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THE following report describes how
a man of God determined to fulfil revival conditions.
Jonathan Goforth had gone into a
period of retirement to recover from the exhaustion he suffered from the
harrowing experiences of the Boxer persecution. He thought back over his
thirteen years as a Presbyterian missionary in China. They were barren
years. Up till now he had argued that you could not expect a harvest all
at once. The sowing had to be done first. But now the years were passing
and there was no spiritual harvest. This was not right.
Restless and discontented, he
returned to an intensive study of the Scriptures: “Every passage that
had any bearing on the price of accession of power became life and
breath to me. There were a number of books on revival in my library.
These I read over repeatedly. So much did it become an obsession with me
that my wife began to fear that my mind would not stand it. Of
great inspiration to me were the reports of the Welsh revival of 1904
and 1905. Plainly, revival was not a thing of the past. Slowly the
realisation began to dawn upon me that I had tapped a mine of infinite
possibility.”
Then a friend in India sent him a
little pamphlet of selections from the writings of Charles Finney. On
the cover was a quotation of Finney’s which said that a farmer might
just as well pray for a temporal harvest without fulfilling the laws of
nature, as for Christians to expect a great ingathering of souls by
simply asking, without fulfilling the laws governing spiritual harvest.
“If Finney is right,” he vowed,
“then I am going to find out what those laws are and obey them whatever
it costs.”
As he gave himself to grayer and
Bible study, God began to deal with him. He graphically describes the
Spirit’s conviction concerning resentment against a brother
missionary. It came to a head in a meeting during which Goforth was
speaking. He was talking to the people while in his heart the Holy
Spirit was speaking to him. In the midst of his address, the speaker
answered the voice within: “Right, Lord, I’ll go straight round to his
house tonight and apologise.”
Jonathan soon found that Finney
was right. He was speaking to a crowd of Chinese at a fair when
he saw conviction move over the faces of his congregation. An
evangelist standing just behind the speaker said, “Oh, these people are
being moved, just as they were by Peter’s sermon at Pentecost.”
Later the same day as Jonathan was
conducting a meeting with a team of ten native evangelists, the same
thing happened.
“Conviction was written over every
face. I called for decisions and the whole audience stood up as one man,
crying, “We want to follow this Jesus.” I expected one of the
evangelists would be ready to take my place, but what was my surprise
when I turned round to find the whole band standing there motionless,
looking on in wonder.”
Now a great change came. It was as
if the people melted. They would begin to pray but broke down weeping.
“For almost twenty years we missionaries had been working among the
Honanese and had longed in vain to see a tear of penitence roll down a
Chinese cheek.” The tears were rolling now and it seemed like a miracle.
Korea
IN 1907 our ardent seeker went
with Dr. R D Mackay to Korea where a remarkable revival movement was in
progress. Here was a God-sent opportunity to explore further the secrets
of revival. Jonathan Goforth soon traced this great movement back to its
source. The missionaries at Pingyang had heard of the revival in the
Khasi Hills of India, and had made a firm agreement to pray together
every day at noon until a similar blessing was poured out upon them.
After a month one brother said,
“We are spending a lot of time and nothing comes of it. Let us
give the meeting up.” The majority disagreed and determined to spend
more time in prayer, though now they changed the time from 12 noon to
four in the afternoon. After many months the blessing came.
Jonathan was tremendously
impressed by all he saw and experienced in Korea. He says:
“It is one thing to read about revival in books. To witness its working
with one’s own eyes and to feel its atmosphere with one’s own heart is a
different thing altogether. Korea made me feel that this was God’s plan
for setting the world aflame ... Those missionaries were just ordinary
people. I did not notice any outstanding figure among them. It was in
prayer they were different ... They seemed to carry us right up to the
throne of God.”
On the way back to Honan via
Manchuria, Jonathan stayed at several mission stations and always told
the story of the Korean revival. Everywhere a deep impression was made.
At one gathering of missionaries he spoke at length, then realising that
the time had gone he cut out the last hymn and closed the meeting. He
looked up but no-one moved. All remained in prayer.
“The stillness of death seemed to
pervade the assembly. For at least six minutes no-one stirred.”
Gradually suppressed sobs were heard here and there. Then followed a
season of mutual confessions and reconciliations, and the beginning of
revival among the missionaries. They covenanted to pray each afternoon
at four o’clock until the revival came.
Manchuria
IN February 1908, Jonathan Goforth
traveled north to Manchuria, by invitation, in order to
conduct special services there. He began at Mukden amid a cold
unresponsive atmosphere.
He says: “I knew I had a message
of God, but I had no method. I could deliver an address and let the
people pray and that was all.” That, however, proved to be God’s method.
No sooner did he ask the people to
pray than the work of conviction became apparent. The work of the Spirit
began among the Christians. In meeting after meeting they stood up and
confessed their sins, sometimes tearing up their tickets of authority as
elders and announcing their resignations because they were unworthy.
Terrible sins were unmasked by the Holy Spirit - sins of adultery, and
theft, and murder. It was an awful shakeup in each church, with
distressing scenes as the leaders writhed under pains of conviction.
The Chinese Christians called this
the Little Judgment - the Judgment of the Holy Spirit by which they were
brought to a penitence that would save them from the Big Judgment at the
Great White Throne.
Dr. Walter Phillips was at one
gathering when the Spirit first fell upon the church in Manchuria. His
description is typical of what happened in many parts of China:
“It was at Chinchow that I first
came into contact with the revival. Meetings had been going on there for
a week, hence I was ushered into the heart of things unprepared. In
candor, I must add, with a strong temperamental prejudice against
‘revival hysterics’ in every form, mine is an unbiased witness.
“At once, on entering the church,
one was conscious of something unusual. The place was crowded to the
door, and tense, reverent attention sat on every face. The very singing
was vibrant with new joy and vigor ... The people knelt for prayer,
silent at first, but soon, one here and another there began to pray
aloud. The voices grew and gathered volume and blended into a great wave
of united supplication that swelled till it was almost a roar, and died
down again into an undertone of weeping.
“Now I understood why the floor
was so wet - it was wet with pools of tears! The very air seemed
electric - I speak in all seriousness - and strange thrills coursed up
and down one’s body. Then above the sobbing, in strained, choking
tones, a man began to make public confession. Words of mine will fail to
describe the awe and terror and pity, of these confessions. It was not
so much the enormity of the sins disclosed, or the depths of iniquity
sounded, that shocked one ... it was the agony of the penitent, his
groans and cries, and voice shaken with sobs; it was the sight of men
forced to their feet, and in spite of their struggles, impelled, as it
seemed, to lay bare their hearts that moved one and brought the
smarting tears to one’s own eyes.
“Never have I experienced anything
more nerve-racking than the spectacle of those souls stripped naked
before their fellows.
“So for hour after hour it went
on, till the strain was almost more than the onlooker could bear. Now it
was a big, strong farmer groveling on the floor, smiting his head on the
bare boards as he wailed unceasingly, ‘Lord! Lord!’
“Now a shrinking woman in a voice
scarcely above a whisper.
“Now a small boy from the school,
with tears streaking his piteous grimy little face, as he sobbed out: ‘I
cannot love my enemies. Last week I stole a farthing from my teacher. I
am always fighting and cursing. I beseech the pastor, elders and deacons
to pray for me.’
“And then again would swell that
wonderful deep organ tone of united prayer. And even as the prayer sank
again the ear caught a dull undertone of quiet sobbing, of desperate
entreaty from men and women, who, lost to their surroundings, were
wrestling for peace.”
China
AMONG the Chinese Christians the
terrible Boxer persecution of 1900 had left a legacy of hatred. Many of
the young people had seen their parents brutally murdered. Some of the
evangelists had returned home to find parents, wives and children dead.
The result was widespread bitterness and a desire for revenge which
poisoned and crippled the life of the church. All this was cleansed away
as revival torrents swept through the church.
Pastor Goforth, moved from the
astounding scenes in Manchuria, the province of Shansi, and then back
again in his own district of Honan, preaching three times a day in many
places. With only a few exceptions the scenes were always the
same-conviction and confession, and restitution and reconciliation, on
the part of the Christian; and then the cleansed church moving
out in powerful evangelism among the people.
The exhilarating sense of God’s
Presence was wonderful. Crowds thronged the meetings. Thousands were
converted and baptised. Demons were cast out. Sickness was healed. Opium
smokers and alcoholics were delivered. This glorious work went on for
years, renewing the church and saving the people.
So Jonathan Goforth found the
secret of revival. Let me underline four elements in the secret.
1
His own desperate longing for
revival.
2
His search in the Scriptures and
in the writings of others who had found the secret.
3
His own brokenness and yieldedness
as the Spirit convicted and guided.
4
The covenanted praying on the part of the missionaries that persisted
until revival came.
But the heart of the secret was
Jonathan himself. He was the pioneer of the revival.
As he himself said:
“Revival is simply the
Spirit of God
fully controlling the
surrendered life.” |
