Pray for Revival

At exactly noon on September 23, 1857 a small group of six businessmen gathered together in the upstairs classroom of an old church in New York City. This small lunch hour prayer meeting yielded little in the way of evident power. But the faithful men decided to meet the following week to pray – again. The group grew to about 40 by October 14. On that afternoon the worst financial crisis in the history of the country to that date was unfolding. In the midst of the panic God invaded the little prayer meeting and within a few weeks over three thousand people from all walks of life were gathering. And within six months the City of New York was seeing ten thousand people gathering daily for prayer throughout the City. The Fulton Street Revival was a two year visitation of the Spirit that rejuvenated churches across the nation and across denominations.

In the history of the church revivals come rarely and unexpectedly. But when they do come they have always come from the faithful efforts of small groups of praying people. Charles Spurgeon gives us the heart of the saint in prayer for revival.

“Coming events cast their shadows before them, and when God is about to bless his people his coming favour casts the shadow of prayer over the church. When he is about to favour an individual he casts the shadow of hopeful expectation over his soul. Our prayers, let men laugh at them as they will, and say there is no power in them, are the indicators of the movement of the wheels of Providence. Believing supplications are forecasts of the future, He who prayeth in faith is like the seer of old, he sees that which is to be: his holy expectancy, like a telescope, brings distant objects near to him.”
- Charles Spurgeon, The Holy Spirit’s Intercession

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.