Revival Fires Are Being Lit
August 2022
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THE SPARK THAT lit revival fires in Wales in the early 1900s, they say, came from a young lady named Florrie Evans. As a nineteen-year-old, she sat in a meeting with Pastor Joseph Jenkins who asked the young people there a simple question, “What does Jesus mean to you?” One young man stood up and said, “He is the hope of the world.” Pastor Jenkins said, “True, but you miss the point of the question. What does Jesus Christ mean to you?” It grew quiet. No one else attempted an answer. Finally, young Florrie stood to her feet and with a heart full of passion declared, “I love Jesus Christ with all my heart!”
On a Friday night in May, we experienced something similar during our Crossfire Worship and Baptismal night.
It really wasn’t something we expected to have happen. For our May 6 service, we had planned and scheduled four baptisms to take place. We do these baptismal services every so often and each one has been awesome to experience. But that night, after that fourth baptism, I felt in my heart to appeal to the young people gathered there and ask, “Is there anyone who feels that they need to come and be baptized here tonight, anyone who feels in their heart the need to declare to all of us that you are going on with Jesus and following Him?” Like that meeting in Wales, it grew quiet. No one responded. So we closed the service and people started to walk away, shaking hands and talking on their way out. Then, all of a sudden, one of the young adults walked up to us with tears streaming down his face and said, “I want to be baptized tonight.” I, along with several of the pastors there, began to weep as we sensed the presence of God. I shouted, “Everybody wait, come back. We’re going to do one more baptism!” Everyone made their way back, circled around, and as we started that fifth baptism, we could sense and feel the presence of God and the moving of the Holy Spirit.
The person who had come forward to be baptized had faced much adversity in his young life, so when he stood in the baptismal tank and declared, “God is good,” the presence of the Lord once again swept through our congregation. After that fifth baptism, one young person after another— teenagers, young adults, even some parents—came to repent of sin, renounce unbelief, and declare that they were going on with Jesus Christ and giving Him everything so that He could do with their lives whatever He wanted done. An hour and a half later, we had baptized nearly forty people.
That Friday night, as people kept coming to be baptized, it was as if I could hear Florrie Evans’ declaration repeated again and again: “I love the Lord Jesus with all of my heart.” And just as revival started in the heart of a young woman in Wales then, we believe that revival fires are being lit now—not only in several hearts here in Baton Rouge but also throughout the world as people return to their first love—Jesus Christ—and his sacrificial atonement on the cross of Calvary. Praise the Lord.
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