The Clearing Podcast - Where Eagles Fly

The Goforths of China –

Jonathan Goforth and his wife Rosalind visited Korea just as this great visitation of God was occurring.  They interviewed the missionaries, wrote their own account of what had happened, and then returned to Manchuria, just to the west of Korea, where they had been missionaries for years.  Back in China, they discovered that the same Spirit they had met up with in Korea—a spirit of deep repentance leading to confession of sin among the people—followed them wherever they went.  This was not the result of preaching.  It was the direct result of “a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,” which, in turn, was the result of the intensive, persistent prayer in Korea.  The Spirit was now like an infection that was spreading outward with those who carried it. The tsunami of God’s holy love was moving to the west.

The Great Korean Revival –

A group of Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries in Pyongyang heard about the great outpouring of the Spirit in India and inquired, “Why couldn’t God do the same thing here?”  They prayed for months, until in January of 1907, the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pyongyang Presbyterian Church.  Thousands were treated to the experience of the holy presence of a living God; they came to Christ by flocks, confessing their sins and receiving God’s forgiveness.  The presence of God spread from town to town. To this day, the vast majority of churches in Korea are Presbyterian and Methodist, and the habit of early morning prayer spread throughout the nation from that beginning, surprising even the missionaries.

Azusa –

The Welsh Revival sparked revivals all over the world—in the Kassia Hills in India, and at Azusa in Pasadena.  God used William Seymour, a black man, son of a slave, to lead the most extraordinary and powerful manifestation of His presence in the twentieth century.  Fire fell from heaven on the lowly building where the mixed-race prayer group met, a shekinah glory cloud was often seen to fill the place, extraordinary healings happened at the hands of teenagers, and a spirit of racial unity was manifested in the middle of the most racially divisive time in U.S. history.  In addition, God used Azusa to reintroduce the biblical manifestation of the gift of tongues, which became a cardinal doctrine of the denominations that resulted. Ordinary people were learning how to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Worldwide Awakening –

After the death of Dwight Moody in Chicago in late 1899, the Chicago Bible Institute was renamed the Moody Bible Institute, and was led by R. A. Torrey. Torrey was led to pray regularly for a worldwide great awakening, the prayers lasting three years.  Then, guided by the Holy Spirit, Torrey put feet to the prayers at the Institute, beginning a worldwide revival tour.  Awakenings happened wherever he went, including Australia, India and Europe.  The great Welsh revival can be traced to his visit to Wales.

Western Tribes.

God kept the westward momentum of His Kingdom going through an extraordinary outpouring of prophecy among the tribes of the Columbia Plateau in the Pacific Northwest in the 18th century, roughly corresponding to the eastern great awakenings.  Each prophecy, a different one for each tribe, pointed to Jesus, fueling a curiosity about Jesus, and specifically prophesying men of white skin who would tell them more.  These prophesies led to the mission outreach to the tribes from newly created missions agencies both in Canada and the U.S.  The Hudson’s Bay Company, full of Christian leaders, also helped the gospel spread westward. Spokan Garry, a Native, became the first Christian evangelist west of the Rockies.

1857!

By the year 1857, the effects of the Second Great Awakening were starting to be forgotten.  Suddenly another great wave of awakening took over in Ireland, Scotland and the U.S.  Again, for the third time, it was as though God were engineering things trans-continentally.  In Charleston, the Holy Spirit fell in Anson Street Presbyterian Church in Charleston—a very unique church, which had been built specifically for slaves.  The pastor, John Lafayette Girardeau, who had a heart for the poor and for slaves, went on to become “the Spurgeon of the South”—and the only Southern Presbyterian to oppose racial separation in the Presbyterian Church.  In New York, under the leadership of Jeremiah Lanphier, a movement of extraordinary prayer broke out and spread to virtually every city in the country, leading to a huge harvest of people for the Kingdom of God.

Finney and Abolition.

During the waning years of the Second Great Awakening, God raised up a lawyer in New York who was profoundly used, for a decade (1820’s) to bring whole towns to Christ.  Finney was not a devout abolitionist, yet a great many of those converted under his ministry became the leading abolitionists of their day.  Such a man was Theodore Dwight Weld, who led most of the student body of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati to join in the work of abolition of slavery.

The Second Great Awakening.

The awakening of 1799 in America (paralleled by the Clapham Sect movement in London) was far greater in breadth, length and influence than that which had happened 65 years before. One of the most influential leaders was a Presbyterian named James McGready who stirred up prayer for “the worst place in America,” then he went there—to Logan County, Kentucky, to seek revival for the most notorious den of crooks in the country.  God poured out His Spirit, thus taming the Kentucky wilderness, and proving that no one is so lost that they can’t be transformed by the Spirit of the King.

Slave Prayer –

Following Gabriel’s Rebellion in 1800, it became illegal for slaves to assemble throughout the southern states for “religious” purposes (because the cause of the rebellion was stated to have been “Methodists, Presbyterians and Frenchmen.”) Nonetheless, slaves were all the more diligent to come together for Christian prayer, and even contrived to pray into cooking kettles, so that they could pray at liberty without being heard by their masters. This is one of the most under-rated prayer movements in U.S. history. When you consider the revival that happened in Charleston (#23 below) and the Azusa street revival (#26 below), you begin to develop an appreciation for the role of African Americans in praying for spiritual awakening.

Robert Carter III –

A prime example of the stirring of indignation against slavery came in the 18th century. Robert “King” Carter had been one of the most notorious plantation owners to own slaves in Virginia. But his grandson Robert—after his conversion to Christ at the hands of a Baptist evangelist—could not justify to his own conscience that he was one of the biggest slave-owners in U.S. history. Thus, at the time of the American Revolution, he devised a way to emancipate all of his slaves, and he succeeded in doing so gradually, year-by-year, until every one of his slaves had been freed. This amazing testimony of a converted person has been entirely forgotten today. In the coming years, almost all abolitionists would come from the north, because the north was the location of spiritual awakenings in the 18th century.