Holiness Movement & Phoebe Palmer, Part I — Michael Haykin

Hebrews 12 and the Pursuit of Holiness

Turn now please to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 12. I'm going to begin reading at verse 3 and I'm going to read down to verse 14. Hebrews 12 and verse 3, reading down to verse 14. Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

You have not yet resisted the bloodshed striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him.

For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us, and it seemed best to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.

Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained right. Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

Pursue peace of all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Well, last week we began, as we concluded, looking at Finney, we began thinking about the holiness movement in the 19th century.

Why Study the Holiness Movement?

And one of the questions that might be rumbling around in your mind is, why are we working through a lot of this stuff, some of which we disagree with? And today we're going to get into looking at primarily a woman named Phoebe Palmer, which we would probably have some significant disagreement with elements of her teaching.

Well, I think part of it is because when we look out upon the landscape of evangelicalism in North America, and we look at its various features, there are features there that we would not be comfortable with, but we nonetheless have to live in this context, this theological context, and we have to have some understanding of where have these things come from.

And what we've done, really, thus far, is we've looked at three kind of characteristics of contemporary North American evangelicalism. One is, that we began with Kerry, is the emphasis on missions, and we are deeply thankful that that is, broadly speaking, in many parts of North America, still an emphasis.

One thinks of the whole Southern Baptist denomination, where this is almost a raison d 'etre for their existence, is missions, church planting. In fact, it's very interesting, here in Ontario, they are planting, they're probably one of the most fastest church planting groups here in Southern Ontario.

And they see Canada as a major mission field, which it is, and they're seeking to do something about it. We may disagree with elements of that, but that's certainly a part of the evangelicalism, that we are the world in which we live, theologically.

And we looked at the roots of that, the roots of that go back, really, to William Kerry, at least in the modern variety. And then, secondly, what we looked at was the whole area of revivalism, and if we are very much in favour of missions, revivalism raises problems for us, I hope.

We're committed to praying for revival. The question is, what other means does one use in this regard? And where did all of the high-pressure salesmanship of certain quarters of evangelicalism come from?

And we looked at Finney to see how that whole perspective was found, at least he's a key figure in developing that perspective. Finney also is representative of a massive movement in evangelicalism in the 19th century, of which we're the heirs, to some degree, and that is a movement away from Calvinism.

Calvinism’s Retreat and Contemporary Evangelicalism

The 19th century Calvinism is a movement in retreat, and Calvinism is increasingly not looked on with favour by many in the evangelical world. And probably the low point is, really, the man that we're going to look at near the end of the time together in this series is Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

And Spurgeon will find himself isolated at the end of the 19th century, and Calvinism is being attacked on a number of fronts, and Finney is certainly a part of that movement away from Calvinism. In fact, we'll feel, it's quite evident for Finney, Calvinism is not at all helpful in promoting the gospel.

And a lot of evangelicals will embrace that. And it's really not until the 1950s that we start to see a real change. One of the most thankful things I see today in North American evangelicalism is to meet pastors who are completely fed up with where evangelicalism has been at because they realise it's bankruptcy and shallowness.

And they're now listening to a biblical understanding of church life and God's work and salvation and so on. But again, we need to know something of where that comes from. And like Rick Warren, purpose-driven church and purpose-driven life, I mean, he's not a Charles Finney by any means, but there's a continuum that goes from Rick Warren or Bill Hybels all the way back now to Finney to some degree.

Pentecostalism’s Roots in Methodism

And then the third aspect we're looking at, and we started last week, is Pentecostalism. Where did Pentecostalism come from? Now, Pentecostals will argue, at least the early historians will argue, that they are simply restoring, that's a great theme in Pentecostal thinking, they are restoring what the early church looked like.

But as you track it historically, Pentecostalism comes out of the Methodist movement and it's deeply rooted in the Holiness movement. And Pentecostalism today is the fastest growing wing of evangelicalism.

There's no doubt about that around the world. Just as Methodism was the fastest growing wing of evangelicalism in the 19th century. I'm not predicting this for Pentecostalism, but Methodism collapsed like that.

Very interesting. When liberalism came in, Methodism, which is so focused on experience, did not have the foundation or the bulwark to stand against liberal theology. And we'll look at a little bit of that anyway.

And that's the roots of Pentecostalism. And last week what we looked at was John Wesley. Would John Wesley endorse Pentecostalism? Probably not. He'd have significant problems with aspects of it, especially the idea that there is a second work of grace that is evidenced by speaking in tongues.

John Wesley and Entire Sanctification

But he's the one who lays the foundation for the fact that there are two moments in the Christian life. The first moment is entry into the Christian life. That's conversion. The second moment is what he calls entire sanctification.

Or Christian perfection. Or the second blessing. He actually used that term. He never used, as we will see in a minute, the term baptism of spirit. He felt that that was a confusing term to describe the second moment.

But the song we just sang, Charles Wesley, sometimes when I sing a Charles Wesley hymn, I love Wesley. And he's without a doubt along with Isaac Watts the best hymn writer of the 18th century. And we should sing his hymns.

They're absolutely awesome. But sometimes there's lines in there I wonder, what was Wesley thinking when he wrote it? Or when did he write that particular hymn? Because if he wrote them in the early 1740s, he believed his brother's doctrine.

By the 1750s, he's got major problems with it. By the 1760s, he's rejected it. But I wonder what he means by that little line there in stanza 4, 647. Longing for all for a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free.

Is he thinking about down the road? Is he thinking about what we say is eschatological? Is he thinking about the heart of the believer after all has been wrapped up and the Lord has come and we are in glory as it were?

Or is he thinking about this life? Is he thinking about an experience in this life? You can sing it both ways. When I sing it, well, I often don't think about it that way. I'm not necessarily analyzing.

You shouldn't always be analyzing in that way. But if I was thinking about it, I'd be saying, oh yeah, but he means down the road. I think that's the way he means, but look at stanza 4. A heart in every thought renewed and full of love divine.

Perfect and right and pure and good. Now John Wesley could sing that hymn, and the Methodists would sing that hymn, and they knew what they were singing by it. We sing it. We know we're singing by it too.

We differ. And when a Methodist sings that hymn, he's singing for the experience of entire sanctification, which Wesley calls perfect love. When your heart is so filled with love for God, love for man, the idea of sinning in thought, word, or deed doesn't even enter in.

And please note what I'm not trying to do. I'm not trying to cause disturbance in your mind and heart when you, well, we'll sing a hymn by Wesley, and you go, oh, what's he mean in there? The very fact it's in this hymnal, which is drawn up by those who have affinity where we are theologically, means that they've already vetted it.

But it is interesting to reflect on that. Sometimes the words have been changed. There's a great Fanny Crosby hymn in here, and it's not exactly what Fanny, we'll get into that when we look at Fanny Crosby, not exactly what Fanny wrote.

There's a line in there that has been changed. I think it's better changed, but I learned it originally the other way, and I know if I'm not thinking, I go to sing it that way, and oh, no, that's not the way we're singing it, and so on.

That raises a bigger question of can you change hymns, lines of them. Yeah, you can, and you should. We'll get into that down the road. So, Methodism, then, as it developed, John Wesley set it on this path that Methodism is about two things.

Methodism’s Mission to the Lost

It's about the conversion of the lost, and the Methodists in some ways put others to shame in the 18th century. One of the things that John Wesley was able to do, he was a man trained at Oxford, like a man trained at Harvard or Princeton, who could go into the poorest area of England, especially the urban areas, places like Leeds, and Birmingham, and Manchester, and those places that were beginning to spring up in England as the Industrial Revolution was developing these urban centers, and the poor in these places who never went, never knocked on the door of a church.

Wesley could go into these places, right in the middle of town squares, and on their streets, and stand up on whatever he could get to stand up and preach, and people listened to him, and he was an amazing individual in that regard.

The second thing that Wesley believed that the movement that we call Methodism had been raised up by God for was this doctrine, Christian Perfection. Right until his death, it caused him more controversy than any other doctrine, but he maintained it in the face of all that controversy.

This is what he could say in 1790, the year before he died, The doctrine of Christian Perfection is the great deposit that God has lodged with a people called Methodists, and for the sake of propagating this chiefly, he appeared to have raised them up.

I would actually disagree strongly with that, but then I'm not a Methodist. Not simply because theologically I don't agree with Wesley, but I think the Methodist movement had to do more with saving sinners, that the church in England, the established church, wasn't interested in getting out and trying to reach, and I think Wesley's got it wrong.

I think Wesley here is often a tangent theologically. His brother also disagreed with him, and that's why it would be interesting to know when he wrote that hymn. By 1762, here's Charles writing to a man named William Grimshaw.

If you've never heard of William Grimshaw, you need to go right out and buy Faith Cook's book, Grimshaw of Howarth. Howarth is a little town in Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, where it's famous for the Bronte sisters.

That's where Anne Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte lived in the early 1800s, but 50 years before that was where William Grimshaw ministered, and it's an absolutely fabulous story. Anyway, here's Charles Wesley writing to William Grimshaw.

Charles Wesley’s Critique of Christian Perfection

My perfection, John's word, is to see my own imperfection. John would never have said that. My comfort to feel I have the world, the flesh, and the devil to overthrow through the spirit and the merits of my dear Saviour.

My desire and hope is to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength to the last gasp of my life. This is my perfection. I know no other, expecting to lay down my life and my sword together. That's not John's thinking.

That's 1762. By that time, Charles is moving in this new direction, which is a more biblical direction, and John writes him a letter and says, look, you've got to hang with me on this issue. If we don't stand together on this issue, we're going to lose the whole movement.

And he kind of put the pressure on Charles to keep him quiet. So, that's a private letter Charles could write, but he wouldn't allow Charles to come out publicly and say what he believed. The two had an interesting relationship.

It was very close. John used to talk about it as their partnership, but sometimes they disagreed. Like the time when John was intending to marry the second woman he was interested in, which he should have married, and Charles felt she was lower than their social class.

Class is still a big issue in England in that day, and so he convinced her to marry one of their friends. John was absolutely furious with him. Didn't speak to him for three months. But then Charles got furious with John many years later in 1784, when the American Revolution has taken place, and John realizes there are no Methodist pastors over in America, and he ordains two.

Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury. And you can't do that in the Church of England. Only a bishop can ordain a minister. And John went through the scriptures and came to the conclusion that elders can ordain elders, which is Biblical, but it's not agnican, and Charles was furious with his brother.

So, they had an interesting partnership. Now, Christian perfection then becomes a hallmark of Methodism. And when it comes over to the States, a man like Thomas Coke, who was a remarkable man in so many ways, Methodism is the fastest growing movement in the United States all through the 19th century.

Methodist Itinerancy and Frontier Expansion

Part of that is because of the system that Methodism had adopted under John Wesley. When John Wesley was saved, he began to begin an itinerant ministry, and he traveled normally every year 5 ,000 miles on horseback.

I've never ridden a yard on horseback, but I can't imagine it's always the most comfortable way of traveling the countryside. When he was much older, in his late 70s, early 80s, he used to go around in a carriage.

But up until then, it was horseback. When he got married, he finally did get married to Molly Beze, he told her, I travel 5 ,000 miles on horseback, I'm not giving up one mile. Those are the terms, you come with me or we're not getting married.

She agreed to the terms the next number of years. But he set up a system of itinerant ministry, and it fit North America perfectly, as America is beginning to expand into that great hinterland, past the Alleghenies, and all of the states, places that we call Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Ohio Valley, and so on.

And Methodist circle riders, is what they were called, fit that frontier perfectly. Here were men who, when Thomas Coke and Francis Ashbery came to North America, they specified that the circle riders had to be, and they were probably thinking about their founder's marital life, they had to be single men.

Francis Ashbery was single all his life. And he wrote probably more than John Wesley. And he visited all these Methodist churches. And they would come in with obviously the gospel preaching, but they'd also come with news.

And the Methodist circle riders began to link together the frontier, in a way that some of the other denominations in America, like the Congregationalists, who had been in New England, and the Presbyterians, could not develop that sort of network.

And not surprisingly, their Methodism is a very rapidly growing movement in the United States and in Canada. One out of every three Canadians in the 1860s, 1870s, was a Methodist here in Ontario. And they developed this whole circuit of circuit riders.

Camp Meetings and the Spread of Methodism

They also developed a whole series of ways of reaching people. On weekends they used to have, in the summers, camp meetings. The first camp meeting that was ever held in Ontario was held in Ancaster, here in Ontario, on a farm.

I think the man's name was Morrill. And around 1815, a number of Methodist preachers came up. And what you would do is you'd invite your friends to come for the weekend, who were not converted. And they'd be there Friday night, Saturday, Sunday.

And you'd have all day preaching and praying. And there were large numbers of men and women throughout the United States, converted, and Canada, through the camp meetings. One of the great emphases, though, as we've seen, is this idea of Christian perfection.

In the early 1800s, it was promoted by a man named Timothy Merritt, who wrote a book called The Christian's Manual, a treatise on Christian perfection with directions for obtaining that state. Now, by this time, also, not only was the language of Christian perfection being used, but also the language that this is the baptism of the Spirit, which Scripture talks about.

The Baptism of the Spirit and Divergent Biblical Readings

And Wesley didn't like that term. He said, if you use that term, it gives the impression that some people haven't received it. Whereas every Christian has received the baptism of the Spirit. One of his close friends, a man named John Fletcher, who was a very godly man, even those who disagreed with Fletcher's theology were forced to confess that his lifestyle was remarkable.

It was Fletcher who came up with the idea that this second blessing is the baptism of the Spirit. And again, it's very interesting, we don't have time to go through this, but it's very interesting to see where John Wesley is reading in Scripture, and where John Fletcher was reading in Scripture.

Wesley was reading primarily 1 John. We know that he who is born of God does not sin. Now, John should have known what the original said, but he took it literally. It says that, it does not say, he who is born again does not sin.

Or he was reading the Sermon on the Mount. Those who are pure in heart shall see God, which he believed could happen in this life. John Fletcher is reading the book of Acts, where it talks about the baptism of the Spirit on a number of occasions.

And Fletcher says, what Acts says is the baptism of the Spirit is what John says is Christian affection. And so it is, as Methodism comes to the United States and grows in North America, this second idea is being promoted.

It is a baptism of the Spirit. One of the people influenced by Timothy Merritt was a woman named Sarah Lankford. And her father was a man named Henry Worrell, W-O-R-R-A-L-L. He heard John Wesley preach when Wesley was 82.

John Wesley’s Discipline and “You Must Be Born Again”

Wesley maintained a punishing schedule. He would be up around 4 in the morning. He lived his life by strict clockwork. In 1725, when he was a very young man, he wrote in his diary, Idleness slays. And from that point on, he lived his life very much by clockwork.

He kept a number of diaries, three sets of diaries. One that described major events in his life and major discussions and conversations of thoughts. He kept a second set of diaries, which I've not looked at, which he had actually in shorthand of his own making.

Kind of a code. And that recently has been broken so that people can understand what he was saying in that. The third set of diaries was awesome in one sense. It's also a bit obsessive. 4 o 'clock, got up.

4 .15, finished shaving. 4 .30, prayed, praying. 4 .45, still praying. 5 o 'clock, left to go to preach. 5 .15, preaching. He kept a diary like that from 1725 to about 1791. For a historian, it's a fabulous diary.

We know exactly what John Wesley was doing every 15 minutes of the day. Now you wonder, where did he get the time to write this? No idea. No idea at all. But here's John Wesley, 1785, six years before he died.

He's 82 or 83, and he's preaching on John 3. You must be born again. Henry Worrell, he's in Yorkshire. Henry Worrell goes out to hear him. He's a 15-year-old boy, and he's converted that morning. Changes his entire life.

It's interesting, you know, when you think of it, that actually changed the entire history of 19th century Methodism. Because his daughter would be the woman we want to talk about, Phoebe Palmer. He moves to the United States, sets up in New York, and raises his children, two of whom we want to talk about briefly, one briefly, the other more at length.

Sarah Lankford and Phoebe Palmer’s Methodist Formation

Sarah, who becomes Sarah Lankford, and then Phoebe Palmer. Raises them on Biblical doctrine, but also on a steady diet of Methodism. And Phoebe Palmer would hear from a very early age some of the stories about John Wesley, Charles Wesley, John Fletcher, John Fletcher's wife, who was a very godly woman, Mary Boson Kay.

And that was what she was kind of raised on. And in the 1820s, Sarah Lankford, her sister, began reading Timothy Merritt's book on Christian perfection and had an experience in which she believed she was delivered from sin.

And started a meeting in her home called the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness. And initially it was a group of women meeting together to pray together, have Bible study together, but particularly to experience what Sarah had experienced.

She invited Phoebe, Phoebe went a few times, really wasn't interested. She was a Methodist, she went to church every week, but asked for these other things, well that was for these remarkable men and women like John and Charles Wesley, it wasn't for her.

In 1827 she married a medical doctor named Walter Palmer, but that's how she gets her last name. And between 1827 and 1836 she has three children, all of whom die very young. The last one very tragically, and it's the last one that I want to read, a large excerpt, partly from her diary, partly from a biography on her by a man named White called The Beauty of Holiness.

Phoebe Palmer’s Loss and Interpretation of Suffering

And on this particular night Walter and Phoebe were going to go out for a dinner party and the nursemaid was given instructions to put the daughter, Eliza, to bed. She was still a baby, and to put her in a crib and turn the lights down and so on.

And actually the nursemaid is doing this, and this is just before Walter and Phoebe have gone out of the house. The nursemaid is turning down the lamp, and in those days obviously there's no electricity, and so you use lamps for lighting, and you'd have a wick that is in a bowl of oil, and you'd cut off the flow of oil, and so that would be turning it down.

And she's thinking she's turning it down, but she turns it up, she opens it. And she's got it in her hands, and it's about to blow up in her hands, and without thinking the nursemaid throws it across the room, and it lands in the baby's crib.

Instead of blowing the lamp out, the maid, as I said, opened it. The lamp caught fire and burned her hands. Without thinking, the nurse threw the lamp away from her. It landed in the baby's cradle and sprayed burning alcohol all around.

Phoebe heard the nurse's screams and tried to run into the room and snatch the baby from the blaze. Eliza was still conscious, but she was so badly burned she lived only a few hours. Now the third of her children have died.

Phoebe contained her anger at the foolish nursemaid and shut herself up alone to weep. In agony she walked the floor, wringing her hands and crying out, Oh Lord, help me, help me. She took her Bible and asked God to show her why He had allowed such an awful thing to happen.

She opened her Bible and found the words in Romans 11 .33, Oh, the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! That moment began an experience that shaped the rest of her life.

She felt the spirit whisper to her, and now the Bible quotes her diary, To my inmost soul that I would only look to the all-loving hand of my Heavenly Father in this afflictive dispensation, and not at second causes, namely the nurse, that just in proportion to the magnitude of the trial, in all its peculiarities, the result would be glorious.

And then we go back to the biographer. In the midst of her pain and anger she felt God telling her to stop blaming the freakish circumstances for her daughter's death. To stop blaming herself for employing such a careless nurse.

To stop blaming the nurse for her horrible stupidity. If she could stop looking at secondary causes and realize this trial had come from God, and still trust His love and goodness, then she knew that good would result.

Phoebe stopped crying and made a conscious choice to trust God's goodness and love. From that hour, she said, as a weaned child I rested and kissed the rod. The whole idea of chastening here. She began to feel the veil separating this world from heaven was almost lifted.

She experienced a new closeness to her departed child and knew Eliza was in the presence of Jesus. This is the biographer. Jesus himself seemed especially near. Earlier she had prayed the words of the hymn, Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee, even though it be a cross that raiseth me.

And now, through the cross of her daughter's death, she apprehended as never before the deep significance of the Apostle's words, You are come to Mount Zion, Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. This newfound sense of close approach to Jesus gave her a corresponding sense of distance from the world.

Things that had become important lost their significance. She was no longer jealous for her husband's professional performance or her own worldly prosperity. As she would later explain it, I was being weaned from the world.

Along with this weaning came a new zeal to do Christ's work. Over the next few days, she will look back at this experience and believe that she experienced Ephesians 1 .13. She was sealed with the Spirit.

That's language that John Wesley also uses. She will believe that she went through what John Wesley talked about as entire sanctification. She actually will argue, which is very on John Wesley and on Methodist, she could not lose this.

God had brought her to a point that she could never lose. And she now starts going to her sisters. One of the things I don't deny, and this is very important, I don't deny, and you may disagree with me, but I don't deny the experience.

I have no doubt that God met her powerfully that day. Very powerful. What I've got problems with is her interpretation of what happened. Simply because you've had a very powerful Christian experience doesn't necessarily mean you're the best person to interpret it.

And I don't deny at all that God met her that day and met her powerfully and did a great work in her soul. And that she was of great comfort to others down through the years. What I do deny is the way she understood it theologically.

It was a second work, a distinct work of grace, equivalent to entire sanctification, which every Christian had to go through, is what she would argue. In fact, she will eventually argue that unless you've had this second work, you may not be a Christian.

Which is very on John Wesley too. Anyway, she starts now going to the Tuesday meeting for the promotion of holiness. And within a few years, it's not only women who are coming to that meeting, but pastors.

Phoebe Palmer’s Public Ministry and Altar Calls

And the Methodist Church has bishops and bishops. And she becomes a major influence on Methodism. So she is teaching these men who are the public preachers. Finally, in the 1850s, her and Walter feel that they need to go out and be preaching this publicly.

Now, Methodism still retains a biblical understanding to some degree of the role of women in terms of public ministry. Remember one of the things that was a controversy with Charles Finney is, can a woman pray in public?

The Methodists are going to push this even further because Phoebe will go out and usually what they would do, they'd have a camp meeting or they'd hold meetings in the church. And Walter would come on first.

He'd stand behind the pulpit and he'd give a little talk on Pentecost or whatever. But he was not the main act. He was like, you know when you have these concerts, you've got the introductory band that comes.

And nobody's come for the introductory band, but they're just doing the warm-up. And then the real band comes on. Well, the real actor was Phoebe. But she wouldn't stand behind the pulpit. She'd stand down here.

So she actually isn't preaching. And if you'd ask her, are you preaching, Phoebe? No, of course I'm not preaching. I'm just exhorting. But she was the preacher. And then she'd preach for about an hour and urge two things.

One is, you need to be converted if you're not a Christian. Number two, you need to experience entire sanctification. And she'd give an altar call for both. For instance, I'm going to give you one example.

1857, she was in Montreal for ten days. And she saw 150 claim salvation at that meeting. On her way back, she stopped in Hamilton. This is a very unknown little fact. She stopped in Hamilton at the First Methodist Church in Hamilton.

I'm not sure which one it is. There were two Methodist churches in Hamilton. And she came to the prayer meeting that night. And people saw her and realized who she was. And they asked her if she could do some exhorting.

She didn't intend to stay more than a night. But she ended up staying three weeks. And there was a revival of sorts that came to First Methodist and Second Methodist. It only impacted the Methodists. And there were 500 people converted in Hamilton during her time here.

Phoebe Palmer and the Great Prayer Meeting Revival

What's very interesting about that little event is news of that reached New York in 1857. And there was a man named Jeremiah Lamphere, a 48-year-old businessman, Dutch Reformed, went to the Dutch Reformed Church in Lower Manhattan.

He heard the story of what had happened in Hamilton and thought, We need that here in New York, which is going through a major prosperity boom. And people were not interested in church. And he put up advertisements that he was going to have a prayer meeting in the North Dutch Reformed Church such and such a time at midday one particular day of the week.

And it was going to be an hour from 12 to 1, just the lunch hour. And he waited until about 5 to 1 that day. Nobody had come. And then finally, one person came. Within six months, there were 10 ,000 businessmen meeting for prayer and revival in New York City.

And it's known as the Great Prayer Meeting Revival. It spreads out from New York, impacts a lot of the states, and then leaps across initially to Belfast and Northern Ireland and then into England and Spurgeon.

There are some great sermons that Spurgeon preached in 1859 and 1860 during this time of revival. And in one sense, as you see it, it goes back to Jeremiah Lamphere hearing the news about Phoebe Palmer and what had taken place in Hamilton.

Three Historical Crises Behind Palmer’s Influence

Now, what did Phoebe…. Well, in a minute, I want to get into looking at what Phoebe taught. And I want you to, those of you who have been doing the homework, I want you to take notes because, or at least remember in your mind, because your homework for next week is to evaluate, from a biblical perspective, Phoebe's teaching.

I want to think, though, that Phoebe's teaching was very influential. And I want to give three quick reasons why. The first reason was, in the 1840s, America was being deluged by immigrants, Roman Catholics of all people, Irish Roman Catholics, to make it worse.

I'm Irish, came from a Catholic background, so I feel I can say some of that. Then the potato famine, which not only impacted Ireland, but also the Scottish Hebrides very badly. But Ireland's the one that's remembered.

Quite a number of millions died of famine in Ireland. It was a horrific experience. In the most industrialized nation in the world, here's Ireland going through this famine. A lot of Irish flee the country, come to New York and Boston.

And one of the great challenges, up to that point in time, so basically, America was composed primarily of Protestants. Well, the Catholics were the French, but they were up there. They weren't part of, let's say, America.

There were some Catholics down in Louisiana, beginning. There are no Eastern Europeans. There are really no Jews to speak of. And this seemed to be this influx of Catholics. And that started a whole movement of Eastern Europeans, Italians.

And we forget the prejudice that was shown against these people groups when they came into the States. And the Northern Europeans who had settled the States had deep, they had prejudice, they had deep anxiety, because they were losing control of the culture.

It was Protestant, but now you've got all these Catholics. Phoebe Palmer's message will be, entire sanctification brings power. Power to live for God. It'll bring revival. It'll convert everybody in the nation.

You need to embrace it. A second reason why it was very impactful is the event from 1861 to 1865 that we're going to look at, at least for one lesson session, the American Civil War. Here's a Christian nation that probably has more Christians per capita than any other nation in the world, killing each other on the battlefield.