If you want to read something that will set your candles aglow just Google the Welsh Revival of 1908 and 1909 and watch the unfolding of a supernatural work of God – a work we plead for in our day.
Years ago when we were conducting evangelistic meetings in the west of England, I came across a story from the great Welsh Revival. As I read there grew in me a deep longing that has never gone away. One vignette that caught my attention was this, “A truck driver was approaching the church with a load of meat. So strong was the Spirit’s presence that by the time he could see the church he had tears rolling down his cheeks. He would explain, ‘I couldn’t help it; the Spirit of God was all around.’”
How long has it been since I was in a prayer meeting that did that for me? I’m not pleading here for an emotional experience, I am simply describing a heart cry, that when I come together with God’s people His presence is so real, so vivid, so palpable that I am in awe before Him. I hear His voice; I sense His guidance; I know He hears my praise. Truckers rumble past my church on Wednesday evening and sense that something of eternal consequence is going on in there. Do it again, Lord.
Listen to this from the Pentecost in Wales: “The role of the police changed from hauling drunks into the jail to helping get cars into and out of the parking lot.” O Lord, let it be so again. In my church.
And for our kids… Again from Wales: “A bus arrived one evening and it was discovered that the youngsters had been singing, but before they arrived at the church a spirit of repentance had already broken out.”
There was a time, early-on, when we were not timid about our collective walk with God. In 1855 Ellen White described an event in Topsham, Maine: “Twenty-eight were present; all took part in the meeting. Sunday the power of God came upon us like a mighty, rushing wind. All arose and praised God with a loud voice… It was a triumphal time. All were strengthened and refreshed. I never witnessed such a powerful time before.”
Four years later, in Kalamazoo, she would enter in her diary: “In the eve the church followed the example of their Lord and washed one another’s feet, and then partook of the Lord’s Supper. There was rejoicing and weeping in that house. The place was awful, and yet glorious, on account of the presence of the Lord.”
Glorious on account of the presence of the Lord. Do it again, Lord. Please, do it again.