Revival - Keep The Fire Burning // 27 September 2026

What do we believe?

What do we believe for?

I tell you what, church, the heat is rising here today.

All the ingredients are in place.

These guys are on a terrace morning, they are carrying something.

Not to say they don't carry something every week, but they are carrying something this morning.

You know, I'm looking at Sean this morning and I'm confused about why he needs shampoo, but I'm not.

I think condition would have been alright.

But I'm not.

He's twitching, he's carrying something this morning.

You know, there there that word spoke life into this morning and what he has planned.

So all the ingredients there, the heat is rising, it just always comes down to you.

What will you make of this morning?

How will you respond to what God is doing?

Because he is not gonna lift you out of your seats and and force you forward, he's not gonna force you to respond.

His spirit is gonna prompt, his spirit is gonna convict, but you've got to have the courage, the faith, to the obedience to move, to respond.

So what will you do with this morning?

You know, fire starts with a spark because heat rises to a point where a fuel source is ignited.

So the heat rises a fuel source to ignition point, and you have a spark that creates a fire.

But fire doesn't exist without oxygen.

So you need three things for fire to thrive.

You need oxygen, heat, and fuel.

And then what you have is a chain reaction because once a fuel source is heated to ignition point, the heat rises even more, and other fuel sources then get heated to ignition point, and you have this chain reaction that started with a spark and ends up an out-of-control fire.

And fire has always been a powerful way of describing what happens with revival because it starts with a spark of passionate faith.

It can start with just one person responding in a way they never planned to respond, or in a way they've never responded before, and then soon it starts this chain reaction that that is spirit-empowered.

And it's known as a spiritual outpouring.

It happens en masse, but it's sovereign, it's of God.

But it's not just a meeting, it's not just a feeling, it leads to significant social change of a geographical area.

Now, revival's not something that can be manufactured because it's sovereign, it's something God's doing, but it is something we can desire.

And that comes from a place of holy discontent.

We become discontent with our own heart situation, we become discontent with the situation around us, and we begin to pray in a different way with an urgency, a desperation, a deep repentance.

And so I promised when we started this series on revival, I wanted to speak a little bit to the Welsh Revival.

Now, now, since we started, we've spoken a lot about some of the revivals in the early church in Acts, and there's been lots of revivals since then, but I want to speak to the Welsh Revival because it has relevance to the UK and relevance to us as a church.

Now, I'm not going to be able to touch every beat of the Welsh Revival.

I'm not going to be able to explain every detail.

What I'm going to try to do is give us a nutshell of what happened and speak to a couple of the significant people involved because I think it speaks something to us this morning.

But you can read for days and hours all the information if you want to.

But I think it's important to understand the situation in Wales before the revival.

So we're talking late 1800s, early 1900s.

You're talking about a situation where they said there was mass spiritual decline.

Mass church attendance was going down, there was spiritual apathy.

You saw Wales was being dramatically changed by urbanization, industrialization, which was creating all new challenges they hadn't experienced before.

And it was changing the traditions they had as a country.

And so observers will tell you there was a moral decline.

There was a rise in secular distraction.

It lists public cursing, which was a concern over 110 years ago.

These days we don't list that as a moral climb.

We kind of have accepted that for some reason.

Maybe we shouldn't.

There was a rise in heavy drinking, which led to many welfare complications.

Now, as I was looking into revival, I stumbled across a prayer that I have never seen before when I've looked into the Welsh Revival.

And maybe it's because it's some like 46 years before the revival, but there's this Reverend who was leading a church in Wales, and he prayed a prayer that was published in one of the publications.

And the prayer was this He prayed there was a desperate need for revival, a revival very soon, before things get worse and go beyond recovery.

So this was a prayer that was prayed and published by a Reverend William Edwards.

I've never seen that prayer before in my life before this week, but it was prayed and published in 1858.

And I want us to remember that date and that prayer for a minute because we're going to come back to it.

But if we're looking at what was the spark that started the Welsh Revival, they said there's three key figures that were evolved, uh involved in that initial spark.

And one of those key figures was an evangelist named Seth Joshua.

And Seth Joshua had started gathering young people in the early 1900s in prayer.

It was a movement of prayer praying for revival in Wales, and they prophesied and prayed that revival would happen if God raised up a young man from the coals to speak revival across Wales.

But then there was another figure that's mentioned at the beginning of the Welsh Revival, a 20-year-old girl named Florrie Evans.

And her story is quite exciting.

You see, she was going to church, and she went to church on the 14th of February 1904, and the pastor at church was speaking on 1 John 5.4, whoever is of God has overcome this world.

Now she was attending church, but she she hadn't yet given her life to Jesus.

But she was going to church.

And so she heard this sermon preached by the pastor, and she felt that she couldn't get the joy and the belief from what he was saying.

And so the pastor records that later that night she turned up on his doorstep.

And he quotes her as saying this the matter of my soul is almost killing me.

I cannot live like this.

I saw the world and its possibilities in the sermon tonight, and I'm under its feet.

Help me.

And so the pastor said to her, Do you want to do you wanna give your life to Jesus?

Do you want to make Jesus your Lord and Savior?

And she says, I cannot.

And he said that she left into the night.

The very next Sunday after church, he had a prayer meeting where he gathered 66 young people together.

Now, not all these young people were saved, they just they just gathered for this meeting.

And he asked this meeting this question What does the Lord Jesus Christ mean to you?

Now it said that the meeting was silent as people contemplated how they would answer this question until the silence was broken.

Young Florrie Evans stood up in the middle of the room and loudly proclaimed, I love Jesus with all my heart.

I love Jesus with all my heart.

And they they say this was the first cry of revival.

They said that because of the way she said it and the passion and the meaning behind it, the whole atmosphere of the meeting shifted.

And it said mass amounts of the young people immediately felt convicted by the Spirit and gave their life to Jesus.

The pastor said those young people caught the flames of revival and began to host their own meetings across Cardingashire, telling everyone about Jesus and revival.

And then later that year in September 1904, you have this meeting in Blyth and Ranch.

Anyone Welsh in the room is hating how I'm butchering the villages.

I've skipped several attempts right now trying to name villages, but there was a meeting in September 1904, and you had Seth Joshua speaking, you had Florrie Evans in attendance, and you had our third person there, Evan Roberts.

Now Evan Roberts, as an 11 and a 12-year-old, worked in the mines with his dad.

Now he's an adult and he's going to theological college in Newcastle Emland to be a pastor, and he comes along to this meeting.

And in this meeting, Seth Joshua preaches and prays, Lord bend us.

And Evan Roberts prays himself, Lord bend me.

It's like the overlap of these three key people in this key moment sets off a chain reaction that's known as the Welsh Revival.

And we're going to speak how that chain reaction continues in a minute.

But I got a side note for you because I saw something that I thought was really cool.

But I wasn't going to mention it on Sunday.

It was just, you know, when you're looking at stuff and you're researching and you notice things, and you probably notice 20 things that are cool, but you can't share everything on a Sunday.

But I thought it's a cool coincidence, so I want to share it with Rachel.

So I share it with Rachel at home.

But this Reverend William Edwards, who prayed this prayer that there needs to be a revival soon before things go too badly, prayed it in 1858, 46 years before the revival happened.

He died 20 years before he could see the revival happen.

But I was looking at things and I was looking at all these characters, and Seth Joshua was born in 1858.

The prayer was prayed in 1858, and Seth Joshua, one of the key evangelist figures of revival, was born that exact same year.

And I just thought that was a cool coincidence.

Like, isn't that a cool coincidence?

And so I'm telling Rachel, and Rachel just cuts from like interested to just uber passionate and just starts preaching at me in the kitchen, and she says this.

She says, Look what can be birthed from your prayers.

Look what can be birthed when you cry out to God.

And I felt there was something for us to hear today because this guy prays this prayer for revival, and what's birthed that year is one of the evangelists that starts the Welsh Revival.

And I feel that there's people here that need to hear that your prayers are not for nothing.

That when you cry out to God, it's not for nothing.

That when you pray, something is being birthed that may not even be something you're alive to see happen, but something is being birthed when you pray to God.

And I just thought that was really cool.

So I even get heckled by Rachel at home.

But after Evan Roberts prayed, Lord bend me, he left Bible college, went back to his home village to start speaking about revival.

And the first time he held a meeting, 16 people turned up.

He preached about revival, but because of what he preached and what happened in the meeting, word spread.

Two nights later, he preached his famous four-point sermon that they said is the ingredients for revival.

On the 2nd of November 1904, he preaches to the congregation that I need you to do these four things.

I need you to confess all known sin and make past wrongs right.

I need you to remove anything doubtful or questionable from your life.

You are to obey the Holy Spirit instantly and publicly confess Jesus.

The people in the room responded in such an intense way to those four requests that they had to keep the church open 24 hours a day to make room for the way people were responding and the prayer that was required.

After two weeks of that church being remained open 24 hours a day, it made national news.

And now we have a breakout.

Evan Roberts, Seth Joshua, Florey Evans, and others hold 200 meetings over 18 months across Wales.

The thing is, though, there was way more than 200 meetings.

Because what was happening is people were coming to these meetings that were being held by, like, let's say, the main the main people involved, and they were catching something that was so real and so intense that they were just taking it back to their little villages wherever they were from, and they were just holding their own meetings, telling everyone what they heard, what they caught, and revival was breaking out all over Wales in all these little villages, even in the ones that never had the main people visit them.

It was just a breakout, it was just a chain reaction.

Something real had been caught and a fire had started.

And a mark of revival is societal change.

And if you look into it, there was genuine societal change in Wales at this time.

It said more than a hundred thousand people in Wales experienced spiritual renewal.

It said that there was a drop in crime rates so bad that in some villages the police only had the crowds to manage on a Sunday as something to do.

That's it.

Their whole job was managing the football crowds.

Reformed alcoholics now spent money on their family and paid their bills.

There was a decline in domestic abuse, and even the use of foul language decreased dramatically.

This had a far-fetching legacy, well beyond its time.

In 1906, it started to decline, started to simmer off a little bit, and then something starts to kick off in LA that we'll talk about next week.

18 years after it started to simmer, people turned up in Kent and started talking about the Apostolic Church.

Now we're standing here today.

The Welsh Revival to LA revival started Pentecostalism, which is an emphasis on the Holy Spirit.

It's teachings that the Holy Spirit guides us and gives us gifts to see his kingdom come.

I don't think it is the start of the Pentecostal church.

I think on the day of Pentecost was the start of the Pentecostal church.

I just think the church drifted dramatically for thousands of years.

It's really encouraging to look at this revival because it's something real that happened and it's something real that can happen again.

But as I was praying about this morning and where to go after sharing the world's revival, I really felt like this word forming, and God gave me this visual example of something that just was starting me thinking, but it literally was not great.

Because when I tried to explain it to Rach and even Emily and Katie on Tuesday, none of them were excited.

Like there's obviously something of God there, but it's not there yet.

But I prayed on it and prayed on it, and I found myself at Leviticus 6, chapter 13.

Leviticus 6, 13 says, The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously.

It must not go out.

The fire must be kept burning, it must not go out.

Just understand that in context for a minute, because it connects to pleach places we've preached this year.

We're talking about the tabernacle, which is God's dwelling place, a reminder that God wants to dwell with his people.

It's the tent that was built in the center of the community where the Israelites settled in the wilderness.

Now, at the fr outside in the courtyard of this tent was an altar that was called the burnt altar because it's where the burnt offering was given.

And this is the altar they say the fire must continue to burn.

It must be kept alight at all times, night and day.

And basically they had these priests whose whole job was to keep this fire going.

So in the morning they had to take away the ash of what had been burnt and replace it with fresh fuel.

Now, a burnt offering was an offering of a whole animal that was burnt on the altar to reconcile God with his people.

Because that was their way.

That's not our way, though.

We don't have to sacrifice a whole animal to reconcile us with God, because Jesus is the once for all offering.

He reconciles us to God because of what happened on the cross and when he beat the power of sin and death.

Now, if we think for a minute to when we decided to follow Jesus.

Before Jesus, before we decided to follow Jesus, there wasn't a fire, there wasn't a flame.

But there was oxygen, there was something of the divine in the atmosphere.

And then there was heat because our faith started to arise.

But the fuel was our circumstances, our situation, whatever reason we chose to look into Jesus, go on an alpha course, turn up the church, whatever our loved one was doing, whatever reason we had to look into it was that early fuel.

And as the combination of that divine experience, the heat of our faith rising, that early fuel ignited.

And we gave our life to Jesus.

But that early fuel is kindling.

It's great for starting a fire, but it's not going to keep a fire going.

You need more, you need bigger fuel.

But even bigger fuel is great for a bigger fire, but it won't last forever.

And so what we have to do is replace the ash of what's been burnt with fresh fuel.

And it's obvious what that fresh fuel is.

And so I think what we're trying to get from this understanding of this fire we have as believers being kept alive is first a constant devotion.

As believers, we need to have a constant devotion to keep that fire alive.

We've got to read our Bibles, sit in his word.

We've got to pray, we've got to worship, we've got to praise, we've got to have spiritual connectivity, we've got to have a continual devotion to keep that fire alive, because that's the fuel that we place on the fire.

And the importance of this understanding in Leviticus with this altar is it needed to be deliberately tended to by the priest because it could not be neglected.

Because if it was neglected, it would go out.

We are the priests in this situation now.

We are responsible for our own fire and we can't neglect it and we can't let it go out.

However, we misunderstand it.

I think we misunderstand it greatly.

And that's where I think the word is this morning.

See, we misunderstand it because it's like if we if we read enough Bible, if we pray enough, if we worship enough, if we come to church enough, we're putting enough fuel on the fire to keep the fire going.

However, we miss the understanding.

You see why I think this altar is really important, because it was the burnt offering, it was the whole animal.

What you need to remember is you're meant to live your life as a living sacrifice that's holy and pleasing to the Lord.

That's in Romans 12:1.

Romans 12:1

What we need to remember is the whole of our life, the whole of who we are is the sacrifice.

And see, some of us go, I'm gonna tick enough boxes to keep the fuel on the fire to keep my faith flame alive, and that's gonna be a part of my compartmentalized spiritual existence.

But that's not gonna touch my work life, my home life, what I do in my spare time.

We compartmentalize our life.

So we have our spiritual and then we have our other.

But when you gave your life to Jesus, he didn't give you a spiritual life, he made you spiritual.

The whole of who you are is the offering.

So you need to understand everything that you do in your life, everything that's a part of your life, everything that you tolerate is the fuel you're putting on the fire.

We don't understand, we don't, we don't know that.

We don't realize that.

We lie to ourselves.

We think if we read the Bible, if we pray, if we worship, if we praise, that's the good fuel.

It's keeping my flame alive.

This other stuff doesn't matter.

But this other stuff is part of the whole of who you are, the whole of your life, which is going on the fire.

And so this other stuff, the distractions, the compromise, the hurt, the bitterness, the jealousy, the envy, whatever it is, that's fuel that's going on the fire.

And what happens when you put the wrong fuel on a fire?

You get smoke.

And what happens when you get smoke?

You starve the fire of oxygen.

In this analogy, that's the divine, that's the holy, that's the Holy Spirit.

You see, the enemy's not trying to take God away from you, the enemy's just trying to increase the distraction and the compromise in your life because with enough smoke, he's just gonna take the holy all away.

You see, you can't damage the Holy Spirit, but you can't hinder it.

And see, what's happening is we don't really understand and realize that the whole of our life is the offering, which means every day with our distraction and our compromise, we're putting the wrong fuel on the fire and we're creating this smoke, and we're hindering the holy, we're hindering the divine.

And then it's like sometimes we walk around and we feel like there's this big cloud between us and God.

It's like, yeah, it's of your own doing.

Because you're living with that compromise.

Your Bible's dusty, and your phone's got some terribly concerning screen time.

But that's alright, because my Bible's on my phone.

I tell you what, when you go to your physical Bible, you're less likely to start scrolling.

You go to the Bible on your phone, that's where the enemy wants it.

Because all the other distractions are on your phone.

Guys, we have to ask, what are we putting on the fire?

Because you can put a little bit of Bible, a little bit of prayer, a little bit of worship, but then if you put a lot of the rest, you're just gonna get smoke.

And smoke's not good for you.

The more you inhale, the more damage it does.

But then it's not good for the environment.

It doesn't just damage you, it damages those around you.

The more you put the wrong fuel on, the more smoke, the more you're starting to damage those around you because you are the God presence in other people's life.

There's so much of the wrong kind of fuel in our life that we are putting on the fire, forgetting that the whole of who we are is the loving sacrifice.

But let's pause for a second.

Let's not be defeated.

We don't have to be defeated.

We just have to recognize and understand what I'm saying because there are things we can do about it.

You see, we can take account of our situation.

We can take account of what we're giving ourselves to.

We can be open and honest about where we're compromising.

We can be open and honest about different feelings inside of us that are that are wrong kind of fuel for the fire.

You know, like the priests, we can take away the ash of the things that shouldn't have been burnt and replace it with fresh fuel.

Has anyone been at like a holiday house and had a wood burner and tried to impress their family to get a big fire going and you've just filled the the wood burner with smoke?

Yeah, I know.

But if there's if there's embers there, don't you then get down and just try to just blow at those embers to get some oxygen into that fire, to see flames again.

And if that flame catches the right wood, then it's just gonna push that smoke right out of the chimney.

I think some of us need that divine breath from heaven this morning.

I think some of us need that divine breath from heaven.

Some of us just need to feel like in our situation here this morning, if I'm open and honest and I bring the whole of who I am and where I'm am, that God's just gonna go.

And that smoke that's suffocating us, that smoke that makes us feel like there's a cloud between us and God that's hindering the holy and divine in our life, just gonna puff right out of here.

I just checked the windows are open.

So may I please have the band back up?

The Welsh Revival should encourage us because it shows us what's possible when there's no distraction and there's no compromise, there's no hurt, there's no bitterness.

And and it and that was because people responded of like, I don't want this anymore.

People responded to those points, they repented, they confessed, they brought it forward, they let it out.

And I believe some of us here today have to take the ash off the altar, have to stop burning the wrong things.

And that sometimes requires prayer.

And we'll have the prayer team come up because the minute we start singing, they're ready to pray with you.

Sometimes it takes prayer, sometimes it takes worship, sometimes it takes all the different types of praise we've been talking about.

But I know in a minute, when we start worshiping and you have an option to come forward for prayer, you have an option to respond.

I think there's gonna be people in this room that wrestle with that.

There's gonna be people in this room that feel like I need to respond, I need to go forward, I need to do something, I need to act, and you're gonna feel something holding you back.

That's the enemy getting into your head.

Telling you to be anxious about it, telling you to be shy about it, telling you the right people aren't there, telling you you have to walk in front of everyone, telling you it's embarrassing, telling you that everyone's gonna wonder what you're getting prayer for.

That's not God.

Start now deciding who you want to listen to in your head.

Because we need to remember this isn't just about us.

Flori Evans stood up and did something that was herself responding to something that was going on in her life, but it sparked something very real for the people around her.

Have to understand when you're fighting that battle in your seat in your head between who you're gonna listen to, you're not fighting for yourself.

We are a body of Christ.

Sometimes something that you do can be the something that the people around you also need it because God wants to start a chain reaction.

I'm gonna let the team lead us in worship now, and we're just gonna see what God does.

So why don't we stand and decide how we'll respond?