Indeed, even the
widespread circulation of the idea that 100,000 people were
converted in the Welsh holiness revival was a product of a “mystical
experience” of Evan Roberts where he “receive[d] from God a piece of paper on
which the figure 100,000 was written—giving rise later to the belief that
100,000 would be converted during the revival.”[1]  “Evan Roberts had asked the Lord for 100,000
for Jesus Christ, and . . . he had actually seen Jesus presenting a cheque to
His Father, and on it the figure ‘100,000.’”[2]  One who accepts Roberts’s prophetic status
would be quite correct in promulgating this figure, while those who believe
that the Apostles and prophets were the foundation of the church (Ephesians
2:20), and, in consequence, their offices have ceased, would want far better evidence
for 100,000 people being regenerated than a vision of Evan Roberts—evidence
which is, however, lacking.[3]

            Roberts himself, because of the lack
of evidence of the new birth in many, eventually “saw that [many] had been
touched emotionally but not truly convicted and converted during [many of his]
revival meetings.”[4]  He “lived to see many of his converts, some
of them the most striking among the records of the Revival, go back, tired of
their new home,” to the world, the flesh, and the devil.[5]  However, this recognition came too late and
did not affect the fundamental errors in his methodology during the holiness
revival, as throughout he continued to employ techniques that were certain to
produce many false professions. 
Consequently,  “Evan Roberts grew
more and more discouraged as he saw some groups of converts following after
cults in which they barked at the devil, danced and swooned, or followed
healers and prophetesses.”[6]  Likewise, critics of Roberts affirmed that he
erred greatly in “assuming that remorse and confession were the same as true
regeneration” as it “became sadly evident that the Spirit of God had been
quenched.”[7]

            Roberts’s practices contributed to
laxity in guarding the membership of Calvinistic Methodist assemblies and other
denominations influenced by his ministry, thus filling them with unregenerate
members[8]
and ministers.  Indeed, Roberts did not
merely confuse regeneration and Spirit-produced repentance and faith in the
crucified Christ with an outward response in his methodology, but his message
itself was confusing enough that it could well be considered—by those who
rejected his prophetic status and went by Scripture alone—a very unclear
gospel.  Evan Roberts did not regularly
preach with any kind of careful clarity the gospel of salvation for totally
depraved sinners based on the substitutionary death of the crucified and
resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). 
He did not proclaim the need for miraculous regeneration and call
sinners to a supernaturally produced repentant faith through which they looked
away from themselves to the Lord Jesus for redemption (John 3:1-21).  Instead, Roberts taught that the unregenerate
must both sympathize with and love Christ before they can come to Him for
salvation, thus denying the Biblical depravity of man (Romans 3:11) and
affirming Pelagianism.[9]  It is not at all surprising that Roberts “did
not at any time emphasize the necessity for the creation of a new will in and
by the power of Christ.”[10]  On the contrary, he commanded:  “[Y]ou need to turn that sympathy . . . I
know you . . . listeners [already have] . . . into a flame of love before you
can embrace Him as Saviour.”[11]       Furthermore,
he taught:  “Christ . . . has a rope of
three strands.  First ask him to take you
as you are.  Then ask Him to forgive your
sins.  Then ask Him for strength for the
future.  This three-stranded rope of
salvation is enough for the present, the past, and the future salvation of
every sinner.”[12]  Along these lines, Roberts counseled his
helpers to find people who needed to stand up to be saved, and act as
follows:  “Put one hand on their
shoulder, and the other hand in their hand. 
Ask them to pray God to forgive their sins for Jesus Christ’s sake.  Then ask them, do they believe in God; and if
they will say they do, ask them to thank God for that.”[13]  However, the Biblical response to the gospel
is not “ask,” but “believe,”[14]
and belief in “God” is not enough (James 2:19); one must be supernaturally
enabled to rest upon the crucified Christ and His substitutionary atonement
(cf. John 3:1-21).

            Worst of all, Roberts’s salvation
message was summarized by those who heard him as:

He says that if we would have Jesus save us, we must
save ourselves first. He says that we must do all that we know is right, first.
He says that we must leave off the drink and all that is bad; he says that we
must pray and we must work, we must work hard. He says if Jesus Christ is to
save us we must work along with Him, side by side, or, he says, the saving will
never be done.[15]

That is, “‘He
says we must save ourselves first.’ Here is indeed a different Gospel from that
of 1859.”[16]  Thus, the Welsh revivalism under Evan Roberts
“is of a social and altruistic nature, and . . . differs from those [revivals]
which have preceded it whe[re] the doctrine was one almost exclusively of faith
rather than works.”[17]  Jessie Penn-Lewis recounted:

Mr. Roberts would “test” the
meeting, and put to it the four definite steps necessary to salvation . . .
(1.) The past must be made clear by sin being confessed to God, and every wrong
to man put right. (2.) Every doubtful thing in the life must be put away. (3.)
Prompt and implicit obedience to the Holy Ghost. (4.) Public confession of
Christ.  Forgiveness of others as an
essential to receiving the forgiveness of God was often emphasized, as well as
the distinction between the Holy Spirit’s work in conversion, and in baptizing
the believer with the Holy Ghost . . . the full Gospel as preached at
Pentecost.[18]

Indubitably, a
radical discontinuity existed between Roberts’s message and the Biblical gospel
of free grace in Christ, for he equated the new birth with people simply
standing up.  He changed the preaching of
repentance and faith to the spiritually dead to calling on unsaved men (who
somehow loved Christ) to ask Jesus to help them have strength for the future,
work hard, and then receive forgiveness. 
By his reduction of miraculous regeneration to a merely human decision,
however, “hundreds of souls would rise”[19]
to receive salvation by standing up and be counted as converts every night.[20]  In a poor meeting, “only 760 decisions had
been recorded”[21]—in
better ones, many, many more were recorded. 
Furthermore, believers did not obtain assurance of salvation by looking
to Christ and also by seeing in the reflex act of faith[22]
the evidences of regeneration recorded in 1 John; rather, the doctrine of
Roberts and his followers was, “Believe you are saved, and then confess it” to
obtain “assurance of faith.”[23]  Apparently, only those who possess the
ability to see people’s hearts can rightly conclude that the lost standing up
is the same thing as the supernatural production of repentance and faith within
a dead sinner’s heart by the Spirit of God, enabling a sinner to spiritually
come to the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in His work on the cross for
justification, a new heart, and eternal life. 
Furthermore, Biblical assurance is not obtained by simply convincing
oneself that he is saved and then saying to others that he is.  Consequently, the practice of equating people’s
standing up with conversion will produce horrific numbers of false professions
and spurious conversion decisions when practiced by anyone who does not have
the kind of insight into the heart Evan Roberts claimed he had.

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