When one researches the subject of revival, one
quickly learns that most revivals were preceded by
prayer.
I am reminded of an old painting which
hangs in a Spanish gallery.
It depicts the following.
In the foreground is a peasant farmer who
is kneeling in the attitude of prayer.
He has removed his straw hat and it
lies beside him.
Up behind him is his team of mules
and plow, which he also has laid aside
for a time of prayer.
In the background of the painting is a
town village with a church in its steeple
and a bell tower.
Apparently, the bell has rung, calling the village
to a time of corporate prayer.
But if one looks closely at the painting,
in the far right-hand corner is the
form of an angel.
The angel has picked up the plow and
it seems to be moving the team of
mule as if to make a fresh furrow
in the field while the man kneels in
prayer.
And there is a caption at the bottom
of the painting on a brass frame with
three words written there.
And those three words are NO TIME LOST
Do you get it?
When we pray, it's as if all of
heaven's resources are enlisted on our behalf.
We get more done in prayer than we
do out of prayer.
It's a vital relationship between prayer and revival.
And when one studies historical accounts of revivals,
one soon learns that God has visited a
church with revival because of the burdened, desperate
prayers of someone praying intercessoring for revival.
This was the case in the Scottish Hebrides
in 1949, where two old women, the Smith
sisters, had been praying to God to send
revival to their village of Lewis.
They saw a vision of a man, a
stranger, standing at a pulpit.
And when Duncan Campbell finally was sent to
the island in answer to their prayer, they
recognized the face of that man as the
one in their vision.
One only has to study the revivals under
Charles Finney to find a praying Daniel Nash
and an Abel Clary hidden in the wings.
And this was the case, friends, when D
.L. Moody visited England and the church he
was preaching in soon saw a powerful revival.
The work of God was so startling it
shocked Moody and gave him a desire to
locate the reason behind the revival.
In speaking with the church's pastor, he learned
of a church member who was absent from
the church during those meetings.
She was a bedridden invalid, a young girl
who had seen a picture of Moody in
an American newspaper, and she began to pray
to God to send this man to her
church for God to use this American preacher
in revival.
Upon discovering who this invalid girl was, Moody
went to visit Marianne Adlord in her bedchamber.
And 29 years later, G.
Campbell Morgan became the pastor of that church
and he paid a visit to Marianne Adlord.
This is his account of that meeting.
When in 1901 I was leaving England for
America, I went to see her.
She said to me, I want you to
reach that birthday book.
I did so.
In turning to February 5th, I saw in
the handwriting I knew so well, D.L.
Moody, Psalm 91.
Then, Marianne Adlord said, He wrote that for
me in 1872, and I prayed for him
every day till he went home to God.
Continuing, she said, Now, will you write your
name on your birthday page, and let me
pray for you until either you or I
go home.
Well, I shall never forget writing my name
in that book.
To me, the room was full of the
presence.
Listen, friends.
There were heroes and heroines out of sight
who labor in prayer to make it possible
for those who are in sight to do
God's work.
The force of a life of ministry and
prayer can never be measured.
Well, friends, like that story, don't you?
Revival goes hand in hand like biscuits and
gravy with prayer.
Every great revival, if researched, will prove the
importance of prayer connected to that revival.
When Charles Finney would get into a town,
the first thing he'd do was to inquire
of the townspeople if there were any praying
women in the town.
He would then go see them to get
them to pray for the meetings he was
conducting there.
And I know full well from personal experience
the importance of prayer.
Years ago, I was conducting an evening school
of preaching on the subject of revival at
the Stephen Oldford Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.
I knew I'd be addressing a room full
of pastors, so I brought two men with
me.
These two men were men I was discipling
at the time, and I knew they were
praying men.
And I told them to sit at the
back of the room while I preached, and
their main objective was not to listen to
me, but to be engaged with God and
prayer that entire evening.
Well, I was preaching out of John chapter
15, and I was describing the divine pruning
knife that God uses on his servants.
And about halfway through my message, the faces
of the pastors were suddenly altered with looks
of concern, as if they were peering into
eternity.
It was obvious that God was doing a
work among them, and they told me so
afterwards.
One man in particular, an elderly black pastor,
threw his arms around me and he hugged
me, and he said, I want you to
know that after this night, things will be
different with me.
I'm going to go home, and when I
get there, I'm going to kneel by my
bed, and I'm going to ask the Lord
to get his pruning knife out on me
and my ministry.
Well, that's revival, friend.
And it came not because of me or
my preaching, but because of those two praying
men who labored in prayer while I was
preaching.
The same thing happened one time in a
church where I was invited to preach the
Sunday morning sermon.
The pastor was a godly man of prayer,
and he told me he'd have to miss
my sermon altogether because he'd rather shut himself
up in his study for that entire time
praying for me while I was preaching to
his people while he was on his knees
with God in prayer.
And I was preaching that morning on the
Last Judgment, and toward the end of my
sermon, God showed up.
And it was like the Last Judgment.
It looked as if a cannonball had just
been shot down the center aisle of that
church because the looks on the faces of
the congregation were looks of alarm.
And it was as if for one brief
extended moment, we were all standing on the
very verge of eternity gazing out into the
darkness.
One young man jumped out of his chair,
came bounding down the aisle, hopping up and
down and hollering that he just got saved.
And one of the deacons afterwards shared with
me that they felt they were frozen in
their seats by an unseen force.
And the music minister had a grin on
his face, ear to ear, as he excitedly
told me that he looked up and he
saw a glimpse of Jesus sitting on His
throne.
Well, that's revival, friends.
And when God comes in His manifest presence
in the midst of His people, it's an
unusual, accelerated, exciting activity.
Well, once you experience the power of God
in a meeting, you know the difference and
you know the supernatural from the natural.
But the prayer that God hears is the
desperate prayer of a burdened heart crying out
to God to come in revival, no matter
the cost.
One of the deepest and lasting revivals under
the preaching ministry of John Song in China
occurred in 1931 in Nanchang because of an
American Methodist missionary by the name of William
Schubert who prayed and fasted for 50 days
for God to send revival.
That's when John Song showed up and the
power of heaven came down on the people
in revival as they confessed their sins and
weeped before the Lord.
But it was all due to the cost
and sacrifice of this praying saint, William Schubert,
and the obedience of John Song.
John Song recorded in his journal how he
overheard Reverend Schubert pray when he stayed as
a visitor in his home.
Song wrote, Reverend William Schubert often went to
fasting prayer and cries of worship could often
be heard from upstairs.
Oh God, isn't it time to revive the
church at Nanchang?
If not now, when?
There's no point for me to stay here.
If you don't show any mercy, I might
as well go back to my country.
John Song said, his earnest prayers touched the
very depth of my heart indeed.
Make it a practice, brother pastor, to pray
on a regular basis for revival.
You'd be amazed at what God can do
in answer to this kind of prayer.
Let me close with the following true story
that was related to me by a pastor
friend from Glasgow, Scotland.
He said that his city of Glasgow had
a city banner and a slogan that stood
for over a hundred years.
And all over the city, you could find
a banner that read, Let Glasgow Flourish in
the name of the Lord and the power
of His Spirit.
Then, some liberal civic leaders voted to do
away with the old banner and replaced it
with a new one that simply read, Let
Glasgow Flourish.
Well, these godless politicians did away with the
rest of the slogan in the name of
the Lord and power of His Spirit.
They got rid of God in the new
slogan by only saying, Let Glasgow Flourish.
And my pastor friend told me that when
this occurred, the crime within his community went
up noticeably.
There were more unwed teenage pregnancies, more drug
arrests, more public drunkenness, more vice and crime.
It seemed that wickedness and evil were now
taking the field.
And this pastor said it disturbed him so
deeply that his city was changing for the
worse that he called a group of other
pastors in his community to make a covenant,
one with another, that they would meet on
a weekly basis to pray for their city
of Glasgow.
They would band together and pray with the
sole purpose of pushing back the darkness within
their community.
And my pastor friend said that after gathering
in prayer for some long months, he saw
a decrease in crime.
Drug arrests went down.
The number of unwed pregnancies decreased.
The occurrences of public drunkenness decreased.
Vice and crime went down.
Their faithful supplications began to push back the
darkness in their community and fill it with
light.
Like I said, friend, we can do more
in prayer than out of prayer.
The engine of the church used to be
the weekly prayer meeting.
But when churches quit that, they quickly ran
out of gas.
Are you praying for revival in our day?
Well, let us pray right now.
Oh, Ancient of Days, dear Heavenly Father, I
come to you now by the name and
blood of your Son, Jesus.
Turn us, oh God, into praying individuals who
have power with you, power with you in
answered prayer.
Our nation lies in the very grip of
the devil.
It's as if the Antichrist is already in
the land and society is just spinning out
of control into moral chaos.
We need revival, Lord.
We need it now.
I pray, great God, that you look down
and hear our prayer.
Bend your ear and hear our heart cries.
Come in your power and your majesty and
your authority.
In our midst, once again we pray.
And I ask these things in the strong
name of Jesus.
Amen.