Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before

him. - Psalm 68:1

Jul - Sep 2020

3
Desiring Revival
Volume 6, Issue

In Genesis 3:5 Satan tempted Eve with this statement “ye shall be
as gods” and what a statement that was and Eve believed his lie. Today man is still struggling
with the certainty of uncertainty six thousand years later and we are still finding out how
much we don't know. The world has stopped and taken notice of the COVID-19 virus.
Yet in Acts 17:6, the world stopped and took notice of God’s Church in action and said
“These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also;” Where is this
same Church today? God’s desire for His Church was one of victorious conquest, storm-
ing the gates of hell and setting captives free. The world as we know it has changed due to co-
rona, but the Church still remains unchanged, powerless, groping in darkness with theory and theology.
Has anyone who attended a Church uttered in fear like Jacob exclaimed in Genesis 28:17 “How dreadful is this
place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”? We as the Church need to realize our
failure before God and man and seek the Lord that He may come once again in His reviving grace and shine upon
us. “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” - Psalm 85:6

America - A Nation Divided

Today we see a divided nation that stands before us. Divided over race, divided over politics, divided
over purity and divided over God. Yet it was not her military that made her great for Babylon had the best mili-
tary might, it was not her learning and technology that made her great for Rome has the prowess of intellectual
and technological advantages of their time that made them the masters of the world, it was
not her culture that made her great for ancient Egypt had culture and art. Today these em-
pires are looked as “has been”. Benjamin Franklin said “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and
the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the
affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable
that an empire can rise without His aid?” She was founded on the truth that “Blessed is the
nation whose God is the Lord” - Psalm 33:12. God will have the last word no matter where
we are or who we are or what we have. Will America become as “has been” and her Church
be found wanting in the eyes of God? Will the same God who judged Babylon say to us “Mene, Mene, Te-
kel, Upharsin ... Mene; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel; Thou art weighed in the
balances, and art found wanting. Peres; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to …” - Daniel 5:25-28.
Fulton Street Revival (1857-1860) - by J. Edwin Orr
Following the second great awakening, which began in 1792 just after the death of John Wesley and
continued into the turn of the century, conditions again deteriorated. This is illustrated from the
United States. The country was seriously divided over the issue of slavery, and second, people were
making money lavishly. In September 1857, a man of prayer, Jeremiah Lanphier, started a business-
men's prayer meeting in the upper room of the Dutch Reformed Church Consistory Building in Man-
hattan. In response to his advertisement, only six people out of a population of a million showed up.
But the following week there were fourteen, and then twenty-three when it was decided to meet eve-
ryday for prayer. By late winter they were filling the Dutch Reformed Church, then the Methodist
Church on John Street, then Trinity Episcopal Church on Broadway at Wall Street. In February and
March of 1858, every church and public hall in down town New York was filled. Horace Greeley, the
famous editor, sent a reporter with horse and buggy racing round the prayer meetings to see how many
men were praying. In one hour he could get to only twelve meetings, but he counted 6,100 men attending.
Then a landslide of prayer began, which overflowed to the churches in the evenings.

People began to be converted, ten thousand a week in New York City alone. The movement spread
throughout New England, the church bells bringing people to prayer at eight in the morning, twelve noon,
and six in the evening. The revival raced up the Hudson and down the Mohawk, where the Baptists, for ex-
ample, had so many people to baptize that they went down to the river, cut a big hole in the ice, and bap-
tized them in the cold water. When Baptists do that they are really on fire! When the revival reached Chi-
cago, a young shoe salesman went to the superintendent of the Plymouth Congregational Church, and
asked if he might teach Sunday School. The superintendent said, 'I am sorry, young fellow. I have sixteen
teachers too many, but I will put you on the waiting list.' The young man insisted, 'I want to do something
just now.' 'Well, start a class.' 'How do I start a class?' 'Get some boys off the street but don't bring them
here. Take them out into the country and after a month you will have control of them, so bring them in.
They will be your class.' He took them to a beach on Lake Michigan and he taught them Bible verses and
Bible games. Then he took them to the Plymouth Congregational Church. The name of that young man was
Dwight Lyman Moody, and that was the beginning of a ministry that lasted forty years.

Trinity Episcopal Church in Chicago had a hundred and twenty-one members in 1857; fourteen hundred in
1860. That was typical of the churches. More than a million people were converted to God in one year out
of a population of thirty million. Then that same revival jumped the Atlantic, appeared in Ulster, Scotland
and Wales, then England, parts of Europe, South Africa and South India anywhere there was an evangelical
cause. It sent mission pioneers to many countries. Effects were felt for forty years. Having begun in a move-
ment of prayer, it was sustained by a movement of prayer.

TEXT SERMONS - A. W. TOZER

It is a beautiful New Testament story that tells us of Lydia of Philippi, a career
woman in her own right, long before there were laws and proclamations to set
women free. A seller of purple, Lydia traveled to the market of her day, and un-
doubtedly she had found freedom and satisfaction in that era when women were
not counted at all. But Lydia heard the Apostle Paul tell of the death and resurrec-
tion of Jesus Christ, and the Lord opened her heart. In Christ she found an eternal
answer, which career and position had never been able to give. Now, about condi-
tions today. Our society has set women free to be just as bad as the men-and just
as miserable. We have set them free to swear and curse and to set their own mor-
als. Politically, women are now free to vote just as blindly as the men do. But I hope
women today will find what Lydia found: that their careers will lack the word
"eternal" until they find their answer in the eternal Christ, our Lord Jesus!

The Bible record is very plain when it assures us that John the Baptist was a man sent from God. Our genera-
tion would probably decide that such a man ought to be downright proud of the fact that God had sent him.
We would urge him to write a book. Seminary leaders would line up to schedule him as guest lecturer. Actu-
ally, John the Baptist would never have fit into the contemporary religious scene in our day - never! He did not
keep his suit pressed. He was not careful about choosing words that would not offend. He did not quote
beautiful passages from the poets. The doctors of psychiatry would have quick advice for him: "John, you
really need to get adjusted to the times and to society!" "Adjust"-that is a modern word I have come to hate.
It was never an expression used to speak about human beings until we forgot that man has a soul. Now we
have weird guys with mental "screwdrivers" adjusting one person a little tighter and another a little looser.
John needed no adjustment. He gladly stepped down, so that all eyes could turn to Jesus, the Lamb of God!
 LAST HOURS ON EARTH OF THE NOTED FRENCH INFIDEL
“... let no man deceive his own
VOLTAIRE soul. ‘It is diligently to be noted,
When Voltaire felt the stroke that he realized must the faith which bringeth not
terminate in death, he was overpowered with remorse. forth repentance, and love, and
He at once sent for the priest, and wanted to be all good works, is not that right
“reconciled with the church.” His infidel flatterers has-
tened to his chamber to prevent his recantation; but it
living faith, but a dead and devilish
was only to witness his ignominy and their own. He cursed one. For, even the devils believe
them to their faces; and, as his distress was increased by that Christ was born of a virgin:
their presence, he repeatedly and loudly exclaimed: that he wrought all kinds of mira-
“Begone! It is you that have brought me to my present con- cles, declaring himself very God:
dition. Leave me, I say; begone! What a wretched glory is this that, for our sakes, he suffered a
which you have produced to me!” Hoping to allay his anguish by a written
recantation, he had it prepared, signed it, and saw it witnessed. But it was all
most painful death, to redeem us
unavailing. For two months he was tortured with such an agony as led him at from death everlasting; that he rose
times to gnash his teeth in impotent rage against God and man. At other again the third day: that he ascended
times, in plaintive accents, he would plead, “O Christ! O Lord Jesus!” Then, into heaven, and sitteth at the right
turning his face, he would cry out, “I must die - abandoned of God and of hand of the Father and at the end of
men!” the world shall come again to judge
As his end drew near, his condition became so frightful that his infidel associ-
both the quick and dead. These arti-
ates were afraid to approach his bedside. Still they guarded the door, that cles of our faith the devils believe, and
others may not know how awfully an infidel was compelled to die. Even his so they believe all that is written in the
nurse repeatedly said, “For all the wealth of Europe she would never see an- Old and New Testament. And yet for
other infidel die.” It was a scene of horror that lies beyond all exaggeration. all this faith, they be but devils. They
Such is the well-attested end of the one who had a natural sovereignty of remain still in their damnable estate
intellect, excellent education, great wealth, and much earthly honor. We may
all well exclaim with Balsam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let
lacking the very true Christian faith.’”
my last end be like his. - The Contrast Between Infidelity and Christianity - John Wesley

WHAT IS PRAYER - WATCH MAN N EE Continued from the previous issue ...
The first question we will ask is: why should we pray? What is the use of praying? God is omniscient and
omnipotent. Why would He work only after we pray? Since He knows everything, why do we have to tell
Him anything (Phil. 4:6)? Since He is almighty, why would He not do it by Himself? Why does He need us to
pray? Why is it that only those who pray receive, and those who seek find, and those who knock enter
(Matt. 7:7)? Why does God say, "You do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2)? After asking the
above questions, we also want to ask: is prayer contrary to the will of God? What is the relationship be-
tween prayer and justice?

We know that God does not do anything that is contrary to His will. If it is His will to open the door, why
does He have to wait until we knock before He will open? Why would He not open the door for us according to His will, without us knock-
ing? He knows everything. If He knows that we need an open door, why will He wait until we knock before He opens? If the door should be
open, if it is God's will that there is the open door, and if God knows that we need to have the door open, why does He not just open the
door? Why do we have to knock? What convenience does it give to God for us to knock on the door? We also have to ask: Since God's will
is to open the door, and since it is His will to have the door open, will God not open the door if we do not knock? Will He allow His will
and His justice to be delayed and not accomplished just for the sake of waiting for our prayer? Will He allow His will of opening the door
to be limited by our not knocking on the door? If this is so, then God's will is restricted by us! Is God really omnipotent? If He is, why can
He not open the door independent of us? Why must He wait for us to knock before He will open the door? Will God really accomplish
His will? If He will, why does the opening of the door (His will) have to be controlled by our knocking on the door (prayer)?

After we have asked these questions, we will see that prayer is indeed a great mystery. Here we can see a principle of God's work.
This principle is that God's people have to pray before God will rise up to work. God's will is accomplished by the prayer of those who
belong to Him. The believers' prayers accomplish God's will. God will not accomplish His will alone; He will only accomplish His will
when His people are sympathetic with Him in prayer.

If this is the case, prayer is nothing but the believers' act of working together with God. Prayer is the union of the believers' will
with God's will. The prayer of the believers on earth is an utterance of God's will in heaven. Prayer is not an utterance of our own
wishes, a plea for God to yield to our cry and fulfill our own wishes. Prayer is not to compel God to change His will by force or
ask Him to do what He does not want to do. Prayer is the believers' utterance of God's will out of their own mouth; it is the
believers' request before God that He accomplish His own will.
To be continued ...
 Praying Pulpit Begets a Praying Pew - E. M. Bounds
Where are the Christly leaders who can teach the modern saints how to pray and put
them at it? Do we know we are raising up a prayerless set of saints? Where are the apostolic leaders
who can put God's people to praying? Let them come to the front and do the work, and it will be
the greatest work which can be done. An increase of educational facilities and a great increase of
money force will be the direst curse to religion if they are not sanctified by more and better praying
than we are doing. More praying will not come as a matter of course. The campaign for the twenti-
eth or thirtieth century fund will not help our praying but hinder if we are not careful. Nothing but
a specific effort from a praying leadership will avail. The chief ones must lead in the apostolic effort
to radicate the vital importance and fact of prayer in the heart and life of the Church. None but praying leaders can have pray-
ing followers. Praying apostles will beget praying saints. A praying pulpit will beget praying pews. We do greatly need some body
who can set the saints to this business of praying. We are not a generation of praying saints. Non-praying saints are a beggarly
gang of saints who have neither the ardor nor the beauty nor the power of saints. Who will restore this breach? The greatest will
he be of reformers and apostles, who can set the Church to praying.

W. P. Nicholson - The Irish Whitefield by Leonard Ravenhill

Very few Christians have known the craft of evangelism better than Nicholson. He
prayed, he studied, he wept, he warned, he pleaded, he urged, he coaxed, he threatened. He
would be "all things to all men that he might by all means save some." When he entered a
pulpit, he did so with "soul-sweat." It would be no exaggeration to say "the gates of hell
could not prevail against him."

One instance of his preaching can be seen the time he gave a great message on John 3:16. At the invitation to
accept God's love, there was not a move. W.P.'s guns were loaded the next night with a fearful message on hell. No
jokes that night! No "by your leave's"! No sprinkling theological rose water! No short cuts! I have heard Christian
men say they would go 100 miles to hear W.P. deliver his soul on the solemn subject of hell.

Billy was all steamed up because men dared slight God's love. He preached and sweat; the crowd listened and
sweat. W.P. cried in the name of the Lord; the crowd cried in the fear of the Lord. After the message, W.P. raised
his foot and with a solemn warning "kicked" the whole crowd into hell. "You would not take God's forgiveness last
night? Then take His judgment tonight!" There was no benediction, and the solemn, stunned souls sat. Billy was
half way down the street before they were aware that he had gone. For his disgusting pulpit procedure, my friend
P.C. stormed at Billy and warned, "The folk will not come to hear you any more."

"If hell is half as bad as I painted it tonight, then by Sunday night they will be glad to get out of it," replied Billy.

How right he was! At the altar Sunday night there was a shoal of souls. Conviction had so tormented them for two
days that they were ready to surrender.

Fullness of the Spirit and Revival - John R. Rice

The power of God is what we need. You cannot explain Billy Sunday with education. You
cannot explain Billy Sunday with brains. His sermons were good sermons. Most of them he did not
write himself but hired a man to work with him getting material. Then this man helped write out the
sermons and Billy Sunday memorized most of them. But even at that, they were not profound. It was
not Billy Sunday's brains. It was not education. He had a good personality, but it was not personality.
desiringrevival.org

The truth of the matter is, there came a time that when Billy Sunday preached he did not have the
crowds, he did not have the power, he did not have people saved. I knew him in those
days. What I am saying is that the secret of the great revivals always has been one thing,
a supernatural enduement of the power of God on His people. God's people had the
power of the Holy Spirit. They were filled with the Holy Ghost. That is the point. I say,
that is God's secret for revival.