Prayer And Revival

 

Daniel 9:1-23      Prayer For Revival

Daniel9

1  In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; 2  in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. 3  Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4  And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, 5  "we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. 6  "Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. 7  "O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day; to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.   8  "O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. 9  "To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. 10  "We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. 11  "Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him.   12  "And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.    13  "As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.    14  "Therefore the LORD has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.    15  "And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly!     16  "O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us.     17  "Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord's sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate.    18  "O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.    19  "O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name."     20  Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God,  21  yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering.   22  And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, "O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand.     23  "At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision :

 

 

 

Daniel 9:1-23      HOW TO RAISE YOUR FACE TO THE LORD IN PRAYER

DR. WESLEY DUEWEL has given himself to the cause of missions for more than 70 years. Following ministry in India for nearly 25 years, he served as president of OMS International and is now president emeritus. Dr. Duewel has a deep love for the Word of God. He wrote "THE GREAT NEED of our world, our nation, and our churches is people who know how to prevail in prayer. Moments of pious wishes blandly expressed to God once or twice a day will bring little change on earth or among the people. Kind thoughts expressed to Him in five or six sentences, after reading a paragraph or two of mildly religious sentiments once a day from some devotional writing, will not bring the kingdom of God to earth or shake the gates of hell and repel the attacks of evil on our culture and our civilization.

Results, not beautiful words, are the test of prevailing prayer.

We need great answers to prayer, changed lives and situations—answers that bear upon them the stamp of the divine. We need mighty demonstrations of the reality and concern of God and of His activity and power, which will force the world to recognize that God is truly God, that God is sovereign, and that God is involved in His world today. We need mighty answers to prayer that will bring new life to the church and new strength, faith, and courage to faint believers; that will silence, dumbfound, and convict evil men; and that will thwart, defeat, and drive back the assaults of Satan.

In 1859, a religious revival broke out in the north of Ireland. It's said that the revival produced more than 100,000 people converts, and many new churches were built to house the growing religious population. There were reports of strange physical manifestions: people falling over in public meetings, crying aloud for help; people walking passed revival meetings were even said to have been struck down in the street; others claimed to see visions while under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The Revival led to the reclamation and conversion of vast numbers of people of careless or debased life; but primarily it meant the kindling afresh of apostolic zeal and enthusiasm, the setting up of magnificent ideals regarding the extension of the Kingdom of God throughout the world, and, first and last, the reassertion on a majestic scale of the great basal verities of Evangelical religion.

No world-famous name is associated with the Revival. Nevertheless, beginning in the prayer meetings and wayside conversations of a few humble work-people, it speedily attained the proportions of a national movement.

At this time there was employed in one of the important industrial businesses of the district, a young man named Jeremiah McQuilken, who one day overheard Mrs. Colvile talking to a certain lady who took more pleasure in doctrinal discussions on Predestination than in vital, personal Christianity. "My dear," said Mrs. Colville, anxious to direct the conversation into a profitable channel, "you have never known the Lord Jesus." Whatever may have been their effect upon the lady the words went as an arrow to McQuilken's heart. He was smitten with the thought that, professing Christian as he was, this truth applied to him. For two weeks he had no peace, day or night. Then he found it, in Christ. His first convert was a friend named Jeremiah Meneely, and these two began to meet for prayer, with two other young men, John Wallace and Robert Carlisle. These four commenced, in a little schoolhouse at Kells, Antrim, a Believers' Fellowship Meeting. Month after month passed and kindred spirits joined them in intercession, as they wrestled and prevailed. McQuilken had been carefully studying the Bible, and was also much helped by a record of the life and labours of George Müller. In 1858, there were remarkable conversions. Steadily converts multiplied, and Rev. J. H. Moore, minister of the Presbyterian congregation at Connor, gave every encouragement, conducting countless services. The Revival flame began to kindle. People were crying for mercy in open-air meetings. A singing-class was turned into a prayer meeting, and many met to pray, on occasion, all night. Public attention being aroused, Mr. Moore was requested at the General Assembly of his denomination, in 1858, to give his brethren an account of the novel and fascinating events.

It was with extraordinary fervour that the movement spread into Ahoghill and other parishes. In barns, schools, and private houses meetings were conducted and addressed by converts, and were attended by multitudes of people. At Ballymena, the whole town seemed suddenly to arouse. "The difficulty used to be to get the people into the church," wrote a minister, "but the difficulty now is to get them out." The benediction would be pronounced again and again, but each time the irrepressible petitions of the praying people would burst forth afresh, or the cry of the penitent, mourning over sin, would break upon the ear, and so the meeting would of necessity be protracted—perhaps into the early hours of the morning.

The astonishing character of the spiritual revolution wrought in Ballymena is demonstrated by the testimony of Rev. S. Moore, who said: —

"On my return, after two days' absence at a Meeting of Synod, I found the town in a state of great excitement. Many families had not gone to bed for two or three nights. From dozens of houses, night and day, you would hear, when passing along, loud cries for mercy from those under conviction, or the voice of prayer by kind visitors, or the sweet, soothing tones of sacred song. Business seemed at a standstill.

In some streets, crowds of people, in the houses and before the open doors and open windows, engaged in prayer or praise, all at the same time. 

Of all the stories of Revival blessing, none is more striking than that of Coleraine. The movement first became evident there in a huge assemblage of people, drawn by no alluring announcement of magnificent oratory, but simply to hear the testimony of a few rural converts, upon the Fair Hill.

It was a cloudless evening in June. Shortly after seven o'clock masses of people from town and country began to pour into the square, by every approach, and the platform which had been prepared was speedily surrounded by the multitude. Ministers of all the Protestant denominations were present, and when it was found that no voice could range to the confines of so vast a crowd, they and the converts took up various stations on the Hill, each group immediately securing its own large auditory. Then, as the Gospel was preached, many convicted souls sought refuge in Christ. Again the congregations were split into smaller sections, each being grouped around earnest believers who were pointing the anxious to Him, and repeatedly, as peace came to stricken hearts, there arose, first in a gentle murmur and then in a swelling anthem, the familiar paraphrase of the Fortieth Psalm: —

He took me from a fearful pit
And from the miry clay,
And on a rock He set my feet,
Establishing my way.

Next day the town experienced the growing force of the Revival. Soon, every street in the town numbered its converts. In those Revival days, no false shame hindered the repentant sinner from expressing, with all naturalness, his actual feelings; hence, stricken with remorse, men and women, whether respectable churchgoers or of flagrant life, sought the Saviour, with agonizing cries which were an indication, not of any mental fantasy, but of a profound realization of spiritual need.

"There, on their knees, were one hundred children, and beside them, ladies and gentlemen of position, who had been 'too genteel' to attend the extraordinary meetings, or who had been prevented by delicate health, prostrated together before the Throne of Grace. The godless and worldly-minded man of business was there; old and young of the higher classes were there, all crying out for grace and pardon."

Of a scene at Newton Limavady, an eye-witness said: "In a field, in front of my own house, an immense work of God, and that in wonderful power, was presented to the astonished eyes and hearts of a vast concourse of beholders. Not fewer than a hundred souls were brought under conviction of sin. Some of the women and children were conveyed into the house; others followed to assist them; and shortly, nearly every room in the house was crowded with persons crying out and praying for mercy. The lawn was literally strewed like a battle-field with deeply wounded ones under conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit, who was revealing Christ to their souls."

Throughout the city ministers and laymen were alike engaged in going from house to house, visiting and praying; during these exercises hundreds who, in agony of mind, had left the public meetings, were led into rest. An eye-witness recorded how he "stood for an hour and a quarter, on a Saturday evening, in a crowd, computed at five thousand people, who were listening with breathless attention to a sermon by Henry Grattan Guinness, on 'Many waters cannot quench love.'" In churches where it was a rare thing for any to kneel all would be bowed humbly, while cries would be heard from every part of the building: "God be merciful to me a sinner."

 

The same occurred in Wales and the USA and Australia around the same time.

 

This week I began reading a book about the great Methodist revivals in our area here.

Did you know that God had visited many of the places around us here in revival before the 1900's?

One of the key figures was a young man named Watsford.

One day the two brethren to whom I have referred said to me, 'We are going specially to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the revival of God's work, and we want you to join us.

This is our plan: Every morning and evening and at midday to spend some time in pleading with God to pour out His Spirit; to observe every Friday as a day of fasting and prayer; to sit together in the meetings, and, though not permitted to pray aloud, silently to plead for the coming of the Holy Ghost.' I think they were a little afraid of me, as they gave me this caution: 'Now mind, you must not say a word against our minister, or have any unkind feeling toward him, because he does not allow us to take part in the meetings. He knows what he is doing, and has his own reasons for it. If we complain, or speak against him, the Lord will not hear our prayers.' We carried out our plan for one, two, three weeks, no one but God and ourselves knowing what we were doing.

At the end of the fourth week, on Sunday evening, the Rev. William Walker preached a powerful sermon. After the service the people flocked to the prayer meeting, till the schoolroom was filled. My two friends were there, one on each side of me, and I knew they had hold of God. We could hear sighs and suppressed sobs all around us. The old minister of the Circuit, who had conducted the meeting, was concluding with the benediction, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God'....here he stopped, and sobbed aloud. When he could speak, he called out 'Brother Watsford, pray.' I prayed, and then my two friends prayed, and oh! the power of God that came upon the people, who were overwhelmed by it in every part of the room! And what a cry for mercy! It was heard by the passers-by in the street, some of whom came running in to see what was the matter, and were smitten down at the door in great distress. The clock of a neighbouring church struck twelve before we could leave the meeting. How many were saved I cannot tell. Day after day and week after week the work went on, and many were converted. Among them were many young persons." (4.)

Revival at Windsor

Watsford's description of the revival followed his own experience of it. In 1841 he was on the first step in becoming a minister, and was appointed to help in the Windsor Circuit, under the guidance of the Rev. Frederick Lewis, whom Watsford describes as "a Welshman, full of fire and love, who knew how to bring sinners to Christ, and to whom I owe a great deal." (5.) At Windsor, he says, they "had a blessed revival." "In those days we did not so much arrange for special services or missions; we looked for God's blessing in connection with the ordinary services. At one of the meetings the Holy Spirit came mightily upon us. We were compelled to continue the meetings night after night. Numbers flocked to them, and we had some remarkable cases of conversion. Among these were some of the best customers of the publicans, and no wonder that they cried out against us. One of them especially did all he could to annoy and persecute me in his little way. Whenever I went down the street past his house he cried out after me, 'Amen! Hallelujah! Bless the Lord!' But he never injured me in the slightest degree. It was the best advertisement I could have. The people came to the meetings to see what was going on, and the power of God laid hold of many of them."

Conviction of sin could be very powerful, at times. When that happened, deliverance created overflowing joy, and triumph in Christ.

"In the Sabbath School at Windsor we had a most blessed work. I was giving an address in the school one Sunday afternoon, when the children were greatly impressed. I closed the school, and asked those who wished to decide for Jesus to remain. Very few left. About seventy young persons, from eight to sixteen years old, gathered in great distress around the Superintendent of the school and myself, while we prayed for them. Many of them were soon rejoicing in Jesus. Two cases were particularly interesting. A little girl, seven or eight years of age, was weeping bitterly and praying to God to save her. Her mother, who was a teacher, was kneeling by her side and praying for her. Presently the dear child cried out, 'O mother, I do believe; Jesus does save me.'

The mother, doubting that her child understood what believing was, asked, 'But what is believing, dear?' 'O mother,' replied the little one, 'believing is just seeing Jesus with your eyes shut.' Had not the Good Spirit opened the eyes of her heart so that by faith she saw Jesus and trusted Him? That child is now growing old, but she is still a member of the Church, and has been ever since that memorable hour when Jesus saved her.

The other case was this: My superintendent had two charming little girls, one about eight years old, and the other six. They were always ready for play with me. If my study door was open, dear little Mary, the youngest child, would soon find her way in. She was not sent to the Sabbath School; but that afternoon, hearing the singing and praying, she got out of the parsonage yard, and found her way to the door of the schoolroom. I was kneeling at the time, praying for the children, when I felt someone come very close and kneel down by my side, but had no idea who it was. I closed my prayer and looked down. There was little Mary, with her hands put together, praying most earnestly. I spoke to her about Jesus, and ever afterwards Mary would have it that she was converted that day, and I thoroughly believe she was. Nearly forty years later I visited England. A few days after landing I received a letter from a lady, urging me to go and see her as soon as I could. She signed her name, but added, 'You will not know me by this name, but you will remember the little Mary L..... (Lewis) you knew and loved as a child.' I went to see my old playmate, and rejoiced with her as we talked over that never-forgotten day."

Revival came to the Baiyer river region of PNG in 1973 . I witnessed it back in 1978, 1979. The Baiyer River revival occurred near Mt Hagan in the Western Highlands, when 40,000 people were suddenly swept into the Kingdom of God. God moved through isolated villages bring thousands to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It was amazing to see the sudden conviction of sin, the sudden repentance and turning to Christ as Saviour and Lord, and the sudden transformation of the community among one of the last head hunter groups in PNG.  I am still in contact with some today who came to faith in Christ there including the Police commissioner of PNG. God changed so many so quickly in ways so similar to the Irish Ulster revival, and the Windsor revival.

Waugh writes "Under Australia's administration in the highlands the villagers paid no taxes, but the tribes all helped build roads one day a week as community service. They used the provided picks and shovels, which regularly disappeared. When revival swept through that area in the seventies, hundreds of 'stolen' shovels and axes and other tools reappeared at the mission station as people were convicted by the Holy Spirit to return 'borrowed' items! Missionaries then had to ask people to stop returning these borrowed tools and gave them as permanent gifts."

Revival broke out in many villages on Sunday 16 September when the pastors had returned to their churches. Hundreds of people, deeply convicted of sin, repented and were reconciled to God and to one another with great joy. Pastors in one area held a retreat from Monday to Wednesday in a forest which previously had been sacred for animistic spirit worship. Others joined the pastors there. Healings included a lame man enabled to walk, a deaf mute who spoke and heard, and a mentally deranged girl who was restored.

Work stopped as people in their thousands hurried to special meetings. Prayer groups met daily, morning and evening. Most villages established special places for prayer such as groves near the village where people could go and pray at any time. In the following months thousands of Christians were restored and thousands were converted. The church grew in size and maturity.

In Lumusa, and the Baiyer there came a powerful moving of God's Spirit in the churches. Many Christians were challenged to reconciliation and rededication in deeply moving services which saw an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There was confession of sin, and a new joy and conviction apparent in the lives of many church members. Long-standing quarrels were resolved in an atmosphere of Christian love, and many people gave their lives to Christ.

Seton Arndell notesThe Movement has taken place in response to Enga prayers.

2. The Solomon Island pastors' preaching was straight Bible preaching with

no emotion and little emphasis on revival as such. The emphasis was on the

greater need for dedication to Jesus Christ.

3. The response to the preaching was mainly weeping, confession of sin,

reconciliation and praising God. The pastors were encouraged to counsel

those who were convicted.

4. The general pattern was followed by a quiet waiting on further teaching from God's Word.

One of the miracles of the whole movement was the completion of the whole of the New Testament in the people's tongue at the time these events were taking place, and its presentation to a people thirsty for new life and more knowledge of the God of glory.

The revival also spread at Tekin and the Oksapmin area in 1984

A friend Don Doull writes; The movement resulted in normal living, gardening, and study activities being suspended for quite a period while the people were overwhelmed with a sense of the presence and power of God in their midst. This resulted in confession, prayer and praise leading into witness, which caused the students from the Bible School, and also members off the wider Christian community, to move out in evangelistic witness to areas which up to that time had not been reached by the gospel.

The revival movement quickly spread throughout all the churches of the Min area and resulted in a widening evangelistic witness, which reached out into every village and hamlet of the area. Places which previously had not been heard of, were being reached and people were seeking the Lord.

 

1. PRAY BIBLICALLY (1-2)

This is what the Lord says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come back for you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you." – Jeremiah 29:10-12

1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans ---2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

Be expectant of God's revealed will for your prayer life. When you live in the sphere of God's will, you can expect the Holy Spirit to unfold to you step by step the acts of obedience He desires from you and the prayers He desires to pray through you. Harry Jessop says, "The will of God is a sphere with distinctive boundaries within which souls consciously dwell."³ God wants us to understand what that will is (Eph. 5:17). "Test and approve what God's will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom. 12:2).

Samuel Chadwick wrote, "The humblest follower of Jesus may know the Divine Will first hand. It is every man's privilege to be fully assured in the will of God…. Come straight to God. Do not bother other people. Lay all questions naked before Him, and He will make plain to you what is His will. When God speaks, His speech is easily understood."

Daniel 9:17 "cause thy face to shine".    He does not say: "Lord, send more prophets", "Lord, raise up more kings", "Lord, endow thy people"

The favor of God is not nicely something; it is everything.  To the rulers, to the church, to the individual. 

Every plea he presents is drawn from God.  In  Daniel 9:18, 19:  "Give ear and hear.  See the desolation.  We do not make requests of you...Do Not Delay."

All that is goodness to us is found in the favor of God.  The good of man is given to us from the glory of God in his goodness.  Compare Exodus 33:18‑23; "glory" and "goodness".  Compare Exodus 38:6, 7a;

 

 

 

2. PRAY TRANSPARENTLY (3)

3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.4 And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments,5 we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.6 Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land.7 O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day --- to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

8 "O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.10 We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.11 Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him.12 And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.

13 "As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.14 Therefore the LORD has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day --- we have sinned, we have done wickedly!

 

Merciful Father,  we have strayed from your ways like lost sheep.  We have followed too much the schemes and desires of our own hearts and have broken your holy laws.  We have left undone what we ought to have done,  and we have done what we ought not to have done. Yet, good Lord, have mercy on us;

 

 

McConkey urges, "To know the will of God we must will the will of God. Self-will is the surest and densest vale which hangs between us and the knowledge of God's will…. We will be amazed … to discover how much of our prayer life is an effort to win God over to assent to, and carry out, our own will rather than asking according to His will."

 

 

3. PRAY INTENSELY (3-4)   

How did Daniel touch heaven?  And how was it that his prayer was answered even while he made supplication? 

"And I set my face unto the Lord God."  There is resolute determination.  There is commitment in importunity.  I set my face unto the Lord God.  The very sound of it and the very tone of it rebukes our flippant and indifferent and lethargic appeals and supplications.  No warrior ever won a battle except he offered his life unto death.  Nor did any hero ever break the yoke or emancipate a nation who did not except find himself willing to be offered up.  There is no athlete who excels who does not give himself.  Nor is there any musician who attains who does not know the full commitment of the devoted interested life to which he gives himself.  Nor is there any prevailing in prayer without that same intensity.  "I set my face unto the Lord God."  And to read the prayer is to feel it.  Oh, God, oh, Lord, as he bows before heaven and makes appeal. 

            You know, and I have no objection to it, prayers that are beautifully worded and the sentences that are so dramatically and literarily balanced, I do not deprecate any supplication.  But I do point out to you that in my humble persuasion and judgment, the prayers that really touch God are those that are composed of broken sentences, no thought of eloquent words or grammatical structure.  As the 8th Chapter of Romans describes it, it's just uttered with groanings that defy the formation of sentence or word or language. 

            In 1771, there was born in England a man who became at forty-three years of age a glorious convert to Christ.  He joined the Moravian community in England near the place where he lived.  His name is James Montgomery, and he wrote a hymn defining prayer.  Listen to it: 

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed.

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,

The falling of a tear,

The upward glancing of the eye,

When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try;

Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach

The Majesty on high. 

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,

The Christian's native air,

His watchword at the gates of death;

He enters heaven by prayer.

The saints in prayer appear as one

In word and deed and mind,

When with the Father and the Son

Their fellowship they find.

Nor prayer is made on earth alone,

The Holy Spirit pleads,

And Jesus on the eternal throne

For sinners intercedes.

O Thou by whom we come to God.

The life, the truth, the way.

The path of prayer Thyself hath trod,

Lord, teach us how to pray.

He prayed with intensity and importunity: "I set my face unto the Lord God.  O my God, hear, O Lord, forgive." 

Paul urged, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful" (Col. 4:2; or, "persevere in prayer," NEB). Martin Luther said, "To pray diligently is more than half the task."

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. – James 5:16b KJV

 

4. PRAY SPECIFICALLY  (4-13)

He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. – Proverbs 28:13

16 "O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us.17 Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord's sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate.18 O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.19 O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name."

 

5. PRAY GODLY (15-19)

 

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. – James 4:3

 

CH Spurgeon wrote:

"Cause Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary." He does not say, "Lord, send more Prophets." Or, "Raise up new kings." Or, "Do this or that," but only, "Cause Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary." Oh, that we might learn how to pray so that God would be the Subject as well as the Object of our supplications! O God, Your Church needs You above everything else! A poor, little, sick, neglected child needs 50 things, but you can put all those needs into one if you say that the child needs its mother. So, the Church of God needs a thousand things, but you can put them all into one if you say, "The Church of God needs her God."

There was also great faith in this prayer—"Cause Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary." Daniel seems to say, "Lord, it scarcely needs Your command, it only needs You to smile upon Your sanctuary and all shall be well!" But, Daniel, the Temple is all in ruins! There was scarcely a column standing upon its proper pedestal—and hardly one stone left upon another. "Ah," he says, "that is true. But, Lord, cause Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary." The face of God is as the sun when it shines in its strength. The favor of God is not merely something to His Church, but it is everything! The revelation of His love to His people is not simply a blessing, but it is all the blessings of the Covenant in one! Cause Your face, O infinitely glorious Jehovah, to shine upon Your Church here below! Will you not, Beloved, all join in that prayer?

It was, however, a very comprehensive prayer because wherever God's face shines upon His Church, note what happens. First, her walls are rebuilt. Desolations, when God shines upon them, glow into perfection! We shall soon see our church members multiplied and all things in proper order if the Lord will but shine upon us! Then shall you see each one of the Lord's servants in his right place, ministering before the Lord. I hope we all pray for ministers, but I am afraid we do not pray for them as often and as earnestly as we ought. But, Lord, if You will cause Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary, we shall have ministers enough and of the best sort, too! If Your face is but turned Zionward, You will find the man who will tell of the love of Jesus. When the Lord shines upon a Church, then its worship will be acceptable to Him—even the most humble form of it will be acceptable in His sight. We know what it is to have God's face shining upon us. How sweet the service is then! How intense the prayers! How fervent the praise! How you feel fed! How glad your souls are! In this land of weeping skies and gathering clouds, we know what it is to have a long time of dullness—but how different is the prospect when the sun shines forth in its glory—and how different is our worship when the Lord lifts upon us the Light of His reconciled Countenance!

What hope, what light, what knowledge of the Truth of God, what salvation can come to a perishing world of sinners except through a living Church? What are your own children to do without this shining of God's Countenance? If you take them to a place where the worship is dull and lifeless—if they are compelled to listen to something that never interests them at all, and to go where there is no one to care about their souls, you may live to see them grow up to break your hearts. Therefore pray God to bless His Church for your dear children's sake.

And, then, for God's sake, for Christ's sake, for the Holy Spirit's sake— for a lifeless Church is a dishonor to God—and the better a Church has been, the more of a nuisance does it become when the Presence of God is gone from it. May the Lord grant that we may never know what this means in our own case.

 

 

6. PRAY EXPECTANTLY (20-23)

20 Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God,21 yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering.

 

Criswell "If first, I must be accepted, before my supplication can be received, Lord, how could I ever speak, how could I ever have hope?  This is Daniel.  You did not notice this when I read it, did you?  "I was supplicating, praying confessing at the time of the evening oblation; at the time of the evening sacrifice."  What is that?  Daniel brought his prayer to God at the time that the lamb was slain and offered up as a sacrifice to the Almighty.  And on the basis of confession of sin and blood atonement, Daniel was making appeal to God.  "I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people at the time of the evening oblation." 

            Do you remember how they supplicated under that ritual of blood and atonement?  The sinner brought his offering, and put his hands on the head of the victim, and there confessed his sins.  And then the victim was slain and his blood poured out, and the lamb was offered on the altar of sacrifice.  And on the basis of confession and blood atonement, Daniel at the time of the evening oblation, made appeal unto God.  So he began, "I was praying and confessing my sins and the sin of my people." 

            You know, you listen to the holiest saint and you will think he is the vilest sinner.  You listen to a rogue, and you will think he is the most excellent of mankind.  The farther we get away from God, the finer we think we are.  But the nearer we approach the Almighty, the more sinful and undone do we feel.  In God's glory we have such shame and nakedness.  In God's holiness, we have such sin.  In God's purity and fullness, we have such want.  In God's strength, we have such weakness.  In God's majesty, such lack.  It's like Job who cried saying, "O Lord, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: But now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes."  Or like Elijah when the Lord passed by, covered his face in his mantle, or like the twenty-four apocalyptic elders who fell down before him who sits upon the throne.  That's Daniel.  At the time of the evening oblation, bowing down, covering his mouth with his hands, crying: Unclean, unclean, and sitting in sackcloth and ashes:   Bowed in spirit, bowed in soul, and bowed in heart.  And thus, in confession, and on the basis of blood atonement, Daniel supplicated God.  That's what you mean when you say, "O God, our heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, I come."  That is, in His merit, in His worth, in His atoning blood, in His grace and goodness; Lord, I come.  Not one word does Daniel ever speak of his own worth or merit.  Not one good deed he ever sought to do does he commemorate in this supplication.  But bowing in this supplication at the time of the blood sacrifice, he approaches God and supplicates God in atonement, in mercy, in saving grace. 

            That's the way that we come.  "Lord, not for any worth on my part.  But for Jesus' sake.  In His name, Lord, do I come."  And thus, does God invite us boldly, boldly.  "Wherever, come boldly to the throne of grace.  That we may find grace to help in time of need."

BCP: "Yet, good Lord, have mercy on us;  restore those who are repentant,  according to the promises declared to us  through your Son Jesus Christ.  Grant, merciful Father, for his sake,  that from now on,  we may live godly and obedient lives,  to the glory of your holy name. Amen."

 

God Gave Daniel Insight

The Bible class I attended as a teenager opened every week with us singing: Jesus, stand among us In thy risen power; Let this time of worship Be a hallowed hour.

Ephesians 1:16 herefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places

 

God Gave Daniel Encouragement

 

 

 

 

Summing up the general characteristics of the movement it must be said....

1. The Revival was a work of the Spirit. It had its origin in profound conviction of sin, manifested in vast numbers of people who were further led to find rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, one of the most earnest and spiritually minded ministers of his time, computed that there were a hundred thousand converts. Beyond these, of course, there were multitudes who, although not new creatures in Christ Jesus," at least reformed their ways of life.

2. It made for Temperance. "It is impossible not to observe," said the Dowager Countess of Londonderry, "that one result of the much-talked-of Revival has been the closing of public-houses and the establishment of greater sobriety and temperance." Mr. Macartney, a Justice of the Peace and at one time Member of Parliament for Antrim, witnessed that in certain parishes the use of ardent spirits was almost entirely abandoned.

3. It worked a miraculous change in manners. Rev. William Arthur, noting how the Boyne anniversary passed in a peaceful way that astonished the most sanguine, described the effect as "the most striking effect produced upon national manners, in our day, in these islands, by the sudden influence of religion. I saw people coming away quietly, in streams, from a fair, where before they would have been reeling by dozens. I heard masters tell of the change in their men, boys of that in their comrades; I heard gentlemen, doctors, merchants, shop-keepers, tailors, butchers, weavers, stone-breakers, dwell with wonder on the improvement going on among their neighbours. I knew the people and I believed my own eyes."

4. It called forth the sacrifice of praise. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church appointed a day for prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His "gracious mercy vouchsafed in the revival of religion." Joy in God was exultant; there was an earnest desire after holiness of life; millions of hymnbooks were sold.

5. It was a work wrought largely through humble and local means. Hundreds of the men and women who exhorted and prayed and visited with such ardent love for God and souls were mill-hands, porters, shopmen, ploughmen and the like. Their ordination was that of "the pierced hands"; their testimony was in the power of the Spirit; their burning zeal—itself a prime characteristic of Revival, had no touch of petulance or pride or self-assertion. Their warnings were in the spirit of Him who wept over the city that knew not the hour of its visitation. He brought me up also out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock; this was the keynote of all their plainspoken words.

6. It made for unity. Evangelical believers were at one, brotherly love prevailed, and love and zeal transcended every ignoble thought of denominational aggrandisement. "The great things of the Revival," said Dr. Massie, "did not concern the polity of the Churches, but the peace of a sinner with his God."

Assuredly, if solemnity of mind, contrition for sin, tenderness of conscience, love towards God, a yearning to do His will, and an intense missionary spirit that goes out to all the world, are characteristics of the Divine conquest of the soul of man, then the Ulster Revival was truly a work of the Holy Spirit. 

 

 

There's a light upon the mountains, And the day is at the spring,

When our eyes shall see the beauty And the glory of the King:

Weary was our heart with waiting, And the night watch seemed so long,

But His triumph day is breaking And we hail it with a song.

Hark! we hear a distant music And it comes with fuller swell; '

Tis the triumph song of Jesus, Of our King, Immanuel!

Go ye forth with joy to meet Him! And, my soul, be swift to bring

All thy finest and thy dearest For the triumph of our King!