PRAYER POWER UNLIMITED

J. Oswald Sanders

Prayer and Revival

If my people … shall … I … will (2 Chron 7:14, KJV)

“Oh, that you would burst forth from the skies and come down! How the mountains would quake in your presence! The consuming fire of your glory would burn down the forests and boil the oceans dry. The nations would tremble before you; then your enemies would learn the reason for your fame! So it was before when you came down, for you did awesome things beyond our highest expectations, and how the mountains quaked!” (Isa 64:1-3, TLB).

The poet Burns spoke of “Rapt Isaiah’s wild seraphic fire,” and the above paragraph is aflame with it. In the vocative plea of this majestic passage, one can sense the fire burning in Isaiah’s heart. In vivid phrase and with moving eloquence, he pours out his heart to God, pleading for a divine visitation on his needy nation. It is a poignant, almost desperate prayer, but laced with ardent faith.

In verse seven, Isaiah gives what Samuel M. Zwemer described as an incomparable definition of prayer: “There is no one who calls on Thy name, who arouses himself to take hold of Thee” (italics added). What a vivid picture. “The supplicant stirs himself out of lethargy and sleep to seize hold of God, and he says, ‘I will not let you go except You bless me and answer my prayer’”.¹

In chapter sixty-three, verse fifteen, Isaiah cries, “O Lord, look down from heaven and see us” (TLB, italics added). He pleads, “Oh, that you would burst forth from the skies and come down!” (Isa 64:1, TLB, italics added). He recalls the wonders of Sinai (64:3-4) and asks for a repetition of the supernatural intervention. Then he pours out his heart in confession. “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we put on our prized robes of righteousness we find they are but filthy rags … And our sins, like the wind, sweep us away. Yet no one calls upon your name” (64:6-7, TLB).

The nation had reached the state at which only an invasion from heaven could meet their desperate need, for they faced a dual problem — closed heavens and an absent God. Isaiah had exhausted his own repertoire; he had no prescription for the national malady. Only God could meet the situation.

So Isaiah was very bold (Rom 10:20) and said in effect, “If no one else will take hold of God, I shall. Oh, that You would come down and display Your mighty power!” Have we reached the stage of desperation yet, or have we opted for a continuance of the status quo? Is this not what we need for our powerless churches and sick and decadent society?

Around 1950, there was a powerful movement of the Spirit in the Hebrides. The awakening did not just happen. For some months, a number of men met three nights a week for prayer; they often spent hours. The weeks passed and nothing happened until one morning at about two o’clock; a young man read Psalm 24:3-5, “Who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood, and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the LORD.”

[He] closed the Bible and looking at his companions on their knees before God, he cried: “Brethren, it is just so much humbug to be waiting thus night after night, month after month, if we ourselves are not right with God. I must ask myself — ‘Is my heart pure?’ Are my hands clean?’” And at that moment, … something happened. God swept into that prayer group and at that wonderful moment seven Elders discovered what they evidently had not discovered before, that revival must be related to Holiness … They found themselves in the searching power of the presence of God and discovered things about themselves they had never suspected. But the Blood of Calvary heals and cleanses … These men … found themselves lifted to the realm of the supernatural. These men knew that Revival had come.²

This was the beginning of a movement that went from congregation to congregation and island to island off the coast of Scotland, with far-reaching effects.

Some other instances of the power of prevailing prayer follow. The author presents these examples of prayer that is accompanied by a cleansing of heart and life and results in powerful spiritual revival, in the hope that faith and aspiration will be kindled in the hearts of readers.

A young married woman [Mary Binnie, who in her later years was known to the author and whose granddaughter became his wife] … had been converted in the Great Revival of 1859. [She] was a member of Charlotte Baptist Chapel in Edinburgh. Although this church had a noble history, it had fallen on evil days. Her heart was deeply burdened at the spiritual state of the church, and as she prayed, she received the clear conviction, from the Spirit of God she believed, that it was His purpose to send revival to the moribund Charlotte Chapel. She gave herself to prayer, and expectantly awaited the answer, little dreaming how many years would elapse before the promised revival came, or what was to be her part in it.
Then tragedy struck. Her husband was suddenly taken from her side, leaving her with three small children, and twins which were born shortly after his death. As she had few financial resources, her mother who lived in Kelso urged her to live with her. This she was loath to do as she felt she must be there when the revival came to the Chapel. At last circumstances compelled her to accept her mother’s invitation, and she took her little family to Kelso, but her intercessions for the revival were as urgent as ever.
At that time Kelso could boast no Baptist Chapel, so she set herself to pray that someone would be moved to build one. On day while walking down the main street of the town she was accosted by a wealthy lady who, in the course of the conversation told her that God had laid it on her heart to build a Baptist Chapel in Kelso! The startling announcement did not at all surprise this woman of faith who had implicit confidence in the power of God to answer prayer.³

When the chapel was built, they called a young man recently graduated from the Glasgow Bible Institute, Joseph W. Kemp. Under his vigorous ministry the church prospered, and in due course he married one of the twin daughters of the godly widow.

But what of the promised revival of Charlotte Chapel? Through the intervening years “the importunate widow” had “not staggered at the promise of God through unbelief,” but had persistently pressed her suit at the throne of grace. It takes little imagination to picture her awe when an invitation came to her loved son-in-law to occupy the vacant pulpit of Charlotte Chapel. Was God at last going to answer the prayers of many years? Was He going to send revival, using as His instruments her own daughter and her husband? Then the long test of faith had been abundantly worth-while.
From the moment of the advent of the energetic young pastor, the tide in the affairs of the church turned decisively. The congregation of thirty-five at the welcome meeting quickly began to increase under the persuasiveness of his passionate preaching.
His life-long tendency to overwork began to affect Mr. Kemp’s health and his officers suggested a holiday, but he spent it visiting the Welsh Revival which was then at its height. There he saw scenes enacted before his eyes that filled him with a longing to see a similar movement of the Spirit in his own church.
On returning to Edinburgh, he shared his burden with some members of his church who were gathered in prayer. From that moment the flood-gates of blessing were opened wide. Night after night, week after week, the meetings increased in numbers and intensity.⁴

One who was reporting on the movement wrote:

It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the prayer passion that characterized those meetings. There was little or no preaching, it being no uncommon experience for the pastor to go to the pulpit on the Lord’s Day and find the congregation so caught in the spirit of prayer as to render preaching out of the question. For a whole year the church prayed on night by night without a single break.
The people poured out their hearts in importunate prayer. I have yet to witness a movement that has produced more permanent results in the lives of men, women and children. There were irregularities, no doubt; some commotion, yes. There was that which shot itself through all prescribed forms and shattered all conventionality. But such a movement with all its irregularities is to be preferred far above the dull, dreary, monotonous decorum of many churches. Under these influences, crowds thronged the chapel which, only three years before, maintained a somber vacuum.⁵

Writing of the movement, the pastor said that during the first year he had personally dealt with no fewer than one thousand souls who had been brought to God during the prayer meetings. Conversions took place at every meeting.

“At the end of the first year of this sovereign visitation, … it seemed as though the tide of spiritual fervor was on the ebb. The pastor made preparation for a course of teaching with a view to consolidating and conserving the wonderful work of the past year. But once again the Spirit of God intervened.”⁶

At a late prayer meeting, the fire of God fell. There was nothing, humanly speaking, to account for what happened. Quite suddenly upon one and another came an overwhelming sense of the reality and awfulness of His presence and of eternal things. Life, death and eternity seemed suddenly laid bare. Prayer and weeping began, and gained in intensity every moment. One was overwhelmed before the sudden bursting of the bounds. Could it be real? The midnight hour was reached. The hours had passed like minutes.”⁷

The revival fires blazed for a second whole year, during which eight hundred more sought and found the Lord in the chapel. One elder wrote of the prayer meetings,

It has been my privilege to be at some of the wonderful early and late prayer meetings which have been such a marked feature of the revival. He has attended half nights of prayer and whole nights of prayer, some of which will never be forgotten; but in no case has he ever seen anything like what has taken place in the past few weeks.
Here were men and women on their knees, many filled with an intense passionate longing, with strong crying to God; others in bondage yet longing to be free; some melted by love divine, whose eyes with tears o’erflowed. At times the spirit of prayer so increased that it seemed as if all were praying. At another time the soul gave vent in song as it overflowed in joy. The sense of God’s nearness and presence was at times overwhelming.⁸

This extended account is given, first, to kindle desire and stimulate prayer that there might be a similar quickening in our own times; second, to show the power and effectiveness of the prayers of one obscure saint whose name never hit the headlines, but whose name is held in high honor in heaven.

Not long before China fell to Communists, the author was privileged to visit the Chungking Theological Seminary with a colleague, Fred Mitchell, Chairman of the English Keswick Convention; each delivered several messages to the student body.

The principal of the seminary, the Reverend Marcus Cheng, and the students had for some time been praying that showers of blessing might fall on their hungry hearts. The principal wrote:

In describing the experience, I would say, “then the fire of the Lord fell.” The Holy Spirit was in control, and although the speakers were several, the theme was one, and the messages related to one another in such a way that there was a progression of thought.
The Holy Spirit began to convict of sin. All our consciences were quickened, causing the remembrance of hidden and forgotten sins. The light of the Holy Spirit penetrated the inmost recesses of the heart so that we could not but repent, making confession in public prayer and spontaneous grief and tears. At each meeting, after the close of the message, one after another in rapid succession stood up and prayed for an hour or two. Even then the meeting would have carried on indefinitely had we allowed it to do so.
Classes were suspended for a week that every one might have the opportunity of waiting on God. The Spirit of prayer truly came upon us. Moreover, all general terms and hackneyed expressions were discarded and requests were specific. “Lord, forgive us this sin,” (naming it). Some confessed many many sins, one after another. We came to have a genuine hatred of sin.
Not only was confession made to God and man, but as far as possible each made apology and restitution. Apart from monetary restitution there was one who produced articles that did not belong to him, a hat and a torch. One confessed that he had failed to tithe and gave a gold ring. Another said, “I have sinned against so and so who is now dead. How can I apologize now?” Nearly every student felt he had to write letters to family or friends making confession or testifying. Two afternoons were given over to writing such letters. One wrote thirty. Stationery and stamps became a problem. Just then a letter came from a graduate and a cheque for students’ pocket money. It was used for this purpose.
Then followed rededication as we placed ourselves anew at the Lord’s disposal.⁹

God had indeed answered their prayers for revival blessing, but in a manner they little expected. It was only a short while after this visitation that the Communists caused the seminary to be closed and the students scattered. How blessed that before they had to face the ordeal ahead, they had put things right with God and their fellowmen and had a clear sky above them.

Some years ago a great revival swept over Korea, the fruits of which revival remain to the present day. This revival had been prayed down. Four missionaries of different denominations had agreed to meet together to pray daily at noon. At the end of the month a brother proposed that “as nothing had happened,” the prayer meetings should be discontinued. “Let us each pray at home as we find it convenient,” said he. The others, however, protested that they ought rather to spend even more time in prayer each day. So they continued the daily prayer meetings for four months. Then suddenly the blessing began to be poured out.

In Evangelical Christian magazine, one of the missionaries declared: “It paid well to have spent several months in prayer; for when God gave the Holy Spirit, He accomplished more in half a day than all the missionaries together could have accomplished in half a year.” In less than two months more than two thousand heathen were converted. In one church it was announced that a daily prayer meeting would be held every morning at 4:30. The very first day four hundred people arrived long before the stated hour, eager to pray. The number rapidly increased to six hundred. Heathen people came to see what was happening. They exclaimed in astonishment, “The living God is among you!”

When God plans to send revival blessing, He lays a burden for it on t he hearts of those who make themselves available to Him. An aged saint came to his pastor one night and said, “We are about to have a revival.” He was asked how he knew so, His answer was, “I went into the stable to take care of my cattle two hours ago, and there the Lord has kept me in prayer until just now. And I feel we are going to be revived.” It proved to be the commencement of a revival. Are we similarly available?

PRAYER

O Lord, we pray for our country that God would bless it; and O that we might have a season of revival of pure and undefiled religion in the land. We perceive that Thou canst turn the hearts of the people, as the trees of the wood are moved in the wind. O that there might come a deep searching of heart, great thoughtfulness of the Scriptures, reverence of God and the principles of justice and peace; and may this land make another stride in onward progress, and out of it may there be gathered a people whom Thou hast chosen, who may show forth Thy praise. CHARLES H. SPURGEON

QUESTIONS

1. Why do you think there appears to be such a close link between prayer and revival, although revival is a sovereign work of God?
2. Scripture appears to teach that we can see revival whenever we are willing to fulfill the conditions. Does history bear this out?

Note

¹S. M. Zwemer, “The Psychology of Prayer,” Biblical Recorder, August 1, 1922, p 235
²Olford, Heart-Cry for Revival, pp 28-29
³J. O. Sanders, Expanding Horizons (Auckland: Institute Press, 1971), p 4
⁴Sanders, Expanding Horizons, p 5
⁵W. Kemp, Joseph W. Kemp (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, n.d.) p 30
⁶Sanders, Expanding Horizons, p 6
⁷Kemp, p 32
⁸Kemp, p 30
⁹M. Cheng, Lamp Aflame (London: China Inland Mission, 1949)