The Great Welsh Revival — Bob Doom

Passing God’s Works and Law to Future Generations

Turn, if you will, to the book of Psalms, chapter number 78, Psalm 78. Again, I do thank the church for their hospitality, and ladies, you've done a tremendous job on the meals. I appreciate being able to stay in the home of the Myers.

They've been very gracious. And the sons have let me have their bedroom. I can't figure out where they're sleeping, in a closet or in the room where you get fit. But anyway, I thank you boys. I appreciated the hospitality there.

Psalm 78, commencing at verse number 1. Give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should raise and declare them to their children.

So you've got four or five generations mentioned in these early verses. And notice the whole purpose of recounting what God has done. Verse number 7. That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God.

But keep his commandments. And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. Father, we bless thee, we praise thee for all that thou hast done, even before the creation of this world.

And sitting those stars in the sky, that sun and the moon, all of your mighty displays of your glory. And then as we look around your creation, we know the heavens declare your glory. And our Father, we're a blessed people to have had thee, the eternal God, thank upon us when you purpose even to create men.

And we beg you, Father, to cause us, as we think about your works in the Welsh revival, to be stirred afresh of an outpouring of your grace and mercy, an outpouring of your blessed spirit. And our Father, not only to recount and rejoice, but then to long that thou mightest do a new thing in our day, that will turn us and we shall be turned.

We thank you now for what you do in these moments together. In Jesus' name, amen. This evening I want to speak on the subject of the Welsh revival. I notice in the bulletin it was called the Great Welsh Revival.

The Welsh Revival in Historical Perspective

And this one could be debatable as being the greatest because the Welsh have had 13 awakenings. We've had six, according to J. Edwin Orr in Our Beloved Republic. But the Welsh have had 13 awakenings. And by the way, we as Baptists owe a tremendous debt to the Welsh Baptist churches, for they were some of the early churches over on the east coast that brought the gospel and brought their fervor and brought their singing, as well in the establishment of the whole Baptist cause in America.

But sometimes when I approach people and we talk about history, in fact, I've got a close friend, he said that he really is not interested in history. And I got to pondering that statement. I said, well, he must not be much interested in his Bible then, because of all the historical books in the Bible.

And then you think of prophecy, and prophecy is simply history written before time. Amen. And as we made the definition last night, history is simply his story. Now, I am concerned to be accurate in what we point out in the past, but my desire is to be an instrument that God could make some divine history in my generation, in my life, and in my family.

You know, it would be fruitless to live 70 years without having God use us in some way for some divine history. Amen? Now, what I want to look at tonight, God helping me, as we think about the Welsh revival of 1904 and 1905, so we're celebrating the 100th anniversary, is first of all the period of time, to give you a little bit of background, and then the people that God used, and then the product of that particular revival.

I'll give you my outline. They're all illiterated, so you'll be able to be an illiterate, okay? All right? And we may not get through it all, but I'll give you the outline. Now, first of all, the period of time was, of course, 1904, 1905.

But before that, there had been the Great Awakening in 1858 and 1859. Now, that revival commenced in America in 1857. Known as the Fulton Street, and may even began a little bit earlier in New York City because of God putting the people to prayer.

Cultural Attacks on God and Scripture

But what was it like in the culture at that particular time? Well, three things stand out. Number one, it was a time of an educational attack upon God, because you'll remember that Darwin had released his origin of the species, and, of course, that's what evolution is.

It's an attack upon God, because if you do not have a Creator, then you don't have to give an answer to God at the end of the day. But if God has created you, then you'll have to meet the Creator who breathed the breath of life into your nostrils.

Amen? And so there was an attack upon God from an educational approach, starting in the United Kingdom. Secondly, there was an attack upon the reliability of the Scripture. And two men that you need to do some research about is Westcott and Hort, who brought out a new text in 1888, which became the 1902 text in America.

And since then, most of the translations in the English language have been based on, I feel, a corrupt text by Westcott and Hort. So there was an attack from another aspect on the Scriptures. And then the third attack was an attack that was brewing on the continent of Europe, and that was German rationalism, or as we call it, just old-fashioned liberalism.

These men had rejected the authority of Scripture. With their brainpower, they were developing theology rather based on the revelation of God. But you think of the parallel that we have in America. What an attack upon God from our government educational system.

Is that not so? And what an attack when we really, when we come to try to have church. Sometimes you can't have church because you've got 15 different versions that all read differently. Is that not so?

Abortion, Sexual Immorality, and the Sanctity of Life

So there becomes another attack in that area. But we have a greater attack, of course, in our beloved republic right now. We have the abortion attack, which is a destruction of life, isn't it? And you know the thing that grips my heart?

We learned nothing from 9 -11 on the sanctity of life, did we? We saw people jumping off of the Twin Towers. But every day in America, we have aborticide committed at our hospitals, so-called. And we have not desisted and not have ceased.

As far as I know, it has not been one less abortion. We continue on to commit the sin of killing our youth and killing our babies. And then, of course, we have the terrible aspect of being promoted in our government schools of free sex, of perverted sex.

We have the whole music industry, the movies, the videos. And I think, again, of the warning that we find in the Scripture. It said, I made a covenant with mine eyes. Why then should I think upon a maid?

I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. We may have to draw the line and say we've had enough wickedness. We don't need 160 channels to see more wickedness. We can get enough on three or four, can't we?

And just draw the line. But I think of another area. I think of the whole madness of the God of sports in America. You know, they rightly call March, March Madness. And you know, every unconverted person is out of his mind.

Is that not so? That's what the Scriptures declare, isn't it? The God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not. Every unconverted person is crazy. You only get a sound mind when you get right with God.

You can't think right. And that's one of the problems we're having with propositional truth in our day. Folk can't think right. But you think about it. Super Bowl Sunday. You know, that would have been a Mori Oxon, what am I trying to say?

Oxymoron, a few years ago. They talk about playing a Super Bowl on a Sunday, on the Lord's Day. And we know, of course, churches that are putting in big screen televisions. How do they handle all the booze and all the scantily-dread-clad ladies, so-called, who are the cheerleaders and so forth?

What do you do with all of that in the church house, you know? But we're in a terrible mess when it comes to the God of sports, aren't we? It's consuming our culture and consuming our situation. So we're in a period of time similar in many ways to what they were before the Welsh Revival of 1904 and 1905.

Young People Used in Revival

But I want to come then to the people. Last night we looked at a man, and by the way, let me ask the question, what was the man's name? A Baptist man used in the Great Awakening. Shubel Stearns. Let's say it all together, because if you don't get anything else, I want you to know this Baptist hero, amen?

Shubel Stearns, all right? Now, he was an older man, 49, died when he was 65. God used him in that awakening, the tail end of the Great Awakening. And it's a result that there are so many Baptists, amen, in the South, and then spread westward from the influence of those Separatist Baptists.

But we want to look at the people in this particular awakening in 1904 and 1905. And the scripture says, I sought for a man to make up the hedge. God, when he's getting ready to do something, does not get a committee together.

Brother Spurgeon said that when the Bible said, leave me not into temptation, it meant don't put me on a committee. And yet most Baptist churches are committed to death. But anyway, God seeks for a man to make up the hedge.

And, of course, the wonderful thing is he takes redeemed sinners, amen? He takes a Moses who's imperfect. He was a murderer before God lined him out, didn't he? He takes an Aaron. He takes a Samuel. And I'm glad God still uses redeemed sinners.

So what we see as we think about this Welsh Revival is that in that particular awakening, God used young people. He used young people from the ages of 26. That's the age of Evan Roberts. And by the way, Evan Roberts was only one of about 100 instruments used in the Welsh Revival.

He was only in one county. And God used him in that particular county. But he was 26 years of age, and he used young people down to the age of 16. Now let me just give you the group that were center in his particular aspect of that revival.

Evan, as I mentioned, was already 26 years of age. But since the age of 13, he had been attending a prayer meeting almost every night of the week. So he sometimes was tempted, when he walked beside where he lived, along beside a lock there, to go out and play with his boat out with the other boys.

But he had an older elder at Moriah Church, or Moriah Chapel, which, by the way, was a Calvinistic Methodist church. Ever heard of that phrase together? Never heard of it. Which was, again, the Presbyterians.

And it was a Calvinistic Methodist church. And so he would go to a prayer meeting on Monday night at Moriah. There was a mission chapel called Pisgah. Then they'd come back to Moriah on Wednesday, and then a couple other meetings on Thursday and Friday night.

That old deacon said to him, Evan, do not miss the prayer meeting. God may come down, and you'll miss the blessing. So for 13 years, have we got a 13-year-old here? Stick up your hand. Any 13-year-olds here?

All right. One of the sons is a 13-year-old. He attended prayer meetings for 13 years there at Moriah Chapel, faithfully praying and seeking the face of God. Then there was another young man who was his friend called Sidney Evans.

We personally have a letter from Sidney Evans written to my father-in-law. What we discovered was we were getting some of our material together. Sidney Evans married Evan Roberts' younger sister, Mary.

And then there was another brother called Dan Roberts. Dan Roberts was 20 years of age. Mary Roberts was 16 years of age. And then there were the singing sisters. They were between 18 and 20. And so you can see that it was a young people that God took up and used in that awakening.

Jubal Stearns was 49. Abraham Marshall was 65 when he founded six more churches. But here were these young people. Now, the principle here is that God has a prepared people, and God is preparing a people.

And you know, so many times we look at our age and we don't think we can be used. But you know, you look back in history and you see many times God takes up some very young folk and he uses them for his praise and for his glory and for his eternal purposes.

Evan Roberts and the Burden for Revival

Well, that's the people. Well, what happened? Well, let me back up and say this, that Evan Roberts had a tremendous burden for revival. And he was met with God, and there's a little mysticism. God would seem to meet with him for several weeks every night in the middle of the night.

He had been raised in a coal mining home. In fact, he went to the coal mine when his dad was injured and kept the doors of the coal mine. He made the princely sum of 75 cents a week for working in the coal mine.

And then he felt a call to the ministry. And of course, he didn't have not the educational abilities to go to Torveca College. And so he'd gone to New Castle Elm to get prepared and do some preparatory work so he could go into the Torvecan College, which is the Calvinistic Methodist school for preparing men for the ministry.

And he'd gone off to New Castle Elm, and in fact, he was reticent to go off because God had been meeting with him in those night vigils, and he was afraid that he would lose that presence of God. And he only stayed there about three months, but while he was there, there was the beginnings of the moving of God in other places.

For example, there was a pastor by the name of Jenkins who pastored at New Key. And Brother Jenkins had a real burden for his young people, and one Sunday morning he got them together. He said, I want you to give me the experiences that God's dealt with you, what God's doing for you.

Well, you know, the use of kind of bland testimonies. He said, no, that's not what I'm wanting. And one little girl stood up, and she said, I love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of my heart. And that put a soberness and established an atmosphere.

And then Brother Jenkins, as pastor of that church in New Key, started taking these young people around. And they were testifying and they were singing because God was starting to stir. Well, they went to a meeting held by Seth Joshua from the college.

And on the way there, they sang a song of expectancy. He is coming, he is coming, the blessed Holy Ghost is coming. They were talking about an outpouring of the Spirit of God. And Seth Joshua preached in that particular meeting.

And the phrase was used that God would bend his people. And God used that particularly in Evan Roberts' heart. And he leaned over the pew in front of him. They were having a prayer service after that, about 9 o 'clock at night.

And he said, oh, God, bend me. Bend me. Bend us. One of the phrases at an awakening was to bend the church and to save the world. You know, we must humble ourselves and pray. I've always been amazed. In 2 Chronicles 7, 14, if I'd been writing Holy Scripture, I'd said, repent, you devil.

That's right. Repentance comes in there. But isn't it amazing that God, who wrote it, said, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

Well, that phrase laid hard hold on Evan Roberts. And he was wrestling because, as he was praying, he could only vision Mariah Chapel and the young people there. So he went to the principal. And he said, I don't know if this is from God or from the devil.

He said, I feel like I need to go back to my home church and hold youth meetings. And the principal was a spiritual man. And he said, well, that wouldn't be coming from the devil. He said, I'll give you a leave to go back to your home church.

So here he shows up on Monday night. And, of course, the family said, are you sick? What's wrong? How come you're not in college? Well, you know, I'm sure the pastor wasn't exactly overjoyed to see him either.

Said this young fellow way to get trained. And here he is back within about three months. And he comes back and he sits in the prayer meeting. And he asked the pastor before, can I have a youth meeting after the prayer meeting?

So 16 adults or 15 adults and one young lady stayed for the youth meeting. Well, that was the beginning of the outpouring of the Spirit of God in that particular county. It didn't seem significant. But by the end of that week, that chapel was absolutely packed to the doors.

On Friday or Saturday, there were 70 young people converted. And there were three church buildings in a town of 4 ,000. Loughner is the way it's pronounced. See, as I was trying to pronounce some of these Welsh names.

And all of them were packed to the doors. I love the typical British understatement as someone reported it. They said they were talking about it. Folk were coming to the meetings from all over. It was noised abroad that God was in the house.

Advertised its own meeting. They didn't have to advertise it. And all the church houses were filled. A Baptist, a Calvinistic Methodist church. There was an Anglican church called the Church of Wales was there.

And all these buildings were filled. And the meeting and the movement started. But before this, Evan Roberts had met with his friend Sidney Evans. And he said, Sidney, do you believe that God could give us 100 ,000 people?

Could give us 100 ,000 souls? And he had a little bit of money in the bank and he was prepared to take it out. And he and Sidney and maybe some folk to sing with him. And just to do some itinerant work.

But you know God had a different plan. And there was an outpouring of the Spirit of God. And God commenced to move. And within about six months, there were 100 ,000 people brought savingly to Christ. You say, Brother, do them to the convert stand.

Well, a fellow wrote an article to debunk the revival. He said, no, it wasn't a true revival. He said, all we can find is only 85 of the converts. Well, you know, a lot of folk had moved. A lot of folk had gone somewhere else.

I'll tell you what, they would be absolutely delighted if our modern evangelists could bring 85 of their converts around. It's less than 5 today that stand and who make profession in these big evangelistic meetings.

Revival’s Effects on Churches and Society

Well, the churches, what happened? Well, there were the conversions. There was the convulsions in society. First of all, the churches were filled. The one central thing in the Welsh revival, both there in Wales and then later on that came to America in 1905, and some of it even started in 1904 as reports started coming in, and then on in 1906, is that it was a church-centered revival.

And my father-in-law makes a statement, he said, if I heard that there was an awakening in a certain area, he said, I wouldn't go to the city auditorium. I'd go to the local churches. Because that's where God's purpose is centered, isn't it?

Is in the local church. And so the churches were filled. The places of sin were absolutely emptied. For example, I mentioned last night the public houses. Many of the tavern owners got converted, and they closed the pubs.

Owner converted, closed forever. The liquor trade almost went bankrupt. Another wonderful thing that happened is the theaters, they didn't have, of course, television in those days, but they had play troupes that would come through Wales.

They'd rent a hall of some size and put on a play. Well, nobody was interested in going to see a play when you go to the church house and have reality. Amen? The sports were decimated. Because, again, many of the sports figures were converted.

Why play soccer football, take a piece of hot air up the field, when you can go down to the church house and meet God? The fans weren't interested in going to the soccer football matches. In fact, they would have the national football, they could hardly get a train to come out of Wales.

The play troupes ceased going through Wales for a few years. Because, again, they couldn't get a crowd, they couldn't pay their way. Nobody was interested in the theater or in the plays. So there was a convulsion for good.

And the amazing thing, and I have some 1904 -1905 newspapers from Wales. My father-in-law picked up somewhere. He knew the Evan Roberts family very well and was in their home a few times. And the amazing thing is there's a picture in one of them, a cartoon, for the first time in that year of 1904, many miners' homes celebrated Christmas.

There was gifts, there was food. The miners weren't drunk, squandering their pay down at the public house or gambling. God had moved in and it was an absolute revolution in many of the homes. So there was that convulsion in society.

Revival and Political Reform

And then in the political realm, and it's most interesting to me that the politics in America got affected by the Welsh Revival after the awakening here. Because after God had moved here in 1905 -1906, many times the people demanded that these cliques in government and these machines of Democrats or Republicans, whoever were ensconced in a situation, were thrown out.

They wanted politicians who were honest. And it made an impact even there. And I pointed out last night that one of the ways it made an impact there in Wales is that they gave white gloves to the magistrates.

Because there were no court cases to try for two or three years in a row. Wouldn't that be wonderful? That would solve our problem of having night courts in America, wouldn't it? If you got folk converted, folk not beating their wife, folk not stealing somebody else's goods, and on and on and on.

So there was that convulsion in a political air. But then there was a tremendous wave of evangelism. You know, in true revival, it always follows that there's a burdened heart for souls. The people of God were bent, the people of God were filled with the Spirit of God, the people of God became obedient to the leadership of the Spirit of God.

And then there was a tremendous wave of evangelism that brought in all of these souls to the Lord Jesus Christ. Many times church members being converted. But it didn't stay in Wales. One of the books I have here is when God walked on campus after the awakening here in America.

This book states, it's called, by Michael Gleason, he says, there was an increased burden for the lost and an unprecedented increase in missionary interest. Prior to 1895, for example, less than a thousand student volunteers were on the mission field.

In May of 1906, a record 3 ,500 student missionaries sailed from either America or Europe to foreign ports as missionaries. Kenneth Scott Latteret, who's kind of a liberal historian, alumnus of Yale, suggested that out of the class that enrolled as freshmen in 1905 at Yale came more missionaries than any other class in the history of Yale College.

So there was a tremendous explosion of evangelism, not only in Wales, not only in other parts of Great Britain. And I don't have time to answer the question, but, you know, it didn't go out of the Principality of Wales.

In former revivals like the 1858 and 59, Scotland, England, and Wales were touched. But there was the move of God up in Edinburgh in 1904, 1905, 1906. A young preacher had been laboring down in the borders, and he went up to Charlotte Chapel.

Some of you may know that name if you know anything about the Baptist in Scotland. And this young man went there, and he went to a congregation about 35, but it had an old praying deacon. The old praying deacon is on Rose Street, the chapel is still located in the same place, just off of Princess Street there in the city of Edinburgh.

And this old praying deacon said to his wife one morning, he said, look at all those people coming to the house of God. She looked at her eyes and said, you're daft. She said, there's nobody coming to the house of God.

But he believed God was going to do something. Brought this young man out of the borders, and for three years in a row, 300 folk were converted and baptized. And now that's the largest, and as far as I know, it's an independent Baptist church in the city of Edinburgh.

Has a membership now, or attendance now, of 11 or 1 ,200. Now when I tell you that, and tell you the whole Baptist cause in Scotland only numbers about 12 ,000, you'll see how significant that is to have a church that size in the city of Edinburgh right now.

But that was the result of the 1904 -1905 revival. Again, evangelism. An explosion of evangelism. Well, let me quickly go to the world here, and then make some application. The gospel then moved out from Wales, and the influence of Wales, to all over the world.

The Welsh Revival’s Global Influence

Some of you have noticed the display in the Russian Bible Society. The Russian Bible Society, 60 years old this year. It was founded by a brother called William Fettler. William Fettler was a Latvian, German extract, converted at the age of 15, baptized at night by his dad in Latvia, because of fear of the established church, which would have been Lutheran at that time, and perhaps even the Romans involved in it as well.

I don't know my history as well as I should of Latvia. But then God called him to preach, and he went and wrote a letter, wrote a postcard with the help of an English dictionary, and applied to go to Spurgeon's College in London.

They accepted him. He went to Spurgeon's College in London, and then the Welsh revival broke out, and he and the Welsh students from the college, with the principal and McCaig, and Thomas Spurgeon, the son of Charles Spurgeon, went down to Wales.

Well, in Wales, brother Fettler was caught on fire. I mean, he had his whole idea changed about the evangelism of Russia. So after he finished his course, he went back to Russia, sent out by the Pioneer Mission Society of London, and within about a year or so, they had over a hundred missionaries laboring in Russia.

Malov himself established three large churches. I was in the one in Riga that he established. And he had four congregations, and he preached in four different languages to those congregations. He had a Russian congregation, a Latvian-Latvian-speaking congregation, he had a German congregation, and a Polish congregation, and he preached in all four languages.

In that church, he had a choir of two or three hundred, and they thought the folk were coming because of the choir. He was a choir director as well, wrote some music. He fired the whole choir. He said, no, the folk are not coming because of you.

He said, they're coming because God's in this place. And he learned that he would meet until God met with him. My father-in-law went and preached with him as a boy preacher from Scotland. He let him testify to see if he was genuine, first of all.

He said, take ten minutes, James, and took ten more minutes, and finally held meetings there. And they had great gatherings of God. He established a church in Moscow that became the showpiece under Communism.

And it was the one that's called the Central Baptist Church now in Moscow, but it was the one that survived under Communism. And they had five, eight hundred folk who would gather there every Lord's Day.

Again, a result of this revival in Wales affected Russia, but then that would come quickly to America. The revival, and of course we didn't know much about it until Dr. J. Edwin Orr, and if you're interested in revival, you'll need to try to get his books, and you'll have to pay about twenty-five bucks apiece for them because they're all out of print.

But J. Edwin Orr wrote a book about history, and seven years later he wrote another book, and that book was entitled, let's see if I've got the title of it here, Flaming Tongue, where he did an extensive research on the effects of the Welsh Revival in America.

Well, since I'm running out of time, he found that there was well over six hundred thousand people converted in America as a result of the awakening coming from Wales and catching fire here in our beloved Republic.

Prayer as the Preparation for Revival

A great in-gathering, and I don't have time to cite all these quotes, let me just try to pick up a couple that are close to here. For example, I like this one in Kentucky, In the South, an awakening began in Louisville, with simultaneous meetings in which more than a thousand men confessed their faith in Christ.

Of the fifteen hundred inquiries, two-thirds joined the churches immediately. As the movement continued, the press reported that the most remarkable revival ever known to the city is now interesting Louisville.

Conversions numbering four thousand have been recorded. Fifty-eight of the leading business firms of the city are closed at the noon hour for prayer meetings. The people were under such conviction of sin they had to close the stores and businesses for a couple of hours to give them an opportunity to go to prayer meetings or go to preaching.

Same thing happened out in Denver. I like this, and my folk were over around Paducah, Kentucky. Here's what Orr says about that,. The city of Paducah witnessed an awakening described by Southern Baptists as a great Pentecostal revival within our own bounds.

The movement swept the city from November 1905 until March 1906. One church alone, the First Baptist Church, received into membership more than a thousand new members. Its pastor, Dr. J .J. Cheek, an old man, was laid to rest.

A glorious ending to a devoted ministry. Having to kill the old preacher. Having to baptize and preach. I'd like to die that way, amen? That'd be a good way to go out, being used of God. But let me come here to Illinois and see if we can't dig up something here, at least in Missouri or somewhere.

In Chicago, the noonday prayer meetings were held in Chicago for a great awakening. In the Midwestern metropolis in Hinterland, a band of praying ministers of Chicago, hearing reports of the Welsh revival, decided to operate through the churches rather than engage in a mass evangelistic campaign.

That's what I said, it was local church centered. Many times, the pastors would preach their own meetings. And that would be a good one. You know, we think about having some special speakers come in. And we still have evangelistic meetings down in Georgian, Tennessee and that area of North Carolina as well.

But they preach their own meetings. It talks about the outpouring of the Spirit here in St. Louis. And the mighty movings of God. But over 600 ,000 people were converted to Christ in that movement of God from 1904 to 1906.

Well, let me hasten on. One of the things, of course, God does, and I mentioned this last night, a quote from Jonathan Edwards, that whenever God is going to do something, he always sets his people to praying.

Ian Murray, in a book entitled Pentecost Today, has a section in this book called Hindering Revival. And he's particularly talking about enthusiasm or emotionalism. But let me just read a couple quotes here.

In a matter hidden from us, the divine and the human agencies are conjoined in events in such a way that the will of God comes to pass, while men remain fully accountable for all sin and failure. Not a single success in the kingdom of God is ever achieved without the predetermining purpose of God.

Yet we are confronted in Scripture with the real danger that we may hinder the gospel of Christ. And he quotes 1 Corinthians 9 and verse number 12. It is true in general, and it must remain true with regard to revival, if the definition of revival which we have sought to establish is correct, and here's his definition, it's a good one, if revival is the heightening of normal Christianity, then it follows that everything which hinders the spiritual life of the churches may be a potential hindrance to revival.

Unbelief, pride, impurity, moral laxity, prayerlessness, unfaithfulness to Scripture, erroneous beliefs, contention between brethren, all such things that are grieving the Holy Spirit. Now that phrase, prayerlessness, catches my mind.

We see our prayer meetings diminishing in America. Some churches up in Indiana have already dropped the midweek prayer meeting. My contention is we shouldn't drop it, we should add four more. Amen? If things are getting bad, let's don't go the other way.

Let's just don't opt out. Let's really get to prayer. Amen? And call four more a week. And have them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Well, to address this matter of prayer, one of the revivals that took place, of course, was a Korean revival.

The Korean Revival and Persevering Prayer

And by the way, the reason there's so many Presbyterians in Korea is because the Presbyterians, when they translated the Bible into Korean, translated the word baptizo, sprinkling. A member of Pete's Free Baptist Church, Dr., what was his name?

Dr. Chu, is that right? Sun Chu was his name, wasn't he? Great scholar. And he was talking to me one day, and he said, you know why we've got so many Presbyterian churches in Korea? Because our Bible, say, talks about baptism, and they put the word sprinkling in it.

I said, Brother Chu, we've got to get that corrected, and it has been corrected since then. There is now a translation that correctly translates the word baptizo. But anyway, here's an emphasis on prayer that I want to share with you in my time I have left.

Written by Renee Monod. It was after the Korean War that I set foot on Korean soil for the first time. When arriving in Seoul, I got in contact with the Presbyterian Church at Southgate. I was invited to give a short address at the prayer meeting next morning.