Praying For Revival Series

As of this morning we are two weeks out from our planned Revival.

I shared last week how our expectation for God to work in our midst can only be as high as the amount of time we have been willing to give to prayer.

We may plan for a revival but only God can make revival happen.

Revival is a GIFT FROM HEAVEN. We don’t work it up. God sends it down.

Jim Cymbala ‘Revival is the saints getting back to normal’

Do you want to experience ‘God’s normal’ in your life?

Do you want to see what ‘God’s normal’ would look like in our church?

Do you want to see what ‘God’s normal’ will do to a community?

Do we need revival at Holly Brook Baptist Church?

Do we need revival in our community?

Do you need revival in your life and family?

1. How does revival happen? How did it happen in the past?

From the day of Pentecost there has not been one great spiritual awakening in any land which has not begun with prayer: no such movement has continued after such prayer meetings have declined. A.T. Pierson

Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of God’s Kingdom. If you have everything by asking and nothing without asking then I beg you to see how absolutely vital prayer is. C.H. Spurgeon

Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, and the third thing necessary especially if we have revival. Edward Payson

2. How does God promise revival?

a. People pray for it:

God has no greater controversy with His people today than this, that with boundless promises to believing prayer, there are so few who actually give themselves unto intercession. A.T. Pierson

Leonard Ravenhill ‘The church has many organizers, but few agonizers; many who pay, but few who pray; many resters, but few wrestlers; many who are enterprising, but few who are interceding… Tithes build a church, but tears will give it life. In the matter of effective praying, never have so many left so much to so few’.

I heard this week that statistics show that people who go to church have 5% lower blood pressure than those who don't. They also have a 25% less chance of dying. They also live longer than those who don’t. The average extension of life is 7 years. That means that if you come to church weekly that for that hour you sit in church you gain almost 15 hours of additional life.

I think that we could expect even greater benefit for every moment we spend on our knees adding a gain in our spiritual lives that is off the charts. It will not only add years to our life but real life to our years.

Anorexic churches: Starving and gaunt from trying to exist without prayer.

Difference between a dynamic and a typical church is found in the answer to one question: Are we a people of prayer?

Visitor to Spurgeon’s Church: While looking at a full sanctuary asked, ‘How is it that God does such wonderful things in this room?’ Taken downstairs to room underneath and found it full of people praying as service was going on upstairs.

Devil works every day to shorten our prayer lists or to at least edit them to things outside the will of God: He loves it when we are too busy to pray, or there is too much self in our prayers or we feel too defeated to pray.

Satan knows the real power of those who pray:

A young missionary named Raymond Edman staggered in from an Ecuadorian jungle, desperately ill the doctor predicted. “He’ll be dead by morning,”.

Edman’s mourned and those who knew Edman began to make arrangements for his Funeral. However, thousands of miles away in Boston, Edman’s friend, Dr. Joseph Evans, interrupted a prayer meeting, saying, “I feel we must pray for Ray Edman in Ecuador.” The group prayed and the rest is history: Raymond Edman recovered, and went on to become president of Wheaton College in Illinois and to minister for another forty years!

b. People desire it: God works in the lives of desperate people

A person may not come to church if it starts to sprinkle but they will sit through a pouring rain to watch a ball game they are interested in. They may not get up and spend time in God’s Word but they will be up at the crack of dawn to save 3 dollars on a sale item. They may not be willing to put any sacrificial amount in the offering plate but they will go into credit card debt to buy this or go there or see that. They are obviously not desperate for the things of the kingdom of God like they are for the things of this world.