We Have Been Taught Not to Discern - Part 1 — Andrew Strom

Well, thank you for coming up. I really appreciate it. Nova, this is my first meeting back in America. Twenty months ago was the last time that we were here, and praise God, it's a blessing. Let me just start with a word of prayer here.

Prayer for God's Word and the Holy Spirit

Father God, Father, we just echo just those words. Father God, we pray you would draw us close. Father, despite the fact that there's a visiting speaker and all those things, Father God, I just pray that we won't in any sense be here to hear from a man but to hear from you, God.

Father, I pray that you'll focus our attention on you. And I pray that we will not just be listening to hear another speaker from far away. But, Father God, we want to hear a voice that is just your voice alone, God.

We pray every word that is just mine would fall to the ground, God, that only your word would stand tonight. We pray you'll be glorified. We pray your Holy Spirit would anoint the words that are spoken that come from you, Father.

And I pray that your Holy Spirit would just cause a flow of your word to come forth tonight from my lips, which I just give into your hands, oh God. In Jesus' wonderful name, Amen. Alright, please turn to John chapter 6.

Wales as a Warning to America

You know, I've done a tremendous amount of traveling in the last few years. Literally around the globe. I spent most of the last eight months living in Wales. Wales frightens me. I'll tell you why. It's because if we're not careful, we're seeing a picture in Wales of what America can become.

I'll try and stand up. I'll stand up. You know, Wales is to me the greatest tragedy in the whole world because Only a hundred years ago, it was the most vibrant, the most powerful revival nation in the whole world.

And when you go there today, it is as dead as a doorknob. And it is difficult to get local people along to any kind of revival meeting. Some will come. But we found, we held two revival conferences there.

We would generally get more people coming in even from England into Wales. We would even get international people coming in. The local people, it's kind of like they've heard about this revival, the revival of 1904, but there's no sign of it today.

And you go into many of the local churches and quite a few of them are just even struggling to survive. Mariah Chapel, where we were holding meetings, which of course is where Evan Roberts, you know, the foundation of his ministry, that's where he was from.

Well, it's down to 18 people. 18 people. The building seats 460. And we say, oh, well, this can never happen in America because America has this long history and even a tradition of church going. And I want to say to you, Wales had 150 years of church going, they were more powerful than probably any nation on earth, perhaps apart from America.

The Historical Pattern of Welsh and American Revivals

They would have the same revivals. You would see this pattern where either Wales would have a revival and within two years, America was in a full-blown awakening or the other way around. America would have like the great prayer revival of 1857.

Jumped over the Atlantic into Wales and Scotland and England and two million were saved in two years during that revival. This was the revival where they say that there was like a 30-mile zone along the eastern seaboard of the United States and there were ships full of sailors coming into America and 30 miles out, they were hitting the zone where everybody got convicted of sin and started falling down on their face and crying out before God.

It's the revival where Charles Finney says a rider came to one of his meetings that had been traveling for 2 ,000 miles across the United States and said he found a prayer meeting all the way, all the way.

This is the great prayer revival, 1857 -1858. This is what jumped the Atlantic, jumped even into Ireland. There's famous books written about this, Scotland and Ireland or Wales, England. Which way around did Azusa Street happen?

The Welsh Revival and Azusa Street

We talk about the Azusa Street revival. Well, it was two years after the Welsh revival. Is there a connection? Absolutely a connection. Soon as people saw revival in Wales, people around the world started praying.

And Frank Bartleman in Azusa Street was writing to Evan Roberts and getting encouragement back from Evan Roberts to keep on praying and pressing in and he talks about it in his book. So they were praying like mad because they saw God was on the move.

When God's on the move in the earth, you can reach up into heaven and start praying down that blessing. When God's on the move, if you ever see a revival start happening anywhere in the western world, I want to say to you, you can start reaching up into heaven and say, this wave is also for us.

Recognizing the Next Wave of Revival

Wales and America has this parallel history and when you read about the waves of revival, which over the years studying revival, I see it so clearly. Wales 100 years ago had its last revival. And you kind of say, what happened that they missed the next wave?

Do you know the only part of the whole UK that had a revival in the interim wave was two little islands off the Scottish coast, the Hebrides. That's the only place in the whole UK that had a revival during that wave.

Wales completely lost their revivals. Now they are next to a godless nation. You know, there's chapels being sold off, they say one a week. The old chapel's being sold off and turned into what, apartments?

Some of them just sitting there, just rotting. Mariah Chapel is lucky to have people in it. And so, you know, I look at that situation. Am I back again? Yes. I look at that situation and I've preached on this before in America.

America's Cyclical Revival Heritage

Do you know what God sent me first to America? This is 2003. God sent me over to America, not with a very palatable message. He was saying to me, America, if she doesn't watch out, is about to miss her 50-year wave that she always gets.

America has always had a 50-year wave. Did you know that? How long does it go back? It goes back 250 years. It's the longest period of cyclical revivals and awakenings that we can find in the whole history of the world.

We don't have any to match America's waves. Why do you think America today stands as the last Western nation that really has a Christian heritage going on? Apart from maybe South Africa. You can even argue, is that a Western nation?

Partially Western nation. I was in South Africa. I like what's going on in South Africa. Do you know why it's happened? It's because when they're in apartheid, they cut themselves so off from the world and they didn't realize the world was all going to hell in a handbasket.

And so they're like 20 years behind. That's the only reason. They've got quite a bit of life going on there because they cut themselves off from the world for 20 years and they didn't realize everything was falling to pieces.

Cultural Influence and the Decline of Christian Heritage

They didn't even let most of the television in their country. They wouldn't let it happen. God is able to move in places like Africa. Part of the reason is they don't let Western television in there. When I'm in Nigeria, what are they playing?

They're playing Nigerian, very odd sometimes, Nigerian programs. I praise God for it, even though there's nothing greatly Christian about it. It's keeping some of the junk out. Look at what we've gone through in the last 30 years.

We're just killing ourselves. We're destroying ourselves. We're destroying our heritage. We're about to destroy our children. Did you know that? We are about to destroy. America's on the verge of going down the same channel that Wales has gone down.

The 2003 Warning About Missing Revival

God sent me here in 2003. In the middle of the night, spoke to me. I had never had that up until that time. Never had God give me a message during my sleep. Ever before. God woke me up. He gave it to me while I was sleeping.

That America is about to lose her 50-year wait. That the 50 years is up and she's about to miss this revival. And this one, if she misses it, it turns you into Wales. Because that's all that happened in Wales.

They just missed their 50-year wait. And now, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. You know, for all the romantic ideals of people who kind of cross into Wales, you know, you go over the big bridge over into Wales, and I hear this from people that haven't lived there.