An Article of Faith

It was one o’clock in the morning when the Lord awakened a young man from his sleep, prompting him to rise from his bed and do business with God. Instead of the normal response of a young student, this 26-year-old chose to heed God’s call. For the next three hours, God opened up the Scriptures and taught His eager disciple fresh truths from His Word.
The next night the same drill. And the next. Night after night, for many months, God poured His life and truth into a willing heart. This amazing season of personal, Word-saturated illumination and revival was so sacred that the young man would barely talk about it later. The culmination of those early morning hours was a God-given vision to see his tiny nation come to Christ through a revival among God’s people and spiritual awakening among the lost. In fact, he began to pray that 100,000 people would be converted to faith in Christ.
He returned to his hometown to share a simple four-point message on a Wednesday night. The message:
1. You must put away any unconfessed sin;
2. You must put away any doubtful habits;
3. You must obey the Holy Spirit promptly;
4. You must confess Christ publicly.
What happened next confirmed that it could not have been the mere persuasiveness of the young student that moved people to respond. People came back the next night, and the next, and the next, and soon the crowds exploded. Each night almost every church in every village was filled. There were no planned programs but the simple movement of God’s Spirit, breaking His people and then calling the lost to Himself – 70,000 were converted in two months, 85,000 in five months, and more than 100,000 in six months.
Before the awakening, God was working across Wales in many individual lives and churches, bringing believers to fresh surrender. But students of the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 would later trace the national ignition point to the personal revival that Evan Roberts experienced during the evening of his first meeting on Monday, Oct. 31, 1904. It starts with one. (Taken and adapted from: OneCry: A Nationwide Call for Spiritual Awakening and Fresh Encounter with Henry Blackaby and Claude King. For more information see: www.ONECRY.com.)
Pray that Christians around the world, in your own city, community, and church, will respond to God’s call to holy living, prompt obedience, and public witness to the joy of following Jesus Christ. Pray that God will so transform your own life that the change will be evident to everyone around you – family, relatives, fellow church members, neighbors, students, and coworkers. Pray for widespread spiritual awakening in your city and in our nation.
“If My people,” declares the LORD, “who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV).

Jessie J. Charpentier Sr. is pastor of Jenkins Memorial Baptist Church in St. Martinville.