This sermon delves into the historical significance of revivals and awakenings, emphasizing the impact of past movements of God's Spirit in various regions like Hawaii, Scotland, Tonga, and the United States. It highlights the transformative power of prayer, the spread of the gospel, and the challenges faced by believers in different denominations during times of revival. The sermon also addresses the importance of learning from history to avoid repeating past mistakes and to embrace the work of God's Spirit in bringing about spiritual renewal.

The introductions are so kind that I have to tell you when I was in New Zealand a Man came up and said to me, you know, mr Or must be a great benefit to your ministry that people are so disappointed when they see you first. I Wasn't sure what I should say so I said really oh He said I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put it that way. I Mean that after people read your books or heard about you and then they see you for the first time They realize that only God could use you Now I'm not here to talk about myself but about the wonderful works of God We heard a moment ago that people never learn from history That they're condemned to live history again, but it's because they don't study history. That's why And this is particularly true of the 1970s and 80s When we're in the middle of what you call the now generation when they find That history is not relevant. They can't be bothered and so they have to learn all over again Some people find history a bore. I Find people who find history a bore a bore For example in the 1830s the total number of believers in Hawaii Was 500 In 1835 the missionaries largely congregational met for prayer They sent an appeal to the United States their home base Asking that they would pray the been outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Hawaii They promised they would pray for the rest of the world in 1838 came the Revival one church in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii took in 7501 after six months probation They took in over 1,501 Sunday. There was such a movement all over Hawaii That little children would get up early in the morning to run out to the sugarcane fields to pray It was a vast movement of prayer. Now. This is among the Polynesian Hawaiians before the entry of The Chinese Japanese Filipinos and other races But so sweeping was that revival that King Kamehameha the third Declared the country a Christian kingdom and gave them a Bill of Rights 20 years later the found that more than 19,000 of the converts were still standing in the churches How many people know that of course some may say well, why is Hawaii not completely Christian today? because the immigrants who came in to take the place of the Hawaiians who died off because of Western diseases measles and smallpox and the like They were Buddhist largely but even so by 1860 the Hawaiians had their own missionary societies to evangelize the rest of the Pacific and The churches are still thriving now the big question has come up Does the tide have to go out completely before it comes in again? I? Find that you cannot say so I Told you about the Great Awakening 1727 onwards that laid the foundation of this country the awakening in the days of Whitfield and Wesley and Jonathan Edwards and others of like rank Anyone who studies American history knows that the Great Awakening as it's called laid the foundation Of this country, there's no question about that But last time I spoke I spoke of the revival of 1792 I have told how the tide had gone out completely the churches had their backs to the wall and Then they started what was called the concert of prayer They set aside one day every month to pray for a spiritual awakening and when that revival came it swept multitudes into the kingdom of God and Did untold good socially? Such as the abolition of the slave trade the beginning of monetarial schools for the poor The foundation of the Bible societies and all the denominational missionary societies But does the tide have to go out first before it comes in no in 1830 I found to my amazement It seemed almost too good to be true that another general awakening of phenomenal power swept the United States 1830 1831 and continued for a dozen years Now you will find if you go to theological seminaries that those who hate the gospel who run down evangelism and revival Speak of revivalism as if it were a frontier phenomenon In other words something of extravagance happens among the uneducated people on the frontier But the revivals did not begin on the frontiers This great revival of 1830 began in late spring in Charleston Massachusetts across the Charles River River from Boston, and it's spread throughout the country At that time a young evangelist called Charles Finney was holding forth in Rochester, New York and They had a local revival of great power So much so that it affected even the number of arrests of criminals for the next 20 years it cut the down so much But lots of people have exaggerated that movement I was speaking at a prayer Congress at San Jose when one of the speakers was great enthusiasm said think of Finney's revival at Rochester in which a quarter of a million people found Christ I Said to him after the service That poses a problem for me Because the population of Rochester was only 10,000 How could you have a quarter of a million converts? Oh? He said I'm glad you told me he said I must have gotten my figures mixed up a little bit So he went back to his notes, and he saw me again. He said I was quite wrong It wasn't a quarter of a million was only a hundred thousand I Said that still poses a problem for me. How could you have a hundred thousand converts in? In a ton of 10,000 in those days when the fastest you could travel was the speed of a horse galloping They couldn't fly in for a big X blow or something of that type But Finney's reputation as a national evangelist was made in December of 1830 in the great revival at Rochester, but the movement was already underway throughout the rest of the country Bishop Asbury the leader of the Methodist told his preachers. We must attend to camp meetings. They make our harvest time Very interesting that the Methodist Episcopal Church Thrived in the 1830s and 1840s Now perhaps some of you remember there was a program recently called key 73 in 1972 a very godly Methodist scholar wrote an article for the Methodist and other denominational papers saying We as denominations must get behind this Otherwise the Lord will bypass us and he will raise up the Jesus people or something like that Well, he had a point but I Wrote to myself. He said in his article. We must not forget that the last great awakening in United States ended in 1820 I was amazed I Wrote to him and said What about the revival of 1830 which lasted 12 years and in the last two years your own denomination? increased from 580 thousand and ninety eight members to one million one hundred and seventy one thousand three hundred and fifty six They doubled in two years He didn't answer me So I went down to the public library in West Los Angeles and I got his private address and Wrote to him at home Repeating the same letter. I Didn't get an answer. So I said to one of my Methodist colleagues at Fuller seminary How do you make a scholar answer a serious letter? He said publish man publish But I was reluctant to do that I wouldn't like somebody to publish the anytime I goof I like to be given a chance to correct so I Prepared it as if it were going to be published I wrote on the top of it not yet published and then he answered with a two-page letter. Do you know what his defense was? What does it matter? Well, it was the first second third fourth or whatever revival now if President Reagan said our Country is unprepared The tragedy of American military strength is that the last war we ever fought Ended in 1814. What would you think of him? You'd say what about the Mexican War? What about the Civil War? What about the Spanish American War? What about World War one? What about World War two? What about the Korean War? What about the Vietnam War? Apparently so many of these scholars don't know that God worked in such ways in 1830 1858 1905 They think the last great awakening ended 1820. That's what they've been taught Actually what they teach our students is that these were movements Unstructured we would say of the Holy Spirit they say unstructured unorganized movements and then Finney came along and organized them and then Moody urbanized them and Then Billy Sunday made the big business and now we've got Billy Graham That's the way they teach in other words that the Holy Spirit stopped working Except through famous evangelists and that is not true now this great revival spread throughout the United States lasted till about 1842 and After that came serious division You know that the Baptist North and South split the Methodist North and South split the Presbyterians North and South split The Episcopalians were smaller and they held on to their unity and the same was true of some of the Lutherans who were still a minority but the major denominations split chiefly over the issue of slavery and Spirituality went down again for a while Now this revival of 1830 Was also effective in Great Britain It raised up a man called James Coffee That's spelt C-A-U-G-H-E-Y in Ireland. We call that coffee with a guttural But most Americans can't say coffee. So they say coffee He was born in Ireland Emigrated to the United States was converted in the revival and went back and won Thousands of people all over Great Britain also in Ireland in Dublin and elsewhere By the way, one of his converts was a young fellow called William Booth Who founded the Salvation Army? Now there are great revivals also in South Wales first and then North Wales in 1830s And then a moment stirred Wales again in 1840s in Scotland there were great revivals There was a very godly man called William Burns Who was pastor of a church at Kilsyth in Scotland that's where Whitfield had tens of thousands attending his meetings in a great movement of a revival in an earlier day and WH Burns was very much concerned over the spiritual condition of his parish. There was so much drunkenness so much violence So much gone right on happiness and sin His son William Chalmers Burns who was going out to be a missionary came to Kilsyth and preached in his father's parish church and So great was the power of God in that meeting that the prayers and crying of the congregation drowned out the voice of the preacher and This was the beginning of the great revival of 1839 that spread throughout Scotland at the same time in Ireland a country in which there's nearly always some trouble There was such an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit That the bishops of the Church of Ireland, that's Anglican Episcopalian talked about a second Reformation Alas most of their converts were lost because from the great potato famine followed about ten years later Many of the converts if not most of them emigrated to the United States Canada and Australia and other places One other interesting thing is that out of these movements came several renewal movements Restoration movements first of all in Ireland there started what was called a breaking of bread That became finally known as the Christian Brethren We call them the Plymouth Brethren that movement developed at that time of revival to try and restore apostolic practice In the United States a similar movement began under Alexander Campbell and others. We call them the disciples of Christ They wanted to get back to apostolic practice There was another movement a charismatic movement that started 1830 onto the preaching of a great Scottish Presbyterian called Edward Irving and He decided to try and restore apostolic practice but I found that That work was erect from within It was charismatic There were healings tongues Francis visions But some very determined men used the gift of prophecy or maybe I should say abused the gift of prophecy In trying to get their own way You say now, what do you mean by that? Well, I Was talking to a good friend of mine who went to a certain big charismatic gathering in the United States a few years ago and Someone there decided he needed straightening out but decided to do it by word of prophecy as if the Lord were speaking and he stood up and said behold my servant Patrick has done wonderful things in my name and He shall have his reward But he has yet many things to learn if they will but listen and so on I said to my friend Were you impressed? He said not a bit He said that were the Holy Spirit speaking to me He would know that my name is not Patrick my nickname is Pat So there was somebody faking and we're faking to try and bully him you see and sometimes within a charismatic movement you find faking of that type and the leaders of this movement Actually used the gift of prophecy to get rid of Edward Irving himself They're great leader, but got rid of him To show you what I mean by false prophets prophecy they prophesied there would be a point of 12 Apostles and that Christ would come before the last one died and so they did that and The last one died 1899 and the church died shortly afterwards So we've got to be very careful because whenever there's a movement there are always opportunists trying to have their own way By the way, the Catholic Apostolic Church as it was called was not only charismatic but liturgical They were as more liturgical and Anglican or Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox You know that in the Roman Catholic Church the priest wears vestments So do those who help them at the altar But not the common people but in the Catholic Apostolic Church everyone wore vestments. They're all dressed like priests But that movement died away Now there's a man called George Scott went from Scotland to Sweden in the 1830s He was chaplain to the British workmen who built the first railways in Sweden the British were the first was railroads He was not allowed to preach it was against the law to preach anywhere outside a Church of Sweden Congregation a Lutheran congregation But he got around that one of the noblemen had a chapel and so Scott began preaching there He learned Swedish very quickly and there started a great movement that swept the whole of Sweden They drove Scott out of Sweden, but he succeeded by a great man of God God called Carl Olof Rosinius Now there were also reactionary movements in Germany a Great leader arose and said God has spoken to us in these last days by his servant Martin Luther What need are we of the other denominations so they became very exclusive? And we have that movement among Lutherans to this day in this country in Holland There's another man who stood up and said God has spoken to us in these last days by his servant John Calvin What need of we of these other denominations they're outside the true faith and so they started an exclusive reformed denomination and Then also in England there were some arose in the Church of England who said we are the true Church they went back beyond the Reformers to the early councils and thus was strengthened a Tractarian movement, which was high church or anglo-catholic and even the United States Among the Baptists of all people There was one of these hyper confessional movements one man preached this famous landmark sermon Which said we are the true Church other people may get to heaven but they're not in the true Church in others a taught that the first Baptist Church was built in the banks of the Jordan and That anyone outside that was not in proper lineage These were reactions against revival But what was most encouraging about the revival of 1830 onward was in 1834 There began a phenomenal work in the kingdom of Tonga in the South Seas Now our friends are going down to New Zealand the people there the original people are Maoris they're Polynesians a bit like the original Hawaiians Tonga is of the same race and A chief in Tonga called Tapa Aho He's better known as George. It's much easier to say George than Tapa Aho Was wonderfully converted he decided that he had to do something about it His people were all pagans They worshipped the demons So what he did was he got a banana palm stalk, which rather soft wood wouldn't kill anyone could hurt them And while the priestess was under demonic power He took this and knocked her out The people were frightened They thought the heavens would open and fire would fall on this man, and that would be the end of him, but nothing happened The reign of the gods had ended they saw the buffoon His cousin Finao on another island in Tonga Took a different tack he asked the people to bring all the gods before him All these totems and wooden gods and the like and he spoke to him in Tongan He's I've brought you here. He said to the gods to put you to the test and So you'll have every chance I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to burn you So if you're really gods run for it And they all sat there of course So Finao ordered them to be burned The it took several days because the weather was damp, but the people are so frightened. They didn't go to work for days They were so frightened But nothing happened someone tried to poison the chief, but the missionaries helped him with emetics The reign of the gods had ended Now that was early but in 1834 a Visitation came from above you see these people had been converted from idols to serve the true God But they didn't know the gospel properly so after 15 years of preaching and teaching The baptism from above came and it made the tolerance into the missionaries of the South Pacific I Could tell you the same sort of things about Fiji Fiji was the haunt of cannibalism It's rather horrifying to read the records for instance King Tanoa was such a cannibal that when one of his own cousins offended him and fell at his feet Asking forgiveness the hard-hearted King refused and before the eyes of his courtiers chopped off the man's arm and began to eat it in front of him and When he gave the signal they fell on him and tore him apart That was Fiji before the gospel, but it was the Tongans who brought the gospel to Fiji We're also wonderful revivals in Graham's town in English-speaking South Africa You've all heard of David Livingstone his father-in-law was Robert Moffat, and he saw a great in gathering Botswana land further west Same time pioneers were entering into the Gold Coast That's now called Ghana and Nigeria and freed slaves went back to Sierra Leone and Liberia Not only that but another interesting thing happened and that is that the churches sent out missionaries to the ancient churches of the east to Egypt and Iran Persia and Iraq and Turkey and worked among the native Christians there and saw great revivals Now one man that arose from this great movement in the United States was Charles Finney I've already mentioned Finney to you before as a gospel Tactician he's second to none His advice is good to this day for instance. I remember I've never been able to forget. He says when the children of God Exaggerate the work of grace in their midst the spirit of God is commonly grieved That's good advice and he's full of Instruction like that, but I think he was quite mistaken when he said Revival is nothing more than the right use of the appropriate means Now you might say what permanent results were there out of this time of revival in United States in 1846 was founded the Evangelical Alliance They believed in divine inspiration authority and sufficiency of Holy Scripture the unity of the Godhead the Trinity of Persons in the utter depravity of human nature the incarnation of the Son of God justification of the sinner by faith alone the work of the Holy Spirit and conversion and sanctification the resurrection of the body the judgment of the world by Jesus Christ the internal Blessedness of the righteous and the inter the eternal punishment of the wicked That was the foundation The sheetrock is aware of the evangelical movement and so you'll find to this day those who are considered Evangelicals adhere to this it goes right back to 18 46 Now this awakening Came to an end about 1842 in this country. Maybe 1848 on the other side of the Atlantic and Then there came a time of Great Depression But when I next speak to you, I'm going to tell you the greatest and most wholesome awakening of all time That swept this country from coast to coast Filled every church with praying people and filled every downtown hall or theater with people to pray at noon That was the great revival of 1858 Let's take these lessons to heart Because as our friend said those who won't learn from history have to go through the whole thing again