I have long been a student of revival. My bookshelves are lined with multiple volumes about historical revival. Some of these revivals are famous. Others are more obscure. Each tells its own story of the glory of God coming down and kissing earth.
This week I read of one such obscure revival. I've never seen this story in any other book. I found the story in Matthew Backholer's book Revival Fires and Awakenings; Thirty-Six Visitations of the Holy Spirit.
In the early 1830's in a small mining town in Wales God showed up in a marvelous fashion and an unusual way. In the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales wickedness abounded. The town was noted for its crime, gambling, cheating, sin, and prostitution. It looked like an unlikely place for a revival.
One Sunday evening a visiting pastor came to preach in the small Methodist Chapel. The service began at 6:00 p.m. The visiting minister asked a man in the congregation to open the service in prayer. This man had been praying for his town for a long time. Typically opening prayers to start a service last a minute or two. People begin to squirm if the prayer lasts longer. God definitely had something else in mind that evening.
On this night the Spirit of God moved in this man and his prayer lasted for twenty minutes. He asked God to sweep across the community saving people and turning people back to Him. As soon as he stopped praying another man rose to his feet spontaneously and picked up where the first man left off and continued in prayer. This scene was repeated. By this time the glorious presence of God filled the tiny chapel. People kept crying out to God.
Nine hours later! Let that sink in. For nine hours those people were caught up in the presence of God in prayer! Nobody preached. Nobody sang special music. No choir sang. People just prayed. For nine hours they prayed! That in itself would be revival enough but the story does not end there.
At 3:00 a.m. the church leadership decided to end the meeting due to the fact that the men had to go work in the mines at 6:00 a.m. The service was dismissed and as the people walked away from the chapel they came to a cross road where each would walk to their home. The groups dispersed in four different groups headed in four different directions. Each group only traveled about forty yards before four different prayer meetings broke out on the road. Soon each group returned to the chapel for more prayer.
Around 5:00 a.m. some of the men left the prayer meeting for work in the mines. When they arrived in the mines what happened next proved miraculous. As the men from the prayer meeting entered the mines their co-workers began to fall to their knees under conviction and cry out to God for mercy. The men from the Methodist chapel went around to their fallen colleagues to pray for them. The owners of the quarries fell under conviction also and many were saved. It is reported the move of God spread as far as thirty miles away.
What an incredible story. Think about that the next time the pastor steps up in a Sunday evening service and calls on someone to pray. Think about how God used one praying man who remained sensitive to the Holy Spirit and prayed more than a token prayer that historic Sunday evening. God could do the same thing in your church as well as in Faith Community. That is exciting. What if God showed up this Sunday evening and called your church to pray for nine hours straight and then an additional two hours. Eleven hours of prayer! Would you attend that service? Would stay the whole night through even though you had to work the next morning.
I have written and preached this repeatedly for the past two decades. Revival is costly. We think we can ask God for revival and yet have it on our terms. When God really shows up everything changes. He takes over. I long to see those days again.
I am grateful that story did not get lost over the years. Nearly two centuries have passed since God moved so dramatically in that town. Oh, that He would do it again where we live for the glory of His name.
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