I. INTRODUCTION
We’re continuing our study of what must happen if God is going to bring revival to a people. We talked last time about the importance of people humbling themselves. Today we want to consider the next thing that is necessary for us to do before God will forgive and bring healing to the land.
I want to share with you one of the most unique revivals in history because it wasn’t led by preaching. There was man back in 1857 named Jeremiah Lamphere. 46 years old. Had come to Christ when 31 in New York City under a revival by Charles Finney. He loved the Lord but didn’t think he could do much for the Lord. He had such a burden for the lost of NYC that at the age of 46 he accepted an invitation from his church t be an inner city missionary. Started in July walked up and down the streets handing out tracts and talking to people. No success, when God put it on his heart to try prayer. Printed flyers inviting anybody that wanted to come to third floor of the Old North Dutch Reform Church on Fulton St. in NYC from 12 to 1 o’clock on Wednesday to pray. He passed 100’s of flyers; put up posters. Day came and nobody was there. So Jeremiah got on his knees and began to pray. Prayed thirty minutes, 5 people from 4 different kinds of churches. The next week 20 people came. The next week between 30 and 40 came. Decided they would meet everyday at 12 to pray for the city. Some ministers started coming, “We ought to start this at our church.” Within 6 months 5,000 prayer groups meeting everyday in NYC. And the word spread, prayer meetings in Philly, Detroit, Washington, D.C. President Franklin Pierce started going almost everyday to noonday prayer meeting. In short time, 15,000 cities in America were having downtown prayer meetings everyday at noon. From 1957-59, over 1 million people in this country, population of only 30 million at the time, 1 million people have their lives to Christ. No famous preacher. No great event. It all began with one man wanting to pray.
Se, only God can send revival. But he has not kept silent about what he expects before he will return to his people. Look at 2 Chronicles 7:14. READ. You don’t have revival by seeking revival, but by seeking God. God says “if you will pray and seek my face, I will hear and heal your land.” One thing every revival has in common in Christian history: All revivals share a passionate commitment to praying for God to return. REPEAT. Now let me make it clear when I say for God to return God is not the one who left. The reason revival is needed is because his people have gotten negligent. His people have left. But if God is going to return and be with his people it’s going to be because they asked him to.
By the way I don’t think men can heal a land. Not making light of men’s movements. i.e. Promise Keepers. Good works. But men cannot heal the land. Problem with land is sinfulness. Only God can do something about that. Only God can heal a land, but God said in 2 Chron. 7:14, “I’m not going to heal your land until you ask me to.” Revival is an invasion from heaven at the request of the saints on earth.” God says, “You humble yourselves, you pray and seek my face, you turn from your evil ways, and I will hear from heaven.
Isaiah 30:19 says the same thing, “O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem. You will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help. As soon as he hears he will answer you.” Let me make it clear this morning. Some people act like the object of prayer is to overcome God’s reluctance. God’s taken a nap and he really doesn’t want to be bothered, and if you pray just right he will do something for you anyway. WRONG! Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance. Prayer is confessing our need and our desire to line up with his will so that he can send the blessing that he is longing to send his people. God is absolutely passionate about sending revival to the land. About healing the land. About forgiving the people. About restoring the people.
God waits to hear his people pray. “The only place where power comes before prayer is in the dictionary.”
“Where prayer focuses, power falls.” John Maxwell
I think that’s why Satan will do anything to keep us from getting together to pray. I think we can have all potlucks, fellowship times, class parties we want to have. Satan doesn’t care just as long as we don’t get together and pray. Revival delays because prayer decays. I’ve not studied a revival in history that started as an organized move of the church. Not a single revival where a bunch of officials got together and said, “Okay, let’s start up a committee to start a revival next year.” It never starts because of organizing, it starts because of agonizing. Because some people get on their knees and humble themselves and seek God and ask him to come.
II. CHARACTERISTICS OF REVIVAL PRAYER
But what characteristics mark real revival praying? I want to show you three this morning. We’re going to study some of revivals in Bible, but one of the greatest was in the city of Niniveh where a pagan city experienced powerful revival at the preaching of Jonah. I want to show you in just one verse all three characteristics of real revival praying. In Jonah 3:8 The king sent this word to all the people: “But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on the God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.” Let me show you the first thing about real revival praying:
A. Revival Praying is Characterized by “BROKENESS”.
Now that’s what the king meant when he said “I want the city to be covered in sackcloth.” In fact, if you look back in verse 5, you’d find out when Jonah preached, everybody in the city started fasting. Remember what we said last week, fasting is the O.T. way you humbled yourself. The way to show you are broken. The way you show you need to be on your knees. The way to show that you are desperate. And that’s what they did in Niniveh and that’s what God says he’s looking for. “If my people will humble themselves. God always visits his people when they reach a point of desperation. When they surrender that pride and that attitude that we can do pretty good on our own. And we’re doing okay right now. “Well, at least we’re keeping the doors open.” People need to get down on their knees and admit that things are not as they ought to be. God says that’s the first thing I am looking for in their payers.
We’re going to study the revival later at Sinai in Exodus 33 that says when the people heard that God had left them, “they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments.” (v.4) They were broken.
We’ll study later the great revival in Nehemiah 9. In verse 1 & 2 it says, “On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers.” That’s revival praying.
You remember what Jesus said: Two guys go to a temple to pray, one struts his stuff and says, “God, I thank you that I’m not like most people. I’m religious and proud of it.” And he listed all the good things he did for God. And the second guy was desperate and said, “God, there’s nothing about me that’s worthy, I’m a sinner, have mercy on me.” Who did God hear?
David said him Psalm 51: “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices are a broken spirit; a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Only the broken heart is big enough for God to dwell in. But broken hearts are rare today, and even rarer still, are broken churches.
I think most people are satisfied with the current state of the church, and I want to ask you if you are? Do you think the state of the church in America today is pretty healthy because it doesn’t appear to me that very people are on their knees asking for revival. I’ll tell you why we’re fairly satisfied with the church today. We are comparing the church today to the world and not to the New Testament church that God wants us to be. As long as we compare ourselves to the world we’re always going to be able to feel pretty good about ourselves because we’re a little bit more moral and a little bit less perverse than they are. But when we compare ourselves to the N.T. church there’s only one thing for us to do, and that’s to humble ourselves in brokeness and ask God to come. I don’t think God will come as long as we rock along and do church with no burden.
There was a criminal that was sentenced to die in England named Charlie Piece. Here’s the story: It was the day that he was going in the wagon to his execution and the custom was always to send a minister from the church of England to ride in the wagon with the prisoners, to read some Scriptures on their way to their death. So this guy is kind of numbingly, reading some Scriptures passion-lessly to Charlie and he got angered. And they say he looked over and said, “Sir. If I believed what you and the church of God SAY that you believe, then even if England was covered with broken glass coast to coast, I would walk over it on hands and knees if I had to, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that.”
Revival prayer is not for people unwilling to mourn and be burdened. Revival praying is characterized by brokeness. And second,
B. Revival Praying is Characterized by “EARNESTNESS”.
The king in Niniveh said, “I want you to put on sackcloth and then I want everyone to call urgently on God.” Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. And then you will call upon me and come and pray to me. And I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me WHEN you seek me with all your heart.” When you seek God with everything you’ve got a don’t hold back, God says, “You’ll find me.”
What does it mean to seek God with all your heart? One thing it means is that you’re going pray as a marathoner and not a sprinter. “I’ve been praying this whole week and haven’t gotten an answer yet.” “I’ve been praying a whole month for my friend to get saved, and nothing has happened yet.” That’s not revival praying.
Dwight L. Moody, famous evangelist went to England one time on vacation. Not planning to preach but minister there from Airedale Square Church said,
“Mr. Moody, you’re so well known, won’t you come Sunday and preach for us?” So he came Sunday and preached and he wrote it was the deadest crowd I have ever seen. It was absolutely lifeless. And that afternoon he thought to himself the only thing worse than preaching to those people was the thought that I had promised to come back that night and preach again. But he came back that night and said half way through the lesson the people began to come to life. He felt compelled to ask if anyone wanted to become a Christian and several rose their hands. He thought they may have misunderstood him and so he said to meet in back room after lesson, and when he went the room was packed. Moody got on a train the next day and went to Ireland. When he got off train a memo there that aid, “Come back. Revival has broken out.” He went back and preached for ten days and over 400 people came to Christ. Moody couldn’t understand it. What happened? Those people were dead and something changed. A lady at the church said “I would like for you to come and meet my sister.” So he went to her home and met 86 year old Mary Ann Adlard, and invalid widow. Found out two years earlier she had read a sermon by him in the paper in England and started praying everyday that God would bring D.L. Moody to her church. That Sunday, sister/brother-in-law had come with food after services, and she asked “How was church today?” And they said, “It was okay. Some guy from America named Moody came and preached. Immediately she put tray down “Leave me alone. I must spend all afternoon in prayer.” Now that’s revival praying. Two years.
The Bible doesn’t say, “Preach without ceasing.” It doesn’t say sing without ceasing.” It says “Pray without ceasing.” I think when the disciples said to Jesus, “Teach us to pray”, notice they didn’t just say, “Teach us what to pray.” In think what they were saying was, “Teach us to have you passion for prayer. We understand from being with you that what drives you and motivates you is your prayer life with God. Teach us to have a passion to pray like you do. And right out that grew to the two parables on prayer. About the guy who wanted bread in the middle of the night. I’ll sum up that parable in three words: DON’T GIVE UP!
The main thing Jesus taught about prayer was this: Don’t Give Up! Keep praying. We need to be like Jacob. Remember? He saw an angel of the Lord at the brook Jabbok. And he wrestled with him all night. And do you remember the angel in the morning said, “Let me go.” And what did Jacob say in Gen. 32:26, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Church, I challenge you to pray that way. I challenge for you to pray for God to come powerfully to Eagleville, TN to touch the lives of the people in this community and say, “God, I’m not going to give up until it comes.” Bombard heaven until the answer comes.
Revival praying is characterized by brokeness, earnestness and thirdly,
C. Revival Praying is Characterized by “HOLINESS”.
The king of Ninevah said “I want you to put on sackcloth and then I want everyone to call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.” What did God say? If my people will humble themselves: That’s BROKENESS. If they will pray and seek my face: That’s EARNESTNESS. And if they will turn from their wicked ways: That’s HOLINESS. Isaiah 55 says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on his name while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will freely pardon.”
I want you to imagine something folks. Do you notice every Sunday we do exactly the same thing. You sit in pews facing this way and I stand up here and face that way. What if we turned the pews around that way. And I did this deal. Would it help the preaching moment? Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who’s got their back turned to you? Isn’t that a little irritating? If I just stood up here all Sunday and I preached just like this. I think you’d get a little upset with me. You don’t want to listen or talk to someone who won’t turn around and look at you. That’s what God is saying. How can I hear your prayers when you’ve got your back turned to me?
God says “I will turn and hear your prayers when you turn and obey.” David said, in Psalm 66:18, “If I had cherished sin in my heart the Lord would not have listened.” Folks I’ll tell you the chief thing keeping revival from coming to America is because the church won’t confess their sins and get holy. God has not promised to respond to the prayers of people who cherish sin. Do you remember what James, Jesus’ brother said in chapter 5? He says in verse 16, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed because the prayer of a (Now, what’s the next word?)RIGHTEOUS .the prayer of a righteous man are powerful and effective.” It doesn’t say prayer is powerful and effective. It doesn’t say the prayer of men is powerful and effective. It says the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. God will hear and forgive and heal when holy people pray.
I Timothy 2:8. Paul says, “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer.” That verse doesn’t say what many have wanted it to say. Holding up hands for the sake of doing so is not the point of the verse. The key word is “HOLY”. I want men to lift up holy hands.” In otherwords, hands that are clean before God, not clutching on to anything. He’s looking for holy people to start praying for a nation.
Maybe the greatest revival in the last fifty years was on the Heberdies Islands in the British Isles. Incredible things happened when revival broke out. They tried to find out what started that revival. Everyone knows Duncan Campbell came and started preaching. But they found out later seven young men were meeting three times a week in a barn praying for revival for months and months and months. But nothing was happening. And then one night one of the young men read from Psalm 24:3, 5: “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. He will receive blessing from the Lord.” And that young man said, “Men, what good does it do for us to pray for revival if we’re not pure? Are my hands holy? Are my hands pure?” They say suddenly he just fell to the ground, and all the men fell to the ground overwhelmed at the holiness of God and their own need to get rid of sin. They didn’t know that two days later Duncan Campbell decided to come to the Heberdies Islands. All through that revival they say people would meet each other on the street and they would say the same thing: “HAVE YOU DONE BUSINESS WITH GOD TODAY?” Good question.
We come to church every Sunday, and some of us know, we know when we came of sin in our life that we’re cherishing and we’re not trying to do anything about. Anger at people. Mistrust and suspicion of brother and sisters, gossip, slander, greed, and all kinds of sin. We can pray and pray and pray until we’re blue in the face for revival but until we pray in holiness, God does not promise to respond.
That’s what they did at Ninevah. They humble themselves and called earnestly on God and they turned from sin, and the Bible says in Jonah 3:10, “When God saw what they did and how they had turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.” I wonder if we’re ready to do business with God?
Past revivals declare that God will visit when he’s genuinely invited. I think the real question at Eagleville is do we really want God to come. I think that’s a fair question. Have you ever asked someone to come and didn’t really want them to? Let’s say you tell someone, “When you’re in town, drop by and see us.” You may not have really wanted them to show up? I wonder if we do the same thing to God? I wonder if we invite God, but don’t really want him to come? Are we eager to do business with God.
I want to close by telling you a story. I started by telling you the story of great prayer revival of 1857 and 1858. It moved from New York to Detroit, Buffalo, moved to Philly in a powerful way. One of the leaders in Philly was a young man named Dudley Ting. He started a noon day prayer meeting where as many as 5,000 people would come to pray at noon for the city. Later that week he was out on a farm and got his arm caught in a corn threshing machine. Artery was severed. They tried to save his life but he lost too much blood. All his friends got around him and his last words were, “TELL THEM TO STAND UP FOR JESUS” So the next Sunday his good friend George Duffield stood up in his church and preached in memory of his friend. And he said “I just finished writing a poem in honor of Dudley. And he read it: STAND UP STAND UP FOR JESUS. All across America city after city people would meet for one hour each day and pray for their country. And they would sing ‘STAND UP STAND UP FOR JESUS”. It’s time to decide if we want to do business with God. It’s time for you to decide. Some of you need to be baptized today, it’s time to decide. Let’ stand and sing.
(Fashioned for my audience from a series by Rich Atchley)
