Bring Wood

Chapter 1: The burden and mission of revival

‘Go up to the mountain… bring wood’ (Haggai 1:8)

The story of Pentecost seems to be a patch work of centuries of stirring and awakening over a vast tract of history all interconnected by the brooding creative Spirit of God. What seems a jumble of figures, name and places, to the man in the street, indeed are the constituent molecules that bind the Hand of God to the plough. Jesus is the author and he alone is the finisher. If I am to complete my journey and fulfil my call, making sure of my election in grace, then my eyes have to be on Him and not the figures, names and places.

But those numbers and those names tell us a story, a grand epic, serialized into various instalments that can yield information about God’s dealings with his people, that ‘advertise’ if you like, the Kingdom of God, the overarching redemption through the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. When God comes especially when we can feel and almost touch the presence of the Lord, these are times when entire nations are overwhelmed, new biblical values are forged, the established order is severely challenged and the devil has no rest.

Revival in Britain can look back to the days when prominent clergymen formed religious societies to deal with, among other things, the fall out of a newly industrialized economy, no doubt in answer to earlier prayers of their awakened predecessors. But for now, we take up the story, a fast moving series of events that was to sweep the greater part of the English-speaking world into spiritual awakening.

Certain prophetic voices in ancient Israel were raised up to rebuke the wicked in God’s house and warn the righteous that were straying from the narrow path. God had his hand on these faithful shepherds. Haggai was one such voice to call the people back and through his encouragements his hearers indeed made progress in the right direction: ‘Make room for God to build his house and in so doing you will give Him the greatest pleasure’ (author’s paraphrase of Haggai 1:8).

And in that same spirit of encouragement, there arose, in the middle of the 18th century in England, new voices, primarily among prominent clergymen in Holy Orders that took the message of personal holiness and assurance of heaven very literally. These revivalist, including some outside the established order, went up to their ‘mountains’ and sought ‘the wood’ of native hearts… in the coal pits, in the frontier places and among the countryside lanes and byways, to resource their communities for the sake of gospel advance.

In the halls of academic brilliance, over the hills and dales of every part of the British Isles, these voices articulated the Revival. A young servitor by the name of Whitefield, who became one of the greatest voices to be heard in the English-speaking world, on both sides of the Atlantic, came to Oxford from the borough of Gloustershire. His family had a tradition of sending their sons to the University but when it came his turn, many issues conspired to keep him out, and hence his introduction to campus life as a poor valet (read, ‘slave’) for the other students in residence.

But God had his hand upon this lad. The Holy Spirit brought him into a sanctifying grace that delivered him through many inward conflicts and trials. Spotted by another student, the famous hymn writer of the times, Charles Wesley, together a friendship was forged and a fraternity that has become the most famous cell group of recent times, The Holy Club at Oxford, so called because of the zeal and contentiousness of its members for which they suffered in the name of Christ.

So together, the Wesley brothers, John and Charles and George Whitefield and other distinguished students stood firm and resolute in their fasting times, prayer and bible reading, despite the incessant ragging, mockery and ridicule of fellow students. In time the battle for souls was fought, in the open fields alongside Welshmen like Howell Harris and Scotsmen like Ralph Erskine. Very quickly crowds of up to 20,000 were impacted by the oration, hymnody and the grace of awakening.

England felt this pulse and the outpouring could not be contained in her churches. After a series of sure evidences, George Whitefield took the revival into the open-air, or rather, the demands of the harvest required it thus. And today, in Yorkshire, in Wales and in a thousand other localities are reminders of the day when the Spirit came in power in quaint little chapels and under wide open skies.

This sudden blinding light from heaven threw people off their feet, out of their comfort zones and into a state where, like St. Paul, they needed to be guided by the hand. There was always the church and its spires, the priest and his liturgy, the rustic services held in historic vales and picturesque villages. But suddenly, this was not enough, men’s hearts were rent apart, a hunger for holiness and a thirst for truth could not be satisfied by the daily routines of the church incumbents. Something had to give and that something was too frightful to contemplate.

The church became for a season, the Church without walls – a fellowship of Spirit-filled pioneers that saw themselves a part of something so much bigger than their own ministries, their own agendas and sacred theologies. God had opened the door, or perhaps removed the hinges altogether. That was the hour of repentance for all England and a time of much anticipated cleanness and clarity.

Here were faithful shepherds and watchmen creating early camp-meetings out of doors, that would echo the same sort of cry for the pentecostal fire that the later preachers of frontier America a hundred years later, indeed the same sort of meetings that would characterize Azusa and the Pentecostal movement ever since. From England, the Holy Spirit swept into the seaboard Colonies from New England to Georgia, and found its mark among the poor, disinherited black slaves in places like Virginia and the Carolinas.

Celebrity status was accorded to well-known out-of-doors preachers up to and after the American civil war. What is little known is the history of the African-American revivalists of that time. One such heroine, an ex-slave that became an international minister was Amanda Berry Smith. With characteristic honesty she spoke about the aspiration for freedom and the doctrine of the Spirit in the same breath: ‘… if you want to know about sanctifying grace, you need to be black for twenty-four hours’

Nowadays, there is much interest in finding links between movements, of drawing inferences from various historical sources to establish a connection between one outpouring of God’s Spirit here and another revival fire started over there. Some have researched and drawn conclusions that are not too far fetched. No doubt there must have been instances of revival fires in every century for God has not left himself without witness. But some of these fires left indelible markers that were observable by written sermons, published diaries, hymns and spiritual songs that are evidence of the Spirit’s moving among affected people who first received Him and whose experience of revival point to a very real presence of His fire in particular space and at a discernible time.

But out of these ardent followers of Jesus, in their struggles for liberties that we today take for granted, grew a certain hunger to see God move again and fan the coals upon His altar that would touch and purify the lips of the unclean again. How much negro spiritualism stoked those fires can be seen in the passion and zeal of the holiness groups beginning in the holiness camp meetings of the 19th century but even to the present time, the fervour and the intensity in African American church worship.

Here were the pioneers of revival charismata characterized by a longing for God’s love, that ‘joy unspeakable’ (1 Peter 1:8) and the perfecting of the saints. The stage was set for future revivals and the seed sown for greater glory in the latter days. From the early Methodism that grew out of the personal and ecclesiastical struggles of the Wesleys and the Whitefields of their day, the fires of revival reached beyond the shores into the New Colonies and planted the winsome and pleasant holiness seed into the hearts and minds of the slaves in bondage on the other side. Thus the torch was passed from one generation of believers to the next beyond the lifetime of any one individual, church or missionary organization.

———

Footnotes:

** Howell Harris was the pioneer of Methodist field preaching and the first to form a number of Societies and link them together in a permanent organisation. Wesley’s work was patterned after him, and Whitefield was deeply indebted to his stalwart example.