Ireland in Revival

On this St. Patrick's Day, I think it's helpful to think about how a person taking a brave stand impacted an entire nation.  It's a pattern we see throughout the Scriptures and as we've seen through Church history.  And, we can be devoted to asking God how He would desire to use us to impact men and women for Christ.  In Deuteronomy 31, Moses imparted wisdom and blessing to his appointed successor, saying:
3 The Lord your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations before you, so that you shall dispossess them, and Joshua will go over at your head, as the Lord has spoken.
4 And the Lord will do to them as he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when he destroyed them.
5 And the Lord will give them over to you, and you shall do to them according to the whole commandment that I have commanded you.
6 Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

In Acts 9:15, as Ananias was expressing hesitancy about going to visit Saul, who was to be known as the Apostle Paul, the Lord said, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel..."

Fast forward now to 1859, a year in which Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England experienced the fires of revival.  The website, 1859.org.uk, attributes the seeds of that revival to a man in America, Jeremiah Lanphier, about whom the website says: "the event that appears to have been the catalyst for the spread of this revival was a prayer meeting commenced by a Jeremiah Lanphier, a layman with the Dutch Reformed Church in New York. Noticing that the businessmen in that city were looking downcast at the economic state of the country at that time, he decided to hold a midday prayer meeting on the 3rd floor of the church in Fulton Street for one hour, each Wednesday. At first he was the only person present, but after ½ hour a further five men joined him. The second week twenty businessmen turned up and then forty the following week."  That number kept growing exponentially - at its height, some 25,000 businessmen were converted.  Prayer meetings attended by 50,000 people were occurring throughout the city.  During 1857 and '58, it's estimated that at least a million new believers had received Christ.

And, then, the revival jumped the pond into the United Kingdom; the website notes that it began in the northern portion of Ireland: "the first place to be affected was Ulster, and a mighty revival hit that place in 1859 with somewhere around 100,000 people converted which as a percentage of the people in that country was quite staggering. About the same time and quite independently Wales also was affected and a revival brought again around 100,000 people to Christ. The revival arrived in Scotland in the north of the country and as time went on it spread down south, until it arrived in England. Around 300,000 people were converted in Scotland."  The website notes that by 1864, there were some 600,000 people new converts in England.  

The website, revival-library.org, relates how four men were used to bring the revival to Ireland; it states: "It began, much like in New York, with a small group of laymen. In 1857, four young men—James McQuilkan, John Wallace, Robert Carlisle, and Jeremiah Meneely—began meeting for prayer in a schoolhouse in the village of Kells, County Antrim. Inspired by the American events, their prayer meetings grew."  That website notes that move of God "is credited with producing over 100,000 converts and fundamentally altering the religious and cultural landscape of Northern Ireland, entrenching a conservative evangelicalism that persists to this day."

I remember that old camp song that begins, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going..." Sometimes that spark will come through a single person, perhaps that spark will be lit by a small group, or perhaps even in a congregation of people.  We have to examine to see if that spark is resident in our hearts.  If it is, if that is burning within us, then we must let it out.  

Sometimes we can become dependent on plans and programs to create an atmosphere where God moves.  But, if we're dependent on anyone or anything besides the Holy Spirit, we run the risk of running aground.  However, God can use every individual believer, and as the Holy Spirit does His work, incredible things can happen - things, as Ephesians 3 says, that He will do that are "far more abundantly than all that we ask or think."