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Arthur Wallis
Arthur Wallis (1922 – 1988) was a British preacher and Bible teacher whose itinerant ministry and writings significantly influenced the evangelical house church movement and sparked renewed interest in revival and fasting within 20th-century Christianity. Born in Dublin, Ireland, to Reginald Wallis, a convention speaker and author, and Mary Wallis, he faced a spiritual crisis at 18 following his father’s death in 1940. Educated at Monkton Combe School near Bath, he attended Sandhurst and served in the Royal Tank Regiment during World War II, surviving a severe wounding at the Anzio Bridgehead in 1944—an event that led him to question his military service and solidify his call to ministry. After the war, he married Eileen Hemingway in 1949, with whom he had one son, Jonathan, and embraced full-time Christian work. Wallis’ preaching career took off after a 1951 baptism in the Holy Spirit, shifting him from his Plymouth Brethren roots toward a charismatic emphasis on revival, prayer, and the Holy Spirit’s work. His visit to the 1949 Lewis Revival inspired his seminal book In the Day of Thy Power (1956), a study of revival dynamics that became a classic, later abridged as Rain from Heaven. He authored other influential works, including God’s Chosen Fast (1968), a definitive guide on biblical fasting praised by John Piper, and The Radical Christian (1981), earning him the title “architect” of the British house church movement. Traveling widely to the USA, Australia, and New Zealand, Wallis cared for his ailing mother for five years before his death in 1988, requesting only “fruit in people’s lives” as his memorial.
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Arthur Wallis discusses the intriguing similarities between God's ways in revival and judgment, highlighting how divine visitations can bring both blessing and revival, as well as a season of judgment. Various symbols such as overflowing rain and fire from heaven are used to depict either spiritual revival or divine judgment, emphasizing the presence of judgment in every revival. Wallis emphasizes that God's nature requires Him to intervene through revival or judgment to purify and revive His people, halting spiritual decline and reversing negative trends.
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Revival or Judgment
Strange though it may seem, there are distinct similarities between the ways of God in revival and in judgment. Throughout the prophets the thought of a divine visitation is used to describe blessing and revival on the one hand (Jer 27:22) and a season of judgment on the other (Jer 50:31). Likewise the overflowing rain could picture a time a spiritual revival (Ezek 34:26) or of divine judgment (Gen 6:17). Another figure used of the mighty operation of the Spirit in revival is fire from heaven (1 Kings 18:38; Acts 2:33), but it is also typical of the judgment of God (2 Kings 1:10). All this may be partly explained by the fact that there is an element of judgment present in every revival. The purifying and quickening of the people of God are moral and spiritual necessities. Because of His very nature, God cannot and will not permit spiritual decline to continue unchecked. He is ever halting and reversing the trend of the times by means of revival - or judgment. Where His people are not prepared for the one, they shut themselves up to the other.
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Arthur Wallis (1922 – 1988) was a British preacher and Bible teacher whose itinerant ministry and writings significantly influenced the evangelical house church movement and sparked renewed interest in revival and fasting within 20th-century Christianity. Born in Dublin, Ireland, to Reginald Wallis, a convention speaker and author, and Mary Wallis, he faced a spiritual crisis at 18 following his father’s death in 1940. Educated at Monkton Combe School near Bath, he attended Sandhurst and served in the Royal Tank Regiment during World War II, surviving a severe wounding at the Anzio Bridgehead in 1944—an event that led him to question his military service and solidify his call to ministry. After the war, he married Eileen Hemingway in 1949, with whom he had one son, Jonathan, and embraced full-time Christian work. Wallis’ preaching career took off after a 1951 baptism in the Holy Spirit, shifting him from his Plymouth Brethren roots toward a charismatic emphasis on revival, prayer, and the Holy Spirit’s work. His visit to the 1949 Lewis Revival inspired his seminal book In the Day of Thy Power (1956), a study of revival dynamics that became a classic, later abridged as Rain from Heaven. He authored other influential works, including God’s Chosen Fast (1968), a definitive guide on biblical fasting praised by John Piper, and The Radical Christian (1981), earning him the title “architect” of the British house church movement. Traveling widely to the USA, Australia, and New Zealand, Wallis cared for his ailing mother for five years before his death in 1988, requesting only “fruit in people’s lives” as his memorial.