American History - Spiritual Fervency against the Backdrop of National Woes
Greetings all in this New Year of 2012. I can’t quite believe I am living and experiencing this period of history. Keeping in mind I am “only visiting this planet.”
History did not begin when we got here, nor will it stop when we depart.
A good friend, Jim Croft, just forwarded the following historical data against the backdrop of spiritual activity in the USA. As Jim says:
“I strongly believe in and have a history of encouraging prayer and fasting for revival. Christians should unite in intercession for the lost and for greater miracles to give attestation that we are God’s people who have answers for the infirm and the demonized. However, I don’t like the idea of programming believers to anticipate that the treasures of prayer and repentance will prevent sign events of the End-time that Jesus prophesied would happen from happening.”
Some might be familiar with Eddie Hyatt’s book, 2,000 Years of Charismatic Christianity. With it in hand, I encourage you to read the Outline of American History. http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/history/toc.htm
As you do so, compare the dates of national/regional revivals and renewed spiritual fervency against the backdrop of national woes. Again, you will find that increased intensities of revival, repentance, prayer etc. are preparations for rather than preventatives against national tragedies. Without fail heartrending wars and tribulations have followed close on the heels of every revival that America has experienced. Through various phases of the signs of the times courageous saints have always exemplified faith’s endurance to their fainthearted neighbors.
1) 1560 – Godly French Huguenots seeking religious freedom established a colony in Northern Florida. The Spanish annihilated it and them in 1565 and established their own colony in St. Augustine.
2) 1607 – British who were zealous for God settled Jamestown, VA. Their charter mandated attendance at morning and evening public devotions, no work on Sundays and respect for clergymen. Violators were flogged. By 1610, Indian wars and disease had taken all but 60 of the original 300; that’s an 80% loss. Between 1607 and 1624 approximately 14,000 people migrated to the colony, yet only 1,132 were living there in 1624. The 92% reduction came via battles; exposure to the elements; sicknesses; and some just gave up and moved elsewhere.
3) 1620 – The Puritans fled England’s & Holland’s religious persecutions and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Nearly half of the Mayflower’s 101 passengers perished in the first year and more would have done so were it not for the kindness of the Wampanoag Indian Tribe.
4) 1730-50 - The blessed phenomena of the Great Awakening propelled churchgoers to repentance. There were thousands of new converts and 80% of New England’s population began to attend church. In 1754 the French and Indian War started and twenty-one years later the nation was embroiled in the Revolutionary War. Some authorities estimate that church attendance subsequently fell to as low as 5% prior to the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s.
5) 1799-1806 - The Cane Ridge revival hit the mountain communities of Tennessee and Kentucky. Crowds of 25,000 traveled by foot and wagon from the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States to attend brush arbor camp meetings. These gatherings were noted for awesome atmospheres that evoked spontaneous outbursts of repentance. While heaven’s dew still rested on the thousands that had been transformed during the revival, the English attacked America and the War of 1812 began. Washington D.C. was put to flames and was almost completely destroyed.
6) 1857-1860 - Businessman Jeremiah Lanphier was anointed to lead his contemporaries in regular times of prayer. He began a businessmen's prayer meeting in an upper room of the Dutch Reformed Church in Manhattan, NY. At the first meeting, only six people showed up out of a population of one million. However, by March of 1858, every church and public hall in downtown New York was filled with people meeting for prayer. People began to be converted—10,000 per week in New York City alone. The movement spread throughout New England with the church bells ringing people to prayer at eight in the morning, noon, and at six in the evening. The end result was that in 1860, out of the nation’s 30 million people, more than one million were converted to Christ. In 1861, while millions of Americans basked in the joys of salvation’s refreshing, the Confederates bombarded Ft. Sumter and the War Between the States began. Scores of cities were burned and countless homes were pillaged. 620,000 soldiers lost their lives and over 400,000 troops of both sides suffered under the cruelest of conditions in Union and Confederate concentration camps. The abuses on fellow countrymen were so severe that war crime trials were held after the war.
7) 1901-1909 – First inklings of Pentecostalism and California’s 1906 Azusa Street Revival inflamed countless hundreds of thousands of Americans to seek deeper experiences with the Holy Spirit. That same year the San Francisco Earthquake killed 3,000. It was the most severe in our nation’s history. WWI came along in 1917 and in 1918 the Bird/Spanish Flue Pandemic visited the USA. 28% of the population was stricken and 675,000 died within hours of getting the first symptoms.
8) 1920 – Children were led in prayer at the onset of each school day and Bibles were commonplace in classrooms. The Temperance Movement primarily steered by zealous Protestant denominations, gained momentum and persuaded secularists that alcoholic beverages were detrimental. Congress passed the Prohibition Act that was not repealed until 1933. Bootleggers and organized crime families slipped in and replaced the law-abiding merchants that were shutdown. The stock market crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression continued until 1939. The Dust Bowl exodus fueled by droughts, dust storms, and hailstorms drove 2.5 million Americans from the agricultural Plains States and 500,000 wandered the land homeless.
9) 1946 – The Healing Revival and the Latter Rain Movement catapulted millions of Americans into miraculous healings and divine encounters on into the late ‘50s. The US entered the Korean War in 1950 and the anxieties inherent with the Cold War with the Soviet Block intensified.
10) 1962-1975 – There was an unanticipated outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Ecclesiastical Churches. Within five years scores of thousands of Episcopalians and Catholics and the like were baptized in the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues and became Bible enthusiasts. The Jesus and Charismatic Movements followed and hundreds of thousands witnessed attestations of the Holy Spirit and were converted to Christ. Those movements were the foundation of the Full-Gospel ministries of today. US forces entered the Vietnam War in 1965 and a decade of unprecedented civil unrest mesmerized our country.
11) 1995–2000 - Brownsville Assembly of God of Pensacola, Florida was doused with the tangibility of the Lord’s presence. That birthed the largest single church revival in American History. Five million visitors attended during the visitation’s first 5 years. Only Heaven knows how many of our fellow countrymen were inspired to carry the joyous torches of repentance, salvation and physical and emotional healing back to their hometown fellowships. Islamic Terrorists attacked America in 2001, provoking the Iraq, Afghanistan Wars and the Global War on Terrorism. Three devastating hurricanes and an oil spill have subsequently pounded Pensacola and the Gulf Coast Region.