Okay, let's have another word of prayer. Lord, we're thankful that we gather this morning as the found ones. Lord, we're so blessed. You've found us, you've stayed with us, and you've given us a great promise and a hope that we have in Christ. And Lord, we're thankful, too, for the heritage we have of how we got here today. We know it is all by your grace. We're thankful, Lord, there were earthen vessels that were willing to be used by you throughout the years to preserve that testimony of Jesus. And as we continue considering them today, we pray that they could touch our hearts and our lives, that we could be strengthened to continue to press on in you. There was a phrase, John mentioned it. Wednesday night it came out in the Ezra Bible study. The time is late, but it's not too late. And we want to be encouraged that it's not too late and still be learning of you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Okay. All right, this morning, let's start with a couple of verses. Let's start with Galatians 3, 27, 28. As we look at these verses, the beauty there is the oneness we have in Christ. We're not separated by race, whether Jew or Greek. We're not separated by economic condition or social status between slave or free man. We're not separated by our sex, male or female. In Christ, there's a oneness and a great unity that we have, and we're very thankful for that. Also, if we look in Revelation 5, verses 9 and 10, it says, "They sang a new song saying, "Worthy are you to take the book, to break its seals, for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and made them to be a kingdom of priests to our God, and they will reign upon this earth." And again, just that thought of how we've been purchased for God from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and it's with a purpose that He would make us that kingdom of priests unto Him, not living for ourselves, but unto Him, manifesting His life, and then reigning upon the earth in both now and the days to come. And finally, in Matthew chapter 25, our Lord, as He's sharing on one of the parables, starting in verse 34, it says, "The King will say to those on His right, "Come, you were blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you and the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, you invited me in. Naked, you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me." And then the next few verses, the righteous will answer and say, "Lord, when did we see you?" And He reiterates, they didn't see Him in that, and the Lord answers, the King will answer and say to them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even to the least of them, you did it to me." Now we've been looking at the 18th century the last couple of times and really this is a century of awakening. And it's awakening not only to the Lord, but to one another, and also the conditions of the people upon the earth, it's an awakening to the conditions, it's an awakening and a care and concern for not only our brothers and sisters, but for fellow man, for believers and unbelievers. The awakening was far more than just salvation related, that was a tremendous part of it, but in that awakening it was opening one's eyes to see the conditions that people were having to live in because they were pretty dreadful at that point in time. It was a very elite class and then there was the poor, the have-nots, and tragically throughout this time in general many of those in the elite, the upper class, really didn't have much care for the poor. They were looked down upon, they were disregarded, they were disrespected, nobody cared for them, but praise God in the awakening time, during these times of awakening, believers hearts were opened to really try to come alongside man and to raise him up out of that pit of despair and let him to bring them into seeing the Lord, and we'll see some of that today. But there was one of the other things that was awakened during this time was, I call it the golden age of hymns, and it was an awakening of worship, an awakening of worship to the Lord, recognizing who he was. Now before this time, they had already, they once had only sung basically the Psalter, and the Salter is they took all of the Psalms and they put them to music, and they actually, they didn't do that great a job. I don't know if you've ever tried to see, if you've ever seen a Psalter, ever tried to sing it, it's challenging, you know, if you're very musically gifted, you can make it through, okay, but it's challenging, and it's not, it really doesn't, the words are great because they're the Psalms, but the music, the tune and the atmosphere, it just doesn't provoke worship when I listen to it, but, and the Lord through the Spirit, He awakened once to really have a heart for worshiping the Lord, declaring who He is, declaring what He'd done for us. There was over 12,000 hymns were written during this century, and it's an amazing thing, how, and a lot of it was started by our brother Isaac Watts, he's called the father of him, not him that was born, but he was a young man in the city, and he complained to his father, when he was a young man, he complained to his father about the, singing the Psalter, and so his father challenged him, he said, "Okay, you think you can do better, do it." Well, he did. He went and he started writing songs and really revolutionized worship, and ended up writing over 600 hymns, and I'm not going to go through all the hymns he wrote and everything, but Charles Trier with these names, he wrote over about 9,000 hymns, it's just tremendous what was done. Two other dear brothers, John Newton and William Cooper, wrote the Old Nehem- that's pronounced Cooper, okay? Everybody says, "Who's Mr. Cowper?" No, that's Cooper. All right, and if you learn one thing today, we learn how to pronounce his name, Coop, and they grouped together a group of hymns called the Old Nehemns, because that was where they lived. And also another famous one that was really used of the Lord was Annie Steele or Theodosia, she was the first sister to really start writing English hymns. And we have many of their hymns included in Christ in Song. It's interesting as we look at this matter of hymns, we see too that we don't have that many of them today because we'll find out that you can write, there was a great volume written but the test of time showed which ones were really lasting. Some maybe were for a specific moment. Some maybe the word that wasn't that great of a hymn. Just because it's a hymn doesn't make it great. There's good hymns, there's not so good hymns. And so if you think about during that time 18th century there's 12,000 hymns written and we think Christ in Song is a pretty good hymn book. Well there's less than 100 in there from that. So there's really just a few hundred, maybe max 500 of that 12,000 that are still around today being so. But they've stood the test of time and there's a value to them. And I think there's, so when we're seeing these older hymns the Lord would give us a good perspective to really appreciate them. That there are ones that for a few centuries they've, various saints have come into an appreciation of them. And some of us aren't as hymn oriented as others. And so I think that can be a challenge for us to really see the beauty of what we have from some of these hymns. There was also some other writers, 18th century hymn writers. And we're familiar again with many of these hymns, the doxology, the holy, holy, holy. And the one I thought was really kind of interesting, one by Edward Parinay, "All hail the power of Jesus' name." What a great hymn. You would think this guy would be a great hymn writer. It's basically about the only hymn he ever wrote. But that's good enough. You do that and you just stop while you're out of your head because there ain't but one way to go after that. So he just wrote it and that was it. So praise God for that. And just some tidbits to get some appreciation how much of this was done in fellowship. Charles Wesley wrote a lot of hymns and at times John Wesley was the theologian. Charles was the hymn writer. And Charles he wrote, he came up with his first hymn of Hark All the Heaven Rings. And as he was fellowshipping with Whitfield, and Whitfield was looking the scriptures, he said really it should be hark the herald angels sing. So they adjusted that. And another example, Charles first draft of love divine all loves excelling. It had the phrase, pure and sinless let us be. And John the theologian said, no, pure and spotless let us be. That blood of the Lamb will cleanse us our make us spotless. On this earth we're not going to be sinless. But we can be spotless. Praise God. And also during this time when the hymns were coming out with both the Psalter times and then during the hymns the singing was led by a presenter or a pre-cantor, however different words got used at different times because they didn't have hymn books. And so one person would sing the line like Josh would be up here. And our presenter, he would sing that line and then we would sing. He'd sing another line and we would sing. And that's how it went through much of the hymn, original hymn singing until later on when hymn books became more and more available and one started learning these hymns. This is what was going on at the English time. Also over in Germany the Moravians did thousands of hymns as well as Gerhard Terstegen. And we have his hymns in our Christ and song also. But another thing that occurred hymn wise during this 18th century was Christmas hymns. This is the first significant Christmas hymns that came about. We even sang one this morning, "Oh come all ye faithful." You know but you have silent night and joy to the world and angels from the realm of glory. They were really coming into appreciating Christ's birth. Also just from a secular point of view we have the 12 days of Christmas during this time. And we wish you a Merry Christmas. So they were into it. But you can see what was breaking out. It was an overflow. But as with anything that the Lord does there was resistance. And this was probably one of the things I learned the most in looking at this about the hymns was the resistance that came forth to hymns. And the resistance came forth from the establishment, the Anglican Church, the so called religious elite. There was a great resistance to hymns. And as I was thinking about this, I'd like us to look at this matter on the resistance to hymns in the context of the days that we're living in with the resistance to choruses. Some people love hymns, some people love choruses. And I just think many of us grew up in the Jesus movement and there was a great resistance at that point in time to this new movement that came out in the 60s and 70s. And so this is what happened back in the 18th century and we see much of the similar resistance today or throughout the days we've lived in. The first one they said, "Well, these hymns are written by man, not God." Because the Psalter was written by God. They didn't have much of an argument with that one. But they came and they said most hymns were actually written by dissenters outside the Anglican Church. They weren't the religious elite. And if you remember back at the Jesus movement, back in the 60s and 70s, who was writing these songs? It was ones that never heard of before. Keith Green, Barry Maguire, you know, had a Darryl Mansfield, Randy Stonehill. Now, does these names ring a bell to anybody in this room? Chuck Gerard and Love Song, the second chapter of Acts with Annie Harron and Matthew Ward. You know, different ones that were really used of the Lord. Honey Tree, various, you can go on and on. And they had a tremendous impact upon the way that believers were worshiping the Lord. But they felt a great resistance because they were nobodies. They weren't the approved hymn writers. They weren't the elite religious class. There was this group of ones outside of the established group and they met so much resistance. But praise God at that time there was a few, particularly in California that accepted them. There was a Chuck Smith from Calvary Chapel. There was a Jack Hayford. And there was others that really accepted them in because if they went, some of them during the Jesus movement when ones were saved, they didn't wash up. They just went as they were and they weren't accepted by some places. But praise God through Chuck Smith and Jack Hayford. And they were, if you look at it a little more, it was actually their wives were encouraging them to accept these ones and to bring them in. And so finally there was an acceptance there. But there was a great resistance that met. And when we're looking at it, as we said, not all hymns were of the Lord, stood the test of time. That doesn't mean all choruses or great choruses. But there's a balance there. And what the attitude is what's the Spirit and the essence of the worshiping. They complained about hymns because they used common everyday words and some used familiar tunes. They weren't holy enough for them. Also they said these hymns were for the unwashed, the uneducated and the common people. That's who was Wesley and Whitfield and these ones they were ministering to the coal miners. They were ministering out there to the unaccepted ones. And that Jesus movement, who was swept in by that? It was the unaccepted ones. There's a lot of parallels that went on in our lifetime. And they said too that the hymns led to too much enthusiasm. Remember enthusiasm was a bad word back then. These hymns weren't the spirit. They were solical, emotional. Imagine singing, "Rejoice the Lord is King. Joy to the world." Oh, how solical is that? It's not the Spirit of God. And here we say the ones who talk about choruses, oh, they're just solical. We need to have that spirit of discerning who the Lord is. What is He doing? And allow Him to move in this day and time. It revolutionized the way worship was done in the 18th century and the Lord has done a revolution in our day and time too. And we want to be those that are staying in tune with Him. Not accepting everything carte blanche, but allowing us to really hear from the Lord and to know what's of Him and what's not. But also, when the Lord moves, there's also a lot of times you'll notice in history when the Lord moves there's an alternative in the world or a counterfeit or something like that. But if you look in the 18th century there was some pretty famous composers that even us non musical people know. I mean we recognize names like Bach and Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Hayden, Schubert, Paganini, others. You don't have to be an expert to recognize these names. All these people were there during this same time writing their music and composing their operas and concerts and everything. So you can see over all there was a lot going on in the whole musical realm both within the church, the people of God and also in the world. A lot of times when things are going on with the things of the people of God there's something similar in the world, similar in the sense of it being music not the spirit of it but just that trying to draw us away, have an alternative. And so just to be aware this was all going on but it was a tremendous time. It truly was the golden age of hymns and we sit here today in the good of it. Thank the Lord that we also were able to experience, we could call it the golden age of choruses if you wanted to draw a parallel and we could sit in the good of that too. It's not an either/or. It's really allowing the fullness of what God has on His heart to come forth. And so that we could be those accepting what's of Him and just encouraging one another in that. And so as I said moving on to this more of the awakening, it's called the second great awakening and this is predominantly in the U.S. The awakening with Wesley and Whitfield kind of continues in England and we talked about that last time. But this awakening in the U.S. is that not only the awakening to the Lord but the awakening to fellow man because this was a tremendous time in the U.S. Population in the U.S. from 1790 to 1840 grew from 4 million to 17 million. That's a pretty big chunk of people just in a short period of time there. And we went from 13 states to 26 states. And obviously this is after the Revolutionary War there's a lot of joy about that. But there was also a lot of uncertainty and insecurity. We're free now. What do we do? It's like okay, what's going on here? And because of this growth the Lord moved in a wonderful way and they started having large evangelistic meetings and they were the more popular ones. And it actually the way the dynamics worked there was movements throughout New England with Charles Finnie and Timothy Dwight and throughout the middle colonies. At that time there was colonies all the way in Kentucky. Kentucky was considered, I was reading and now there's this frontier in the west and it was talking about Kentucky. This frontier out in Illinois. Yeah, I had to get Illinois in here today. And then the ones in the south. And it's interesting the ones, the middle colonies, what they call Kentucky, Illinois up through that section. A lot of the circuit riders went. They would just get on their circuit, they get on their horse and they would just ride around. Francis Ashbury is probably the most famous one. He said, and he rode for years and years just from place to place. He would encourage people, spend the night in homes, encouraging families, sharing the gospel. And then when he died he didn't own anything. What he said he owned was a horse, his saddle and two saddle bags. That was his earthly belongings. But he was perfectly content to get burned out for the Lord. And also, okay, I'm going to test the people from Illinois here. Peter Cartwright. How do we know him? Never met him. Well, actually Peter Cartwright is the only man in history that ever defeated Abe Lincoln in an election. When they ran for the house in Illinois. But then when Lincoln ran for the U.S. Congress he defeated Cartwright. That's the person he defeated to get in. But he was also a tremendous evangelist too. He was a great circuit writer but he did defeat Lincoln the only time. He and Lincoln ended up being great friends. In the south we have Devereaux Jared and Barton Stone. So let's look into these in a little more detail. So we come to New England. The main brother there that was really used to the Lord is Charles Finney. And Finney was a lawyer. And at age 29 he really hadn't settled in his heart. Was he a Christian or not? He knew about the Lord but he would waver and all. So he went out in the woods one day and he determined, he said, "I'm not leaving these woods until I know I'm saved." And there's a picture of him kneeling down by a log. I don't know if it's authentic or not, but he's down by that log and he's just praying. And the Lord came in in a wonderful way, touched his heart, warmed his heart, and he knew then that he was wonderfully saved. He went back to his law office and he had an appointment and he was supposed to defend somebody. And he said, "I'm here for you to defend me." He says, "No, I don't have any other clients right now than Jesus Christ. I'm defending him." He's my client for the rest of my life and he closed his law office and served the Lord. And I don't know what ever happened to the guy who was, you know. But he started up through New York and there were a lot of revivals on in New York City. But he initiated a lot of changes in the way that revivals were going on. And you can see how they've carried down to today. He created, let me use my little marker here, he created the inquiry room for people that were seeking the Lord. They could go off to the side and speak with some brothers and sisters, have some counseling. The mourners bench at the front, if you're responding to the Gospel you can come forward. He also initiated the invitation, calling ones to come forward. And he organized quires. George Beverly Shea is appreciative of that. And he had even started advertising meetings in advance. So, and it's estimated that over 500,000 were saved through his ministry. You know, just a tremendous one who was burned out for the Lord and really gave himself his couple of quotes to him and I appreciated this one. He said, "Ministers often preach about the Gospel instead of preaching the Gospel. They often preach about sinners instead of preaching to them." There's a lot of truth in those couple of little statements there. And he said, "Revival is a renewed conviction of sin and repentance followed by an intense desire to live in obedience to God. It's giving up one's will to God in deep humility." You know, Finney was, he gave up his life to the Lord and we're thankful for that. Now, one of his co-workers there was Timothy Dwight. Dwight was Jonathan Edwards' grandson and President of Yale from 1795 to 1817. One of the ways he was used because of his position at Yale and his prominence there, he was a strong advocate against the popularity of deism in America. Deism was many, some of the founding fathers were involved in deism. And deism was a very prominent philosophy. Whoops, hit the right button here. Let's see. During the 17th and 18th century, and it was basically during this age of reason where they believed in the existence of a supreme being, that's why we often see them using the name God, specifically as creator, but one who does not intervene in the universe. There's this separate deity up there. He created everything and then he just let it go. Now, you can get into a lot more subsets of various deism and all this stuff, but in a broad, general way, that's what it did. Some of our founding fathers, one of our most famous Virginians, predominately Thomas Jefferson, was a famous deist. But before Dwight got to Yale, Yale was a pretty immoral place. And as soon as he got there, he started weekly preaching sermons to the student body there. And then he paused his weekly, but he continued for seven years preaching. And after seven years, I mean, talk about persistence. He had a burden on his heart to continue preaching. Seven years, basically no response. And then after that seven years, there was a revival came to Yale, and at least half the student body there was saved and came to Christ. One of the tutors there has this comment about, "Yale is a little temple. Prayer and praise seem to be the delight of a greater part of the students, while those who are still unfeeling are awed with respectful silence." There was an impact upon ones, and it ended up spreading through Dartmouth, Bennington, and other universities in the northeast. So it was, you see how the Lord was using waking up ones throughout this country. In the south, we have ones, I'll use one from Virginia here, Deborah O'Jared. He was born in New Kent County and all, and he came to the Lord, and as he started preaching and all, he discovered that many churches in Virginia were lifeless. He settled down in a little community called Bath. It's near McKinney, down in Dinwiddie County, and this was his assessment of the church that he moved into. He says at Bath, he said, "I found the principles of the gospel, the nature and condition of man, the plan of salvation through Christ, the nature and necessity of spiritual regeneration, as little known and thought of as if the people had never heard a sermon on it in their whole lives." Now these were within, this was an established church, but there wasn't that preaching of the gospel. And then according to the response from the people, the parishioners generated a perplex response. We have had many ministers, but we've never heard anything till now of conversion, the new birth, etc. This new man of ours brings strange things to our ears. Praise God for the strange things, his faithfulness there. And Jared continued to preach a circuit all throughout Virginia and eastern North Carolina, and there were many revivals. And actually in 1776, almost just a couple of weeks before they declared independence, there was this meeting that they were having and it said, "The power of the Lord came down on the assembly like a rushing mighty wind. And it seemed that the whole house was filled with the presence of God. A flame kindled and ran from heart to heart." There was throughout the awakening, there was various moves of the Holy Spirit. It was displayed in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it was very solemn. Sometimes it was very emotional and a lot of outbursts. But the Lord used and moved in many different ways and also kind of unrelated to this, to what Jared was doing, but through a couple of students at Hampton Sydney. Now we don't picture Hampton Sydney today as one of the most religious universities. I don't know if you visited it late, but it was a great revival broke out among some of the students there and then it spread throughout other schools in Virginia. It was so encouraging. But the main tool that was used throughout this time was camp meetings for the spreading of the Gospel. Now camp meetings literally were camping meetings. They were out there at the tent. You would have your tent. You can see through. You would have your tent and they would eat together and back in those days still you had the women on this side, the men over here and ones would be sitting around and they would be planned and they would be cooking and having their meals together. Various other times, another picture of various meetings and they could, this is kind of the after effect of one's, there's a plane and the spirit right there. But it's one of the beautiful things about the camp meetings was how it really brought about and had a sense of oneness and unity among all the believers. This first camp meeting, the kind of the one that kicked it all off was in Cain Ridge, Kentucky. That's right outside of Lexington. A couple brothers there, they gathered annually for kind of a communion meeting together and they would also have preaching. Oh, thanks. There we go. And so this time, this one lasted a week but there was about 10,000 to 20,000 came and many people showed up after the second or third day because the first couple of days everything was normal. But then on the third day, the Holy Spirit powerfully moved. So it ended up lasting a whole week and more and more came. And the testimony from that time from Cain Ridge is, this is from one of the brothers that was sharing, "The power of God seemed to shake the whole assembly. Toward the close of the sermon, the cries of the distressed rose aloud. After the congregation was dismissed, the solemnity increased till the greater part of the multitude seemed engaged in the most solemn manner. No person seemed to wish to go home. Hunger and sleep seemed to affect no one. Eternal things were the vast concern. Here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude. Even some things strangely being expressed and wonderfully new to me." Praise God for that as they had the Word of God was put forth. It was just put forth with a straightness and a power. Then the Holy Spirit took that Word and really changed and worked within many lives. We see because of this, camp meetings really became the focus for sharing the gospel and holy living. And they normally went from like a Friday afternoon to a Monday noon and occasionally they'd go longer. But it's noted how there was such a unity among believers of all various backgrounds would come. But when they were there they noticed, they were experiencing, they were of one mind and soul. The salvation of sinners was the one object. We all engaged in singing same songs united. That should be united. You see my great spell checker there didn't get that. I just saw that. Untied in prayer. Maybe we need to be untied in prayer. Maybe we're bound, too bound up. We need to get a more freer in our prayers. Untied from it at all. And all preached the same things. But praise God. It was wonderful the way that they worked. And there was over 400 camp meetings annually through the early 1800s. And they spread throughout the south. They spread on up into the north and the northeast. And many used them in wonderful ways to share the Gospel with this ever increasing population that was expanding. And so we're very thankful for that. And during the Great Awakening many blacks were saved also. But we see there was this thing, a section here where they were rejecting the Negro pew. Because if you look at the history of the blacks, during the Great Awakening many blacks both free and slaves were saved. Many saved from African Spiritism and Islam. Now I don't know how many are aware, but when many of the slaves were brought over from Africa and they were settling down through the low country in South Carolina, Georgia and different places, they're called Gullah in South Carolina. I forget what you would call in Georgia. Geechee. All right, thank you. I've got my expert here. But there was many Muslims that came. But thank the Lord, the Gospel went forth and changed them. But it still has an influence if you go to the cemeteries down there and the Muslims believed you had to bury people east facing east west. That had to wait. So the cemeteries are arranged east west and some of the names of areas and things are still carry Islamic names. But praise God they were saved. But even it's interesting when you read a perspective of how things are sometimes the writer can cover up things. And many will talk about how the believers they worship together. They had the blacks and whites worshiping together. And that's a true statement. But if you read a little bit deeper into the story you find out that they were segregated because in most of the facilities at that time there was areas reserved in the back and it was called the Negro Pugh or the African Corner or in open air meetings the blacks were in the back. But so because of this discrimination some blacks started meeting separately. It is sad because particularly in the south they were greatly opposed because they thought they would be abolitionists, insurrectionists and they actually passed laws in the states that blacks couldn't meet together unless there was at least two or three white people there overseeing. That law varied by state. In Philadelphia there was a brother Richard Allen who was part of the Methodist Church. He was an ordained Methodist preacher and there was two of them and he grew more and more popular but tragically as it way occurs whites became more jealous of him because many were appreciating his preaching and they didn't appreciate him. In 1787 he and some other blacks in that church were forced to leave and it brought about a great division. Eventually the group that he was with became known as the AME, it's still around today, a very large group of the African Methodist Episcopal Church but I bring this out because if we think about the body of Christ the greatest division within the body of Christ is racial. It always has been, Jew and Gentile, back in the New Testament, throughout history. It's sad today we have people, we comment that the most segregated time in the U.S. is Sunday morning at 10 or 11 o'clock. The blacks go to predominantly blacks, predominantly white, you have Chinese, you have Korean, you have Brazilian, one's going different places. And I think it's a great challenge for us to see that we might not be able to change everything but our hearts need to be open. We need to be those that are standing for the oneness of the body of Christ, whether they're slave or free, Jew or Gentile, or female, there's a great oneness that we need to be standing into. That's what this table, that's what this bread speaks of one body, that's what it speaks of one loaf and, you know, thank the Lord we can be those that can just be standing for that and not judging or evaluating ones as they walk into the door, you know, who they are, but seeing Christ in them and accepting one another as we've been accepted and it's a great challenge today and we want to, because we see the tension, I mean, it's obvious it's out there and it's hatred, but it's sad if you look at all the various divisions within the body of Christ, the greatest division is tragically the racial one and he's made us one and we don't want that. We want to experience the oneness we have in Christ with all our brothers and sisters. So, and historically always bring something back to Virginia, the first black church in America was in Virginia in 1758. It was, it's near, actually it was in Mecklenburg County, William Byrd III's plantation was both free and slaves could meet, they met together in the Blue Stone Church. It's no longer there, it was torn down. It's near, it was the area near Clarksville, Virginia, about '58 between South Hill and South Boston. That's the first black church in America was 1758. And so we're, Virginia has another first. So, but as you look at the impact of the awakening, we've talked, already covered a lot of this, it not only focused on salvation but also sanctification, holy living, and it was created an experiential unity among believers. There wasn't this Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, but as once came together, they were actually in a living experience, the oneness that they had, tragically that would, that wore off, but there was that experience. And awakened one's hearts concerned for fellow man. Also awakened the evil of slavery, the need for reforms in prison, child labor, orphanages, awakened the need for mission works, both inner city and foreign, and it also awakened believers to see the diverse way that God works. So often we think this is the way God works. You have a Jonathan Edwards who sits there and reads a sermon very unemotionally and people, thousands would get saved. You have a Whitfield, you have others, very dramatic presentations, ones get saved. You have some revivals that after the Word of God, people just fall very quietly on their face and they give their lives to the Lord. You have other revivals where after the Word, there's a great response either in tongues or dancing and emotional outbreak, whatever, but there was an awakening to the different way God works because we love to put him in a box and get very comfortable with our box. But these ones we're seeing that God works in a multitude of ways. It's just like if we went around this room and everybody shared their testimony on how they were saved, everyone, it would be all different. He touched us in all different ways. Praise God for that. And these awakenings, as we mentioned earlier, the awakenings were also going on in England, and one of the things that started in England and carried on to the U.S. was there are many social reforms. Many social reforms occurred during the 18th century. Now, why do we even mention this, social reforms? That in and of itself says, what's that? But the great difference between social reforms then and social things that are trying to go on now is they saw Christ as the answer. The only answer to any problem in this world is Christ. First getting men saved, getting them to know the Lord, bringing them to Him, and because there was so much evil in the world at this point in time, you could just see how you saw as slavery increased, as this is also, what was also, what was it, the history professor can't answer, but what else was the latter part of the 18th century, first part of the 19th century, what was that era also called, known as? Industrial revolution. She gets to the front of the line at lunch. All right, there you go. Yeah, so we see these industries and this child labor and the abuse of people and people just didn't have a concern for their fellow man. It was just, we saw the wickedness and evil of men coming forth and the greed of man, but praise God the Lord touched certain ones to be able to take a stand and to bring about some changes in this. The first two we look at as far as John Newton, we know how he was a former slave trader and was gloriously saved and we have the wonderful hymn of amazing grace with him and two of the quotes I always appreciated by Newton is he says, "I'm not the man I ought to be, I'm not the man I wish to be, I'm not the man I hope to be, but by the grace of God I'm not the man I used to be." Praise God. That's for all of us. That's where we're heading. As we get a little bit older, I appreciated this one too. Although my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior. Praise God. Those essential things we're remembering there. He had a great influence and encouragement upon William Wilberforce and the whole abolition of slavery in England. He encouraged Wilberforce to pursue changing the law and Wilberforce worked with many other prominent ones, prominent believers throughout England. They were this group called the Clapham Group. That was just the town that they lived in and they worked to address many of the social issues. One of the first things that Wilberforce did was he commissioned Josiah Wedgewood to have a little cameo made. It was popular to wear cameos in those days and time. A cameo on slavery and it just asked, asked the very piercing question, am I not a man and a brother? Am I not a man and a brother? How can you enslave me? And so he introduced his first bill in 1789 to abolish slavery, I'm sorry, to abolish the slave trade. But it was defeated. It was close, but it was defeated. But John Wesley wrote him a letter to encourage him because he was really discouraged. He put his whole heart into introducing this bill. And then Wesley comes along and wrote him a letter. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God before you, who can be against you? Are all are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God and in the power of his might till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it. He received that letter and it encouraged him to keep pressing on. And really, he from 1790 to 1806, about 26 years, he continued fighting for the abolition of slavery and other social justices. One of the things he did was he wrote a tract to awaken people and the tracts that they wrote, they weren't very, one very concise title is called, "The Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christianity in the Higher Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted with Real Christianity." That wouldn't work today in this little blip you got to get their attention quick. Just a couple of the quotes from it. He says, "True Christians consider themselves not as satisfying some rigorous creditor, but as discharging a debt of gratitude. In the Christian world in the West, we settle for a cultural version of Christianity that is far from the real thing." When you meet so many people in the world, they know what Christianity is in their eyes. There's a cultural view of Christianity. Further, he went on to try to awaken people at that point in time. It makes no sense to take the name of Christian and not cling to Christ. Jesus is not some magic charm to wear like a piece of jewelry we think will give us good luck. He is the Lord. His name is to be written on our hearts in such a powerful way that it creates within us a profound experience of His peace and a heart that is filled with His praise. Praise God for that. And then, carefully studying the Bible will challenge us to reject a superficial understanding of Christianity and impress on us that it's imperative not to simply be religious or moral, but also to integrate its principles into our lives and put into action what we have learned practically. He was trying to awaken the people of God and bringing them back. And as he continued to press on, finally in 1807 the slave trade was finally abolished in England. But then he also saw that just eliminating slave trade did not eliminate slavery. He pushed on and finally in 1833 in England was the Emancipation Act that freed all the slaves of the British empire. We can see the, let's see, oops, went back to this one. This was where he, France and Spain had already liberated their slaves. The USA later on in '63 made the proclamation in Brazil in '88. Now the only country there that had to fight over it was the U.S. Everywhere else was peaceful. The others, the only place we just, we got into a fight over it, but the others were peaceful. Now for a couple of quotes, I always throw in a couple of quotes here from, he said when he was speaking to ones about the whole issue of slavery and the social issues in life that were going on, he said, "You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know." You know, you can make a choice, look the other way, but you'll be held accountable. You can't say you didn't know. And then I appreciated as his testimony here, "If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large." You know, how about being an incurable fanatic for Christ? That's what he, you know, we're thankful. And other social reforms that went on was Robert Rakes. Now, he was the education for urban poor because many of them were having to work in the factories throughout the week and they weren't getting any education. And Robert Rakes, he started schools on Sunday for children who lived in the slums. Now, actually the Anglican Church had its Sunday schools already going, but these people here from the urban poor, they couldn't go to those churches or facilities. And he had to hold them on Sundays because it was the most, most of them worked in the factories for six other days. And the textbook was the Bible and his teachers, he contracted with laymen and laywomen. And the schedule, he would have the children came in at 10 in the morning, stayed at 12. They would go home, return at 1. They read their lesson, went on to church, repeated the catechism until 5 and then they had to go home without making a noise. He was trying to bring some discipline to their life too. And it's imagined that when he started by 1831, he taught over 1,250,000 children, had a great impact upon him. But as with most things, there was opposition. Basically, again, because the upper class didn't have any concern for the poor, they derisively called them rakes ragged school and said, "You're desecrating the Sabbath by having them go to school and you're hiring people to make them work on the Sabbath." And they said, "It will weaken the home based education." Well, in the slums there was no home based education. In the upper society there was, but it wasn't. So even, it's always interesting when people that don't know the Lord can spot the things of the Lord. And Adam Spith, who was an unbeliever, he wrote "An Age of Reason," he wrote "The Wealth of Nations." He's an economist and things like that. He said, "No plan has promised to affect a change of character and manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the apostles." He saw the Word of God going into these kids. That was their textbook. That's what they were learning. It was impacting their character and nature. And you could see the impact of it in the world. Praise God for this, for Him. And it eventually started, this started the whole thing for public education for everyone in general, not just the elite. Also, the prisons were in pretty bad shape too at that point in time. And there's a dear sister, Elizabeth Frye, and she had a great ministry in the prisons. She came, she was from a very prominent banking family and she was a Quaker. She married in 1800, had 11 children. How about that? Did that stop her from serving the Lord? Not a bit. By 1813, okay, she's married 13 years. She's probably had a good number of those 11 by then. She visits Newgate Prison and finds it in such squalid conditions. And it was just, it's probably hard for us to imagine the nature of the prisons back at that time. But they were extremely overcrowded, one sleeping in filth on dirt floors. Men, women, and children all housed together. They had cells just all there together. All types of criminals were housed together. Whether you were a shoplifter, a rapist, or murderers, you were all there together. Daily food ration was a loaf of bread. No medicines and lice swarmed everywhere. And they only had male guards. And just like the guards today, they sold things to prisoners that they weren't sposed to. They sold amenities and they had their booze and everything. And they would, the guards would make a fortune. And basically the bullies, or today we'd call them the gangs, ran the jail. It was much fighting and many were abused. And tragically the common punishment that was put to death. I mean, they would just put you to death or ship you to Australia. And the ships that went to Australia were just like the prisons. There was no segregation. Everybody was just lumped in a hole together. And many died along the way to that. But the Lord raised up Elizabeth Fryer, Betsy, as she's known. And she started, after she visited that, it so touched her heart, she started going there every day. She would take food. She'd gather clothing and medicine from all of her friends. She'd take supplies and everything and take it down to them. And she would also, she'd be reading the Bible to them, reading every day, praying with them, biblical encouragement and counseling. And she was starting to be called that angel of Newgate Prison. And there's a wonderful testimony of this little lady. She was a pretty tiny lady. She said, "Elizabeth, if you think about the hardened ones in the atmosphere within this prison, it says she could project such pathos in her voice that even hardened criminals melted and cool observers found themselves in tears." That's the power of God, being able to just share with the hungry ones. But slowly things start. She was able to bring about some changes. Prisoners were segregated, male and females were separated. You know, ones that there was a women's, they had women matrons over the women's side. Hardened criminals were separated more from the lesser things. The training programs were set up to teach the women how to learn a trade from sewing and doing other cares so that they could earn a living. And then daily the women were conducting their own Bible studies, prayers and worship and many similar reforms were made on the ships going to Australia. But praise God, it was so significant the change that she made in the prisons that actually the kings from various countries and royalty from Russia and France, Germany, they were all coming over. They wanted to see this prison that they could make their, they could change in their own systems. And her couple of quotes from Betsy is that, "It's an honor to appear on the side of the afflicted." Praise God. She had everything going for her in life. She felt that it was the greatest honor to be on the side of the afflicted. And for those that are building prisons, she has this little piece of advice. "When they build a prison, they had better build it with the thought ever in mind that they or thy children may occupy the cells." You never know where you might end up. So build it so you have to be there. Now, there was other social reforms too. And now George Mueller, his care for orphanage, the next time we'll look at the brethren, we'll cover Mueller then. And also various child labor and workplace safety things were herried out by the Clapham group. But one of my favorite stories, Jim has mimosa. My favorite story is Mary Jones with Tom Charles and Mary Jones. They founded the British and Foreign Bible Society. And what this did, the British and Foreign Bible Society, it made Bibles affordable to everybody in the country. There was a great Bible distribution. This was the very first Bible society. And we see how the Bible was now available then and we see how it's impacted the world as it's made available. But Thomas Charles, he was part of the Religious Tract Society. And Mary Jones, she was actually saved when she was eight years old. And she'd always wanted a Bible. And the nearest Bible to her house was two miles away. One of the neighbors had a Bible. But she knew that 26 miles away, or 25 to 26 miles away, there was this man named Thomas Charles who had Bibles for sale. And so she saved for eight years selling eggs, doing arins, doing all of her little chores around. She saved for eight years to be able to find, to afford a Bible. And so finally at the age of 16 she'd saved enough money. And she walked 25 miles. And the way the story goes, she's always barefooted. Twenty-five miles barefooted to get a Bible. And we have so many today. And she's so impressed. And when she got there, there's actually two versions of the story. The one version, the most popular one, is that Thomas Charles said that all the Bibles were already sold. They've been promised to people. But he was so touched by her heart of her desire for the Bible that he gave one to her that was already promised. And the second story goes that he was so, all the Bibles were sold, but there was some more coming in two days. And so she had to wait two or three days to get a Bible. But anyway, that detail doesn't matter. The issue is her heart for the Bible. And the impact that Thomas Charles had such, he was able to perceive, he was sensitive enough to see that there was a great need out there for Bibles. So he went back and the ones that had been part of this called the Religious Tract Society, they changed and they formed that British and Foreign Bible Society to open the Word of God and make it available to mankind throughout Britain and the world either free or at an affordable price. And it had a tremendous impact upon the world obviously as the Bible started getting out there more and more. So we have copies of Mary Jones' books in there if you ever want to read one. It's a great little quick read and she's one of my favorite people. All right. As I mentioned earlier about Adam Smith, it's always interesting how nonbelievers perceive Christianity. And thanks to Jim's wife Barb, I got a quote this week from a historian and an atheist named Tom Holland. I don't know how many are familiar with him. He has shows on BBC and things like that and writes books. But it's an interesting quote. Remember he's an atheist now. But he says while he was studying the ancient world, he realized the ancients were cruel and their values were utterly foreign to him. They murdered imperfect children. Slaves were treated horribly, poor, weak, had no rights. Neither did women in marriage. It wasn't valued at all. It was a pretty accurate picture of what happened. And then he asked the question, if that's the way it was there, how did we get from there to here? How did we go from what it was like in that early society of nobody caring for one another and taking advantage? How did we get here? And this is an atheist says, it was Christianity. It revolutionized marriage, prohibited all forms of rape, elevated women, and showed concern for all mankind. In short, Christianity utterly transformed the world. In fact, Holland points out that without Christianity and its values, the Western world would not exist today. Without Christianity, man would have self-destructed. An atheist could see that. He never comes to the Lord, but he sees the impact that Christianity has had far more than just making social, improving social conditions. The impact is changing lives. And when ones can get, when we can come to that awakening and really allow the Lord to meet us in that way, we can really enter in to be the testimony that we're called to be. So, just to kind of summarize some of the things we've been saying, you know, thankful that throughout history, this means I need to shut up. Time's running out. Lunch is ready. Anyway, throughout church history, there have been ones that realized they were there for such a time as this and responded. As we look today in worship, we need that balance of appreciating what's gone before but also embracing what's of Him in this generation. And may there be a fresh awakening among Lord's people in this hour and increased care and concern for one another in the lost. I mean, there's so much unrest in this world today. It's easy just to leave it and say, you know, that's the world. But God has a heart and a care for each one. And may we allow the Lord to continue to work in us, expressing in a real living way the oneness and unity of the body of Christ. And while we cannot solve all the racial, social problems in the world, we can in our hearts live, hearts and lives display the love of Christ to believers and unbelievers and be the testimony of Jesus He's called us to be by His grace. So may the Lord help us. Let's pray. Lord, we do come and offer ourselves unto you. We're thankful that ones just didn't look out and see things as impossible. But they looked up and they saw the God of the impossible. And Lord, we want to be those that keep our eyes looking up, seeing you, Lord. Lord, we don't know what we can do today, but we know what you can do. And we want to be available to you in this hour to be the testimony of Jesus that you're calling to be, calling us to be, not just in name, but indeed in truth and lives. So Lord, encourage us to press on in you, encourage us to be open to you, encourage us to continue seeking you and standing for you and your interest in this day and time. In Jesus' name, Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]

The Testimony Of Jesus Throughout Church History #5