Prayer for Revival in our lands and in our time!

 Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence! (Isaiah 64:1-2 ESV)

O FOR THE SPIRIT OF GRACE AND SUPPLICATION!

It is God’s will through his wonderful grace, that the prayers of his saints should be one of the great principal means of carrying on the designs of Christ’s kingdom in the world. When God has something very great to accomplish for his church, it is his will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of his people; . . . and it is revealed that, when God is about to accomplish great things for his church, he will begin by remarkably pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication. (Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts on Revival)

PRAY FOR REVIVAL

Oh! men and brethren, what would this heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would go home and pray for a revival: men whose faith is large enough, and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions that God would appear among us and do wondrous things here, as in the times of former generations. (Charles Spurgeon)

When did you last hear anyone praying for revival, praying that God might open the windows of heaven and pour out his Spirit? When did you last pray for that yourself? I suggest seriously that we are neglecting this almost entirely. We are guilty of forgetting the authority of the Holy Spirit. . . . When God sends revival he can do more in a single day than in fifty years of all our organization. That is the verdict of sheer history which emerges clearly from the long story of the Church. (Martin Lloyd-Jones)

Martin Lloyd Jones  commenting on Dr. Sprague's book, Lectures on Revival, published by Banner of Truth, wrote in the foreword:

I am profoundly convinced that the greatest need in the world today is revival in the Church of God. Yet alas! the whole idea of revival seems to have become strange to so many good Christian people... [This] is due both to a serious misunderstanding of the scriptures, and to woeful ignorance of the history of the Church...

My prayer is that as we read it and are reminded of "Our glorious God," and of His mighty deeds in times past among His people, a great sense of our own unworthiness and inadequacy, and a corresponding longing for the manifestation of his glory and His power will be created within us. His "arm is not shortened." May this book stir us all to plead with Him to make bare that arm and to stretch it forth again, that His enemies may be confounded and scattered and His people's hearts be filled with gladness and rejoicing.

POUR YOUR SPIRIT O LORD!

MOBILIZE OTHERS AS WELL TO PRAY FOR REVIVAL

These men were a centuries apart and were of the same mind about the church being fervent in prayer for revival. Will you join me in seeking to mobilize God's children to pray earnestly, fervently, and ceaselessly for revival in our lands and in our day?

PRAYER

O Lord please rend the heavens and pour the Spirit of truth and zeal among your redeemed to pray and preach Christ now than ever; to desire holiness more than worldliness; Yes and to love your Kingdom and your Son more than anything this city of vainglory can afford.

O Lord show mercy and forgive our many sins. We have abdicated our responsibility of speaking of Christ wherever and whenever you have placed us. We have not lived such godly lives as we ought. We have neither loved you with the whole our essence or as we ought, nor have we loved our neighbour as ourselves. For this we are guilty and deserve the full measure of your wrath. We deserve judgement and condemnation. But please show mercy to us for the sake of your Son our Saviour. Give us your Holy Spirit to teach us and to help us to live holy lives that we may be such instruments of righteousness as you would have us.

How long, O gracious and loving Saviour will we continue to hear falsehood and heresy, and see worldliness and wickedness being propagated as the gospel? How long, will these preachers clothed as angels of light yet they are ravenous wolves in sheepskin, continue to sell lies as truth? O Lord rend the heavens and deal with them in the same measure of their iniquity. Turn them around as you did the wicked Balaam. Cause even ants to speak to them if not a donkey, if this is your will,so that you stop them from their madness.

Please raise men who are eager to spend and be spent preaching the glorious truths of the gospel. Kindly bless such efforts with myriads of conversions. Please hearken to this call gracious Lord and give such faith that will not shrink even in the midst of woe, a faith that is tired of all these charismatic drama. Bless us with a genuine that is real, and genuine faith, such as is more precious than silver or gold that perishes.

Anoint the gospel with the same if not greater power as you did in the days of the Apostles and of Jonathan Edwards and of George Whitfield. May your Spirit give such unction to speak powerfully as Spurgeon spoke, if not more. Vanquish all sloth, please give such zeal and move in a manner that will gloriously display the power of the sin-atoning sacrifice of our resurrected Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Revive us O Lord. Cause real revival of heart O Lord God of mercy. National and continental, even universal revivals is not a big thing to ask of you O Lord... for if you did not spare your only Son, but gave Him up for us, how will you not along with Him give us all things? May the gospel triumph in Nairobi, and in Kenya, and in Africa and in Europe, in Asia, in America and in Australia and New Zealand.

In Christ’s excellent Name and for the glory of the Father.

Amen!