Sample from The Awakening by Marie Monsen

After fully ten months of waiting in Peking the way to Shansi opened and I traveled up with S. R. who knew those parts well. L.M. had already reached Shansi by taking a long way round through Manchuria and had been organizing prayer groups for revival. In writing of this time of preparation she said: “We found that the prayer-revival in Chefoo was bearing fruit.”

We had a week of conference meetings in L.M.’s station with two meetings a day. In telling her recollections of that time L.M. wrote: “Many came under conviction of sin and entered into a personal experience of salvation and deliverance. It was wonderful to watch the Holy Spirit at work.”

L.M. was present at the meetings in S.R.’s station later and wrote of them: “In this large church too, spiritual renewal came to many, and many were converted. Conviction of sin was so deep that some could neither eat nor sleep until they were set free from their burden of sin. One man asked:

“What does this mean to be born again?”

“When you are born again you know what it is,” was the answer given him.

After a sleepless night spent in prayer, that man came back with a shining face and said:

“Now I know.”

S. R. has also written an account of those meetings: “At our station, there was a large church but not much spiritual life. Some had been truly saved, several of them from the Women’s Bible Class, but we were looking for greater things. For four years we had had daily prayer meetings for revival with the Chinese leaders. We knew that revival had to begin in us, the Lord’s servants, and that there was much that needed breaking down and cleansing to open the channels for the rivers of living water we were praying for. And God was very gracious to us. He granted us our requests. We saw His wonderful works done in our midst. First we invited the women to come for special meetings. About a hundred gathered with expectant, prepared hearts. They were not disappointed. There was deep conviction of sin and a wonderful experience of the grace of God. Hymns of praise sounded from the lips of the newly-saved both day and night.

“The great question then was: Am I born again? It was a time when all the leaders found themselves searched by the Holy Spirit, and when they set themselves to be rightly related to God and men, and the joy that came after the crisis was in proportion to the pain it had cost. Elder Wang said in deep thankfulness to God: ‘We have a new church now.’ Revival meetings went on at outstations and neighbouring stations, and at these gatherings, the newly-saved, or those who had just been through a renewal of spiritual experience, were a great blessing to others. The need for their vital testimonies was great, and led to a time of reaping.”

S.R. and L.M., both Norwegian missionaries, were my companions at many other centres in Shansi, stations where the Swedish friends of the Peking days worked, and stations belonging to what is known as Albert Lunde’s Mission. Their help was of inestimable value.

The first day in each place was usually set apart for prayer fellowship with the missionaries and talks about the coming meetings. We reminded one another of the importance of guarding against picking unripe fruit. That first day also allowed time for personal talks with the Chinese leaders, both men and women, one by one.

Sometimes I personally had to leave before the revival broke out, but we always knew it was coming, and those who stayed were prepared to carry on until the harvest had been brought in. It usually began within two or three days.

One factor was the same in every place. The missionaries were deeply exercised over the spiritual condition of the churches and had been praying that the Spirit of God would come and work among the members. When the answer to their prayers came, they almost always thought it was “exceeding abundantly above all” that they had asked or thought.

Recollections of those weeks might fill chapters, but only one station will be mentioned here: L— where K.F. and A.S. worked.

The prayer ministry had been exercised for some time and one day a letter came containing this passage: “Well, we feel now that we are ripe for revival so we have decided to hold meetings beginning on December 26th. Can you come and join us?” This letter had been expected, so with great joy L.M. and I set out in time to spend Christmas there first. We had good spiritual fellowship that Christmastide in which some of the conference delegates who had come early joined.

The opening meeting was held on the evening of Christmas Day. Many had come and most of them were weary after a long journey. The power of the Holy Spirit was manifest among us and fear fell upon the gathering. Not long after the meeting the Bible woman came running in to say that the delegates had been so filled with fear since they reached the mission compound, that they were talking of going home at dawn next day. It was as ripe for revival as that.

The Bible woman and we missionaries knelt and continued in prayer until at about midnight, assurance that God had heard our prayers was given.

Very early, before we were up the next morning, the Bible woman came in to tell us that it had snowed in the night, so it was impossible for anyone to go home: they were not shod for snow.

The church was full that morning, and from the first we knew that the Spirit was using the Word. One in the congregation said afterwards: “Every word was like a hammer knocking at our hearts: even in the night the messages we had heard would keep sounding in our ears.”

A young teacher said later that before the meetings began he had been filled with a panic of fear at what would happen when the revival came. At the prayer meetings held before our arrival, when others prayed for a safe journey over the mountains for the guests they were expecting, he prayed with silent but passionate intensity that some accident might prevent their arrival, and the grand “Welcome” over the church door, which he had helped the schoolchildren to make, was prepared while he prayed that the speakers might be hindered in coming by untoward circumstances.

This church had been considered hopeless, but the sisters who had accepted the leadership had begun their work at the right end. Putting their faith in Him who is able to do the impossible, they had given themselves to believing prayer, and now the answer was coming.

It was a strange moment for us all when a man came to the front of the congregation, and stripped to the waist to show us his back, which looked as though it had been chopped all over.

“Again and again I have been beaten, to force me to confess crimes,” he said, “and I denied them all in spite of the beatings; but the Holy Spirit is stronger than rods and whips, and does it so quietly too. Now I must put everything right.”

The Evangelist on the mission station had known better times in his work there, but was exposed to great temptations. Now the Spirit of God spoke to him through the Word. He had seen himself as never before, and it was a chastened man who came for help. One sore point was the teacher mentioned earlier, who was his son-in-law. They bore mutual resentment and never spoke to each other.

And the terror the teacher felt had yielded before the twoedged sword the Spirit used. He became one of the sick who needed the Great Physician.

“I have been both a hypocritical teacher and church-member. If I am saved, there will be an endless amount to put right.” His tears flowed, not in self-pity but in genuine shame, as he went on to say: “Every time the Evangelist passes me, I stand still till he is out of sight, then I spit on the ground and curse him.”

Both men wanted to be reconciled, and the two missionaries stationed there were radiant when the Evangelist and the teacher got right with each other.

Many church-members and schoolchildren seemed to come through into blessing. Their faces testified to their peace and joy. A man of about sixty to seventy years of age came late one evening, and said:

“Many have been saved.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can see it in their faces.”

“Yes, but you know, the Lord looketh on the heart.”

“What I see these days in their faces comes from what has happened in their hearts.”

“What has happened in their hearts?”

“Sin has come out and God’s peace has gone in.”

“How did it happen?”

“They confessed their sins and were given new hearts. I want to confess too,” and he knelt down. He prayed a very, very long prayer, a dead prayer.

“Do you call this getting right with God?”

For a few moments he sat in silence, then went away.

Next day he was there again.

“I wasn’t sincere yesterday.”

“I can go out while you speak to the Lord.”

“No, that will not do. I need a witness while I confess.” And this time it was real. We read the promises together.

He was given peace and his face shone for joy. One could not resist the impulse to go with him to the rooms round the courtyard. With a glow in his face and voice he called out to a group of conference delegates: “The prisoner is set free, Jesus has taken it all on Himself.” A liberated soul began his song of praise out there among the others.

[This is a sample from the book The Awakening by Marie Monsen, a Norwegian missionary who saw revival in China.]