Burden for revival and a call to prayer

In a book titled The Turn of the Tide, Vernon Higham wrote that once we have faced the potential of revival nothing else will do.  

He added, "His touch alone will suffice.  We have no option in the matter.  Only revival will meet our need... We try to bring little buckets of blessing... but what is this in a drought?  We need a drenching. We need showers of rainfall from heaven and the only one who can provide them is God."  Are you burdened for revival?  Each week a growing number of men- laypeople and pastors - from a variety of denominations gather together to pray for revival.   We would like to invite you to come.  We meet on Friday nights at Faith Presbyterian Church at 8 pm and pray into the night.   We believe God is burdening others across our nation to seek Him for revival.  If you are one of those men we want you to come and pray with us.  If you are coming from a distance please let us know so that we can provide you with accommodation.     

In a recent email to the men who have come once or repeatedly to these meetings I said the following:

I was encouraged and challenged recently by the testimony of a father who on the discovery of dishonesty in his son stayed up all night to pray for him - and got the victory!  His son was gloriously saved.  (Interestingly, Spurgeon urged the importance of at least occasionally praying all through the night)

Where is that same valiant spirit among us?  A minister speaking on revival (in 1840) asked questions that might as well be asked of us: “Are you willing to see your children lost - to be separated from these dear little ones for ever?  Can heaven be sweet to you if a gulf be fixed between you and them?  The Spirit of God only can renew their hearts, guide them into all truth, and unite their souls in love to Jesus by a living faith.”  

But then what about the broader needs of the Church and nation?  Do we want revival?  Do we need it? It is easy enough to come once to a meeting of prayer for revival,  it is easier still to grow weary in the hard labour of intercessory prayer and give it up for something more pleasing to the flesh; but have we a right to expect the blessing if we do not have faith to persevere?  Are we not proving by such waffling that we are double minded?  Should the Son of Man return today would He find faith on the earth?  Would He find that faith that perseveres in the place of prayer?  

Another minister in that same series of lectures on revival - Revival of Religion - said:

“If we take the Saviour’s command as our rule, his kingdom as the sphere of our appointed operation, the zeal of his apostles as the model of our own, - we cannot fail to be humbled and ashamed.  We must be persuaded and convinced that a mighty impulse must be given to the sluggish Christianity of the times”

A third minister said, “better fast now for national sin, than wait the sinking pulse of spiritual life and soon see nothing around you but the region and shadow of death...” [ is our nation not already a region and shadow of death?]  “And have we not cause enough for fasting and humiliation? - have we not reasons, as urgent as any that are recorded in holy writ?  Do we find that God’s people fasted because of locusts - of mildew - of the sword without, and distracted counsels within?  And have we no fear of infidel swarms gathering around us and darkening the air, and settling all over the vineyard?  Is not this a time of rebuke and of fear when multitudes, in defiance of all law, and without religion, are stirring up sedition, and already invading the quietude of the heart as well as the holiness of the altar?  ... ‘Is it a time O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?’” [In other words, is it a time to be decorating our homes when God’s house is in ruin?]  “Surely it is time to seek the Lord by fasting and prayer.”

A fourth minister said: “There is no merit in prayer, no inherent efficacy in the soundest and most zealous preaching.  Nevertheless, as the ordinances of the King of kings, the prayer of faith and the preaching of the truth, are honoured to do great things - to do all things... But is it certain that the use of these means will always be productive of like results; that the prayer of faith will ever avail to bring down the Spirit, and that his blessing will ever avail to render the ‘joyful sound’ effectual to the conversion of sinners and the edifying of the body of the Lord? - As certain as that God cannot lie, and cannot change, as certain as it is that his kingdom shall come, his will be done on all the earth.  Then, brethren, do you feel an interest in the coming of that kingdom?  ...You are not straitened in him [ie. he is not limited on straitened], see that ye be not straitened in yourselves.  The more in every sense of the word you in this case desire, the more you shall have - the more you ask, the more assuredly you will obtain.  Awake therefore, Christian brethren, from the lethargy of unbelief... there is no Christian who may not vitally contribute by his prayers to this greater efficiency of the public preaching of the cross... O my friends, which of you for the hastening of a day so bright, so blessed, will not emulate the ‘imperishable testimony’ borne to that woman who came aforehand to anoint the Saviour’s body to the burying, - ‘she hath done what she could.’”