Tonight, our text is Psalm 85 verse 6.
The topic for this evening is how to
pray for revival.
We read there Psalm 85 verse 6, will
you not revive us again that your people
may rejoice in you?
Charles Spurgeon said of this text, brethren, if
you will pray this prayer, it will be
better than my preaching from it.
And my only motive in preaching from it
is that you may pray it.
I feel the same way.
You know, the real fruit of a message
like this isn't born in understanding, it isn't
born in just listening to it.
Whatever you pray from this passage of scripture
tonight is more important than my preaching from
it.
And I think if there's anything that we've
really gotten a hold of in the past
many months, as oftentimes we've gathered here on
Sunday night and talked about God's great work
in the past, what he could do among
us, is we've really gotten a sense that
prayer is an essential component to what God
wants to do in a community, in a
church, in an individual life.
Prayer is an essential awakening work, a preparatory
work for awakening or revival.
And so I think a lot of times
when we encourage people to pray for awakening,
to pray for revival, they wonder, well, how?
What do I pray for?
Is it kind of a Buddhist thing where
you get together and you just go into
a dark room and you say revival, revival,
revival, revival over about a thousand times and
sort of chant the word and hope that
that'll get you somewhere before God?
What exactly do you pray?
How do you pray for it?
And I think that this text gives us
a few guidelines.
First of all, I would like to suggest
to you that this text tonight tells us,
first of all, when to pray for revival.
If you look at Psalm 85, verse one,
you can get from it the idea that
you should pray for revival when you remember
the great things that God has done in
the past.
Look at verse one.
Lord, you have been favorable to your land.
You have brought back the captivity of Jacob.
The son of Korah here, one of the
sons of Korah who wrote this song, when
he declared this, he was remembering the great
things that God had done in the past,
said, Lord, you've done great things in the
past.
Do it again.
And we find oftentimes that one of the
greatest encouragements we have to praying for a
great work of God in our midst, whether
it be in our own life, in our
family, in our congregation, in our community, is
recognizing some of the great things that God
has done in days gone by.
I mean, when you hear some of the
great things the Lord has done in the
past, you say, well, Lord, why not here?
Why not now?
Why can't you do similar things among us
today?
And it's a great encouragement to our faith.
So you should remember to pray for revival
when you remember the great things that God
has done in the past.
Then again, another time to pray for revival
is when we sense that we're under a
cloud of divine displeasure or a lack of
blessing.
Look at verses four and five of Psalm
eighty five, he says, Restore us, O God,
of our salvation and cause your anger towards
us to cease.
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Do you get the point there?
He's saying when we sense that maybe God
is displeased with us, when we look around
and sense perhaps a lack of blessing, a
lack of the outpouring of God's spirit.
Well, that's all the more time to say,
Lord, we want to pray and plead with
you that you would send forth your goodness,
that you would send forth your kindness to
us.
And so in the midst of this prayer
where he says, Restore us, O God, of
our salvation, cause your anger towards us to
cease, end it for us, God.
And that's the time to pray as well.
You know, sometimes we we have to take
off the rose colored glasses that we wear.
I generally tend to be an optimistic person.
I think that's a good thing.
I think it's generally a good quality.
I think it goes along with being a
believer.
I think it goes along with being a
person of faith is to have a generally
optimistic viewpoint, and that's good.
But there's sometimes where you have to take
a cold, hard look at reality.
And that's what the psalmist was doing.
Restore us, O God, of our salvation.
Look at it again there.
Verse four, he says, We're apart from you.
We need to be restored.
Cause your anger towards us to cease.
Lord, it seems like you're angry with us.
Please cause your anger to cease.
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Oh, Lord, please.
We feel like we're under the stroke of
your hand.
Lighten the weight of your stroke against us.
So when do you pray for revival?
Will you pray when you remember the great
things that God has done in the past?
You pray when you sense that maybe you're
under a cloud of divine displeasure or lack
of blessing.
But how about just when you sense the
need for personal or congregational revival?
I mean, that's the prompting from verse six.
Will you not revive us again?
Lord, we need it.
We need to be revived.
There's a sense of deadness.
There's a sense of coldness.
There's a sense of lack of blessing in
your work.
Remember that old hymn, showers of blessing, showers
of blessing, showers of blessing.
And it says, mercy drops round us are
falling, but for the showers we plead.
Oh, yeah.
You might say, well, there's mercy drops falling
around us.
That's great.
But you know the great difference there is
between a few scattered drops coming down outside,
you know, a little scattered shower, a little
bit of drizzle outside.
You know the difference between that and a
downpour.
There's a huge difference between the two.
And so he says, oh, we sense it,
Lord.
We need revival.
So you pray when you remember the great
things God has done in the past.
You pray when you sense you're under a
cloud of divine displeasure, lack of blessing.
You pray when you sense the need for
personal or congregational revival.
Well, when it comes time to pray for
revival, who do you pray for?
Who do you pray for?
Well, let me say, first of all, and
you got to hear me out to the
end of this, because I don't list this
first because I think it's most important.
But first of all, if you're going to
pray for revival, pray for the pastor.
Pray for the pastor of the church.
If you want to see revival in a
church, pray for the pastor of the church.
Well, why?
Well, first of all, because the pastor himself
needs to be personally revived.
He needs to have a live, active, thriving
Christian life in himself.
Sometimes people forget that it's possible to stand
behind a pulpit and not be spiritually quickened,
not be spiritually alive yourself.
Well, the pastor needs reviving.
So pray for the pastor.
Pray, God, make sure that our pastor is
revived.
Bless his walk with you.
Bless his personal relationship with you.
Secondly, I'd say pray for the pastor, because
the pastor needs to be strengthened against temptation.
You know, many temptations come the way of
a pastor as they do the way of
anybody else.
Not only does the pastor have to deal
with the temptations that are common to anyone.
Any one of you men, any one of
you who deal with temptations that are common
to any man, don't think that the pastor
is any different than that.
Of course he's not.
He has to deal with the same kind
of thing.
But upon that, I think there's an extra
burden of temptation upon the pastor, where he
has to deal with the temptations towards spiritual
pride, towards spiritual ego and upliftedness, and perhaps
a professionalism in his relationship with God.
He's tempted towards those, perhaps in a way
that those who are not in full-time
ministry are not tempted.
So pray for your pastor to be strengthened
against temptation.
I would say as well that the pastor
needs prayer because he needs to be strengthened
against discouragement and filled with faith.
You know from your own personal experience what
a powerful tool discouragement is against you in
your own Christian life.
There's an old story about the devil who
was going through his tool shed and he
was throwing out old tools that he didn't
need anymore.
But there was one that he kept in
a very prized place and somebody asked the
devil, well, what's that tool?
And he said, well, it's the most valuable
tool in my arsenal.
It's the tool of discouragement.
And discouragement can work very powerfully against pastors,
against those in ministry.
You know, when the pastor thinks of his
own sinfulness, he can be discouraged.
How many times I have stood behind this
pulpit weighed down by a sense of unworthiness.
Now, sometimes the sense of unworthiness was totally
unjustified and sometimes it was justified.
You know, I had not been walking right
and God was convicting my heart.
And so that kind of discouragement can weigh
very heavily upon a pastor.
Just the sense of his own sinfulness, his
own unworthiness.
He said, well, who am I?
Who am I?
I stand behind this pulpit and they think
that I'm more holy than any of them.
What a joke.
What a laugh.
And you can be very weighed down by
a sense of your sinfulness.
A pastor can fall into discouragement when he
thinks of the lack of results there may
be in his work.
Oh, you look about and you say, oh,
Lord, so little fruit.
So little fruit, Lord.
Why is the harvest so small, God?
Why can't there be more fruit?
How am I failing, God?
I must be unfaithful before you.
I must be an unworthy servant before you,
God.
What's going on with this?
And again, Satan knows how to take that
and maybe thoughts that might be good and
valid and helpful.
Satan knows how to put a twist on
them, a spin on them to drive a
person in ministry into despair and discouragement.
When the pastor thinks of the seeming deadness
of many in the congregation, he can be
discouraged.
Looks at a life that's been sitting under
his preaching for years and looks at that
man, that woman, they're just as spiritually dead
as they were five years ago when they
walked into our church.
What's the work of God in their life?
Where are they shining out now for Jesus
Christ?
You think of that and you go, oh,
Lord, the deadness, whatever I'm doing in ministry,
it seems incapable of transforming them.
It seems incapable of touching them.
The discouragement comes upon the pastor.
He thinks, he thinks, wow, look, look at
the prayer meeting.
Where is everybody?
Where are the people at the prayer meeting?
You know, it's been said that if you
want to measure the popularity of the pastor,
look at attendance on a Sunday morning.
If you want to measure the popularity of
the church among Christians, look at the attendance
at Sunday evening.
If you want to measure the popularity of
God at the church, look at the prayer
meeting.
And thoughts like that can drive a pastor
to absolute despair.
You say, look at the prayer.
Where are the people who will pray?
Who are the people?
Lord, we need prayer.
It absolutely undergirds the work.
It's the foundation.
It's essential to everything.
Well, where are the praying people?
Look at this prayer meeting, that prayer meeting.
We have it, but nobody comes, it seems.
It can be a great source of discouragement.
Pastor thinks of gossip and backbiting.
Oh, it can drive him to discouragement.
He needs your upholding in prayer.
You know, one of the great discouragements for
pastors, or at least maybe I should just
speak of myself.
I know that many others, many of my
colleagues that I speak to experience this as
well.
When a pastor thinks of those who have
left the church, he can be very discouraged.
You know, you see somebody leave, and people
leave under all different kinds of circumstances.
Some people leave because, well, just praise God.
They feel like God's moving them on, and
it's a blissful departure.
It's friendly, and it's just no awkwardness at
all.
And you miss them.
You know, maybe they've moved away.
Maybe they felt God has just called them
to another congregation.
You miss them.
There's a little bit of a hole there
in your heart and your friendship and such.
But there's not the real discouragement there.
But sometimes folks leave.
Sometimes folks leave because of some kind of
conflict or difficulty, and that's very discouraging to
a pastor.
You look and you look at yourself and
you say, well, what's wrong with me?
What's wrong with me?
I can't get it right with this person.
That it just seems to be a butting
of heads.
Why can't I serve them the way that
I should?
What's wrong with me?
God, is this your frown of disapproval upon
me or my ministry?
This person sure seems to think so, as
they stomp away in anger from the church.
Other times people leave, and it's just sort
of awkward.
It's just sort of strange, and they're godly
people.
Oh, maybe there's a voice somewhere that whispers
into you that, well, if somebody leaves the
church, it must mean that they're a very
ungodly, wicked person.
But you know that's not the case.
You know, that's sometimes very godly people, and
sometimes that's even tougher because then you stand
back and you say, oh, Lord, what is
wrong with me that this person is leaving
the church?
That this person is going?
God, I must be worthless in ministry.
I must be useless.
If I can't minister to a blessed saint
like this, if they're turning their back on
me, if they're expressing their stamp of disapproval
upon my ministry, well, then what possible use
can I be in this community?
What possible effectiveness can I have?
For all these reasons, discouragement can be a
great, great tool against a pastor.
And so it's essential that you pray for
the pastor.
If you want to pray for revival, pray
for the pastor.
But let me put one more reason why
you should pray for the pastor, is that
the pastor needs prayer for spiritual power in
his ministry.
I mean, if we believe that this is
the Christian lecture society and it's just the
pastor's job to deliver lectures to people and
people hear it and take notes and learn
what they will, just as much as you
might go to the community college and hear
a lecture on astronomy or on human biology
or upon 17th century English literature, whatever you
please.
If this is the Christian lecture society, then
there needs to be no great spiritual power
behind what the pastor does, because the pastor
just conveys information.
But if this is the church of Jesus
Christ, if this is the body of Christ,
if this is a spiritual work that goes
on, then it is absolutely essential that it
be undergirded with spiritual power and spiritual power
comes about by prayer.
James McGrady is an example of a man
who made the most out of getting his
congregation to pray for him.
You may have heard that name before we
talked about him or heard others talk about
him here on Sunday nights.
He was that man in the history of
the United States who, well, he was a
preacher who was so ugly that he attracted
attention for his ugliness and it sort of
gained him a following wherever he went.
McGrady came over the Allegheny Mountains to minister
on the frontier of Kentucky.
This was around the beginning of the 19th
century, 1798, 1799.
He had three little box-like Presbyterian churches
out there on the frontier and he decided
to teach these rough, lawless, wild frontier people
to bring them the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Well, he described his first winter there in
1799 as, for the most part, weeping and
mourning with the people of God.
No results, no fruit.
It was just difficult.
It was just hard going.
All he could seem to do is just
weep and mourn with the people of God
over the low state of the cause of
the gospel and the work of Jesus Christ
in the community.
Well, he set about to change that.
One of the things he used was the
concert of prayer where he would gather together
with other churches or other interested people, as
many who would gather, not just his own
congregation, but as many as would gather together
once a month to gather together to earnestly
seek the Lord for an outpouring of awakening
and revival upon the community.
But he did more than that.
McGrady also asked his people to pray for
him.
He got his congregation praying for him in
a unique way.
He said, OK, listen, a half hour before
sundown or excuse me, a half hour at
sundown on Saturday night.
Pray for me.
And then a half hour at sunrise on
Sunday morning, you pray for me.
And he got all or most of his
congregation to do that.
And they prayed and prayed and he got
them to pray.
And you should know that McGrady was no
specimen as a preacher.
He was noted for his bad voice.
He was noted for his awkward gestures in
the pulpit.
He was no pulpit master by any means.
But God blessed.
And in the year 1800 came a flood
of blessing.
Some of the meetings that McGrady held had
as many as twenty five thousand people in
attendance.
And this is out on the frontier.
And there was an incredible example of fruit
and blessing.
But it came because McGrady got his people
praying for him.
So who do you pray for?
Well, you pray for the pastor.
Now, I mentioned that first, not because I
think it's most important.
Matter of fact, the main point of my
message here this evening is to point out
that perhaps praying for the pastor is not
the most important.
I'll point that out a little bit later.
Secondly, should pray for the leaders and the
officers of the church, elders, deacons, whatever you
would call them in the particular congregation that
you're out, board members, whoever the leadership of
the church is beyond the pastor, assistant pastors,
whatever you have, you pray for the leaders
and the officers of the church.
Charles Spurgeon said, I have no doubt that
often dead deacons and dead elders prevent a
church's prospering.
Therefore, let us pray earnestly for the leaders
of God's congregation.
Lord, revive them again.
Put more spiritual life in them.
Well, you need to pray for elders.
You need to pray for leaders.
You need to pray for board members.
Pray that God would pour out upon them
spiritual life the same sort of way that
you would pray for the pastor.
Make the prayer circle a little bigger and
pray for the leaders.
So who do you pray for?
You pray for the pastor.
You pray for the leaders and the officers
of the church.
And I want to spend the most time
to you tonight talking about the third area
where I think you need to pray.
If you want to be effective in revival,
I would say, take great care that you
pray for the congregation.
You see, if you want revival, pray for
a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon
the congregation, not only on the preacher.
Let me show you the importance of this
with a scriptural illustration.
I want you to think of two spirit
-filled preachers.
Peter on the day of Pentecost.
Do we agree?
Spirit-filled.
Then Stephen before the Sanhedrin.
Do we agree?
Spirit-filled.
Scripture specifically say both of them were full
of the spirit when they preached.
Now, I want you to think of the
different results between Peter on the day of
Pentecost and Stephen before the Sanhedrin.
Now, we wouldn't say that Stephen had no
results because his greatest fruit was found not
so much in his preaching, but in his
prayer.
His dying prayer was answered in the conversion
of Saul of Tarsus, who became the great
apostle Paul.
But was there any kind of response from
the Sanhedrin when Stephen preached to them?
Well, there was a response, but not the
kind that you want after a sermon.
They killed him.
Now, think of Peter on the day of
Pentecost.
Was there a response?
Well, you better believe it.
Thousands of people not saved in the sense,
well, they raised their hand to respond to
the contrary.
I'm talking about converted by the spirit of
God.
Thousands of people coming forth saying, what must
I do to be saved?
Thousands of people not waiting for an invitation.
Do you realize that on the day of
Pentecost, they didn't wait for an invitation?
They were storming the platform, so to speak,
saying, you stop, you have to stop preaching
and tell us what to do to be
saved.
Now, what was the difference?
Was the difference because Peter was filled with
the spirit and Stephen wasn't?
No, they were both filled with the spirit.
The difference was that the spirit of God
worked differently upon the hearers.
That was the difference.
You see, Peter's preaching on the day of
Pentecost was remarkably fruitful in conversions because the
spirit of God was poured out upon the
hearers.
You say, well, wait a minute.
I thought that if I wanted to pray
for revival, I shouldn't pray for the congregation.
I shouldn't pray for those who sit under
the teaching of the word of God.
Why don't I pray for the community?
Well, you can pray for the community.
That's fine.
Do you understand?
There's a sense and I know I'm almost
splitting hairs here.
Forgive me this.
But when you pray for the community, when
you pray for those who don't know Christ,
in a sense, you're not praying for revival.
You're praying for awakening.
Revival speaks to a quickening, a life giving
work among the people of God.
And I want you to know that if
the people of God come to life, then
the public will be reached.
There's no difficulty with that.
You revive the church and you'll bring awakening
to the community.
May I read you another quote from Charles
Spurgeon?
He said, look at the outside public, the
myriads who never go to hear the gospel
at all.
How are they to be reached by a
cold, dead church?
So for their sakes, for the sake of
this great city, for the sake of this
great nation, for the sake of the world,
let us pray.
Oh, God, be pleased to revive us again.
If you want a passion for this community,
ask God to bring real revival, real quickening
to his church.
So who do you pray for?
You pray for the pastor?
Yes.
I appreciate all the prayers.
You pray for the leadership of the church?
Yes.
But if I could say if anybody's misguided
in where revival comes from, they neglect to
pray for the congregation, for those who hear.
What do you God ask God to do
when you pray?
Well, notice it there in verse six.
Look at the prayer.
Will you not revive us again?
You pray that God would bring life back
to us.
I want you to notice the word that
is not there in verse six.
It's them.
Lord, revive them.
I don't think those prayers go very far
because revive them can have the attitude of,
well, you know, man, I'm right.
I'm revived.
You know, God, why don't you just bring
everybody else up to my spiritual level in
this church?
And then maybe we'd see something happen.
No, Lord, revive them.
Revive us.
Revive us together.
Not them, but us.
Me, us, all of us.
Lord, revive us.
Secondly, you have to ask God to do
it for his glory.
Look at it again in verse six.
Will you not revive us again that we
might become a famous church?
Does it say that?
But will you not revive us again so
that I can become a famous pastor and
everybody can know how spiritual I am?
It doesn't say that, does it?
Look at it.
Verse six.
Will you not revive us again that your
people may rejoice in you so that you
may get the glory, that you may be
honored, that people may be looking at you
and giving glory and honor to you, Lord
God.
You see the difference here.
I think many prayers for revival are fundamentally
selfish.
Fundamentally self-advancing, self-aggrandizing.
Lord, lift me up.
Oh, lift your work up, but lift me
up, Lord.
Let me be known as a great leader
of revival or us as a great church.
You know, you have to put all of
that away.
It all has to be distant from you.
Lord, glorify yourself.
If it's your will that we be anonymous
or obscure or all of that, Lord, it
would be easier to do your work that
way.
So let it be so if it be
your will.
Oh, but Lord, let you be praised.
Let you be honored.
Let you be glorified.
So you ask God to bring life back
to us.
You ask God to do it for your
glory.
Might I say that there's something written over
this verse, sort of the watermark.
Do you know what a watermark is?
You've seen that in the new dollar bills
that they print up, the hundred dollar bills,
for example, you hold them up and you
can see it.
It's not visible right away.
But when you hold it up to the
light, you can see that there's a design
or picture, a pattern behind it.
But what's behind verse six?
It's praying for a great outpouring of the
Holy Spirit.
So pray for God to bring life back
to us.
Ask God to do it for his glory.
But ask for a great outpouring of the
Holy Spirit.
Revival comes from the Holy Spirit.
And I want you to understand that the
only technology, the only machinery that we have
to lay hold of the spirit of God
is prayer.
You have to let go of your other
machinery.
You have to let go of your other
programs.
Again, Spurgeon said the machinery for getting up
a revival may often be the greatest hindrance
to true godliness.
A church cannot be revived unless God revives
it.
It has to be a work of the
spirit of God.
You can't start a campaign.
Revival 2002, you know, and all this and
a campaign and all the media and exposure
and this and that and try to hype
it into existence.
Be gone with all of that.
It needs to happen by the Holy Spirit
of God.
Can I give you an example of what
to pray for?
If you want to put a bookmark there
and in Psalm 85, but turn with me
to Acts chapter two, let's look at Acts
chapter two, the outpouring of the spirit of
God on the day of Pentecost as sort
of a picture or a model or an
example of what to pray for a true
revival here.
Look at it here.
It's simple.
Hopefully this is familiar territory, but let's look
at it again.
Acts chapter two, verse one.
Now, when the day of Pentecost had fully
come, they were all with one accord in
one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven
as of a mighty as of a rushing,
mighty wind, and it filled the whole house
where they were sitting.
Then there appeared to them divided tongues as
of fire and one sat upon each one
of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak with other tongues
as the spirit gave them utterance.
I want you to notice something there.
You know how I said how it's important
to pray for God's work, for God's outpouring
upon the congregation.
This is it.
This is the Holy Spirit falling, not just
on Peter, who was going to preach the
sermon that day, not just upon the twelve
who were the apostles there that day, it
was upon all of them.
The one hundred and twenty in the whole
meeting, everyone was touched by unique touch from
the spirit of God.
This was not a revival among leaders.
It was a revival among everyone.
My friends, this is one of the great
misconceptions about these great works of God in
history is that they are organized or led
by leaders or great men of God.
A revival.
You've got to have a Finney revival.
You've got to have a Wesley revival.
You've got to have a Moody revival.
You've got to have a Whitfield.
I want you to know that those men
are actually the exception to the great moving
of God in history.
In other words, I think God mixes it
up.
Sometimes he uses notable leaders.
More often than not, he doesn't.
I think sometimes he uses notable leaders just
to keep us off guard so we don't
systematize these things.
But more often than not, these great works
of God have no great or notable leader.
I don't know if I can explain this
to you fully.
Let me just try to paint a picture
here for you.
In times of revival, meetings often last for
hours and hours.
Now, it isn't that people sit and listen
to the pastor preach for hours and hours.
That's not how it works.
You see, instead, it's more of a move
of the spirit of God from the pews
than from the pulpit.
It's more from the seats than from the
platform.
It's a movement of God upon the people.
That's what happened on the day of Pentecost,
right?
Have you ever really fully appreciated that?
That every one of them was filled with
the Holy Spirit.
Every one of them had the spirit of
God come upon them.
This was what you might call a congregational
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
You see, as I've read many of the
accounts of this in the past, you would
have perhaps at these great meetings, someone that
we would call a pastor or worship leader.
But much of the meeting would be prayer
and singing and testimony and teaching from the
congregation in that it was a movement of
God upon the people.
In other words, the people are no longer
passive.
They're just sitting back in the chair.
Well, you know, whatever's going to happen, you
know, bless me and entertain me, feed me.
No, in these great times of outpouring of
the Holy Spirit, the people gain a true
spiritual eloquence in prayer.
Have you ever had the awkward experience?
I'm sure you have.
I've had it a lot.
Well, you're with a group of people and
say, well, let's pray.
And nobody says anything.
Nobody prays.
And then somebody will give a halting, you
know, awkward prayer.
And then there'll be another three minutes of
silence.
You know, in times of revival, it's not
like that at all.
People gain a true spiritual eloquence.
And I say true spiritual because it's not
just the spinning out of eloquent words.
It's not speech making before God.
It's heartfelt, earnest prayer.
They're bold to share the scriptures.
They exhort one another.
It's not programmed.
It's not hype.
It's not by machinery.
It's not like saying, OK, now you say
something.
Now you say something.
No, it's the work of the spirit of
God upon the people, people prompted by the
Holy Spirit.
Often meetings might go like this, and I
say often because there's no machinery, there's no
program, there's no pattern to this, but there's
a typical way that things might happen, as
I've read, for example, many of the meetings
during the great revival of 1858, 59 in
America, they would have an opening song.
There'd be a few short announcements.
There would be a short message, maybe a
five minute devotional exhortation by the person who's
leading the meeting.
And then he would say the meeting is
now open for prayer.
And at that moment, anything might happen, honestly.
There would be what you would often call
an orderly flood of response from the congregation.
Not wild disorder, not chaos, not swinging from
the chandeliers and that kind of nonsense, but
what you might call an orderly flood.
Sometimes prayer would rise spontaneously from the congregation
as a whole, with each earnestly crying out
to God for their needs.
Sometimes people would line up to make public
confection of sins or public profession of faith.
Sometimes they would share brief messages or lead
out in song.
This is a movement of God upon the
people.
Now, let me give you some historical examples
of this kind of outpouring of the Holy
Spirit upon the congregation.
September 1904, Wales.
This is from the diary of Seth Joshua,
one of the great evangelists in Wales at
that time.
On the 19th, he says revival.
And this is at the very, very front
edge of this great move of God.
He says revival is breaking out here in
greater power.
The young receiving the greatest measure of blessing.
They break out into prayer, praise, testimony and
exhortation.
You see that that's what the meeting was
like.
People breaking out into prayer, praise, testimony, exhortation.
It would be as if the preachers preaching
and as soon as he gives opportunity for
people, I have to share this.
I have to share what the Lord's doing.
God's put in my heart a word of
exhortation.
I just want to pray.
My heart's so burdened.
Would somebody pray for me?
It doesn't have to be coaxed out of
people.
You don't have to bring it out of
them with elaborate invitations and manipulations.
Then it's there because the spirit of God's
poured out.
The next day in his diary, he wrote
this.
I cannot leave the building until midnight and
even one o'clock in the morning.
I closed the meeting several times and yet
it would break out again, quite beyond control
of human power.
Well, he would try to end the meeting.
Now, let's let's go.
Tomorrow's another day.
We need to end the meeting and he'd
give a closing prayer.
And as he said, amen, someone else would
break out in a song and it would
go for another half hour hour.
Do you see the difference here?
It's not just a passive.
Well, you know, whatever.
Scotland, 1839, William Calmers Burns.
He came to Kilsyth and he preached in
his father's parish church.
And so great was the power of God
in that meeting that the prayers and the
crying of the congregation drowned out the voice
of the preacher.
He's there preaching and people are so stirred.
People are just calling out to God.
It's just so filled with with grief over
their sin, with a great sense of need
or conviction that they just fall out and
they say, Lord, please touch me.
Please change me.
Their prayers and crying out, it drowned out
the voice of the preacher.
Folks, that's not normal.
That's a unique outpouring of the spirit of
God.
That's what you pray for.
A unique stirring of the spirit of God
upon the congregation.
Well, yes, you pray for the pastor.
Yes, you pray for the leaders in the
church.
But don't forget to pray for the congregation.
Let me describe to you another scene from
the Welsh revival of 1905.
This is from the account of Merlin Lewis.
He was seven years old when the Welsh
revival came.
He described what the meetings were like.
Described how his father came home from the
coal mine about three o'clock in the
afternoon.
He started his day at six o'clock
in the morning.
So shift was done at three.
Mr. Lewis came home.
He took a bath, put on his Sunday
clothes and he said, come, mother, we're going
to the church.
They got there by four o'clock and
the place was packed.
Four o'clock in the afternoon, the church
is packed.
They can't find a seat.
But when they saw mother with three small
children, they made room for her.
And the man who was so mightily used
of God in that Welsh revival, his name
was Evan Roberts.
And Evan Roberts arrived unexpectedly at that church.
But it was expecting to come in.
But he arrived at that church unexpectedly at
seven o'clock.
The church was so crowded that he had
to climb on a bench in the back
and literally, both literally walk on the shoulders
of men who were crowding the aisles to
get to the pulpit.
The platform was so crowded because every inch
of space was taken up in the room
that he had to climb over the front
of the pulpit to get behind it to
preach.
That's how crowded the place was.
There were just people everywhere, literally standing room
only.
And we got behind that pulpit.
He only said one word.
Now, he said it in Welsh.
And so it's one word in Welsh.
It's three words in English.
He said, let us pray.
Immediately, 1800 people began to prayer, pray.
He asked this guy, Merlin Lewis, and say,
well, what was it like?
What was the prayer like?
Was it was just like people in Jesus,
Jesus, Jesus, Father, Father, Father, you know, bless
you, Lord, you know, that kind of prayer,
which is sometimes how it is.
I mean, in a time of worship, that's
kind of where my heart is.
And if you were sitting right next to
me, you would hear me say things like
that.
Thank you, Jesus.
Lord God, you know, I love you.
Was it like that?
Merlin Lewis would say, no, it wasn't like
that at all.
You see, everyone is praying his own prayer.
Lewis described it like this, that there was
one man praying right behind him.
Oh, God, give me another chance.
I'll put things right if you'll just give
me another chance.
Someone praying off to the side saying, Lord,
I'll go to India.
I won't argue anymore.
Someone else, a mother was praying for her
son in Liverpool.
You see, just spontaneous prayer.
All Evan Roberts said was, let us pray.
And the congregation broke into this outpouring of
prayer.
This went on for hours.
One man took his elbow and jabbed Mr.
Lewis in the ribs.
And he said, will you stop praying and
tell me how I can become a Christian?
I can't stand this anymore.
That's the kind of great work that was
happening there.
At two o'clock in the morning, after
having arrived at four o'clock in the
afternoon, Mr. Lewis said to his wife, come,
mother, let's put the children to bed.
So they walked home in the cold drizzle,
put the kids to bed.
He only had a few hours till work.
So Mr. Lewis slept in the rocking chair
by the fire, got up to go to
work at six o'clock in the morning,
came home at three o'clock in the
afternoon and said, come, mother, let's go to
church.
They came back to the church to see
the same meeting continuing full tilt from the
night before.
Now, that's not normal.
It's almost we don't expect that to be
normal, and that's okay.
But we can plead for that kind of
outpouring upon a congregation.
You're there in Acts chapter two.
Look at verse 17 and 18 when Peter
is explaining this great work to the people.
He says, and it shall come to pass
in the last days, says God, that I
will pour out of my spirit upon all
flesh.
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.
Your old men shall see visions.
Your young men shall see visions.
Excuse me.
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on my men servants, not my maid
servants, I'll pour out my spirit in those
days and they shall prophesy.
You see, the whole point of this prophecy
from Joel that Peter quotes on the day
of Pentecost is that it's a broad work
of the spirit of God among the people.
The emphasis is on the outpouring of the
spirit on all flesh.
Now, the Jewish people of Peter's day didn't
think that way.
They thought, what, 120 people gathered together for
him and the Holy Spirit came upon them
all.
That's not how it works.
They were worse to use, I should say,
to how the Holy Spirit worked in the
Old Testament, where the Holy Spirit would come
upon prophets or priests and he would only
come upon special people for special duties.
And now under the new covenant, it's different.
The Holy Spirit may, as he will, comes
upon common folk.
I mean, the Jews of Peter's day would
say, look, these are just common people.
Holy Spirit doesn't come upon them.
But that's the whole point of Joel's prophecy
is to say, yes, he does come upon
them.
That's what's happening right here, right now.
And in this latter time, the servants of
the Lord would be filled with the Holy
Spirit in a unique way.
Now, let's face it, sometimes that's how the
common churchgoer is.
They simply want a building to worship in
a nice service that's not too offensive and
a good sermon.
And after that, he thinks, leave me alone.
That isn't New Covenant Christianity.
No, the New Covenant Christianity sees the ministry
as belonging to the people and not to
the clergy.
Now, if you take a look through the
book of Acts, you can find other examples
of what I would call a congregational outpouring
of the Holy Spirit.
Acts chapter two, verse four said, and they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak with other tongues as the
Spirit gave them utterance, all filled with the
Holy Spirit.
Acts chapter four, verse thirty one.
And when they had prayed, the place where
they were assembled together was shaken and they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
Acts chapter ten, verse forty four.
And while Peter was still speaking these words,
the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who
heard this word.
Now, I have to say this, and perhaps
this is a confession of mine, perhaps it's
an admission of weakness or lack of experience.
But as I've thought through, I have at
least never consciously been aware of ever seeing
a meeting like this.
Certainly, I don't remember one where I was
preaching.
Where in any real demonstrable way, you could
say the Holy Spirit came upon all in
the building.
Oh, certainly some are prompted, some are quickened.
You can tell some people are just wrestling.
You can tell by response that people.
But you know what?
I must say that I don't think I've
ever seen this.
What you would really call a true congregational
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
And as it occurred to me, we just
don't think that way often anymore.
We think very much of the individual filling
of the Holy Spirit.
In other words, if you want to be
filled with the Holy Spirit, raise your hand
or come forward and we will lay hands
on you and pray for you.
And friends, that's fine.
I don't mean to depreciate that for one
single moment.
That's valid and valuable.
I can quote to you passages from the
book of Acts where that happened.
Acts chapter eight, verse 17.
And then they laid hands on them and
they received the Holy Spirit.
Acts chapter 19, verse six.
And when Paul had laid hands on them,
the Holy Spirit came upon them.
So there is that work of the individual
ministry of the filling of the Holy Spirit.
But yet who can deny that we have
a New Testament pattern of what we might
call congregational outpouring of the Holy Spirit?
I've never seen it.
I want to.
I'm going to start praying for it and
I want you to pray for it.
But there would be a congregational outpouring of
the Spirit of God.
Now, again, individual filling is valid and valuable.
But shouldn't we pray for a congregational outpouring
of the Holy Spirit?
Look at Psalm 85, six again, would you
please?
The text is simple right in front of
us there.
Will you not revive us again that your
people may rejoice in you?
Notice how this prayer is phrased.
It's a prayer full of confidence, isn't it?
It's in a rhetorical question.
It's actually asking a question, isn't it?
And what's the answer?
Well, of course you will, God.
It's a prayer full of confidence.
When you pray for revival, pray full of
faith.
You know, you hear about these great works
of God.
You see them in the scriptures.
You hear about them in history.
And sometimes our reaction is, yeah, right.
Like that could ever happen here.
You know what?
If that's how you're feeling at the moment,
don't pray.
No, you pray when you're stirred up and
full of faith.
When you say, God could do that here.
Now, we don't demand of God to do
something exactly like he did in Wales or
exactly like he did here or exactly like
he did there.
God's sovereign.
But we say, Lord, we want an outpouring
of the Holy Spirit to touch us like
it touched them.
So pray full of confidence, pray full of
boldness, pleading with God for revival.
But you pray full of humility, desiring God's
glory and God's praise.
Do you see the difference?
I think effective prayer for revival is prayer
for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
But an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, not
just on the pastor, not just on the
leaders, but upon the congregation.
Let me give you a final encouragement from
the Welsh revival.
To pray for revival and to pray for
a congregational outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Jay Lenoir describes the story of a friend
of his named H.J. Galley.
Now, H.J. Galley just graduated from Spurgeon's
College in London, and he was in his
first pastorate somewhere near the city centre of
London.
Now, upon reading of reports of the Welsh
revival in newspapers, he said, I got to
see this for myself.
And so he made his way out.
Now, he had the advantage of knowing a
classmate of his who attended Spurgeon's Pastors' College
there, but who was now pastoring a church
in Wales that was very much in the
middle of what God was doing.
And so he contacted this man whose name
was Williams, and he said, tell me about
it.
I want to see it firsthand.
And so Williams met him at the train
station.
And the first thing that Galley asked him
was, he looked him in the eye and
he said, is this truly revival?
Now, we ask that question, don't we?
You hear about this work, that work, but
I mean, you want to know, is this
the real deal?
So he asked Williams, is this truly revival?
And his Welsh friend replied, it is like
the gate of heaven opened to our souls.
Well, Galley said, listen, I've come a long
distance.
I'd like to hear Evan Roberts preach.
Where's he preaching?
You know what Williams said in reply?
Well, I don't know.
He doesn't tell anybody.
And Galley wondered at that.
He said, I thought Evan Roberts was the
leader of this revival.
Well, no.
What do you mean that the newspapers have
it all wrong?
Williams replied, God specially uses Evan Roberts, but
the Holy Spirit is the leader of the
revival.
Well, you know, Galley said what I would
say in response to that.
Don't we always say that?
No, it's just kind of the now.
Come on, brother.
The Holy Spirit leads this revival.
So Galley asked that question.
Oh, come on.
Don't we always say that?
Williams replied, Brother Galley, we mean that.
Look, Brother Galley, there's about a thousand churches
in South Wales.
Evan Roberts might show up at my church
tonight.
But if he doesn't, the Lord will be
there mighty in power.
Oh, so you're having special meetings, Galley wondered.
If he shows up at church tonight and
Williams replied and said, my church has been
packed for six weeks.
You mean the other churches in town are
using your church for united meetings?
No, every church in town from Anglican to
Salvation Army is packed.
Well, when do you have the meetings?
From six to midnight.
What?
From six o'clock in the evening to
midnight?
No, from six in the morning to midnight.
Well, Galley said not the same people the
entire time.
He said, oh, no.
You know, first we get the minors who
come to the meeting before the shift starts.
And then in the mid morning, we have
the housekeepers who come around noon.
We have a united prayer meeting with the
whole community in the afternoon.
Schoolchildren come for special meetings.
But from six in the evening until midnight,
the place will be packed with everyone.
Galley was amazed.
He said, how do you keep up with
the preaching?
Williams said, what did you say?
He said, how do you keep up with
the preaching six hours every evening?
You know what Williams said?
He said, I haven't preached for six weeks.
Well, then Galley was amazed.
He said, who preached last night?
He said, oh, maybe 17 people, including an
old granny of 78 and a boy of
12.
You see, people just so moved that they
had to speak, that they had to give
that word of exhortation, that they had to
pray, that they had to plead, that they
had to declare what God was doing.
May God once again pour out his spirit
on all flesh.
Will you not revive us again that your
people may rejoice in you?
Father, let this word stir us to prayer.
You know, Lord, we're not here to manufacture
anything, to manipulate anything.
We're here to cry out before you and
say, Lord, send revival.
Lord, you know that the pastor needs it.
You know that the leaders of our church
need it.
Father, we pray for it for the whole
congregation, that there would be a great outpouring.
Lord, I ask that we would see it
in our midst, something remarkable.
And Lord, we're not asking you to recreate
something from the past.
We're not asking you to imitate your work
in days gone by.
Lord, you can do a new thing in
a fresh way.
But Lord, we want it to have the
fingerprint of your spirit being poured out upon
the whole congregation.
Won't you do this, Lord?
Won't you stir our hearts to pray for
this diligently?
To say unto you, Lord, will you not
revive us again that your people may rejoice
in you?
Stir us to prayer, Lord.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.