Revival of Prayer
Category: Prayer
Key Passage: Psalm 91
Speaker: Paul Chisgar
Date: June 7, 2024
I imagine everybody seeing the storm come through, and lights are out all around the church from what I understand. Praise the Lord, lights are still on here. We have had so many comments on that, and praise the Lord for it. God has been good; He is good. We are just excited about that. I got a blessing this morning. Brother Casey, John Casey, gave us a testimony. It was a blessing. I am looking forward to Brother Kevin Cooper coming tonight to give us a testimony. I am excited about hearing from my people and what God is doing in their lives, and taking a few minutes to tell us and greet us. Looking forward to Brother Kevin. Brother Kevin, why don’t you come on up.
He is going to preach for us. We will be done about 7:30 when he gets done. I am excited and looking forward to it. Brother Kevin is going to give us a testimony. Let us give him a warm Rutherford County Baptist welcome. Amen. I wrote some notes and left them at home, so I jotted them down real quick while I was sitting back there. I appreciate Brother John this morning. I paid him to say all the good things about me he did this morning. So I appreciate that, Brother John. I appreciate your testimony and your family, and you guys are a huge blessing to us too. I appreciate you guys.
You know, at the very beginning of all this mess, the coronavirus, and I believe I talked to my brother over here about it, Psalm 91—that whole chapter came to me. The Lord just gave it to me.
You know, it says, “I will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the pestilence.” And then at the end of that, in verse 14, it says, “Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high.” And this is what got me: “Because he hath known my name.” Isn’t it amazing that whatever is out there—this pestilence and the world’s coming to an end, we can’t have service, and everything seems to be negative—He knows our name?
I have stuck to that verse through this whole thing. I just keep remembering that. What a blessing. Anything we go through, Kevin, I know your name. Isn’t that amazing? The God of this universe knows our name. I have stuck to that, Psalm 91, and I have stuck to that verse pretty close to this whole thing.
Another idea, too, another thing that the Lord kind of showed me: Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” You know, people are working from home and probably not working as much, and we are around each other a lot. Teresa and I haven’t killed each other yet, but we’ve come close, and she’s come close to killing me several times. But maybe the Lord just wanted us to slow us down for a while. You know, I think that was the case in my family. He might have just wanted to slow us down. Say, “Hey, just be still. Just know that I know your name. Just be still. Just trust in me. I’ve got you.”
That has been a huge comfort to me. I really don’t worry about all this mess anyway, but it has been a comfort to me just to think of those things. In today’s world, He knows my name. He’s got me. Just slow down, trusting Him. So that’s given me a lot of comfort during this time, a lot of peace. I have dwelt on those verses.
Then you hear people saying, “Well, this is a conspiracy theory, and the leaders are out to get us,” and all this, you know, and the whoever, the whoever. You know, maybe so. I don’t know. But Psalm chapter 2, I believe the pastor preached out of this chapter the other night. Psalm chapter 2 gives us a warning about all that, too.
It talks about the leaders and how the leaders better trust in Him and come to a realization that He is in control of everything. And even that has given me peace. So it’s just amazing how if you think about what God’s word says, how it just applies to every little thing. You can get so much out of it through any situation we are going through, and that has been a huge blessing.
In verse 12 out of that, Psalm 2, verse 12: “Blessed are they that put their trust in Him.” I mean, how many little nuggets are in these little things that God’s word puts there? It may not affect Brother John the way it affects me. You have to seek that out yourself to see that. But that’s just some of the things that the Lord has put on my heart and given me comfort with. The questions and what is going on—He has answered that clearly, to me anyway. That’s the testimony to me, and I praise God for that. So thank you for your time. Thank you, brother. Amen.
Brother Anthony said he told her everything she knows about getting up on those high notes and everything. They did a great job. I appreciate their ministry and music. I am glad to see folks. I wish—it is not fair. You can see us on YouTube, but we cannot see you. I am sure it is coming one day where we can do them both. But I am glad to see the ones I can. Amen. It is just a blessing to serve the Lord, isn’t it? It really is.
I just got a little blessing. I was in my office when the storm came through this afternoon and just felt safe in that little office. Not that the office is so good—though it is, praise the Lord for it—but just that we are safe in the Lord. What a blessing to be able to serve the God that is over everything, and you are in His hand. You are safe in His hand. Praise the Lord for that.
Turn your Bibles to Psalms 44. Psalms, chapter number 44, and it is going to be different, not a typical type message. Of course, I do not know if I ever preach a typical type message. I am good at making up words while I preach. We are pretty similar to have our own vocabulary here at Rutherford County Baptist Church. Every once in a while, I am good at taking a word and bringing them together and trying to make my own word. My wife and my kids, when they lived at home, they were good about letting me know those things. “Dad, you know what you said tonight?” I said, “No, I do not know. I do not know if I want to know what I said tonight.” But every once in a while, it does me good that I will make up a word, of course, by accident. And every once in a while, I will hear Brother Anthony use one of those. I thought, “Praise the Lord, I got a convert there.”
Hopefully, we will not do too much of that tonight. But it will be different. I do not even know if you call it a message, per se. We are going to just study a little bit of revival. Brother Humphreys, when he taught Sunday school lesson online one of the Sundays, he did a great job talking about revival in America. Great subject, great subject. You ought to go back and watch the video, by the way. It is a wonderful one.
But we are going to talk about—the title will be “Revival of Prayer.” Someone said prayer is not a revival result; prayer is a revival. But tonight we are going to talk about what is typically called the Fulton Street Revival, or some will call it the Layman’s Prayer Revival. We are just going to kind of use a couple of verses to spring board into it and just a little bit of history. I just felt like the Lord would have us talk about some major revivals. We are really going to talk about one tonight that happened in America years ago. By the way, America was birthed out of revival if you do your study and find out when some of the great national revivals were, and after that, the founding of our country and so on, the beginning of it. America is really just birthed out of revival, and praise the Lord for that. Brother Humphreys did a great job talking about how many of these founding fathers really had seen revival, and right after that, God used and depended on a Constitution and so on. By the way, praise the Lord for a Constitution in times like this. I am so thankful for that.
Praise the Lord for Psalms 44. We are just going to read a verse there and then jump over to Psalm 78. Psalm 44, verse number one. Would you please stand if you would, if you are able to, wherever you are, in respect to the Word of God. Psalms, verse number 44, verse number one: “We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days in the times of old.” By the way, dads, that is a good thing to note right there: our fathers—that could be, as far as in a nation, it could be individual families—but they told them about what God had done in the past.
Look over in Psalm 78. Psalm chapter number 78. Much of this chapter is about what God did leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and so on and through the wilderness. It starts off this chapter, Psalm 78, verse number one: “Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old: which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done.”
Now, we are going to take just one of those wonderful works: a revival in America. Just focus on it a little bit tonight. I am just praying the Lord to use this. I do not know exactly why God wants us to do it, but I believe He wants us to cover it. You pray that God will use it in your heart, and I will do the same. Would you do that as we pray together?
Father Lord, we come to You. Lord, would You take this thing that stirs my heart sometimes? Lord, just start a revival. I pray You to stir our hearts. Lord, give us a vision of what You would like to do in us and through us. Father, Lord, we want to just kind of—we will play church if You would. Lord, we want You to work in our hearts tonight, please. Lord, thank You for what You did in this revival. Would You give us a vision of what You would like to do today? Father, we thank You for what You do. Lord, we ask for these things in the name of Jesus. We pray. Amen.
Thank you so much for standing. This revival really started with one man, and he was in lower Manhattan in New York. He was just a layman; he was not a pastor or a preacher, per se. It was a dark time in American history. By the way, often revival comes in dark times.
The political arena was just—you think it is divided today in our political arena, but can you imagine the political arena right leading up to the Civil War? I am talking about when our country shed brothers shedding blood. The political arena was leading up to that, and we do not have time to get into it, but just amazing. Blood was even shed before the Civil War leading up to it, and politicians were just ready to shed the blood of each other. It was very, very unrestful leading up to the—right before the Civil War, this happened in 1857.
It was a time when it had been 50 years since we had a national revival, and it had worn off very much. There was a lot of pollution. It was a little after they took Mormons—Joseph Smith just a little while after he had found those golden scrolls, and only he could read them with his golden glasses, you know, and he was the only one. He had printed that out, the Book of Mormon. He was starting to become known, and the polygamy. Can you imagine just the average man thinking, “Wow, so this is religion?” And that was Ellen G. White that really started and got the Seventh-day Adventists and her 2,000-plus visions that Jesus Christ came to her Himself and gave her. And that had a lot. I am just talking about how the religious arena was just a lot of doubt, and understandably so with these things being promoted. And it was a time of unrest.
It was really kind of taken over in a lot of ways in America. Down south, cotton was king, and the wealthy plantation owners, and just the wealth and the luxury. Factories were becoming a great thing in a lot of the northern cities, and immigration was just coming in by the groves, and they were able to man the factories. Trains were becoming very popular, and we were just becoming an industrial nation and very wealthy, but it led really to the Panic of 1857, a panic of fear. Speculation—everything was just doing so good, but a fear that we had kind of speculated too high. In fact, in 1857, it did bottom out. In New York, they say 30,000 people ended up on the streets—New York City, I am talking about. And at just a time of unrest.
Yet in the midst of this, in this political arena, where eventually it did lead to just great bloodshed—one of the saddest moments of American history is when Americans are killing Americans—such a sad time. And leading up to that, that is what was going on in politics. But in the midst of all this, God brought a great revival. They say from this revival, one million people were saved. Now, that would be great in our day and time, but you realize that at that time, there were approximately—you will get different numbers—but approximately 29 million people in America. Now, if that would be today with our population, that would be about 11 million saved. And I am talking about in the midst of this time of darkness and fighting and bickering, and yet a million people and souls saved. Today that would be 11 million—just amazing.
I want to just talk with you a little bit, kind of give you a little history of this thing. It started at an old Dutch church on the corner of Fulton Street and William Street. It was an old church, 88 years old. It was dead and dying. Many were talking about closing the church. Nothing was really happening there; it was dying out. It became, over the years, a bad part, bad neighborhood, bad part of town. So often that happens to churches. Some said, “Well, we just need to close the doors of the church.” By the way, I praise the Lord for a pastor here recently I heard, and that kind of happened to his church. He said, “I just believe God needs a gospel station where we are at.” I rejoice in men that are like that, but of course, God leads everyone different ways. But many talked of closing it. The trustees said, “Well, let us try one more thing before we close the doors.”
Very unique, very unusual. They hired a lay missionary to conduct a visitation program. They were just going to hire a man, and his job was to go around the city, Manhattan, and witness, door to door if he could, or just wherever, a lot of businesses. That was his job: just to go witness. They hired a 49-year-old missionary. Just a layman he was. Jeremiah Lamphere was his name. By the way, it reminds me of Dr. Lee Robertson for years. He had hired people—hired me. My dad was one for about a year and a half for Lee Robertson—but all that, just hired him to go door-knocking 40 hours or plus a week and to get people down to the house. Praise the Lord for that, by the way. This church said, “Well, if I have enough funds, we will hire him.” They decided to pay him a salary a little less than a thousand dollars a year. He quit his job. He said, “All right, I will do it.”
The 49-year-old Jeremiah Lamphere, he just started, just trying to talk to anybody, everybody who would listen. I mean, that was his job: go witnessing and telling people about Jesus, trying to get people saved. Can I be honest with you? He was very discouraged at first. He would go out and try all day long. He did his job. He would try to witness and talk to people everywhere and trying to get people saved. He said this: He would come back discouraged. This is a quote here: “I would spread out my sorrows before the Lord.” It was not working like they wanted.
Yet, as he was out and about, he would notice a lot of business there in Manhattan, the financial hub of America, even at that time, and all the business. But he would notice from noon to one, everybody was on lunch break. People just scattered here and there, eating their lunch and whatnot and taking a break. It seemed the Lord gave him an idea, but, you know, he is like me and you—me for sure—kind of prod him to do something, but he was afraid of it. He just kept pulling back, and it just took a while for the Lord to convince him. The Lord kept impressing on him to have just a prayer meeting at lunchtime. He thought, “Well, I do not know about that.”
But finally, finally, he listened to the leading of God, and he set himself that way, and he determined to do it, and he put all his effort into it. He had 20,000 flyers printed about the revival, telling people, “Hey, lunchtime, and we are going to start, and we are going to have a prayer meeting, 12 to 1. Just come to the old Dutch church and just pray.” A prayer meeting. And 20,000—it took him three months. He passed them out. I am talking about the man was busy. Three months he was out and about, wearing his shoes out, if you will, and inviting people to come to that prayer meeting. 20,000 flyers he passed out, I understand. He passed them out himself.
Finally, the time came—it was September 23rd, 1857. He was ready in his spot. No one was there at the starting time. Can you imagine three months of your life, 20,000 flyers? We started at church, and I believe we knocked on about 4,000 doors at the very beginning. You are giving everything you have towards something, you know. Can you imagine that first prayer meeting? Noon came. Do you know how many people showed up? Just one: Jeremiah Lamphere.
He sat and he prayed, and he waited. He sat and he prayed. Around 12:30, halfway through it, five men came in. It just started with six, him being the sixth. Six men. It did not start huge, but here is the key: six men met, and they met to pray. They were very wise in this prayer meeting. They eventually—we will talk about the made-up rules and the rules, often the main purpose. They did not want people coming in and talking. I have been guilty of it: talk for 45 minutes and pray for five in a prayer meeting, you know. They wanted to make sure we were coming together to pray. But six men, that is all. But six men came to pray. And praying when God’s people pray, oh, Satan trembles. Heaven pays attention. Prayer moves the arm that moves the world. Just six men.
Nothing spectacular that many would record about that first meeting. It was a Wednesday. The placard out front, the sign out front, read: “Prayer meeting from 12 to 1 o’clock. Stop 5, 10, or 20 minutes, or the whole hour, as your time admits.” Six men met, but they prayed.
The next Wednesday: 20. Nothing outstanding. Well, it is outstanding because 20 men met and prayed. Friend, if anything, I hope the Lord will convince you tonight just of the power of prayer when God’s people are praying. Friend, that moves the world. Twenty people that next second Wednesday. The next Wednesday: 40. Someone said, “Well, that is no big deal. Just 40 people.” I mean, that is not that big of a deal at all. We were in Walmart last week. They had the counter out. There is another town, and the guy was out there counting how many people were coming in and out. We were leaving. I was joking with him. I said, “Hey, how many people are in there?” He said, “600 some people.” I cannot remember six in Walmart. They have 600. There were only 40 people in that prayer meeting. But, friend, that was 40 people that were praying, praying.
If you get God’s people sincerely, honestly seeking the face of God Almighty, there is power when God’s people pray. Forty people. The fourth meeting, they made a decision. They decided to make the prayer meeting a daily thing. Up to that point, just every Wednesday: “Hey, let us just take our lunch breaks and let us pray.” That was the decision. So they began a daily prayer meeting, a layman doing this, leading it.
Wednesday, October 14th—now, I remember it started September 23rd—October 14th, Wednesday, the stock market crashed. It was the worst crash the stock market had up to that point. By the way, often God moves to get people’s attention. Poor—when that Wednesday, the stock market just crashed—God’s hand began to move on that prayer meeting in obvious ways. I beg to differ that He was already moving His hand in that prayer meeting, but it became obvious to others then. And boy, the stock market crashing, and in this prayer meeting, things began to happen, and in no time, they had over 3,000. Three thousand. And the thing that is great is they were meeting together to pray. They did not have great discussions and all. They tried to make sure we are coming together, and we are going to pray. Three thousand. Can you imagine God’s people coming together? I am for all the other things. We have all these other things in our church, but they came together to pray. Three thousand from then on out.
They made rules up. They posted the rules on signs. Let me read a couple of them: “Brothers are earnestly requested to adhere to the five-minute rule. Prayers and exhortation not to exceed five minutes in order to give all an opportunity.” They just—they tried to keep this thing—people pray. Sometimes we are doing so many other things when we pray, and they just tried to seek, “Let us just pray.”
Within six months, 10,000 businessmen knelt in prayer in New York City. It is interesting. A lot of this—I have a book I have about revival, and I have sold different angles. In one angle, it was a lady, and she said for a long time it was just men. But she said she read an account where finally ladies started coming, and many would say it was nice to have some ladies in the prayer meeting because they softened the tone of everything, and they liked that. Ladies began to join in the prayer meeting.
By January—and I remember it started September 23rd, 1857—by January of 1858, 25 other locations in New York City were having prayer meetings at lunch. In January, that same January, newspapers began to cover the prayer meetings. Often their title—and this is how you can find out a lot of information about the revival—but often the title, the headlines, would be “The Progress of the Revival.” It would be wonderful for papers to take notes. We need to start putting in our newspapers things about the revival. What happened in America in the early days?
From those papers, let me give you a couple of individual cases from this revival. I do not know what all God will do in your heart through all this, but would you ask Him to speak to you? Maybe He is leading you to something specific to you. Let me read some of these. This is one account it is in the paper: A man came wandering into the meeting that was going on. His intent after the meeting was to murder a woman and then commit suicide.
By the way, you realize that the need is great in our day and time for God’s people to pray. You just heard yesterday someone called—a teenage boy used to come to a church—committed suicide. By the way, what a blessing. I have not seen him in years, years. I could not remember until they sent me a picture of it, but what a blessing. We were able to go through our old records and find out that he had accepted Jesus Christ as Savior in the brief time he was here at church back in 2011. I am praising God for that. But I am just saying a little bit. This man came in, and he was intending to murder a lady and then commit suicide. And yet, this prayer—when God’s people praying, when someone gave an urging speech, they say, on the duty of repentance—and he said, “Oh, what shall I do to be saved?” Another man stood and asked him to sing, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.” They said eventually both men, the one that asked for the song and the man that was going to get—they are both getting saved. There is just unusual God moving, God working.
Another account the paper gives: A preacher stood to pray for the son of another preacher, his preacher friend’s son. He stood to pray for his preacher friend’s son, and as he was praying, his son—he did not know it—but his son was way back at the prayer meeting. His son heard his dad pray for his friend, the preacher’s son, and he got into conviction. His son did not get saved himself. I am just talking about God moving, God working.
A prize fighter, his nickname was Awful Gardner, got saved in one of the meetings. They say he went back to visit his old friends at Sing Sing Prison. They gave testimony of his salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, and many of them were saved. Jeremy Colley, who was a noted river thief, was saved, and after his salvation, he started the Water Street Mission.
By the summer of 1858, news had spread across the ocean. August 2nd, two preachers visited from Ireland. They asked—in the prayer meeting, excuse me—they asked in the prayer meeting for prayer for their churches to be given, and God really spread the revival across the ocean. I will have to read for you an eyewitness account published in 1858. This is what—just some details about it.
They said, “We take our seats with a few minutes”—excuse me—“we take our seat with a few at ten till twelve. At five till, it fills rapidly. At two till, leaders enter and sit behind the pulpit.” By the way, if you read much about the revival, you will know they are just second on time about it. They are just very timely revival, very interesting, different than some other revivals. But boy, they just kept the clock on everything. At twelve to the second, the leaders arise and read two or three verses of a hymn. All sing with heart and voice. Leaders read brief portions of the Bible. Leaders, prayers—brief and pointed prayers. Prayer requests have been passed up in sealed envelopes. “This meeting,” this is a quote, “this meeting is now open for prayer. Brothers from a distance are specially invited to take part. All will observe the rules.” Just to pray—me? Just God’s people pray.
But it is not just about it. When God’s people pray, that is what shakes heaven. If you hear, God responds when God’s people pray. I say at noon you could hear the church bells ringing all across New York. It was a call to God’s people praying. It said all across New York, people would say, “I do not eat my lunch at lunchtime anymore. I try to grab a little bite before or after, but I reserve lunchtime for prayer.” If you get God’s people not to eat and pray, there is something going on—just a revival of prayer.
It spread to Philadelphia. One of the original six men was from Philadelphia. The Philadelphia prayer meeting started with 40. They had to move, and still they had about 60. Suddenly, March 8th, 1858, they had 300. Wednesday, March 10th, 2,500. And after that, they said they had no less than 3,000. May they had to set up a tent. I am talking about just God’s people praying. They say in Philadelphia, they had 10,000 saved in 1858.
Boston: Charles Finney was his time. By the way, I would encourage you to read Charles Finney in his book on revivals. God used him in such a great way. Charles Finney was preaching—over 5,000 conversions by the end of March. In Massachusetts, at least 150 towns moved by revival.
Let me read for you some headlines of some papers, just the headlines, not the details—the headlines, newspapers reporting on revival: New Haven, Connecticut: “City’s biggest churches”—excuse me—“City’s biggest church packed twice daily for prayer.” Bethel, Connecticut: “Business shuts down for an hour each day. Everybody prays.” Albany, New York: “State legislators get down on knees.” Washington, D.C.: “Five prayer meetings go around the clock.” These are headlines. Folks just came from prayer.
Chicago: I read a little bit more than the headlines. “So far as the effects of the present religious movement are concerned, they are apparent to all. They are to be seen in every walk of life, to be felt in every phase of society. The merchant, the farmer, the mechanic—all who have been within their influence have been incited to better things, to a more orderly and honest way of life. All have been more or less influenced by this excitement.” That is paper print—these things.
It was a revival of prayer. Oh, started by prayer, led by prayer, empowered by prayer. Some—some will say the Civil War stopped the revival, kind of led to the end of it. Some will say it went into the Civil War. The Confederates—many will brag and say there were 150,000 Confederate soldiers saved during the Civil War. Many would say, by the way, that is about a third of the Confederate soldiers saved. Someone said Stonewall Jackson would invite evangelists into his ranks to have revival services to get his soldiers saved. So maybe it did continue into the Civil War.
Let me just talk a little bit more about the results of the revival. On the high day of the revival, they say more than 50,000 were saved per week. A million converts, most agree, to the biggest—and it was not just one denomination. Of course, back in the day, many were very conservative compared to today, for sure. But the biggest growth in churches came to the Methodist and the Baptist churches. Really, when the Sunday School movement began to take off in America, so many after this revival said, “Well, we do not want to get society down as low as it was. And so we need to educate our children in the things of God.” Sunday school was around, but really it was promoted and really became a big deal in America. The Sunday school movement that we have practiced today grew greatly after this revival.
The mission movement was spun out of this. How many remember back in the day that a lot of the old Baptist churches, they had a Training Union? Anybody remember Training Union? Brother Chip, Miss Tammy? Anybody else? Training Union used to have it often Sunday night before service. It was begun really out of this revival here. Fannie Cross, we talked about this morning, she was greatly influenced by this revival. Just so many things we could say—the results of God working in this revival. One man but praying.
It is a unique move of just a layman, Jeremiah Lamphere. He said this later on, and I quote this part: “The subject was laid upon my heart and was a matter of constant consideration for some time. At last I resolved to give myself to the work.” Is God leading you to a work? This great revival and this one man—the Holy Spirit letting—is He putting something on your mind? He resisted out of fear and did not want to do anything for a while. I do not know. Maybe for you, it is a neighbor to get reached. But is the Holy Spirit leading you to do something?
Can I ask you this: Would you determine to work on your prayer life? Imagine if God’s people were known as people of prayer. A pleasant memory of mine—I just love the fall of it years ago. We had a men’s spiritual warfare retreat years ago. I do not know—did any of my brothers, John, Kevin, any? It was back in the day. We had it years ago. Went over to Center Hill Lake. We rented the big three-story cabin, big old cabin. I was amazed. One of our men, he was up on the third floor, and not a big fellow—I will not mention his name—but he was on the third floor, and he was snoring so loud I could hear him from the basement where the men were sleeping. You could hear him snore from the bottom floor, and he was on the third floor. But God bless that retreat there. It was a short trip, I think, Friday night, and then Saturday. We got back Saturday afternoon, if I remember right.
But Saturday morning, we had challenged them in. That was going to be the time for them to get along with God. We had talked about it, whatnot. I remember I went out that Saturday morning in that time slot. It is beautiful over there by Cedar Hill Lake. I went out kind of behind the cabin. There is a trail there. I walked down that trail; there is a cliff, beautiful. There is a man out there praying already. So I thought, “Well, I have seen a trail over here.” So I went down this trail over here, just trying to get alone somewhere in the woods. There is another man over there praying. Oh, yeah. So there is a dead-end road over there. So I went down the dead-end road. There is a man out there praying. Now, there is another road over there, one over there. I walked down there; another man over there praying. Surely there has to be a spot. It seemed like I went all over those woods; everywhere I went, there is a man out there praying. Oh, it was a blessed sight—God’s people praying. Can you imagine if we had more of that across America? Just God’s people, just men and women of—
Spurgeon said, “Prayer moves the arm that moves the world.” Orator—this is—listen to this. He said, “It was a master stroke of the devil when he got the church generally to lay aside the mighty weapon of prayer.” Orators will talk about how we work, work, work, or we do not pray, pray, pray. I am just trying to encourage this prayer. Can I say this? Man, when you have answered your prayer, He will do something for you. Man, it will put some spring in your step and fill your gas, take up spirits, just when you know God of heaven did something, He answered your prayer. When is the last time we have had—me—when is the last time? Men and ladies of prayer. What a great revival! How did it start? Just prayer.
Oh, but friend, when God’s people pray, it just seems like it would be a great time when everything is going on in America for God’s people just to say, “Hey, let us get back to prayer.” Would you bow your heads wherever you are? Would you bow your heads? Just spend a little time right there with the Lord, wherever you may be. Would you kind of just get alone with the Lord? Maybe you would say, “Lord, would You teach me to pray? I want to grow in my prayer time.” The Lord spoke to my heart. I want to grow. Lord, would You grow me? Would You grow me in my prayer time? The disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” That is my prayer tonight: Lord, would You teach me to pray? If you are not—God spoke to my heart—would you just let me know wherever you are just now? I want to grow up. Let us sing a prayer. God bless you. God bless you. Me too. Me too. Me too.
Would you do this as the Lord leads you individually? Maybe the Lord would lead you to say, “Lord, I’m going to ask, and I’m asking for at least one answer to prayer this week.” It may not be big as someone says, but it will be big when God answers your prayer. God, can I just say You do something this week? Lord, would You let me see at least one answer to prayer this week? Maybe the Lord would lead you that way. If you say, “Preacher, I really believe God—not you, but God—is leading me to do that,” maybe you slip your hand up wherever you are. We will be praying. Lord, would You give me at least one answer to prayer this week? God bless you. God bless you. That is special. He is able. Oh, John Rice used to say a normal, healthy Christian gets at least weekly answers to prayer.
Let us pray. We do not have that many here tonight, so let us just use the altar if you would like to. If you would like to kneel in your seat, you are fine to do that. But wherever you are, would you just kind of make an altar where you are? Would you do that? And let us go to the Lord. Father, thank You for this great example of Your moving. It would be such a blessing to see a move in our church, in my life, and our lives, our country.
Father, Lord, would You give us the discernment of Your hand? Would You make clear Your leading? Father, it would be such a blessing and see a great number of folks saved and lives changed because of Your hand moving. Lord, help us to get back to prayer. Help me to get back to it, Lord. Bless our people during this invitation, Father, wherever they may be. Well, we thank You for what You do in Jesus’ name. We pray. Amen.
So glad you are here tonight. Isn’t it just special to hear what God has done and what He is capable of doing? I love to read about it; it encourages me. I hope it does the same for you. It encourages me. Your prayer life—it has its peaks and its valleys. Can I encourage you just to stay after it? Sometimes just something little—God is just kind of—I need to get back, need to work in my prayer life. And it is paramount—prayer life. Let us keep after it. Would you do so? Glad you are here tonight. Good to see everybody. What a blessing.
You said, “Well, as far as in-house tonight, we do not have that many here tonight.” Had more than last Sunday night, amen. And we are glad we are getting back to it. I understand with the storm that everybody cannot come. I understand that. I am just glad we are able to get back to it, looking forward to getting closer and closer to be—to get back to normal, if you will. Praise God you are here tonight. What a blessing. Everybody, we are glad to have you here, and what a blessing that is.
I tell you what, Brother Caleb—Brother Caleb is about to graduate? About—when is the day to graduate? Friday. Friday, Caleb is graduating from Pensacola Christian College, software programmer, software engineer. And that is exciting. He is going to get a job here close by so he can make sure he can stay at the Rutherford County Baptist Church. I am teasing with him. He is looking. You would be praying for God’s leadership on the old path and just the right place. And praise the Lord for Brother Caleb. Would you dismiss us in a word of prayer, please?
Original File: Revival of Prayer - Pastor Paul Chisgar 5320 PM