What is God Doing? – From the Reformation Onward

[00:00:00] First in Matthew, chapter 16 and verse 18 and 19. [00:00:08] Matthew 1618. [00:00:16] And I also say unto thee that thou art Peter. [00:00:22] And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. [00:00:47] And then in Zechariah and chapter four, Zechariah and chapter four. [00:01:03] Zechariah, chapter four. And from verse six, then the angel answered and spake unto me, saying, this is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts, who art thou, o great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. And he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of grace, grace unto it. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hand shall also finish it. And thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. For who hath despised the day of small things. For these seven shall rejoice and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. These are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through the whole earth. [00:02:07] And then in revelation and chapter ten, verse seven. [00:02:22] But in the days of the voice of the 7th angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings, which he declared to his servants the prophets. [00:02:40] Now im going to read finally from revelation 21 and from verse one. And im just going to read the first six verses. Im going to read it in William Tyndales version, the version that was the burden of his heart and for which he died a martyrs death. [00:03:07] It is, of course, the version which underlies our old authorized version. [00:03:13] And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were vanished away, and there was no more sea. [00:03:24] And I, John, saw that holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride garnished for her husband. [00:03:36] And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the older things are gone. [00:04:09] And he that sat upon the seat said, behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, write, for these words are faithful and true. And he said unto me, it is done. [00:04:24] I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, I will give to him that is a thirst of the well, of the water of life free. [00:04:37] He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. [00:04:53] This evening, we will not be able to go over at all anything, really, that we've said, although naturally, some of the lessons that we've already underlined last week must come out again this week. But I want to begin this evening at the Reformation, from the Reformation, really, last week, you remember, we dealt with the period up to the Reformation, all these names going on this line down, and then we dealt with this little piece here, the Reformation era, Wycliffe and hus, Jeremy of Prague, and then Erasmus, Luther, Zwingli. So on the era of the Reformation. And now this evening, I want to, from this point, go on in all the different recoveries since then. Once the foundation stone had been recovered, which was, you remember, threefold, can you remember it finally, by, after all this great battle over the Reformation era, three things by 1517 became crystal clear. First, man is justified by faith alone in Christ and not by his own works. [00:06:15] Secondly, every believer has direct access to God through Christ and does not need any priest or clergy to mediate. Three, the Bible is the sole source of authority for all matters to do with faith and life. These three things, by 1517, have had become crystal clear. And that was really the foundation stone, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the word of God. These two things, once that had been recovered, the Holy Spirit began to recover, the whole counsel of God, having got the essence, the fundamental principle, as it were, in its place. Then the Holy Spirit began on this great work of recovering the whole counsel of God, so largely lost in what Luther called the babylonian captivity of the church. Now, I didn't, you would think I might have thought up that lovely title, but Luther actually wrote quite an article and preached a number of times on what he called the babylonian captivity of the church. And he considered it from the church fathers right down to the 15th century was the babylonian captivity of the church, the church going into exile, becoming a worldly system, a political system, very much an outward organizational, institutional thing. [00:07:54] Now, in that downward line, coming down in spite of these different groups that appeared all the way through and lived really, according to the principles of the beginning. [00:08:07] Much of the whole council of God, by and large, was lost and the Holy Spirit began once this great foundation stone had been recovered to recover the whole counsel of God. Now we can only mention certain well defined moves of God. In one way or another, they all overlap and are interrelated. [00:08:35] It's easy in one sense to speak of them as if they're each sort of little independent moves of God. But as we found out, all these groups overlapped and were interrelated, some of them so much so that they're very loosely given names. None of these groups took these names. They were all names given to them by their enemies. But these names tended to cover a whole sort of variety of companies and even teachings which had a loose connection together. The same here in this period of the Reformation, the waldenses and the Albigenses, especially the Vaudois or the Waldensians, they had very much to do with the reformers. They even sent a delegation to see Farel in Geneva and so on. They had much connection with each other. So we cannot really speak of each one of these. It might be dangerous if you should think of each one being an absolutely independent, indigenous move. They were all one way or another related. They drew from others. [00:09:42] Just as an example, Wesley, who was a vicar. The Wesley brothers, Charles and John, were both vicars, ordained ministers of the Church of England. [00:09:52] Their great grandfather was one of the men ejected in the act of uniformity in 1662 and was an outstanding man. Both his great grandfather and grandfather both were dissenters. They were both nonconformists. But his father returned to the church, to the established church. And so, of course, John and Charles were born into it and brought up into it. But their mother was a dissenter. And so the old staunch fire of great grandfather and grandfather, plus mother's side, came out well and truly in the two Wesleys later. We shall see that in a moment. But the point is, you see, you cannot say that this was just a completely separate thing. It all has connections. [00:10:35] So just that. Word of caution. All these successive moves began by a sovereign intervention of the spirit of God. [00:10:49] One of the things that becomes crystal clear as you really begin to look at the history of the church is that it was the Holy Spirit breaking in and apprehending a man just like that. And something happened and then through him, many others caught fire. Sometimes it wasn't just one man, sometimes a whole group of men. [00:11:08] We tend to know one man because by his writings or his influence, his name has come down to us, we've tended to forget some of the others. Well, now, what was the first recovery move? It was the puritan era. The Puritans here, the Puritans really roughly from about 1560 until 1670. That's the year at least of their heyday. [00:11:37] Now, this was a name again given very loosely to all who held reformed views, very strongly indeed. In other words, there were, of course, lots of people who, because the king Henry and later on the other monarchs had adopted the principles of the reformation, they just fell in with it. They would have fallen in just as easily with a return to the old. [00:12:05] But those who the thing was in them, they were born of God. The thing was right inside of them. These people were called Puritans. It was a name given not to, as some people imagine, narrow cranks who hated any joy or anything that in any way spoke of a full life. This name was given to a remarkably wide range of people, quite normal, healthy, sound, godly men and women. [00:12:39] They were particularly against church vestments, church ornaments, the sign of the cross and even the bishops and even organs. [00:12:56] They were particularly known because they used to fulminate against these sort of things at great length. [00:13:06] That's how you knew a puritan. They lived very simply, very plainly. They did not believe in any extravagance of any kind. Believing that was really a sign of romanism and popery. [00:13:18] They flourished particularly in the period of the Commonwealth. Now, for those of you from abroad, I'll just explain that it may surprise you to know that for a while Britain was a republican for about 20 years, 30 years of our, well, not quite 20 years of our history, we were called the Commonwealth. This was when the king, Charles I, was arraigned before parliament, sentenced to death and executed. And Britain came under the benign dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell. [00:13:56] Many evil things have been said about Cromwell, but just recently a staunch and devoted catholic, Lord Longford's daughter has written an extraordinary biography of Cromwell which has shown that he was a very warm and broad hearted man. Anyway, under the cromwellian period, the period of the Commonwealth, in 1642 to about 1660, the Puritans flourished. They came into their own. It was the first time, and for even afterwards, for another hundred years, the only time that in Britain that people had had complete freedom of religion. Now, with all these things that are said about Cromwell, please remember that, that it was the first time that everyone was allowed to worship God exactly according to their conscience. [00:14:53] And we owe that to Cromwell. [00:14:56] Now, the Puritans, there's no doubt about it, were a remarkable band of people. [00:15:01] They had. They saw something. They were not satisfied with the Reformation. In many ways, we could say that John Calvin and John Knox were the fathers of the Puritans. Now, Calvin, who lived from 1509 to 1564, and Knox, who lived about the same time, 1513 to 1572, both felt that the Reformation had not gone far enough. Of course, Knox was really virtually the disciple of Calvin. And these two, both of them believed with a number of other men the Reformation had not gone far enough and set about inquiring in the scripture as to how far the reformation should go. [00:15:50] The result of their endeavors was what we now know as the Reformed Church, or the Presbyterian Church of Holland, of Switzerland, of France, the Huguenot Church of Scotland. You've got the Presbyterian Church of Wales, slightly different, because that was the product really of more of Whitefield, George Whitefield, later. But anyway, they were greatly influenced by these to men. Now, when you read some of the books that these men wrote, you begin to realize just what godly men they were. And far from being dull, dry, old, dead bones, there's wealth in it. Listen to this. An ark for all God's knowers in a gloomy, stormy day. Or the best wine reserved till last. Or the transcendent excellence, excellency of a believer's portion above all earthly portions whatsoever. Now, this is by Thomas Brooks, late preacher of the gospel at Margaret's new fish street, and still preacher of the word in London and pastor of a congregation there. Now, this was, of course, a man still in the church. There was only one church at that time. You note, he will not call it St. Margaret's. He calls it Margaret's new fish street. He does not refer to himself as vicar or even minister. He says he's a preacher of the gospel and still preacher of the word in London and pastor of a congregation there. That's one man. Then again, you've got another man. Here's another title. These are all first editions. Sips of sweetness or consolation for weak believers. [00:17:39] John Durant, preacher of the Gospel in the city of Canterbury, doesn't say whether he was in the cathedral, but he says he's just a preacher of the gospel in the city of Canterbury. And then again, here's another one. Two treatises. The one handling the doctrine of Christ's mediatorship, wherein the great gospel mystery of reconciliation betwixt God and man is open, vindicated and applied. The other of mystical implantation, wherein the christians union and communion with and conformity to Jesus Christ, both in his death and resurrection, is opened and applied by John Brinsley, minister of the gospel and preacher to that incorporation. Now to that incorporation is the church of God at Great Yarmouth. And he uses the word incorporation meaning those who are incorporated into Christ. To that incorporation. Isn't that beautiful? Now you get some idea of what these men believed. They don't forget they were all ministers of the Church of England. There was no nonconformists just at that time. Here's another. The salvation of the saints by the appearances of Christ now in heaven hereafter from heaven, a treatise wherein the appearance of Christ now within the veil in order to the ensuring of the salvation of believers and likewise is appearing again the second time to instate believers in that salvation is humbly inquired into and held forth by John Durant, preacher of the gospel in Christ's church, Canterbury. So now we know it's Christ's church, Canterbury. He doesn't say Christ church, he says Christ's church Canterbury. So you see how they changed some of the old, old names that are Christchurch and all the rest of it. Here's another one. Now. Some of these men, by the way, were martyred. A number of these men were martyred later. This is one of them. Joseph Carroll. An exposition with practical observations continued upon the book of Job. There are how many volumes? Yes, six or seven volumes of this. And these are all bound together. There are two or three bound together in each. [00:19:41] And it is by Joseph Carroll, preacher of the word and pastor of the congregation. There. [00:19:48] Now you see, you get some idea of these Puritans. Far from being the fusty, dry, dead old bones that some people would have us believe, narrow minded and joyless we get an amazing picture of them from their own words. Just by listening to them we begin to see these people were like ourselves. They'd seen something and they were seeking to return to something. There were four main groups within Puritanism which at the beginning all of them held together. The tragedy was the division. [00:20:20] Now this is a point in nearly all these moves. The division that came very quickly. [00:20:28] These four groups or lines were not clearly defined till after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the act of uniformity in 1662 whereby all ministers in the church had to sign a declaration that they would be faithful to the bishops, that they recognized the sovereign as actual head of the church on earth, that they would uphold the various sacraments and so on. This caused absolute consternation in the country and 2000 ministers refused to sign 2000. Now remember, we had a small population in those days, I suppose. What about a million souls? If that in Britain and 1000 2000 ministers through conscience refused to sign the declaration and were ejected from their livings, put on the street. [00:21:44] That's how nonconformity began in Britain. The very best men in the church were thrown out. [00:21:52] Now when they were thrown out, they immediately fell, unfortunately into four groups. [00:22:00] There were of course the evangelical churchmen. They were not thrown out in some way. They managed to twist their conscience and sign the declaration. They were satisfied with the condition of the church as it was then and they signed the declaration and stayed in it. The second group and by far the largest group were the Presbyterians. [00:22:22] At first it seemed that the Church of England would become Presbyterian. Indeed, Charles I actually signed a document to say that he believed and gave right that the whole Church of England should be reformed according to Presbyterianism as we call it now. [00:22:41] When later the restoration of the monarchy, Charles II withdrew that and there was all the trouble that followed. [00:22:51] They believed in a presbyterian form of the church, of the church government, but still wedded to the state. That's very important. They stood for elders. Now this is, in those days was absolutely revolutionary. Government of the church by elders instead of government of the church by bishops. One bishop had a whole great area which he governed. They said the Bible did not teach that every church should be governed by elders and that the elders were bishops and there should be at least two bishops in every church. So this is the presbyterian view, Calvin's view, Knox's view. They also refuse to accept that a monarch who may be debauched, even immoral, unbelieving, should be looked upon as the head of the church on earth. They said they could never accept Jesus Christ. They said, is the head of the church earth as he is the head of the church in heaven. [00:23:57] They also believed in synods which was a coming together of the churches by the sending of delegates from all the different churches where things were discussed and where decisions were taken which were binding upon the whole. In other words, they believe, it has often been said, as we believe, that individual believers should have fellowship one with another. The Presbyterians think so. Churches should have fellowship one with another. We should not be alone. You'll see the point of that a little later. [00:24:30] There are two groups I think we should mention in particular because they had very great influence upon the presbyterian puritans. [00:24:42] The first were the Huguenots. [00:24:45] The Huguenots had a tremendous influence, of course, through Calvin upon Scotland and indeed upon the whole of Europe, wherever Calvinism really came. I mean, for instance, the Netherlands. They left an imprint upon the Netherlands which has never been effaced. The Huguenots, of course, suffered terribly. Later, when they suffered so terribly, thousands upon thousands fled to Holland and to the protestant states of Germany and to Britain and to Scandinavia. They bought with them all kinds of crafts and arts, which they then proceeded to set up in Britain. And of course, the protestant countries became the farther wealthier because of it, and France became infinitely the poorer. But the Huguenots had a tremendous influence because the thing had to go deep in them in order to lose everything for their faith. The other group were the Covenanters, the scottish Covenanters. They have left, I suppose, an imprint upon Scotland that will never be a face. To the Lord comes. [00:26:01] Of course, it all began with the king trying to introduce the prayer book into Scotland. Now, the Scots have always had an aversion to the prayer book. It goes right back to celtic days, to the celtic Christians. And the influence of the celtic Christians was never lost, really, in Scotland. When the king tried to reintroduce by law the prayer book into Scotland, it caused tremendous upset. And the result was that people began because they were rejected and are not allowed, for instance, to be members of parliament, the scottish parliament. They were not allowed to have any say in anything. They began to meet out on the moors. And so the whole story of the covenant has begun, which was just the same as the huguenot story. Bitter persecution, wickedness perpetrated by the English upon the Scots, which has never been forgotten in Scotland, cause for very much bitterness down through the years. Interestingly enough, it was William of orange landing at Torbay. And the chair is downstairs in the hall that commemorates. It actually was carved in 1892. He landed in 1688. That's how I know, because it's all on the chair. [00:27:19] When William of Orange landed at Tor Bay, that was the end of the persecution in Scotland. And that's why, of course, the Ulster people and the Scots are so fond of William of Orange. [00:27:38] Well, that's a little bit of history. Both these have left an indelible mark. They're these Puritans left an indelible mark upon Puritans, or through the Puritans, upon us. The next group of the Puritans were the congregationalists or independents. Now, this was quite a large group, though not nearly as large as the presbyterian group. They are sometimes called brownists, after one of their outstanding leaders, Robert Brown. They believed in the independence of each congregational local church. You see, so great was this movement of the spirit of God that everyone began to investigate the word of God. What does the word of God teach? What is the church. How should we be governed? It was a tremendous thing. They were not enemies. They were all just seeking. Some felt that there should be this federation of churches under synods, presbyterianism. The others felt, no, each congregation is independent. No local church has the right to boss another local church. [00:28:45] Every church is equal. So we got the. The independents or the congregationalists. They believed in elders, not bishops. As the Presbyterians, they made a real attempt to bring the people of God together as believers. They refused to divide on the matter of baptism. What they did was this. They said, we will accept those who believe they should be baptized as believers. And we will only baptize the children of which at least one parent is a born again believer. [00:29:23] So it was a kind of compromise arrangement. It was an attempt to bring together all believers as believers. Now some of our most famous names in english british church history belong to the independents. [00:29:41] Owens, you've all heard, I'm sure, of John Owen. And here is the book which calls such a furrow in his day. It's again a first edition. An inquiry into the original nature, institution, power, order and communion of evangelical churches. The first part with an answer to the discourse of the unreasonableness of separation. Written by Doctor Edward Stillingfleet, dean of Paul's, not St. Paul's. And in defense of the vindication of nonconformists from the guilt of thism. John Owen, doctor of divinity. John Owen, of course, wrote treatise after treatise. He was a tremendous pamphleteer as well as a great preacher. And he left his mark upon congregationalism and upon the Baptists as well. John Owens, of course, there were others too. Not only John Owens, there was Isaac Watts. All of you know Isaac Watts, him we sing. Isaac Watts, him all the time. He was one of these that came from these groups of independence. A little later on, there was John Robinson. Now, I told you last week and again I referred to it this week. John Robinson's speech when he was exiled to Holland. When he was not allowed to go with the early fathers to the United States where they felt they would have freedom of conscience to worship God as was right. This was his parting message. I'll read it to you. Part of it to you. [00:31:20] I charge you before God and his blessed angels that you follow me no further than you have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:31:30] If God reveals anything to you by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as you were to receive any truth by my ministry. For I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of those reformed churches which are come to a period in religion and will go at present no further than the instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw. Whatever part of his will our God has revealed to Calvin. They, the Lutherans, will rather die than embrace it. And the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery, much to be lamented. For though they were burning and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, but were they now living, would be as willing to embrace further light as that which they first received. For it is not possible the christian world should come so lately out of such thick anti christian darkness, and that perfection of knowledge should break forth. [00:32:50] Now, when you consider that that was in 1612, you realize it's got a mudden ring about it. You'd almost feel someone we know speaking in terms like that. [00:33:06] Those were the independents. Then there was a fourth group of the Puritans that were called Baptists. [00:33:16] They believed that only believers should be baptized. Now, this was not a new fangled notion, as was so often said then. And since Paulicians had practiced baptism by immersion for believers, the bogamiels had practiced believers baptism. The Waldenses and the Albigenses had both practiced baptism by immersion for believers. Then, after that came the Anabaptists, over which there was so much controversy. The first congregation of Anabaptists met together in Zurich as early as 1520 515 25. They were terribly persecuted. No group was persecuted more terribly than the Anabaptists. [00:34:11] This was partly because under the name of Anabaptists came a whole lot of revolutionaries, Anarchists. They called anyone Anabaptists who might be a political revolutionary, a political anarchist, as well as those who were unbalanced or excessive. Extremely. The favorite form of execution was drowning. [00:34:38] Children, women as well as men were sewn up in sacks, thrown into the rivers of Europe in their thousands. [00:34:51] In Salzburg, for instance, those of you who know the city of Salzburg know those beautiful fountains that are so beautiful, they're marred forever for me, although I think they are very, very beautiful by the thought and the memory that thousands of Anabaptists were drowned publicly in them. [00:35:12] There were sad excesses amongst the Anabaptists. I give you just one example of it. Jan Matiz and John of Leyden called the Munster prophets, both from Holland. They believed that they had a command from God to set up the new Jerusalem in Munster, the city of Germany. Earlier, a man called Hochman had believed that he had had, in a vision, a revelation from God that he should set up the new Jerusalem in Strasbourg, but unfortunately, drove everybody out of Strasbourg, the Anabaptists. So that finished that. So I think I'm right in saying he was martyred. But these other two took up the fallen standard and went to Munster, where, because the burgess, the burgmeisters of the city, allowed in Anabaptists, Anabaptists poured in from all the persecuted, so that there were thousands upon thousands of them in Munster. But then began a reign of terror led by these two men who said that polygamy was to be practiced, that marriage was an earthly institution. [00:36:32] They had visions, they had prophesyings, all kinds of things. This is the thing that turned, of course, Luther. He became horrified by the whole thing. Finally, the Catholics surrounded Munster, and there was the most terrible massacre of everybody. [00:36:48] It was something that was to leave its scar upon the christian testament for many years. And the word anabaptist became a dirty word. Anyone who was called an Anabaptist, it was a terrible thing. [00:37:04] Menus Simon, another man, a very fine man, redeemed the whole situation. He was born in 1496 in Holland, in 1536, because he could find no one else to baptize him. And having become convinced, although he was born a Catholic, he'd become convinced that infant baptism was wrong. And especially when he saw the Anabaptists being drowned, including his own brother, he became convinced that believer's baptism was right. He could find no one to baptize him. So he baptized himself. And congregations began in Holland and spread throughout Holland and central Europe into Russia. These are now known as Mennonites. That's where they're called. But they never accepted the name Mennonite. They do today, but in the old days, they did not. Now when we come to Britain and the British Puritans. John Smith was the first british puritan to become convinced on the matter of baptism. [00:38:06] He and others of like mind had had to flee England for Holland. In Holland, he became absolutely convinced, could find no one to baptize him. And he baptized himself and then baptized the rest of the congregation. So in 1609, the first english speaking baptist church began meeting in Holland. Although they refused to call themselves a baptist church, they said they were a gathering of believers or disciples. [00:38:40] They believed they stood for the independence of each congregation. For elders, they were against the union of state and church and were democratic in structure, much more so than the independents. They believed that everyone had a right to say what they felt in the government of the church. Now, we all take this for granted, but in those days it was revolutionary. And this is why the word anabaptist and communism in a sense, got mixed up. They felt that these people were absolutely wild revolutionaries who would overthrow all government and all kind, because they believed one person, one vote. That's virtually what it was. And never forget all of you, even if you don't believe in believers baptism, that it was the Baptists who finally really gave us democracy as we know it. One vote. [00:39:34] One person, one vote. [00:39:38] I just read to you something from Bunyan. Of course. I suppose you all heard of John Bunyan. Obviously pilgrim's progress. He was, of course, the most famous of the Baptists. And this is his statement, which I thought you would like to hear. [00:39:56] I will not let water baptism be the rule. The door, the boat, the bar, the wall of division between the righteous and the righteous. [00:40:07] The Lord deliver me from superstitious and idolatrous thoughts about any of the ordinances of Christ and of God. Since you would know by what name I would be distinguished from others, I tell you I would be, and hope I am a Christian, and choose if God should count me worthy to be called a Christian, a believer, or other such name which is approved by the Holy Ghost. [00:40:30] The early Baptists did not believe that only those who were baptized by immersion should fellowship together. They believed all could fellowship together, but they would practice no other form of baptism other than believers baptism. Well, now, those are the four groups into which the Puritans flowed. They left a mark upon things in the church which has never been eradicated. Every single believer in this room, especially all english speaking believers here. You owe a tremendous amount to these people, by the way. I didn't say, but many of of them, of the leaders, were martyred. It was a baptism of fire. [00:41:16] The next recovery move I want to talk about is the Quakers. [00:41:21] I've dated about 1646. That's the middle of the 17th century. The Quakers were one of the most remarkable moves of the Holy Spirit in church history. George Fox was born in 1624 at 19 years of age. In 1643, he left home and started wandering, not as a hippie, but as a kind of sort of hippy, just wandering up and down the country, walking out in the hills and fields, searching for God. He called it his agonizing search for God. In 1646, three years after wandering up and down the country, inquiring of all kinds of people, talking with both churchmen and dissenters, as he called them. And finding no answer, he was converted through an inward revelation of the spirit of God. He heard the Lord speak in his heart that he should not search any further but cast himself upon the mercy of the Lord. [00:42:20] The reformation had become largely an outward matter. [00:42:24] There was much legalism, much formality, endless discussion and bitterness about church government, church forms, church methods, church rites. [00:42:36] John Milton wrote, the new presbyter is but the old priest writ large. [00:42:45] All over the country were a people called the seekers. This was a name given to a whole section of people not bound by any denomination or personalities. People who were fed up and sick to death of all the deadness of the reformation and were seeking for a real inward experience of Christ. They were dubbed the Seekers. Now, Oliver Cromwell said of them, to be a seeker is to be the best sect next to a finder. Isnt that good? [00:43:20] To be a seeker is to be of the best sect next to their finder. George Fox, anointed with the spirit of God, became a prophet to these seeking souls everywhere. Thousands upon thousands were converted. They became known in the very beginning as children of the light. Because of the great accent of George Fox's preaching on the light of God. [00:43:49] They became later known as Quakers. We don't quite know. Some said it was because as they sat in silence in their meetings, the spirit of God came upon them and they shook, especially those who stood up to take part. And therefore they were called in derision Quakers. Others say it was because when one of their number was being judged, he turned to the judge and said, judge, you should before the Lord of all the earth. And the judge said, I am no Quaker. [00:44:20] And that's so, some say, is how the name came. But we don't honestly know. Only in 1800 were they called the Society of Friends. As late as 1800, they were against a paid ministry. One of the things that absolutely was like a red rag to a bull, as far as George Fox was concerned, was salaried ministers. [00:44:46] And there's the famous occasion where in one place the priest was speaking from Isaiah 55, I think it is where he says, ho, everyone that Thirsteth, come ye to the water buy with no money and no thing. And Fox could bear it, no longer stood up and said, you hypocrite. [00:45:07] How can you say that it is without price, without money, when you take 300 pounds a year off this congregation? [00:45:14] Now you can well understand how the early Quakers were disliked. They were very much against the paid ministry in the church. They were very much against outward ordinances. They were very much against church buildings. They refused to call them the church. They always called the steeple house. [00:45:33] They were very much against a special dress and so on. They saw everything in terms of spiritual life. Now some people said that they did not put any action on regeneration. They did. They put a tremendous emphasis upon regeneration as the first step. It was later Quakers who became wishy washy and started talking about just inner light and revelation and all the rest of it. The early Quakers, they made again and again. The point in fact the way fox began was by an understanding that these places, as he called churches and chapels, were not really the church at all, but the church were. The gathering together of truly born again believers were generate through the Holy Spirit. Now they saw everything in terms of spiritual life. They believed in the priesthood of all believers, they believed in the sovereignty of the Spirit of God in all gatherings of believers, that means the Holy Spirit could lead whom he wanted to as he wanted to. They believed in spiritual gifts. Let me quote a paragraph from Edward Burrow of 1652. [00:46:43] In all things we found the light which we were enlightened withal, to be alone and only sufficient to bring to life and eternal salvation. And so we ceased from the teachings of all men and their words and their worship and their temples and their baptisms and their churches. And we met together often and waited upon the Lord in pure silence from our own words and from all men's words, and hearkened to the voice of the Lord and felt his word in our hearts to burn up and beat down all that was contrary to God in us. And while waiting upon the Lord in silence, as often we did, for so often we did, for many hours together, we received often the pouring down of the spirit upon us, and our hearts were made glad, and our tongues loosed, and our mouths opened, and we spake with new tongues as the Lord gave us utterance, and as the spirit led us, which was poured down upon us on sons and daughters, and the glory of the father was revealed. And then began we to sing praises to the Lord God almighty and to the lamb. [00:47:57] That sounds a bit of a modern ring about it, hasn't it? [00:48:02] It's quite remarkable. In 1654, they organized a mission. 1654 they organized a mission to the whole of England. 60 to 70 of them went out by two gentrys, mostly young men, speaking anywhere and everywhere, in barns, in the open air, anywhere that they could. Thousands were converted. After the restoration, they suffered terrible persecution indeed. One of their historians, writing at the time, said there were seldom less than 1000 of us in prison at any one time. [00:48:39] Now I just quote another little portion of the Quakers before we, in one sense, leave them. [00:48:48] This is the handwritten account of by the well, this is the statement by a man who's just been judged and thrown into prison where he died later. [00:49:02] This is what he says to them. [00:49:10] You understand now why the true. [00:49:14] Just let me get it first. [00:49:17] From the beginning unto this day and you have gotten their words to trade and paint yourselves with as the Jews did the true prophets words. And made a fair outward profession with garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous as you do now with crying up the ordinances of Christ and the ministers of Christ. And says, if you had been the days of your forefathers you would not have slain the martyrs that died in Queen Mary's reign. But we say unto you, they suffered by the same murthering spirit which you manifest to be in you who persecute by her laws and do imprison and falsely accuse under the name of wanderers, seducers and disturbers of your peace. The faithful servants of the Lord Jesus Christ whom he hath called forth of the world and made conformable to him in his death through the sufferings and renewing of the spirit in the regeneration. And this we declare to you all that do act the things before are mentioned and yet make a profession of faith in Christ. That they who did in times pass or that do now believe in Christ Jesus and are regenerate and born again through faith in him are no persecutors. Neither did they. Nor do we who believe in Christ persecute, falsely accuse or imprison any that speak in the name of the Lord and exhort people to repentance. And we do again declare in the presence of the Lord God of heaven and earth. And it shall be answered with the light in all consciences that you that do imprison, falsely accuse, persecute and scorn those that declare against sin. In your streets and in your steeple houses under the names before mentioned are shut out from amongst all the saints and children of God that believe in the Lord Jesus. And you are found in Cain's way, who slew his brother. And then they end. This was his last words before being judged. And all dear brethren and companions in the kingdom and patience of the Lord Jesus who are his faithful witnesses lift up your heads and rejoice in the Lord who has counted you worthy to suffer for his namesake and stand unmovable in the light, life and power of God and be bold and of good courage. Be of a sound mind and be obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ and forget the things that are behind and press forward in the pure light through the strait gate in the daily cross to that which is contrary to the light and tread and trample upon that which would shape your confidences and be faithful to the end that you may receive a full reward with all the faithful ones who suffered before you from the Lord God of Sabbaths who is a consuming fire to his enemies but is ever was and abides forever the refuge of all that in him. Glory and praise be given to him forever and ever. Wouldn't think it was in a courthouse. And this is what it says at the end. From the righteous seed whom the world in scorn calls Quakers, whose bodies are in outward bands in the common jail in Northampton. [00:52:03] There they died. [00:52:06] Well, the Quakers, there's no doubt about it, were to change the face of Britain. They taught us above all else the essentially inward and organic nature of the church. They teach us to be very careful about being too dogmatic about steps to experience. [00:52:24] These people never sang a hymn in the way we know it. [00:52:28] They rejoiced in the Lord. They didn't believe in any kind of music. They didn't believe in any kind of emotion. They sat in absolute silence. And yet, before long, the spirit of God fell upon them and they prophesied and had revelations, visions and moved together under the anointing of God. It's most extra. It's salutary. [00:52:48] It stops us from getting a bit too tied up and a bit too dogmatic. These dear people. [00:52:55] Well, we'll have to leave them. But they have taught us something, these people who tell us even to today I won't mention names, that baptism something should happen and must happen to you while you're being baptized. These people didn't even have baptism. They didn't have the Lord's table. They refused to have any of the church pattern or anything. Yet inwardly they had it all. [00:53:18] They knew more about the meaning of baptism than thousands of people who've been baptized as believers. [00:53:25] They lived in the spirit of it. They knew more about communion with Christ. Christ and receiving Christ into their hearts than those who eat the bread and the wine Sunday after Sunday. [00:53:36] Isn't that a salutary lesson to us? I think so. It teaches us one great thing. God was recovering first. Here it was the matter of justification by faith and the word of God. Here it was to do with the independence of congregations and elders the fellowship of churches as well, strangely enough, and baptism. And here it was to do with the organic life, the inward life, the essentially inward life of everything to do with the spirit. Now we come to the Methodists, approximately 1740. There could have been few periods in history as certainly for Britain, which were so dark as the beginning of the 18th century. The church, state and free church was in a lifeless condition. Quakerism had itself become formal. They started wearing the hat and the buckle and these and the vows and all the rest of it. Wickedness, lawlessness, immorality was on all sides in many places. It wasn't even safe to travel parts of the country you didn't dare go into. Pat's not here, so I can say you didn't dare go into Cornwall. [00:54:51] No one who was in his right mind went into Cornwall in the good old days. [00:54:58] You fight to death of them. Before the great evangelical awakening, they were scattered over the country, it's true, house groups who were meeting together for fellowship and for prayer. But there were very few and far between. A little group of students met together in Oxford, John and Charles Wesley, George Whitfield amongst them. They used to rise early in the morning for devotions. None of them were born again, but there they were getting up each morning. In 1738, John was converted in a little house group meeting in Fleet street of the moravian brethren when Peter Boehmer read the preface to Luther's Galatians. [00:55:43] Now you see the connection again. All the relations. The Moravians, we haven't even talked about the Moravians, another great move of God. But Moravians, Luther, and here we've got John Wesley converted three days before John got converted, Charles got converted. [00:56:02] We don't quite know when George Whitefield got converted, but it was sometime between, as far as far as I know, 1736 and 1738. Thus began the great evangelical awakening. Now one of the great emphases in this awakening was new birth, whereas before it had been justification, particularly the Wesleys. And Whitefield preached new birth as an absolute necessity. And much more than that. They preached also very much on holiness, holiness and particularly the Wesleys. They said that holiness was a second work of grace. It was a definite distinct experience that Christians should seek, for it was included in their salvation, but they must go on to it. Now, one of the great emphasis all the way through Wesleyanism is this going on and possessing. And you get it in all their hymns again and again. Saviour from sin I wait to prove that Jesus is thy healing name. It's not of an unsaved person, it's of a believer. [00:57:12] Jesus, thine all victorious love shed in my heart my soul abroad and so we can go on and go on. O thou who camest from above, the pure celestial, thy kindle, a sacred flame of love on the mean altar of my heart. [00:57:34] No, just looking backwards to everything. I've got it all. I've got it all. The great emphasis of the Wesleyan and whitefield, the great so called Methodist revival was this not only a matter of new birth, but seeking, seeking, going on, pressing on, entering into what they call first of all, you get saved. Then you must go on to full assurance, and then from full assurance you must move on to perfect love. [00:58:01] When you read some of the hymns of Wesley, you begin to understand they're just tremendous. Of course, unfortunately, most of the wesleyan hymns we now sing are emasculated. I mean, they're just not what. We've got lots of verses cut out. We can't possibly sing them all. Some of them were 16 verses, 17 verses long. But in those good old days, they sang a lot. And furthermore, a good two thirds of the congregation couldn't read or write. And so they had someone teaching them line by line to get the truth into them. Now I'm just going to read to you. Oh, I'll say one other thing first. One of the great accents in the early Methodist movement, like the Quaker movement, was the class meeting. Now, the class meeting was a group of people meeting together all over the country. [00:58:45] They were meeting together simply as believers. Some have not yet found the Lord, but all could take part as led by the spirit of God. One would read a portion of the word. Another would give a little word of testimony. Another would suggest to him, someone else would pray or praise the Lord. [00:59:02] Wesley said, when the class meeting dies, Methodism will die. And the class meeting died about the beginning of this century and with it virtually Methodism died. Now I'm going to read to you two hymns because I want you to see that these people, like the Quakers, the Quakers, refused to call themselves Quakers. They were just children. They were children of God, disciples, believers. [00:59:30] It was only later that they accepted the name Quaker. They always referred to themselves as those called by others Quakers. The Methodists always called themselves those called Methodists in scorn by others. I've got to Wesley's hymns with the preface by himself. And in it it says, for people called Methodists by others, they refuse to call themselves in the beginning Methodists. Now listen to this hymn. I'm going to read five verses of it. Christ, from whom all blessings flow, perfecting the saints below hear us who thy nature share, who thy mystic body are, join us in one spirit join. Let us still receive of thine still for more on thee we call thee, who fillest all in all. Closer knit to thee our head. Nourish us, O Christ, and feed. Let us daily growth receive more and more in Jesus live. Jesu we thy members are. Cherish us with kindest care of thy flesh and of thy bone. Love forever love thine own. Move and actuate and guide divers gifts to each divide placed according to thy will. Let us all our work fulfill never from our office move needful to the others prove. Use the grace on each bestowed tempered by the art of God. Sweetly now we all agree, touched with softest sympathy, kindly for each other. Care. Every member feels its share wounded by the grief of one, all the suffering members grown honoured. If one member is all partake the common bliss. [01:01:25] Many are we now, and one we who Jesu have put on. There is neither bond nor free, male nor female. Lord, in thee love, like death, hath all destroyed, rendered all distinctions void. Names and sects and parties fall. Thou, o Christ, art all in all. [01:01:49] Now. I mean, you see, that's what they believed. Far from being a distinct denomination, as Wesley said in all his journals, I am journeying to the people of God in so and so. Or I've heard news of the people of God in such and such a place. He never referred to them as Methodists. They never a party, never a set. Even more marvelous is this one. I suppose this would now become considered unsingable. We will put that in our supplement. That hymn in the fool. But here is another one that I feel. I suppose perhaps some of you will tell me whether you do think it could be singable. Happy the souls that first believed Jesus and each other cleave joined by the unction from above in mystic fellowship of love. Meet simple followers of the land. They lived and spoke, spake and thought the same brake the commemorative bread and drank the spirit of their head on God they cast their every care wrestling with God in mighty prayer. They claimed the grace through Jesus given by prayer. They shut and opened heaven to Jesus they perform their vows a little church in every house they joyfully conspire to raise their ceaseless sacrifice and praise. Propriety was there unknown none called what he possessed his own. Where all the common blessings share no selfish happiness was there with grace abundantly endued a pure believing multitude. They all were of one heart and soul and only love inspired the whole. Oh, what an age of golden days. Oh, what a choice, peculiar race. Washed in the lamb's all cleansing blood anointed kings and priests to God. Ye different sects who all declare lo, here is Christ, or Christ is there your stronger proofs divinely given? Show me where the Christians live joy in every soul that looks to thee in bonds of perfect charity now, Lord, the glorious fulness give and all in all forever live. [01:03:57] Well, I wish I could go on reading to you hymns of Wesley, because there's a lot more in this book, which are the ones that you realize. You see what's happened to Methodism. I'm not being unkind, but you can see what's happened to Methodism. These hymns are not even in the. Many of them are not even in the book. It's tragic. Some are, of course, but they're not in any of our books, are they? I think that one class is in a very, very warped and pale addition. But you see, the point is this. We come to a point. All these men, in their beginnings, did only believe in one people of God. [01:04:36] They did not believe in some sectarian type of foundation for fellowship. Now, this great move of the spirit, the Methodist, was to change the face of Britain, and the effects of. Of it are still with us today. Now I'll move on swiftly to the Brethren. 1830. In the early part of the 19th century, quite spontaneously, in a number of centers all over the British Isles, companies of believers meeting as believers came into being. In Dublin, in Plymouth, in Bath, in Barnstaple, in north Scotland, all over the place, groups came quite simultaneously, without any connection with each other. They came together simply as believers. And another extraordinary thing, they all were breaking bread together. [01:05:27] The most extraordinary thing, the foundation of their fellowship and gathering, was Christ alone. [01:05:36] They had no membership and refused to have a membership. They would have no membership role. They would have no right hand of fellowship. And in those early days, they had no letters of commendation either. They accepted people as believers. Once they were clear that they were believers, and that was the ground of their fellowship, they believed that there should be no names, no titles, no labels at all associated with the church. They believed in the priesthood of all believers, and they believed in the priesthood of all believers. In practice, that is, under the government of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God could use anyone as he wish. [01:06:17] In their early days, they believed in a definite experience of the Holy Spirit. [01:06:23] But unfortunately, as time went on, that was quenched along with other matters. And more and more, they spoke of all that as something that was past, especially the gift. [01:06:36] It was a tremendous move of the spirit, with worldwide consequences, I suppose, of these different moves. The brethren move. As far as recovery is concerned, recovery of the church was one of the greatest moves in church history. [01:06:53] There were no great flaming personalities in one sense, and yet there are a host of names, many of them household words in christian circles that are connected with this movement. George Muller, Henry Craik, Robert Cleaver Chapman, Benjamin Newton, J. N. Darby, JG Bellott, Chm. Mackintosh. You know, the wonderful books he wrote, ca Cotes, Anthony, Norris Groves, George Wigram. They were not just untaught, unlettered people either. Many of our best hebrew commentaries, our Bible lexicons, our dictionaries, even our greek New Testament dictionaries were produced by the brethren. [01:07:42] It was a tremendous move. One of the great accents of the Brethren movement was, of course, the coming of the Lord as well. It was one of the great things really recovered at that time. Was the truth concerned coming. Now, of course, the believers always believed that the Lord was coming again, but the brethren defined it almost too much. [01:08:01] Actually, they find it very, very clearly. That was another very great move. And then we come to another here. In 1906, there were Pentecostalism, a number of preparatory movements that led up to it. There was Ab Simpson, who in many ways must be thought of as the father of Pentecostalism. Ab Simpson exercised a tremendous ministry in the United States, and the effects of his ministry were pretty well worldwide. [01:08:40] He taught unrelentingly that he believed in healing for the body. He believed in a definite experience of holiness, and he believed in an anointing of the Holy Spirit. [01:08:53] These three things, as it were, began to permeate into christian circles by ab Simpson. Much earlier than that, as early as 1832, almost contemporary with the Brethren was the Irvingite movement. [01:09:09] Henry Irving was an extraordinary man. Again, Edward Irving, sorry. He was an actor who got converted and then became an outstanding preacher and began to see really what God was after and began to talk very much about recovery. Then they got rather caught up in other things, I'm afraid, too. [01:09:37] They believed in twelve apostles, and they had. And their church could only meet when an apostle was present. That's why if you go in some place in London and Edinburgh and Glasgow, you still see these great big church buildings, magnificent places that are absolutely disused because the apostles have long since died and no one thought to replace them with others, and so they're not allowed to meet. You see, it's a most terrible state of affairs. In one way, the Irvingites were extraordinary. [01:10:06] In the middle of the last century. They had all the charismatic gifts and so on, and much of it was in barren. Unfortunately, in the end these other things took over which were strange and eccentric and erroneous and were the undoing of the whole. Nevertheless, again it was another preparatory move. Then of course, we must speak of the holiness movement. The holiness movement became one of the biggest movements really in the last century, both in Britain and the United States. Of course, the biggest one in Britain was the Salvation army and although most people think of it as an evangelistic agency, in fact it was a holiness movement. So was the Methodists, especially the primitive Methodists and others. They taught entirely sanctification and there were tremendously Samuel Chadwick, others, great men of God as well as the salvationists. They all prepared the way for this that we call a Pentecostalism. In 1906 at Azusa, a street in Los Angeles where so much appears to happen, both good and bad there was a meeting which started without any idea that it was to last a whole year. [01:11:27] But this meeting having begun, I hope you're not all getting afraid, but this meeting began and then literally went on not all through the day, but night after night after night for one whole year. The leader was colored man William Seymour, a quite humble, unemotional man and as far as we can see, although there were excesses and imbalance, it was the real move of God. In fact, someone who went there said how could it be anything else when in the prayer meeting everyone prayed he got very weary because he'd been counseling people half the night as well and used to put his head in a shoebox, kneel on one box and his head in the shoebox while they were praying. [01:12:21] This began to spread in the States. At the beginning it was the holiness people who were much taken by the Pentecost and indeed gave it its solidity and its depth in 1906, the same time as the welsh revival in Britain and a tremendous pouring out of the spirit which I think you know, the church, pre church council estimates that 100,000 people were saved as a result in Wales as a result of the welsh revival. So tremendous was it that I remember speaking to old white haired folk in my visit to Aberdeen who remember it in Aberdare. But they said the most remarkable thing of all was to hear the single of hymns coming from under the ground, all the miners under the ground down in the cauldron. [01:13:13] It was to change the face of Wales. Of course, out of the welsh revival came pentecostalism in this country the Jeffreys brothers, particularly Stephen Jeffreys. Generally it is accepted that Stephen Jeffreys was the most godly and gifted, the very early Pentecostal. In fact, he refused to call himself anything else other than a Christian. His brother George Jeffries, of course, started the Elim movement, and then when saw a little bit more, but they didn't got put out by them and started the Bible pattern church. [01:13:54] The assemblers of God had another beginning, in a sense, coming out of the same revival, but a different origin. [01:14:04] There was a revival also in Scandinavia in 1906, swept through Norway and Sweden in particular, and touched also Denmark. And out of that came the very big pentecostal church in Sweden, and of course in Norway, of course in Sweden. It is the biggest free church covering the whole country. Now I'll only just read one small thing here, but you understand that the pentecostal contribution was something which after all, has been all through church history. We've seen it in all these different things right the way through. But what was their contribution? They defined something absolutely clearly. There was a definite experience of anointing, a definite baptism of the Holy Spirit for service and for work over and above, an inward experience of holiness. [01:15:00] And also, of course, the matter of gifts, that they are still operative. Power for service. Now here I just read this little. This is to do with Stephen Jeffreys, and I think it will give you some idea about, because I'm sure that many of us have been brought up with a deep seated prejudice against Pentecostalism. We've heard and seen so many of the things that are wrong. We've come into touch with so many of the people who seem to be empty and superficial, who rave about being Pentecostals, that it's natural for us to be very, very prejudiced indeed. Therefore, it's good to realize that it was a real move of God, and that though it quickly got divided and now has become so heavily over organized that it's tragic, nevertheless, it was a real work of God. Now listen to this. [01:15:56] The preacher was the now renowned revivalist Stephen Jeffreys. He was preaching in the island place, Mission Hall, Llanethley, I think it is, South Wales. One Sunday night in July 1914, Stephen Jeffreys, a converted miner without college training, had become a wonder in the hands of God and was exercising apostolic ministry. On that memorable night, he preached from Philippians 310, that I might know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death. Suddenly there appeared a lamb's face on the wall behind him. It remained clearly visible for about a quarter of an hour, and then was transformed into the face of our Lord. The face was of singular beauty sorrowful in expression and yet enshrouded with glory. The eyes were deep set and alive and penetrating, and seemed to be watching every movement of the preacher. When the message was finished, members of the congregation beckoned to Stephen Jeffreys to come off the platform and see the vision on the wall. This he did, and to quote his own words, when I came down among them and looked where I had been, there in, or some say on the wall, was the living face of Jesus. His head was slightly leaning on the left and his expression was pitiful. When I examined closer, it looked as though his hair was streaked with white, like that of a middle aged man in grief. We remained in the chapel a long time looking, and scores of others who heard about it came to examine. The vision remained on the wall for many hours and was seen by hundreds of people who flocked in to see such an amazing sight. The Reverend JW Adams ma spent much time and labor in investigating the whole affair and received overwhelming evidence, both written and verbal, to the truth of the abnormal vision. It was affirmed by many reliable witnesses. [01:17:59] After gazing upon the vision, Stephen Jefferies prayed to know its meaning, feeling somehow that it had been granted for something more than emphasizing his sermon. [01:18:11] After prayer came the premonition that it was a sign of terrible suffering about to fall. [01:18:22] A fortnight later, the great war commenced. Suddenly and unexpectedly. It was a sign, as we can now see yet more clearly, of the beginning of the end of the age, the beginning of sorrow. [01:18:40] Now, I think. I think it's again salutary to remember that right at the beginning of the pentecostal movement, so despised and derided by many, there was this kind of thing. No wonder people who saw this kind of thing with their own eyes. I couldn't deny it. No matter if the whole world said that it was nonsense and rubbish and that the people were excessive and immoral and all the rest of it, and indecent and extravagant and so on and so forth, they couldn't deny the fact that the Lord was in that. And of course, as we now know, it was the beginning of the end. The great, the first great world War. No one expected it, you know, the kaiser was on the sagnfjord in Norway on a cruise. He never expected to rush back thing the british government didn't expect it. It caught everyone unaware what happened. Within a few years, communism had been brought to birth. [01:19:45] The whole face of Europe was chained, and we had the Balfour declaration giving to the Jews a homeland again after 2000 years. Well, there are many other things we could talk about. I think we'll have to leave it now. [01:20:05] Many other movements since then. You can see I put this here. [01:20:10] I believe that other things have happened as the Keswick movement which was a movement to bring christians together, all one in Christ Jesus. That began in 1895. There was the World Evangelical alliance which began in 1847 again to bring all the denominations together with the aim originally of breaking down the barriers so that in the end all might be merged in one oh, many other things. Ministry of Misses Penn Lewis that God so greatly used when things could have gone so wrong with the effect of liberalism and radicalism. [01:20:44] She preached the cross in such a way that thousands, I think, came into a real experience and understanding of life in Christ. And then of course we have what we know as honor oak. Many of us, especially the older ones, we know honor oak. We know its great contribution. [01:21:05] Mister Sparks was a congregationalist and a baptist pastor and when they had this make more baptist year, when he was past of the on oak baptist church, they and the congregation there said that they could not possibly make more Baptists, more Christians, but not more Baptists. And this involved them in a row with the Baptist Union who finally threatened to throw them out. And so in the end they moved. That caused a terrible stir in christian circles and mister Sparks was ostracized from that point. It was unheard of in those days to be so revolutionary as to take a stand. But the Lord provided him with a great place at the top of the hill, perhaps it was at the bottom. We moved him to the top and there for many, many years he exercised a ministry that was to go all over the world. He said to me himself, they closed every door on me that they could, and bolted it, barred it. But God opened doors and he opened doors all over the world so that I could not keep up with the demands for ministry. And the little magazine, witness and testimony went to the ends of the earth. There's no doubt that God very greatly used our brother and for many of us, of course, we owe a tremendous amount to him. [01:22:29] He was one who I believe was in another great recovery move seeing really the true nature of the church, the essential nature, it is really Christ and its union with Christ and knowing it in terms of life and communion with him. It was a gathering up of so many of these things in a defined clear way, the cross and the spirit as the basis of everything that God does. [01:22:56] And then of course, out of that really in one way, not quite. But that was 1926, by the way. Things began in on a road 1926, strangely enough, to almost to the day. The work began in Howden Road in Shanghai when watchman knee began to meet in the home of the Judds. And then it grew too big and they pulled down a wall, then another wall, then another wall, and they couldn't meet anymore. So they had to get out, they had to get a hall. And so the work began in Shanghai. The whole of the organized missionary set up stood against watchmanly. No one would have anything to do with him. Of course, like so many, he was outspoken. I've got some of his letters when he wrote to certain leaders. And my word, the way he put things. But it was nothing wrong. The fact that it was unforgivable was that this was a national speaking to nationwives. And you have to remember it that in those days there was still the old sort of colonial imperialist cypher atmosphere which was right in us all. And dear Brother Ni spoke as an equal and didn't quite like it. [01:24:08] What amazing things they did. That movement was to spread over the whole of China so that before the communists took over in 19, before the communist marched into Shanghai, when Stephen Kong was last with us, when he broke down and couldn't speak anymore, when he said, you remember at that conference, he was speaking at that conference, he said, and brother Nice said to us, we can take. God has so blessed us and so brought us into life and experience of Christ. He said, I do believe, brothers and sisters, we can take China. For the first time in history, we can take China for God. [01:24:45] Literally. Within months, the communists marched in. Within two years, watchman ni was arrested. All the elders throughout the whole mainland of China were arrested. Many never lived through the imprisonment and the torture. Brother Ni was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Where we believe that though they say he was released, he was in fact martyred. [01:25:11] And so that whole work appeared to be at an end. It was another great recovery movement. Same thing in India. Same thing in India. Well, we could go on and on. What is God doing now? Thank God, I wish I had. I have to leave it for another evening. Maybe quite some months ahead. But we'll talk one day a further time on this. Oh, where are we going now? [01:25:34] Why? Why? Why this new outpouring of the spirit? What is happening? Why is it worldwide? Why all these great moves of God? I believe that we must remember that we have a tremendous heretic. [01:25:49] Woe betide us if we cut out any one of these recovery moves and think of it all as failure. You will notice that the ebb never, never goes as far back as the previous end. Do you understand? See, each flow takes you forward. You see, we never lose it. We've never lost justification by faith. True believers. We've never lost these other things that have come to us. They're all as, they're part of our experience with the household words. With us now, we've never lost them. The thing has died. The thing is crystallized and died, become institutional. Institutionalized and died. But the actual recovery is still with us. Thank God. It's the Lord Jesus who said, I will build my church. And what? He's recovering. He is recovering. Never lost again. Oh, how thankful we should be to the Lord. And now we need to ask God that we might serve the counsel of God in our own generation. Don't forget, the real value in each of these movements has gone into the city. [01:26:59] I say this because I may not have the chance, if you'll give me just that minute to say it. You see, the whole point of these two evenings is to give you a view of church history, which is perhaps not normal. [01:27:15] The normal view of church history is one that belongs to succession. Institutionalism, organizationalism, the output. [01:27:23] But that's not. We apologize to the listener. But the end of side two is missing from the master tape.