The outstanding need of the hour is a revival that will stir the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that will speedily evangelize the regions beyond. The solution of our problems is an old-fashioned, Heaven-sent, prayed-down, Holy Ghost revival that will make God and eternity real. Even Tolstoi, the humanist, said, “The distinctive mark of the age is its lost sense of God.” Men have forgotten God, and therefore we face a national crises. History teaches us that every nation that forgets God must perish. What we need is a manifestation of the presence and power of God. This divine demonstration can be brought about only through earnest, importune prayer that releases the resources of Heaven and brings back a God-consciousness to the children of men.
God’s challenge in the present crisis is found in Jeremiah 33:3,“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” God will answer prayer if we will meet the conditions. We must be on praying ground by confessing and forsaking every known sin. We must believe God. If we pray according to God’s conditions, marvelous things will take place. Something happens when we pray that would not happen if we neglected to pray. People are depending on our prayers. There will be people in Heaven because we have prayed. Prayer makes it possible for the Holy Ghost to convict of sin. Prayer creates an atmosphere fix the Holy Ghost to convict of sin. Prayer creates an atmosphere in which the third Person in the Trinity can work. Only praying men and women can be used in God’s service.
Prayer is a duty, and to neglect to pray is a sin. The tragedy of the present hour is that there is so little prayer. We have allowed Satan to blind us. We are depending on talents, machinery, and organization instead of depending on God. It is because of spiritual laziness that we neglect to pray. Satan knows that his kingdom loses many subjects whenever God’s people pray earnestly. It is Satan’s strategy to keep the church in a prayerless condition.
We need a revival that will make closet prayer common, restore the family altar, and make the public prayer meeting largely attended. We need a compassion for souls that will give us the burden of prayer. We need to spend hours – yea, whole nights – in prayer. Every true revival that has ever come to this world has come in answer to prayer. Hudson Taylor prayed, and the China Inland Mission was brought into existence. George Mueller prayed, and millions of dollars came into his hands to care for the orphan children. “Prayer moves the arm that moves the world.”
The praying people of the nation must bestir themselves in this hour of crisis and pray persistently, earnestly, with heart yearning and tears, “Lord, send a revival, and let it begin in me.” Will you respond to God’s challenge?”