Jonathan Goforth was a pioneer missionary to China who longed to see God work in revival power. In 1904 and 1905 he was inspired by reports of the Welsh Revival, and then in 1907 he heard about a revival that had broken out in nearby Korea. He decided he must go there and witness the outpouring of God’s Spirit firsthand in the hope that the fires of revival and renewal would follow him back to China on his return. He was not disappointed. After visiting some of the main mission centers in Korea and witnessing what the mighty power of God had done and was still doing, Goforth returned to China and began reporting to the churches there the mighty movings of God’s Spirit he had seen and heard about in Korea. As a result, the churches in Manchuria began to pray for a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God. In the fall of that same year, 1907, God’s power began to be unleashed in Manchuria, and in 1908 the same revival fire that had swept through Korea also swept through Manchuria, China. As a result of this revival, Goforth’s life and ministry was transformed from that of a career missionary to a traveling evangelist and revivalist. He became one of the best known of all China missionaries, and was known all over China as the “Flaming Preacher.”
This booklet is Mr. Goforth’s firsthand account of the revival that swept Korea in 1907. He shows how it all began with the prayers of God’s people and their desire to see God do greater things than they had already witnessed in previous years.
In her foreword to this booklet, Goforth’s daughter, Mary Moynan, wrote that her heart had been “searched and scorched” as she read these pages again.
“Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (Psalm 85:6).
Jonathan Goforth was born in Ontario, Canada and reared in a Christian home, although he was not converted until he was 18. He later testified that he had been under so much conviction at age 10 that he would have gladly been saved if someone had only told him how to accept Christ.
While attending college, he was challenged to go to China by reading Hudson Taylor's book China's Spiritual Need and Claims. With his young wife, Rosalind, Mr. Goforth went to China in 1888. During the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900 their lives were constantly at risk, and they had to return to Canada for a year.
When they went back to China, God opened the floodgates of blessing on their work. Where converts had come in ones and twos, they now came in dozens and scores. They traveled across Northern China, Manchuria and Korea, and revival followed everywhere he went. For the last few years of his life, Jonathan Goforth was blind due to detached retinas, but the work continued to prosper. In his last full year on the field (1934) he had nearly 1,000 adult converts baptized. In 1935 he and his wife returned to Canada where he continued to travel and speak in churches until his death in 1936.
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