In last month’s topic: “The Spirit Filled Church” we explored how vital the baptism of Holy Spirit is for all believers in the ongoing life of the Church and how this began to get lost during the second century. Following on from that, this is the first of a two-part series: Reformation Revival Renewal and Restoration where we will explore how the fulness of the Spirit began to be experienced again in the Church in the years following the Reformation.
Part 1
REFORMATION AND REVIVAL
Have you ever thought about the “Divine coincidence” that since the Church is going to be two thousand years old in about three years’ time, the Church was born by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the FIRST century and here we are at the beginning of the TWENTY FIRST century when God has poured out His Spirit over and over again in preparation for this moment in time?
In Acts 7 Stephen looked back over the history of God’s people with an honest appraisal of their failures while at the same time showing how, despite that, God had been at work all through that time. In a similar way, we will look back over two thousand years of Church history noting the ways in which the church had moved away from its origins but how God has been at work to bring us to this point in time…
REFORMATION
As we considered last month, the Church had all but lost the vital truth of the Holy Spirit baptism by the 3rd century. Even when the Reformation happened - although there is some talk of Martin Luther receiving the baptism and speaking in tongues himself, he certainly did not include this in his teaching. Instead, he actively tried to stamp out any return to vital New Testament Church life which some people like the Anabaptists were trying to restore to the Church.
The Protestant leaders like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli were more concerned about Reformed Theology than they were about reforming the Church in any way other than to promote their own Protestant structures of liturgy and Church government. They neglected the Church’s mission to preach the gospel and send missionaries to the far-flung corners of the earth. They spent all their time and energy on trying to convert Roman Catholics to Protestantism and in the process instead of there being “two churches” the Protestants began splitting into countless groups almost from the beginning!
One hundred years later, when Lutheranism had become dry and formal, one Lutheran Pastor in Germany by the name of Philipp Spener began what became known as the Pietist movement. This was a move toward to vital evangelical church life with an emphasis on prayer, Bible study, preaching, loving fellowship and holy living.
An off-shoot of Pietism was the Moravian church, which began when Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf allowed a large group of persecuted Protestant Christians from Moravia and Bohemia (part of Czech Republic today) to settle on his estate in Herrnhurt, Germany in 1722. This community began the ‘100 Year Prayer Meeting’ where they began to pray for the world and for the Church to be revived. They also began to send missionaries worldwide to preach the gospel. This was the beginning of what became the First Great Awakening…
REVIVAL
The First Great Awakening 1733
It was not until the First Great Awaking which happened under the leadership of preachers like Jonathan Edwards in America, George Whitfield in England and America, Howell Harris in Wales, and John and Charles Wesley in Great Britain, that things really began to move towards the Church returning to its roots.
Jonathan Edwards, a Northampton, Massachusetts pastor, had begun to pray for his congregation and for the unconverted of North America and revival began in his village church in 1733. Hardly a person in Northampton remained unaffected by the revival. The news soon spread among the surrounding villages. Within the next seven years the awakening had spread through the American Colonies. This was helped by the arrival of George Whitefield in 1739, whose preaching attracted such crowds that revival spread wherever he went. Church records of this period indicate that as much as one-third of the population of the American Colonies had received a salvation experience.
After this first revival there was a whole series of revivals that broke out consistently right on into the 20th century.
The Second Great Awakening of 1791
The beginning of this revival can be traced to the industrial towns of Yorkshire in late 1791, spreading through all areas and denominations of Britain after a fresh surge of prayer had been going on since 1784. The Methodists grew from around 72,000 at John Wesley’s death in 1791, to almost a quarter of a million within a generation. In the USA seeking God in prayer was very widespread from 1794 and by 1798 the awakening had broken out everywhere. The 1801 Cane Ridge Camp meeting was a major moment in this outpouring of revival. Every state and every evangelical denomination was affected. The revival lasted around 30 years until the early 1820's. Around 1800 Scandinavia, Switzerland and Germany also experienced revival.
The Third Great Awakening of 1830
This revival began under Charles Finney's ministry during which 100,000 souls were saved within one year. It continued until around 1842. During this time there were local revivals in various parts of the world, particularly in Scandinavia, central Europe, South Africa, the Pacific Islands, India, Malabar, and Ceylon.
The Fourth Great Awakening of 1857
This Great Awakening (often called the Prayer Meeting Revival) was the greatest to date in its extent, effects and lasting impact. In September 1857 Jeremiah Lanphier, a businessman and convert of Finney's, began a midday prayer meeting on Wednesdays in a New York city church. The small but growing numbers decided to meet daily in early October. Within six months over 10,000 businessmen were meeting in similar meetings across America; confessing sins, being converted and praying for revival. A million souls were saved in two years. Finney was again involved in this revival and in 1858, from February to June, around 50,000 people were being added to the church every week. In Britain another million were won to Christ by 1865.
The revival also swept around the world. Rapid growth was reported in continental Europe, western Russia, Australia, The South Seas, South Africa and India.
The Fifth Great Awakening 1880’s
This missionary revival centred on the ministry of Dwight L. Moody, which has been described as "highly successful crusade evangelism interspersed with periodic revivalism." Moody's influence caused thousands of young men to volunteer for missionary work. New missions were planted in many unevangelised fields and revivals were reported in India, Africa, South Africa, Madagascar, Australia, Central and South America.
The Sixth Great Awakening 1900
The early years of the 20th century witnessed a number of revivals around the world. For instance, in 1900 a revival broke out among South African soldiers at the conclusion of the Boer war. In 1902, the soldiers returned to South Africa and the revival returned with them. Also in Japan, during 1900, the church doubled in size as revival swept through the churches.
In 1904, Rueben Torrey and Charles Alexander were in Cardiff, Wales and, in the light of a poor response to the gospel, they called for a day of prayer and fasting. Suddenly things changed dramatically and thousands were converted during the next 12 months. This was the beginning of…
The Welsh Revival of 1904-5.
Wherever the news of this went, it seemed to cause passionate prayer and began to ignite revival fires everywhere. In Scandinavia, Germany. Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Balkans and Russia believers inspired by the news, also experienced awakenings. In the United States a similar thing happened, news of the Welsh Revival encouraged more prayer and then the Holy Spirit descended in 1906 when the modern Pentecostal Movement was born in Azusa Street, in Los Angeles and the rest is history…
Pentecostal Revival 1906
At the beginning of the 20th century there was a small group of Holiness believers who came to believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was available to them, and they would know that they had received it when, after praying, they would speak in tongues as the initial evidence of the Spirit baptism.
A hundred years before that, people like Charles Finney, Dwight Moody and Rueben Torrey had begun to use the phrase “baptism of the Holy Ghost” and to teach about a “second blessing” after conversion. So the expectation was there - and it finally fell to a humble man by the name of William Seymour who could not read or write, but had sat the corridor of the Bible college in Topeka, Kansas (because of segregation), and had listened to Charles Parham encouraging his students to seek after the Baptism of the Spirit which many of them received on New Years day 1906 with speaking in tongues.
Seymour was invited to preach at a small Holiness church in Los Angeles California but was soon locked out of the building because he was preaching about the initial evidence of speaking in tongues which he personally had not received up to that point!
A small group of people from that little Holiness church stayed with him and started a prayer meeting to seek God together until they received it - which they did. That event changed the Church in a way that no one can deny whether they like it or not!
All of this history is to say that despite man’s many failures which continue to this day,
God by His Holy Spirit was at work in His Church and He still is!
Hallelujah!
In Part 2 we will look at Renewal and Restoration