God Loves… Himself

R.A. Torrey has been quoted as saying that he did not believe that even one in a hundred of the prayers of Protestant believers were truly “unto God.” This is something that sounds absurd, but we also know it is possible to pray to self because the Pharisee prayed to himself (Luke 18:10-11). Regardless of what the lips and tongue form and express, the heart is the true “organ” of prayer. The quotes below come from Lewis Drummond’s The Awakening That Must Come. They point to a great lack we have in prayer.

Stop and think for a moment. Are we not often guilty of being far more concerned over what we are asking or how we are phrasing our requests than the great God we are addressing? Even more trite, do we not at times find ourselves just stringing a series of clichés together that sound good but say very little? I despair over some of the prayers I hear in our worship services. I do not want to appear unkind, but our public prayers are often little more than the “vain repetitions” our Lord warned us to avoid.

When we take the name of God on our lips, we must be vividly conscious to whom we speak. He is the mighty Creator; he is the powerful Sustainer; he is the gracious Redeemer; he is God Almighty, the sovereign Lord. Much of our contemporary sentimental songs and caricatures of God have clouded the nature of this Lord of might and power. He is not “the Man upstairs,” nor “someone up there who likes you,” as the church crooners whine out. He is the mighty God of consuming holiness.

Therefore, we must pause before we rush pell-mell unto God. We should linger long enough to question whether we are even worthy to stand in the presence of the One of whom the cherubim cry continually, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3). Perhaps we should wait until we are ready to steal away, head bowed, heartbroken, saying, “I am not worthy, I have no right to be here. Woe is me.”… Yet it is at this point of a contrite heart that the Lord Jesus can say to us, “Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive.”

Prayer must always be to our Father who is in heaven (and everywhere else). Our prayers must always be primarily for His name to be hallowed, for His kingdom to come, and for His pleasure/will to be done. If our concerns and loves are not primarily for those things, it is hard to see how we are praying as Jesus told us and as Jesus prayed. There can be no true prayer for the hallowing of His name apart from a heart that hallows His name and desires to hallow His name. It is hard to pray for His name to be hallowed if we have rushed into His presence (so to speak) and in our manner, attitude, and words we are not hallowing His name at all. In fact, it could be said that much of the “prayer” that takes place inside buildings owned by churches is marked by such irreverence for God and self-centeredness in the ones “praying” that it is not true prayer at all. God can only be approached with reverence.

In John 5:44 Jesus said; “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” It can be asked how people can truly pray when they seek honor from others rather than the honor and glory of God. While this is obvious, it may not be terribly hard to get some people to change their words. But what must happen is that hearts must be broken from self and a true desire for the glory of God must be instilled by God Himself. As the quotes above teach us, until we are broken with a sense of our unworthiness we are not ready to pray in Jesus’ name. But until we are ready to pray in Jesus’ name from the heart, we are not ready to really pray for revival. Until our hearts have been broken from the selfish things we might desire from revival and we are truly longing for the glory of God to be poured out in true revival (that the glory of His grace would be manifested and magnified) we are not praying for true revival. It is impossible to pray for true revival apart from hearts that are broken (being broken) from self and love His name and glory rather than our own. A great hindrance for revival is that God has turned us over to the desires of our own hearts. Our hearts seek Him (in externals) to do things for self rather than for His name’s sake. True revival will not come until He breaks our hearts (by grace) and gives them panting desires after His glory. “Father, glorify Your name” (Jn 12:28).

For a condensed version of Jonathan Edwards’ call to prayer go to http://www.sbaoc.org/ , click on “BLOG,” and then “a call to prayer.” James 5:16: The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.

“We have as much of the Spirit of God as we desire.” That may sound untrue or crazy, but examine your heart and think about it. It may be true that we may seek God for self-interests or we may seek God for religious interests and think we have great desires for God. But what may not be obvious to us is that we desire a great amount of God for self and rather than desire to repent of a great amount of self. Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all that he had and give to the poor (Luke 18:22), yet He commands us to repent of our selves. We must give up all rights to ourselves and all we have. We must give up all rights to our thoughts, affections, choices, and everything else to submit to His lordship. We must give up all that the life of Christ would dwell in us as fully as He pleases. Our desire for God is measured by our desire to repent of the things of self and die to self. Do we really desire God?

True prayer is hard because utter submission is hard. The heart cannot come to God full of self and the world. Sure we can utter religious sounding words in a “prayer time,” but that is not prayer. In order to be in the presence of God seeking His face, pleasure, and will, we must repent of seeking our own pleasure and will. But usually those are the things we are praying for. To go to the throne of grace to receive grace requires at least two things. First, we must turn from any hope in our own worth and merit and anything but Christ. Only the name of Christ will be heard there. Second, we are to ask for nothing but grace which is always to His glory. God will give nothing that does not come by way of grace and by definition grace can only be given to the manifestation of His glory.

To truly pray for grace, the inward part of man must deny self at the root. When the Lord looked upon the world in Genesis, He was grieved because He “saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5-6). He still sees every heart on earth today and we must know that God looks upon our hearts when we “pray” and not our words alone. Regardless of the words of our lips God knows our true prayer and that has to do with the purposes, intents, and desires of our hearts. If I am praying for revival with my lips, and indeed I may desire revival in my heart in some way, yet if the reason that I desire revival in my heart is for self-centered (can be religious) motives, my prayer before God is idolatrous.

Luke 14:25 – Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. 34 “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? 35 “It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Let’s apply Luke 14 to prayer. If we love anyone or anything that is not out of a love for Christ, we don’t seek Him in prayer. If we are not bearing our cross and following Him, we are not seeking Him in prayer. If we will not count the cost, we are not seeking Him in prayer. If we won’t give up all rights to self and our possessions, we will not seek Him in prayer. If we cannot even meet the basic measure Jesus gave for discipleship in our hearts, then our prayers are no better than a manure pile and are thrown out. We have as much of God as we truly desire of Him in the depths of our hearts. Do we have ears to hear? Are our prayers like useless salt because they are full of desires for self and love of self? God commands us to give up all to be His disciple. Is anything less expected for true prayer? Have we truly denied self? If not, we pray for self rather than God. The “seed” of prayer can be choked by the thorns of the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth. If so, prayer becomes unfruitful. The invitation and command to pray also invites and commands us to deny the inner self. Shall we pray?

Ezra 8:21 – “Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions. 22 For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him.” 23 So we fasted and sought our God concerning this matter, and He listened to our entreaty.”

Nehemiah 9:1 – “Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the sons of Israel assembled with fasting, in sackcloth and with dirt upon them.”

Daniel 9:3 – “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.”

Luke 2:37 – “a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers.”

Matthew 4:2 – “And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ 4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'”

“All these are but the outward shell of these duties; the internal and substantial part of them lies in the following exercises. 1. Serious meditation, and consideration of our ways…2. Deep humiliation of soul before the Lord; the which was signified by the sackcloth and ashes used, under the Law, on such occasions. The consideration of our ways is to be pursued, till our soul be humbled within us; our heart rent, not with remorse for sin only, but with regret and kindly sorrow for it, as an offence to a “gracious and merciful God,” Joel 2:12, 13; our face filled with shame and blushing before him, in view of our spiritual nakedness, pollution, and defilement, Ezra 9:6; and we loathe ourselves as most vile in our own eyes, Ezek 36:31; Job 40:4. 3. Free and open confession of sin before God, without reserve. This is a very material part of the duty incumbent on us in religious fasting; and the due consideration and deep humiliation just now mentioned, do natively issue in it; producing, of course, extraordinary confession of sin, an exercise most suitable on such an occasion. Hence the Jews spent “one fourth part of the day in confessing and worshipping,” Neh 9:3; and the angel, who brought Daniel’s supplications about the time of the evening oblation, found him praying and confessing his sin, Dan 9:20-21. For here the sinner duly humbled has much ado, acting against himself the part of an accuser, recounting before the Lord his transgressions of the holy law, so far as he is able to reach them; the part of an advocate opening up the particulars, in their nature, and aggravating circumstances; and the part of a judge, justifying God in all the evil he has brought upon him, and condemning himself as unworthy of the least of all his mercies, and deserving to perish under eternal wrath” (Thomas Boston).

Prayer without the heart is no better than a recording of words or of teaching a parrot to speak for us. Parroting words in prayer is not true prayer at all. True prayer requires a humbled and broken heart. To obtain a humbled and broken heart it is often necessary to fast and pray. Fasting is not something we do to earn something before God, but in the practice of it we are enabled to focus on what is truly needed. The purpose in fasting is to be humbled before the Lord and to seek His face. We must not imagine that we can truly seek the Lord in the words of prayer without our hearts being humbled and broken before Him. We must not imagine that our personal or corporate prayers are anything but the outward shell (from Boston) unless we are deeply humbled before the Lord. Until we are broken from self-seeking (even in religious things) and our own self-sufficiency we are doing little more than offering words to God instead of our hearts. Fasting can also be nothing more than an outward shell when it is used as a way of merit to gain things from God. We must learn to fast in order to seek humbled hearts before God. We must learn to fast without a thought of gaining things from God, but instead to seek a broken and humbled heart before Him. Until we are taught of the inward teaching of the Lord to seek a true emptiness of self in our fasting so that we may approach Him with nothing in our hands but shame, we will not seek true revival from Him by grace. Oh how our hearts must be conformed to Christ in His humility in order to fast and pray as He fasted and prayed.

Thoughts from A.W. Tozer:

“The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men…The low view of God entertained almost universally is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us [like little prayer]…With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is not producing the kind of Christians who can appreciate of experience the life in the Spirit. The words, “Be still, and know that I am God,” mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshiper.”

“We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that compose the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God… That our idea of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is or immense importance to us. Compared with out actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require and intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after and ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.”

“Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is-in itself a monstrous sin-and substitutes for the true god one made after its own likeness. Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges. A god begotten in the shadows of a fallen heart will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true God.” “These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes” (Psalm 50:21).

Ezekiel 14:4 – “Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols.”

Psalm 66:18 – “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear.”

** The quotes above instruct us why there is so little prayer in our day and why we are in a period of a low degree of spirituality. A low view of God makes it is utterly impossible to pray to the one and true God. No matter what else we do, a low view of God makes true prayer impossible because we are actually praying to the god we have created in our own minds and hearts. As the concept one holds of God decreases, man’s view of himself will increase and our views that we have will not be of the true God. We always pray to the idea or concept we have of God and so our prayers can be nothing more than idolatry. This is why Proverbs 28:9 should shock us and drive us to our knees. “He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination.”

Prayer is not a simple thing, but it is at the very essence and heart of true Christianity. It is not just asking God to do things for us; it is communion with God and seeking Him who is to be the chief and driving love of our whole being. In fact, all prayer does display the chief and driving love of our souls. If we are praying to an idol, it is an idol that we have produced in our own image. It is to pray to ourselves just as the Pharisee did (Luke 18:10-12). The words of our prayers may hide our own hearts from us as indeed the external holding to an orthodox creed can. If we have even a small flicker of a flame in our hearts with a desire for revival of the glory of God, we must seek humility and contrition before Him so that He may deliver us from the idols of our hearts. Without humility and true repentance of our idols we will never know that it means to truly pray. We must learn to cry out to God for a desire for His presence and for Him to give us a true reverence and awe before Him so we can truly pray.

Psalm 78:34 – “When He killed them, then they sought Him, And returned and searched diligently for God; 35 And they remembered that God was their rock, And the Most High God their Redeemer. 36 But they deceived Him with their mouth And lied to Him with their tongue. 37 For their heart was not steadfast toward Him.”

Thoughts from Jonathan Edwards on Prayer:
+ When Christ appeared to Ananias to send him to Paul, before that which must properly be called Paul’s comfort, Christ encourages him with that, “behold, he PRAYETH” (Acts 9:11). Not that he had never prayed before externally. That strict sect of the Pharisees, of which Paul was, abounded in prayer, constantly attended it every day at the stated hours of prayer, besides extraordinary prayer at their fasts (which often were twice a week) and at other times. But these were not counted worthy of the name of prayers, because they were not the prayers of faith.

+ They intended to continue seeking God always; and now suddenly to leave off, would therefore be too shocking to their own minds and partly through the force of their own preconceived notions, and what they have always believed, viz, that godly persons do continue in religion, and that their goodness is not like the morning cloud.
Therefore, though they have no love to the duty of prayer, and begin to grow weary of it, yet as they love their own hope, they are somewhat backward to take a course, which will prove it to be a false hope, and so deprive them of it.

+ Hypocrites never had the spirit of prayer given them. They man have been stirred up to the external performance of this duty, and that with a great deal of earnestness and affection, and yet always have been destitute of the true spirit of prayer. The spirit of prayer is an holy spirit, a gracious spirit. We read of the spirit of grace and supplication, Zech. iii. 10, “I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications.” Wherever there is a true spirit of supplication, there is the spirit of grace. The true spirit of prayer is no other than God’s own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes from God, so doth it naturally tend to God in holy breathings and pantings. It naturally leads to God, to converse with him by prayer.

Speaking of a true convert, he says “his work is not done; but he finds still a great work to do, and great wants to be supplied. He sees himself still to be a poor, empty, helpless creature, and that he still stands in great and continual need of God’s help. He is sensible that without God he can do nothing. A false conversion makes a man in his own eyes self-sufficient. He saith he is rich, and increased with goods, and hath need of nothing; and knoweth not that he is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. But after a true conversion, the soul remains sensible of its own impotence and emptiness, as it is in itself, and its sense of it is rather increased than diminished. It is still sensible of its universal dependence on God for every thing. A true convert is sensible that his grace is very imperfect; and he is very far from having all that he desires. Instead of that, by conversion are begotten in him new desires which he never had before. He now finds in him holy appetites, an hungering and thirsting after righteousness, a longing after more acquaintance and communion with God.”

** Prayer, according to Edwards, is what a person without hope in self does by the Spirit while looking to God alone. He saw true prayer as a sign of conversion while the lack of it was a sign that a person was not converted. While Paul as a Pharisee was devoted to external forms of prayer, yet only after a true conversion did he truly pray. Those who have an experience of false conversion may do external prayer, but they will either become too busy or become fooled by the externals. If we truly desire the glory of God in revival by the Spirit, we will pray from the heart. If we truly desire the glory of God in revival by the Spirit, we will continue in prayer. If we truly desire the glory of God in revival by the Spirit, we will not settle for external prayer. We will long for and seek humble hearts that hunger and thirst for the living God and the manifestation of His glory. We will not be satisfied with externals that pass as prayer. We will not be satisfied until we commune with God Himself and see His glory manifested. We must seek the Lord for hearts that will pant after Him for prayer and then in prayer. Dare we pray, as one cried out for political liberty (a lesser thing), give us revival or give us death? Do we really want revival for His sake?

For a condensed version of Jonathan Edwards’ call to prayer see http://www.sbaoc.org/blog/?page_id=762 or go to www.sbaoc.org and go to “BLOG” and then “a call to prayer.”

James 5:16 – “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”

When the devil cannot keep us from a good work, he labors by all means to make us proud of it. Henry Smith
Men are more unwilling to part with their righteousness than with their sins. Stephen Charnock

“The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people” (Luke 18:11). Pride and prayer are as opposite of each other as light and darkness. Pride looks to and relies on self while true prayer looks to and relies on God. Pride will pray, but like the Pharisee who prayed to himself rather than God. Pride will pray, but in order to be honored by men. “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men” (Matthew 6:5). Pride will pray, but to seek the interests of self rather than the interests of Christ (Phil 2:21). Pride will pray, as virtually all religions have prayer as part of the religion, but it will be a ritual or a prayer to the great I-dol self.

While the heart is proud, true prayer is not possible. When true prayer is taking place, it is like the light displacing the darkness and so pride must be driven from the heart as it cannot reside in a heart that is truly praying. This is why II Chronicles 7:14 says this: “and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” The heart must be humbled in order to truly pray because the proud heart will seek self and not the face of God. The proud heart will be blinded to its sin and will not turn from its wicked ways.

In each and every thing that the soul does it will either seek God or self. Pride and self are really the same thing as self must be pumped up with pride in order to seek self rather than God. The soul will have a primary motive in all that it does. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). In Christianity prayer is to be to and for God because the Greatest Commandment is to love God with all of the being and from that love one is to love others. In prayer, then, the one praying cannot serve two masters with a whole heart. God is either loved or hated in prayer and we are either devoted to or despise God in prayer. God is not honored if we just offer words that we call prayer, but instead we can only pray if we truly love Him and He is the One loved and self is hated. Luke 14:26 tells us that we cannot be His disciple if we don’t hate our own life: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” Can we claim to be His disciple and pray if we love and seek self in prayer rather than the glory of God in love?

It is easy to see prayer as nothing more than a form of seeking self in false religions, but it is harder to see our own prayers as self-seeking when we have the truth of the Gospel. As the Israelites of old bowed to false idols to obtain what their sinful hearts desired, so today many bow in supposed prayer to what they think of as God to seek the I-dol of self to obtain the desires of self. The desires of self can be money, honor, or religious things. Religious self can also be served in seeking revival. The fallen heart can desire revival for greater numbers and larger offerings. The fallen heart can desire to pray for revival for the things of self. That is to seek self and despise God. It is to be in the full service of the great I-dol of self and is an attempt to use God to gain the sinful desires of self. When a soul seeks God for the service of the sins of self, it cannot be a holy God that is being prayed to and a non-holy God is no God at all. There appears to be a massive amount of idolatry that goes on under the guise of Christianity today because a holy God is not being sought out of love but a false god is being sought for the things of self.

Let us stop deceiving ourselves. There will be no true revival in our land apart from true prayer. There will be no true prayer in our hearts until self is denied and pride is repented of. It is easy to just do the motions of prayer and say orthodox words, but true prayer will not happen until the great I-dol of self has been repented of. This requires inner agony of soul at the hand of God. Do we really desire true prayer and true revival in our day? We will not desire it, much less truly pray for it, apart from a true denial of self given by grace. Let us not think that true revival will come apart from broken and self-denying hearts given to seeking God for Himself in prayer.

Revival Testimonies in Wales
A characteristic incident was the revival of a parish of about two thousand miners. The clergyman was a man of no special gifts. He had, however, great simplicity of doctrine and unusual holiness of life. He had toiled long and that with comparatively little effort. The same was true of other chapels in that neighborhood. The parish was dead. Two years before the revival broke out, amongst a faithful few there was excited a spirit of prayer for their ministers. They prayed alone in their chambers; they prayed unitedly in little prayer bands. Gradually these ministers were conscious of a new spirit of power and love in their ministry. Soon the thoughtless, the godless and the careless flocked to the houses of prayer. The churches were filled with overflowing.

The Rev. H. R. Jones… had returned from America to his home in Cardiganshire. He had witnessed with his own eyes what God was doing for America. Coming from the warm religious atmosphere of an awakened country he felt keenly the coldness of the spiritual life in Wales. He listened to a sermon preached by Morgan [David Morgan]. At the close he asked his brother minister if that was a sample of his usual preaching. When told that it was, he replied, “Then your people will go to hell under your preaching.” This thought greatly distressed Mr. Morgan and he spent many days in prayer, self-examination and in agony of soul. When these two brethren came together again and considered the conditions that existed in the church life in Wales they felt that there was something lacking in the preaching, and most of all, in the spirit of prayer among professed Christians. As a direct result of this visit, these brethren called a meeting to pray for a revival in their land. This was in September, 1858. At first Mr. Morgan was constantly depressed because so few attended the prayer meetings. His friend who had attended and knew the history of the Fulton Street prayer meetings in New York saw a revival before them and never wavered in his faith. Soon a spirit of prayer was noticeable in the community and before two months had passed two hundred persons professed conversion and united with the two churches in that community.

Revival Testimonies in Ireland
The Irish revival had its beginning in the place of prayer…The reading of what God was doing for George Muller in the way of answering prayer gave the desire to four young men in the north of Ireland to meet together for prayer. They met near Connor, in County Antrim…and prayed that “Their labors and that of others in the prayer meetings and Sunday schools might be eminently owned of God.” This prayer meeting, attended by four anxious young men, was the birthplace of the great religious wave that swept over Ireland. The first prayer meeting was held in the same month of the same year, and if not on the same day, then near the same day, that saw the first great Fulton Street prayer meeting in New York City [1857-1858]. Though unknown to each other, the same God was leading in His own wonderful way. This prayer meeting was the first of many, before any great visible results were noticeable. …suddenly a great number of sinners was converted. This directed the eyes of many to the importance of the prayers of God’s people and soon thousands of God’s people were praying that the wave of blessing might become general. …At times it was estimated that a thousand a day were professing conversion. Ulster alone saw one hundred thousand profess conversion.

Christians everywhere were meeting in little bands to pray. Meetings were held…night and day and young and old were smitten with deep conviction…The large church was crowded to the doors and the entire graveyard, surrounding the church, was then filled with praying Christians…When the fire of God fell on Ballymena the Christians in near by Coleraine met to pray for a similar blessing…and were united in their prayers for a revival…So great was the conviction that one of the town newspapers was compelled to delay publication…Their new town hall was about to be formally opened with a great opening dance. So great was the conviction of sin and the desire to attend church services that the hall was engaged to accommodate the crowd.

Acts 1:14 “These…were continually devoting themselves to prayer.” Acts 6:4 “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” What is more important for ministers than prayer? True revival only comes when God gives His people hearts to pray. Are people praying? There is no need to wonder why revival is not here. What are we devoted to if not to prayer? Are we too busy to pray? Then we are too busy for God’s work.

For a condensed version of Jonathan Edwards’ call to prayer go to http://www.sbapc.org , click on “BLOG,” and then “a call to prayer.”

James 5:16 – “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”

Isaiah 64:6-7 gives us some important and yet extremely neglected elements of prayer. “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on Your name, Who arouses himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.”

There is a clear link between verses 6 and 7. Verse 6 teaches that our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment and then that our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. In light of our sin we are told (v. 7) that there is no one who calls on His name and who arouses himself to take hold of God. Why is this the case? It is because He has hidden His face from us and has delivered us into the power of our iniquities. We are a nation and a professing Church without prayer because we have been delivered into the power of our iniquities. The power of sin is the love of sin and the blinding influence of our pride. We can be preachers and very religious people who say a lot of words that we think is prayer and yet we do not truly take hold of God because He is judging us.

A people that God has hidden His face from are those that cannot truly pray. They may get together for religious activities and may spend a lot of time saying words toward the ceiling, but if God has hidden His face from a people they are not truly praying no matter how many words they are offering up. The priests of Baal danced and prayed for hours and yet they were not truly praying. When God has delivered people into the power of their iniquities they cannot truly pray. When God hides His face from a church it might be growing numerically, but they are not a people that can pray and do not have the presence of God. We may lament the lack of prayer in our own hearts and in the life of churches, but it is not because men and women do not put forth enough effort. It is because God has hidden His face from the people and has turned them over to the power of their iniquities.

It is no accident and it is not just a formula that II Chronicles 7:14 gave the Israelites the steps to seeing their nation healed. 1) The people must be God’s people. 2) They must humble themselves. 3) They must pray. 4) They must seek the face of the Lord. 5) They must turn from their wicked ways. In other words, in some ways the passage in Isaiah 64:6-7 is what we need II Chronicles 7:14 for. The passage in Isaiah tells us of the judgment of God in hiding His face and the passage in II Chronicles tells us how to return to God by seeking His face. Our churches and our nation will never see true revival apart from the steps outlined in II Chronicles 7:14. But we must be careful not to assume that these things can be done apart from the work of the Spirit in our hearts. It is not that the passage just gives us some easy steps to be done, but it prescribes what must be done by God in our hearts.

Before men and women can rouse themselves to take hold of God, the judgment of God must be removed. This means that they must be deeply humbled in heart for there is no true prayer apart from humility and no deep prayer apart from a deep humility. There is no taking hold of God until the grip of self is loosened by a deep humiliation of soul. The depths of prayer are determined by the depths of humility that the Lord works in the soul. The face of God cannot be seen apart from a deeply humbled heart that seeks His face and nothing else. The face of God that has been hidden in judgment cannot be sought apart from a people that are turning from their wicked ways. But know that it is the Lord that has turned us over to the power of our iniquities and so it is the Lord alone who can grant repentance from those iniquities. If we desire the presence of the Lord in true revival, it will cost us much humbling of heart and repentance. If we are not ready to deny our very selves and reputations to seek Him, we are not ready to truly pray. We must get beyond our external religious veneer which is the judgment of God on us and seek an ever deeper humility that we may pray in an ever deeper way to grab hold of God and seek His face.

“I… do not feel sufficient emptiness in my soul to receive God” (Howell Harris).

“But now the more I did in prayer or any other duty, the more I saw I was indebted to God for allowing me to ask for mercy; for I saw it was self-interest had led me to pray, and that I had never once prayed from any respect to the glory of God” (David Brainerd).

He learned that a deep humiliation of soul was needed in order to truly pray. That is true of us as well.

Remarks from William C. Burns (1815-1868) on prayer and/or about his prayer life:

* “O for a spirit of humble wrestling prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that sinners may be awakened, and saints greatly edified and advanced!”

* Burns knew that when he was close to God, when he was and had been dependent upon him, was when he felt God’s strengthening most. If his prayer-life wanted at all, even if was due to the ongoing duties created, he was quickly aware of the lack of closeness of God’s Spirit. Prayer then became all-important to Burns and he would do all he could to spend time alone with God even in the midst of his busy days.

* I spent the day chiefly alone, seeking personal holiness, the fundamental requisite in order to a successful ministry.

* …prayed, “and in doing so I felt…as if a direct communication were opened between my soul and the Divine Mind. My heart was truly drawn out and up to God for the advancement of Emmanuel’s glory, even more than for the salvation of guilty worms, as a heart-satisfying end.”

* But those who were so minded could learn from him the greatest lesson of all for the work of the ministry-the omnipotence of faith and prayer.

* Many were cut to the heart on that day, and Islay remembered seeing a white-haired man in the gate weeping bitterly, and saying, “Oh! It’s his prayers.: I canna stand his prayers!” “No matter what he did, or had to do, whether of importance or of a nature you might call trivial, he made it a matter of prayer. This prayerfulness of his seems to me to be the outstanding feature of his Christian life and missionary work.”

* Home to my studies at a quarter-past eight; got some humiliation, or rather some discovery of pride in prayer.

* I was led in a great measure to preach without writing, not because I neglected to study, but in order to study and pray for a longer time.

* I was alone during the greater part of the day seeking humiliation before the Lord, and began through grace to discover how far, alas! I have fallen from that contrition of soul for sin which I once enjoyed.

* I generally found that when the Lord meant to pour out his Spirit, he first made both preacher and people sensible that without him they could do nothing.

* I went out and getting down among the rocks by the river side, where the voice was lost in the noise of the gushing flood, I was enabled to cry aloud for help to the Lord.

* Are there those who feel for us in this unbroken land if heathenism, and cry to God with spiritual agonizings for the descent of the Spirit in his life-giving and converting power?

Burns saw revival in place after place that he went. His “method” was to seek a broken heart and humiliation from God by prayer and to pray from a heart that looked to God alone for the conversion of sinners. He was not satisfied to utter words, but instead he sought a broken heart that could seek the Lord in prayer. He was not satisfied with a broken heart either, but beyond that he sought the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. He was not a man of prayer because he spent time uttering words to God, but because he spent time seeking a heart that was emptied of self so that he would be full of the presence of God. We will not see revival until we desire the glory of God so much that our heart’s desire is to be truly broken of self and pride. Even this desire will not come apart from a true breaking of our hearts and our being filled with the presence and power of the living God. Do we really desire revival? Is it our one great desire to be full of God so that His glory would shine through us? The question is not if we sort of want that desire, but is it what our souls crave? If not, we need to seek His face for that. Do we desire to be so broken that we have no hope or help but from God? If not, we are not ready for revival. If we pray for revival as a way to get people in the doors rather than God in our souls, we have no clue what true revival is. If we long for revival to gain attention of men, we have no clue what true revival is. We need to seek Him for broken hearts.

For a condensed version of Jonathan Edwards’ call to prayer see http://www.sbaoc.org/blog/?page_id=762 or go to www.sbaoc.org and go to “BLOG” and then “a call to prayer.”

James 5:16 “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”

Ezra 9:1 “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. 2 “For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness.” 3 When I heard about this matter, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled some of the hair from my head and my beard, and sat down appalled. 4 Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel on account of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me, and I sat appalled until the evening offering. 5 But at the evening offering I arose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to the LORD my God; 6 and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. 7 “Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity and to plunder and to open shame, as it is this day. 8 “But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage. 9 “For we are slaves; yet in our bondage our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. 10 “Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, 11 which You have commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from end to end and with their impurity. 12 ‘So now do not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or their prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever.’ 13 “After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, since You our God have requited us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us an escaped remnant as this, 14 shall we again break Your commandments and intermarry with the peoples who commit these abominations? Would You not be angry with us to the point of destruction, until there is no remnant nor any who escape? 15 “O LORD God of Israel, You are righteous, for we have been left an escaped remnant, as it is this day; behold, we are before You in our guilt, for no one can stand before You because of this.” 10:1 Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly.”

1. Religious people who are worldly need to mourn and weep for their sin of unfaithfulness to God.
2. In some way the sins of a the whole Church are upon each church in some way.
3. Are you appalled at what is going on in the professing Church today and not just the political realm?
4. Are you ashamed and embarrassed for the sins of our nation and of the professing Church?
5. Ezra was so broken over the sin of the people that many others gathered and wept bitterly.
6. Could it be that until our hearts are so broken that we are utterly appalled and ashamed over the sins of the professing Church and we weep bitterly that we are in darkness ourselves with hard hearts?
7. Are our hearts broken enough to mourn for the sins of ourselves and others (Mat 5:4) to seek true revival?
8. Are we ready to turn from whatever sin God reveals in order to seek true revival? In more than just words?

Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer (Bunyan)

Cold prayers always freeze before they reach heaven (Thomas Brooks)

In prayer, rather let your heart be without words than your words without a heart (Bunyan)