IT has come, that which multitudes of the Lord’s people have been crying to Him for, and our lack of faith has been rebuked.
Many times of late have we been asked whether a revival similar to that experienced in 1859 would be witnessed before the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ. The growing unbelief of our times, and the wholesale rejection of the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures almost made one feel that such a movement was impossible.
But God is on His throne; and the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. The Spirit of God, too, is as able to move in the midst of unbelieving Christendom as in the streets of guilty Jerusalem in the past (Acts 2).
The present movement seems to have burst forth spontaneously and suddenly. Man has not been prominent. No well-known and popular preacher has been specially noticeable, though, doubtless, the great Cardiff Mission had been used of God to awaken His people, as well as in the conversion of large numbers of souls.
One of the most striking features of the present season of revival is the spirit and power of prayer. Prayer meetings and not preaching are prominent. These meetings are continued till four and five o’clock in the morning, the people dispersing to get a little food and returning again to spend hours of the day in singing, praying, and rendering testimony to the power of Christ to save.
Another noticeable feature is the realized presence and power of the Spirit of God. The ministers prepare their sermons but cannot preach them. After speaking a few words one minister announced that the meeting would be “left to the guidance of the Holy Ghost,” and then one after another poured forth their hearts in prayer, praise, or testimony.
We feel that the power of the Lord is very present all around just now, and, wherever energy and faith is given to gather people together for prayer of a definite character, great results will follow. Then, again, almost everybody is ready to listen and speak of these matters. The feeling that God is moving throughout the land is becoming very general, even amongst worldly men. The appalling infidelity found amongst the highest classes in worldly society has had the effect of startling many into a feeling that the devil had them in his grip — and, after all, what is more dismal than unbelief?
One thing that encourages us to believe that this work is of God is the fact that it has begun with prayer on the part of Christians all over the world, and God does hear when His people cry to Him.
Brethren, let us continue instant in prayer, remembering that “all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive”