“….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 […]
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, […]
“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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Frank Di Pietro, Rend the Heavens: “Jesus Christ carries on intercession for us in Heaven; the Holy Ghost carries on intercession in us on the earth; and we the saint’s have to carry on intercession for all men.” – Oswald Chambers “God has no greater controversy with His people than this, that with boundless promises […]
Frank Di Pietro, The Fire That Once Was, Chapter Two: Curse Christ! Never! For eighty-six years I have been His servant, and He has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King Who saved me? Listen carefully: I am a Christian…You threaten a fire that burns for a time and is quickly extinguished…Yet […]
