them is beyond the cry of Sodom.

On his arrival at Ayr, the aversion to him as a minister was so strong that he could find no one in the town who would let him and his wife have a house to live in. He would eventually find a Christian merchant by the name of Stewart, who offered him shelter under his roof.

Strengthened by the Lord and the power of His Might, in prayer always…the Glory of God was falling over the town and Welsh praying fervently and preaching frequently, was having an eternal effect on the masses. Welsh was soon holding two Sabbath services, preaching from nine to twelve in the morning, and from four to six in the afternoon, and in between visiting those who needed grounding in the Word of God. Welsh’s preaching was so moving that those in the congregation could not restrain themselves from weeping under the intense presence of God in the services. Sometimes he would not preach but instead ask those present to just pray for Divine Assistance , at which time the weight of the Glory of God would fall on the shoulders of all.

In 1604, because of the unsanitary conditions which were common in those days, a fearful plague began to spread over the country. The plague moved westward from city to city, and the 3000 people of Ayr became more and more alarmed as it approached their city. Welsh used this time to call the people to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, while at night he would spend hours praying for the mercy of God upon his congregation. Robert Murray McCheyne relates how one night during Welsh’s travailing before God this incident occurred: “He used to keep a blanket on his bed that he might wrap himself against the cold when he rose during the night to pray. One time his wife awakened and found him on the floor weeping. When she complained that he should be back in the bed, he said, “Oh woman, you do not understand. I have the souls of three thousand to answer for, and I know not how it is with many of them.”

Amazingly, the plague swept through all of Scotland but did not come near the town of Ayr. Soon the plague ended and hundreds of visitors would flock into Ayr, the City of God, and from far look into the Garden of Prayer where Welsh would spend many an hour in intercession. He was now renowned for his prolonged seasons of prayer. Borrowing from his late father-in-law, Welsh would cry out, “Oh God, wilt wilt Thou not give me Scotland! Oh God, wilt Thou not give me Scotland!”

The Intercessor John Welsh – Part 2

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In 1595, Welsh was offered and accepted a pastorate in the town of Kirkcudbright. Welsh and his wife could not find anyone in Selkirk, except one poor young man by the name of Ewart, that would lend them any assistance in moving their furniture to their new destination. Needless to say, I am sure Welsh felt relief as he knocked the dust of that city from his shoes and headed toward his new home. For all practical purposes it was not much different from Selkirk. Kirkcudbright was a hotbed of Catholicism, and its previous Reformed Scottish Church minister, Andrew Blyth, was murdered as a heretic in the town square for preaching reformation. It was his shoes that Welsh was sent to fill. Buoyed by his amazing prayer life, Welsh entered that town and pulpit wearing the full armor of God and wielding the Sword of the Spirit.

From the first day he arrived, the town was shaken by his powerful preaching. Worldliness and a religious spirit were the first strongholds he began to tear down. He next attacked the worship of idols and observation of man-made doctrines: “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with the lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines of God the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:8-9

Next he preached against the lack of true repentance for sins, saying: “There is a godly sorrow which leads a man to life; and this sorrow is wrought in a man by the Spirit of God, and in the heart of the godly; that he mourns for sin because it has displeased God, Who is so dear and so sweet a Father to him. And even if he had neither a heaven to gain, nor a hell to lose, yet he is still sad and sorrowful in heart because he has grieved God.

Converts began to trickle in and soon the harvest was plentiful. The reformed Presbyterian message of Welsh and a few others soon overflowed into a great revival throughout Southern Scotland. It wasn’t only the people, but also the ministers, who were experiencing this wonderful “refreshing from the Lord.” By 1596 a General Assembly in Edinburgh was called, and over 400 men were present for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The business of the Assembly was prayer and the confession of ministerial sin. Many were humbled to tears of conviction and repentance for the sins of their office. The hours and hours of prayer that John Welsh spent over the years now seemed to be bearing fruit. David Calderwood described the scene on a Tuesday morning: “While they were humbling themselves, for the space of quarter of an hour, there were sighs and sobs, with shedding of tears…everyone provoking another by his example…. so that the place might worthily have been called Bochim; for the like of that day was never seen in Scotland since the Reformation, as every man confessed.

The Intercessor John Welsh

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Frank Di Pietro, The Fire That Once Was: John Welsh prayed. It was said of John Welsh that he thought a day “ill-used” if he did not spend seven to eight hours of it in prayer. At different times throughout the day he would stop what he was doing, retire to a secluded room or location, and boldly go before the throne of grace, that he might obtain mercy and find grace to help him in his time of need. (Heb. 4:16). It was his prayer life that sustained him. It was prayer that strengthened him in the trials and persecutions that were leveled against him. It was prayer that gave him the fortitude to continue preaching the Gospel in the face of adversity and peril. It was prayer that increased his intimacy with his Savior. It was prayer that not only changed the hearts of thousands but also an entire town to the things of God. It is said that the power in which a man walks in God is a reflection of the time he spends in prayer, and, oh, what power John Welsh walked in. You see, John Welsh prayed…. John Welsh, at the age of twenty, was on his way to his first ministry position. It was in the city of Selkirk, about thirty-eight miles south of Edinburgh (Scotland). His extraordinary character, intensity, and fervor for a moral and godly point of view, along with his unremitting and untiring zeal, soon led him to become an object of dislike and jealousy both to the clergy and the laymen of the organized church in the district where he was now living. The hatred with which he was persecuted by his peers, along with the realization of the lostness of the people, led him into a lifetime of intense prayer. It was here in Selkirk, a time of constant struggle, that he began his eight hours of daily prayer which he continued the rest of his life. Selkirk was a hard town. The people were poorly educated and, as Welsh says in his own words, “uncouth.” They refused to listen to him because they were content with the dead religion those in charge had been giving them. They resisted his ministry even to the point of violence. Welsh labored among the people of Selkirk for six years and it was a constant struggle. He would preach publicly once or twice each day, but to no avail. Praying unceasingly about the barbaric actions of the townsfolk, he would not let a night go by without the town witnessing his passionate and intense devotions before the Lord. Every night before going to bed, he would place a Scotch plaid (small blanket or shawl) on the side of the bed, that when he awoke in the cold of the night for his midnight prayers it would be handy to wrap around his shoulders. Agonizing with God in prayer he would ask that these hearts be changed, or that he be removed to a more suitable place for the Gospel. The answer would come soon.

The one good thing that came out of his sojourn in Selkirk was his marriage in 1594 to Elizabeth Knox, the youngest daughter of the mighty Scottish reformer John Knox. Knox is remembered for bringing a countrywide move of God that changed the whole of Scotland for a time. It was Knox that passionately cried out to God in prayer, “Give me Scotland, or I die.” So now another great man of prayer through marriage had been given the torch of revival for the land. Elizabeth was a positive influence on Welsh; being brought up from early years in the principles of Holy Scripture, she was a worthy helpmate in the trials and sufferings for the Gospel’s sake that would continue throughout their lives.

Wrestling in Prayer

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The Fire That Once Was, by Frank Di Pietro: “O brother, pray; in spite of satan, pray; spend hours in prayer; rather neglect friends than not pray; rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper – and sleep too – than not pray. We must not just talk about prayer, we must pray in right earnest.” – – Andrew A. Bonar

“In God’s Name, I beseech you, let prayer nourish your soul as meals nourish your body.” – Fenelon

“My present deadness I attribute to want of sufficient time and tranquility for private devotion. Oh! That I might be a man of prayer!” – Henry Martyn

“Every promise of Scripture is a writing of God, which may be pleaded before Him with this reasonable request: ‘Do as Thou hast said…Remember the Word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope…It is Your Word, will you not keep it? Why have You spoken of it if You will not make it good? You have caused me to hope in it; will You disappoint the hope that You have Yourself begotten in me?” – Charles H. Spurgeon

“Put Me in remembrance – remind Me of your merits – let us plead and argue together. Set forth your case that you may be justified…” – I AM (Isa. 43:26)