We are continuing to see revival in Leicester. A continued sense of the weight of the Holy Spirit in our meetings. A lot of outworking in different ways, from holy silence to holy laughter. Someone coming in off the street into the revival meetings and giving their life to Christ. A couple travelling hundreds of miles to be in the meetings, powerfully met by the Holy Spirit. Someone who didn’t believe the revival should be called a ‘revival’ retracting their comments after visiting.
What is happening in Leicester will happen throughout the
UK. I want to look at a couple of broader prophecies over our nation. One is
given by Jean Darnall (a later blog), and one purportedly by the amazing
healing evangelist Smith Wigglesworth.
Here is the prophetic word:
“During the next
few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the
Church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open
to receive it and will be characterised by a restoration of the baptism and
gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people
leaving historic churches and planting new churches.
In the duration of each of these moves, the people who
are involved will say, ‘This is the great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No,
neither is this the great revival, but both are steps towards it.’
When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be
evidenced in the churches something that has not been seen before: a coming
together of those with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on
the Spirit. When the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the
biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed, the world, has
ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything
that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and the Welsh
revivals of former years. The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from
the United Kingdom to the mainland of Europe, and from there, will begin a
missionary move to the ends of the earth.”
I believe we are in the days Wigglesworth speaks of. The two
earlier moves in the UK can be clearly linked to the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches
and the New Churches (originally House Church) movement. A restoration of the
teaching on the baptism of the Spirit reflected in Pentecostalism from the
early 1900s onwards and then powerfully in the 1960s/70s Charismatic movement. And
a move out of historic churches into something new as seen in many new streams and
church movements such as Pioneer and Newfrontiers, from the 1970s onwards.
That new church move is on the wane. Some of the pioneers
are now in glory, others have passed on the movement to the next generation.
And what we are seeing now is the Word and Spirit coming
together. Churches across cities are working together in ways unheard of in
generations past. The reason they can do so is an emphasis on the Word and
Spirit together. Churches with an emphasis on the Word and a distrust of the
things said to be of the Spirit have opened up to the Holy Spirit’s work.
Churches that have maybe over-emphasised the work of the Spirit in years past
have found a new love for the Word and have brought it to its proper place
within their meetings.
The Bible teaches end-times with persecution and with revival.
Both seem to come together. In the UK, Christianity and the teaching of the
Bible is under attack. But at the same time, people are far more open than ever
before to the gospel. As we come out of a worldwide pandemic, many are
questioning their reason for being – why they do what they do. There is a cry
on their lips: ‘there must be more to life!’
As Christians we have the answer.
And as the Word and Spirit work together, we have revival in
our land.
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