Saul Pepper, share with us now the story
of the greatest revival that's ever come in
the history of Christendom, the revival in the
Shandong province of China.
Well, in the early 20s, we felt that
we were up against an impossible situation.
So many difficulties, I can't go into detail
in telling, but we had some older missionaries
that knew how to pray, and so many
of our hearts were turned to God.
Some missionaries of other boards decided to go
home.
There's no hope to do the work, but
we decided we'd pray.
And as we prayed, began to pray, the
Lord seemed to lay on our hearts a
deeper hunger for God himself.
And we prayed more, and we prayed for
for four years.
And as a result of this praying, we
got under deep conviction for sin.
And the deeper we got under conviction of
sin, we had to make restitution and make
things right with each other and take out
all the sin of our hearts.
And there's things in many of our hearts
that we didn't know were there, that were
just covered up under the rubbish.
And so we had to dig out all
of the rubbish and pray and continue to
pray.
There were several people who helped us a
great deal.
Among those was Miss Marie Munson, and she
was a Norwegian Lutheran missionary.
And one day she asked me, Brother Culpepper,
have you been filled with the Holy Spirit?
And I couldn't tell her because I didn't
know what it really meant.
But from that day, I began searching the
Bible.
A great hunger for the fullness of the
Holy Spirit came upon me.
And it took four years for me to
get all the rubbish and get everything straight
with the Lord.
And the other missionaries had the same impression,
the same feeling.
And so the Lord worked with all of
us missionaries on the North China mission at
that time, about 50 of us.
And so the Lord worked through Miss Munson
and others of a very sensitive nature.
And as a result, we became obsessed with
the idea that we had to meet God.
And sometimes we would pray for an hour
or two hours, and sometimes a few times
we prayed all night.
And finally as we prayed, Miss Munson invited
her to come back and go through the
North China mission.
And she told me, Brother Culpepper, a great
revival is coming, and it's going to begin
with the North China mission.
And I said, why do you say that,
Miss Munson?
She says because God has a covenant in
his word that has never been broken since
the time he gave it to Solomon.
And she repeated 2 Chronicles 7.14. And
she said, if my people which are called
by my name shall humble themselves and pray,
and seek my faith, and turn from their
wicked ways, I will hear from heaven, I
will forgive their sins, and I will heal
their land.
And she said, you people above all the
people I've seen have done that.
You've humbled yourselves, you've confessed to each other,
gotten right with each other, confessed and made
restitution, and said you pray, seem like you
pray, you never get through praying.
And you seek God with all your heart.
And the Bible says we will seek him
and find him when we seek him with
our whole heart.
And we became obsessed of the desire, the
great hunger, like the psalmist did.
He said in the 42nd Psalm, as the
heart panteth for the water brook, so panteth
my soul for thee.
Oh God, when shall I come and see
thee?
And that was the cry of our hearts.
And God gave us this hunger, and then
the assurance that he was going to satisfy.
And four years from the time we really
started seeking this with all our hearts, God
came down in mighty power.
He began in one or two other provinces,
and we at Huangshan, where the seminary was
and where the schools were, we were fearful
that the Lord would pass us up.
And so about 40 of us gathered to
pray for a week.
And as we were praying that week, I
came under the deep conviction of the sin
of not being filled with the Holy Spirit.
That was the last conviction.
It was a spiritual conviction, and I felt
like that God would almost kill me if
I didn't get that real understanding of the
fullness of the Holy Spirit.
And I got so desperate that I prayed
up until 12 o'clock, and then I
couldn't get peace, and I went and called
my wife, and she got up and prayed
with me.
And so I got relief finally when I
said, Lord, I'll confess my neglect before the
people.
People had bragged on me and said I
was a fine missionary doing good work, and
I had accepted it, the flattery and all.
And I said, Lord, I'll tell the people
tomorrow just how you showed me how sinful
I am and how helpless and hopeless I
am, that I'm not worth a thing in
the world.
And the next morning when I stood up
and confessed that, the Lord did a wonderful
thing.
And people began confessing sin, falling off the
seats on their knees and crying to God.
And that prayer meeting started on Tuesday morning
at 5 o'clock, and it went on
for four days and nights.
And by the end of four days and
nights, the people would come, and finally there
were 200 people.
And the house sometimes was filled with people,
and everyone that came into the door of
that chapel would fall to their knees.
There was such deep conviction.
And so by Friday night at nearly midnight,
every person that was in that house had
been relieved and had been cleared as to
their conviction and getting right with the Lord.
And so someone said, well, let's have a
praise meeting in the morning.
They had to close that Saturday morning.
So we came together for a praise meeting,
and they asked me to lead that praise
meeting.
And I decided I'd read Psalms 32.
And I began the song and prayer, and
then I began reading.
I read the first two verses of Psalms
32.
And when I read those two verses, it
looked like that some song conductor just raised
his hand for the congregation to stand.
And those 200 people stood to their feet,
and they began with one accord in unison,
and one voice praising God.
And some of them were weeping, and some
of them were laughing, and just praising God
for about 10 or 15 minutes.
And some of the preachers came up there,
the Chinese preachers came up and grabbed me,
and I thought they'd hug me to death.
Said, Brother Culpepper, we've always felt like you
missionaries thought you're better than we were.
Now we know we're all just the same.
You're no longer Americans, and we're no longer
Chinese.
We're just God's children.
And we praised God there for 15 or
20 minutes.
And then somebody said, Let's sing a certain
song.
And we sang songs for five hours.
Nobody left.
Nobody wanted to go home.
We just sang and praised God for five
hours.
And finally seeing the Lord just said, Amen.
And we all sat down.
It got as quiet as you could hear
each other breathing.
And the Lord just seemed to say, Well,
that's it.
But we didn't know just what he was
beginning, what he was going to do.
And after the service, there were two Chinese
preachers who were very close to me.
And each one of them said, Brother Culpepper,
have you been filled with the Holy Spirit?
And I couldn't say for sure.
And so the other one said, asked the
same question.
And I said, I don't know for sure,
but I want to know.
And they said, We do too.
We want to know definitely the meaning of
the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
And so we decided that next, that night,
Saturday night, that we would pray together, the
three of us.
They came to my home.
And we went into my office.
I had a large office.
And one of them knelt in one corner
of the room, and another in the other
corner of the room.
And I knelt by my desk.
And we were with our backs to each
other.
And we began praying.
And we must have prayed for an hour
or more, silently, sometimes audibly, sometimes silence.
And I realized I was fearful.
I was afraid.
I'd been afraid of the excesses and extremes
that I'd heard of.
And I'd been warned about it.
I'd read many books during those four years.
And for instance, one book said, Let go
and let God.
And another book said, Whatever you do, don't
let go, because the devil liabilitates you.
And I was afraid that I might speak
in tongues.
I was afraid if I spoke in tongues,
I'd be turned out of my denomination.
And I was afraid of many things.
Then suddenly, the Lord just showed me Luke
11, 9-13.
And you remember that says, Asking ye shall
receive, seeking ye shall find, knocking it shall
be open unto you.
For every one that asketh, receiveth.
And every one that seeketh, findeth.
And every one that knocketh, it is open
unto him.
If you who are parents, if your son
shall ask for bread, will his father give
him a stone?
Or if he asks for fish, will he
give him a serpent?
Or if he asks for an egg, will
he give him a scorpion?
If ye, being evil, know how to give
good gifts to your children, how much more
will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
to them that ask?
And I realized it seemed like just a
flashlight from heaven.
Through those verses, I didn't read them, I
just repeated them.
But just like a flashlight from heaven, through
those verses before me, and I realized that
I was kneeling in the presence of my
Heavenly Father, and that he wouldn't let anything
touch me.
I'd confessed my sin, I'd gotten everything out
of my heart that the Holy Spirit had
revealed to me, and I was hungry, and
I just showed up my hands and I
said, Lord, yes, I am kneeling in the
presence of my Father and I want all
you have for me.
But I don't know just exactly what happened.
It seemed to me like that I just
fell into the arms of Jesus.
And it puzzled me a little bit because
I realized I was in the arms of
Jesus.
It must have made a noise when my
head hit the floor because the two Chinese
gentlemen, they turned and looked, and they said
I was lying on the floor, but I
felt as fresh, and I fell into the
arms of Jesus, as soft and sweet as
a feather bed.
And he began, the first thing that happened
was my mouth was open wide and all
the wind seemed like in the whole earth
just rushed down my throat.
And I could, my jaws, my mouth was
so wide my jaws were aching.
And then it seemed that he just took
me like a dog would take a rabbit
and shook me, and I felt like it
my, I could feel it and really hear
my tongue popping the sides of my jaws.
And it just shook me for a little
while, and then I felt the impression that
there's a thousand magnets just pulling on every
side.
And I was saying all gone, all gone,
all gone.
I realized what God was doing was crucifying
old self and really nailing me to the
cross.
And when these two Chinese gentlemen heard me
saying that, they didn't understand it.
And they asked me, and I was vexed
with them because I was so, felt like
in the presence of God.
And then I spelled out to them what
I was saying.
And then there came over me such a
peace that I'd never realized in my life.
And then a joy that came from the
bottom of my heart, I thought I'd die
of laughter.
I laughed and I laughed and finally that
laughter stopped and I felt the unworthiness.
I just felt like the earth had swallowed
me up because I was such an unworthy
creature and I didn't deserve to do anything
but hell.
And here God had taken me into his
arms.
Jesus had taken me close to him and
filled me with his spirit.
And I felt that unworthy feeling for a
few minutes.
I don't know just exactly how long.
And then there was a burden came over
me, a burden especially for my wife because
four years before that my wife's eyes had
been healed when Miss Munson and a group
of about 15 prayed for her eyes.
The doctor said that she'd be blind in
three months, but her eyes were healed and
she didn't use glasses for 15 years.
Well, we had been walking together and praying
for the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
And a burden for her and for my
children and for other friends just came over
me and I felt like I just died
that burden.
And I prayed silently there and the burden
got heavy and heavy.
And my heart, I wasn't praying with my
lips making sound, but that I could feel
my heart just throbbing.
And I realized for the first time in
my life the real meaning of Romans 8,
26 and 27.
We know not what we should pray for
as we ought, but the Spirit who searches
the deep things of God prays for us
with warnings that cannot be uttered.
And I realized that the Holy Spirit had
taken hold of my life and was praying.
I prayed there for a few minutes and
then I just felt so burdened that I
was going to go upstairs and and speak
to my wife.
And so I went upstairs and opened the
bedroom door and I said to a wife,
darling, I want to tell you.
And the devil had gotten into her and
she just, she said, I don't want to
hear a word.
I don't want to hear a thing that
you say.
Well, it's just like it's picking a dagger
in my heart.
Some way I got my clothes off and
got my pajamas on and lay down on
the bed beside her.
And I lay there and I wasn't saying
a word, but my heart was just throbbing.
I could feel my heart all through my
body, just the throbbing of the Holy Spirit.
Well, after two or three hours as it
came time to get up and she got
up and got the children up, dressed them
to go to church.
It was a Sunday morning and she said,
are you going to get up?
And I said, no, I'm going to rest.
I couldn't get up.
I really couldn't get up.
I was just simply under the power of
God's spirit.
And so she went on to church, took
the children and went to early morning church.
And I prayed there and sometimes I was
almost afraid that my body couldn't stand it
and the throbbing.
And I said, Lord, I, I'm all right
if you want to take me, but I
want to witness for you, to you.
And so I kept on holding on.
And about 9.30, the church service was
from 9 to 10 o'clock.
About 9.30, the burden lifted and I
felt like I was just like a feather.
I was so light and filled with joy
and praise.
And I jumped up and put on my
clothes and ran downstairs and got my bicycle
and about two miles to the church.
And I wanted to get there before the
church service was over.
And so when I got about three or
400 yards from the church, I saw that
they were breaking up.
The church, they're leaving.
And my wife came walking with the children,
walking up.
And in China, you never embrace your wife
and never put your hands on, never hug
them.
But she was smiling and I knew that
everything was all right.
And if she smiled and I can understand
my eyes and she walked up close to
me and whispered, said, I don't know what
in the world the devil got in me
this morning.
And I never had such an experience in
my life.
I didn't want to hear a thing that
you said.
I said, just now in the service, those
other two preachers told about what happened to
you and said, I just loved it and
said, now I want you to pray, forgive
me, to forgive me.
Says, I want you to pray for me.
And I said, yes, sure.
I'll forgive you and I'll pray for you.
So that night, there's about four or three
or four couples met in our house again.
And we prayed for a couple of hours
and the whole group of 10 or 12
of us were filled with joy, just joy
unspeakable and full of glory and laughed and
cried and praised God and just went on.
Well, we were so happy and we didn't
know what God was fixing to do, but
God was getting ready for a great revival.
And he had prepared our hearts and not
only there at Huangshan, but at other places
like things happened.
And God himself took charge.
And we had a school, schools there, junior
high school and senior high school.
And on Monday, Monday morning, they were, students
were coming back to open school.
We'd had a winter vacation.
And there's the conviction of the Holy Spirit
was so strong, the atmosphere was just surcharged
with conviction.
And there were about 600 girls in the
girls' school and about a thousand boys in
the boys' school.
And when they got, when they got there,
there's some 120 girls were nominal Christians.
They'd been baptized and about 150 boys who
were nominal Christians been baptized.
Others were children of Christians, but they had
not been saved.
Well, when they got there, they began to
get under conviction.
And so the teachers called us from the
seminary to come over and help them.
And I went over to the girls' school
and the boys' school and find four or
five girls and four or five boys in
a room.
And they had lied to their parents.
They had cheated on examination.
They'd stolen from each other and they'd cheated
and stolen things from a different one.
And they were just convicted and weeping.
And so we dealt with them for about
three or four hours until nearly midnight that
night.
And so we thought that next day the
school would start.
But the next day, the principal of the
two schools sent word to Pastor Wong and
me that God had sent a revival in
the school and we were just going to
stop and take it.
So they asked me to take one service
a day and Pastor Wong one service a
day at 10 o'clock and at seven
o'clock in the evening.
And the students filled the chapel about 1
,500 and those 200 that God had dealt
with the week before, they stood around the
walls.
And we'd go into the service and I'd
read a few verses of scripture and explain
how to be saved.
And by the time I got through, it
was hard to wait for the song to
begin.
So the children would begin, those girls and
boys, high school girls and boys, would come
rushing down, weeping and fall on their knees
and weeping.
And the 200 that God had dealt with
the week before would come and kneel by
each one of them and lead them to
the Lord.
And dozens were saved at each service.
And after 10 days, after 10 days, the
600 girls, every girl in the school had
been saved.
And of the boys, 1,000, 900 had
been saved.
And about the middle of the first week,
while I was, after I'd preached and given
an invitation, and dozens had come forward, and
we'd prayed for them and they'd gone back
to me, we were ready to dismiss.
And one of the teachers came rushing up
to me and said, Brother Culpepper, there's a
boy back under the back seat and he's
calling for you.
And I went back there and knelt down
beside him.
And he said, Mr. Culpepper, he said, you
don't know me.
I'm an atheist.
I'm a communist.
He said, the school doesn't know it and
nobody knows it, but in this school we
have a cell of about eight or ten
that are communists.
And we threaten to kill you and we
threaten to kill every missionary and burn up
the churches and wipe out Christianity.
And today I heard about this revival.
He said, there's no God and there's no
such a thing as revival.
And that missionary is hypnotizing those people.
And I'm going there tonight and stopping.
And said, I came here and I sat
and listened to you.
And when those students came forward and when
they confessed their sins and began weeping and
confessing, he said, I said, I'm going to
challenge that man.
He said, I started to get up from
my seat.
I got about half from standing, from a
sitting to a standing position and something hit
me right in the heart.
And I know that it's God just knocked
me plump under this seat.
He said, here I am and I want
to tell you, Mr. Culpepper, you're right and
I'm wrong.
And the next night after that, Pastor Wong
was leading the service and a boy fell
on the seat by me, stretched out, and
he was gritting his teeth and gripping his
fist.
And he was rigid as a board.
And the crowd was dismissed and left.
And we teachers gathered around him and we
prayed.
And he said, don't pray for me, take
me home, let me die.
And they kept on praying.
And finally he said, oh God, if you
won't kill me, I'll confess my sins.
And he confessed practically the same thing that
the other boy had confessed.
And he was saved.
About half of those boys, that cell of
ten, about half of them were saved and
the other half ran.
So the revival had started and they went
on and on.
And there are many other things I'll tell
you.
On the next side of the cassette, we'll
be hearing other aspects of the Shandong Revival
that began in China about the year 1929.
This is one of the greatest revivals in
the history of God's dealing with his people.
And the second cassette, the second side of
this cassette, will deal with that moving of
God as related by Dr. Charles L.
Culpepper.
This is Jim Hilton, evangelist.
And you're going to hear Dr. Charles L.
Culpepper, who for 42 years was a missionary
to the people of China.
For 27 years he served on the mainland
from 1923 to 1949.
Then for two years in Hong Kong and
for 13 years in Taiwan from 1952 to
1965.
While on the mainland of China, Dr. Charles
Culpepper was part of one of the greatest
revivals of all time.
The moving of God's spirit that came there
is one of the great expressions of God's
power in recent years.
His book, The Shandong Revival, is a book
that I want to recommend for you to
read along with the studying of these tapes.
This book may be purchased through my office.
The address is Box 100, West Plains, Missouri,
65775.
Dr. Culpepper, you have related how the revival
began in your own life and began to
continue then.
And as you continue to share, tell us
some of the other results of the moving
of God's spirit and revival in China.
I want to first say that I told
you some very personal things of what happened
when I was filled with the Holy Spirit.
I don't know what to say.
I never tell it in public because I'm
afraid somebody will think that I'm more than
I am.
I'm less than least of all saints.
I'm also afraid that somebody will think that
that's the way to get it, to pattern,
to try to copy what I had.
I hope you won't do that.
On all that I experienced in that personal
experience, I did not speak in tongues, but
God took out fear of anything.
I take the Bible just as it is.
I believe exactly what it says in 1
Corinthians 12, 13, and 14.
And now as the revival continued, I want
to go into a little more detail of
what things happened after this great revival in
the school.
The next week one of the pastors came
in and I'd been going out to this
church for two or three years.
It is a membership of about 30 and
usually there are about 10 or 15 people
present.
It is dry, dried up and dead.
It seemed that there's no life there.
And if I get one in a month
or two in a month to be converted
and baptized, I was happy.
And this pastor came in and he said,
Brother Culpepper, the people are coming in throngs.
He says they filled the house and they
filled the yard.
And he said, I need help.
I want you to come out.
And so at night I'd go out there
and the people would just fill the house
and fill the yard.
And they'd listen through the doors and windows
and I'd preach.
And each time there were dozens would come
forward.
And a week's meeting there, a hundred were
saved.
And I baptized 86 at one time.
We had a galvanized tank dug down in
the ground, set down in the ground.
And I went down in that and baptized
those 86 at one time.
One woman was 86 years old and one
for each year of her age.
Well, I was so filled with joy.
I'd never baptized more than five or six
or at the most seven or eight, being
held up for two or three months, getting
that number.
And my joy was full.
I could hardly stand the joy that see,
just see, stand beside and see God do
wonderful things.
And a few weeks later, another pastor from
about a hundred miles out came and went
down there with him.
And in two weeks, we had a two
weeks meeting and 300 were saved.
And I baptized 203 at one time and
one day.
And my jaw was so filled that I
could hardly stand it.
Now I want to tell you a little
bit more in detail of what happened over
the province.
And in individual lives, individual cases.
Where the revival began down in Pindu County,
it's where Miss Lottie Moon did most of
her work.
And they had the most churches there.
And in that first year, there were 3
,000 people saved.
We'd never dreamed of ever seeing that many
people saved in one year.
But in that one county, 3,000 were
saved.
And on and on, we could go with
telling what happened.
Not only were the people saved, but they
were, they were also, churches were doubled and
tripled.
And the financial problems were settled.
The people brought in their money.
They brought their hearts.
They sang.
They memorized psalms.
I think they memorized and put the Chinese
tunes, two or three dozen of the psalms.
And they loved the Bible and they read
the Bible.
And wonderful things happened.
And of course, the devil wasn't satisfied to
just let us go along without bothering.
And he turned loose everything he had on
us.
He tried to stop us.
He tried to confuse us.
He tried to imitate us.
He tried everything in the world to stop
the work, but God gave us discernment.
And I gave God all the credit.
It wasn't us.
It was simply God giving discernment to his
people.
Now, the first thing I want to tell
you about my own conviction, by the way,
God convicted me of a thing that had
happened 10 years before.
When I was in Baylor University, a student,
I was working my way through school.
I was checking at the cafeteria and on
Sundays, people would come there from the city.
And one Sunday there was a family came
at the head of the line and I
checked their trays and he pulled out a
$10 bill to pay for the food.
And I didn't have enough change to pay
him.
And he said, we'll go eat and come
back and get the change later.
And when I had enough change, I looked
around to see and they had already finished
and had left the cafeteria and I didn't
know who he was or where he was
from.
I put the $5 in some change in
the cash register and kept it there for
about two weeks.
I got a telegram from a hometown that
my sister had died and I didn't have
a cent of money.
And so I took this money out of
the cash register, thinking that when I got
back and he came back for his change
and I'd give it to him.
But he never did come back and I
forgot all about it.
10 years later out there in China, I
realized what had happened.
When I began praying for the fullness of
the Holy Spirit, the Lord just reached down
in my heart and dug this up and
said, what you going to do about that?
I said, Lord, I'll give 10 times that
much to the orphanage, to the church or
to the mission or anything you say, you
just name it and I'll do it.
And the Lord said it happened at Baylor
University.
Dr. S.P. Brooks was president of the
university then and he's still there.
He signed your diploma and that is the
place to get it straight.
And it nearly scared me to death.
I said, oh Lord, I can't do that.
I can't confess to Dr. Brooks.
He thinks I'm a pretty good fella.
And the devil came to try to help
me out.
He said, if you do that, Dr. Brooks
will write to the foreign mission board and
they'll cut off your salary and leave you
out here with your wife and children without
his support.
And I said, Lord, is there any way
to get by this without him?
He said, just cover it up and you'll
just live your little life out here as
a missionary without power.
And I said, Lord, I can't stand it.
I was so hungry that I felt like
I would die.
And I said, oh God, I've got to
get this straight.
And I don't care what happens.
I'm willing to follow you.
And he gave me grace.
And I sat down and wrote a letter
to Dr. Brooks and I told him the
story.
And I said, here's the money.
And he said, Dr. Brooks, you can take
my diploma.
You can disown me.
You can do anything you want to, but
I've got to get right with you.
And it was about three months before I
had a return reply, but slow mail.
And when that letter came, I was afraid
to open it.
I didn't know what he was going to
say.
But when I opened it, Dr. Brooks said,
of course, I'm not going to take your
diploma.
He said, your letter did something for me.
He said, you're more my student today than
ever before in your life.
He said, I wish every student I ever
had would just get right with God.
The devil always tries to get us, scare
us, and not let us do the thing
that God wants us to do.
And I had to do that.
And there's other things that we had to
do.
That is before the revival came, getting all
the sin out of our hearts.
And God dug deep in our hearts.
One of the best men that I've ever
known, he'd been in China 30 years before
I was there.
And he worked in the seminary with me.
And I felt like he's almost like my
father.
And when this deep conviction came over the
group of 40 praying, he came to me
and he just fell on my shoulders and
pulled me down to the floor and said,
pray for me.
And he couldn't tell me.
He was just grown.
He couldn't tell me what is the matter.
And he just groaned and I groaned with
him.
I didn't know what he was praying for,
but I said, Lord, whatever it is, meet
his need.
And he went home that afternoon.
He didn't come back to the prayer meeting
that afternoon, that night.
And the next day I went home to
get a drink of water.
And I heard somebody yell and looked out
and I saw this man come running.
And we had a Elwood wire fence around
our yard and he jumped from over that
fence and ran in and I ran out
on the porch.
I didn't know what in the world was
the matter.
And he grabbed me and he nearly squeezed
me to death and said, Charlie, it's gone.
It's gone.
I said, what's gone?
And then he told me the story.
He said, before we came to China, my
wife and I, he said, there's a man
that insulted my wife.
He didn't tell me what he did, but
he said, I was ready to kill that
man.
I had such bitterness and I was going
to find him and have it out with
him.
And said, God said, you can't do that.
You are my servant and you're going to
China as a missionary.
You can't do that.
And he said, I said, yes, Lord, I'm
sorry.
I'll let you handle it.
And he said, I thought I did a
noble thing.
I turned it over to God.
I said, what I meant when I turned
it over to God, I realized now since
the Holy Spirit showed me that I just
expected God to send him to hell.
And God asked me today, the day the
Spirit of God fell on us, he said,
would you like that man to be in
heaven with you?
And he said, I was surprised to know
that there's a root of bitterness there that
I couldn't stand to think the thoughts of
seeing that man in heaven.
And he said, that's what hurt me so.
I preached for 30 years to love our
enemies, to forgive those who ill-treated us.
And I thought I was clear on it,
but I found down, way down deep in
my heart, that was the root of bitterness.
And he said, to show you how evil
this old sinful heart of mine is, I
came to the place where the thought went
through my mind.
I said, Lord, all right, you save him,
but keep him on one side of heaven,
and I'll stay on the other side of
heaven.
And he said, when that thought went through
my mind, I thought the Lord would kill
me with conviction, the very idea of me
talking to God about how he could run
his heaven.
And finally, he said, I got to the
place where I said, Lord, if I can
find that man, if he's still alive, I'll
go to him and I'll confess my sin
to him of bitterness and hatred, and I'll
do my best to win him to the
Lord.
And he said, that's when God turned me
aloose.
And that man became a flaming evangelist, and
hundreds were saved in the next few months
before he held meetings, and the Lord used
him in a mighty way.
And there are many other stories that happened.
There's one man that wanted to come to
America several years before this revival.
He was a well-educated man and an
old Chinese scholar, and he spoke English well,
and he wanted to come to America to
go to school.
And so he lacked about $400 of having
enough money, and Mr. Hartwell, who was principal
of the school, said, well, I'll let you
have the money, and you can pay it
back whenever you're able.
He said, I'll charge you no interest, you
just take this money and go.
And so he came to America, and he
went to Georgetown College in Kentucky and graduated,
and then went to Peabody and graduated.
And while he was in America, Mr. Hartwell
died.
And Mr. Hartwell's wife was not a missionary,
and so she settled up everything and came
home.
And when this man said when he got
back, he said, well, Mr. Hartwell is gone,
and he wouldn't expect me to pay it
back, so I just indifferently just let it
go.
And then it had been about two or
three years that he had kept that and
hadn't settled it.
So during the time of this prayer and
conviction and all, he was convicted of soul
of sin until he came to me with
the deeds to a piece of property and
said, Brother Culpepper, I want you to put
these deeds in your safe, and said that
God has convicted me that I should sell
this property and pay the widow of Mr.
Hartwell that $400.
And said, I'm afraid that if I get
cold, I won't do it, and I want
you to keep the deeds until I can
get a buyer.
And when I get a buyer, I'll sell
this property.
And so a few weeks after that, he
came and said, I've got a buyer from
a land, and I gave him the deeds,
and he sold the land, and then he
came and asked me to give him a
check.
He gave me the money and asked me
to give him a check in America, for
money in America.
And he wrote Ms. Hartwell a letter and
said, this is money that I should have
paid back long ago that Mr. Hartwell gave
me.
And I had no, he had no note,
he had no record of it, and I
had just neglected to do it.
And that God has convicted me that I
must do it, and I want you to
forgive me, and here's the money.
Well, he showed me the letter that she
wrote back.
She said, I'd lost confidence in Chinese Christians,
but your letter, and your confession, and your
restoration of that $400 restored my confidence in
the Chinese Christians, and they thanked her very
much.
It was a wonderful experience that he had.
There was another instance where I was, we
were praying one day, and one of the,
one of the pastor's wives, while we were
on our knees praying, and when we got
up on the table, and I was leading
the meeting on table, there was a roll
of silver dollars wrapped in brown paper, and
written on that, outside of that brown paper,
a roll of about $30, silver dollars, and
it was the woman's name, and said, this
is the tie that I have stolen from
God.
And another instance, one of the deacons of
the church, one Sunday morning, he came to
church, and he bought a basket.
In those days, we used those silver dollars.
They were like this, our, about as big
as our silver dollars, and he bought a
whole basket full of those.
It was really a big load, 500 silver
dollars, and he put on, brought it up,
and put it on the Lord's Supper table,
and had in there, and his name, and
said, this is the tie that I have
stolen from God.
And people were convicted of stealing the God's
tithe, and robbing God.
And many other stories that would not end,
I could tell you.
One man was convicted, and he came in
one morning, and his face was swollen and
red, tears were running down his cheeks, and
we had, the prayer meeting that I told
you about started on Tuesday morning, and went
four days and nights, and there's always somebody
in the prayer room, sometimes only a dozen,
sometimes up to 200.
But this morning, this man came in, there
were about 50 of us in there, and
he said, you people know that my wife's
not saved.
And said, she can't be saved.
God showed me last night, in my office
at the school, that she couldn't be saved
because of me.
I was living a hypocritical life, because I
was afraid of my wife.
Said, you people don't know my wife, but
she's a holy tarot.
Said, she doesn't want me to give a
tithe to the church.
And so he said, I lied to her.
I take home, I take out a tithe
of my money and give it to the
church, and then I go home and tell
her this is all that I got.
And so I've lied to her and deceived
her.
Another way I've deceived her, she doesn't want
me to go to church.
She doesn't know when Sunday comes, but she
thinks it's not worthwhile to go to church.
It's just a killing of time.
Said, there's so much that needs to be
done around the place, and so you must
stay here and do that on Sunday and
not go to church.
And he said, she says, if you go
to church, if you insist on going to
church, I'll follow right in behind you.
And when we get into the church building,
I'll jump up and down and yell and
holler and fall down and kick up my
heels, and I'll disgrace you.
And said, you people don't know my wife.
She would really do it.
And said, I'm afraid of her.
And so when Sunday comes, I don't tell
her it's Sunday.
I tell her I've got to go to
the market and buy something.
And when I go and buy, I go
to church and then come back to the
market and buy something, take it back and
tell her.
He said, God convicted me last night.
I've got to go home and tell my
wife that I've lied to her and all
that I've done.
And he said, I want you all to
pray for me.
And so he left us and we prayed.
About an hour, he came back and his
eyes were still filled with tears, but they
were tears of joy.
He said, when I knocked on the door,
the outside wall, you have a wall around
the houses, knocked on the door and his
wife coming out to open the door.
He hadn't come home the night before.
He'd stayed at the school and she came
out reviling and cursing him and said, as
she cursed him for everything she could think
of, he said, why stop cursing me?
I've come home to confess my sin to
you.
And just as he opened it, she opened
the door.
She heard him say to confess my sin
to you.
Said she had never heard me say that
before.
And so one time in her life stopped
her from talking and she was surprised.
And I went in and I told her
everything that God had convicted me of.
And I said, now wife, I told you
what Jesus has convicted me of and I've
got to confess to you.
And she said, did Jesus make you do
that?
And he said, yes, Jesus made me do
this.
I couldn't live without confessing and getting right
with you.
And she said, well, I think that I
need Jesus myself.
And so he came back there and said,
well, some of you women go over there
and tell my wife about Jesus.
Said I tried many times before to get
women to come and my wife and other
women had gone, but she had never been
willing to confess before.
And so in about three weeks, she was
saved and all of her children were saved
and God did wonderful things, miracles.
We found that the devil tried to stop
us and we found demon-possessed people and
we given the power to cast out demons.
And, but friends and all of this, I
just want to say that it was God
doing it all.
And we were, we were simply standing by
and sometimes I felt like I would just
die of unworthiness to see what God could
do.
And I felt like the disciples as they
listened to Jesus, uh, teaching them from the
ship.
And then he said, launch out into the
deep and cast the net for a draw
of fishes.
And, uh, the disciples said that Peter and
James and John said, Lord, we've toiled all
night and taken nothing, but at your word,
we'll, we'll do it.
And they let down the net and they
caught two boatloads of fishes and they were
so dumbfounded that they fell down at Jesus'
feet.
And Peter said, Lord, depart from me.
I'm a sinful man.
And other disciples also were.
And that's the way I felt.
We had toiled and worked and pulled and
tugged and used our own methods and everything
we could think of to win people, to
have revivals and to win souls.
And then just at God's word, he came
down and his power, the Holy Spirit, and
we saw multitudes saved.
And this went on for 15 years.
It had flared up and grew like a
wildfire for a few months.
And then it had settled down and, uh,
quietly deepening the Holy Spirit, studying the Bible,
teaching the Bible.
And then it started again.
It spread all over our state, Shandong province,
they call them provinces, and all over five
Northern provinces.
This, this went on until they, for 15
years, until the communists came in, even during
the Japanese war, when all missionaries were out,
the Chinese preachers and workers went on and
God saved multitudes.
And I'm convinced that God saw what was
coming to China in the Japanese war, and
then in the communists coming in.
And he saw that missionaries and all of
the helps that he had put there to
help the Chinese people were going to be
taken away.
And God wanted the people of China, the
preachers and the deacons and the men and
women at the churches, wanted them to really
meet God face to face and be filled
with the power.
And today, when everything's out, every, every missionary's
out, nobody's preaching, the churches are closed.
Those people there have God.
They are not allowed to have Bibles.
They're not allowed to meet in churches, worship,
but they have an underground system that is
the most wonderful thing that you can think
of.
And God is there with them.
And I believe that God wanted to prepare
the people for what he had for them,
and sending this great revival at the time
that he did.
And they're