Prayer and Revival

“But to him that is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think, according to the power which works in us, to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen” (Eph 3:20-21).

Is revival still possible today? Well, the Bible tells us that there won't be a world-wide revival at the end of times. However, that doesn't mean that the Lord will not give revival locally any more. If He sees His people persevering in earnest prayer for the salvation of souls and for a spiritual awakening among the saints, He will certainly respond to it. The following true story which happened a century ago gives us a little glimpse of what God is able to do as an answer to prayer:

In 1917 he wrote: “Again we have come up to another convention and our workers are here from every province; from far away Leo Choo Islands, Hokkaido, and other points. Every train brings in great numbers. There is also a fine delegation from Korea. Three full days were spent in waiting upon God before these meet­ings. Far off in the quiet country, in an abandoned farm house, the native workers waited and prayed until all felt that God had heard them and they returned with faces shining as if they had been on the Mount of Transfigura­tion. God came in mighty power at the first service.

“The workers were drawn together in tender love; there were no divisions to be found anywhere; and God truly poured out such blessings upon us that our hearts have not found room enough to contain them all and I only wish that you could share with us a fraction of them. I wish you could have heard them singing, ‘Crown Him Lord of All!’ It was like a great wave of praise surging up against the pillars of the throne of God. Just beyond our compound is a great heathen temple, and the echo must have reached the worshipers there. It made us feel like girding on our armor afresh, for how can they crown Him Lord of all ‘of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher?’

“We had a real foretaste of heaven yesterday. There were present at the morning service six hundred who partook of the communion. The majority were our own converts.

“We do not want anything new in revivals; we want always the old factors—the living Spirit of God, the living Word of God, the old Gospel. We want crowds coming to hear—crowds made up of the old elements; perishing men and women finding their way to prayer meeting, Bible reading, and the altar of prayer.”

“I cannot go all your lengths,” said a prominent mis­sionary who attended the Convention, “but I believe you are on the right lines. Keep on as you are doing.”

After the Convention, which was attended by fully one thousand people, X was much impressed with the fact that such meetings should be duplicated in every city in the Orient. We find these lines in a letter to a dear doctor friend in the homeland:

“What hath God wrought? My soul is humbled to the dust. Not unto us, but unto God belongs the glory. The converts in the outstations have multiplied beyond all ex­pectations.”