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Chapter 14 The Holiness Awakening Of the 1800s "Awake, awake; Put on ... thy beautiful garments" (Isaiah 52:1) After Cane Ridge, God's Spirit flowed like waves of the sea with one refreshing surge following the next. In America and abroad the outpouring of the Holy Ghost touched an ever widening sphere of believers. We now call these revivals the Holiness Awakening because of the doctrinal emphasis on a second work of grace. That experience was then called both the Sanctification and Baptism in the Holy Ghost. Question -- What set this revival apart from others of the past? Let the critics howl with horror but we firmly declare -- NOTHING! Yes, we wholeheartedly affirm that the Holiness Awakening of the 1800s was nothing new in the world of revival. The Evangelical message of the past was simply being discovered by a new generation. Tell Me The Old Old Story! Like the primitive Waldenses of Europe, Holiness believers witnessed heaven sent answers to prayer. In the hills of South West Virginia, Preacher Sheffy was a man that was known for effectiveness in prayer. The many stories of Robert Sheffy have been compiled in the form of a novel but these stories are also biographical and substantially genuine. In the 1850s Rev. Sheffy was attempting to slow the boot legging trade and stop the hurt it brought upon mountain society. He set out to find stills and to convert their owners. On one occasion Sheffy came upon a still and was looking it over when the operator stormed out of the woods. Robert informed him that it was not God's will to "turn good men into wife-beaters and hate-mongers who abuse their children and take food from their mouths to buy your devil's nectar!" Before Robert said more a swift kick sent Sheffy to the ground. In pain he prayed against the still, "Make a mighty oak to fall across it and break its back. We ask it not for ourselves, Lord, but for thee who said: 'All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive it'." The bootlegger roared in laughter because the nearest tree was a full thirty yards away. Then, all went silent. After a time Sheffy came to while being helped by his friend Ben. The enraged distiller had knocked the praying preacher out cold. Some days later Robert and Ben came upon a wagon accident. However, when the driver saw Sheffy he screamed out in fear; 'Get away from us! ... I don't want nothin' to do with you! I seen it happen with my own eyes!' Ben asked, 'Saw what happen?' 'It started to rain and lightnin', and afore I could get to the woods the wind laid me flat on the ground...and I looked up...and like a feather in the a whirlwind a white oak tree as big around as that wagon wheel came dancin' down the hill and squashed my stillhouse like a stepped-on chicken egg!' Sheffy and Ben continued helping the shaken stranger and got him back on the road. Upon parting company Sheffy earnestly called, "God be with you, my brother!" "'He already was,' a fearful voice shot back from the disappearing wagon." 80 ---------------------------------------------- 80 The Saint of the Wilderness, --Jess Carr, Commonwealth Press, 1974 pp 204 -209 _________________________ Like the early Evangelical Reformers of the 1500s, the Holiness believers of the 1800s were also described as "Born Again" and "full of the Holy Ghost." These were not overblown descriptions but living realities that were found by reading the Scriptures and submitting to Christ's Spirit. Both the Reformers and Holiness believers began with experiential conversion and moved forward into holy Christ-like living. Their doctrinal descriptions of sanctification have varied but all agreed that God enables the believer to live a new sanctified life! The holiness message is expanded upon in Appendix B of this book. Like the Moravians, of the early 1700s the Holiness believers of the 1800s were soul-winners. They fulfilled the ministry of an apostle while sending an army of witnesses into the far reaches of the earth. These spread the truth of Christian conversion and influenced large heathen societies for good. (For example, in India the practice of sacrificing children to the river and the burning of living widows with their departed husbands was ended because of Christian influence within the Colonial Government.) Like the Scots Reformers, prayer for the sick was also practiced in the modern Holiness Awakening. There were many healing ministries and uncounted testimonies of deliverance documented during the 1800s. The only reason these miracles seem less notable to us, is because we are living today. During that period the Holy Ghost was moving in power and was present to heal. Jesus had predicted that his followers would lay hands on the sick and bring recovery. His words remain forever true! Many ministers prayed for the sick during the late 1800s. Additionally, the Baptist Pastor A. J. Gordon left us his outstanding book titled, The Ministry of Healing, or Miracles of Cure in all Ages. Pastor Gordon's testimony reflects the faith and experience of a mighty generation of believers. He catalogued healing miracles from the past and present and showed that God was at work while confirming his Word with signs, wonders and impossible cures. Like the post-apostolic church, the gift of tongues continued to appear during the Holiness Awakening. D. L. Moody (late 1800s) had been a successful Evangelical minister for years and yet began to hunger for the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. After seeking and receiving, he said, that the baptism proved to be "more wonderful than words could express." Moody understood that his baptism came as an experience subsequent to salvation that paralleled the post-salvation experience of many believers in the book of Acts. Moody saw more souls coming to Christ after his baptism than ever before. Sometimes, the huge response totally shocked Moody. Shortly after Moddy's infilling and during a trip to England, we find a group of YMCA men at a noonday prayer meeting. They had been enjoying Moody's ministry and in prayer were exercising the gift of tongues and prophecy.81 Their experience should only be doubtful to those who deny the Scripture. Paul told the Corinthians, the Spirit prays for us and through us with groaning that cannot be uttered. The spirit speaks mysteries and should pray in the spirit and in the understanding. Spiritual praying is to pray in other tongues by the inspiration of God's Spirit! During Moody's Northfield Bible Conferences of 1891, Dr. N. J. Holmes a Presbyterian minister from Greenville, South Carolina was in attendance. Dr. Holmes enjoyed private conversations with Moody in which he was lead to seek the "Spirit-filled life."82 Upon returning to Greenville Dr Holmes also encouraged his student to seek the Pentecostal baptism. As the students sought for God; one and then another was filled with the Spirit with the evidence of Pentecostal tongues.83 Finally, in 190784 Holmes and the full student body received the baptism with the Holy Ghost, spoke in tongues and manifested many extraordinary gifts of the Spirit.85 Holmes' school still claims to be the oldest PENTECOSTAL Bible College in the world. ------------------------------------- 81 "On the following Sunday night, when I got to the rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association, I found the meeting on fire. The young men were speaking with tongues and prophesying. What on earth did it all mean? Only that Moody had been addressing them that afternoon. "What manner of man is this?' thought I." D.L. Moody and His Work, --Rev. W. H. Daniels AM, Hartford, American Pub. Co., 1876, p. 248 82 The Holy Spirit In Heaven & Earth, -- Dr. O. Talmadge Spence, (Preface to a Forthcoming Book, 10/1/98) PO Box 1166 Dunn, NC 28335-1166 83 The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States, -- Vinson Synan, Eerdmans Publishing Co., p. 128, Dr. Synan tells of tongues appearing at the school in 1905. Dr Holmes' writings indicate this happened in 1906. 84 Living in the Presence of God, Enthusiasm, Authority, and Negotiation in the Practice of Pentecostal Holiness, -- Daniel Glenn Woods, Doctoral Dissertation at the University of Mississippi, Chapter 1, p.3 footnote 3. (Date?) (After hearing the PENTECOSTAL leader G. F. Taylor many of Holmes' students went forward and received the Pentecostal baptism with the evidence of tongues.) (Check for when Holmes 85 Life Sketches and Sermons,--Nickels J. Holmes and Wife, Franklin Springs Ga. 1920, p.147 _____________________________
The authors Great Grandfather Archibald Calvin Hinderson was a Primitive Baptist living in Houston Texas. His experience in Christ predated the rise of modern PENTECOSTALISM. He once had a dream or vision of Jesus and joyfully recounted how that Jesus looked at him and said, "I know that man." In the early 1950's my mother received her Pentecostal baptism with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. She was telling Great Granddad about her gift when he mused, "Oh, I do that when I pray and wondered what it was." How many others throughout history have unknowingly found the blessedness of the Pentecostal baptism? A Coming Flood During the 1800s the call to Holiness grew into a travailing cry for the Pentecostal baptism. The Spirit inspired Christians to seek God for the deeper walk and fresh power for service. Heaven knew that something extraordinary was about to transpire. Finally, Joel's last day outpouring was soon to blossom upon the earth. In the mid 1800s the old Methodist William Author prophetically prayed, "And now, adorable Spirit, proceeding form the Father and the Son, descend upon all the Churches, Renew the Pentecost in this our age, And baptize thy people generally -- O, baptize them yet again with tongues of fire! Crown this nineteenth century With a revival of 'pure and undefiled religion' Greater than that of the last century, Greater than that of the first, Greater than any 'demonstration of the Spirit' Ever yet given to men!" 86 ---------------------------- 86 Tongue of Fire or the True Power of Christianity, -- William Author, 1879 edition, Page 375 ______________________
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