The Church Found Her Song

Leslie Basham: Here's an emotional guy: Kevin Adams.

Kevin Adams: You know, if I was unemotional about my wife, I would have problems with her, I know. She loves me being emotional. It shows that, you know, that she's done something for me. But, you know, I want to be emotional as well about my God.

Leslie Basham: It's Friday, November 19th. This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Imagine if the people around you suddenly became passionate about serving God? What if there was a new appreciation for holiness, honesty and forgiveness? What would it do to our neighborhoods, cities and even our nation?

It happened during the Welsh Revival of 1904. And, Nancy, it's been exciting to hear what God did in the lives of His people.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Oh, Leslie, I love hearing this kind of story over and over again. Earlier this week, we heard about Evan Roberts. He was a 26 year old, relatively uneducated blacksmith's apprentice, who was burdened to see 100,000 souls added to the kingdom in Wales.

In just a short time, about a five-month period, God accomplished that goal. You know, when 100,000 people's lives are transformed, it's going to make a big difference in all of society. Today, we'll hear from Kevin Adams, a pastor and historian, about the changes that this revival brought.

If you look around today, and you feel grieved or heavy-hearted by all the sin you see, I think today's programs will offer you great hope. Here's Kevin.

Kevin Adams: The atmosphere of the nation was changed. Not only did it become a spiritual nation at that time -- so many things were happening -- but people's lives in the places they worked were transformed. Many of the stories are stories about the coal mines, simply because so many of the people in the Wales worked underground.

I heard an eyewitness account just the other day (came across one on an old tape) and it's from a North Walean coal miner. He said, "Oh, the mines were transformed by the revival. We would get up half an hour earlier to have prayer meetings. You'd get something like 200 people, miners, underground, holding revival services. The miners and the bosses got on. It was a joy to go to work."

You know, that's hard to believe. With the long hours they worked, and they worked underground, and the hardships, but you know, he said that "heaven came." Heaven came, underground.

This wasn't just a down-to-earth religion, this was an underground religion at that time. There'd be excitement.

This story, I love -- and this comes from North Wales -- is of one person getting really upset about the revival and what was happening underground.

This guy comes to him and says, "What's wrong?"

He said, "Well, why are you so upset?"

"Why," he said, "I'm going to lose my job."

"What do you mean you're going to lose your job?"

"Well," he said, "I look after the horses. The problem is now," he said, "that all the miners, they're getting converted, and they're looking after their own horses. They're so kind to the horses."

But he didn't lose his job, as happens. It was all right. The other ones, of course, were the horses themselves because the horses stopped working. They went on strike in the revival. They were on strike simply because they couldn't understand the commands of the converted miners.

Miners one day would be swearing and cursing at the horses, and, of course, they'd go to a revival meeting and were converted. They'd come back; suddenly, their attitude has changed. The horses don't understand. They don't know how to respond.

I would love to have been underground at that time, the singing underground, you know, on a regular basis. People would witness. Then, of course, there was the effect on the crime rates. The crime rates went down. Drink was the besetting sin at the beginning of the twentieth century in Wales. When people were converted, they stopped getting drunk, which meant there was less crime.

I love to tell people who think that Christianity is outdated that this is the most relevant message in the world. If crime rates go down, if there is less violence in society, surely this is relevant news to anybody.

Take family life. Now, there aren't any wonderful stories of the miraculous, in the sense that people think of miraculous, that I know in the Welsh Revival. There is no turning of water into wine, for instance. But "there is," said one person, "the turning of beer into clothes and food for children and families who had gone without the years previously."

There is that transformation, and that transformation was an ongoing transformation, a transformation of society into better families, into people who cared for one another, into people who cared for their kids. I think it's the most relevant message in the world.

Take the story of a doctor. A journalist comes up to him and says, "What do you think of the revival?"

The doctor says, "I think it's marvelous." He said, "What's happening is everybody is paying back their debt. People are paying back all the things that they owed me. This is wonderful."

You know, there was a baptism of honesty that came upon people's lives at that time. People who'd argued years ago, people who wouldn't forgive one another, began to forgive one another. There was reconciliation between people who hadn't talked for years.

Some people look at the Welsh Revival and they say, "Well, it only lasted for a little bit. So many went back and whatever." Of course, some people went back. Jesus said that in the parable of the sower. Some would respond, and then they'd forget it. That is normal.

But, you know, so many of them went on, and on and on, they became leaders. They became missionaries. They became key people in their own churches. More than anything else, they became new people.

Some people were saying, "Well, the effects wore out after a few months, or after a year and a half." They often put this to me, thinking that they're going to get me, you know. And they say, "Why did the revival publicly die out in 1906?"

My answer is simple: "You know, why does a football match last 90 minutes? You know, it lasts however long it lasts because that's how long it lasts. That's what it's meant to be."

It's meant to be something that revives us, revives the church, and then the church keeps on keeping on. The other thing, of course, is that the effects did last in people's lives for years and years and years until they died.

The one that I always remember -- she was an older woman. She was in her late eighties at the time. Her name was Jessie Davis. I asked her this question. I said, "Tell me, you know, a lot of people say the revival died out early on. You know, how do you respond to that? You know, you were converted in the revival."

And this is how she spoke: she said, "I want to tell you this," she said. "The flame that started in my heart in 1906 is still aflame today," she said. "It's never gone out. The problem with today's Christian is there's too much television and not enough heavenly vision."

I always remembered those words and the way she said them. I knew -- because I was interviewing her -- that she was holding a regular prayer meeting in her home when she was in her eighties. And she said, "The fire never died out." It never went out in her heart.

That is the story of thousands upon thousands. The Jesus they met and fell in love with in the honeymoon of 1904 became the Jesus who they loved even more deeply until the end of their lives.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: And doesn't that make you long, hunger and thirst to see God send genuine revival in our day, here in the twenty-first century in this country. I believe so strongly that what God has done in the past, He can do today.

We've been listening to Kevin Adams, a pastor and historian, talking about God's incredible power to transform lives. All this week, we've been learning about the revival that began in Wales 100 years ago, around this time, and then spread into many other parts of the world, including the United States of America.

Today, we looked at some of the effects that that revival, 100 years ago, had on people's lives.

Leslie Basham: Nancy, as we've heard today, when revival came, God challenged people's hearts in the areas of honesty, forgiveness, holiness, repentance and obedience. These sound like chapter titles from your new workbook, Seeking Him.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: They are, and in that book, we've identified twelve of what we think are the most essential elements of revival. When we get into a right relationship with God, it leads us to holy living, for example, and a clear conscience with others. It allows us to forgive others and to walk in the fullness and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Seeking Him is an interactive, 12-week study on revival for individuals and small groups. It can help all of this become a reality in your life and in the lives of those around you.

Here's the way Seeking Him works. Each week you do a short personal Bible study on the kinds of topics we've just mentioned. There's a place for you to answer questions that will help you understand and then, more importantly, apply the material.

Then, if you're going through Seeking Him with a small group or a Bible study class, you can use the weekly discussion questions that are included.

If you're a teacher or leader in your church, I'd encourage you to get a copy of Seeking Him to see if it would be appropriate for your church or your small group.

Then, beginning the third week of January, not many weeks from now, we'll be beginning a new series on Revive Our Hearts called "Seeking Him." It will be a 12-week series that corresponds to the 12 chapters in this Seeking Him book.

Now would be a great time for you to order a copy of that book, to make arrangements to go through it with some others who would like to seek the Lord together with you.

We're praying that God will use this book, this series, and a special Pastors' Resource Kit that we've developed to transform thousands of lives and to bring revival to the hearts of God's people once again in our day.

Leslie Basham: For more information, give us a call at 1-800-569-5959. That's 1-800-569-5959, or go on-line at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Nancy, thanks for sharing the story of the Welsh Revival with us this week. I'm curious to hear how it affected our listeners. If you'd like to let us know, drop a note to Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I've so enjoyed reliving the 1904-05 Welsh Revival this week. I've asked our guest, Kevin Adams, if he would close this week by leading us in prayer.

Kevin Adams: Heavenly Father, thank You that You're a God of revival. You're a God who's alive. Lord, death has no dominion over You. Lord, Your Son displayed the death of death. And Lord, You are alive. Father, we call on You, would You again visit Your people, rend the heavens, and come down, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

*Song: "Touch Your People Once Again," Steve Green, P. Karlsson, copyright 1983 Whitefield Music/ASCAP, from the album He Holds the Keys.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.