1859 Revival series - No 1: The Need of Revival

This is an outline of a series of sermons preached, one per month, January - June 2009, marking the 150th Anniversary of the 1859 Revival in Ulster

Psalm 119:126: It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law. 

Virtually everyone is aware that the year 2009 marks the 150th Anniversary of the 1859 Revival. That mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God began in Kells, Co Antrim and spread out over most of Ulster. The influence of the revival was also felt further afield to greater and lesser degrees.

Many of us, if not all of us, have heard of the prayer meetings that were commenced in the school house in Kells where the four men prayed. The names of these men are James McQuilken, Jeremiah Meneely, Robert Carlisle and John Wallace. Encouraged by Rev J.H. Moore, minister of the nearby Presbyterian church, these four young converts began to meet on a weekly basis for prayer and Bible study. They met in the old national schoolhouse.

It is hard to kick against the pricks!

Every time I read or hear anything of what Richard Dawkins says I am always reminded of the words that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road and recorded in Acts 9:5: 

And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Once again Richard Dawkins is in the news. This time the embarrassment is his in that he boasted of being able to reel of the full title of his hero Charles Darwin's famous work: Origin of Species. Yet when pressed to do so on Radio Four's Today programme he stumbled over the title and took the Lord's name in vain. 

The full title of Darwin's work, which runs to 21 words, is: On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in The Struggle for Life.

Quotable Quote!

The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded upon a unproven theory - is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation - both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, have been capable of proof.

Source: Origin of Species by Charles Darwin published in 1971 by J.M. Dent & Sons. The quote is taken from page xi of the Introduction to this edition written Dr Leonard Harrison Matthews [1901-1986], Fellow of the Royal Society.