The Shantung Revival
Historical Account★★★As an example of an incidence of localized, spontaneous revival, consider this story: One night in China, Southern Baptist missionary C. L. Culpepper stayed up late for devotions, but as he tried to pray he felt like stone.
Finally he asked, “Lord, what is the matter?” I had opened my Bible to Romans 2: 17. It seemed the Apostle Paul was speaking directly to me when he said, “But if you call yourself a Christian and rely upon the Gospel, and boast of your relation to God, and know His will, and approve what is excellent; and if you are sure you are a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, a correction to the foolish, a teacher of children-you then who teach others, will you not teach yourself?”
The Holy Spirit used these verse like a sword to cut deeply into my heart. He said, ‘’You are a hypocrite! You claim to be a Christian! What have you really done for Christ?
The Lord said those who believed on Him would have rivers of living waters flowing from their inmost being! Do you have that kind of power?” Culpepper awakened his wife, and they prayed into the night. The next morning at a prayer meeting with fellow workers, he confessed to pride and spiritual impotence, saying his heart was broken.
The Holy Spirit began to so convict the others of sin that they could hardly bear it. I watched their faces grow pale, then they began to cry and drop on their knees or fall prostrate on the floor.
Missionaries went to missionaries confessing wrong feelings toward one another. Chinese preachers, guilty of envy, jealously and hatred, confessed their sins to one another. The revival spread through the seminary, the schools, the hospital, and the area churches. The impression that the Shantung Revival wrote upon my soul lingers with me even today.
Throughout the breadth and depth of Shantung Province, I discovered signs of revival. The churches were crowded as never before.
Attendance multiplied. Countless people gave up their idols. Still today, my heart often returns to Shantung.2 1 Robert J. Morgan, On This Day (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997), March 29th.
2 C. L. Culpepper, “The Shantung Revival,” Spirit of Revival, October 1991, 10-15.
The point
A missionary's confession of pride and spiritual emptiness sparked a wave of repentance that spread into a widespread revival throughout Shantung Province, China.