The Great Awakenings

Revival is the sovereign work of God in which He revitalizes His church and awakens the lost through a powerful outpouring of His Spirit. It is not a scheduled event, a planned program, or a predictable result of human effort. Revival comes when God moves — sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes in answer to years of fervent prayer, but always on His terms and for His glory. The Psalmist cried, "Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?" (Psalm 85:6). The prophet Habakkuk pleaded, "O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years" (Habakkuk 3:2). The longing for revival runs through Scripture — the recognition that God's people drift into spiritual lethargy, that the fire of first love grows cold, and that only a fresh visitation of God's Spirit can restore what has been lost. The Great Awakenings were seasons of revival that transformed the English-speaking world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were marked by powerful preaching, deep conviction of sin, mass conversions, social transformation, and a renewed passion for holiness and missions. They reshaped the religious landscape of Britain and America, producing denominations, institutions, and movements whose influence endures to this day. God promised Solomon, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14). This promise, given to Israel, contains a principle that has been demonstrated repeatedly in church history: when God's people humble themselves and seek His face, revival comes.

The First Great Awakening swept through the American colonies and Britain in the 1730s and 1740s, transforming a spiritually lethargic population into a vibrant, evangelical movement. The colonial churches had grown formal, cold, and culturally established. Membership was often a social convention rather than a spiritual reality. The Puritan fire of the founding generation had dimmed. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was the intellectual giant of the Awakening. Pastor of the church in Northampton, Massachusetts, Edwards combined rigorous Calvinist theology with passionate preaching and a deep personal piety. His sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741) is the most famous sermon in American history — a relentless exposition of divine judgment that produced such terror among the hearers that some clung to the pillars of the church to keep from sliding into hell. But Edwards was far more than a fire-and-brimstone preacher; his theological works — The Freedom of the Will, Religious Affections, The End for Which God Created the World — remain monuments of evangelical thought. George Whitefield (1714-1770) was the evangelist of the Awakening. An ordained Anglican minister with a voice that could carry to thousands without amplification, Whitefield preached approximately 18,000 sermons in his lifetime, crossing the Atlantic thirteen times. He preached to crowds of up to 30,000 in the open air — a revolutionary practice in an age of formal, indoor worship. Benjamin Franklin, though a skeptic, was so impressed by Whitefield's oratory that he emptied his pockets into the offering. The results of the First Great Awakening were far-reaching. An estimated 25,000 to 50,000 new converts joined the churches. New colleges were founded — Princeton, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth all trace their origins to the Awakening. The revival crossed denominational, social, and racial boundaries, creating a sense of common American identity that would contribute to the Revolution a generation later. Most importantly, the gospel was preached with power, and souls were saved.

While the Great Awakening transformed America, a parallel movement was reshaping Britain. John Wesley (1703-1791) and his brother Charles (1707-1788) became the leaders of the evangelical revival that produced the Methodist movement — one of the most significant religious developments in modern history. John Wesley was an ordained Anglican priest who experienced a dramatic spiritual transformation at a Moravian meeting on Aldersgate Street, London, on May 24, 1738. As someone read from Luther's preface to the book of Romans, Wesley felt his heart "strangely warmed" and experienced an assurance of salvation by faith alone that had eluded him through years of religious effort. From that moment, Wesley became a tireless evangelist, preaching an average of three sermons per day for over fifty years. Wesley followed Whitefield into open-air preaching, taking the gospel to miners, laborers, and the poor — people whom the established church had largely ignored. He organized his converts into "societies" and "classes" — small groups for prayer, accountability, and mutual encouragement. This organizational genius transformed individual conversions into a sustained movement of discipleship. The Methodist system of circuit riders, class meetings, and lay preachers became a model of church growth that spread across the English-speaking world. Charles Wesley was the hymn writer of the movement, composing over 6,000 hymns that gave theological substance to the revival. "And Can It Be," "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing," "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing," and "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" remain among the most beloved hymns in the English language. Charles's hymns carried the theology of the revival into the hearts and memories of ordinary believers, ensuring that the truths preached from the pulpit became the songs of the people. The social impact of the Wesley revival was profound. Historians have argued that the Methodist revival saved Britain from a revolution comparable to the French Revolution. Wesley's preaching produced not only conversions but social reform — opposition to slavery, care for the poor, prison reform, and education for the working classes. The gospel transformed individuals, and transformed individuals transformed society.

The Second Great Awakening swept across America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, producing an even broader and more sustained impact than the First. It transformed American religion, created new denominations and institutions, fueled the abolitionist movement, and established the pattern of revivalism that would characterize American evangelicalism for generations. The Awakening began in multiple locations simultaneously. In New England, Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College and grandson of Jonathan Edwards, led a revival among the students that reversed the deism and infidelity that had infected the campus. In the frontier regions of Kentucky and Tennessee, massive camp meetings drew thousands of settlers for days of preaching, prayer, and dramatic conversions. The Cane Ridge Revival of 1801, organized by Presbyterian minister Barton W. Stone, attracted an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people — perhaps the largest gathering in American history to that date. Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) became the most prominent evangelist of the Second Great Awakening. A former lawyer, Finney experienced a dramatic conversion and immediately began preaching with extraordinary power. His revivals in upstate New York, Boston, and other cities produced thousands of conversions. Finney is a controversial figure — his theology emphasized human ability and "new measures" (protracted meetings, the anxious bench, direct appeals for immediate decision), which some critics saw as manipulative and theologically unsound. The Second Great Awakening produced lasting institutional results. The Sunday school movement, the temperance movement, the abolitionist crusade, foreign missions societies, Bible societies, and the YMCA all trace their origins to this period. The revivalism of the Second Awakening created a culture of evangelistic urgency that would shape American Protestantism for two centuries. For better or worse, the methods and assumptions of this era — the altar call, the decision-based conversion, the professional evangelist — became standard features of American evangelicalism.

The Prayer Revival of 1857-58, also known as the Businessmen's Revival, was perhaps the most remarkable awakening in American history. It began not with a famous preacher but with a quiet layman — Jeremiah Lanphier, a businessman who started a noonday prayer meeting in the upper room of a church on Fulton Street in New York City on September 23, 1857. The first meeting attracted only six people. Within weeks, the room was full. Within months, prayer meetings were springing up in churches, theaters, and fire stations across New York, and the movement spread to cities throughout the nation. At the peak, an estimated 10,000 people gathered daily for prayer in New York City alone. An estimated 500,000 to one million people were converted during this revival — in a nation of approximately 30 million. What distinguished this revival from previous awakenings was the absence of a dominant preacher or controversial methodology. There were no camp meetings, no anxious benches, no theatrical preaching. There was simply prayer — earnest, united, persistent prayer by ordinary believers crying out to God for mercy. The revival demonstrated that God is not dependent upon human instruments — He responds to the humble cry of His people. Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) emerged in the aftermath of the Prayer Revival as the greatest evangelist of the nineteenth century. A former shoe salesman with no formal theological education, Moody preached with simplicity, warmth, and urgency to millions in America and Britain. His partnership with the hymn writer Ira Sankey produced a model of evangelism — preaching combined with gospel music — that influenced every subsequent evangelist, including Billy Sunday and Billy Graham. Moody also founded the Moody Bible Institute (1886) and the Moody Church in Chicago, institutions that continue to train and equip believers for ministry.

The Great Awakenings offer enduring lessons for every generation of believers who long for a fresh work of God in their own time. First, revival begins with the sovereignty of God. No formula, no methodology, no human effort can manufacture genuine revival. God sends revival in His own time, in His own way, and for His own purposes. Edwards, Whitefield, Wesley, Finney, and Moody were instruments — but the power was God's. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts" (Zechariah 4:6). The church can pray for revival, prepare for revival, and position itself for revival — but only God can send it. Second, revival always centers on the gospel. The great awakenings were not characterized by novel doctrines, entertaining programs, or cultural accommodation. They were characterized by the plain, powerful proclamation of sin, judgment, grace, and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Edwards preached the wrath of God. Whitefield preached the new birth. Wesley preached justification by faith. Moody preached the love of God. The message varied in emphasis, but the substance was the same — the eternal gospel of Christ crucified and risen. Third, revival produces fruit that lasts. Genuine revival is not a temporary emotional experience that fades when the preacher leaves town. It produces lasting conversions, changed lives, new churches, missionary movements, and social transformation. The awakenings created institutions, movements, and traditions that shaped the English-speaking world for centuries. Where revival is genuine, the fruit endures. Fourth, revival demands personal holiness. The awakened church is not a comfortable church — it is a convicted church. Revival exposes sin, calls for repentance, and demands obedience. The believer who prays for revival must be prepared to be revived himself — to have hidden sins exposed, to have comfortable habits disrupted, and to have lukewarm faith set ablaze. "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).