A Note from Hixon Frank
Hey Church!
James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and PRAY for one another, so that you may be healed. The PRAYER of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.
You wouldn’t have noticed young Evan Roberts if he walked past you. At 12 years old, he looked like every other kid following his father to work in the dangerous Welsh coal mines of the 1890’s. He was a skinny, baby-faced intelligent boy that wasn’t overly “book smart” nor did he seem to have a lot of interest in that regard.
He would spend the next 11 years working with his father until, at 23 years old, he became an apprentice. He would later recount his days in the mines as some of the most impactful of his life. For it was in those mines that God stirred him to PRAY for his beloved Wales.
The more he PRAYED the more he began to have a God ordained vision showing “Wales being lifted up to heaven.” Those days made him a “man of prayer.” Not a man who PRAYS, but a “man of PRAYER.” Every day he would spend no less than one hour in PRAYER, often much longer than that. He arranged his schedule to include that hour. If he woke up late, then it was work that had to wait and not his PRAYER time.
Later, following conventional wisdom, he applied to and was accepted at a seminary in Newcastle Emlyn in Western Wales, much to the delight of his parents. But after a brief time there, he believed God was calling him to leave seminary and preach “wherever was found a pulpit.” He believed that “PRAYER requires only a faithful man (woman) and a God who receives it with delight!” He left even more determined to “PRAY without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) …”
Focused primarily on asking God to “give him 100,000 souls,” he began to preach in pulpits whenever he could, often volunteering or “pestering” churches to use him in some capacity. Not known as much of a preacher and having a “somewhat clumsy delivery,” this young man, now at the ripe old age of 26, preached a simple message of repentance.
His message had 4 points in each sermon…
- Confess all known sin, receiving forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
- Remove anything in your life that you are in doubt or feel unsure about.
- Be ready to obey the Holy Spirit
- Publicly confess the Lord Jesus Christ.
The result of his years of faithful PRAYERS eventually became known as the Welsh Revival (1904-1906).
Revival historian J. Edwin Orr says “150,000 people became members of local churches in Wales, with 250,000 being born again. From the very beginning of the revival, there was a strong sense of conviction of sin, with wrongdoing publicly confessed. Instead of sports, the hot topic in the pubs was about Evan Roberts and the revival. Drunkenness was cut in half, causing bankruptcies in many pubs. Crime was cut in half. Former houses of prostitution turned into homes of heavenly singing, encouraging their former customers to go to the revival meetings. The Bible Society in Wales could not keep up with the request for their Bibles. People began to pay off their bad debts. Some of the toughest characters in the Welsh valleys were converted. Pit-ponies could no longer understand the miners’ commands as they had stopped cursing the ponies. The police, often having no one to arrest, would come to the revivals to sing in quartets. In one court case, the prisoner came under conviction, confessing his sins. The judge then preached the gospel to him, and the jury spontaneously broke out into Welsh revival singing.
Just like with the 1970s Jesus movement, most of the Welsh revival leaders and participants were very young. The revival services were marked with informality, laughing, crying, dancing, joy, and brokenness. Many of these youth did spontaneous Jesus marches, singing songs and visiting the pubs to invite people to the revival. No one bothered about the clock. People often stayed until two to three in the morning, and then marched through the streets singing hymns. A participant, David Matthews, commented, “When I left the heavenly atmosphere of the church for home, I discovered that it was five in the morning! I had been in the house of God for ten hours – they passed like ten minutes!”
As predicted by Roberts, the Welsh revival had a worldwide impact, birthing over 30 revivals around the world, including in China, Korea, India, East Africa, and the 1906 Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles, impacting hundreds of millions of people!”
No historian or eyewitness to the move of God would report that Evan Roberts was a good preacher. No one would say that he could “preach the roof off” or “call the stars down” but ALL would report that PRAYER was the very breath of Roberts’ soul. He seemed to be constantly praying. He is known, in spite of being a mediocre preacher, as the “Father of the Welsh Revival.” Because of his unwavering commitment to PRAYER.
It has been 120 years since the Welsh revival and the 50 Years since the Jesus movement here in the US.
Church Family, we know that God moves in His timing and not our own. BUT what if we were to ask God to come in power first in our own lives, and then at GABC, in Tyler, and East Texas, and Texas and the United States? What if we were to …
- Confess any known sin and ask God to show us the sin we don’t even recognize? (Ps 139)
- Remove those things in our lives that hinder our faith? (Prov 28:13)
- Obey the Holy Spirit instantly. (Eph 4:30)
- Publicly Confess Jesus Christ as Lord. (Romans 10:9)
THIS GENERATION, (that includes ALL of us) could usher in a great Spiritual Awakening like the Welsh revival. It has been said that every great spiritual movement of God was preceded with a deep abiding commitment to PRAYER.
Would you join the GABC PRAYER MINISTRY in praying for revival? That we might “put away our petty differences” and focus on what matters eternally? And that God might use us as a catalyst for a movement of God that we cannot explain with facilities, programming, or even great preaching!
Note:
- Click here for Matthew West’s new song “Don’t Stop Praying”
- Have a prayer request that we can present the Father for you? Click here!
- Pray for your neighbors by using this app.
You have been prayed for today!
Hixon