The Welsh Revival of 1904

[Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to another in our series of revivals and today we come to revival that my guest has said is his favorite revival i'm not quite sure what a favorite revival is but we'll find out in a moment or two matthew backhoe it's lovely to have you if folks haven't seen you before then i've been describing you as a revival historian and i think that's very much what you are because you spend your time studying about revivals well god has blessed me and i've had the opportunity to read more than 300 books on the subject of revival and it's amazing you read the accounts of god and the wonderful works and the things that he have done you know revivals from around the globe you know spanning several thousand years you know we have revivals in the old testament and revivals in the new testament and we have contemporary revivals as well well here we are you we're coming to what you described to me yesterday as your favorite revival what is it about well tell us what today's revival is well it's the welsh revival under evan roberts 1904 1905 and this revival affected and stimulated another 30 different revivals a minimum 30 different revivals around the globe up till 1910 so absolutely incredible it stirred so many christians so many ministers and leaders from around the globe so many missionaries and also so many people were called into full-time christian service and went out to be missionaries across the globe it affected so many people not only in wales but literally around the globe i've been meaning to ask you if i said to you please give us a definition of what a revival is what would you say revival an incredible outpouring of the holy spirit which touches not only the church the believers but people outside of the church wales is a land which seems to have had an awful lot of revivals you know when you read your it's history and you clearly have done then going back into i saw one piece which said between the 1700s and the 1800s there's something like 15 revivals alone and this seems to have been every almost few years a revival of some kind in wales well i mean wales is known and as the land of revivals but incidentally scotland has had far more many far more many revivals than than wells but wales has had some incredible characters you think about uh people like hal harris and uh daniel roland the thunderer these were great men of god who who preached the gospel and they had crowds of people inside their chapels and outside in the open air meetings and the holy spirit was there and these people preached with great uh anointing great unction and people just came under deep conviction of sin and many people were slain in a spirit and you had john wesley he went to wales on numerous occasions and you had people like lady huntington she was a great financial supporter during the evangelical revival and she helped hal harris and his work his tribeca bible college and like i said wales is such an incredible place a rich history and what is incredible that you can go to many of these places of revival still today amen well we're going to talk about the 1904 welsh revival and of course what a revival is is it changes our community and what we long for today is communities changed and that's why we're saying lord do it again do it again because we want to see revival in our midst but maybe some folks who are saying what are they all talking about i don't really understand and i don't know anything about my history of 1904 in wales there was a film done on the anniversary in 2014 i think it was called a diary of a revival we're just going to see a little piece of the promo that was done for that um it's a remarkable history isn't it absolutely incredible history and it's it's great that people make these productions and so we can look back in a visual representation and it helps us to understand and like you say a diary of revival it's a great dvd let's have a look at this now which just talks a little bit and introduces to you something about 1904 this is the story of one man's intense relationship with god and of how god moved a nation through him we've read the book about evan roberts and we've studied it for actually years and it's affected our church i didn't know very much about it to be quite honest you know i've heard about revival but i didn't know the details in two weeks everybody in wales was talking about him in two weeks his name became a national name in wales totally unknown in two months the world was talking about him for a long time i was much troubled in my soul and my heart by thinking over the failure of christianity oh and it seems such a failure such a failure and i prayed and prayed but nothing seemed to give me any relief these are the words of a young colleague from west glamorgan he'd left school when he was 12 years old to help his father down the mine he was an unknown outside his village nobody really heard them no great preacher no degree in theology yet in his 26th year in a few weeks he was to become one of the most talked about christians in wales in a few months stories were going to spread about him throughout the international community his name was evan roberts this is his story mostly in his own words well it's a remarkable story and remarkable because it's a story of a young man and you saw a picture of him there who had this vision this dream that god was going to give him at least a hundred thousand souls in a period of a few months and it was many many more than that that were reached and one for christ isn't it well it's interesting because edwin orr uh revival historian with his statistics say that 150 000 people joined actual churches and chapels as members he but he estimated up to a quarter of a million people could have become born again many people went to mission halls or other other ones emigrated et cetera so they were not on any statistic roles and that's of course without what you said which is the knock-on effect of the wave of revival in whale spread and we saw when we were talking about the korean revival in an earlier program that what happened in wales went to the hills of india and then the hills of india to korea and and that's the way that revivals have spread well wales has always been a land to send out many many missionaries and so you had a welsh-speaking people in these foreign mission lands and so the people back at home in the native wells would send them stuff and tell them about it and you know it would greatly infuse them and like you said you mentioned these various different revivals and it started and touched at least 30 different revivals around the globe right over from patagonia incredible to china just so many places and so many people were touched and affected i mean i would go so far to say that if we didn't have the welsh revival you wouldn't have had the azusa street revival because there's such an interesting link between them and we're going to see azusa street is estimated i don't know hundreds of millions of people who've been one for christ because of what happened there so it's a remarkable story and and the welsh revival undoubtedly is all centered on this one person evan roberts and his story do you want to just help us to understand a little bit about this young man where he came from and why it was that god was able to use him rather than someone else yeah evan roberts was a great man he was 26 when the revival actually broke out and um you know he led a godly life for 13 years he had actually been praying for a rival that god would run the heavens and that god would pour out the spirit it's interesting that for several months before revival actually broke out he was taken in his own words taking up into the heavens um in the early hours of the morning every night for about three months um where he literally communed with god a bit like the apostle paul being taken up into the the third heavens and ever robert spoke about this uh later on when he was being interviewed and everything and so god did a deep work in him and then he had a vision a vision for one hundred thousand souls and he believed god he believed god he believed god for one hundred thousand souls and actually there was more than one hundred thousand souls one hundred thousand converts came into the kingdom of god within a period of six months many of the newspapers had columns and names and statistics of people and places where they were converted and it was evan roberts but evan roberts went to a place in nuki with seth joshua where seth josh was preaching at the time he was studying at newcastle emeline um he was basically training to be a theological minister so to speak but the minute but the principal said you will learn more in one week of revival than all of your college studies so they gave they shut the college down for a week and he went to seth joshua at new key and god really touched him um really touched him indeed and also there was a place in bleinanek this is where evan roberts was in this chapel and he was praying and he just cried out in the welsh i know english god bend me bend me better that became a phrase that was used throughout the welsh revival wasn't it it basically means in the welsh like submission to god's will that god would literally break him and he was perspiring all over but god came and touched him in a very very special way although evan roberts was the instrument that god used there were many people in wales in the early 1900s 1901 1902 who who were praying just one story i've heard is of this reverend seth joshua that you've just quoted who used to every morning go for a walk and he used to say god send i thought it was a minor or agricultural worker to lead a revival in this country and he was just one of many many people we're back to saying it's prayer that changes nations that's right you know it's prayer that does it you know we're called to ask god to pour out this spirit upon all flesh and evan roberts believed that along with many other ministers at the time and they wanted god to come and bless the nation of wales and beyond yeah well one of the things about evan roberts was his his desire for the holy spirit i mean he he left school at 12 he went down into the mines to work he used to always carry his bible there's one story which says that on one occasion there was an explosion in the mine he was safe but his bible was scorched and he used to carry this bible around and show people it but he's so hungered after god but even though he worked in the mines night after night he attended meetings let's just listen for a moment to what he has to say in his own words in his diary of the way that he sought after the holy spirit i said then to myself i will have the spirit and through all weather and in spite of all difficulties i went to the meetings many times and seeing other boys with the boats on the tide i was tempted to turn back and join them but no then i said to myself remember your resolve to be faithful and on i went play meeting monday evening at the chapel premiered in tuesday evenings at pisca church meeting wednesday evening band of hope thursday class friday evening to there i went faithfully throughout the years for a long time i was much troubled in my soul and my heart by thinking over the failure of christianity oh and it seemed such a failure such a failure and i prayed and prayed but nothing seemed to give me any relief but one night after i'd been in great distress praying about this i went to sleep and at one o'clock in the morning suddenly i was waked up out of my sleep and i found myself with unspeakable joy and awe in the very presence of the almighty god and for the space of four hours i was privileged to speak face to face with him as a man speaks face to face with a friend at five o'clock it seemed to me as if i had again returned to earth were you not dreaming no i was wide awake and it was not only that morning but every morning for three or four months always i enjoyed four hours of that wonderful communion with god i cannot describe it i felt it and it seemed to change all my nature and i saw things in a different light we have so many distractions today in our life don't we so much that's going on so much busyness and yet there was a young man who had no distractions at all from seeking after god and maybe that's what god saw in him a bit like david you know when jesse went to appoint a new king and looked at the other brothers discarded them because he saw the spirit it says his heart doesn't it and he knew what his heart was like to the lord and that's undoubtedly with evan roberts well it's interesting because the elder threw the challenge to evan roberts what would happen if the spirit came and you were not here and that really got a hold of him and like you said he started to attend these meetings very regularly very regularly indeed and as he said there was other distractions out there he says no but i will seek after god and i think that's one of the important things to seek after god yeah so evan roberts went off he was going to train for the ministry he had this experience and he was woken i think over several months every night from one o'clock and he prayed through till about four in the morning and then he felt this nudge to go back home and he was quite embarrassed really wasn't he because he'd left him to go and study and now he was going to have to go back again that's right he had to ask the permission from the principal if he could go home and he wanted to hold a week's worth of meetings because he felt prompted of the spirit to do so so this is october the 31st 1904 and so there he is um he spoke to the local minister the church in in locker south wales and he says yes you can hold a meeting amongst the youth and so he held it in the school room which is uh adjacent to the mariah chapel it's interesting you said he held it in the school room i think evan roberts really thought that he'd have the church and would invite everyone to come and the minister for no no he's just a youngster he can have a school room and just invite young people to come that's right that's exactly what happened and he basically shut the door and said and you know they had their meeting and he said to the people we need to ask for the holy spirit ask the holy spirit to come for jesus christ's sake and literally different ones stood up and said what evan roberts asked them to say holy spirit come for jesus christ's sake we want the holy spirit come holy spirit and the holy spirit came he did and and it was within a period of by the second week of meetings that the crowds were coming i think aloha uh chapel holes is it 800 people something like that yes i'm not sure and it was full it was incredibly full like you said you know it started off with a youth meeting but because the spirit came and touched people the adults said we want to come as well and like i said it absolutely snowballed and what is interesting that whilst the revival broke out in locker also in the northern part of south wales in a place called ross revival also simultaneously broke out there as well he taught during that first week four principles and i wrote them down because we're not the kind of things we like to talk about much in church today but he said put away unconfessed sin put away any doubtful habits obey the holy spirit promptly and confess christ publicly it was a very clear message that he wanted to put across that's right a very very clear message you know confess your sin put that sin away um and you know embrace jesus christ and obey the spirit and i think that's so important that we should obey the holy spirit i mean it tells us in acts 5 the holy spirit given to those who obey him we're putting it across sort of very bald facts but it's hard to get the picture of what it was like within a period of two weeks um people were finishing work early the other villages were beginning to come there was something in the air which was attracting people people were standing outside they were arriving early to try and get a seat but the spirit of god was moving in a remarkable way that's right it was like the jew of heaven or the veil between heaven and earth became very very thin like in many respects you could say the atmosphere was heavy with the spirit of god because god himself he came down the heavens were rent and the spirit was out poured and you know the newspapers quickly picked up on this it was newsworthy yeah and so other people got to to read about it and to hear about it other people and then all these chapels and that started to become open and people attended meetings and course evan roberts was invited to go here there and everywhere and he couldn't keep up to demand well i was going to say i mean he did the most strange thing possible because after two weeks building up this revival which was going at an enormous strength he then announced for people i'm leaving and he went off to aberdeer well it's interesting i mean evan robert said himself you know it's not me even though he was the human front as the leader but it was the holy spirit and i think that's very important that we acknowledge it is the holy spirit it is the spirit of god and like he said he went off to aberdeer um it's also interesting that there was revival teams and these revival teams the first one consisted of five young ladies teenage girls all unmarried and they went to various chapels and churches emission halls etc and they preached they sang and you know the holy spirit did his job when you went to a meeting and music particularly was something that was an important part and it wasn't just music it was the worship but anyone who's heard the welsh sing know that they can sing in a special way and there was one particular song wasn't that you've already referred to it which became the theme song and and almost every time somebody confessed faith in christ it was sun that's right you know here is love vast is the ocean it was known as the the love song of the revival you can imagine you know a teenage girl stands up and sings in welsh here is love vast as the ocean and these miners these hardened men these burly men men who used to go to the pub and drink come under conviction of sin and they just start weeping it is a remarkable story we would tend to think today we need mature people to lead revivals and and we need people who've been trained and and here's god who chose the not the uneducated but but certainly those who hadn't had academic training and those who certainly for the day were very young and they're the ones who used in revival that's right well we think about the the early 12 disciples you know they said that these were uneducated untrained men but they have been with jesus and these people had spent time with jesus they were faithful followers of the lord and you know they asked for god to send the holy spirit for jesus sake and he came and he came in power evan roberts was like a prophet a revivalist speaking to the church he wouldn't even announce where he was having meetings he went to one place they weren't expecting him but they were allowed to see him he got up in the pulpit he said one word in welsh three words in english whether you let us pray that was all they ever heard and pray say because immediately all eighteen hundred people began to pray another occasion he stood up and said how many of you believe the promises of god is a great roar of amen would you agree he said that a promise made by the lord jesus especially precious they all shouted yes do you know one that says where two or three are gathered my name there am i in the midst yes do we have two or three here tonight great roar of laughter than nearly three thousand is jesus here yes i asked you is jesus here yes do you believe it yes then he said you don't need me he put on his hat and coat and went to another meeting on one occasion um evan roberts was asked about his methods how how was it that he was able to reach so many he says i've been asked concerning my methods i have none i never prepared the words but i shall speak i leave it all to him i'm not the source of this revival i'm only one agent in what is growing to be a multitude i'm not changing men's hearts and changing men's lives not i but god worketh in me and this is the key his spirit came on me one night when upon my knees i asked him for guidance and five months later i was baptized with a spirit i know that the work which has been done through me is not due to any human ability that i possess it is his work and his glory it really was a remarkable revival over a period of two three years churches which previously been divided began to be united just tell us something about what it was like to be in that revival mafia well to be in the presence of god would have been an amazing time but also for many it's like a double-edged sword i mean christians there who came under deep conviction of sin for their secret sins and secret habits etc sins of commission and sins of omission lack of prayerlessness lack of reading the bible lack of faithfulness in attending their chapel or church or mission hall i mean but god really came and touched these people many of the pubs and drinking establishments were clothes the landlords were furious they were losing dramatic trade um there was opposition as well people were mocking just like on the death pentecost these people they're drunk with wine say oh no this is the spirit of god but people's lives were touched they were transformed they were changed jesus said you should know them by their fruit and these people bore fruit and it's interesting if you to go to wales today i lived in wales for four years and it's really interesting seeing the various chapels the mission halls and you see when they were built or when they were enlarged and you you noticed significant dates around the 1859 1860s and then 1904 1905 1906 basically during and after times of revival these places of worship were enlarged or built just to accommodate the crowds the social impact was equally powerful judges were presented with white gloves not a case to try drunkenness was cut in half i have the figures for the county of glamorgan in which cardiff is situated cut down from ten thousand arrests a year to five thousand within the year but there are bankruptcies he said how could revival cause a bankruptcy nearly all taverns couldn't sell their booze i came across a case in north wales a place in anglocy where a policeman was on duty outside a courtroom when he heard a burst of singing in the courtroom so strange to hear people sing in a courtroom he rushed in he found the prisoner had broken down and confessed he was the sinner asked this advocate not to defend him anymore the judge took his gavel and said i adjourned the court now young man may i speak to not as a judge but as a christian and he told him you have sinned against society but i want to tell you first how to get right with god and the young man accepted christ there and the jury burst into one of those great welsh hymns and the policeman added his base to the choir so much else we could have asked you magistrates wore white gloves because they had no cases in order to be heard but the minds particularly i mean we talked about evan roberts being a minor uh meetings used to be held down the mines and people would hold their lights to indicate christ but what about the pit ponies well that's an interesting one the miners got converted and they had sanctified tongues and so they could they would speak to the animals the pit ponies in polite words instead of using cuss phrases and swearing and so the pit pony stopped obeying them because you know to them it was it was nuke new language new commands so you know these pit panties had to be like retrained so to speak well there's so much more that we could talk about on the the welsh revival if you'd like to know more then you can have an opportunity to read the chapter in do it again but thank you for being with us today we'll be back with another revival next week until then god bless you [Music] bye-bye have you ever experienced revival would you like to if you'd been alive in 1857 1859 1904 1906 1907 even 1949 you would have done so i've written the stories of six of the most remarkable revivals the world has ever known in this book do it again lord and copies are available for a donation of five pound or more to a revelation foundation you know there's no such word in the bible as revival but the word revive occurs many times to have a revival the church and that means you and me needs to be revived there are important principles to learn about being revived and i've included them in this book and my longing is but when you've finished reading your prayer will be do it again lord through me

Channel: Revelation TV

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Rating: 4.8651361 out of 5

Keywords: revival, church history, fire of God, 1904, Evan Roberts, wales revival, Seth Joshua, Loughor revival, 1904 revival, welsh revival, do it again lord, God wales, Jesus Wales, Gospel, Gospel Wales, Christian Wales, J. Edwin Orr, Holy Spirit revival, God power, revival the call, God's love, God miracles, true revival, where is God, Presence of God, what is revival, revival pray, Bend me Oh Lord, Holiness God, God outpouring, Moriah Chapel, Rees Howells, Awakening Wales

Id: oJOu8eUhcys

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2017