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One Man Moved by God

18th century. During the spiritual awakenings in the second part of the 18th century, the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales was the scene of much preaching of the Word of God. The great evangelist, Howell Harris made several tours of the area, but the Calvinistic Methodist Christians remained few in number. For some years, they met in a small building known as Saethon Bach, about 5 miles from Pwllheli.

1780. In that year the Spirit of God came in reviving power to Saethon Bach and many more converted people joined the church.
Needing more room, they built Capel y Nant in 1782, less than a mile away.

1815. A few of the believers in Capel y Nant 35 years later, became troubled about the spiritual state of their church; there seemed not to be much fruit from the all the preaching and prayer.
One of the elders, whose identity is unrecorded, was particularly concerned; he was also a leader of the all-age Sunday School.
Sometime later that year, he encouraged the more literate pupils to study and learn a catechism. Most likely, this would have been ‘Yr Hyfforddwr’ – ‘The Instructor’ – the composition of Thomas Charles, published in 1807. It consisted of nearly 300 questions and answers that related to every major doctrine in the Bible.
Together with the Bible, both adults and children in Capel y Nant studied and learnt from ‘The Instructor,’ and the church elder was encouraged by their positive response and diligent study.
However, there were few signs of a spiritual awakening.

1816. During the summer of that year, this man called the church members together; he was deeply concerned that all the ministry and catechising should not be wasted. He shared his deep concern to them; he urged each of them to pray every day specifically for God the Holy Spirit to come and make his Word alive and powerful.
He believed that although God was sovereign in the exercise of his reviving and saving power, it was essential for the church to seek his face in the matter.

A month later, the elder questioned the church members whether they had prayed each day for revival; all except one had done so. What’s more, they agreed that God wanted them to continue praying, together, and privately each day. Capel y Nant needed revival and some of them had a strong burden to pray, and they felt that it would not be long before the Lord answered their prayers.
Some of them spent nights in prayer.

1817. Early in 1817, a spirit of urgent prayer affected the whole church. Encouraging signs developed; there was a greater desire to attend the preaching, and there was more careful listening to the Word.
The preaching gained unusual authority and power; in one meeting, a young girl began weeping, she then praised the Lord fervently, others joined her, and the congregation felt God’s presence.
Soon, people were converted. During the following weeks, there were many conversions from all age groups.
Unbelievers were influenced; some experienced so strong a sense of sinfulness that it hindered their working, eating and sleeping; conviction of sin gripped many of them irrespective of where they were or of what they were doing.
The whole community sensed the presence of God because the church was on fire with love and passion for the Lord.

            Revival had come to Capel y Nant!

Is there one such man in our land today?

Much of this material is drawn from “The Beddgelert Revival” by Eryl Davies. It was published in 2004 by Bryntirion Press, Bryntirion, Bridgend, CF31 4DX, Wales, UK.
Get it from your local Christian bookshop.

We are indebted to UK Wells for the photograph of Saethon Bach. Visit their website for a wealth of encouraging material about Revival.

Praying with Tears.
The Moray coast stretches eastwards from Inverness on the North Sea coast of Scotland, and many of its fishing villages, including Findochty, had known great spiritual blessing in the revival of 1859-1860.
However, when the evangelist James McKendrick visited the area in 1893, the younger generation was growing careless in its ways, causing older Christians to long for another season of grace.

Despite the earnest and remarkable prayers of the Christians who gathered at McKendrick’s mission, no breakthrough came. Being unable to sleep one night, McKendrick and his wife pleaded with God to graciously visit Findochty. The Evangelist described the prayer meeting before the service the next evening as, ‘a hallowed season such as I had never before experienced.’
During his preaching later, the power of God fell upon the audience and several men leapt up, crying aloud in deep conviction. Nine professed to find peace that night. One man who experienced great distress was converted, and for several days, he went about the village telling everybody he met how God had saved him.

All fishing in Findochty was abandoned, and the only topic of conversation was salvation. The evening meetings became so overcrowded that for five weeks, three successive meetings were held from 6.30 and ended sometimes as late as 2 in the morning.

McKendrick commented on the intense prayers of one aged woman at a prayer meeting near the start of the mission. Among her many relatives – each of whom she named and about whom she made a few remarks regarding their conditions and needs, ‘her six sons she went over, one by one, and all the while the big tears rolled down her face.’
She was overjoyed to see all six sons converted over the next few weeks. One of them, seeing his friends at the back of the hall, went to them, pleading for them to give in to Christ. One by one, they dropped to their knees, making earnest prayers of surrender.
McKendrick, in his book, ‘Seen and Heard,’ wrote, ‘This young man had only been saved about four o’clock that afternoon, and by seven he was God’s telephone, through whom the Spirit was speaking with irresistible power. He was naturally shy and very retiring, but filled with the Holy Ghost he was as bold as a lion.’

One woman, who by her appearance and manner McKendrick had judged ‘to be half witted,’ pushed her way into one already overcrowded meeting. The Evangelist’s worry at how she might disrupt the meeting was aborted when, suddenly, she sprang to her feet and pleaded with the people to give themselves to Christ.
‘No pen could reproduce the scene,’ McKendrick wrote later. ‘Heavenly light shone in her face as she said, “O Lord Jesus, you saved me – I’m born again.” ’

“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”
Psalm 126:5  KJV

This wonderful work of God is more fully described in Tom Lennie’s book, “Glory in the Glen.”
Buy his book! There are many more glorious ‘times of refreshing’ described in it.
You can visit his website at –
Scottish Revivals

Eternal Things
“The glorious work began on a Sunday afternoon in the Chapel where I preached twice on that day, and I cannot say that there was anything particular in the ministry of that day, more than what I had often experienced among our dear people here.

“But, towards the close of the evening service, the Spirit of God seemed to work in a very powerful manner on the minds of great numbers present, who never appeared before to seek the Lord’s face, but now there was a general crying, ‘What must I do to be saved’, and ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’

“About nine or ten o’clock at night, a spirit of deep conviction and serious concern fell upon whole congregations in this neighbourhood when calling upon the name of the Lord.
In the course of the following week, we had nothing but prayer meetings, and general concern about eternal things swallowed up all other concerns.”
Bala, North Wales,1791.

So wrote Thomas Charles, a minister of the Welsh Calvinist Methodist Church, in his typically restrained manner.
During the late 18th century, the preaching generally was soundly evangelical and strongly based in Scripture. The hymns were also theologically sound. There were also the good effects of the orthodox teaching in the Sunday Schools.
These factors were fertile ground for the Holy Spirit to come in and make the Word of God powerful. He brought conviction of sin and righteousness and judgement.

Oh, that such Holy Spirit ministry and Holy Spirit authority would
break out in our land in these days!

The need of the hour is vision, and vision we must have ’ere long, or break upon the jagged rocks of infidelity and materialism, towards which we are being driven by the fiercest gale that has troubled these waters for many years.

Our Age is Going Blind.   The black clouds of our own dissipations are shutting out the light!  The ceaseless whirl and hurry and rush of modern life is robbing us of God!
It is time to heed the warning.
Lord God, have mercy upon us and give us vision.

Give the Ministry Vision.   Help those of us whom thou hast called to be watchmen amid the closing scenes of this awful age of God-forgetting, to live in the mountain so close to thine heart that we will see from thy viewpoint.
Set our hearts on fire!
Make us courageous!
Help us to rebuke folly, unmask hypocrisy, and show up carnality!  Don’t let us pander to the worldlings, no matter what their profession or position.
Save us from soft sentimental preaching.
Unctionise us until the people will go out from our ministry feeling that they have listened to ‘a man sent from God.’

Give the Money-Mad Vision.   That haggard, worried, wrinkled crowd who are burning up with lust for gold. They cannot sleep.  They have no time to pray.  They struggle in a nightmare of stocks and shares and mortgages.  Their nerves are gone, their health is gone, and God is gone!  The only worship they know is the worship of gold.
O Lord, wake them up before their miserable lives burn out and they fall into a terrible hell.

Give the Great Crowd of Pleasure Seekers and Fashion Lovers Vision.   Those who have shrivelled their souls to a mere nothing by an endless study of proprieties, and fashion, and etiquette and styles.  They are a thousand times more worried about their complexion than they are about their sins, more interested in the latest fad than they are in redemption.
What a spectacle they will present in the judgement, when death will have unravelled them down to character.  All the trappings gone!  When death shall have scattered their spangles and beads and rings, ribbons and laces, brooches and buckles, sashes and clasps, amid the mould of the graveyard, and they must face God, burned out, prayerless, unholy things, that danced and giggled, and flirted their souls away.

Oh, My God, give us Vision.   Swing us back to things of value.
Clear the fog off the hills of our higher levels of living, and help us to climb.
Climb until we have found the light as thou art in the light.
Climb until we are more hungry for God than we are for fame, or money, or a good time!

And, O God, give us Vision Quickly.   Don’t let us wait too long before we begin to look and listen.  Don’t let us wait until our ears are deafened by the world’s selfish sin.  Don’t let us wait until our eyes are blinded by the glare of passing pomp and folly before we strive to see and hear the things of supreme worth.  Help us to pause amid the hurried rush and listen to the call of things more real.
Help us now to betake ourselves to prayer, and stay there until the scales fall from our eyes and the hardness melts from our hearts.  Until God and heaven and hell and holiness become real, until we are simple enough again to hear his voice.

We shall doubtless be put down as dreamers, fanatics, fools, by the mad mob who have eyes but see not and ears but hear not, but oh! my God, give us vision!

I have left the text exactly as I first copied it many years ago.
John Douglas Drysdale founded Emmanuel Bible College at Birkenhead in 1920.
I have no record of the source of the text other than its author.
The Internet provides no clue, so if anyone can enlighten me, I would be very grateful, and will subsequently acknowledge its full origin.

Famine.  Rev Griffith Jones was the incumbent of the parish of Llanddowror in South Carmarthenshire, Wales, during the early part of the 18th century.  A godly man, and deeply concerned about the spiritual famine in Wales at that time, it was not difficult for him to offend other Anglican ministers by his clear preaching of the Bible.

Trial.   Between 1714 and 1716 Griffith Jones had to answer charges levelled against him by his fellow clergymen at a sort of trial before the Bishop of St David’s at Carmarthen.
Several of the clergy appeared against him, and their principal accusation was that he had neglected his own parish and undertaken to preach in other churches without their minister’s permission.
During his ‘ trial’, it was clearly proved that he never had preached in any other place without being invited, by the incumbent, curate, or some of the best inhabitants of the parish.

Unconventional.   It was admitted that he had taken the unconventional step of preaching two or three times outside the church building.  That was only because the church was not large enough to contain the hearers, which sometimes amounted to three or four thousand people.

295 Years Later.   What would it take today to get 4,000 people together in a churchyard to listen to the Gospel?
How many months of preparation, organisation, advertising, and countless other issues would be required to put on such an event today?  With all that, and the greatest possible use of all the means of communication at our disposal, I doubt if such a crowd would assemble today in a remote parish in southwest Wales.

But if a few sincere and serious Christians spent much time in humble, earnest prayer and true waiting upon Him, could God assemble 4,000 in a churchyard without any advertising hype or complex organisation?

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask of think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”   Ephesians 3:20-21   NKJV

The account of Griffith Jones is based on information in Dr Eifion Evans’ book, ‘ Fire in the Thatch,’ published by Evangelical Press of Wales, Bryntirion, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, CF31 4DX , Wales

Too Near the Blood

Conversions.   Early in 1859, Rev David Morgan revisited the chapel at Llanilar, a small community several miles to the southeast of Aberystwyth.  Each of his previous visits had resulted in several conversions.

Private Prayer.   As he walked, he would often leave his companion when a gap in the hedge gave him an opportunity for private prayer.   “We shall have a wonderful meeting tonight,” he asserted. “Many will be saved tonight.”
It was a well-founded perception, for fifty-one sought salvation.   A man called Taylor, a gardener at Castle-on-Hill was among them.  He sometimes attended the parish church, though he was practically a heathen, but the preacher’s popularity had swept him into the Nonconformist service.   Now the light of life dawned on the darkness of his heart.

The Prayer Book.   Whenever David Morgan gave the right hand of fellowship to a man who was the head of a household, he urged and insisted that he should immediately begin to conduct family worship.  Taylor shrank from this heavy yoke, until he remembered that he had at home a copy of the Book of Common Prayer.
His wife, rejoicing that her partner was no longer an enemy to her Saviour, placed the big Bible on the little round table after supper.   Her husband’s unfaltering approach to it astonished her.
She had no idea that her husband had hidden the Prayer Book in his pocket, with a page turned down at one of its short prayers.

Gethsemane.   He calmly drew the Bible to him, and opening it, he found the account of Christ’s last hours in Gethsemane.   As he read, his heart melted within him and an anointing from the Holy One fell upon his soul.   Unsuppressible tears fell on the sacred page.
He closed the Book, fell on his knees, and poured out his soul in penitence and praise.

Remembrance.   Later, he went upstairs, meditating on what God had done in him.   When he felt the Prayer Book in his pocket, he remembered the provision he had made for facing the ordeal of family prayer!

The Secret.  Hearing an account of this incident shortly afterwards, the eminent preacher, John Jones of Blaenannerch, enjoyed the recital hugely.
“Do you see the secret?” he cried. “If he wanted formalism, he should have avoided Gethsemane.  He went too near the Blood.”

This article is based on the account in Dr Eifion Evans’ book, ‘When He is Come.’  This is now re-published under the title ‘Revival Comes To Wales,’ by Bryntirion Press, Bryntirion, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan CF31 4DX.

A Lecture.   Would any church today in the UK consider a series of three lectures on an old theological book as a mission strategy?  No?

The Isle of Skye.   Kilmaluag on Skye was the venue for such a series early in 1923.  A Free Church minister, Kenneth MacRae began his lectures on the book ‘Way of Life’ written by Dr Charles Hodge in 1841.

MacRae recorded his account of that evening.
“The evening was very wet, yet about 110 were present, including a car load from Staffin.  I had no sooner begun the service than the atmosphere seemed to soften me, and during the prayer, I could not keep the tears from brimming over my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.
There was something, too, in the singing that touched me, a soft, gentle, broken note, as though there were a wistful longing among the people for the coming of Emmanuel to bless us.
“These young people of Kilmaluag seem to draw out my very heart.  Surely the steps of the Lord are sounding among us as he draws near to bless!
I came home with a full and happy heart.”

Several months before that evening, ‘a monthly meeting in one place attracted between 60 and 90 people, while 14 young folk turned up at the vestry after an invitation was made to those who were thinking about their soul, and desiring to be put on the way of salvation.’

I am reminded of the lines “Dissolve my heart in thankfulness, and melt mine eyes to tears,”
in Isaac Watts’ hymn, ‘Alas! And did my Saviour bleed.’

Should we be content with anything less?

Information and quotes from Tom Lennie’s book, “Glory in the Glen,”
and you can visit his website at –
Scottish Revivals

Sleepless Nights.   Early in 1905, Rev Williams, a Bible Teacher from America, began working at the Christian Institute in Motherwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was a time when God the Holy Spirit was working powerfully throughout much of the British Isles and beyond. After he addressed his audiences on the subjects of the cleansing of the heart that God required, some of the Christians could not sleep at night.

Purity before Power.   The basis for his ministry on this issue came from Peter’s words “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God.” 1 Peter 4:17.
As always happens in seasons of spiritual refreshing, many wanted to obtain power, but Rev Williams said, ‘I do not concern myself so much about power as about purity. When they get purity, the power will come all right.’
That was the principle underlying much of the ministry of the Old Testament prophets.
Read a part of God’s word in Jeremiah chapter 6:

     ‘To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me?
      Their ears are closed so that they cannot hear.
      The word of the Lord is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it.

     “From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain;
      prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.
      They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.
      ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.

      Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct?
      No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.
      So they will fall among the fallen;
      they will be brought down when I punish them,” says the Lord.

      This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look;
      ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
      and you will find rest for your souls.
      But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
      I appointed watchmen over you and said, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
      But you said, ‘We will not listen.’

      Therefore hear, O nations; observe, O witnesses, what will happen to them.
      Hear, O earth: I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes,
      because they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law.

      What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land?
      Your burnt offerings are not acceptable;
      your sacrifices do not please me.” ’
            Jeremiah 6:10, 13-20.  NIV

On the last day of 1858, Dafydd Morgan, a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist minister, was travelling home over Llanerchpentir Hill. He had been preaching at the remote chapel of Soar-y-mynydd in the hills above Tregaron in mid Wales, UK.

Glorious Experience.  It seems that he was on the mountain for hours, and he experienced something so glorious that he was not sure whether he was in the body or out of it. He felt such mysterious forces lifting him from the earth that he had to cling to the gorse bushes.

Confrontation.  Undoubtedly it was some kind of confrontation with God. Arriving home so much later than expected, with a strange expression and with his clothes very dishevelled, he was hardly recognisable. Asked for an explanation, he said, “I have been wrestling for a blessing, and I have received it.”

Preaching at Devil’s Bridge the next day, someone present said that his words ‘were so like fire as to create terrible convictions. It was a fearful place….’

Great Things.  After that meeting, Dafydd Morgan said, “The Lord would give us great things if he could trust us not to be thieves; if he could trust us not to steal the glory for ourselves.”

Irish Life.    Early in 1856, in the village of Kells in Northern Ireland, James McQuilkin had a reputation for breeding good fighting cocks. However, although history records street brawls, drunkenness and little respect in that area for spiritual issues, there were several godly people who prayed earnestly for God to do something.

Discussion.  James McQuilkin was acquainted with the Gospel and in the late summer, for some reason, he was in the home of a Miss Brown along with two other women. They were discussing controversial Bible doctrines.

English Visitor.   In the spring of that year, an English woman called Mrs Colville came from Gateshead in northeast England to the area of Ballymena to do some house-to-house visitation with the Gospel.
She called at the cottage where the three women and James McQuilkin were talking. Refusing to get involved in their theological discussion, she urged them to seek a personal relationship with the Saviour and the need for the new birth.

One Plus Three.   God used Mrs Colville’s few words to McQuilkin, and it was not long before he came to know Jesus as his Saviour. Through the testimony of his transformed life, three other young men came into a clear experience of salvation.

Challenge.   That same year of 1856, Rev J H Moore, minister of nearby Connor Presbyterian Church, challenged the newly-converted McQuilkin to “gather at least six of your careless neighbours, either parents or children, to your house or some convenient place, on the Sabbath and spend an hour with them reading and searching the Word of God.”

The Old Schoolhouse.   As a consequence, McQuilkin and his three friends, Jeremiah Meneely, John Wallace and Robert Carlisle, started a Sunday School in Tannybrake, near the village of Connor.
Feeling their inadequacy and inexperience, they began in the autumn of 1857 to meet for prayer and ask God’s blessing on the work of the Sunday School they had begun. An old schoolhouse near Kells was their meeting place, and they called it ‘The Believers Fellowship Meeting.’ They met every Friday evening, and for three months, nothing much happened. A few other believers joined them, but there seemed to be no answer to their prayers.

Conversions.   However, on December 9th 1857, they were encouraged by the conversion of a young man, Samuel Campbell, for whom they had been praying. During early 1858 several other people came to saving faith in Christ, and soon there were conversions nearly every week.
Throughout the rest of 1858, there were conversions in the parish of Connor, and by the end of the year, fifty men met regularly for prayer at the Old Schoolhouse in Kells.
They were part of that great awakening work by God which flourished throughout the following year, and which has become known as the ’59 Revival.

1 man, 4 men, 50 men……

“I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.”
Ezekiel 22:30  NIV

Will God find one man today?

Poor Spiritual Health.   In 1731, William M’Culloch became the minister of the parish of Cambuslang, near Glasgow. The congregation was in such poor spiritual health that he did not feel it right to celebrate Communion for three years.

A Deeper Work.   Feeling his unfitness to be used by God, he was encouraged by a colleague to devote himself to prayer for a deeper work of the Holy Spirit.
Subsequently, news of the ‘Awakening’ in America gave impetus to his prayer and to a closer study of the Bible.

Heart-burn.   Some years later, under the preaching of George Whitefield in Edinburgh, fourteen people from Cambuslang were deeply affected by the Gospel. The thought of revival burned in their hearts as they returned home.

Change our Hearts.   M’Culloch was increasingly affected by the work of God in his own heart. In February, 1742, he charged his congregation to “fall on their knees before God, and with all possible earnestness, to beg Him to renew and change our hearts and natures, and to take no comfort in any thing till we get it.“

Tears in the Street.   Within days, a young woman cried out in spiritual concern in the church and the effect was electric, with many weeping and others crying aloud for joy. M’Culloch needed three hours to counsel the enquirers. Soon, whole families fell under conviction of sin.
People would burst into tears in the street. One timid young woman was moved by the Holy Spirit to preach to a large crowd with compelling power. Notorious sinners were reformed.

Field of Battle.   On Tuesday, July 6th 1742, George Whitefield preached three times at Cambuslang, and the scenes of distress that followed were like a field of battle.
Whitefield wrote, “Such a commotion was surely never heard of, especially at eleven at night. It far out-did all I ever saw in America.”

Thirty-five Percent.   Whitefield’s next sermon in July drew a crowd of more than 20,000.
Within seven years, it was estimated that church attendance in the Glasgow area had risen to 35 percent of the population.

Of UK citizens well under 10 percent attend church regularly.

Is that because we have lost the use of our knees?

This account is based on ‘The Cambuslang Revival – The Scottish Evangelical Revival of the Eighteenth Century,’ by Arthur Fawcett.
Available from The Banner of Truth Trust, The Grey House, 3 Murrayfield Road, Edinburgh EH12 6EL.
Banner of Truth Trust

Aberystwyth.  From the hills above Aberporth there is a magnificent view of much of the Cardigan Bay coast and its surrounding hills and mountains. On many days, Aberystwyth is clearly visible 28 miles across the sea, and at night, its lights are a glittering ribbon climbing the hill.
Just over 200 years ago, there were lights of a different kind shining in that area across the sea.

Thomas Charles Reports.  He was a well-known minister at that time, and in a letter to the Evangelical Magazine, in May 1805, he described what had happened:
“At Aberystwyth, and in the adjacent parts, there are general and powerful awakenings among the young people and children. Some hundreds have joined the religious societies in those parts. I was there lately, at an Association of the Calvinistic Methodists, held at Aberystwyth.

“The concourse of people was computed to amount at least to 20,000. A stage was erected in an open common, for the convenience of addressing this vast multitude. Ten preachers, in the course of two days, delivered very animated and impressive discourses to the most solemn, attentive, and affected congregations I ever saw.

“The preaching was evidently in the demonstration of the Spirit, and with power. Hundreds of children, from eight years old and upwards, might be seen in the congregation, hearing the word with all the attention of the most devout Christian; and bathed in tears. This work first began at Aberystwyth, in the Sunday School.”

In 2009, there are hundreds of other children there, and hundreds of young people in the University, just as there are in many of our towns and cities.

“Where no oxen are, the crib is clean.”  Proverbs 14:4 KJV

“In dull dead times, there is a spiritual decency which is quite the counterpart of the clean crib. Religion is a most respectable performance.
“Men would not offend the proprieties for worlds. The crib is clean  –  the pity is, ‘tis Christless. Then comes like the ox-team, God’s mighty Spirit. And the crib is not spotless any more, I warrant you.
“There is disorder, there is excitement, there is excess. And there are things said, and there are things done in the heart of it that the wise will deplore and the shallow will sneer at. And the old Gospel words will come back, and the proprieties are shocked, I do not doubt.
“But the work is done, thank God, that is the point. The superstitions and shams are swept away and men stand forth to feel and know that Christ is King.”
      Dr G H Morrison

I came across this quote many years ago. I think the author was a Scottish Presbyterian minister of the late 19th century. If any of you know more, please get in touch.

Fire!  The Sun is an immense fire, enabling life on Earth.
However, fire is also destructive. Australians, Spaniards, Californians and others need no reminding of their tragedies in recent times.
We can use fire to dispose of rubbish. We recently had a burn-up of the trimmings from an overgrown hedge.
And we could not hide the smoke!

Fire in the Bible.  The Bible mentions fire over 500 times. In the Old Testament, God’s fire was often associated with eliminating sin – sometimes literally, as with Sodom and Gomorrah.
Repeatedly, God used fire to remove hindrances to His work.
Take this majestic description of God,
‘But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire…’  Malachi 3:2  NKJV
And this one,
‘Our God is a consuming fire.’  Hebrews 12:29  NKJV
Do many Christians realise exactly who they are asking for when they sing General Booth’s old hymn, “Send the Fire” so easily to its swingy modern tune?

Fire in the Early Church.  After completing his saving work at Calvary, Jesus returned to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to inaugurate the Church. Fire was the visible symbol of His coming.
“When the day of Pentecost came…they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.” Acts 2:1-3 NIV.

God’s Fire is Holy Energy.  From that point, the Holy Spirit was the Fire in the disciples’ souls, and they could not hide the Gospel. “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,” they said.  Acts 4:20  NKJV.
God’s Fire alone enables the church to do God’s will.

Hope in the Ash-heaps  Our recent burn-up became a pile of ashes by the evening, and by morning, it had cooled into apparent lifelessness. Even so, deep inside the ash-heap there were a few glowing embers, and with a new supply of air and fuel, they could be encouraged to become a fire again.

Fire Rekindled.  Some churches in our land may seem to be more or less lifeless ash-heaps. But are there a few Christians in your church or meeting, in whose hearts a remnant of genuine holy fire still burns? Are there a few who are truly concerned to see again the holy demands of a holy God heeded in the church?
Praise God that the Holy Spirit can refuel those hidden embers, and rekindle the fire through them. In the process of ridding the church of those smothering heaps of unholy ashes which so many churches have introduced, a lot of disorder and smoke will occur, as Dr Morrison warned in the article above. However, that is necessary if He is going to get rid of sin in the church, and do a spiritual work that will affect our communities.

Adverts?  We had no need to tell our neighbours that we were having a big fire.
When a true Holy Spirit fire begins to burn in our churches, all the advertisements, the PR, the gimmicky methods to ‘get people under the sound of the Gospel’ will become redundant. When God begins to burn up the hindrances to His own work in His own people, the smoke will be advertisement enough.
If you are a church ‘ember’ be encouraged to keep crying to the Lord of Glory to ‘Send the Fire!’

When Humphrey Jones returned to Wales from the revival in the United States in 1858, he preached in the chapels several times from the words, “Woe to you who are at ease in Zion!”  Amos 6:1  NKJV.
Through such preaching by him and others at that time, God awakened the remaining embers into Gospel fires that affected much of Wales.

Accounts of Revival throughout Church history are innumerable. Many versions of an awakening can be written, depending on the author’s viewpoint, and none can be completely accurate.
This is just one of God’s descriptions of how He can revive the spiritual life of his people.
His account is perfect.

The Late Autumn Day began normally in the small village of Gaerwen, a few miles into Anglesey from the Menai Bridge. The children had come to the school expecting their normal lessons. However, that school day, 150 years ago, was to go down in Welsh spiritual history.
In his book, ‘The Welsh Revival,’ Rev Thomas Philips quoted a correspondent at Gaerwen.

“On Monday morning, November 28, 1859, the master of the school at Gaerwen offered up his customary prayer before school duties commenced. Suddenly the Lord poured out ‘a spirit of grace and supplication’ on him, and on all the children present, about ninety in number, so that they continued in prayer and praise until noon.

“A considerable number of the neighbours assembled to look on and to listen, and they might have said, ‘When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.’ They were deeply affected while listening to young children pouring out their full hearts in earnest prayer before the throne of grace.

“Many of the petitions were remembered and repeated afterwards. ‘Save, oh save me through the blood of Christ,’ was a typical cry. One little boy wept as he prayed for his father ‘Oh save my father. My father is ungodly; save, oh save my father, for Jesus Christ’s sake.’ Others pleaded for brothers and sisters, and various members of their families.

“A woman came to the school without knowing what was going on. The previous evening she had scoffed at every expression of feeling in religion, but now she was so impressed by the sight, that she was overcome and joined the children in their prayer and praise.”

150 years on, we have an ‘improved’ education system, resources which no teacher from 1859 would have imagined possible, yet many of our schools have CCTV cameras installed because of problems with discipline and vandalism.