Información recogida

With all revivals there is a prelude to the kiss of divine favor that erupts in the manifestation of God’s presence among His people. There were already signs of revival among the Welsh people, but the coming of Evan Roberts catapulted the revival movement into its popular phase. “The course of the Revival under the leadership of Mr. Evan Roberts in South Wales is irresistible. It overshadowed everything else.

Its reports made up the chief feature in the South Wales daily press for

many months. There was no building large enough to contain the crowds.”²⁴

Evan was an intensely humble, deeply spiritual, and extremely pas-sionate young man. He gave himself to prayer and intercession, asking the Lord to baptize him in the Holy Spirit. While attending a meeting with the Rev. Seth Joshua, Roberts began to cry out, “Bend me, bend me.” “In this prayer of total submission, he received a revelation of the love of God. Evan surrendered to the will of God that day and allowed His compassion to fill him. One of Evan’s friends described him during this period as a ‘particle of radium whose fire in their midst was con-suming.’”²⁵

In October 31, 1904, he launched a series of meetings that would last for two weeks and then quickly spread to the rest of the world.

Roberts was not the typical preacher of his time. Instead of standing behind a pulpit and preaching a sermon, he would often walk up and down the aisles, preaching and asking questions of those sitting in the pews. Some of the meetings would last until 4 a.m., and as the people

Evan Roberts

marched out, there would be crowds gathering for the 6 a.m. prayer meeting.

As it was with Seymour, Roberts was an extremely humble man, refusing to be seen as the leader of the revival and rarely allowing him-self to be photographed. It was this humility that drew the people; and once there, they would come under the awesome manifestation of God’s presence. It was a supernatural experience to be in one of his meetings. He carried a unique ability to steer the presence of God into a meeting. Roberts rarely preached and was most comfortable when all were singing and worshiping God. Praise was dominant, but prayer was always right behind. One of the features of the revival was the audible praying of many at the same time, and yet the sound of the rise of this audible prayer created no confusion. Many of God’s children were refreshed and revived, and thousands were being saved. An American observer said that, “in the Welsh revival there is no preaching, no order, no hymn-books, no organs, no collections and no advertising.”²⁶

A sense of the Lord’s presence was everywhere. It pervaded, nay, it created the spiritual atmosphere. It mattered not where one went the consciousness of the reality and nearness of God followed. Felt, of course, in the Revival gatherings, it was by no means confined to them; it was also felt in the homes, on the streets, in the mines and factories, in the schools, yea, and even in the theatres and drinking saloons.²⁷

It is estimated that over 100,000 were converted to Christ. Roberts said that there was no secret to this revival. It was simply, “Ask and ye shall receive.”

Under a firestorm of criticism in 1905, the Welsh revival eventually began to diminish. Every revival in the history of world has had its crit-ics and detractors. It is much easier to stand on the sidelines and throw your verbal spears than it is to thrust yourself totally into God’s holy work. Winkie Pratney, in his book on revival, said that the end of Evan

Roberts’ public ministry was “one of the strangest endings of a ministry in history.”²⁸

In the spring of 1906, Mr. and Mrs. Penn-Lewis sequestered the beleaguered Evan Roberts at their home in Leicestershire where they coauthored the book, War on the Saints. It is clear that as one studies the developing relationship between Mrs. Penn-Lewis and Evan Roberts that she eventually brought great confusion to his mind concerning the miraculous events of the Welsh revival. “This newly-formed team of Roberts and Penn-Lewis also published a magazine titled, The Overcomer. This was a Penn-Lewis idea in which Evan wrote an essay and she wrote the remainder of the issue.”²⁹It is my opinion that the mag-azine was just another tool of Penn-Lewis and her continued need to bring validity and popularity to her own work. It attacked early Pentecostal groups and listed their practices as satanic.

It was noticed in 1920 that Roberts was no longer contributing to the magazine, and he eventually moved to Brighton from where he wrote several booklets. The revival had passed, but it would not be for-gotten, for the seeds of this revival were carried across the Atlantic Ocean and planted in fertile ground to manifest again in a new people.

E

1. Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth and Trust, 1842), 214.

2. Winkey Pratney, The Cane Ridge,

http://www.revivalfiretulsa.com/caneridgerevival.html.

3. Richard and Kathryn Riss, Images of Revival (Shippensburg, PA: Revival Press, 1997), 36.

4. Ibid., 37.

5. Robert M. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited (MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979), 28, 29.

6. Charles Schmitt, Floods Upon the Dry Ground (Shippensburg, PA: Revival Press, 1998), 151.

7. http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/people/famousfirst1143.html 8. http://www.biblewheel.com/History/C19_Holiness.asp

9. http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyan_theology/theojrnl/21-25/23-13.htm 10. Harold E. Raser, Phoebe Palmer, Her Life and Thought (Leiston: The Edwin

Mellen Press, 1947), 79.

11. Richard Wheatley, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer (Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984), 640.

12. http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/35/Amanda_

Smith_missionary_with_a_quest

13. Robert Anderson , Vision of the Disinherited (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 1979).

14. http://www.webedelic.com/church/penthisf.htm .

15. Gordon Lindsay, John Alexander Dowie, A Christ for The Nations, No copy-right.

16. Roberts Liardon, God’s Generals (New Kensington, PA: Whittaker House, 1996), 21.

17. Liardon, God’s Generals, 41.

18. Anderson, Visions of the Disinherited, 128, 129.

19. Liardon, God’s Generals, 51.

20. Maria Woodworth-Etter, Signs and Wonder (Chicago, 1916), 48.

21. Liardon, God’s Generals, 72.

22. www.cogic.org/history.htm

23. R.B. Jones, Rent Heavens (Ashville, NC: Revival Literature, no copy-right date), 47.

24. Liardon, God’s Generals, 84.

25. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, 44.

26. Jones, Rent Heavens, 42.

27. Winkie Pratney, Revival—Its Principles and Personalities (Lafayette, LA:

Huntington House),1994, 153.

28. Liardon, God’s Generals, 100.

29. Liardon, God’s Generals, 110.