Christmas Evans of Wales — E.A. Johnston

Christmas Evans and the Welsh Revival Tradition

Well, before we go to our time of prayer this evening, friends, we're still studying men of revival, and our subject this evening is Christmas Events of Wales. Wales is known as the land of revivals, as God has visited Wales in former times in powerful spiritual awakenings.

God has seemed pleased to pour out his effusions of divine grace upon Wales time and time again. The most memorable period of revival being 1904 to 1905, where God used the human instrument in revival of Evan Roberts.

But Wales is also known for her great preachers, and the one we'll be studying tonight is none other than the one-eyed preacher of Wales, Christmas Evans. He was named Christmas because he was born on Christmas Day, 1766.

Christmas Evans’s Doctrines of Grace and Evangelistic Ministry

He had a powerful God-owned ministry, which lasted 53 years. He always pointed sinners to find shelter in the precious blood of Christ, and the great doctrines that Christmas Evans preached were those commonly known as Calvinism, and it was the great doctrines of grace that made up the better part of his searching sermons, which drove conviction into the hearts of his hearers, to where they begged God for mercy and cried out, what must I do to be saved?

Christmas Evans had some advice to a young preacher once, and the advice was preach the whole counsel of God from predestination to glorification. Christmas Evans labored for 40 years in Anglesey and was often seen riding his horse across the Lonely Mountains to visit his parishioners.

Conversion, Persecution, and Christmas Evans’s Preaching

Christmas Evans was a unique man to behold, for he only had one eye. After his conversion, as a young man, he chose to leave his wicked companions as he followed his new master, Jesus Christ, but six of his former friends jumped him one night, and they beat him cruelly for his testimony in Christ.

One of these attackers hit him in the eye with a stick, which later cost him the loss of his eye. He always wore a patch over that eye, which gave him his unique and peculiar appearance, and he became known as the one-eyed preacher.

So he was not only unique in his physical appearance, but his preaching was unique as well, friends, for he made good use of allegory in his sermons, which his preaching became so popular and well-attended that he became known as the Bunion of Wales.

Christmas Evans’s Covenant of Holiness

Christmas Evans was a holy man of God who was wholly consecrated to God. Early on, he made a solemn covenant with God for holiness. He believed in a walk of holiness to his master. I have his prayer that he prayed when he made this solemn covenant to God.

Grant, O blessed Lord, that nothing may grow and be matured in me, to occasion thee to cast me off from the service of thy sanctuary, like the sons of Eli, and for the sake of thine unbounded merit. Let not my days be longer than my usefulness.

O let me not be like lumber in a house, in the end of my days, in the way of others, to work. Amen. That was that man's sanctified prayer, friends. And because of his great pursuit of holiness in his life, God honored his preaching with a special anointing from on high, as it was said that the presence of God was all over this man, known as the one-eyed preacher.

It's important for us, friends, to study men like Christmas Evans, who was so mildly used to God in his generation, for we can learn much from studying how God builds a man and how God used such a man as this.

Lessons for Modern Ministers from Evans’s Example

If our pulpits today took after the habits of Christmas Evans, how different they would be, there would be less laughter and irreverence and more solemnity and authority in our preaching. If our prayer habits were as consistent as his, our care of the sheep as sacrificial as his, and our belief in the word of God as sound as his, what a difference our own ministries would benefit from following his example in service to our king.

He was a methodical man in his approach to ministry. As soon as he arrived on the island of Anglesey, he divided the island into four districts so he could preach at three places each Sabbath. But the real power of Christmas Evans in the pulpit lay in his sacrificial prayer life.

The Power of Sacrificial Prayer and Persevering Labor

He was a man who believed in the power of prayer to turn the ear of the Almighty. He was known to appoint entire days of fasting and prayer in each of his preaching places that he would visit. Christmas Evans knew where his power lay, friends.

He was tall in the pulpit because he spent much time low on his knees in prayer. His labors were incessant. Every moment of time, he was employed in his master's service. How many preachers today waste valuable time on sports and entertainment?

Christmas Evans was either on his knees and in his Bible or on his horse on his way to a preaching engagement. He traveled in bitter cold and inclement weather. Nothing stopped this hardy man from proclaiming the great doctrines of the gospel of the Son of God to his beloved Wales.

People would travel a great distance just to hear him preach. Often the power of God was so strong in a meeting that many were overcome with conviction of sin to where they were shut up to God and God alone for salvation.

He always pointed his hearers to the redeeming blood of Christ. And on his deathbed, he proclaimed, I am leaving you. I have labored in the sanctuary for 53 years, and this is my comfort that I have never labored without blood in the basin.

By this, he meant a reference to the Passover, as the great theme of his preaching was the blood of Christ and how sinners could find shelter in that precious blood. But it was his unique preaching style which made him so famous.

I have a book of his sermons in my library, and they are truly fantastic in their homiletical approach to preaching. He was truly a unique preacher who could get away with using allegory and still keep it doctrinal.

Salvation by Divine Life, Not Human Effort

I would like at this time, friends, to read you a part of a sermon extract from one of Christmas Evans' sermons where he makes use of allegory in a powerful way to illustrate that salvation is in the hands of God and not man.

That man is a dead man, dead in trespasses and sins, and nothing can awake him except the voice of Jesus Christ through saving faith. Here now is a sermon extract from this remarkable man, Christmas Evans.

The Allegory of Lazarus and the Deadness of Man

These are his words. Behold, Lazarus, lying in the cave, locked in the sleep of death. Now how shall he be raised? How shall he be brought back to life? Who will roll away for us the stone from the sepulture?

First came one who went down into the cold cave with blankets and salt to rub with the formations of duty, to appeal to the will, to say to the sleeping man that he could if he would. Chafing and rubbing the cold and inert limbs, he thinks to call back the vital warmth, and then retiring and standing some distance apart, he says to the other spectators, Do you not see him stir?

Are there no signs of life? Is he not moving? No, he lies very still. There is no motion. How could it be otherwise? How could a sense of moral duty be felt by the man there? For the man was dead. The first man gave up in despair.

He had failed. Then came the second, as cocksure as the first. I thought you would never do it, he said with sarcasm. But if you look at me and watch carefully, you will see a thing or two. You have not learned the way yet.

Your treatment was far too gentle. And he went down into the cave with a scourge, and with boastfulness he said, The man only wants severe treatment to be brought back to life. I will certainly make him feel.

And he laid on him in quick succession the fervid blows, the sharp threatenings of law and judgment, and future danger and doom, and then he retired to some distance. Is he not waking, he said? Do you not see the corpse stir?

No, a corpse he was before the man began to lay on his lashes, and a corpse he remained still, for the man was dead. Ah, said a third person, as he advanced with head in air, I have wonderful power. You with your rubbing and smiting, what can you do?

You have nothing. I have two things, two vital things. He advanced and fixed an electric battery, and arranged it so that it touched the dead man, and then from a flute, which he held, he drew forth such sweet sounds that they charmed the ears which were listening, and whether it was the battery, or whether it was the music, so it was that effect seemed to produce.

Behold, said he, what the refinements of education and cultivation will do, and indeed so it was, for the hair of the dead man seemed to rise, and his eyeballs seemed to start, and dilate, and see. He rises, starts up, and takes a stride down the cave.

Ah, but it's all over. It was nothing but the electricity and the battery, and he sank back again flat on the floor of the cave, for the man was dead. And then, when all were filled with despair, there came one, and stood by the entrance of the cave, but he was the lord and giver of life, and standing there, he said, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon this slain one, that he may live.

Christ hath given thee life. Awake thou that sleepest. And the man arose. He shook off his grave clothes. What he needed had come to him now. Life, life is the only cure for death, not the prescriptions of duty, not the threats of punishment and damnation, not the arts and the refinements of education, but new, spiritual, divine life.

A Final Challenge to Pursue Revival and Faithfulness

Well, friends, I hope this message on the life and ministry of the great Christmas Evans has been as beneficial to you as it's been to me, for all of us preachers should be willing to give our right eye, just be able to preach like that.

May the Lord of glory be pleased to grant each of us an ounce of Christmas Evans in our day. Let us go now to our time of prayer, friends, and pray that God will raise up some men in our generation, men like Christmas Evans.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.