The Prayer of Revival

We're in the Evangelism Awakening Revival Institutes, and if you turn in your handouts to session 14, Prayer for Revival, a revival has always been birthed by prayer. If you will research revivals, you will discover that behind each one of them, we're praying people crying out to God to send forth a shower of blessings. Usually, the prayer warriors remain nameless individuals, and they are overshadowed by the figureheads of the revival.

At times, their names are associated with the revival, as in the case of Charles Finney and his two men who traveled with him, Daniel Nash and Abel Clary. Both of these men would proceed Finney to a town and bathe that town in prayer before Charles Finney even arrived. Jonathan Goforth recognized these two prayer warriors as the instruments of revival.

He wrote about them. Finney depended more upon the prayer of Fathers Nash and Clary to bring down Holy Ghost Revival than upon his own resistless logic. What's true, friends, and we have this incident as recorded by Finney in his memoirs, here now are the words of Charles Finney, and here I must introduce the name of a man whom I shall have occasion to mention frequently, Mr. Abel Clary.

He was converted in the same revival which I was. His whole time and strength is given to prayer. The burden of his soul would frequently be so great that he was unable to stand, and he would rive and groan in agony in a most wonderful manner.

The first I knew of him being at Rochester, a gentleman who lived about a mile west of the city called on me one day and asked me if I knew Mr. Abel Clary. I told him I did know him well. Oh well, said he, he is at my house and has been there for a long time.

I don't know what to think of him. He prays nearly all the time, day and night, and in such agony of mind that I do not know what to make of it. Sometimes he cannot even stand on his knees but will lie prostrate on the floor and groan, and then throw himself upon the bed and roll from side to side and groan and pray in a manner that quite astonishes me.

Finney assured the man with the following words, I understand it. Please keep still. It will all come out all right.

He will surely prevail. Finney knew the importance of prayer in revival, and he relied upon these men, and Daniel Nash was with Finney much in his revivals. When I met with a group of pastors to pray for revival, we would often begin the time of prayer with the reading of Psalm 80.

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadeth Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up thy strength and come and save us, turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. It's important, friends, in praying for revival to recognize the majesty of God in revival, that God is a God high and lifted up, a sovereign king whose name is holy.

We must exercise humility in prayer, sincerity in prayer, earnestness in prayer, and importunity in prayer to gain God's ear. John Song shook China for God in powerful revivals, but behind the scenes were men and women crying out to God to send revival. One such man was William Schubert, an American missionary to China who had had John Song preach for him at his church in Nanchang, which in turn witnessed an incredible revival under John Song's mighty preaching.

This missionary, William Schubert, had prayed for six months on end for God to send revival. John Song wrote to him in his diary, Reverend William E. Schubert often went into a fasting prayer, and cries of worship could often be heard from upstairs, O God, isn't it time to revive the church at Nanchang? If not now, when? There's no point for me to stay here if you don't show any mercy. I might as well go back to my country.

Well, God heard those desperate prayers and sent a sweeping revival to Nanchang. We are living in desperate times when all of society is in an upheaval. The church sleeps on pillows of conformity and compromise, while people perish into a burning hell.

We all should be on our faces in nights of prayer, crying out to God to heal our land. We should be laying hold of the promise of 2 Chronicles. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

The greatest need in our land today is a prophet, a man sent from God, God's man who will stand in the gap between heaven and earth, between mortal man and almighty God, a holy man who is so wholly sold out to God, so intoxicated with Christ, and so consumed with eternity, that his very footprints leave a smoky trail of the lingering fire of God, a man whose desperate life of prayer has left fingerprints on the horns of the altar in glory, a man whose emboldened faith and Enoch-like walk with God moves mountains of resistance and proves that the God of the Bible is alive and interested in the most minute requests of men. God will always raise up in Elijah whose prayers impact a sleeping nation. The church in each generation has had individuals who live upon their knees, whose prayers reach heaven with a holy violence.

India had her pray and hide, China her Hudson Taylor, England her Puritans, Scotland her Covenanters, America her fiery Ian Bounds. Voices which gained the attention of the throne room startled angels and shook the gates of hell, making even the demons quake and tremble with their desperate prayers. Well this concludes our session today.

We will prepare for session 15.