Faulty Revival
Praying
By
Evangelist Paul Mershon
January 6, 2012
Our home church is preparing for the upcoming revival meeting with Evangelist Dave McCracken. As the church looks forward to that much-needed meeting, our people will gather together this evening for a time of fasting and prayer. Last evening, in the midweek prayer meeting, our pastor preached a wonderful and timely message on the importance of prayer and fasting. This good message spoke to my heart in several ways and got me to thinking this morning about the importance of prayer and fasting in preparation for revival. Sadly, I have seen much faulty revival praying over the years, and thought it good to address my concern in today’s Revival Thoughts.
Prayer! Pleading prayer, prevailing prayer, long periods of laboring in prayer is essential to revival. Prayer is the key to revival. There has never been a revival that was not preceded by prayer, fasting, and solemn assemblies. Prayer brings revival, and revival brings a renewed passion for prayer. But prayer that does not include a broken and contrite heart, a tender heart, a dependent heart, a willing heart, and an obedient heart will produce nothing of lasting spiritual value. The primary element in fruitful, prevailing prayer is humility. God has made it clear that humility is the first step in revival praying (II Chronicles 7:14). With so much spiritual pride in our midst today, it is no wonder we have no power with God in prayer.
Please consider the following thought-provoking quotes:
Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late - and how little revival has resulted?
I believe our problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work!
A church, for instance, follows its traditions without much thought about whether they are scriptural or not. Or it surrenders to pressure from public opinion and falls in with popular trends which carry it far from the New Testament pattern. Then the leaders notice a lack of spiritual power among the people and become concerned about it. What to do? How can they bring down the refreshing showers to quicken the fainting souls?
The answer is ready for them. The books tell them how - pray!
The passing evangelist confirms what the books have said - pray!
So the pastor calls his people to pray. The tide of feeling runs high and it looks for a while as if the revival might be on the way. But it fails to arrive and the zeal for prayer begins to flag. Soon the church is back where it was before and a numb discouragement settles over everyone.
What has gone wrong? Simply this: Neither the leaders nor the people have made any effort to obey the Word of God. They felt that their only weakness was failure to pray, when actually in a score of ways they were falling short in the vital matter of obedience! (Author Unknown - quote given to me by a friend)
The small band of church leaders had been praying earnestly for revival in their community - a village on the Isle of Lewis, the largest isle of the Outer Hebrides, just off the coast of Scotland. They were particularly burdened for the young people of the island who had no interest in spiritual matters and scorned the things of God. For eighteen months they met - three nights a week, praying through the night, right into the early hours of the morning, beseeching God to come and visit in revival. But there was no evidence of any change. Then one night, a young deacon rose to his feet, opened his Bible, and read from Psalm 24: "Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation." Facing the men around him, this young man said, "Brethren, it seems to be just so much 'humbug' to be waiting and praying as we are, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God." There in the straw, the men knelt and humbly confessed their sins to the Lord. Within a short period of time, God had begun to pour out His Spirit in an extraordinary awakening that shook the entire island. Before its impact can be felt in a home, a church, or a nation, revival must first be experienced on a personal level in the hearts of men and women who have encountered God in a fresh way. And the single greatest hindrance to our experiencing personal revival is our unwillingness to humble ourselves and confess our desperate need for His mercy. (Spirit of Revival Magazine - Anniversary Edition - bold emphasis mine - ed.)
Just as in atomic energy, modern scientists have touched a new dimension of power, so the Church has to rediscover the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit. To smite the iniquity of this sin-soaked age and shatter the complacency of slumbering saints, something is really needed. Vital preaching and victorious living must "come out of" sustained watches in the prayer chamber. Some one says, "We must pray if we want to live a holy life!" Yes, but conversely, we must live a holy life if we want to pray. According to David, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart . . . ." (Psalm 24:3-4). (From, Why Revival Tarries, by Leonard Ravenhill)
I believe a large part of the reason for why we do not see anything lasting from our scheduled, programmed revival meetings is directly attributable to our faulty praying. We may have a lot of prayer meetings in preparation for a revival meeting, but how do God's people really pray? A good case in point was a series of prayer meetings I attended some time ago where we gathered nightly to seek the Lord for His hand upon upcoming revival meetings. As we prayed, I sensed early on that most of those in attendance just did not get what we were doing - what we were seeking the Lord for. I left those prayer meetings feeling empty, and not altogether sure if I myself had really gotten hold of God in my own public praying. Then one evening a dear, tender-hearted lady began to pray in earnest with tears of contrition. Of all the praying that had been done up to this point, no one cried out to God quite like this sister-in-the-Lord did that evening. Her prayer was perhaps the shortest of the evening, but the most plaintive. With tears she came to the Lord with an obedient heart seeking forgiveness and cleansing for her own sins, and spoke to the Lord in hushed and agonizing tones as to the need to enter into His presence with a clean heart and pure motives. There was power in that room that I felt had eluded us in all of our praying, and this one humble gal had gotten hold of God in a simple, broken, humble way. This is the essence of real revival praying.
The results of each and every revival meeting must be left in God's hands. Without Him we can do absolutely nothing. Striving in the flesh to produce a "move" is fruitless and capricious. There is absolutely no worth in trying to produce an atmosphere that will somehow bring about a change in the hearts of God's people. I have found that few go into a revival meeting with much expectation or holy anticipation of anything of lasting value happening. There is little instruction beforehand as to the history of revival, what the Bible says about revival, and what revival really is, and what it isn't. There is little real heart's preparation. It is good to have much prayer-preparation as the local church looks forward to the revival week, but it is not just that we pray, but how we pray. Revival has broken out in the prayer meetings themselves when God's people come to them with an obedient spirit and willingness to let God have His perfect way. When our will is surrendered to God's will, His perfect will can be done. In fact, we need to go into the pre-meeting prayer with no will at all other than being in submission to the will of the Master alone.
As a revivalist, I can share from with you that nothing grieves and breaks my heart quite as much as there being no evidence of real lasting change after the revival meetings have come and gone. It's back to "business as usual." The ground remains fallow as it has not yielded itself to the plow. The resistant heart has not been broken down. There is no testimony of change. There is no hungering and thirsting after the things of God. There is no renewed zeal and passion for souls. Prayer meetings are short and tearless. Prayer requests are relegated mostly to physical and material needs, and little is brought before the congregation regarding deep spiritual needs and the souls of men. Un-reconciled differences and unresolved personal conflicts go on un-reconciled and unresolved. Folks continue to guard their reputations and demonstrate little transparency. Cliques and schisms continue on unabated. The sweet spirit of the Lord is not evident. The unspeakable joy of the Lord is not there. The singing of praises to the Lord in the song service is without noticeable change, and change in the way we sing will always be the case when revival comes. The singing will be different. It will be glorious and with life to it. The way we sing will reflect hearts in holy consonance with Christ (And we are talking here about music that is sacred, not silly - Godly music, not the fleshly music of the "praise and worship chorus" variety so popular in progressive churches today). When revival comes, individually or corporately, the spiritual atmosphere will be palpable, electric, life-changing, purging, purifying and supernatural. There will no longer be a cold, dead, mundane spiritual atmosphere without the testimony of God's wonderful power. Oh, praise God, it will be wonderful!
Beloved, let us learn how to pray, and let us come to God with an obedient and surrendered heart.