And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:49)
John Wesley, George Whitefield, David Brainerd, Francis Asbury, Charles Spurgeon, William Booth, Charles Finney, Bud Robinson, D. L. Moody and Mordecai Ham – all these messengers were different in many ways. Some were Wesleyan Arminian, some were Calvinistic. Some were scholarly, some were unlearned. Some were organized, funded and promoted; some were unorganized, penniless and opposed. Some were charismatic, some were cloudy in their personality. These dear men of God were different in many other ways, but they all had many things in common. The one common thing I want to emphasize today is that each man in this list was a man of prayer!And, because they were men of prayer, they were men of the Holy Spirit. And because they were men of the Holy Spirit, they were men of holiness. And because they were men of holiness, they were men of power. And because they were men of power, they were men who saw revival!
This is not to say that Spirit-filled men and women do nothing but pray. I know pastors and revivalists who work hard, study the Word faithfully, visit saints and sinners, counsel tirelessly, attend conferences, spend time with their families and are accountable to their denominational superiors. But there is one unmistakable commitment that stands out in their life and ministry: they are committed to a life of ministry in prayer! They are often alone with God, staying in the secret place until their minds are captivated, their spirits inflamed and their hearts are overflowing. Most of this kind feel all this is a prerequisite to their study of Scriptures and development of sermons. Such messengers emerge to become channels of the living water that God uses to wash congregations large and small. A single sentence coming from the lips of such a fire-baptized messenger of the Gospel transforms more minds and hearts than a thousand sermons delivered by a cold-hearted orator, no matter how sound his theology or how timely his subject.
The enemy of revival in our times is managing to mislead some of the most spiritually-gifted and brilliantly prepared evangelical messengers to exhaust their time and energies on labors that don’t count for the Kingdom of God and waste their time on reading and thinking on things that neither purify the mind nor enrich the soul. The great tragedy here is that, despite all their knowledge, they don’t even have a clue that they are being distracted.
