logo of this website

MENU

The Interceders Encourager No. 1

What a privilege it is to pray to a great God for great things. Let these thoughts and quotations challenge you and encourage you in your prayers.

We start with a report from the last awakening in Britain, nearly 50 years ago, in December 1958, on the island of North Uist in the Hebrides.

"We are in the midst of revival again. Something far greater than we have ever experienced. God has swept in, and is moving throughout the community. Drunkards are being lifted out of sin, and brought to Christ. The proud, the stiff necked, the pleasure seekers and the ungodly are gripped by the God of heaven, shaken in their sins, and brought to fall at His feet. One of the key men in the island has been converted. Meetings are held every night, some lasting till after midnight. The converts are full of life. There are tremendous possibilities."

_______________________________

Anything God has ever done, He can do now.

Anything God has ever done anywhere, he can do here.

Anything God has ever done for anyone, He can do for you.

Believe it and ask God to increase your faith.

________________________________

In 1956 Duncan Campbell said, "The present state of our country presents a challenge to the Christian Church. Those who have eyes to see, and who are truly observant, tell us that at this very hour forces are taking the field that are out to defy every known Christian principle. the need is desperate. and it is awful. We have got to do something....Nothing but a Holy Spirit revival will meet the desperate need of the hour."

Overriding the fact that we have seen those prophetic words fulfilled in the decades since then, the challenge facing us is that if the need was desperate in 1956, before the wholesale slide into promiscuity, profanity, drug taking, the breakdown of society, and the rise of Christ defying religions that we have seen since then, how much more desperate is the need today?

________________________________

"The enemies of the gospel are winning the day in almost every area of the world....Nothing less than the powerful work of the Holy Spirit on a massive scale will meet the desperate spiritual poverty of our age, and remove the gross darkness that covers the nations. Only the manifestation of God in the midst of His people can give the Church victory, making her the praise of the earth." (Errol Hulse)

_______________________________

"Revivals are supernatural demonstrations of God`s power. When will we learn to let God work in His own way? When will we spend more time in seeking to know what His way is, than we do in devising human plans and methods, which only bring us a sense of failure and loss? We need a revival. The church needs a revival. The world, hungry and restless, sin cursed and dying, needs the Church to have a revival so it can be awakened. God wants us to have it. Therefore let us make every effort to meet the divine conditions, and let us expect Him to answer by fire." (P.V.Jenness)

_______________________________

"If God can achieve such mighty things in times of revival, and if the spiritual labours of fifty years can be surpassed in so many days when the Spirit is poured out, why is the Church today so satisfied with the results of normal evangelism? Why are we not more concerned that there should be another great revival? Why do we not pray for it day and night?" (Arthur Wallis)

Or to put it another way. If God can do in a short time what we can only do in a much poorer way over a far longer period, why don`t we ask Him to do it? If God can bring people to a much greater conviction of sin, to a much higher expression of joy, to a much more radical change of heart and life, to a much greater sense of wonder at His grace, to a much fuller expression of gratitude, to a far greater love of the Bible, to a much more intense devotion and ability in prayer, to a much greater longing after holiness, to a much deeper and wider concern for the salvation of others, to a much greater love of the Lord and a more steadfast discipleship so that the believers are far less likely to fall away, and to a much greater willingness to serve and sacrifice than we could ever achieve by our normal methods; and we know He can; then why don`t we stop our methods and go God`s way and follow His directions?

________________________________

"Why doesn`t someone take God at his word, and seek Him until He comes?

Is 2Chron.7:14 still true? If so, why don`t Christians obey it, so God can heal our land?

How intense is our longing for revival? How intolerant are you of the status quo?

Do you really hate the sin that is running rampant in the world and in the Church?

Why are we so tolerant of sin in the world and even in the Church?

As the church has become so tolerant of sin, and is afraid to speak out against it, so God has withdrawn His manifest presence in the churches, and where grace does not abound, sin abounds much more." (Byron Paulus)

______________________________

Leonard Ravenhill wrote, "We will have revival only when we are no longer willing to live without it." Are we willing to live without revival? Are we willing to tolerate the sin in our lives, in our churches, in our nation?

We need to feel about sin the way God feels about it. We need to ask God to give us such a hatred of sin, and a divine jealousy for Him and His glory, that we are no longer willing to live in such a selfish, cruel and sinful world, in such a God dismissing, Christ rejecting world, and we cry out with every fibre of our being for the Holy Spirit to come and convict the world of sin, of righteousness and judgment, and for Jesus to take His rightful place as Lord of all.

"Lord, make us unwilling to live any longer without revival."

________________________________

"If revival depended upon my prayers, my faith and my obedience, would my country ever experience revival? (Byron Paulus)

________________________________

"I am convinced that if we are to see the hand of God at work, we must give to our lives the propulsion of a sacred vow, and with Hezekiah of old say, `Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel.` The truths that grip us must find expression in a new dedication; that is if we are to be those whom God can trust with revival." (Duncan Campbell)

Can God trust me with revival?

__________________________________

"Gird on Thy thigh the Spirit`s sword, and take to Thee Thy power divine;

Stir up Thy strength, Almighty Lord, all power and majesty are Thine.

Assert Thy worship and renown; O all redeeming God, come down.

Come and maintain Thy righteous cause, and let Thy glorious toil succeed.

Dispread the victory of Thy Cross; ride on and prosper in Thy deed.

Through earth triumphantly ride on; and reign in every heart alone."

(Charles Wesley)

May this be the prayer of all our hearts.