The Messy Birthing of Revival
October 16th, 2008 by Carl Thomas.I was reading an account of the beginning of the Cain Ridge revival and was struck with a fact.
It began in the Summer of 1799. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was administered at the church of Red River (near the Tennessee-Kentucky border), which was ministered to, in connection with the Gasper and Muddy river congregations, by the Rev. James McGready who had recently come from Orange county, North Carolina. This meeting was held from Friday until Monday morning, as was then the custom. Mr. Rankin, Mr. Hodge and William McGee, Presbyterian preachers, and John McGee, brother of William, a Methodist preacher, were present. The McGees were on a mission to Ohio, and stopped in their journey to be present at the meeting.
At this meeting nothing remarkable occurred until Monday, when Mr. Hodge was preaching,
“When a woman at the extreme end of the house, gave vent to her feelings in loud cries and shouts. When dismissed, the congregation showed no disposition to leave, but say, many of them silently weeping in every part of the house.”
“Wm. McGee soon felt such a power come over him that he, not seeming to know what he did, left his seat and sat down on the floor, while John sat trembling under a consciousness of the power of God.” (Bangs). John McGee felt an irresistible urge to preach and the people were eager to hear him. He began, and again the woman shouted and would not be silent.
Davidson (a famous church historian) thus describes the scene:
“Too much agitated to preach, he expressed his belief that there was a greater than he preaching and exhorted the people to let the Lord God Omnipotent reign in their hearts, and to submit to him, and their soul should live. Upon this, many broke silence and the renewed vociferations of the female before mentioned, were tremendous.
I have been in a bunch of meetings where a woman began to travail under the Spirit . . . and every time they were wisked out of the room to have a spirit cast out. I wondered several times if they were trying to cast out the Holy Ghost. And if so, what would have happened if they would have let their sterile meetings get a little messy.
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Perhaps interesting to you:
http://tupamahu.blogspot.com/2008/10/shift-from-pneumatobaptistocentric-to.html
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Since I read this I have not been able to stop weeping for the last few minutes….may this same conviction fall in churches and meetings all over this country!
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I have been the loud lady LOL!!
Usually everything stops and attention is paid to the spirit. Then two and three then most of us travailing for that which the spirit burdens us with.
The Holy Spirit is a real tough one to cast out!!
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