6. Topical Prayer: Revival
Revival
Never a Revival Without Mighty Praying
By R.A. Torrey
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. many times the Church has seemed to be on the verge of utter shipwreck, but just then God has sent a great revival and saved it.
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.
What we need more than anything else today in our own land and in all lands, is 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 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!...
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Prayer and Revival
What is a “Real Prayer Meeting?” It is united prayer. “The prayer that God particularly delights to answer is united prayer. There is power in the prayer of a single individual, and the prayer of individuals has wrought great things, but there is far greater power in united prayer.” (R.A. Torrey, The Power of Prayer)
What wond’rous grace! who knows its full extent?
A creature, dust and ashes, speaks with God--
Tells all his woes, enumerates his wants,
Yea, pleads with Deity, and gains relief.
’Tis prayer, yes, ’tis ‘effectual, fervent prayer,’
Puts dignity on worms, proves life divine,
Makes demons tremble, breaks the darkest cloud,
And with a princely power prevails with God!
And shall this privilege become a task?
My God, forbid! Pour out thy Spirit's grace,
Draw me by love, and teach me how to pray.
Yea, let Thy holy unction from above
Beget, extend, maintain my intercourse
with Father, Son, and Spirit, Israel’s God,
Until petitions are exchanged for praise
Irons.
Never a Revival Without Mighty Praying By R.A. Torrey
Ps 854-6 “Turn us, O God of our salvation, And cause thine indignation toward us to cease. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not quicken us again, That thy people may rejoice in thee?”
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. many times the Church has seemed to be on the verge of utter shipwreck, but just then God has sent a great revival and saved it.
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.
What we need more than anything else today in our own land and in all lands, is 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 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!...
No great spiritual awakening has begun anywhere in the world apart from united prayer---Christians persistently praying for revival.
J. Edwin Orr
The revival of religion and the revival of prayer are inseparable.
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Revival Prayer Meetings
Iain Murray in Revival and Revivalism, p 79 quotes Jesse Lee, He described the year 1787:
“There was a remarkable revival of religion in the town of Petersburgh, and many of the inhabitants were savingly converted; and the Christians greatly revived. That town never witnessed before or since such wonderful displays of the presence and love of God in salvation of immortal souls. Prayer meetings were frequently held both in the town and in the country, and souls were frequently converted at those meetings, even when there was no preacher present; for the prayers and exhortations of the members were greatly owned of the Lord.
“The most remarkable work of all was in Sussex and Brunswick circuits, where the meetings would frequently continue five or six hours together, and sometimes all night.
“At one quarterly meeting held at Mabry’s Chapel in Brunswick circuit, on the ;25th and 26th of July, the power of God was among the people in an extraordinary manner: some hundreds were awakened; and it was supposed that above one hundred souls were converted at that meeting, which continued for two days, i.e., on Thursday and Friday. Some thousands of people attended meeting at that place on that occasion.
“The next quarterly meeting was held at Jones’s Chapel, in Sussex county, on Saturday and Sunday, the 27th and 28th of July. This meeting was favored with more of the divine presence than any other that had been know before . . .
“The great revival of religion in 1776, which spread extensively through the south part of Virginia, exceeded any thing of the kind that had ever been known before in that part of the country. But the revival this year far exceeded it.
“It was thought that in the course of that summer there were so many as sixteen hundred souls converted in Sussex circuit; in Brunswick circuit about eighteen hundred; and in Amelia circuit about eight hundred. In these three circuits we had the greatest revival of religion; but in many other circuits there was a gracious work, and hundreds were brought to God in the course of that year.
“. . . the work was not confined to meetings for preaching; at prayer meetings the work prospered and many souls were born again . . . It was common to hear of souls being brought to God while at work in their houses or in their fields. It was often the case that the people in their corn-fields, white people, or black, and sometimes both together, would begin to sing, and being affected would begin to pray, and others would join with them, and they would continue their cries till some of them would find peace to their souls.”
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Related Topics: Prayer