Revival - Part 13: Tthe 1859 Revival in Wales

The Revival had its beginnings in Cardiganshire in 1858 with the preaching of Humphrey Jones and David Morgan, but the two men differed in their views of revival. Jones applied the methods he had learned from Finney in America, believing that revival would come if certain practices were followed, but Morgan on the other hand believed revival to be a sovereign work of God. They parted company in early 1859, Jones being disillusioned with the results of his ministry. David Morgan had prayed for many years for revival and in 1859 he experienced what he described as an anointing of the Spirit. One night Morgan had an extraordinary encounter with God, ‘I awoke at four in the morning, remembering everything of a religious nature that I had ever learnt or heard’. This soon became evident in his preaching. It was his practice to preach for about 30 minutes to be followed by a hymn. Then he would address unbelievers in a very direct manner urging them to believe in Christ. A fellow minister commented that there was nothing new in what was said but it was “the power of the Spirit by which it was anointed.” At the end of 1859 Morgan had another experience. He said, “I have been wrestling for the blessing and I have received it.”
A turning point in the revival occurred in Tregaron in Nov 1858 with Morgan (pictured right) praising God for evidence of ‘a rising cloud’, and earnestly beseeching God, ‘let the whole sky grow black’.The hymn following the sermon was repeated over and over and there were scenes of weeping and rejoicing. News spread throughout Wales and reports of many conversions followed thick and fast. One of the chief characteristics of the revival was prayer, both public and in families, and it was only rarely that preaching was omitted. In the meetings the presence of God was felt to be overwhelming and this increased as the revival went on. There was weeping over sin, and time and everyday matters seemed to be unimportant.
After 1860 David Morgan continued to preach in the Calvinistic Denomination, but he was never again to know the power that he had experienced in those two years. It is estimated that in the years 1859 to 1860 over 110,000 people were added to the churches in Wales. The churches were strengthened and the whole of society was affected for good. These years were wonderful times for the whole of the UK, and revival took place in England, Scotland and Ulster.

Revival - Part 12: Revivalism

The New School Theology, a modified form of Calvinism, developed in America in the latter half of the 18th century. One of its teachings was that man had not lost all ability to accept the Gospel but had only lost the desire. This led to the belief that anyone can be persuaded to believe given the right inducements. Preaching became an attempt to make the person want to be saved, to come to a decision at once, and to publicly make a profession of faith. Revivalism was the belief that revival could be created by use of the right means.
In the early 1800s open air camp meetings were held on the American frontier that were characterised by a highly charged atmosphere at which strange emotional and physical phenomena occurred. There were reports of falling, rolling, jerking and dancing. Many converts were claimed and each meeting was hailed as a mini revival. Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875, pictured right) believed that God had revealed the necessary conditions for the creation of revival and these he detailed in his book “Lectures on Revival”. Finney took the ethos of the camp meetings and started preaching at revival meetings in the North Eastern states. His preaching was aimed at putting pressure on the will of the people to make a decision, and to come to the anxious seat as a public profession of their new faith. The results at first were very encouraging with large numbers professing faith. However, Finney later admitted in “Lessons on Revival” that he had been too optimistic about the results, and that most of his converts were a disgrace.
Following Finney’s example the travelling evangelists emerged such as Sankey and Moody, Billy Sunday, and in our own times Billy Graham. Large crowds were assembled by means of mass advertising and each meeting was carefully planned and executed to bring about the required results. People were prepared by singing to hear the Gospel message, after which they were urged to come to the front and publicly profess their faith. Large numbers of converts have been claimed for these meetings, but they have proved to be only temporary.
Revivalism has been an attempt to create revival by what are mainly psychological means. It is true that genuine converts have been made, but in general the effects are short lived, and the influence on the community minimal.

Revival - Part 11: Daniel Rowland

Daniel Rowland was born in 1713 in the tiny village of Llangeitho, about 15 miles from Aberystwyth, to the Rev Daniel Rowland the rector of Llangeitho. In 1733 Daniel was ordained as curate to his older brother John who had succeeded his father as rector. He took up the ministry as a family tradition not through any particular conviction or calling and his preaching was unremarkable. He was converted in 1738 after listening to the preaching of Griffith Jones of Llanddewi Brefi, and his life and preaching dramatically changed. Quickly his name became known all over Wales and people started to flock to hear him. An eye witness said that," the impression on the hearts of people was that of awe and distress, as if they saw the end of the world drawing near and Hell ready to swallow them up". People walked to hear him from as far away as Anglesey, travelling in groups, hungry to hear God's Word. Crowds of up to 2500 gathered inside and outside of the church at times of Communion. This is all the more remarkable when it is considered that Llangeitho is in a sparsely populated area and that it took people many days to reach it on foot or on horseback. For 48 years Daniel Rowland preached with the same popularity and effectiveness in the same village.
However, when the opportunity arose he would preach elsewhere in the surrounding district, and this was to bring him into conflict with the church hierarchy who did not share his faith. When churches closed their doors to him then he took to the open air just as Whitefield and Wesley had been forced to do. To nourish the new converts, societies were established in areas throughout Wales and over 100 ministers regarded Rowland as their spiritual father. The worst enemies of our Lord were not found in the world but among the established religious leaders, and this has been true whenever men have arisen in the Church to preach the whole counsel of God. The local Bishop opposed Daniel Rowland, and on the death of his brother Daniel's son was appointed rector. It was thought that he could be more easily controlled as a curate to his own son. Then in 1763 he was ejected from his church, which did lasting damage to the reputation of the Anglican Church in Wales from which it has never fully recovered. It did not have the desired effect because Rowland's people built a new church and his ministry continued uninterrupted. He even continued to live in the same house with the permission of his son.
Daniel Rowland was acknowledged to be at least the equal of Whitefield as a preacher, and is thought by many to be the greatest to preach in the Welsh language. The following account is given by Christmas Evans, himself a great preacher. "Thus Rowland, having glanced at his notes as a matter of form would go on with his discourse in a calm and deliberate manner, speaking with a free and audible voice; but he would gradually become warmed to his subject, and at length his voice became so elevated and authoritative, that it resounded through the whole chapel. The effect on the people was wonderful; you could see nothing but smiles and tears running down the faces of all".
A humble man, Rowland refused many offers to move to other places that would have given him protection from his enemies and a wider influence. J.C Ryle summed up his life, "The ministry that exalts Christ most is the ministry which produces the most lasting effects. Never, perhaps, did any preacher exalt Christ more than Rowland did, and never did preacher leave behind him such deep and abiding marks in the isolated corner of the world where he laboured".

Revival - Part 9: John Wesley

John Wesley always referred to himself as a brand plucked out of the burning (Zec 3.2) after he was rescued from a disastrous fire that destroyed the rectory in Epworth in 1709. There John was born in 1703 the ninth child of a family of thirteen children. Educated at Lincoln College Oxford he was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church and appointed lecturer in Greek in 1726. Together with his younger brother Charles and some other friends he formed what became known as the Holy Club devoted to good works in and around Oxford. They quickly gained a reputation for piety and strictness of conduct and were called Methodists as a result.
Following the death of his father John went to America as a missionary to the Indians. He returned to England in 1730 after his failure as a missionary and an unhappy love affair. On board ship Wesley came into contact with some Moravians and he became troubled that he knew nothing of their personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He admitted that he had gone to convert the Indians while he himself was unsaved, and he saw that all his efforts to do good works were only establishing his own self-righteousness. He recounts his conversion in a prayer meeting in Aldersgate while listening to Luther's "Preface to Romans" on Wednesday May 24,1738." About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death".
From that time John Wesley devoted his boundless energy and talents to preaching the good news about his newly found saviour. Like Whitefield his preaching was not acceptable to many in the Anglican Church and so he took to open air preaching to reach the common people. Rising at 4.00am he preached at 5.00 to catch the working people. This continued for the next 52 years, when he travelled over 225,000 miles mostly on horseback, and preached more than 50,000 sermons. In the early years he faced much opposition and persecution from local clergymen and his life was often in danger from drunken mobs.
One is again struck by the sheer amount of work done by this great man of God. He produced grammars, histories, biographies, and a collection of hymns and tunes. "Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live. Lord let me not live to be useless". Wesley never intended to found a new denomination but was forced after 1748 to ordain his own men to be preachers. He never left the Anglican Church, and looked upon Methodism as a means of reviving the Church from within.
Many of us would find much to disagree with Wesley when we consider his teachings on Arminianism and holiness. Also his dealings with his former friend George Whitefield were not to his credit, but this merely goes to show that God uses imperfect instruments to do his work. When John Wesley died at the age of 88 the whole country had been revived and drawn back from the brink of civil war. He left 750 preachers and 77,968 Methodists in this country alone. His final words were, "The best of all, God is with us" and the first words of the hymn "I'll praise my maker while I've breath; And when my voice is lost in death; Praise shall employ my nobler powers".

Revival - Part 8: The 18th Century Awakening in England and Wales

In the early 18th century the country was becoming increasingly decadent. Drunkenness was rampant; gambling was so extensive that one historian described England as "one vast casino." Newborn children were left exposed in the streets; 97% of the infant poor in the workhouses died as children. Bear baiting and cock-fighting were accepted sports, and tickets were sold to public executions as to a theatre. The slave trade brought material gain to many while further degrading their souls. Unrest was general among the poorer classes and the conditions were ripe for rebellion.
As it was in the country so it was in the church. Bishop Berkeley wrote that, “Morality and religion in Britain has collapsed to a degree that was never known in any Christian country."
Sir William Blackstone visited the church of every major clergyman in London, but "did not hear a single discourse which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero." In most sermons he heard, it would have been impossible to tell just from listening whether the preacher was a follower of Confucius, Mohammed, or Christ! A French visitor remarked that the English had no religion at all. JC Ryle later wrote that, “These times are the darkest that England has passed through in the last three hundred years”.
But cometh the hour cometh the men of God! Under the mighty preaching of the Gospel by George Whitfield, John Wesley and Daniel Rowlands, the whole country was revived for the remainder of the century.
Numerous agencies promoting Christian work arose as a result of the eighteenth century revival in England. Antislavery societies, prison reform groups, and relief agencies for the poor were started. Numerous missionary societies were formed; the Religious Tract Society was organized; and the British and Foreign Bible Society was established. Hospitals and schools multiplied. The revival cut across denominational lines and touched every class of society. England and Wales were transformed by the revival.
Many historians believe that the revival saved the country from a revolution such as took place in France at the end of the century. People’s minds were diverted from the ills of society to be concerned with more spiritual matters.
Our own day is one of spiritual and moral declension and it may seem to have gone too far to be reformed. But God has not changed, and He can revive our land again, as He has done in the past.

Revival - Part 7: Revival at the Kirk O’Shotts

A great crowd had gathered in the churchyard at Shotts near Edinburgh on June 2, 1630. A pale nervous young man of seventeen years of age made his way to the front and announced his text from Ezekiel 36:25and 26. The sermon continued in an unremarkable way for about one and a half hours and was coming to its conclusion when a shower of rain caused the people to put on their cloaks and seek any available shelter.
When the sermon was resumed there was a new note in the preacher's voice that now riveted the attention of the congregation. If a few drops of rain could cause such a commotion how much greater would be their discomfort, horror, and despair if God was to deal with them as they deserved. They deserved that God should rain fire and brimstone upon them as he had done on Sodom and Gomorrah. He then turned to the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ as a shelter from the wrath of God and pleaded with them to fly to him. So the sermon continued for about an hour.
That day five hundred people were saved and the surrounding district was revived in a remarkable and unexpected way.
At that time in Scotland communion was celebrated very infrequently and was regarded as a great occasion. In the days before the Sunday the people gathered from a wide area to listen to preaching and to prepare themselves to take part in the service. On this occasion it was decided to have a final preaching service on the following Monday which was quite unusual. A young man John Livingston was called upon but who only consented after much persuasion. He was at that time a chaplain to the Countess of Wigtown and was not yet ordained to the ministry. From his diary we learn of what happened before the service.
Much of the Sunday night was spent in prayer and preparation but when morning came he was so overwhelmed with feelings of unworthiness and weakness that he started to run away and was only drawn back by his conscience. The sermon that followed was never to be repeated in his life and by the following week all power had left him. When he preached at Irvine on the following Monday he felt so deserted that he was unable to get out the words that he had prepared. In despair he decided to give up preaching and was only dissuaded by the advice of some godly minister friends. He wrote in his diary, “So it pleased the Lord to counterbalance his dealings and to hide pride from man".
The revival at the Kirk O’ Shotts is an example of the sovereignty of God in revival. A previously ordinary man, from whom little was expected, was used on this one occasion to bring revival to God's people. This should give us expectancy that God can at any time use our faithful preachers to accomplish great things. Let us pray that we will know something of such occasions in our own days.

Revival - Part 6: John Calvin

John Calvin was born in Noyen France and his father was Gerard Cauvin the secretary of the local diocese. He was educated in Paris and Orleans to be a lawyer but on his "sudden conversion" in 1533 he began to preach the new Reformed doctrines. When persecution broke out in France Calvin sought refuge in Basel. Calvin was asked by Farel to assist him in his work in Geneva where an attempt was made to establish a theocratic state, that is one in which God is the accepted supreme ruler. However, the city was not ready for such reforms and Calvin's enemies known as the Libertines forced him and Farel to be expelled in 1538. During his exile in Strasbourg Calvin married a converted Anabaptist. Recalled to Geneva in 1541 he continued to put into practice his ideas of the Godly society. He founded a College of Pastors and Doctors and a Court of Discipline to regulate the lives of the citizens. Gradually Calvin overcame the opposition of the Libertines and became virtual dictator in 1555.
A study of the lives of such men as Calvin can cause us to gasp at how much work they were able to get through. His great work "The Institutes" was worked on and revised over many years from 1536 to 1559. It is a systematic theology divided into four books.

1. God the creator.
2. God as Redeemer in Christ.
3. The way of grace in the Christian.
4. The Church.

Calvin's commentaries on most of the books of the Bible are still regarded as models by the best commentators. His approach is one that starts from a profound regard for the majesty of God and veneration for the Bible. He did not seek any novel explanations but sought to bring out the plain meaning of the text. Few were written in his study as such but were sermons and lessons that were recorded in shorthand by his secretary or students. Calvin with the other Reformers placed the sermon at the centre of worship, replacing the Catholic mass. He preached up to five sermons a week as well as teaching in the academy.
It is sometimes claimed that Calvin was not interested in missionary work but this is far from the truth. He sent preachers into France and his influence was felt all over Europe through the work of men such as John Knox who spent some time in Geneva. Calvin also sent missionaries to South America. In common with all of the Reformers Calvin was a man of his time and should not be judged by present day standards. His persecution of the Anabaptists and execution of Servetus cannot be condoned but need to be understood in the context of that time.
Calvin built on the foundation laid by Luther and his great contribution was to put the doctrines of the Reformation into a systematic form and to organise the worship and practice of the Church. Some of us today complain that there are too many meetings in the church. I wonder how we would have managed in Calvin's Geneva. There were two meetings on a Sunday with a children's service in between. There were also early morning meetings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when candles were provided for the people to see. Attendance was compulsory, enforced by civic officers, and all work stopped while the services were going on. Communion was celebrated four times a year and each person was visited by a minister and an elder to make sure that everyone who took communion was fit to do so.
Calvin and the other Reformers were not perfect but were men that God used to accomplish a great revival of true religion in Europe that has had a profound influence on the Church and Western Civilisation as we know it today. Let us continue to pray for our ministers of the Gospel, who will never be perfect in this life, that God will place in them the same spirit that animated Luther and John Calvin and that in our day we shall see the power of God reforming the Church and society.

Revival - Part 5: Martin Luther

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben in 1483 the son of a coal miner. He was educated in Efurt, graduating in 1505. He became a priest in the Catholic Church but a visit to Rome in 1510 opened his eyes to the true state of the Church, and from then on his life was spent in trying to reform it and to recapture the purity of the early Church.
As a professor of biblical exegesis - explaining the meaning of the Bible - Luther rediscovered some of the great doctrines that had for so long been neglected and contradicted by the traditions of the Church. He began to preach that salvation was by faith alone and was the gracious gift of God, and in 1517 he nailed his famous 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Church. The Reformation was beginning. Luther now went on to attack the whole Papal system accusing the Pope of pride and avarice. He contrasted the poverty and meekness of Christ with the splendour of the Papal Court. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V summoned Luther to appear before the Diet of Worms- an assembly of rulers and dignitaries not the food of birds- but the Diet was divided as to what to do about him and he was allowed to leave. However, he was immediately arrested for his own protection and imprisoned in the Wartburg castle for about a year, during which time he started on his translation of the Bible which came to be regarded as a classic piece of German literature.
Luther married an ex- nun Katherina von Bora and they had six children. A man of enormous energy and charm he was also stubborn and uncompromising in discussion with the other Reformers and this was to split the Reformation. Endowed with a brilliant intellect his commentaries on the Bible are still available and can be read with profit. He also wrote many hymns for congregational singing such as his paraphrase of Psalm 46 "God is our refuge and strength", number 360 in Christian Hymns Luther did not set out to start a new church but to reform the corruptions of the Papal System. He retained much of the ritual of the Church and his version of the mass is in essence the same as that of the Catholic Church. He was also somehow able to reconcile the idea that children were saved by being baptised with the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Luther's fear of anarchy made him side with the princes against the common people in the Peasant's War in 1524. This lost him much support and led to the steady passing of control of the Reformation into the hands of the secular authorities. Luther also persecuted godly men who believed that the Church should consist of those who had been saved by the grace of God, not all of those people living in a particular place. Whereas in some areas Luther may have not pushed reform far enough in others he could be too extreme. In his great battle to establish the doctrine of salvation by faith alone he devalued the place of good works in the life of the Christian and he derided the Letter of James as "an epistle of straw".
Martin Luther was undoubtedly a great man raised up by God to reform the Church, but he was only a man. His particular significance was in his ability to motivate men and to inspire the early struggle with the Church of Rome, but it was left to the genius of Calvin to place the Reformation on more sound theological foundations. In our own days the Lutheran Churches are mostly compromised by modernism and are drifting back into the arms of the Catholic Church.

Revival - Part 4: The Reformation

The Reformation which took place in the sixteenth century was the most significant event in the history of the Christian Church since the Day of Pentecost. It was called a reformation because the leaders, the Reformers, did not seek to introduce anything new but rather to purge the church of its corruption and return to the purity of the early church.
The period of preparation had been long and costly in terms of men's lives, and can be traced through the Waldenses and the Lollards down to Martin Luther. Many had come to deplore the worldliness of the Church with its obsession with money and secular power, particularly the sale of indulgences. According to the Roman Church, the soul on death went to Purgatory to be purified and made fit for Heaven, and early release from its torments could be obtained by purchasing an indulgence from the Pope. "When the coin in the coffer rings , the soul from Purgatory springs". Whenever the Pope was short of money the sale of indulgences was turned to as an easy source of income. Luther was incensed by the activities of Johann Tetzel who travelled throughout Europe selling these indulgences, much as nowadays we see articles being sold from stalls in an open air market. Luther asked why the Pope as a merciful man did not release all of the souls in Purgatory free of charge.
The Reformation can be said to have started on 31 October 1517 when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Church. These challenged the accepted teachings of the Church and invited a debate on matters of faith and practice. From this time the Reformation spread quickly through the many small states that then made up Germany. To the godly it was an opportunity to preach the Gospel and reform a corrupt Church, but to many of the rulers it was the occasion to seize Church lands and property, and to shake off the power of the Holy Roman Emperor. Here is an example of God overruling the sinful plans of men for his own purposes, because the protection of the princes and nobility was to play a vital part in saving the Reformers from the persecution of the Church.
So much of what we take for granted in the Protestant Church today was recovered and established at the time of the Reformation. The great doctrines of the early Church became its very hallmark.

1. Justification by faith alone. The only way to be declared not guilty by God is by faith in JesusChrist. We cannot be saved by sacraments or by good works.
2. The Priesthood of all believers. The individual is in direct personal relationship with God, and every believer is a priest. Jesus Christ is our advocate with the Father, not the Virgin Mary, or the saints, or the priesthood.
3. Sola Scriptura, The Bible Alone. The Bible is the only rule for the faith and practice of Christians, which rules out the traditions of men. It is the duty of every believer to read the Bible, and to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling.

Christendom was never to be the same again and the Protestant Church had been born, although it did not receive this name until later. The response of the Catholic Church was predictable and there followed times of great persecution and warfare, but nothing was able to stop the spread of the Reformation throughout Western Europe. Sadly, within a short space of time the Protestant Church started the process of fragmentation that still continues in our own time. The Church split into Lutheran and Reformed branches reflecting the particular emphases of Luther and Calvin respectively.
The Reformation was a mighty act of God to revive His Church, and we should be on our guard against those who would minimise its true significance in the hope of patching things up with the present Catholic Church. The precious truths that we hold dear were purchased with the blood of the martyrs, and we should pray that God in his mercy will once again reform all of our churches and raise up men of the calibre of Luther and Calvin.

Revival - Part 3: John Wycliffe and the Lollards

Christianity was introduced into Britain some time in the second century and maintained an attitude of robust independence toward the Roman Church. In 596 Augustine was sent from Rome together with 40 monks to convert the Anglo Saxons and to establish the authority of the Catholic Church. For almost a thousand years the gloom of the Dark Ages spread over Britain.
In about 1320 John Wycliffe was born in Yorkshire and became a popular teacher in Oxford. Having been introduced to the teachings of the Waldensians he set about correcting the abuses that he saw all around him in the church. He was a prolific writer and early on his denunciation of the role of the church as a temporal power made him powerful friends among the nobility. When Wycliffe proposed that the Church would be better off without pope or bishops his friends were able to protect him from the church who tried to bring him to trial as a heretic.
His early writings were in Latin which was normal for that time, but after about 1380 he began to write tracts in English for use among the common people. He then translated the Latin Bible into English for the first time and organised a body of preachers to travel the country with their hand written Bibles carrying the Gospel to the people. These" poor preachers" were scornfully derided as the Lollards – a Dutch term for mumblers.
In spite of persecution from the Church the work of the Lollards continued and true religion was revived in our land so that the country was prepared for the coming of the Reformation. The reading of the Bible in English was to arouse a longing among the people to possess a copy of the Scriptures in their own language. This became possible with the invention of the printing press, and when the New Testament, translated by William Tyndale, was printed in 1526, in spite of being banned, it sold in its thousands to rich and poor alike.
It is so difficult for us to imagine what life was like in the days of Wycliffe. Church services were conducted in Latin which was understood only by the well educated people. The Bible was not available in English and its possession was limited to the clergy. It was thought to be too dangerous to be read by ordinary people. Worship consisted of little more than attending the mass conducted in Latin.
Do we really appreciate our Bibles as much as we should? Its preservation down through the centuries, in spite of the efforts of men to suppress it or tamper with it, is an instance of God's providential goodness. It cost many good men their lives to bring us the Scriptures and we should remember them and thank God for them. I wonder how many of us would be prepared to die because we own a Bible.
If we in our day neglect God's word we will return to another dark age and how dark will that darkness be.

Revival - Part 2: The Waldenses

The first thousand years or so of our Christian era in Europe are known as The Dark Ages. Roman civilisation had degenerated and under increasing pressure from the so called barbarians the legions had been withdrawn to defend Rome itself. In 395 AD the empire was divided with capitals at Constantinople and Rome. In 410 Rome was sacked by the Visigoths and fifty six years later the western empire was finally overthrown.
At the same time as the empire was collapsing the power and influence of the Church of Rome was increasing in western Europe, As the light of civilisation faded so did the light of the pure Gospel. In 324 Christianity was made the state religion of the empire. An event, many have argued, from which the Church has not yet recovered. As it developed as a secular power so the church departed from the true faith. Alongside the Bible grew up tradition to be placed on an equal footing with the Scriptures, and practices never known in the early church. The flame of true religion sputtered from time to time but Dark Ages is an apt description of the times. However, God has never been without his own witnesses and even in the darkest times there are those who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Such was Peter Waldo a rich merchant of Lyons in France. In 1170 he gave his wealth to the poor and began preaching the Gospel of salvation and criticising the church of his day. He denounced the church leaders who lived lives of vice and luxury. He condemned the superstitions that had replaced the true worship of God. Most churches had some sacred relic claimed to be a piece of the cross, a hair from Jesus' beard, a drop of Mary's milk. Alongside Christ there were the saints and Mary claiming the attention of the worshippers and in the mass the bread and wine were claimed to change into the actual blood and body of Christ.
The authorities acted quickly to silence Peter but like his biblical namesake he preferred to obey God rather than men. In 1180 Peter Waldo and his followers were excommunicated and banished from Lyons. Threatened with death they fled to the safety of the mountains where they would keep a faithful witness to God for hundreds of years being known as the Waldenses. By the year 1260 over 800, 000 were worshipping in the secluded valleys of the Alps straddling the border between what is now France and Italy.
The Waldenses took the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice. They rejected all the additions made by the Roman Church. Worship was marked by simplicity in contrast to the elaborate ritual of the church. The Bible was read, the Lord's Prayer was recited, and a sermon was preached. For this they became the object of the hatred of the church and regular crusades were made against them as the enemies of God. In 1211 eighty Waldenses were burned as heretics in Strasbourg.

Preachers were sent out all over Europe and thousands were converted. This has been described as "the most remarkable missionary movement that has ever occurred". Among those influenced was John Wycliffe in England which was to have the most wonderful consequences for the Gospel in our country.
The story of how God preserved his people in the mountains against overwhelming odds is one of the most interesting and thrilling examples of how he looks after his loved ones. So the true Gospel lived on in small communities scattered in the deep alpine valleys until the time of the Reformation when it would burst out over the whole continent. In 1592 when a treaty was made with the churches of the region the Protestants outnumbered the Catholics by a hundred to one.
The history of the Waldenses shows that however dark the times may be and however small the remnant of true believers, that God can at any time raise up a man like Peter Waldo, revive his work, and protect his people.

Revival - Part 1: What is Revival?

“Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence”. (Isaiah 64:1)

“Will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (Psalm 85:6
These verses contain the very essence of revival, God does wonderful things, and as he draws near to his people they rejoice in his presence. However, there is no neat definition of revival that enables us to state simply what it is or what it is not, and the best that can be done is to describe it as it has appeared down through the centuries.
However, it is first of all necessary to clear up some misunderstandings about revival that have given it something of a bad name in some quarters. Revival is not something that can be organised by a church on a particular date. However successful such meetings may be they have little impact on the outside world. In revival whole towns, cities and countries are affected.
Revival is not a successful campaign involving mass advertising, huge choirs and a famous evangelist. When George Whitefield preached in 1739 at Kennington Common, during the Great Evangelical Revival, over 30,000 people gathered without the use of such means.
Revival is to be distinguished from so called "phenomena" that have sometimes been associated with it. These have included fainting, excitement, visions, and reported miracles. These things have caused divisions and bitter debate among Christians both at the time of revival and later. John Wesley believed that they were the marks of a work of the Holy Spirit. Charles Wesley disapproved of such matters and discouraged them in his meetings. Jonathan Edwards apologised for them. A feature of revivals is their great variety, some being completely free from phenomena, others being famous because of them. Whatever these strange things may be they are not essential to revival.
Finally, revival is not a short cut to a successful church or an excuse to opt out of the means that God expects us to use day by day to take the message of the Gospel to the lost. Revival is unusual and special, a glorious work of God alone that is additional to the ordinary means that he uses to refresh his people and gather the church.

Three Hundred Years Ago This Month (January 2014)

         Howell Harris, one of the greatest Welshmen ever to have lived, one of the great preachers of the eighteenth century revival in the Principality, and a man who had a formative influence on the fellowship here at New Inn, was born on January 24^th 1714.  Along with men such as Daniel Rowland and William Williams in Wales, and the Wesley brothers and George Whitfield in England, Harris was mightily used by God to call the nation back to himself.

         Harris was born in Talgarth, Breconshire, the son of a farmer.  Though he had little education he grew up to become a schoolmaster.  The great change in his life began to take place on Palm Sunday, March 30th, 1735, when Harris attended the Parish Church at Talgarth. During the service the Vicar, Pryce Davies, announced that there would be a Communion Service the following Sunday, and said that he knew there were many people who did not come to the Communion because they felt they were not fit to partake of it. He went on to say, 'If you are not fit to take Communion you are not fit to pray, if you are not fit to pray you are not fit to live, and if you are not fit to live you are not fit to die'. These words hit this thoughtless schoolmaster with great force. He had never been a riotous person but he had lived a loose life; so these extraordinary words of the Vicar announcing a Communion Service began a process of conviction of sin which from then on led to an agony of repentance. 

He continued in an agony of repentance - trying to find peace and unable to find it - until Whit Sunday, which was May 25th, when he went again to a Communion Service in the same church. He describes how during a part of the service he had a tremendous fight with the devil. He had found a certain amount of peace in a neighbouring church, where he had given himself to God as best he could in his ignorance. That gave him a measure of peace, but the devil came and attacked him in this Communion on Whit Sunday, violently trying to shake his faith in everything. However, before the service was over he had found peace. Here are his own words describing this: 'At the table, Christ bleeding on the Cross was kept before my eyes constantly; and strength was given to me to believe that I was receiving pardon on account of that blood. I lost my burden; I went home leaping for joy, and I said to my neighbour who was sad, Why are you sad? I know my sins have been forgiven. Oh blessed day! Would that I might remember it gratefully evermore'!   

He immediately began to tell others about this and to hold meetings in his own home encouraging others to seek the same assurance that he had of Christ's forgiveness.  Harris was refused ordination in the Anglican Church on four occasions, because of his “Methodist” tendencies, but remained a lay preacher throughout his life, both in North and South Wales, tireless in his determination to bring the good news to the lost of the Principality.  His home in Trevecca became a centre for mission work and the training of preachers.  This was in part due to his association with the Countess of Huntingdon, who helped finance students to train and go out with the gospel.  He might not have been an accomplished theologian, but he was a zealous evangelist, whose preaching was powerfully accompanied by the Holy Spirit.  Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones says of him, “I have scarcely ever read of any man who has worked as hard as Howell Harris did. He would preach many times during the day, and after that would hold private societies with the converts, and after that would write his diaries. Very often he had no sleep at all, and would go back to his school the next day; or he would have a couple of hours' sleep and then travel and preach somewhere else. On and on he went, working in an almost superhuman manner. His voice became permanently husky quite early on in his preaching career, but he still continued.”  Harris has been described by one historian as ‘the most successful preacher that ever ascended a platform or pulpit in Wales.’  He died on July 21^st 1773, and over twenty thousand people were reported to have attended his funeral, when nine sermons were preached!

         His preaching often led him into personal danger, and he endured considerable persecution.   People formed into mobs that reviled and opposed him, while magistrates threatened him and imposed fines upon those who met for worship in their homes. Even the clergy were opposed to Harris and preached against him, branding him a false prophet and deceiver. 
Mobs often attacked Harris in all kinds of ways. He was shot at with pistols and pelted with apples and pears, dung and dirt, eggs and stones, and even a dead dog. In 1740, while ministering with William Seward in Caerleon, the two preachers were attacked so severely that that Seward eventually went blind in both eyes. 

         Although the exact details of the link between Howell Harris and the congregation here at New Inn are lost in the mists of time, there is good evidence that he preached here on numerous occasions.  Harry Lewis’s fine history of our fellowship records that Daniel James, minister at New Inn during the late eighteenth century, stated that ‘The Gospel was first introduced into this place by a Society of Methodists, many of whom had been awakened under the preaching of the eminent Mr Howell Harris who, finding the Established Church in those parts filled with carnal ministry, formed themselves into an independent church’.  We know that New Inn was a convenient meeting place for the Methodist Society Association meetings between 1744 and 1750, when Harris and Daniel Rowland often preached.

         The tercentenary of the birth of Howell Harris reminds us that God can suddenly break into the life of Wales, like He did again in 1859 and 1904, raising up ordinary men and using them to turn the nation to Himself. Our need of spiritual revival today is, if anything, greater than it was three hundred years ago.  But our God is the same God.  We need to pray urgently that He will visit us again.