What Prayer Can Do for Churches, and for the Nation and for All Nations

“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”’ — Epu. 6: 18.

You will find the text in Eph. 6:18 R. V.

“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

What a tremendous emphasis Paul here puts upon the importance and power of prayer, and upon the imperative need of intense earnestness and never wearying persistence in prayer. Listen to the text again: “With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

We have already seen in our studies some of the things of the very first importance that are wrought by prayer, and that cannot be brought to pass in any other way. We have seen that true prayer will promote our own personal piety, and our individual holiness, our individual growth into the likeness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as almost nothing else, as nothing else but the study of the Word of God. We have seen that prayer will bring

power into our work, that it is the privilege of every 50

M subject this morning is, What Prayer Can Do.

child of God to have the power of God manifested in his work in whatever line of service He calls him to, and that this power is obtained by prayer and in no other way. We have seen that prayer avails mightily for others as well as for ourselves; that we can accomplish more for the salvation of others by praying for them than we can in any other way, that prayer avails for the salvation of men and women who are so sunken in sin, and so far from God, that there seems no possible hope of their redemption for them. We have seen, furthermore, that prayer brings power to the minister of the Gospel, that any church can have a man of power for its pastor that is willing to pay the price, and that the price is not a big salary but big praying.

We shall make other discoveries today of the wonderful things, and things that are greatly to be desired, that can be brought to pass by prayer and that can be brought to pass in no other way.

Andrew Murray has said, “God’s child can conquer everything by prayer. Is it any wonder that Satan does his utmost to snatch that weapon from the Christian or to hinder him in the use of it?” Well, if the Devil is doing “his utmost to snatch that weapon from the Christian or to hinder him in the use of it,” I wish to do my utmost to restore that mighty weapon to the hands of the Church, and to stir you up to use this weapon in mighty and victorious onslaught on Satan and his forces.

It is true that we have a terrific fight on hand, that “our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”” (Eph. 6:12), but we can win this fight by prayer; for prayer brings God on the field and the Devil is no match for Him. I say we can win this fight, as terrible as it 1s and as mighty and cunning as our enemies are, by praying, and we cannot qwin it in any other way. Men are constantly appearing who have discovered some new way of defeating the Devil by some cunning scheme that they have devised, by the social gospel, for example, or by some other humanly devised method. But there is no new way that will win: the old way, the Bible way, the way of definite, determined and persistent prayer in the Holy Spirit, will win every time.

I. Prayer Witt Brinc BLESSING To CHURCHES

Let us now look at something else in addition to the important things already mentioned that prayer will do. Turn to I Thess, 3:11-13: “Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way unto you: and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you: to the end he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”

In our last study we saw the Church praying for Paul: in this passage we see Paul praying for the Church. Prayer will bring blessing, definite and rich and immeasurable blessing, to the Church, praying will do more to make the Church what it ought to be than anything else we can do. Prayer will do more to root out heresy than all the heresy trials that were ever held. Prayer will do more to straighten out tangles and misunderstandings and unhappy complications in the life of a Church than all the councils and conferences that were ever held. Prayer will do more to bring a deep and lasting and.

sweeping revival, a revival that is real and lasting and altogether of the right sort, than all the organizations that were ever devised by man.

The history of the Church of Jesus Christ on earth has been largely a history of revivals. When you read many of the Church histories that have been written the impression that you naturally get is, that the history of the Church of Jesus Christ here on earth has been very largely a history of misunderstandings, disputes, doctrinal differences and bitter conflicts; but, if you will study the history of the living Church, you will find it has been very largely a history of revivals. Humanly speaking, the Church of Jesus Christ owes its very existence today to revivals. Time and time again the Church has seemed to be on the verge of utter shipwreck; but just then God has sent a great revival and saved it. And if you will study the history of revivals you will find that every real revival in the Church has been the child of prayer. There have been revivals without much preaching; there have been revivals with absolutely no organization; but there has never been a mighty revival without mighty praying.

Take the great revival that so marvelously blessed our whole nation in 1857. How did that revival come about? A humble city missionary in the City of New York, named Landfear, became greatly burdened because of the state of the Church, and he got hold of two other men who were like-minded and they three began to pray for a revival. Then they opened a daily noon-meeting for prayer and invited others. These meetings were very poorly attended at first. On one occasion, if I remember correctly, there were only two persons present, and I think that on one occasion there was only one person present, this humble city missionary himself, this very obscure man Landfear, whose sisters I afterwards knew well and whose cousin was a member of the first church of which I was pastor. But soon the interest began to deepen and large crowds began to flock to.the meetings for prayer. Such throngs came that it became necessary to appoint other prayer-meetings, and I have been told, and I think correctly told, that after a while prayer-meetings were held every hour of the day and night in New York City, and not only the churches were used for prayer-meetings but theatres and other places of public resort, and these places were crowded with praying men and praying women. The fire spread from New York to Philadelphia and to other cities, and then swept over the entire country. A young man came into one of the meetings in Chicago on one occasion and said that he had just come back from a trip to the far west, and that at every place where he had stopped on the way back to Chicago prayer-meetings were being held.

In New York City, at one of the Presbyterian ministers’ meetings, Dr. Gardiner Spring, who was perhaps at that time the most prominent minister in New York, said to the assembled brethren, “It is evident that a revival has come to us and we ministers must preach.” Someone replied, “Well, if anyone must preach you must preach the first sermon, for you are the best qualified to do it of any man in the city.” So it was announced that on a certain day Dr. Gardiner Spring would preach, but no more people came out to hear the preaching than came out to the prayer-meetings, so they stopped the preaching and went on praying. The whole emphasis was on prayer, and this whole nation was shaken by the power of God as it had never been shaken before, and perhaps has never been shaken since. That is the kind of a revival I am longing to see here in our city; yes, throughout our whole land; yes, throughout the world. Not a revival where there is great preaching and marvelous singing and all kinds of bewildering antics by preachers or singers, or skillful managers or manipulators; but a revival where there is mighty praying and wonderful displays of the convicting and converting and regenerating power of the Holy Spirit in answer to prayer.

Don’t come to me and tell me what this man or that man, or this woman or that woman, is doing that you think is wrong or that you think is right, go to God and tell Him if you like; but it is far more important that you pray to Him. Pray, pray, pray for Him to bless this church and to bless other churches of this city, and to bless the whole land; yes, and to bless every land.

The news of what God was doing in 1857 in America spread to the North of Ireland, and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland sent a Commission to America to study the work and to come back and report. When they came back they gave to the next General Assembly a very glowing report of what was being done in America. People began to pray that Ireland might also have a similar visitation from God.

Four young men in the little town of Kells, in the North of Ireland, banded themselves together and met every Saturday night for prayer for a revival and spent the whole night in prayer. They were humble men, one of them was a farmer, one was a blacksmith, one was a school teacher, and I do not recall what the fourth was, but I know he was in some humble sphere of life. When Mr. Alexander and I were holding meetings in London, and God was working there in great power, one of these four men, at that time living in Glasgow, sent his grandson down to London to consult with Mr. Alexander and myself and to observe the work and bring back a report to him as to whether it was a real work of God or not.

After these young men had been praying for sometime they went out to try and preach, but their attempt was a failure, so they went back and kept on praying. God heard their prayer and the fire of God fell, and the work went on in such marvelous power in some parts of Ireland that courts adjourned because there were no cases to try, jails were closed because there were no prisoners to incarcerate, and in some places even the grain stood ungarnered in the fields because men were so taken up with things of God and of eternity that they had no time to attend even to the things that ordinarily are so necessary. Many of the most notorious and hardened and hopeless sinners in the land were converted and thoroughly transformed.

Let me tell you how the revival came to Coleraine. I know something about that, because when Mr. Alexander and I were in Belfast, Ireland, in 1903, they were about to celebrate at Coleraine the forty-third anniversary of how the revival came to Coleraine, and they sent a committee down to Belfast to invite Mr. Alexander and myself to go up and celebrate the anniversary of the coming of the revival to Coleraine sixty-three years before. We were unable to go; but I read very carefully the account of the revival as it was given by Rev. William Gibson, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland for 1860, in his book, The Year of Grace. It was reported on a certain day in Coleraine that three young men were coming to Coleraine that evening to hold an open air meeting in the market-place. At the appointed hour the ministers of the city went down to the market-place out of curiosity, to see what was done. To their amazement they saw the people pouring. into the market-place from every quarter until there were no less than fifteen thousand people gathered together in the market-place. The ministers looked at one another in bewilderment and dismay and said, “We must preach, these young men can never deal with a vast throng like this.”

So they put up four pulpits at the four corners of the market-place and a preacher ascended each pulpit. They had not been preaching long when a very solemn awe fell upon the entire throng, and soon in one section of the market-place there was a loud cry and a man fell to the ground under such overwhelming conviction of sin that he could not stand on his feet. He was carried out to the Town Hall that was not yet completed. Soon a cry arose in another part of the market-place and another man fell under the power of conviction of sin, and he too was taken to the Town Hall; then another, and then another, and then another fell in different parts of the market-place until conviction became so general that the meeting broke up and the ministers adjourned to the Town Hall to deal individually with stricken souls. The Presbyterian minister who tells the incident says, that he was in the Town Hall all night dealing with souls overwhelmed with deep conviction of sin. When the morning dawned, this minister tells us, he started for his home, but as he went up the street he found people standing on their doorsteps waiting for him to pass, because there were people under conviction of sin in their homes and they wanted to invite him in to deal with them. He went into one home after another, and there were so many to deal with that the sun had set before he reached his own home. The whole town of Coleraine was so transformed and so impressed that in completing the Town Hall they put in an inscribed tablet dedicating the hall to the memory of the revival, and for every year of the forty-three years up to that time they were commemorating the coming of the revival to Coleraine; and I think they have kept up the commemoration annually to this present day, making sixty-three years in all.

I think it was at the close of the week of prayer in January, 1901, that Miss Strong, Superintendent of Women of the Bible Institute of Chicago, came to me and said, ‘“Why not keep up these prayer-meetings at least once a week after the week of prayer is over, and pray for a world-wide revival?” This suggestion approved itself to the Faculty and we appointed a prayer-meeting every Saturday night from nine to ten o’clock (after the popular Bible class was over) at which people could gather to pray for just one thing — a world-wide revival. Three or four hundred gathered every Saturday night for that purpose, and God gave to us great liberty and great expectation in prayer. Soon we began to hear of the working of God in Japan and other lands, and yet the work was not as general as we wanted to see. People would come to me and to my colleague who was most intimately associated with me in the conduct of the meetings, and ask, “Has the revival come?” We replied, “No, not as far as we know.” “When is it coming?” “We do not know.” “How long are you going to keep praying?” “Until it comes.”

After we had been praying for some months two men from far away Australia appeared in our lecture room.

After they had been attending the lectures for sometime they asked for a private conversation with me. They told me that in leaving Australia they had been commissioned to go to England, to Keswick and other places, and to other gatherings in America, and select someone to invite to Australia to conduct an evangelistic campaign. They said further that they had both agreed upon me: would I go? I replied, “I do not see how I can leave Chicago. I have the Bible Institute to look after, and also the Chicago Avenue Church (the Moody Church), and I do not see how I can possibly get away from Chicago.” “Well,” they said, “you are coming to Australia.” Some months passed by and I was in a Bible Conference in St. Louis and I received a letter from Australia asking me to cable my acceptance of their invitation, and that they would at once cable me the money to come. I laid the matter before the Conference and asked them to pray over it, and withdrew from the Conference in order to be alone in prayer. And God made it clear that I should go, and I so cabled them. When Mr. Alexander and I reached Australia we found that there was a group of about ten or twelve men who had been praying for years for a great revival in Australia. They had banded together to pray for “the big revival,” as they called it in their prayers, to pray for the revival no matter how long it took. The group was led by the Rev. John McNeil, the author of The Spirit-Filled Life, but he had died before we reached Australia. A second member of the group, Rev. Allan Webb, died the first week of our meetings in Melbourne. He had come to Melbourne to assist in the meetings, and died on his knees in prayer. A third member of the group, even before we had been invited to Australia, had been given a vision of great crowds flocking to the Exposition Hall, people hanging on to the loaded street cars wherever they could; and when that vision was fulfilled he came a long distance to Melbourne just to see with his own eyes what God had revealed to him before.

We also found that a lady in Melbourne had read a book on Prayer and had been very deeply impressed by one short sentence in the book, “pray through,” and that she had gone to work and had organized prayer-meetings all over the city before we reached the place; indeed, we found when we reached Melbourne that there were seventeen hundred neighbourhood prayer-meetings being held every week in Melbourne. We remained in that city four weeks. The first two weeks the meetings were held by many different pastors and evangelists in some forty or fifty different centres throughout the city, though meetings for the whole city were held at one o’clock, and two o’clock, and three o’clock each day in the Town Hall. The last two weeks, the meetings were all concentrated in the Exposition Hall, seating about eight thousand people. At the very first meeting in the Exposition Hall the crowd was so great that they swept the police before them, packed the building far beyond its proper capacity, and great crowds still who could not get in. In the four weeks, eight thousand six hundred and forty-two persons made a definite profession of having accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour. And when we went back to Melbourne some months later and held a meeting of the converts, six thousand of them were present at that meeting; most of whom had already joined the Church; and almost all those who had not united with the Church as yet, promised to do so at once. The report of what God had done in Melbourne spread not only all over Australia, but to India, and England and Scotland and Ireland, and resulted in a wonderful work of God in the leading cities of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the whole world-wide work was the outcome of the prayer-meetings held in Chicago, and of the prayers of the little group of men in Australia. if

The great Welsh revival in 1904, of the beginning of which I was an eye-witness, came in a similar way. Mr. Alexander and I had been invited to Cardiff, Wales, for a month’s mission. The announcement that we were going there was made about a year before we went, and prayer began to go up all over England and Scotland and Wales that God would send a revival not only to Cardiff but to all Wales. When we reached Cardiff we found that for almost a year they had been holding a prayer-meeting from six to seven every morning in Penarth, a suburb of Cardiff, praying for a great revival. For the first two weeks or so things dragged. Great crowds came and there was great enthusiasm in the singing, but we could not get the people to do personal work. Then we appointed a day of fasting and prayer, and the day was observed in other parts of Wales as well as in Cardiff. In one place Seth Joshua, who was afterwards so greatly used in the revival, was the leading figure and had charge of the meeting, and wrote me a most glowing and cheering account of what God had done in that place on that day. I think it was on that very day that he was kneeling beside Evan Roberts, and as he prayed the power of God fell upon Evan Roberts. The power of God came down in Cardiff in such a wonderful way that when Mr. Alexander and I were compelled to leave at the end of the month in order to keep an engagement in Liverpool, the meetings went right on without us and they went on for one whole year — meetings every night for a whole year, and multitudes were converted. From Cardiff the fire spread up and down the valleys of Wales. Soon after we had reached Liverpool, the next city that we visited, I received a letter from the minister who was Secretary of our mission in Cardiff, in which he said that his assistant had gone out the preceding Sunday night up one of the valleys of Wales and that as he preached the power of God fell on him and one hundred persons were converted while he was preaching. The fire spread over the entire country under Evan Roberts and others, and it is said that over one hundred thousand souls were converted in twelve months.

Oh, that is what we need more than anything else today, in our own land and in all lands, a real, mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God. The most fundamental trouble with most of our present-day so-called revivals is, that they are man-made and not God-sent. They are worked up (I had almost said faked up) by man’s cunningly devised machinery — not prayed down. Oh, for an old-time revival, a revival that is really and not spuriously of the Pentecostal pattern; for that revival was born of a fourteen days prayer-meeting. But let us not merely sigh for it; let us cry for it, cry to God, cry long and cry loud if need be, and then it will surely come.

Il. PRAYER WiLL Brinc BLESSING AND VICTORY TO
ForEeEIGN MIssIons

Now turn to Matt. 9: 36-38 R. V.: “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd. Then said he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the labourers are few.

Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest.” Here we see from our Lord’s own teaching that prayer will bring blessing to foreign missions. It will get the needed men and women, and the right kind of men and women, for the work in all the fields which are now white for the harvest in many lands. It will also bring blessing and power to the men and women who go to the field. THE GREATEST NEED OF FOREIGN MISSIONS TODAY IS PRAYER. It is true that men are greatly needed, and it is true that money is needed; but prayer is far more needed. When we pray as we ought the men and the women will come, and the money will come. Even though men came in crowds, without prayer they would be of no use; they will be of no use whatever unless they are backed by prayer.

We have had in this country men of great force of character and mind who have greatly stirred the students of this country to an interest in foreign missions, and have gathered large numbers of men and women for the foreign field, without much prayer; and these men and women, though gifted, some of them greatly talented, have oftentimes been an actual curse to the work. It is my conviction, founded upon quite a little observation, that the work of foreign missions would be far better off today if these men had gone into secular work and let missions alone. ‘The results of their work have been most sinister. I have seen much of it with my own eyes in China and elsewhere, and I am convinced that one of the most discouraging problems that faces foreign mission work in China today has arisen from the large number of men and women who have gone into the foreign work not because they were sent of God in answer to prayer, but because they were stirred up by a man of attractive personality and rare power.

What we have said of men is just as true of money. No matter how much money may be put into foreign missions, the money will be of no real use unless the men and women whom the money sends out are backed by prayer. Indeed, without prayer, the money will be a curse rather than a blessing. Probably no other missionary society in all this world’s history has ever accomplished as much good, all things considered, that is of real and lasting value, as the China Inland Mission; and that is so because this Mission was born of so much prayer and backed by so much ‘prayer.

But what shall we pray for in connection with foreign missions?

1. First of all we should pray, just as the words of our Lord Jesus we are studying command us to pray, for men and women. Listen to our Lord’s words again, “The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest.” It is not so much a large number of men and women who are needed, it is the right kind of men and women. A large number of men and women are needed, no question about that, the fields were never so white for the harvest before as they are today, and the labourers are indeed few; but the greatest need is the right kind of men and women, MISSIONS IN CHINA AND ELSEWHERE WOULD BE FAR BETTER OFF TODAY IF MANY OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE GONE OUT HAD REMAINED AT HOME. LEarnest-minded men and women from this country who visit China and are brought in close contact with some of the young men and women that are being poured into China by certain missionary societies are appalled at the thought that men and women of this type should be sent out for foreign mission work. Many of the older missionaries who have made great sacrifices for the work, and by much effort and prayer have gathered together bodies of believers who really know the Lord, tremble as they think what the influence of this type of missionaries will be upon the doctrine and the life of the Chinese converts. Many of the Christian Chinese themselves feel that they must protest against the teaching and the manner of life of these would-be missionaries.

Z. In the second place, we should pray for the missionaries who have already gone out. We have already seen how much prayer does to make a minister of the Gospel what he ought to be. If possible, it is even more effective in making missionaries what they ought to be, and the neglect of prayer on the part of the people at home has much to do with the comparative failure of many of the missionaries on the field. Every Christian at home should have some definite missionaries in the field for whom he is praying definitely, constantly, persistently, and intensely. The man or woman at home who prays, often has as much to do with the effectiveness of the missionary on the field, and consequently with the results of his labours, as the missionary himself.

3. In the third place, We should pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on different fields. Oh, how much genuine revivals of religion in the power of the Holy Spirit are needed in the various missionary fields of the world. And revivals on the foreign field come in exactly the same way we have just seen revivals come at home — in answer to prayer. That could be proved by many illustrations. Mr. Finney tells of a mighty man of prayer who was interested not only in the work at. home, but abroad; and after his death his diary was found and in examining it it was found that on certain days it was recorded that he had a great burden of prayer for some specific foreign missionary field, and upon inquiry it was found that in each instance revivals on the foreign field had followed this man’s insistent intercession, and followed in the exact order of his petitions as recorded in his diary. Many of us are tempted to criticise the foreign work because of the meagerness of the results, but ought not our criticism to begin with ourselves? May ‘it not be that the meagerness of the results is the consequence of the meagerness of our own prayer? At all events we can increase the blessed and glorious results of the work in foreign fields by giving more time to real prayer here at home.

4. In the fourth place, We should pray for the native converts. It is difficult for us to realize how many and how great are the obstacles put in the way of a native convert’s standing stedfast in the new life, and the difficulties that lie in the way of his living such a life as a Christian ought to live, in the atmosphere that he daily breathes. Many of the converts in many fields are men and women of an unusually high type of character. My son has told me that some of the Christian Chinese he knows intimately put him to shame by their clearness of understanding of the deep things of God and by the Christlikeness and devotion of their lives. But while this is true, we should never forget that it is far more difficult for one converted in a heathen land to lead the life a Christian ought to live than it is for one converted in this land, and, therefore, the converts greatly need our prayers. And our prayer “availeth much in its working”

in the lives of those who are won to Christ in the foreign field.

5. In the fifth place, We should pray for the native churches. We should not only pray for the converts as individuals, but for the churches as organizations, Every church has its peculiar problems. Take for example the Church of Christ in Korea. It is difficult for anyone who has not visited that land, so wonderfully favoured of God in missionary work and at the same time so amazingly resisted by the Devil in various ways, to realize how much the Church of Christ in Korea needs the prayers of those in the home land who believe in Christ and in prayer. And so also do the churches in China, and Africa, and India, and elsewhere, greatly need our prayers here at home.

6. In the sixth place, We should pray for the secretaries and official members of the various boards here at home.

7. In the seventh place and finally, We should pray for money. Many of the boards and missionary societies are in extreme distress for funds today. This is true even of boards and councils of whose loyalty to the faith there is no question: they are in great need of increased gifts. The way to get the money is to pray for it: and not only for those who are immediately responsible for the money to pray for it, but for us all to pray for it. Very likely, if we pray as we ought, God will give us to see that we ourselves ought to go down into our own pockets as we never have done to aid in answering our own prayers.

There are many other definite things, and things greatly to be desired, that definite and determined prayer will bring to pass; but not only does time fail to speak of them but I wish to concentrate your attention on these two things today: First, that prayer will bring blessing to the churches; and second, that prayer will bring blessing and victory to foreign missions.

Oh, how much we need the blessing that includes all other blessings for the Church, a great, deep, thorough-going, wide-spread revival. And how we need larger blessing and more thoroughgoing victory in the work of foreign missions. We can have both if we will pay the price; and the price is prayer — real prayer, determined prayer, protracted prayer, heart-wringing, crying to God in the power of the Holy Spirit!