Revival Stories

The 1902 Great Melbourne Revival



In 1898, a small group of believers in Chicago began meeting for prayer at the Moody Bible Institute every Saturday evening 9PM - 10PM. Their purpose? To pray for a great spiritual awakening to sweep across the globe. The longing was so intense that, in a short time, the prayer group grew to over 300 in attendance. Even after a meeting’s conclusion, often some intercessors would persist to cry out for revival into the early hours of Sunday morning.

Halfway around the world in Melbourne, Australia, many of the churches had united in purpose to prepare for a great evangelistic revival gathering for their city. About 80% of all the churches, about 200 of them, covenanted to pray together for this campaign. For years, these intercessors labored and agonized in prayer. By 1902, over 16000 of these prayer gatherings had taken place, and many Christians had poured out their souls to the Lord for this. Also, by faith, the church worked in unity to knock on the doors of every home in Melbourne, twice, to personally invite people to come to the event.

Back in Chicago, one Saturday evening an evangelist named R. A. Torrey attended the late night prayer meeting at the Moody Bible Institute to pray for worldwide revival. Its heart cry was, “Revive your work O God, revive Your work!”It was an intense time of intercession, and Torrey implored God to send him out to preach the Gospel around the world. Within one week, God sent two apparent strangers to Torrey to invite him to speak in Melbourne. The two strangers had left their homeland in Australia months earlier to search for the right person that God would use to usher in revival for their nation. Torrey accepted the call.

By the time R. A. Torrey arrived in Australia in April of 1902, over 40,000 Australians were waiting upon God to bring revival soon. On that first night of the revival, over 15,000 residents of Melbourne showed up at the Town Hall, It later had to be moved to the much larger Exhibition Building. As it grew, up to 50 simultaneous meetings would take place with designated evangelists at the pulpit. At its peak, over 250,000 people would attend in one night to hear the Gospel, out of a total population of 1 million in that region. Thousands upon thousands of individuals and families put their trust in Jesus Christ and were filled with the Holy Spirit. Believers would greet one another excitedly, saying, “The big revival has begun. Praise be to God!!!”Following this campaign, crime in the city became almost non-existent. Pubs and theaters became vacant as people’s attention centered upon God and His Kingdom. The revival continued to travel up the coast and into the island chains nearby. Many Christians there today can trace their family faith back to the move of God in the 1902 revival. What had begun so small with prayer in Chicago and Melbourne, would ignite by faith into full-blown revival and deeply impact Australia with the Gospel.


QUESTIONS TO DISCUSS:

  1. What do you think inspired the Christians in Chicago to begin a prayer meeting for revival at 9PM on a Saturday night? How do you think God was shaping people’s beliefs and values at that time? What would it take for 300 Christians to come to a prayer meeting in your city on Saturday night?
  2. Why do you think God chose R. A. Torrey to be His instrument of revival to Australia? What aspects of Torrey’s heart and behavior were in line with God’s desires?
  3. How did the churches in Melbourne demonstrate great faith for revival? What steps of faith do the churches in our city need to take in order to grab ahold of God’s attention and favor today?
blog comments powered by Disqus