Prevailing Prayer and Real Revival Eie
“It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.’ — Psa. 119: 126.
vival. I have five texts: please listen to them very carefully. You will find my first text in Psalm 119: 126:
QO UR subject is, Prevailing Prayer and Real Re-
“It 1s time for thee, Lorn, to work: for they have made void thy law.”
Our second text is Psalm 85:6:
“Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?”
Our third text is Acts 1:14; 2: 1-4, 41, 42:
“These all continued stedfastly with one accord im prayer and supplication... And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting... And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance... Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
ot
Our fourth text is Ezek. 37:9, 10:
“Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”
Our fifth text is Luke 11:13:
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.”
The great need of the Church today is a general, widespread, deep, thoroughgoing, genuine revival. That is also the greatest need of business, the greatest need of human society, the greatest need of human government, the greatest need of international relations, the greatest need of missions. In every department of life today — business, social relations, politics, international relations, education, church — we are facing the most menacing problems and the most important crises that have confronted the human race in centuries, if not in human history, since the incarnation of God in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, and the birth of the Church, which was the outcome of that incarnation. The only hope of the Church 1s a great revival, and this is the only hope of human society. It is revival or revolution, revolution not only in Russia, but throughout the civilized world. It is a real and larger coming of the life of God into the Church and through the Church into human society as a whole, or else it is universal Bolshevism: Bolshevism in church and state and school and home and everywhere, and consequent chaos and midnight darkness on the earth, and utter and universal dissolution and desolation and destruction.
Of course, those of us who know our Bibles at all well know that the final revival, the revival to be followed by no reaction but a revival resulting in a universal and permanent reign of righteousness on earth as well as in heaven, when God’s kingdom will come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10), and when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9), will only come as the result of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to this earth to take the reins of government. The time of that coming is God’s concern and not ours (Acts 1:7), and is in his hands, and for that coming we should pray (Rev. 22:20) and long intensely (II Pet. 3:12, R. V.) and wait; but that does not mean that we should in the meantime sit down and let things go to the dogs, and rather glory in the fact that things are getting worse and worse all the time, and congratulate ourselves on what fine folks we are and what a tough crowd the rest of folks are in business and church and state. There is no Bible ground for being sure that the Lord may not tarry and that there may not be another revival, or, it may be, many revivals, before that glad day comes, and that most glorious of all revivals comes.
If Wesley had so reasoned in his day of wide-spread spiritual and theological darkness, or Martin Luther in his day, or John Knox in his day, or Jonathan Edwards in his day, or Charles G. Finney in his day, what would have become of the Church, of the state, of human society and of the faith of God?
Whether the Lord Jesus comes soon or whether He tarries, we need a revival, and need it badly, and if He should come within a year and find us doing our best to’ bring about that greatly needed revival, He would say to us, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matt. 25:21), and blessed will that servant be, “whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing” (Matt. 24:46). But if, on the other hand, He should come in this year 1924 and find us sitting in idle meditation on the glorious truth of His Second Coming and congratulating ourselves that we were “not as the rest of men are” (the men who “do not know the truth”), He would cut us asunder, and appoint us our portion with the rest of the hypocrites (Matt. 24:50, 51).
So my first prayer is, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20). But as I do not know and cannot know how soon that prayer will be answered (as God has seen fit to “set”? the times and the seasons “within his own authority”” — Acts 1:7), my second prayer is, and it is getting to be a more and more intense and insistent prayer, “Lord, send a Revival,” and (as far as I am concerned) “let it begin in me.”
What I have to say will come under three heads:
First, What a Real Revival is, and what the Results of a Real Revival are.
Second, The Need of a Real Revival.
Third, The Relation of Persistent Prayer to a Real Revival.
I. Wauat a Rear Revivat Is
First, then, let us consider what a real Revival is and what its results are,
1. A real Revival ts a time of quickening or impartation of life. That is exactly what the word “Revival” means according to its etymology, and, also, according to its usage today, and that is exactly what the Hebrew word translated “revive” in.our second text, “Wilt thou not revive us again” (Ps. 85:6) means, and it is so translated in the Revised Version, “Wilt thou not quicken us (i. e., impart life to us) again.”’ As God alone can give life, a Revival 1s a time when God visits His people, and, by the power of His Spirit, imparts new life to them, and through them imparts life to. sinners dead in trespasses and sins. We frequently have religious excitements and enthusiasms gotten up by the cunning methods and hypnotic influence of the mere professional evangelist or “revivalist,’ but these are not Revivals, and are not needed: they are a curse and not a blessing; they are the Devil’s imitations of a Revival. New Lire rrom God — that is a Revival. A general Revival is a time when this new life from God is not confined to scattered localities, but is general throughout Christendom and the earth.
The reason why a general Revival is needed is that spiritual dearth and desolation and death is general. It is not confined to any one country, though it may be more manifest in some countries than in others. It is found in our foreign mission fields as well as in our home fields. We have had, and are having, local Revivals. The life-giving Spirit of God has breathed upon this minister and that, this church and that, this community and that; but what we need, and sorely need, is a Revival that shall be wide-spread and general.
2. Now, in order that we may have a more complete idea of what a Revival really is, let us look at the results of a Revival.
(1) The first results are in ministers of the Gospel.
a. In times of Revival the mimster has a new love for souls. We ministers, as a rule, have no such love for souls as we ought to have, no such love for souls as our Lord Jesus had, no such love for souls as Paul had. But when God visits His people, the hearts of ministers are greatly burdened for the unsaved: they go out in great longing for the salvation of their fellow-men; they forget their ambition to preach great sermons, and their ambitions for fame; they long for one thing, and one thing only: to see men brought to Christ and thus saved.
b. When true Revivals come, ministers get a new love for God’s Word and a new faith in God’s Word. They fling to the winds their doubts and their criticisms of the Bible and of the creeds, and go to preaching the Bible, and, especially, Christ crucified. Revivals make ministers who are loose in their doctrines orthodox. A genuine, wide-sweeping Revival would do more to get our ministers and theological professors right in their doctrine than all the heresy trials that were ever instituted.
c. Revivals bring to ministers new liberty, new joy and new power in preaching. It is no week-long grind to prepare a sermon, and no nerve-consuming effort to preach it after it has been prepared. Preaching becomes a joy and a refreshment, and there is real power in it in times of Revival.
(2) Now, let us look at the results of a Revival in Christians generally. The results of a Revival in Christians generally are as marked as its results upon the ministry.
a. In times of Revival, Christians come out from the world and live separated lives. Christians who have been dallying with the world, who have been playing cards and dancing and going to the theatres and the movies, and indulging in similar unbecoming follies, give them up. They get a new spiritual vision, by which they see clearly that these things are incompatible with their increasing life and light.
b. In times of Revival, Christians get a new spirit of prayer. Prayer-meetings are no longer a mere duty, but become the necessity of a hungry, importunate heart. Private prayer is followed with new zest. The voice of earnest prayer to God is heard day and night. People no longer ask, ‘“Does God answer prayer?”’; they know He does, and besiege the throne of grace day and night.
c. In times of Revival, Christians go to work for lost souls. They do not go to meetings simply to enjoy themselves and get blest. They go to meetings to watch for souls and bring them to Christ. They talk to men on the street and in the stores and in their homes. The cross of Christ, salvation, heaven and hell become the subjects of constant conversation. Politics and the weather and Easter bonnets and the latest novels are forgotten. The things of God occupy the whole horizon of their thought.
d. In times of Revival, Christians have new joy in the Lord Jesus. (Acts 2:46; Jno. 15:11.) Life is always joy, and new life is new joy. Revival days are glad days, exceedingly glad days, “days of Heaven on earth.” (Dentett: 21:
e. In times of Revival, Christians get a new love for the Word of God: they want to study it day and night. Revivals are very bad for saloons and clubs and parties and theatres and movies, but they are good for book stores and Bible agencies.
(3) Now let us look at the results of real Revival on the unsaved world. Revivals have a most decided influence on the unsaved world.
a. First of all, Real Revivals bring a deep conviction of sm. Our Lord said that when the Spirit was come, He would “convict the world of sin” (Jno. 16:7, 8). Now, we have seen that a Revival is a coming of the Holy Spirit, and therefore there must be a new conviction of sin, and there always is. If you see something that men call a Revival and there is no conviction of sin, you may know at once that it is not a real Revival, but a bogus Revival. This is a sure mark of real Revival: deep conviction of sin.
b. Real Revivals also bring conversions and regenerations. When God refreshes His people, He always converts sinners also. The first result of Pentecost was new life and power to the one hundred and twenty disciples in the upper room; the second result was three thousand conversions in a single day. It is always so. I am constantly reading of Revivals here and there, where Christians were greatly helped, but where there were no conversions. I have my doubts about all such Revivals. If Christians are truly refreshed, they will get after the unsaved by prayer and testimony and persuasion and preaching and personal work, and there will be, there must be, conversions, real conversions, regenerated lives, lives completely transformed: infidels becoming earnest believers in Jesus Christ, drunkards becoming sober, impure men and women becoming pure, thieves becoming honest men and industrious citizens, and lazy people getting down gladly to hard work. A true Revival always begins in the hearts of those who are already Christians, but it never ends there. It goes out to the unsaved and there are definite conversions.
II. Tue NEED or REVIVAL
Now let us look at the need of a Revival at the present time.
I think that the mere description of what a Revival is and what a Revival does, shows that it is needed, sorely needed, but let us look at some specific conditions that exist today that show the need of a Revival. If one dwells upon these conditions he is likely to be called a pessimist. If facing the facts is to be called a pessimist, I am willing to be called a pessimist. JI am in actual fact an optimist, an optimist of the optimists; but I am not a blind optimist, i. e., one who is an optimist by shutting his eyes to facts that are as clear as day. If in order to be an optimist, one must shut his eyes and call black white and error truth and sin righteousness and death life, I have no desire to be an optimist; but I am an optimist all the same. Pointing out the real conditions which are very bad will lead to better conditions.
1. Look first at the ministry:
(1) Many of us who are professedly orthodox ministers are practically infidels. That may be pretty plain speech, but it is also indisputable fact. There is no essential difference between the teachings of Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll, on the one hand, and the teachings of some of our theological professors on the other. Theological professors are not so blunt and honest about it as Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll were, they phrase it in more elegant and studied and honied sentences; but it means the same thing and produces the same damnable results. Much of the so-called “New Learning” and “Higher Criticism” and “Modernism” is simply Tom Paine infidelity sugar-coated and flavoured with a pretence of piety.
Quite a number of years ago, Prof. Howard Osgood, who was a real scholar and not a mere huckster of German infidelity, once read a statement of some positions held by the Modernists of his day, who were not essentially different from the Mcdernists of today, though not quite so bad as the Modernists of today, and he then asked if these positions as he read them did not fairly represent the scholarly criticism of the day, and the critics themselves admitted that they did; just then he threw a bomb into the ranks of the “Higher Critics’ by saying, “I am reading verbatim from Tom Paine’s Age of Reason.”
There is little new in “The Higher Criticism,” nor in modernistic or liberal theology in general. Our future ministers oftentimes are being educated under infidel professors, and being, when they enter the college or theological seminary, really only immature boys, they naturally come out infidels in many cases, and then go forth to poison the church.
(2) Even when our ministers are orthodox, as, thank God, so large a number are today, nevertheless oftentimes they are not men of prayer. How many modern ministers, do you suppose, know what it means to “agonize in prayer” (Rom. 15: 30, Greek) and to wrestle in prayer, to spend a good share of a night in prayer? Of course, we do not know how many, but I do know that many do not.
(3) Many of us who are ministers have no love for souls. How many of us preach because we must preach, preach because we feel that men everywhere are perishing, and by our preaching hope to save some? How many of us follow up our preaching as Paul did his, by “beseeching men everywhere” to be reconciled to God’? CUTAC Ot one) tnActs Zu. OL.)
Perhaps we have said enough about ministers, but it is evident that a Revival is needed for our sake, or some of us will have to stand before God overwhelmed with confusion in that awful day of reckoning that is surely coming CRomii4 212.)
2. Let us now look at the Church:
(1) Look at the doctrinal state of the Church today. It is surely bad enough, and apparently getting worse all the time. Very many of our Church members do not believe in the whole Bible. To many, the book of Genesis is a myth, Jonah is an allegory, and even the miracles of the Son of God are questioned. They have been denied in a recent article in one of our most popular and widely circulated magazines by one of the most prominent Presbyterian ministers in this country, a member of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. With a great many, the doctrine of prayer is old-fashioned, and the work of the Holy Spirit is sneered at. We are told that conversion and regeneration are unnecessary, and hell is no longer believed in. Then look at the fads and errors that have sprung up in consequence of this loss of faith and creedal chaos: Christian Science, Unitarianism, Spiritualism, Universalism, Pastor Russellism, Babism, Theosophy, Metaphysical Healing, and a perfect pandemonium of “doctrines of devils.”
(2) Look at the spiritual state of the Church.
a. Worldliness is rampant, if not regnant, among church members. Many church members are just as eager as any in the rush to get rich. They use the methods of the world in the accumulation of wealth, and they hold on to it just as fast as any worldling when they get it.
b. Prayerlessness abounds among church members on every hand. It is doubtful if one in ten of the church members of this country attend the prayer-meeting with any regularity, and secret prayer takes very little of the time or attention of the average church member. Someone has said that Christians, on an average, do not spend more than five minutes a day in secret prayer. Of course, none of us know whether that is true or not, but I fear that it is far nearer true than most of us suspect.
c. Neglect of the Word of God goes hand in hand with neglect of prayer to God. Very many professed Christians spend twice as much time every day of their lives in wallowing through the mire of the daily papers as they do bathing in the cleansing laver of God’s Holy Word. How many Christians average an hour a day spent in Bible study? I will not ask those who do who are present here this morning to stand up: it might be embarrassing.
d. Along with neglect of prayer and neglect of the Word of God goes a lack of generosity. The churches are rapidly increasing in wealth, but the treasuries of the missionary societies are empty. Evangelical church members do not average a dollar a year for foreign missions. It is simply appalling.
e. Then, there is an increasing disregard for the Lord’s Day. “The First Day of the Week” has very largely become a day of worldly pleasure, instead of a day of holy service. The Sunday newspaper, with its inane twaddle and filthy scandal, takes the place of the Sunday School and church service, and even Y. W. C. A. secretaries take young girls off for week-ends in the mountains, or to other resorts, taking them away from church and Sunday School, and giving them instead a little semi-pious palaver for a small part of the day and no end of fun for the rest of the day.
f. Church members mingle with the world in all forms of questionable amusements. In many places, the young man or young woman who does not believe in the dance, with its rank immodesties, the card table, with its strong drift toward gambling, and the theatre and the movies, with their increasing appeal to lewdness, is counted an old fogy, a relic of a played-out Puritanism.
Then, what a very small proportion of our membership has really entered into fellowship with Jesus Christ, with His burden of souls. But enough has been said of the Spiritual state of the Church.
3. Now, look at the state of the world:
(1) Note, first of all, how few conversions there are. Many churches last year lost more members than they gained. Here and there a church has a large number of accessions upon confession of faith, but these churches are rare exceptions; and even where there are many accessions, in how few cases are the conversions deep, thorough and satisfactory.
(2) There is also, in most circles, an utter lack of deep conviction of sin; very seldom are men overwhelmed with a sense of their awful guilt in trampling under foot the Son of God. Sin is regarded as a mere “misfortune” or as “infirmity,” or even as “good in the making”; seldom is it regarded as an enormous wrong against a holy God, deserving of eternal damnation. ha
(3) Unbelief is rampant. Many, very many, regard it as a mark of intellectual superiority to reject the Bible, and even faith in a personal God and a future life. In most cases they are all the more proud of this mark of intellectual superiority because it is the only mark of intellectual superiority that they possess.
(4) Hand in hand with this wide-spread infidelity goes the grossest immorality, as has always been the case.
Infidelity and immorality are Siamese twins: they always exist and always grow and always fatten together. This prevailing immorality is found everywhere. Look at the legalized adultery that we call divorce. Much so-called marriage is little more than legalized prostitution. Men marry one wife and then another, and are still admitted into good society, and women do likewise. There are thousands of supposedly respectable men in America living with other men’s wives, and thousands of supposedly respectable women living with other women’s husbands.
The increasing immorality is seen in the state of the theatre. The theatre, at its best, is bad enough, but now plays reeking with evil suggestion seem to rule the day, and the women who debauch themselves by appearing in such plays are defended in the newspapers and welcomed by supposedly respectable people. The movies are even viler than the theatre ever dared to be, and the rottenness of them is paraded before our eyes in the newspapers that we are urged to receive into our homes and let our children read.
Much of our literature is rotten, but people will read books that a few years ago would have been in danger of bringing their publishers under the ban of the law against obscene literature; I say even supposedly decent people read these books because they are the rage.
Art is frequently a mere covering for shameless indecency. Women are induced to cast all modesty and decency to the winds that the artist may perfect his art and defile his morals by employing them as “models.”
Greed for money has become a mania with both rich and poor. The multi-millionaire will often sell his soul and trample the rights of his fellow-men under foot in the mad hope of becoming a billionaire, and the labouring man will often commit murder to increase the power of the Union and to keep up wages. Wars are waged and men shot down like dogs and gassed and subjected to all kinds of cruelty to improve commerce and to gain political prestige for unprincipled politicians who parade as states-Nien.
The wild and almost incredible licentiousness of the day lifts tis serpent head everywhere. You see it in the newspapers, you see it on the billboards, you see it on the advertisements of cigars, shoes, corsets, hose, patent medicines, and everything else. You see it on the streets at night. You see it just outside the church door. You find it not only in the awful cesspools set apart for it in the great cities, but it is crowding into our hotels and apartment houses and into the residential portions of our cities. Alas! now and then you find it, if you look sharply, in supposedly respectable homes, indeed it will be borne to your ears by the confessions of broken-hearted men and women. THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE WORLD IN OUR DAY IS DISGUSTING, REEKENING, SICKENING, APPALLING.
WE NEED A REVIVAL, DEEP, WIDESPREAD, GENERAL, IN THE POWER OF THE Hoty Guost. It is either a general Revival or a general dissolution of the Church, the home and the state. A Revival, new life from God, is the cure, and the only cure, that will stem the awful tide of immorality and unbelief. Mere argument will not do it, but a wind from Heaven, a new outpouring of the Holy Ghost, a true, God-sent Revival will. Infidelity, Higher Criticism, Liberalism, Modernism, Christian Science, Spiritualism, Universalism, Theosophy, all will go down before the outpouring of the Spirit of God. It was not discussion and argument and reasoning, but the breath of God that relegated Tom Paine, Voltaire, Volney, and the other triumphant infidels of old to the limbo of forgetfulness; and we need a new breath from God to send the German destructive critics of our day, and the parrots that they have trained to occupy university chairs and evangelical pulpits in England and America, to keep them company.
III]. THe Pruace oF PRAYER IN REVIVAL
We now come to The Place of Prayer in Revival. This is the most important thing I have to say, and all that I have said thus far is simply a preparation for this and was intended to lead up to this, but what needs to be said can be said in a few words.
The great need of today, as we have said, is a general Revival; that is clear, and admits of no honest difference of opinion. WHAT, THEN, SHALL WE DO? Pray. Take up the Psalmist’s prayer, “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?’ Take up Ezekiel’s prayer, “Come from the four winds, O breath (i, e., breath of God), and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
The first great Revival of Christian history had its origin, on the human side, in a ten days’ prayer-meeting. We read of that handful of disciples, “These all continued stedfastly with one accord in prayer and supplication.” ‘The result of that prayer-meeting we read in the next chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4). Further on in the same chapter we read, “And the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls”? (Acts 2:41), and in the next verse we read how real and lasting the Revival proved, for these are the words there recorded, “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers,” and in the last verse of the chapter we read, “And the Lord added to the church daily those that were being saved.” The great Revival in Acts 4 came in the same way. A time of great peril had come to the Church, that seemed to threaten the very existence of the Church. The two great leaders of the Church, Peter and John, had been arrested, imprisoned and threatened with death. What did the Church do? We read, “And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord.” (Acts 4:23, 24.) And down further we read, “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the Word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.” (Acts 4: 31-35.)
Every true Revival from that day to this has had tts earthly origin in prayer. “The Great Awakening” under Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century began with his famous call to prayer, and he carried it forward by prayer. It has been recorded of Jonathan Edwards that he “so laboured in prayer that he wore the hard wooden boards into grooves where his knees pressed so often and so long.”
The marvelous work of grace among the North American Indians under David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards’ son-in-law, in 1743 and the following years, had its origin in the days and nights that Brainerd spent before God in prayer for an enduement of power from on high for this work.
But we can go further back than that, and see how a Revival is always the result of prayer. In the early part of the seventeenth century there was a great religious awakening in Ulster, Ireland. The lands of the rebel chiefs, which had been forfeited to the British crown, were settled up by a class of colonists who for the most part were governed by a spirit of wild adventure. Real piety was rare. Seven ministers, five from Scotland and two from England, settled in that country, the earliest arrivals being in 1613. Of one of these ministers, named Blair, it is recorded by a contemporary, “He spent many days and nights in prayer, alone and with others, and was vouchsafed great intimacy with God.” Mr. James Glendenning, a man of very meager natural gifts, was a man similarly minded as regards prayer. The work began under this man Glendenning. The historian of the times says, “He was a man who never would have been chosen by a wise assembly of ministers, nor sent to begin a reformation in this land. Yet this was the Lord’s choice to begin with him the admirable work of God which I mention on purpose that all may see how the glory is only the Lord’s in making a holy nation in this profane land, and
that it was ‘not by might, nor by power, nor by man’s wisdom, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” By James Glendenning’s preaching at Oldstone multitudes of hearers felt in great anxiety and terror of conscience. They looked upon themselves as altogether lost and damned, and cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?” They were stricken into a swoon by the power of His Word. A dozen in one day were carried out of doors as dead. These were not women, but some of the boldest spirits of the neighbourhood, “some who had formerly feared not with their swords to put a whole market town into a fray.’’ Concerning one of them, the historian writes, “1 have heard one of them, then a mighty strong man, now a mighty Christian, say that his end in coming into church was to consult with his companions how to work some mischief.”
This work spread throughout the whole country. By the year 1626 a monthly concert of prayer was held in Antrim. The work spread beyond the bounds of Down and Antrim to the churches of the neighbouring counties. So great became the religious interest that Christians would come thirty or forty miles to the communions, and continue from the time they came until they returned without wearying or making use of sleep. Many of them neither ate nor drank, and yet some of them professed that they “went away most fresh and vigourous, their souls so filled with the sense of God.” This Revival changed the whole character of northern Ireland.
I have told you in other sermons of the great Revival, the marvelous work of God, in Ulster and other northern counties of Ireland in 1859 and 1860: that, too, came by prayer. About the spring of 1858 a work of power began to manifest itself. It spread from town to town and from county to county. The congregations became too large
Ne for the buildings, and the meetings were held in the open air, oftentimes attended by many thousands of people. Many hundreds of persons were frequently convicted of sin in a single meeting. In some places the criminal courts and jails were closed for lack of occupation. There were manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s convicting and regenerating power of a most remarkable character, clearly proving that the Holy Spirit is as ready to work today as in apostolic days, when ministers and Christians really believe in Him and begin to prepare the way by prayer for Him to work.
It was in answer to the prayers of Wesley and his associates that the Lord saved the church and the state in England in the early part of the eighteenth century. The little group met for prayer long before God so wonderfully used them in preaching, and even a historian so utterly rationalistic as Lecky admits that it was the Wesleyan Revival that saved England politically and commercially and every other way. Conditions were appalling when the group of believers whom God had aroused and endued with the spirit of supplication began to pray. One observer remarks of the English of that day that they were “‘ the most lifeless in Europe.” It is said that “the greater part of the prominent statesmen of that time were unbelievers in any form of Christianity, and distinguished for the grossness and immorality of their lives,” and yet in answer to the prayers of a company of godly men, the prayers that would not take no for an answer, there came such a religious Revival that in a few years the whole character of English society was changed, and there came a period of great spiritual life and activity in the church.
The wonderful Revival of 1857 and 1858 in this country, which has been described as “the greatest revival bf
known since the days of the apostles,” was the result of prayer: first, the prayers of an obscure city missionary in New York, and then the prayers of those that he succeeded in associating with him in his burden of a desire for a Revival. It has been said of America at the time immediately preceding this Revival, that its moral and spiritual degradation was such that “the whole country was on the very verge of a volcanic eruption of vice and political disaster;” but prayer prevailed with God, the spirit of prayer spread, prayer-meetings were held in New York in churches and theatres, attended by thousands: prayer-meetings were held every hour of the day and night, and a chain of prayer was formed of two thousand miles in length, and there was such an outpouring of the Spirit of God that countless thousands were born again, and the influence of that great work crossed the Atlantic Ocean and led to the prayers in the north of Ireland that resulted in the great Ulster Revival of which we have spoken in an earlier chapter.
The great awakening under Mr. Moody in England, Scotland and Ireland and America, and the results of which were felt in all the missionary countries of the earth and in the distant islands of the sea, had its origin, on the manward side, in prayer. Mr. Moody, though from the time of his conversion a most active worker, made no real impression until men and women began to cry to God. His going to England at all was in answer to the importunate cries of a bed-ridden saint, and while the spirit of prayer continued, that wonderful work of God abode in strength, but in the course of time less and less was made of prayer, and the work of that mighty man of God fell off very perceptibly in power.
Beyond a doubt, one of the great secrets of the unsatisfactoriness and superficiality and unreality and temporary character of many of our modern, so-called Revivals is that so much dependence is put upon man’s machinery and so little upon God’s power, sought and obtained by the earnest, persistent, believing prayer that will not take no for an answer. We live in a day characterized by the multiplication of man’s machinery and the diminution of God’s power. The great cry of our day is work, work, work, organize, organize, organize, give us some new society, tell us some new methods, devise some new machinery; BUT THE GREAT NEED OF OUR DAY IS PRAYER, more prayer and better prayer.
Prayer could work as marvelous results today as it ever could, if the church would only betake itself to praying, real praying, prevailing prayer. There seem to be increasing signs that the church is awakening to that fact. Here and there God is laying upon individual ministers and churches a burden of prayer that they have never known before. Many are getting entirely disgusted with mere machinery and with man-made Revivals, and are learning to depend more upon God. Ministers are crying to God day and night for power. In a few places, perhaps many, churches or portions of churches are meeting together in the early morning hours and the late night hours crying to God for abundant rain. There are indications of the coming of a mighty and wide-spread Revival.
What is needed is a general Revival, but if we cannot have a general Revival, sweeping over the whole earth, we can have local Revivals and state Revivals and national Revivals. It is not necessary that the whole Church get to praying to begin with. Great Revivals always begin first in the hearts of a few men and women whom God arouses by His Spirit to believe in Him as a living God, as a God who answers prayer, and upon whose heart He lays a burden from which no rest can be found except in importunate crying unto God. Oh, may He, by His Spirit, lay such a burden upon our hearts today. I believe He will.
%
PRAYER AND DEVOTIONAL
S. D. GORDON Author of “Quiet Talks Series’
Five Laws That Govern Prayer
Five Addresses delivered at the School of Foreign Missions Woman’s Missionary Society, M. E. Church, Lakeside, Ohio. $1.0
*Dr. Gordon discusses in this volume in his inimitable way the five laws of prayer, such as the law of ne the law of abiding, the law of the use of Jesus’ name, the law of paces, and the law of persistence. No one can read this book without securing great benefit and having his faith strengthened.” — Presbyterian,
MABEL NELSON THURSTON
The Open Gate to Prayer
With Foreword by Mrs. Helen B. Montgomery. Edition for Distribution. Paper, Special Net, 25c Comrade Series, boards, 60c
Mrs. Montgomery says: ‘“‘I like this book; it seems to me another evidence of the revival of interest in the subject of prayer...... I believe that it is welcome for the reason that it actually does show people the way of prayer, and trains them in it. The questionnaire at the close of each section is most helpful and stimulating.”
CHARLES ARTHUR BOYD Minister of First Baptist Church, Marquette, Mich.
The Singers of Judah’s Hills
A Series of Story-Settings for Selected Psalms. Illustrated, $1.25
“Mr. Boyd is in great demand for summer assemblies and other places where young people gather for religious instruction and inspiration. In this book he has exhibited his talent at its best. In each of the chapters one of the Psalms is coupled with an original story and so interwoven that the Psalm shines with new light and beauty.’’ — The Baptist.
L. DUNCAN BULKLEY, A.M., M.D.
Daily Devotional Bible Readings
Introduction by Henry van Dyke.
A New Edition. $2.00
Henry van Dyke says: “The book is meant to express and promote the spirit and practice of simple, thoughtful, helpful worship. I commend it warmly to those who do not wish to neglect in their homes the sweet and hallowed custom of united daily devotion.”
EXPOSITORY AND DEVOTIONAL
“G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, D.D.
Searchlights from the Word
Being 1,188 Sermon-Suggestions; One from
Every Chapter in the Bible. $3.75
The outlines are brief, pregnant with thought, unmarred by a single superfluous or redundant phrase, crammed with suggestive material suited to the use of ministers and other Christian Workers. They reveal throughout Dr. Morgan’s keen, analytical insight and as the titla specifically indicates, range through the entire Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation.
BY ROBERT MAC GOWAN, D.D.
The Song of Meditation
With Introduction by James H. Snowden, ee
A meditation, a poem and a prayer upon some of the eternal truths of religion and the Bible, which the author has divided into four great classifications, viz; God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Humanity. Dr. Mac CGowan’s meditations are upon subjects, upon which all the world is forever seeking light, and each accompanying verse and prayer is appropriate, suggestive and remarkably helpful.
MODERN EVANGELISM
CHARLES L. GOODELL, D.D,
Executive Secretary Commission on Evangelism and Life Service, Federal Council of Churches Christ in America
of
Motives and Methods in Modern
Evangelism
$1.50
The most comprehensive and practical volume Dr, Goodell has yet produced. The wide range of subjects, takes in every phase of the work, with which Dr. Goodell has been associated for a busy ard fruitful lifetime of service. As has been frequently said of the author’s work, “it fairly blazes with the passion of devoted zeal,’? and is an almost unconscious portrayal of the work and method he actually and successfully uses himself.
J. C. MASSEE, D.D.
Pastor of Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass.
Evangelistic Sermons
$1.50
. “Sound expositions of God’s truth, richly illuminated by illustrations. The apt and abundant illustrations, many flowing out of the preacher’s own rich experiences, are one of the attractive features of the book, All soul-winners and personal workers will enjoy this volume. Its close study will amply repay the preacher and fan anew the evangelistic flames of his ministry.’”’ — Baptist Herald, vam Anh; all a) ait
Me;
Pr aa
ane
eyo
Date Due
Ol
‘ a1.
-
we
a.
, A y
q ny ‘
Bai
Wav
Sa ee
q geese ae
- Fe teat - oh oe
Se oe =: a
ks ed
t
wy ry
an
‘a
=]
= eae
— — —
gh
=
ae eons
rt i f |; ‘i rs if
i a it ou Le
fa
Wi) §=61 1012 01025 309
Se
epee
ser
ae
es — — ea
(0 eee cee — — — a — — — — RE Seer tere
as — sree
re
a