The Holy Spirit Never Left the Church

In 1987, on the 250th Anniversary of its founding, I visited New Herrnhut Moravian Church on the island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Visiting this mountain-side shrine and the jungle overhanging its cemetery impacted my life in a way I will carry to my grave. There are churches in the Western Hemisphere much older than Herrnhut but none can compete with its special history.

In 1737, the first missionaries of the modern era came to this jungle island to bring the gospel to African slaves. When Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann stepped ashore on St. Thomas, Bibles in hand, they struck the gong that awoke a slumbering evangelical church and sent the mission movement around the world. From the vibrations of that gong, in one century alone, more than 100,000,000 new believers in Latin America and the Caribbean have come to Christ. The story behind these young men is the Crown Jewel in the modern mission movement.

In the early 1700’s, a congregation of some 300 Anabaptists, Calvinists, Hussites, disciples of Swingle, Schwenkfold, and other non-conformists, sought refuge on the estate of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Saxony, eastern Germany. Like the Count, who was only 27 years old, most members of the community were young; all had fled persecution in other parts of Europe. In the beginning, they quarreled over doctrines of baptism, predestination, holiness, etc., until the Count encouraged them to concentrate on their love for Jesus. It was the Cross, not doctrines about the Cross, he reminded them, that purchased their redemption. In that understanding, they united in Covenant-agreement and began seeking the Lord in travailing prayer. The Count’s simple exhortation became the key that opened the congregation to an all-powerful invasion of the Holy Spirit. This is how it happened:

1. Tuesday, August 5, 1727, Count Zinzendorf spent the entire night in watching and prayer. “Herrnhut” means the “Lord’s Watch.”

2. Sunday, August 10, 1727, at noon, when Pastor Rothe preached, the congregation fell under the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. Wednesday, August 13, 1727, at morning Communion, the power of God came upon the community in such shattering force that men working in the fields 10 miles away were stricken under the shock of it. Even today, its’ impact is without parallel in modern Christian history.

4. Tuesday, August 26, 1727, the children were anointed with 3 hours of anguished intercession.

5. Wednesday, August 27, 1727, at the initiation of the children, Herrnhut began a prayer meeting that lasted night and day, without stopping, one hundred years.

That century-long prayer meeting of laboring, travailing, intercession, 1727-1827, birthed the modern mission movement. One hundred years after it closed, and long after the original members of Herrnhut were dead, every Protestant denomination engaged in carrying the gospel to the heathen did so because of that century of Moravian praying. In 1737, ten years after the Holy Spirit’s fall, the first Moravians left for St. Thomas. During that decade of self-crucifying preparation, ripening of grace, they sought the Spirit’s endowing for the work. They well knew that once in the Virgin Islands, they too might become slaves. Still they determined to go. When the day came to make the choice as to who would be the first to leave, they wrote Scripture quotations on slips of paper and placed them in a box. After agonizing prayer, each person drew out one of the notes. Whether one stayed  in Moravia or went to the mission field was determined by the instruction he withdrew. Acts 1:26. With heart racing, one of the young men opened his paper and read the words, “Send the lad with me and we will arise and go.” Genesis 43:8.

With that message in hand, Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann left home, walking more than 100 miles to Copenhagen, Denmark. At the port, they found passage to the islands by working as deck-hands on a ship. Arriving on St. Thomas, the conditions in which they found the slaves drove them to their knees. The Lutheran Church was the State-religion on the islands but blacks were not allowed to go near the buildings. One slave who tried to hear the message of Jesus through the Church window was punished by having his ear cut off.

Frederich Martin soon joined Leonard and David in St. Thomas but was imprisoned in the Fortress dungeon at Charlotte Amalie. Through a tiny, barred window of this 1671-built fort, he continued preaching to listeners outside. These men were soon followed by Tobias Leopold who went to the island of St. Croix. Slave-churches established by them still survive on St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, and surrounding islands.

Moravian Missionaries quickly flooded out of Germany like water rushing over a spill-way. Within 25 years more than 200 preachers went to every continent on earth, including Greenland. In the zeal of First Century believers, these Spirit-baptized youths took the flame of the Holy Spirit to every country in North and South America, much of Asia and Africa. Only a few came to the U.S; most preferred un-evangelized areas. Of the 18 missionaries who went to the Virgin Islands, half perished of tropical disease the first year. Tobias Leopold died on St. Croix, shouting the message of the gospel.

On that first trip to St. Thomas, I wanted to touch every part of the island that those men had known. To do that, I explored every dungeon in the old Fort, feeling its stone walls, praying, telling Frederich Martin I loved him. The big impact came later, walking between tomb stones in the jungle below Herrnhut Church; in my heart, I heard voices of young men and women from 250 years in the past. I felt unworthy to touch their burial ground and I wept aloud, yelling my thanks for what they did. It didn’t matter who heard me. I wanted Hell to hear me. I wanted my own heart to hear me. Most important of all, I wanted God to hear me say I would die unfulfilled unless I experienced the same power of the Holy Spirit that those young Moravians knew. Suddenly, I had Jesus’ reply: “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” Luke 11:13.

Standing there alone in that jungle grave yard, I was overwhelmed by an amazing presence of the Holy Spirit. He was all around me. It was the same wonderful Friend who had come upon Tobias, Frederich, Leonard, David, and others, that blessed August day in Moravia. In that moment, the dirt on my feet seemed too holy to wipe off. But it wasn’t dirt I carried out of the cemetery. I took with me the knowledge that the same Holy Spirit who empowered the Moravians was willing to empower men like me. And I saw Him begin that work in astonishing ways.

Moravia’s Effect On Baptists And Methodists

Soon after the Holy Spirit’s move in Moravia, He began a new work in the British Isles. The early part of the 1700’s witnessed the rise of John and Charles Wesley and the Methodist movement was born. The brothers were deeply affected by the ministry of the Moravian pastor, Peter Bohler, in London. During Bohler’s sermon, John experienced “justifying faith” and stepped into an empowered relationship with Jesus Christ. Few other eras in world history have impacted mankind evangelically as did that blazing period. As a result, millions of believers were won to Christ. It not only woke up a slumbering, tradition-choked church but sent a shock-wave around the world. Christians were revived and the course of nations changed. Many of our greatest Christian hymns were birthed during those wonderful years.

Later in the century, the Baptists were shaken by the voices of William Carey, John Ryland, and others who had come under the power of Moravian preaching. These daring young men initiated the first Baptist mission work to the heathen. In one of their meetings, when senior ministers loudly opposed them, they dropped a Moravian magazine on the table and pleaded for support. In both cases, the Wesleys and Carey, fierce opposition rose against them because the work was new. Even so, Carey finally sailed for India, enduring years of horrendous trials, and successfully planted the Tree of the Gospel in Hindu soil. Today, there are an estimated 25,000,000 Christians in India.

For nearly two centuries, England blossomed under this fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Genuine, New Testament evangelism touched and changed millions of lives. Later, however, things changed. Fervor in the churches cooled, hardening again, congregations becoming much like they had been before. Christians fell back into “religion” as a replacement of spirituality. Historically, the Holy Spirit’s move in the church has been characterized by:

1. Inspiration

2. Evangelization

3. Organization

4. Stagnation.

At the point of stagnation, there has usually been an out-cry for inspiration. Re-birthing consequently follows, and the cycle repeats itself. Historically, and without exception, those Christian bodies who rejected God’s call to evangelize the heathen died in their own stagnation. Though once powerful and strong, they have vanished from the scene of spiritual influence. God will not tolerate self-centeredness and religious greed. Groups who exist for themselves quickly die by themselves. There is no exemption from this rule. My former denomination was one of those and in my lifetime I have seen nearly 3,000 of their churches disappear. We either preach the gospel or we perish.

Today, Wesley would be horrified at the unbelief permitted in parts of his own Methodist Church. So would Martin Luther, John Knox, John Calvin, others. William Carey would have special reason to grieve: In England, Carey’s old stone Church building was bulldozed and a Hindu Temple built in its place. The historic building in which William Carey preached, prayed, and wept, for God to send him to India, came under the wrecking ball. India had come to England. Why did it happen? How could the virtual shrine of the Baptist Foreign Mission Movement come under the ax? The answer is simple: The Baptists were gone. Like hundreds of other Church buildings in England and on the Continent, no one attended the services. More alarming than that however, is the reality that today there are more Moslems in England today than there are Methodists and Baptists combined.

And that has happened in a historic Christian nation.

In 1699 the Islamic invasion of Europe was stopped outside the gates of Vienna after two and one-half centuries of bloody fighting. The victory that saved Europe from death on Moslem swords came only at the cost of thousands of lives and the urgent wailing of Christian prayers. Every congregation in Europe was on its face in frantic prayer for deliverance. Today, the invasion has taken on a different tactic—and without an outcry; Mosques and Hindu Temples are sprouting up in England as far north as the tip of Scotland. More frightening, the conversion rate of new believers in English churches is less than two percent while the Moslem rate of conversion is fifteen percent. In 1699 every church in Europe was praying. Today, with the new invasion, that is not happening. For the most part, churches are strangely silent. Concern, however, is not about Hindus or Moslems in England or America; concern is about the church on both sides of the Atlantic. Radical change and renewal are desperately needed.

Here is the good news for Britain: More than 100,000 charismatic home groups in England are currently teaching, witnessing, and praying, for revival to sweep the British Isles. Old doors are opening to a new message. As a result, many Anglican Churches are experiencing renewal. When Cambridge Scholar, Derek Prince, preached in England the Holy Spirit moved in a powerful demonstration. On the continent all available floor space in many of the huge Cathedrals was covered with people fallen under the power of God. Before Dr. R.T. Kendall left Westminster Chapel and returned to the U.S. the Holy Spirit fell in that historic place in a similar way. Carey’s Church building may be gone, bulldozed, but the Holy Spirit who inspired Carey is still here. God has more Wesleys and Careys waiting in the wings. Such men can again wake up the Church. Knowing that, what should be our prayer? This old hymn tells it:

God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.

Lo! the hosts of evil round us,
Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways.
From the fears that long have bound us,
Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the living of these days,
For the living of these days.

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control.
Shame our wanton selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal.

From Charles Carrin Ministries monthly newsletter, Gentle Conquest. Used with permission from Charles Carrin Ministries (www.CharlesCarrinMinistsries.com).

 

Editor’s note: For further reading about Count Zinzendorf, the Moravians, and their continuing influence today, read:

Jeff Hittenberger’s “Global Pentecostal Renaissance,” that appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of the Pneuma Review.

“Pietists as Pentecostal Forerunners” by Eric Jonas Swensson that appeared in the Summer 2012 issue of Pneuma Review.

Originally published on the Pneuma Foundation (parent organization of PneumaReview.com) website. Later included in the Fall 2021 issue.