 Power
Why don’t we see the kind of amazing revivals happening today that have happened in past church history? I’m sure that if we are honest many of us have thought that maybe our modern society is just too sophisticated for such simple and extensive advances of God’s kingdom. It really is a silly notion that modernity has somehow changed how God deals with people. The other issue is that many church growth gurus and demographical experts will tell us that we need to mold our methods and practices to appeal to the sociological realities around our congregation. If we want to get people to come and invest themselves in our church we must put out something exciting and attractive. It really does sound like a bait and switch kind of thing doesn’t it? But what if we are missing something that was a regular part of the Christian practice back in the time of those revivals and reformations in church history? What if we need to re-engage an old practice used by Christians going all the way back to the Lord Himself. We need to pray! Ask The Lord Jesus Himself taught us that everyone who asks, receives (Matthew 7:8). Jesus’ point is not just ask and you will get your wish as one might imagine a genie in a bottle. But rather Jesus is instructing us that only those who ask, and keep asking, will receive. So could it be that we are anemic in our spiritual experience because we are neglectful of engaging in earnest and eager prayer? We must ask that God would save sinners through our evangelistic witness and presence in our community. If we truly believe that salvation belongs to the Lord (Jonah 2:10) then isn’t He the one that we should be coming to if we want to see people truly changed and transformed! We must ask God to give us boldness and success in proclaiming Christ to everyone around us. Even the Apostle Paul asked for the faithful believers in the churches to pray for his boldness in evangelism and mission work (Ephesians 6:18-20). We must ask God to help us grow spiritually and in our understanding and obedience to His word. Do we truly understand that we cannot grow spiritually through mere intellectual effort? We need the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth (John 16:12-15). The church must always remember that the things of God are discerned spiritually (1 Corinthians 2:14-16). We must ask God to bind us together in the local church in bonds of fellowship and friendship as the family of God. Our only hope is that we would ask! Receive The prince of preachers from the nineteenth century, C. H. Spurgeon, regarded the prayer meeting as the most important meeting of the week. Imagine, thousands of people were attending multiple services on the Lord’s Day each week to hear the word, but he regarded the prayer meeting as the most important gathering. Many were also coming for baptism and church membership and still Spurgeon believed that the prayer meeting was most important. The reason is that he knew that the great harvest and blessing was not a result of his oratory skill, even as great as it was, but rather these things were the result of God answering the prayers of God’s people. Dr. Pierson, a fellow minister with Charles Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, said that it is a house of prayer most emphatically (Wonders of Grace, pg 116). Those ministers, including Spurgeon, attributed the success of the ministry to “the power of simple gospel preaching backed by believing supplication.” If we truly desire to know and love God then we must be people of prayer. If we truly desire for others to know and love God then we must be people of prayer. If we truly desire to see Christ Kingdom come then we must be people of prayer. If we truly desire for Christ to be fully glorified then we must be people of prayer. But if a church regards the prayer meeting of little value then we need not be surprised when the fellowship, the worship, the preaching and teaching is powerless and the meetings are dead. For they have been starved of the very lifeblood of corporate prayer. Let us pray! For more on this you can listen to my discussion with my good friend Pastor Allen Nelson IV of Perryville Second Baptist Church on the latest episode of the Rural Church Podcast 2.0 (here).
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