Jesus rules!

Last year I was privileged to read the book “His own story” about Howell Harris (Bridge Publishing, 1984). Harris was a Welsh preacher who played a significant part in the great awakening of the 18th century. It’s a short little book, and I am sure there are better biographies of Harris in print, but it does contain quite a bit of material from his diary.
What was so wonderful for me to see in this book, is the work of God in the soul of a man. Harris had an extraordinary and quite supernatural life. He grew up in an totally apostate church with no knowledge of the gospel. Throughout his life he rarely had someone who could teach him the truth, but he was evidently taught of God.
A while after his conversion he had an powerful experience of God, an undeniable baptism in the Spirit, which dramatically affected his life and ministry from there on. He zealously reached out, often alone, with the true gospel into the surrounding darkness, while being heavily opposed by the established church and enduring much persecution. At one season he rarely even slept at night, rather studying and praying all night, but was supernaturally refreshed by the Lord for each new day.
It is delightful to see in the book how God gave Harris increasing spiritual insight. The first great truth that he discovered was that “you must be born again”. This he always continued to preach, as did his contemporaries Whitefield, the Wesleys, Daniel Rowland, etc. After many years, and seeing many supposed conversions, he became very concerned that many of the converts only “knew Christ according to the flesh” and not in a real, lively, spiritual way. Connected to this was another truth that blazed in his heart, namely that Christ was fully God. He fought most vehemently against the wrong and popular views of his time that denied or de-emphasised the deity of Christ.
His great passion for Christ shines forth out of the last chapter of the book, which contains some of the most wonderful words I’ve ever read outside of the Bible. There are exquisite expressions of longing and panting after Christ that will resonate with every heart hungry for Him. As Harris’ final sickbed progressed, he lost almost all attachment to this world, even his dear wife and dear flock, as he was more and more consumed with the desire to be with Christ. He longed for the day when he could lay down his body of flesh, because he saw it as hiding Christ’s face from him. In these sentiments during his final time, one sees a man who truly, like Paul, desired “to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philp. 1:23)!
Despite his faults and some decisions of his with which I disagree strongly, I cannot do otherwise than to praise God for raising up and using this man in such a remarkable way. If you have never read a book on him, I really encourage you to find one and read it! It will show you that Christ can be known so much more intimately and that God can do so much more than what most of us tend to expect. And pray earnestly that God will again raise up people like this for the western world!