The Great Korean Revival – A group of Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries in Pyongyang heard about the great outpouring of the Spirit in India and inquired, “Why couldn’t God do the same thing here?”  They prayed for months, until in January of 1907, the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pyongyang Presbyterian Church.  Thousands were […]

Azusa – The Welsh Revival sparked revivals all over the world—in the Kassia Hills in India, and at Azusa in Pasadena.  God used William Seymour, a black man, son of a slave, to lead the most extraordinary and powerful manifestation of His presence in the twentieth century.  Fire fell from heaven on the lowly building […]

Worldwide Awakening – After the death of Dwight Moody in Chicago in late 1899, the Chicago Bible Institute was renamed the Moody Bible Institute, and was led by R. A. Torrey. Torrey was led to pray regularly for a worldwide great awakening, the prayers lasting three years.  Then, guided by the Holy Spirit, Torrey put […]

Western Tribes. God kept the westward momentum of His Kingdom going through an extraordinary outpouring of prophecy among the tribes of the Columbia Plateau in the Pacific Northwest in the 18th century, roughly corresponding to the eastern great awakenings.  Each prophecy, a different one for each tribe, pointed to Jesus, fueling a curiosity about Jesus, […]

1857! By the year 1857, the effects of the Second Great Awakening were starting to be forgotten.  Suddenly another great wave of awakening took over in Ireland, Scotland and the U.S.  Again, for the third time, it was as though God were engineering things trans-continentally.  In Charleston, the Holy Spirit fell in Anson Street Presbyterian […]

Finney and Abolition. During the waning years of the Second Great Awakening, God raised up a lawyer in New York who was profoundly used, for a decade (1820’s) to bring whole towns to Christ.  Finney was not a devout abolitionist, yet a great many of those converted under his ministry became the leading abolitionists of […]

The Second Great Awakening. The awakening of 1799 in America (paralleled by the Clapham Sect movement in London) was far greater in breadth, length and influence than that which had happened 65 years before. One of the most influential leaders was a Presbyterian named James McGready who stirred up prayer for “the worst place in […]

Slave Prayer – Following Gabriel’s Rebellion in 1800, it became illegal for slaves to assemble throughout the southern states for “religious” purposes (because the cause of the rebellion was stated to have been “Methodists, Presbyterians and Frenchmen.”) Nonetheless, slaves were all the more diligent to come together for Christian prayer, and even contrived to pray […]

Robert Carter III – A prime example of the stirring of indignation against slavery came in the 18th century. Robert “King” Carter had been one of the most notorious plantation owners to own slaves in Virginia. But his grandson Robert—after his conversion to Christ at the hands of a Baptist evangelist—could not justify to his […]

John Newton – While power and might Christians championed the institution of slavery, spiritually awakened Christians began to sense that God wanted to use them to destroy this institution, as had St. Patrick in Ireland during the fifth century. John Newton, who had been pulled into slave trafficking in Africa as a young man, devoted […]