What Is Your Legacy?
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) of whom the world was not worthy (Hebrews 11: 38)
                                                    
Count Ludwig Von Zinzendorf and the Moravians

American Evangelist D. L. Moody, 1899: “See how He came on the day of Pentecost!  It is not carnal to pray that He may come again and that the place may be shaken.  I believe Pentecost was but a specimen day.  I think the church has made this woeful mistake that Pentecost was a miracle never to be repeated.  I believe now if we looked on Pentecost as a specimen day and began to pray, we should have the old Pentecostal fire here in Boston.”

It was that Pentecostal fire that was about to fall on the Moravians.  May 12 to August 13, 1727, is called the “Moravian Golden Summer”.  It was during this time that the community of Herrnhut became “one” in complete physical and spiritual unity.  The entire community was “like-minded toward one another and with one mind and one mouth glorified God”.  (Romans 5: 5-6) Looking back at that time Count Zinzendorf recalled: “The whole place represented truly a visible habitation of God among men.”

Leslie Tarr adds: “A spirit of prayer was immediately evident in the fellowship and continued throughout that “Golden Summer of 1727,” as the Moravians came to designate that period. During the first two weeks of August 1727, everyone at Herrnhut felt a definite stirring.  There was an eager anticipation that something was about to happen.  We get a glimpse of what was happening from the Christian History Institute: “On August 5, Zinzendorf and fourteen of the brethren spent the entire night in conversation and prayer.  On August 10th, a pastor by the name of Rothe was so overcome by God’s nearness during an afternoon service that he threw himself down on the ground during prayer and called to God with words of repentance as he had never done before.  The congregation was moved to tears and continued until midnight, praising God and singing.” The next morning a communion service was planned for Wednesday, August 13th.  The institute continues: “Count Zinzendorf visited every house in Herrnhut in preparation for the Lord’s Supper. Everyone had come to a conviction of their sinfulness, need, and helplessness. During the service, they made many painful prayers for themselves, for fellow Christians still under persecution, and for their continued unity.  At that time Count Zinzendorf made a penitential confession in the name of the entire congregation.”

Rick Joyner takes up the commentary: “...The congregation then knelt and sang:  My soul before Thee prostrate lies, to Thee it’s source, my spirit flies.  Then prayers of great unction arose from the brethren as they interceded for each other and those who were still living under persecution in Moravia.” Suddenly with the sound of a mighty rushing wind, the power of the Holy Spirit swept across the congregation in waves.  The noise was loud enough that many in the church looked toward the windows expecting to see a gale raging outside.  The manifestation of the Spirit was not relegated within the four walls of the church, but fell throughout the whole community.  Men, women, and children were touched as a passion for God and His purpose swept through their hearts. Zinzendorf gives us an account of this wonderful occurrence: “August 13th was a day of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon the congregation; it was it’s Pentecost!”...It was such a sense of the nearness of Christ bestowed in a single moment upon all members of the community at once; it was so unanimous that two members, at work twenty miles away, unaware that the meeting was being held, became at the same moment smitten with the same blessing and anointing.”

One Moravian remembers: “We had quit judging each other because we had become convinced, each one, of his lack of worth in the sight of God.  On that day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we saw the hand of God and His wonders.  We were all under the cloud of the Father baptized with His Spirit.  As the Holy Ghost came upon us, great signs and wonders took place in our midst.  From that time, scarcely a day passed but what we beheld His almighty workings amongst us.  A great hunger after the word of God took possession of us, so that we had to have three services every day.  Everyone desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit might have full control.  Self-love and self-will as well as all disobedience disappeared and an overwhelming flood of grace swept us all out into the great ocean of Divine Love.” What happened that August day at Herrnhut left the participants with a wonderful faith for Jesus Christ.  They left the house of God that noon “hardly knowing whether they belonged to earth or had already gone to Heaven”.

Again Zinzendorf explains: “The Savior permitted to come upon us a Spirit of whom we had hitherto not had any experience or knowledge.  Hitherto WE had been the leaders and helpers.  Now the Holy Spirit Himself took full control of everything and everybody.” Zinzendorf set up service times for the Lord’s Day at 5:00 am until 9:00 pm.  The rest of the week they started having services three times each day at 4:00 am, 8:00 am, and 8:00 pm.  Zinzendorf later explained in a letter that “That God had come down to live among them in all His Glory”. A number of years later, Count Zinzendorf gave the following account of the outpouring to a British audience:  “We needed to come to the communion with a sense of the loving nearness of the Savior… on this day twenty-seven years ago, the congregation of Herrnhut that had  assembled for communion were all dissatisfied with themselves.  They came to seek the noble countenance of the Savior.  In this view of the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, their hearts told them that He would be their patron and their priest who at once changed their tears into oil of gladness and their misery into happiness.  This firm confidence changed them in a single moment into a happy people which they are to this day…and…have led many thousands…to the heavenly grace once give to themselves.”

One church historian states: “It was a young congregation which received that blessing.  Zinzendorf was just twenty-seven years old and if a census had been taken, it would have been found that his age was approximately the average of the whole company.  It was that comparative youth that would be their strength for the upcoming spiritual sacrifices and labors that lay ahead of them for the glory of their God.”
As long as the Moravians kept their focus on Jesus, the Glory prevailed. Whenever they would start to look at each other, or even begin to focus too much on their work for Him, the Glory would depart.  They could not allow anything to eclipse Christ as the center, or they would begin to lose the fuel that kept the fire going. Prayer was the main catalyst that fueled the revival.  Zinzendorf at this time received a verse from the Holy Spirit which inspired the Moravian incredible 100 year prayer vigil launched that year.  The verse was Leviticus 6:13 which says, “A FIRE SHALL ALWAYS BE BURNING ON THE ALTAR; IT SHALL NEVER GO OUT.”

Jim Goll writes: “Count Zinzendorf knew the fire of the altar signified the prayers of the saints, and he viewed this word as a literal command to restore unceasing prayer before the Lord.  Church history, and therefore, world history, would never be the same again.” Two weeks into the revival on August 27, twenty-four men and twenty-four women covenanted to spend one hour each day in scheduled prayer.   Soon others enlisted and before long all the members shared in what became known as the “hourly intercession”.  Church historian A. J. Lewis states: “At home and abroad, on land and sea, this prayer watch ascended unceasingly to the Lord.”

Goll continues: “The Moravians recognize the power in the key of the Lord revealed in Leviticus 6.  So they decided to accept the task of keeping a continual fire of prayer, intercession, and worship burning before the Lord’s Presence.  I doubt if they realized they would actually keep the fire burning hot and pure for more than one hundred years, but they began by making personal commitments to the task.  Two men prayed together and two women prayed together for a one hour watch until the next team arrived to relieve them.  This pattern continued around the clock, day after day, week after week, for more than 100 years!  The fervent heat generated by the sacrificial fire of their sustained prayer ignited revival fires that launched their pioneering missionary efforts and helped birth the first great awakening through their godly influence on men such as John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield.”

John Greenfield describes for us the constant prayer that followed the revival of 1727: “Was there ever in the whole of church history such an astonishing prayer meeting as that which beginning in 1727, went on for one hundred years?  It was known as the ‘Hourly Intercession’.  And it meant that by relays of brothers and sisters, prayer without ceasing was made to God for all the work and wants of His church.” This intense prayer vigil birthed in the hearts of the Moravians a passion for the lost.  By  the time, the community of Herrnhut had increased to about 600 saints determined to now evangelize the world through self-denial, sacrifice, and prompt obedience.  Their missionary endeavor would have an emphasis upon the worst and hardest places so as to have first claim.

David Smithers writes a memorial to these prayer warriors: “No soldiers of the cross have ever been bolder as pioneers, more patient or persistant in difficulties, more heroic in suffering, or more entirely devoted to Christ and the souls of men than the Moravian Brotherhood.” These precious saints of God had no idea nor could they possibly imagine the suffering and death that lay ahead for them as they began to set out to the most desperate places in the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Between the village of Herrnhut and the prayer tower was an open field soon to be called “GOD’S ACRE”.  Before long that green meadow will be the final resting place for hundreds who would give their lives as a ransom, “for whom no one cared”. 

To be continued