THE WELSH REVIVAL 🔥🔥🔥 • THE PLAN WAS NOT TO PLAN. Plans seemed to be the hallmark of the WelshRevival. Just weeks before it broke out in his home church in Loughor, Evan had planned campaigns throughout Wales with his brother Dan and a friend named Sydney Evans. Quickly he discovered that the Spirit had another plan, and His plans were much better. Evan soon developed a healthy fear of man's planning and organization in the midst of revival. This is not to imply that leadership and organization are not at times needed in the church, but when the Spirit is doing something new and fresh, the greatest gift is not knowing how to lead, but knowing how to follow. The attempts at organization during the Welsh Revival all proved futile, and at times a hindrance to the true work. It seems that every time the Spirit wants to move in a creative way He still has to find those who are "formless and void." Those with the humility that comes from knowing they do not have the answers, which stimulates a holy desperation for God in them, seem to be the only ones who can ever be responsive to the Lord when He wants to do a new thing. Evan Roberts refused to allow his meetings or visits to a city to be announced until a day or two before he was to arrive. Even then he would only say that he "hoped" to be at a certain place at a certain time. As the Lord Jesus explained to Nicodemus: "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). The workers in the Welsh Revival came to understand that the Lord meant this literally. Finally they did not try to figure out where the Spirit was going next, they only tried to stay close enough to "hear the sound of it." The workers came to abhor the presumption that the Spirit would automatically go with them and bless their own plans. They knew that the Spirit did not follow them, but that they must follow the Spirit. It is noteworthy that many who have tried to duplicate this kind of ministry style succumbed to spiritual delusions or have even suffered the shipwreck of their faith. Even the apostles to the early church often planned their missionary journeys and would announce months ahead of time their impending visits. Yet, they always remained open for the Lord to change their plans; nevertheless, the apostles could not always keep their intentions to visit a city, as with Paul's attempts to revisit the Corinthians. The point is that our renewed minds are not in conflict with the Holy Spirit. The Lord did not lead the apostles around by the hand, He sent them. They made many of their own decisions because they had His mind. But because they were always growing and maturing they did not always make the right decisions. At times the Lord would correct their course with an intervention of divine guidance through a dream, vision, or a prophet. We must labor with the spiritual wisdom that has been given to us, but always be open for the Lord to intervene and change our plans. During times of a dynamic outpouring of the Holy Spirit, such as the Welsh Revival, the Lord can only use those who will yield themselves completely to Him in order that He might do something entirely new. It seems that in every city the apostle Paul visited, the Holy Spirit moved differently than in the previous ones. Paul moved with vision, strategy and decisiveness, but with a finely tuned sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, and the willingness to yield to a different plan. Many of the great missionary ventures in church history, such as William Booth's Salvation Army, were planned over many years, and they generally followed the plan. Those who might have worked with some of these missionary ventures would probably scorn the lack of organization of the Welsh Revival. Likewise, those who were a part of the Welsh Revival would almost certainly reject the seeming over-dependence on organization that such missionary societies had. A great tribute to General Booth was that he visited the Welsh Revival, observed that it was functioning in almost the opposite manner in which he ran the Salvation Army, and was still able to recognize that it was God and should not be tampered with. He then went back and continued to run the army just the way he had been, recognizing that God employs different strategies for different places or purposes. Likewise, there are lessons for us all in the way that He moved through the Salvation Army in its early years. The Welsh Revival actually died because it took the fear of organization and fear of human intervention too far. Likewise, the Salvation Army, though still a large organization and doing many good works, is spiritually only a shell of its former glory because the organization was not flexible enough to hold new wine. - THE WORLD AFLAME by Rick Joyner #RevivalFire - Spiritual Notes