Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) was the true father of modern missions and when William Carey was called “the father of modern missions,” he referred to Zinzendorf and the Moravians as his inspiration and the true heirs of this title. In his book The Lost Art of Intercession James W. Goll writes:

The Moravians discovered a key of power in Leviticus 6:13, where the Lord says, “Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out.” They believed New Covenant fire on the altar was prayer, and they acted on God’s challenge. They managed to change the world with that little key. The Moravian community of Herrnhurt in Saxony, in 1727, started a 24 hour prayer watch that continued non-stop for a over a hundred years. By 1972, 65 years after the commencement of that prayer vigil, the small Moravian community had sent forth 300 missionaries to the ends of the earth…..

Is fervent intercession a basic component in world evangelization? The answer to this question is surely an unqualified “yes.” During its first years of existence, the Herrnhut settlement showed few signs of spiritual power. By the beginning of 1727, the community of about three hundred people was wracked by dissension and bickering, an unlikely site for revival. Zinzendorf and others, however, covenanted to pray and labor for revival. On May 12, revival came. Christians were aglow with new life and power, and dissension vanished and unbelievers were converted.

The key to the power and effectiveness of the Moravian community was their single-hearted devotion to Jesus Christ and to the Watch of the Lord. No one in modern Church history has wielded this “ancient tool” so effectively or faithfully as Christian David, Count von Zinzendorf, and the Moravian believers.

The Moravians were just quiet people like you and me. But they waited one morning and suddenly, as they waited and prepared their hearts, something came which they called a “sense of the loving nearness of the Savior instantaneously bestowed.” Writes A.W. Tozer in his classic book The Mystery of the Holy Spirit:

When the Holy Spirit is allowed, and when He does have particular intimacy with the human soul, He never talks about Himself; He talks about the Lord Jesus Christ for He came to reveal Jesus. The Holy Spirit fell on that Moravian crowd in 1727. They did not say a sense of the loving nearness of the Spirit, but a sense of the loving nearness of the Savior instantaneously bestowed. Zinzendorf said,

That group of seventy-five German Christians arose and went out from that building so happy, that they did not know whether they were on earth or had already gone to heaven.

The historian says that the result of that was that in twenty short years, those Spirit-filled years Moravians did more for world missions than all the church put together had done in 200 years. They made missionaries out of them.

In Hurenhut, they went up, had a prayer chamber and divided it into four-hour segments, so that they kept prayer going twenty-four hours a day for one hundred years. “What happened?” I will tell you what happened. John Wesley was crossing the ocean from the United States to England, when they came into a storm and even the sailors got scared. There was one little group that did not get scared.

They huddled together and sang hymns with shining faces. They were the Moravians. And John Wesley said to them, “Why aren’t you praying? Why are you so happy? They said, “If the Lord wills to have us all drowned, sudden death will be sudden glory.

This dignified Anglican did not know what to make of that, but it went very deep. He went over and found his brother Charles had already been converted. He went to Peter Bowler, the Monrovian and said, Brother Peter, I don’t have what my brother Charles has. What will I do?” “Well,” he said “it is by grace, brother, it’s all by grace.” “Well,” Wesley said, “I don’t have the grace. What should I do, quit preaching?” “No,” he said, “preach grace because it’s in the Bible till you get it, and then after you get it, preach it because you have it.”

You know the story of Aldersgate Street, when John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed. It is too much known about to mention. Do you know, that wasn’t the end of it? Not only did Methodist encircle the globe, the Salvation Army was born out of that. The same Pentecostal outpouring in 1727 spilled over, and the Salvation Army was born out of that as well as the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

The prayer vigil by Zinzendorf and the Moravian community sensitized them to attempt the reaching out of others, and six months after the beginnings of the prayer watch, Count suggested to his fellow Moravians the challenge of a bold evangelism aimed at the West Indies, Greenland, Turkey, and Lapland. Some were skeptical, but Zinzendorf persisted.

Twenty-six Moravians steeped forward for world missions wherever the Lord led. James writes that the exploits that followed are surely to be numbered among the high moments of Christian history. Nothing daunted Zinzendorf or his fellow followers of Jesus Christ—prison, shipwreck, persecution, ridicule, plague, abject poverty, and the threats of death.  His hymn reflected his conviction:

Ambassador of Christ, know ye the way to go? It leads unto the jaws of death, is strewn with thorns and woe.

A story is told that “When the ship carrying the first two Monrovian missionaries sent to the West Indies was pulling away from the dock, the former fiance of one them cried to her departing love that she would probably never see again, “Why? Why would you do something like this? He replied simply, “So that the Savior will receive the reward of His sacrifice.” True evangelism and true revival is born out of a love for the Lord, not just a love for the lost, though that is also important.

True intercession is likewise founded upon a desire to be united with the Lord, not just an effort to get Him to do something. The Lord wants us to come to the place where we no longer want Him to fulfill the selfish desires of our hearts, instead we need to know the desires of His heart, and to become intercessors that He can use in His priestly ministry.

 Source of Image:Courtesy of the Moravian Archives, Winston-Salem, N.C.

Finney continued to preach the Gospel with increasing power and results. Most of his meetings were in the northwestern part of the United States, but he also traveled as far away as England with the same revival results there.

For the continuance of the spiritual power that moved through him, Finney depended entirely upon his personal fasting and prayer and upon the prayers of others. He found that whenever the spirit of prayer left him, the convicting power of the Holy Spirit also left him. Wherever that happened, he would redouble his prayer efforts and the power would return.

Sometimes the power of God was so strong in Finney’s meetings that almost the entire audiences fell on their knees in prayer, or were prostrated on the floor, overwhelmed by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes when Finney was in the pulpit, he felt as if the power of the Holy Spirit had almost lifted him off his feet.

Although many people did not believe that manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s power would accompany the Spirit’s moral work, in almost every Finney meeting when the moral work was deep and powerful, when people were strongly convicted of their sins and of judgment, there were physical manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit. It is been reported that in several major cities in New York State, when Finney was holding meetings—cities like Syracuse, Rochester, Utica, Albany—a holy power would seem to settle upon the entire city.

Businessmen traveling through the city by train testified of being convicted of their sins as they sat in their railroad car. At times, visitors to the cities would be drawn to his meetings even though they did not know that meetings were being held.

Sometimes sinners were brought under conviction of sin almost as soon as they entered a city where revival had broke out. As revivals continued, the convicting power of the Holy Spirit so poured through Finney that people were often brought under conviction just by his presence.

One notable example reportedly took place in a cotton mill near the village of Whitesboro, about 4 miles west of Utica where Finney was living. This is the record of what Mr. Finney experienced:

Mr. Finney once visited a factory to see the machinery. Because he had just come from revival, he was in a reverent mood. All of the workers knew who he was. One lady, who saw him as she was working, made a rude comment to her neighbor and then laughed. Mr. Finney stopped and looked at her with sorrow in his eyes. She stopped working, breaking her thread. She then became so upset that she could not repair the thread and start again.

Trying to calm herself, she looked out the window. But, again and again, her emotions got the best of her. Finally to calm herself, she looked out the window. But, again and again, her emotions got the best of her. Finally she sat down and cried. Mr. Finney then approached her and spoke with her. She soon showed a deep sense of sin. The feeling spread through the establishment like fire, and in a few hours almost every person employed there was under conviction.

The feeling was so pervasive that the owner, though a worldly man, was astounded and stopped all work to hold a prayer meeting. The owner thought it more important that their souls should be saved than the factory to continue production. In a few days, the owner nearly all the employees (about 3000) were fully converted.

The Lord’s rebuke of this woman’s comment through Mr. Finney’s reverent, yet compassionate, reaction brought her under conviction. Seeing this undoubtedly inspired the massive revival.

Charles Finney had the longest sustained period of revivals of any minister in Christian history. From the first day of his conversion in 1821 and continuing through his time as president of Oberlin College there were almost constant revivals.

Wherever there was a period of time when there was not a revival, Finney would retreat to his prayer closet until the spirit of prayer came upon him and soon revival would break out. He did not, however depend upon his prayers alone but would always solicit prayer from anyone and everyone around him whom he knew also had a spirit of prayer and a heart for revival. The prayers never failed, revival always came.

Finney was active in two Great American Awakenings. What has been called the Second Great American Awakenings in the 1830’s and 1840s, and the Third Great American Awakening which was a revival in 1858-1859.

The great revival of 1858-1859, which was brought to a halt by the Civil War, was said to be one of the greatest revivals in the world’s history, and was a direct result of Finney’s revival meetings. Some historians on revival have said that it was the greatest revival of religion the world has ever seen.”

It has been estimated that 600,000 people were brought to Christ in this revival. Every prophet who brought a true message from God never spoke out of his own initiative or from his own thinking, reasoning, or understanding, but he was inspired (prompted or “carried along”) by the Holy Spirit. That made his message more than human; it became a message from God Himself.

We can see it from the example of Charles Finney’s power as a preacher. He consecrated himself as a whole offering on God’s altar and zeal was to glorify God in saving and sanctifying souls.

Sources: Charles G. Finney, How to Experience Revival, (Published by Whitaker House (Excerpted from Finney’s Sermons on Revival and compiled by E.E. Shelhamer 1984.

It is been reported that Charles Finney prepared only two written sermons. He tried no other time to preach from a written sermon, because he believed that it hindered the Spirit of God from speaking through him. He preferred to work out his own system of theology, based as it was upon his prayerful and independent study of the Scriptures interpreted in the light of the vivid religious experience through which he had passed, but he had his own notions as to how the Gospel should be preached. Written sermons at that time were the order of the day, but Finney preached as he would when addressing a jury.

“What would be thought of a lawyer,” he asked, “who should stand up before a jury and read an essay to them? He would lose the case!”  Just as an attorney sought to win a verdict for his client, so he aimed at bringing lost souls to a decision for Jesus Christ. He was God’s advocate, pleading with sinners to turn from the error of their ways and accept the offered gift of salvation. He often argued truths that seemed to need no further argument, and repeated statements that apparently had been taken for granted.

He said: “I talked to the people as I would have talked to a jury. Of all the causes that were ever plead, the cause of religion, I thought, had the fewest able advocates, and that if advocates at the bar should pursue the same course in pleading the cause of their clients that ministers do in pleading the cause of Christ with sinners, they would not gain a single case.”He was often criticized for his lawyer-like method of presenting the truth and for lowering the dignity of the pulpit. But to his hearers it seemed as if he were talking to them personally about matters of great mutual concern.

Those who heard him often said: “Why it didn’t seem like preaching. It seemed as if Mr. Finney had taken me alone, and was conversing with me face to face.”He sought to convert people by the truth, and like Paul of old he “reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.” His preaching was highly logical and analytical.

In fact, his critics said that he had a great tendency to excess in this area, his sermons sometimes having as high as forty to fifty divisions. These divisions often consisted of a single sentence, but the thought was so clear and the applications so logical that the most simple statement went like an arrow to its mark. His preaching resulted in the same effect that Peter had on the day of Pentecost when the hearts of the people were pierced, and they said, “What much we do to be saved? During one of the meetings, he told the people that:

I had come there to secure the salvation of their souls; that my preaching I knew, was highly complimented by them; but that, after all, I did not come there to please them but to bring them to repentance; that it mattered not to me how well they were pleased with my preaching, if after all they rejected my Master; that something was wrong, either in me or in them; that this kind of interest they manifested in my preaching was doing them no good; and that I could not spend my time with them unless they were going to receive the Gospel. I then, quoting the words of Abraham’s servant, said to them, “Now will you deal kindly and truly with my master? If you will, tell me; and if not, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left…

“During one of the revivals, an old man asked Finney to preach in a schoolhouse about three miles away from Antwerp. Finney said he would there that Monday at five o’clock in the afternoon. When he arrived, he found the schoolhouse full. After some singing that was so discordant that Finney had to cover both ears with his hands, he threw himself to his knees, and “The Lord opened the windows of heaven, and the spirit of prayer was poured out, and I let my whole heart out in prayer.”

Finney had not thought about the text he was going to preach, but waited to see the congregation. As soon as he had finished praying, he arose from his knees and said, “Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city.” He told them he could not remember exactly where the verse was but gave them some idea where to find it, and then began to explain it.

As he told them about Abraham and Lot and the city of Sodom, and how wicked Sodom was and that Lot was the only righteous man in the city, and how the Lord sent Angels down to destroy the city and save Lot, he noticed that the people seemed to be getting increasingly angry. This is part of what he wrote in his Memoirs:

Many of the men were in their shirt sleeves; and they looked at each other and at me, as if they were ready to fall upon me and chastise me on the spot. I saw their strange and unaccountable looks, and could not understand what I was saying that had offended them. However it seemed to me that their anger rose higher and higher, as I continued that they had never had a religious meeting in that place; and that therefore I had a right to take it for granted, and was compelled to take it for granted, that they were an ungodly people. I pressed that home upon them with more and more energy, with my heart full almost to bursting.

I had not spoken to them in this strain of direct application, I should think, more than a quarter of an hour, when all at once an awful solemnity seemed to settle down upon them; the congregation began to fall from their seats in every direction, and cried for mercy. If I had had a sword in each hand, I could not have cut them off their seats as fast as they fell.Indeed nearly the whole congregation were either on their knees or prostrate, I should think, in less than two minutes from the first shock that fell upon them. Everyone prayed for himself, who was able to speak at all. Of course I was obliged to stop preaching; for they no longer paid any attention.

I saw the old man who had invited me there to preach, sitting about in the middle of the house, and looking around with utter amazement. I raised my voice almost to a scream, to make him hear, and pointing to him said, “Can’t you pray?” He instantly fell upon his knees, and he poured himself out to God; but he did not at all get the attention of the people. I then spoke as loud as I could and tried to make them attend to me. I said to them, “You are not in hell yet; and now let me direct you to Christ.” For a few moments I tried to hold forth the Gospel to them; but scarcely any of them paid any attention….

When I went down the second time, I got an explanation of the anger manifested by the congregation during the introduction of my sermon the day before. I learned the place was called Sodom, but I knew it not; and that there was but one pious man in the place, and him they called Lot. This was the old man that invited me there. The people supposed that I had chosen my subject, and preached to them in a manner, because they were so wicked as to be called Sodom. This was a striking coincidence; but so far as I was concerned, it was altogether accidental.

And that repentance [with a view to and as the condition of] forgiveness of sins should be preached in His Name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I will send forth upon you what My Father has promised; but remain in the city [Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:47-49 AMP)

We know that Jesus ministered to tens of thousands in His three-and-a-half-year ministry. Multitudes followed Him. After His crucifixion and resurrection He appeared to more than five hundred followers (I Corinthians 15:6). Yet on the day of Pentecost, we find only a hundred and twenty in the house when the Spirit of God fell (Acts 1:15).

The numbers kept decreasing and not increasing. Where were the thousands after the Crucifixion? Why did He appear to only five hundred? On the day of Pentecost, where were the five hundred? It was to only one hundred and twenty that God’s glory was revealed.

After His resurrection, Jesus told the people not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father (Acts 1:4). Maybe all the five hundred initially waited for the promise. But as the days passed, the size decreased. Some may have become impatient and decided to go on with their lives and some may have quoted Jesus to “Go into the entire world and preach the Gospel.” We better leave now and do it without waiting for power from on high.”Only those who were completely submitted and surrendered to the Master could make such a commitment.

All of these with their minds in full agreement devoted themselves steadfastly to prayer, [waiting together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. (Acts 1:14 AMP)

With such a command to “Go into the world and preach the Gospel” ringing in our ears, with such admonition to wait in constant, wrestling prayer until we receive the power; with such a power; with such a promise, made by such a Savoir, held out to us, a promise of all help we need from Christ Himself, what excuse can we offer for being powerless in this great work?

What an awe-inspiring responsibility rests upon us, upon the whole Church, upon every Christian. We need to give ourselves no rest until this baptism of power comes upon us. Everyone has the great responsibility passed on to him or her to win as many souls as possible to Christ. This is the great privilege and the great duty of all the disciples of Christ.

There are a great many departments in this work. But in every department we may and ought to possess this power so that, whether we preach, pray, write, print, trade, travel, take care of children, administer the government of the state, or whatever we do, our whole lives and influence should be permeated with power. Jesus Christ says “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) That is, a Christian influence, having in it the element of power to impress the truth of Christ upon the hearts of men, will proceed from Him.

There is need of a great reformation in the church on this particular point. The churches should wake up to the fact in this case and take a new position, a firm stand in regard to the qualification of ministers and church officers. They should refuse to settle on a man as pastor if they are unsure he has power to win souls.

Having witnessed the spiritual fruits of the candidate’s labors, they would certify that they deemed him qualified and called by God to the work of the ministry. Churches should be well satisfied in some way that they call a fruitful minister and not a dry stalk—that is a mere intellect, a mere head with little heart; an elegant writer, but with no fervency; a great logician, but of little faith; a fervid imagination, perhaps, but with no Holy Spirit power.

The churches should inform themselves and look to those seminaries that furnish not merely the best educated but also the most earnest and spiritually powerful ministers. It is amazing that while it is generally admitted that the outpouring of power from on high is a reality, and essential to ministerial success, in practical terms, it is treated by the churches and by the schools as of comparatively little importance. In theory it is admitted to be everything, but in practice it is treated as if it were nothing.

From the apostles to the present day, it has been seen that men of very little human culture, but clothed with this power, have been highly successful in winning souls to Christ, while men of the greatest learning, with all that the schools have done for them, have been powerless as far as the proper work of the ministry is concerned.

And yet we go on laying ten times more stress on human culture than we do on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Practically, human culture is treated as infinitely more important than the infusion of power from on high. Most seminaries are furnished with learned men, but often not with men of spiritual power; hence, they do not insist upon the infusion of power as indispensable to the work of the ministry.

Students are pressed almost beyond endurance with study and developing the intellect, while scarcely an hour in a day is given to instruction in Christian experience. Indeed, I do not know if even one course of lectures on Christian experience is given in the theological seminaries. But religion is an experience. It is a consciousness. Personal fellowship with God is the secret of the whole of it. Doctrine, philosophy, theology, church history take the place of real heart-union with God. Spiritual power and to prevail with God is neglected today in the churches.

If a young man is a good scholar, a fine writer, and makes good progress in Biblical interpretation, the church usually has strong hopes for him. The professors must know in many cases that these young men cannot pray—that they have no fervency, no power in prayer, no spirit of wrestling, of agonizing and prevailing with God. For my part, I expect no such thing of this class of men.

I have infinitely more hope for the usefulness of a man who, at any cost, will keep up daily fellowship with God, who is yearning for and struggling after the highest possible spiritual attainment, who will not live without daily persistence in prayer and being clothed with power from on high. Churches associations and whoever licenses young men for the ministry leave the impression that human learning is preferred to spiritual fervency.

Oh, that it were different and that we were all agreed, practically, now and forever, to hold fast to the promise of Christ, and never to think of ourselves or anybody else as fit for the great work of the Church until we have received a rich outpouring of power from high.

Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) was a practicing lawyer who combined his oratorical skills as an attorney with his love for Christ. He is regarded as the one of greatest revivalists that ever lived after the Lord Jesus used Him to lead more than half a million people to Christ.

In addition to being an evangelist, Finney was involved with the abolitionist movement and passionately denounced slavery from the pulpit. In 1835, he moved to Ohio where he became a professor. At Oberlin College, Charles Finney, joined the faculty in 1836 to teach theology and later became the college president from 1851 to 1866. He used his charisma to lead his large audiences to Jesus Christ at the college and to convert people to abolitionism.

Oberlin College assumed a number of roles in promoting abolitionism. The college was among the first American colleges to co-educate blacks and women with white men. It opened its classrooms to blacks, hired abolitionist instructors, and sheltered black fugitives. As a young man Finney was a third-degree Freemason, but after his conversion he dropped the group as a satanic movement.

He was also active in anti-Masonic movements. Charles T. Torrey, who was called “the father of the Underground Railroad “was also credited in leading the slave movement at Oberlin College by helping 100,000 fugitive slaves escape northward to freedom. Torrey died a martyr’s death in a Maryland jail while serving time for having abetted escaped slaves.

Charles Finney is best known for messages on revival that ignited America’s Second and Third Great Awakening in 1800’s. On the same evening of his conversion without asking for it or even knowing that was any such thing, Finney received the mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was this baptism that brought to him the overwhelming convicting power of the Holy Spirit that poured through him wherever he talked to anyone about the condition of their soul and their need for salvation through Jesus Christ.

It was this baptism of the Holy Spirit that made him what many consider to be the greatest revivalist that ever lived. Although he loved practicing law, Finney now lost all taste for it, and any secular business. All he wanted to do now preach the Gospel and win souls to Christ. Nothing else mattered to him. This is how he described his encounter with the Holy Spirit:

After dinner we [Finney and Squire Wright] were engaged in removing our books and furniture to another office. We were busy in this, and had but little conversation all the afternoon. My mind, however, remained in that profoundly tranquil state. There was a great sweetness and tenderness in my thoughts and feelings. Everything appeared to be going right, and nothing seemed to ruffle or disturb me in the least. Just before evening the thought took possession of my mind, that as soon as I was left alone in the new office. I would try to pray again—that I was not going to abandon the subject of religion and give it up, at any rate; and therefore, although I no longer had any concern about my soul, still I would continue to pray. By evening we got the books and furniture adjusted; and I made up, in an open fireplace, a good fire, hoping to spend the evening alone. Just at dark, Squire Wright, seeing that everything was adjusted, bade me goodnight and went to his home. I had accompanied him to the door; and as I closed the door and turned, my heart seemed to be liquid within me. All my feelings seemed to rise and flow out; and the utterance of my heart was “I want to pour my whole soul out to God.” The rising of my soul was so great that I rushed into the room back of the front office, to pray.

There was no fire, no light, in the room; nevertheless it appeared to me as if it were perfectly light. As I went in and shut the door after me, it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It did not occur to me then, not did it for some time afterward, that it was wholly a mental state. On the contrary it seemed to me that I saw Him as I would see any other man. He said nothing, but looked at me in such a manner as to break me right down at his feet. I have always since regarded this as a most remarkable state of mind; for it seemed to me a reality, that He stood before me, and I fell down at his feet and poured out my soul to Him. I wept like a child, and made such confessions as I could with my chocked utterance. It seemed to me that I bathed His feet with my tears; and yet I had no distinct impression that I touched Him, that I recollect.

I must have continued in this state for a good while; but my mind was too much absorbed with the interview to recollect anything that I said. But I know, as soon as my mind became calm enough to break off from the interviews, I returned to the front office, and found that the fire that I had made of large wood was nearly burned out. But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such a thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love, for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings. No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love; and I do not know but I should say, I literally bellowed out unutterable gushings of my heart. These waves came over me, and over me, and over me, one after the other, until I recollect I cried out, I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me.” I said, “Lord, I cannot bear any more”; yet I had no fear of death.

He further wrote:

When Christians humble themselves and consecrate their all afresh to Christ and ask for this power, they will often receive such a baptism that they will be instrumental in converting more souls in one day than in all their lifetime before. While Christians remain humble enough to retain this power, the work of conversion will go on until whole communities and regions of the country are converted to Christ. The same is true of preachers and ministers.”Now why is there this lack of power in the Church of Jesus Christ today? Again Finney says: “Suppose any of the apostles, or those present on the Day of Pentecost, had failed through apathy, selfishness, unbelief, indolence, or ignorance to obtain this outpouring of power. Would it have been uncharitable, unjust, unreasonable, or unscriptural to have considered them disqualified for the work to which Christ had appointed them?

Sources:

1. Charles Finney, Experiencing the Presence of God, (Published and Updated by Whitaker House, New Kensington USA 2000)
2. Charles G. Finney, Power, Passion & Prayer-Finney’s Greatest Sermons on Revival through Prayer. Rewritten and Updated by Robert A. Engelhardt (Published by Bridge-Logos Publishers 2004)

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I beg of my brothers in Christ, and especially my younger brothers in Christ, not to think that these things were written in the spirit of reproach. I beg the churches, I beg the seminaries, to receive a word of exhortation from an old man who has had some experience in these things and one whose heart mourns and is weighed down because of shortcomings of the church, the ministers, and the seminaries on this subject.

Fellow believers, I implore you to consider this matter more thoroughly, to wake up and take it to heart. Do not rest until this subject of the outpouring of power from on high is brought forward into its proper place. Do not rest until it takes the prominent and practical position in the view of the whole church that Christ intended it should.

Mr. Finney says:

“I once knew a minister who had a revival fourteen winters in succession. I did not know how to account for it till I saw one of his members get up in a prayer meeting and make a confession.” Brethren,” he said,” I have been long in the habit of praying every Saturday night till after midnight for the descent of the Holy Spirit among us. And now, brethren (and he began to weep), I confess that I have neglected it for two or three weeks. The secret was out. That minister had a praying church.

Revival Prayer

When God has promised a thing,” said Charles G. Finney, “we are bound to believe we shall receive it when we pray for it. You have no right to put an ‘if’ say ‘Lord, if it be thy will, give me thy Holy Spirit.’ This is to insult God. To put an ‘if’ in God’s promise when God has put none there, is tantamount to charging God with being insincere. It is like saying, ‘O God, if thou art in earnest in making these promises, grant us the blessing we pray for.”

I once heard in a discussion that groaning should be discouraged. People asked if God could produce a state of feeling where it was impossible not to groan. “Why, yes,” the leaders answered, “but He never does.” Then Paul must have been deceived when he wrote about groaning, “too deep for words.” Edwards, too, was mistaken when he wrote his book about revivals.

Travail of soul is often a condition of prevailing prayer. “As soon as Zion was in labour, she gave birth to her children” (Isa 66:8) Paul said, “My little children, for whom I labour in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). This implies that he had travailed in birth for them before they were converted. Indeed, travail of soul in prayer is the only revival prayer. If anyone does not know what this is, he does not understand the spirit of prayer. He is not in a revival state. He does not understand the passage of Romans 8:26-27.

So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance. And He Who searches the hearts of men knows what is in the mind of the [Holy] Spirit [what His intent is], because the Spirit intercedes and pleads [before God] in behalf of the saints according to and in harmony with God’s will.

Until he understands this agonizing prayer, he does not know the real secret of revival prayer.

Many hungry Christians are reading everything they can find about past moves of God. We somehow sense that if we really want the holiness and the fullness of His manifest presence to dwell in our midst, then we have to find out how. But the question some are asking is: Will God revive us again that we His people may rejoice in Him? Psalm 85:6

The answer to the question is yes, if we humble ourselves and repent. There is still hope for the revival and a Great awakening in West and other nations. Several prophets have expressed the view that God promised to revive us, and that they will be a large harvest for souls. As extraordinary as all past awakenings and revivals were, there were only foretastes of what it is to come.  When you read all these stories of how God gave revivals in the past, you are moved with great emotion and conviction, asking the Lord to please do it again!

We are tired of just going through the motions in both private and public meetings. But revival has to begin in our hearts, when the sins of our nations, the corruption, the injustice, the lawlessness, the economy, the broken society, the backslidden church, and everything that grieves, humbles, and distresses us as Christians, draws us to our secret places and cry out for a mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit.

That is when we should expect a revival. We should not scold and reproach sinners, we’ve all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but rather we should pray for the compassion of the Son of God to grip our hearts, so that we might feel His compassion and grace.

As much we would like to build more church projects and do all kinds of good things in the Lord’s name, but without a real spiritual awakening, the church will not be able to remove the reproach and restore Christianity to the place it should have in the estimation of the public. The church is the most powerful institution in any land but without revival, everyone will hold the church in contempt.

It reminds me of a story written about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s brother Klaus who had chosen a career in law and became a top lawyer at the German airline Lufthansa. In a dispute about Dietrich’s choice of theology Klaus homed in on the problem of the church itself calling it “a poor, feeble, boring, petty, bourgeois institution.” “In that case,” said Dietrich, “I shall have to reform it.” Whether this was defiant rebuff to his brother’s attack or perhaps a joke, as the writer of that story indicated, I don’t know. What I know is that we need a revival and a reformation in the church worldwide, not just in the West.

We’ve built very good worship houses, written countless books on success and happiness and there is nothing wrong with that, but while this may gain some sort of respect from the world, it doesn’t stem the tide of wickedness in societies. As a matter of fact, it misleads worldly people about the real nature of Christianity and the church. God’s people are thirsty, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep from the Fountain of Living Water. John 7:38. A. W Tozer said that:

Pastors and teachers are giving sound Bible exposition—but all this may be carried on in such a way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth.

Tozer’s terrible words apply to our day as accurately as it did to his:

There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy.

We desperately need to preach the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ which leads to righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Other than that we are just preaching what the Word calls “another gospel” which can’t save or redeem people and prepare them for an eternity with their Creator.

History tells us that the gospel based only on changing the social standing of man and meeting his temporal needs is more likely to cost his eternal soul and destiny. Without being born again, the blood of Jesus Christ, and the Cross, all our efforts of evangelizing will be futile. Hell and Heaven are real places but this subject has received very scant attention among professing Christians and preachers.

We also need to pray for our politicians, governmental leaders, the media, education leaders and every sector of society that directly or indirectly affects our lives. Whether we agree with people who are in positions of power or not, we are commanded to pray for them so that we lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. (I Timothy 2:1-2 NKJV)

We should become responsible citizens in every area of our lives by engaging practically in the political process, and standing up for justice and righteousness in our nations but, having a full knowledge that the problems of our time are not economical or political or social issues as important as these may be. The central issues of our time are moral and spiritual in nature, and our calling as a church is to declare Christ’s forgiveness, hope, and transforming power to a world that does not know or follow Him.

God judged the children of Israel because His prophets had warned but the people refused to repent and be revived. Even today the watchmen are warning and calling the church to repent but the warnings are not heeded:

Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand’ (Ezekiel 33:1-6 NKJV).

God promises that when the Israelites are under divine chastisement for their disobedience and they humbly call upon the Lord, He promises to forgive them and heal their land. From this context there are clear principles in this verse and other revival verses that we can apply to our own lives and nations today.

Remember that all things that happened to the Israelites are examples (warnings and admonitions for us not to desire or crave or covet or lust after evil and carnal things as they did. (Numbers 11:4, 34)

Now these things befell them by way of a figure [as an example and warning to us]; they were written to admonish and fit us for right action by good instruction, we in whose days the ages have reached their climax (their consummation and concluding period). (1 Corinthians 10:1- 11 AMP)

Jerusalem was the capital city and center for worship for Israel. Jeremiah agonized over the message he delivered but still the people could not respond to the truth.  So the Lord was willing to spare the city if He could find one person who reflected his justice, righteousness, and truth.

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now and take notice! Seek in her broad squares to see if you can find a man [as Abraham sought in Sodom], one who does justice, who seeks truth, sincerity, and faithfulness; and I will pardon [Jerusalem–for one uncompromisingly righteous person]. (Jeremiah 5:1 AMP)

The Lord said that the cities of Israel, Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom which were destroyed by God for their wickedness, would have repented of their sins long ago. The people of Bethsaida, Korazin, and Capernaum saw the Lord and experienced all these miracles but they didn’t believe, repent of their sins, and turn to God.

So Jesus said that they would suffer even a greater judgment than Sodom because if these miracles were done in wicked Sodom, it would still be here today. Which means to whom more is given more is required. The West has been given a greater level of spiritual authority over other nations, so there will be no excuse on judgment day if they don’t repent and believe when there is still time.

Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.  But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the Day of Judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will bebrought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.  But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of Judgment than for you.” (Matthew 11: 20-24 NKJV)

May it please the Lord to grant the church in the West and other nations the experience of a true revival and a Great Awakening. Without another Great Awakening, we might be heading for a tyrannical dictatorship.

Many of us have a burden on our hearts especially on what is going on in the nations, but when we are called for prayer, we don’t even know how to let the Holy Spirit groan and travail through us and as a result we bring forth wind (Isaiah 26:18). The Psalmist tells us that “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me (Psalms 42:7).

Ravenhill clearly demonstrated that there is language of the Spirit beyond words—groanings  that cannot be articulated which defy language, that are above language, that are beyond language, that are the yearnings of the heart of God. These are committed to those who seek to know His will and care for the lost world and a feeble Church.

So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance. And He Who searches the hearts of men knows what is in the mind of the [Holy] Spirit [what His intent is], because the Spirit intercedes and pleads [before God] in behalf of the saints according to and in harmony with God’s will. We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. (Romans 8:26-28 AMP)

As much as there are many practical ways of overcoming what we are going through at this time in history, but unless there is a true repentance and revival from the church and nations, things will not get better, there will be nowhere to run from this new world order. We need to pray that God will break our hearts so that we will feel the burden of the Lord in our lifetime.

The Bible says that while Jesus was being led through the streets to His crucifixion, and in spite of the fact that He was suffering so terribly, His heart was filled with compassion for these women who were weeping for Him. He saw their tears and He must have felt their broken hearts. He turned to them and said “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” (Luke 23:28)

The Lord saw what would happen into the not too distant future, around 70-AD in only about 40 years, Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed by the Roman army under Titus in a very cruel and ruthless manner. Jesus saw the terrible things that these women and their children would soon experience.  Before that the Bible also makes it clear that Jesus wept for Jerusalem as He was returning to the city for the last time. Luke writes that:

Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44 NKJV)

The prophet Joel also says:

Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn and keep on coming to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning [until every hindrance is removed and the broken fellowship is restored]. Rend your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness; and He revokes His sentence of evil [when His conditions are met]. (Joel 2:12-13 AMP)

The nation of Israel was told to turn to the Lord with all their hearts with weeping, fasting, and mourning before the impending Day of Judgment could come. The people of God had become prosperous and complacent. They decided to take God for granted and turned to worshiping idols.

So the Lord through the prophet Joel warned them that this kind of attitude would bring destruction unless they repented. Is it any different from us today? The truth about all human flesh is that when we come to a place of comfort, we tend to forget God.

When you study the Old Testament from the beginning to end, you find that the Israelites sought God, repented and prayed when things were not going well, and God in His grace and mercy heard and answered their prayers. But once everything was going well, they forgot where they had come from, and what God had done and backslid again.

In their desperation, they remembered God and did the right thing. In prosperous times they forgot God and sinned-time and time again. Unless we fast, pray, and weep before the Lord with true repentance for the sins of our nations, we would also face certain judgment.

Who knows but what He will turn, revoke your sentence [of evil], and leave a blessing behind Him [giving you the means with which to serve Him], even a cereal or meal offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? (Joel 2:14)

We need to cry out to God for a revival first in our own respective homes, families, and churches. We do know that God answers the prayers of His people. If we first humble ourselves first, then God will answer the fervent petitions of His people to spare their land. It is time to weep and pray for God’s mercy and grace to prevail.

It is time to weep because the most of the Church is backslidden and has drifted far away from the Lord throughout the world. We need to pray for God to raise a new generation of intercessors who will hold the horns of the altar and who will cry out in agony to God for Him to intervene.

It is only prayer and intercession that can change a nation. You cannot make laws for holiness and righteousness. It will take only the mercy and grace of Christ to save us. It is not capitalism, or communism, or Nazism or any kind of tyrannical government that is the problem.

The Bible doesn’t differentiate between capitalism, or communism, or Nazism or any kind of dictatorship. It is much easier to fight human beings but unfortunately the real battle is not against flesh and blood or political systems, but we are at war with the invisible world of these systems.

For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12 NLT)

The only thing that can restrain all this end-time evil is genuine revival and a Great Awakening. The powers of darkness must be confronted spiritually with fasting, prayer, intercession, repentance, forgiveness, and getting wisdom that comes from abiding in and loving God’s Word. If our hearts are set on fire with the power of the Holy Spirit, then a revival and a Third Great Awakening can overcome the enemy in these challenging times.

Western civilization has become pluralistic, secularized, and biblically illiterate. Today many people in the West have little sense of how their lives have benefited from Christianity’s influence, the revivals and the Great Awakenings. The church is now often viewed with hostility or resentment. England is spiritually at its lowest state for over 250 years (probably worse than before the revivals of the Wesleys and others).

We need to see that our God who revived Britain and America under the preaching of John Wesley, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, Evan Roberts, William Wilberforce, Charles Finney, Jonathan Edwards and many others, changing the character of Britain and America respectively can do it again, if we humble ourselves, and pray, and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways.

The promise of this verse is applied to most nations though it was originally given to King Solomon during the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. When Solomon had finished building the Temple of the Lord, as well as His palace. The Lord appeared to him in the night and said:

I have heard your prayer and have chosen this Temple as the place for making sacrifices.  At times I might shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or command grasshoppers to devour your crops, or send plagues among you.  Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. (2 Chronicles 7:11-14 NLT)

God promises that when the Israelites are under divine chastisement for their disobedience and they humbly call upon the Lord, He promises to forgive them and heal their land. From this context there are clear principles in this verse and other revival verses that we can apply to our own lives and nations today.

God desires obedience and humility in His people and when we humble ourselves, God has obligated Himself to hear our prayer and heal our respective lands. We also have to seek to know Him from a personal experience and live in obedience to His Word. One of the saddest things is that many of us believe in God, but only a few attempt to live by His Word.

It is very hard to be hundred percent sure that the picture we see, or the voice we hear or the prophecy we speak is from God. That is why listening and speaking out in the name of God is costly and leaves us feeling vulnerable.

But having said that, I believe we as Christians can agree that we need the Lord to revive us. It is an age of violence, sexual permissiveness, moral disorder, natural disasters, re-defining marriage, abortion, fatherless children, humanism, secularism, false prophets, apostasy, debt, possibility of economic collapse, inflation, low productivity, unemployment and job outsourcing, these and many others are all happening at the same time. It seems like an endless cycle.

There is a possibility that immigrants that came to the West during prosperous times will be blamed for the economic chaos, stealing of jobs and the rising crime, yet wealth is never destroyed, but it is just transferred to the most powerful.

We’ve been told the idea that thinking globally and acting locally is the best way. Christianity is being marginalized at every turn so that people can indulge in their canal lifestyles without any conviction of sin or guilt.

Wars and so called “Arab Springs” are the order of the day. Most of the education sector, the media, and the workplace are all secularized; you hardly find justice and morality anymore. Revivalist Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) passed this judgment on the moral decline of the nations when he observed in his time that:

Preachers and politicians are flinging sobering words around to describe the peril of this hour which is so dark morally, spiritually, and politically. No longer is Communism merely creeping over the earth, but rather it is leaping over it. This black cancer of Communism has spread until it covers almost three quarters of the earth’s surface. It is estimated that in some way or other communism taints nearly two out of every three persons.

If the Lord tarries and there is no revival of pure Christianity, then the next span of years will be the worst that history has ever recorded. There will be a growth of militant godlessness in the world today, until the world is swarming with human beings no longer human but just “beings.”

After Communist brainwashing and indoctrination (“correct “indoctrination), we shall have a nation or generation of robots. Communism can create millions of zombies, after having spared only a few thousands of people who would be needed as the ruling class. Communism is versatile and devastating. Its leaders have declared that they can take America without firing a shot, and top-line politicians seem to agree with them.

One preacher has noted that we are the most prayer less Church since Pentecost. I don’t know whether we are the most prayer less Church since Pentecost, but one thing I know is that if we are willing to answer the call of the Holy Spirit to weep, fast and pray for our nations. Then the Lord will have mercy upon us and heal our lands.

Many of our prayer meetings need to change from just meetings to wailing, weeping, and groaning meetings for a revival. Many have drawn analogies from the nation of Israel through prophet Jeremiah how the West has allowed itself to drift from under God’s protection, provision, and guidance. We are now reaping tragic and ominous results, just like the people of Israel. The weeping prophet Jeremiah is calling us to weep:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider and call for the mourning women to come; send for the skillful women to come. Let them make haste and raise a wailing over us and for us that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water.For a sound of wailing is heard [coming] out of Zion: How we are plundered and ruined! We are greatly confounded and utterly put to shame, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings [our dwellings that have cast us out]. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O you women, and let your ears receive the word of His mouth; teach your daughters a lament, and each one [teach] her neighbor a dirge. (Jeremiah 9:17-20 AMP)

God is calling young and older women who know how to travail and weep for souls like they did during the Hebrides Revival. The women bring children in the flesh so they can understand what it means to give birth in the spirit.

Too many leaders in the church discourage this kind of revival praying because they don’t understand it. They say “you are trying to bring revival in your own strength. Watch out-God in His sovereignty will bring revival; God gives revival when He thinks best, it is wrong for you to try to promote revival just because you think we need revival.” This is the preaching the enemy wants more than anything else.

We need to cry out to God for a revival first in our own respective homes, families, and churches. We do know that God answers the prayers of His people. If we first humble ourselves first, then God will answer the fervent petitions of His people to spare their land.

It is time to weep and pray for God’s mercy and grace to prevail. It is time to weep because the most of the Church is backslidden and has drifted far away from the Lord throughout the world.

We need to pray for God to raise a new generation of intercessors who will hold the horns of the altar and who will cry out in agony to God for Him to intervene.

It is only prayer and intercession that can change a nation. You cannot make laws for holiness and righteousness. It will take only the mercy and grace of Christ to save us.