revival1

revival1

REVIVALS OF RELIGION

Also titled

Lectures on Revival

by

Charles Grandison Finney

August 29, 1792-August 16, 1875.

LECTURE I What A Revival Of Religion Is

LECTURE II When A Revival Is To Be Expected

LECTURE III How To Promote A Revival

LECTURE IV Prevailing Prayer

LECTURE V The Prayer Of Faith

LECTURE VI The Spirit Of Prayer

LECTURE VII On Being Filled With The Spirit

LECTURE VIII Meetings For Prayer

LECTURE IX Means To Be Used With Sinners

LECTURE X To Win Souls Requires Wisdom

LECTURE XI A Wise Minister Will Be Successful

LECTURE XII How To Preach The Gospel

LECTURE XIII How Churches Can Help Ministers

LECTURE XIV Measures To Promote Revivals

LECTURE XV Hindrances To Revivals

LECTURE XVI The Necessity And Effect Of Union

LECTURE XVII False Comforts For Sinners

LECTURE XVIII Directions To Sinners

LECTURE XIX Instructions To Converts

LECTURE XX Instructions To Converts (Continued)

LECTURE XXI The Backslider In Heart

LECTURE XXII Growth In Grace

CONTENTS

LECTURE I. – WHAT A REVIVAL OF RELIGION IS.

What a revival of religion is not – What it is – The agencies employed in

promoting it.

LECTURE II. – WHEN A REVIVAL IS TO BE EXPECTED.

When a revival is needed – The importance of a revival when

it is needed – When a revival of religion may be expected.

LECTURE III. – HOW TO PROMOTE A REVIVAL.

What it is to break up the fallow ground – How it is to be performed.

LECTURE IV. – PREVAILING PRAYER.

What is effectual or prevailing prayer – Some of the most essential

attributes of prevailing prayer – Some reasons why God requires this

kind of prayer – That such prayer will avail much

LECTURE V. – THE PRAYER OF FAITH.

Faith an indispensable condition of prevailing prayer – What it is we are

to believe when we pray – When we are bound to exercise this faith –

This kind of faith in prayer always obtains the blessing sought – How we

are to come into the state of mind in which we can exercise such faith –

Objections answered

LECTURE VI. – THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER.

What Spirit is spoken of in the passage: “The Spirit also helpeth our

infirmities” – What that Spirit does for us – Why He does what the text

declares Him to do – How He accomplishes it – The degrees of His

influences – How His influences are to be distinguished from the

influences of evil spirits – Who have a right to expect His influences

LECTURE VII. – ON BEING FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.

Individuals may have the Spirit of God – It is their duty to be filled with

the Spirit – Why the Spirit is not obtained – The guilt of those who

have not the Spirit of God – The consequences of having the Spirit. –

The consequences that will follow not having the Spirit

LECTURE VIII. – MEETINGS FOR PRAYER.

The design of prayer meetings – The manner of conducting them –

Several things that will defeat the design of holding them.

LECTURE IX. – MEANS TO BE USED WITH SINNERS.

On what particular points Christians are to testify for God – The manner

in which they are to testify

LECTURE X. – TO WIN SOULS REQUIRES WISDOM.

How Christians should deal with careless sinners – How they should deal

with awakened sinners, and with convicted sinners

LECTURE XI. – A WISE MINISTER WILL BE SUCCESSFUL

A right discharge of the duties of a minister requires great wisdom – The

amount of success in the discharge of his duties (other things being equal)

decides the amount of wisdom employed by him.

LECTURE XII. – HOW TO PREACH THE GOSPEL.

Several passages of Scripture ascribe conversion to man – This is

consistent with other passages which ascribe conversion to God – Several

important particulars in regard to preaching the Gospel

LECTURE XIII. – HOW CHURCHES CAN HELP MINISTERS.

The importance of the cooperation of the Church in producing and

carrying on a revival – Several things which Churches must do, if they

would promote a revival and aid their ministers

LECTURE XIV. – MEASURES TO PROMOTE REVIVALS.

God has established no particular system of measures to be employed –

Our present forms of public worship have been arrived at by a succession

of new measures

LECTURE XV. – HINDRANCES TO REVIVALS.

A revival of religion is a great work – Several things which may put a

stop to it – What must be done for the continuance of a revival

LECTURE XVI. – THE NECESSITY AND EFFECT OF UNION.

We are to be agreed in prayer – We are likewise to be agreed in everything

that is essential to the blessing we seek

LECTURE XVII. – FALSE COMFORTS FOR SINNERS.

The necessity and design of instructing anxious sinners – Anxious sinners

are always seeking comfort – The false comforts that are often

administered

LECTURE XVIII. – DIRECTIONS TO SINNERS.

What is a proper direction to be given to sinners when they make inquiry

for salvation – What is a proper answer to such inquiry – Several errors

into which anxious sinners are apt to fall

LECTURE XIX. – INSTRUCTIONS TO CONVERTS.

Several things to be considered in regard to the hopes of young converts –

Several things respecting their making a profession of religion – The

importance of having correct instruction given to young converts – What

should not be taught – What things are necessary to be taught

LECTURE XX. – INSTRUCTIONS TO CONVERTS (continued).

Other points on which young converts ought to be instructed – How

young converts should be treated by the Church – Some of the evils

resulting from defective instruction in the first stages of Christian

experience

LECTURE XXI. – THE BACKSLIDER IN HEART.

What backsliding in heart is not – What it is – What are its evidences –

What are its consequences – How to recover from such a state.

LECTURE XXII. – GROWTH IN GRACE.

What grace is – What the injunction to “grow in grace” does not mean –

What it does mean – Conditions of growth in grace – What is not proof

of growth – What is proof – How to grow in grace

LECTURE I

WHAT A REVIVAL OF RELIGION IS

O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years

make known; ill wrath remember mercy. – Habakkuk 3:2.

It is supposed that the prophet Habakkuk was contemporary with

Jeremiah, and that this prophecy was uttered in anticipation of the

Babylonish captivity. Looking at the judgments which were speedily to

come upon his nation, the soul of the prophet was wrought up to an

agony, and he cried out in his distress: “O Lord, revive Thy work.” As if

he had said: “O Lord, grant that Thy judgments may not make Israel

desolate. In the midst of these awful years let the judgments of God be

made the means of reviving religion among us. In wrath remember mercy.”

Religion is the work of man. It is something for man to do. It consists in

obeying God. It is man’s duty. It is true God induces him to do it. He

influences him by His Spirit, because of his great wickedness and

reluctance to obey. If it were not necessary for God to influence men, if

men were disposed to obey God, there would be no occasion to pray: “O

Lord, revive Thy work.” The ground of necessity for such a prayer is that

men are wholly indisposed to obey; and unless God interpose the

influence of His Spirit, not a man on earth will ever obey the commands of

God.

A “Revival of Religion” presupposes a declension. Almost all the religion

in the world has been produced by revivals. God has found it necessary to

take advantage of the excitability there is in mankind, to produce powerful

excitements among them, before He can lead them to obey. Men are so

sluggish, there are so many things to lead their minds off from religion and

to oppose the influence of the Gospel, that it is necessary to raise an

excitement among them, till the tide rises so high as to sweep away the

opposing obstacles. They must be so aroused that they will break over

these counteracting influences, before they will obey God.

Look back at the history of the Jews, and you will see that God used to

maintain religion among them by special occasions, when there would be a

great excitement, and people would turn to the Lord. And after they had

been thus revived, it would be but a short time before there would be so

many counteracting influences brought to bear upon them, that religion

would decline, and keep on declining, till God could have time, so to

speak, to convict them of sin by His Spirit, and rebuke them by His

providence, and thus so gain the attention of the masses to the great

subject of salvation, as to produce a widespread awakening. Then the

counteracting causes would again operate, religion would decline, and the

nation would be swept away in the vortex of luxury, idolatry, and pride.

There is so little principle in the Church, so little firmness and stability of

purpose, that unless it is greatly excited, it will go back from the path of

duty, and do nothing to promote the glory of God. The state of the world

is still such, and probably will be till the millennium is fully come, that

religion must be mainly promoted by means of revivals. How long and

how often has the experiment been tried, to bring the Church to act

steadily for God, without these periodical excitements! Many good men

have supposed, and still suppose, that the best way to promote religion is

to go along uniformly, and gather in the ungodly gradually, and without

excitement. But however sound such reasoning may appear in the abstract,

facts demonstrate its futility. If the Church were far enough advanced in

knowledge, and had stability of principle enough to keep awake, such a

course would do. But the Church is so little enlightened, and there are so

many counteracting causes, that the Church will not go steadily to work

without a special excitement. As the millennium advances, it is probable

that these periodical excitements will be unknown. Then the Church will

be enlightened, and the counteracting causes removed, and the entire

Church will be in a state of habitual and steady obedience to God. Children

will be trained up in the way they should go, and there will be no such

torrents of worldliness, and fashion, and covetousness, to bear away the

piety of the Church, as soon as the excitement of a revival is withdrawn.

It is very desirable that the Church should go on steadily in a course of

obedience without these excitements. Our nervous system is so strung that

any powerful excitement, if long continued, injures our health, and unfits

us for duty. If religion is ever to have a pervading influence in the world,

this spasmodic religion must be done away with. Indeed, it will then be

uncalled for. Christians will not sleep the greater part of the time, and once

in a while wake up, and rub their eyes, and bluster about, and vociferate a

little while, and then go to sleep again. Then there will be no need that

ministers should wear themselves out and kill themselves, by their efforts

to roll back the flood of worldly influence that sets in upon the Church.

But as yet the state of the Christian world is such, that to expect to

promote religion without excitements is unphilosophical and absurd. The

great political and other worldly excitements that agitate Christendom, are

all unfriendly to religion, and divert the mind from the interests of the soul.

Now, these excitements can only be counteracted by religious excitements.

And until there is sufficient religious principle in the world to put down

irreligious excitements, it is in vain to try to promote religion, except by

counteracting excitements. This is true in philosophy, and it is a historical

fact.

It is altogether improbable that religion will ever make progress among

heathen nations except through the influence of revivals. The attempt is

now in making to do it by education, and other cautious and gradual

improvements. But so long as the laws of mind remain what they are, it

cannot be done in this way. There must be excitement sufficient to wake

up the dormant moral powers, and roll back the tide of degradation and

sin. And precisely so far as our land approximates to heathenism, it is

impossible for God or man to promote religion in such a state of things but

by powerful excitements. This is evident from the fact that this has

always been the way in which God has done it. God does not create these

excitements, and choose this method to promote religion, for nothing, or

without reason. Men being so reluctant to obey God, will not act until

they are excited. For instance, how many there are who know that they

ought to be religious, but they are afraid that if they become pious they

will be laughed at by their companions. Many are wedded to idols; others

are procrastinating repentance until they are settled in life, or until they

have secured some favorite worldly interest. Such persons never will give

up their false shame, or relinquish their ambitious schemes, till they are so

excited by a sense of quiet and danger they cannot hold back any longer.

These remarks are designated only as an introduction. I shall now proceed

with the main design, to show:

I. What a revival of religion is not.

II. What it is. And

III. The agencies employed in promoting it.

I. A REVIVAL IS NOT A MIRACLE.

1. A miracle has been generally defined to be a Divine interference, setting

aside, or suspending, the laws of nature. A revival is not a miracle in this

sense. All the laws of matter and mind remain in force. They are neither

suspended nor set aside in a revival.

2. A revival is not a miracle according to another definition of the term

“miracle” – something above the powers of nature. There is nothing in

religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature. It consists entirely in the

right exercise of the powers of nature. It is just that, and nothing else.

When mankind become religious, they are not enabled to put forth

exertions which they were unable before to put forth. They only exert

powers which they had before, in a different way, and use them for the

glory of God.

3. A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is

a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means –

as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means.

There may be a miracle among its antecedent causes, or there may not. The

apostles employed miracles simply as a means by which they arrested

attention to their message, and established its Divine authority. But the

miracle was not the revival. The miracle was one thing; the revival that

followed it was quite another thing. The revivals in the apostles’ days

were connected with miracles, but they were not miracles.

I said that a revival is the result of the right use of the appropriate means.

The means which God has enjoined for the production of a revival,

doubtless have a natural tendency to produce a revival. Otherwise God

would not have enjoined them. But means will not produce a revival, we

all know, without the blessing of God. No more will grain, when it is

sown, produce a crop without the blessing of God. It is impossible for us

to say that there is not as direct an influence or agency from God, to

produce a crop of grain, as there is to produce a revival. What are the laws

of nature according to which it is supposed that grain yields a crop? They

are nothing but the constituted manner of the operations of God. In the

Bible, the Word of God is compared to grain, and preaching is compared to

sowing the seed, and the results to the springing up and growth of the

crop. A revival is as naturally a result of the use of the appropriate means

as a crop is of the use of its appropriate means.

I wish this idea to be impressed on your minds, for there has long been an

idea prevalent that promoting religion has something very peculiar in it,

not to be judged of by the ordinary rules of cause and effect; in short, that

there is no connection of the means with the result, and no tendency in the

means to produce the effect. No doctrine is more dangerous than this to

the prosperity of the Church, and nothing more absurd.

Suppose a man were to go and preach this doctrine among farmers,

regarding their sowing of grain. Let him tell them that God is a Sovereign,

and will give them a crop only when it pleases Him, and that for them to

plow, and plant, and labor, as if they expected to raise a crop, is very

wrong, that it amounts to taking the work out of the hands of God, that it

is an interference with His Sovereignty, and that there is no connection

between the means and the result on which they can depend. Suppose the

farmers should believe such a doctrine? Why, they would starve the world

to death.

Just such results would follow on the Church being persuaded that

promoting religion is somehow so mysteriously a subject of Divine

Sovereignty, that there is no natural connection between the means and the

end. In fact, what are the results? Why, generation after generation has

gone to hell, while the Church has been dreaming and waiting for God to

save them without the use of the means. It has been the devil’s most

successful means of destroying souls! The connection is as clear in religion

as it is when the farmer sows his grain.

There is one fact under the government of God worthy of universal notice

and of everlasting remembrance; which is, that the most useful and

important things are most easily and certainly obtained by the use of the

appropriate means. This is evidently a principle in the Divine

administration. Hence, all the necessaries of life are obtained with great

certainty by the use of the simplest means. The luxuries are more difficult

to obtain; the means to procure them are more intricate, and less certain in

their results; while things absolutely hurtful and poisonous, such as

alcohol and the like, are often obtained only by torturing nature and

making use of a kind of infernal sorcery to procure death-dealing

abominations.

This principle holds true in moral government, and as spiritual blessings

are of surpassing importance, we should expect their attainment to be

connected with great certainly with the use of the appropriate means; and

such we find to be the fact. And I fully believe that, could facts be known,

it would be found that when the appointed means have been rightly used,

spiritual blessings have been obtained with greater uniformity than

temporal ones.

II. WHAT A REVIVAL IS.

It presupposes that the Church is sunk down in a backslidden state, and a

revival consists in the return of the Church from her backslidings, and in

the conversion of sinners.

1. A revival always includes conviction of sin on the part of the Church.

Backslidden professors cannot wake up and begin right away in the service

of God, without deep searchings of heart. The fountains of sin need to be

broken up. In a true revival, Christians are always brought under such

conviction; they see their sins in such a light that often they find it

impossible to maintain a hope of their acceptance with God. It does not

always go to that extent, but there are always, in a genuine revival, deep

convictions of sin, and often cases of abandoning all hope.

2. Backslidden Christians will be brought to repentance. A revival is

nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God. Just as in the case

of a converted sinner, the first step is a deep repentance, a breaking down

of heart, a getting down into the dust before God, with deep humility, and

a forsaking of sin.

3. Christians will have their faith renewed. While they are in their

backslidden state they are blind to the state of sinners. Their hearts are

hard as marble. The truths of the Bible appear like a dream. They admit it

to be all true; their conscience and their judgment assent to it; but their

faith does not see it standing out in bold relief, in all the burning realities

of eternity. But when they enter into a revival, they no longer see “men as

trees, walking,” but they see things in that strong light which will renew

the love of God in their hearts. This will lead them to labor zealously to

bring others to Him. They will feel grieved that others do not love God,

when they love Him so much. And they will set themselves feelingly to

persuade their neighbors to give Him their hearts. So their love to men will

be renewed. They will be filled with a tender and burning love for souls.

They will have a longing desire for the salvation of the whole world. They

will be in an agony for individuals whom they want to have saved – their

friends, relations, enemies. They will not only be urging them to give their

hearts to God, but they will carry them to God in the arms of faith, and

with strong crying and tears beseech God to have mercy on them, and save

their souls from endless burnings.

4. A revival breaks the power of the world and of sin over Christians. It

brings them to such vantage ground that they get a fresh impulse towards

heaven; they have a new foretaste of heaven, and new desires after union

with God; thus the charm of the world is broken, and the power of sin

overcome.

5. When the Churches are thus awakened and reformed, the reformation

and salvation of sinners will follow. Their hearts will be broken down and

changed. Very often the most abandoned profligates are among the

subjects. Harlots, and drunkards, and infidels, and all sorts of abandoned

characters, are awakened and converted. The worst of human beings are

softened and reclaimed, and made to appear as lovely specimens of the

beauty of holiness.

III. THE AGENCIES EMPLOYED.

Ordinarily, there are employed in the work of conversion three agents and

one instrument. The agents are God; some person who brings the truth to

bear on the mind; and the sinner himself. The instrument is the truth.

There are always two agents, God and the sinner, employed and active in

every case of genuine conversion.

1. The agency of God is twofold: by His Providence and by His Spirit.

(a) By His providential government He so arranges events as to bring the

sinner’s mind and the truth in contact. He brings the sinner where the truth

reaches his ears or his eyes. It is often interesting to trace the manner in

which God arranges events so as to bring this about, and how He

sometimes makes everything seem to favor a revival. The state of the

weather and of the public health and other circumstances concur to make 1

everything just right to favor the application of truth with the greatest

possible efficacy. How He sometimes sends a minister along just at the

time he is wanted! How He brings out a particular truth just at the

particular time when the individual it is fitted to reach is in the way to

hear!

(b) God’s special agency by His Holy Spirit. Having direct access to the

mind, and knowing infinitely well the whole history and state of each

individual sinner, He employs that truth which is best adapted to his

particular case, and then drives it home with Divine power. He gives it

such vividness, strength, and power that the sinner quails, and throws

down his weapons of rebellion, and turns to the Lord. Under His influence

the truth burns its way like fire. He makes the truth stand out in such

aspects that it crushes the proudest man down with the weight of a

mountain. If men were disposed to obey God, the truth is given with

sufficient clearness in the Bible; and from preaching they could learn all

that is necessary for them to know. But because they are wholly

disinclined to obey it, God makes it clear before their minds, and pours in

upon their souls a blaze of convincing light which they cannot withstand;

and they yield to it, obey God, and are saved.

2. The agency of men is commonly employed. Men are not mere

instruments in the hands of God. Truth is the instrument. The preacher is

a moral agent in the work: he acts; he is not a mere passive instrument; he

is voluntary in promoting the conversion of sinners.

3. The agency of the sinner himself. The conversion of a sinner consists in

his obeying the truth. It is therefore impossible it should take place

without his agency, for it consists in acting right. He is influenced to this

by the agency of God and by the agency of men. Men act on their

fellow-men, not only by language, but by their looks, their tears, their

daily deportment. See that impenitent man, who has a pious wife. Her

very looks, her tenderness, her solemn, compassionate dignity, softened

and molded-into the image of Christ, are a sermon to him all the time. He

has to turn his mind away, because it is such a reproach to him. He feels a

sermon ringing in his ears all day long.

Mankind are accustomed to read the countenances of their neighbors.

Sinners often read the state of a Christian’s mind in his eyes. If his eyes

are full of levity, or worldly anxiety and contrivance, sinners read it. If

they are full of the Spirit of God, sinners read it. The ungodly are often led

to conviction simply by, seeing the countenance of Christians.

An individual once went into a manufactory to see the machinery. His

mind was solemn, as he had been where there was a revival. The people

who labored there all knew him by sight, and knew who he was. A young

lady who was at work saw him, and whispered some foolish remark to her

companion, and laughed. The person stopped and looked at her with a

feeling of grief. She stopped; her thread broke – and she was so much

agitated that she could not join it. She looked out at the window to

compose herself, and then tried again; again and again she strove to recover

her self-command. At length she sat down, overcome by her feelings. The

person then approached and spoke with her; she soon manifested a deep

sense of sin. The feeling spread through the establishment like fire, and in a

few hours almost every person employed there was under conviction; so

much so that the owner, though a worldly man, was astounded, and

requested to have the works stopped and a prayer-meeting held; for he

said it was a great deal more important to have these people converted

than to have the works go on. And in a few days the owner and nearly all

the persons employed in the establishment were hopefully converted. The

eye of this individual, his solemn countenance, his compassionate feeling,

rebuked the levity of the young woman, and brought her under conviction

of sin; and probably in a great measure this whole revival followed from so

small an incident.

If Christians themselves have deep feeling on the subject of religion, they

will produce deep feeling wherever they go. And if they are cold, or light

and trifling, they inevitably destroy all deep feeling, even in awakened

sinners.

I knew a case once of an individual who was very anxious, but one day I

was grieved to find that her convictions seemed to be all gone. I asked her

what she had been doing. She told me she had been spending the afternoon

at a certain place, among some professors of religion – not thinking that it

would dissipate her convictions to spend an afternoon with professors of

religion! But they were trifling and vain people, and her convictions were

lost. And no doubt those professors of religion, by their folly, destroyed a

soul, for her convictions did not return.

The Church is required to use the means for the conversion of sinners.

Sinners cannot properly be said to use the means for their own conversion.

The Church uses the means. What sinners do is to submit to the truth, or

to resist it. It is a mistake of sinners, to think they are using means for

their own conversion. The whole drift of a revival, and everything about it,

is designed to present the truth to your mind, for your obedience or

resistance.

REMARKS.

1. Revivals were formerly regarded as miracles. And it has been so by

some even in our day. And others have ideas on the subject so loose and

unsatisfactory, that if they would only think, they would see their

absurdity. For a long time it was supposed by the Church that a revival

was a miracle, an interposition of Divine power, with which they had

nothing to do, and which they had no more agency in producing than they

had in producing thunder, or a storm of hail, or an earthquake. It is only

within a few years that ministers generally have supposed revivals were to

be promoted, by the use of means designed and adapted specially to that

object. It has been supposed that revivals came just as showers do,

sometimes in one town, and sometimes in another, and that ministers and

Churches could do nothing more to produce them than they could to make

showers of rain come on their own town, when they were falling on a

neighboring town.

It used to be supposed that a revival would come “about once in fifteen

years, when all would be converted that God intended to save,” after

which the Church must wait until another crop came forward on the stage

of life. Finally, the time got shortened down to five years; it was supposed

there might be a revival about as often as that!

I have heard a fact in relation to a pastor who entertained this supposition

• that a revival might come about once in five years. There had been a

revival in his congregation. The next year there was a revival in a

neighboring town, and he went there to preach, staying several days, till he

became engrossed in the work. He returned home on a Saturday, and went

into his study to prepare for the Sabbath. His soul was in agony. He

thought how many adult persons there were in his congregation at enmity

with God. He reasoned thus: “There are so many still unconverted; so

many persons die yearly – such a portion of them unconverted; if a

revival does not come under five years, so many adult heads of families

will be lost.” He put down his calculations on paper, and embodied them

in his sermon for the next day, with his heart bleeding at the dreadful

picture. As I understood it, he did not do this with any expectation of a

revival; but he felt deeply, and poured out his heart to his people; and that

sermon awakened forty heads of families, and a powerful revival followed;

and so his theory about a revival once in five years was exploded.

Thus God has overthrown, generally, the theory that revivals are miracles.

2. Revivals have been greatly hindered by mistaken notions concerning the

Sovereignty of God. Many people have supposed God’s Sovereignty to

be something very different from what it is. They have supposed it to be

such an arbitrary disposal of events, and particularly of the gift of His

Spirit, as precluded a rational employment of means for promoting a

revival. But there is no evidence from the Bible that God exercises any

such sovereignty. There are no facts to prove it, but everything goes to

show that God has connected means with the end, through all the

departments of His government, in nature and in grace. There is no natural

event in which His own agency is not concerned. He has not built the

creation like a vast machine that will go on alone, without His further care.

He has not retired from the universe, to let it work for itself. That is mere

Deism. He exercises a universal superintendence and control. And yet

every event in nature has been brought about by means. He administers

neither providence nor grace with that sort of sovereignty that dispenses

with the use of means. There is no more sovereignty in the one than in the

other.

And yet some people are terribly alarmed at all direct efforts to promote a

revival, and they cry out: “You are trying to get up a revival in your own

strength. Take care, you are interfering with the Sovereignty of God.

Better keep along in the usual course, and let God give a revival when He

thinks it is best. God is a Sovereign, and it is very wrong for you to

attempt to get up a revival, just because you think a revival is needed.”

This is just such preaching as the devil wants. And men cannot do the

devil’s work more effectually than by preaching up the Sovereignty of

God as a reason why we should not put forth efforts to produce a

revival.

3. You see the error of those who are beginning to think that religion can be

better promoted in the world without revivals, and who are disposed to

give up all efforts to produce religious awakenings. Because there are evils

arising in some instances out of great excitements on the subject of religion,

they are of opinion that it is best to dispense with them altogether. This

cannot, and must not be. True, there is danger of abuses. In cases of great

religious as well as in other excitements, more or fewer incidental evils may

be expected, of course. But this is no reason why revivals should be given

up. The best things are always liable to abuses. Great and manifold evils

have originated under (but not because of) the providential and moral

governments of God. So in revivals of religion, it is found by experience,

that in the present state of the world, religion cannot be promoted to any

considerable extent without them. The evils which are sometimes

complained of, when they are real, are accidental, and of small importance

when compared with the amount of good produced by revivals. The

sentiment should not be admitted by the Church for a moment, that

revivals may be given up. It is fraught with all that is dangerous to the

interests of Zion, is death to the cause of missions, and brings in its train

the damnation of the world.

4. Finally: I have not commenced this course of Lectures on Revivals to get

up a curious theory of my own on the subject. I would not spend my time

and strength merely to give instructions, to gratify curiosity, and furnish

people with something to talk about. I have no idea of a preaching about

revivals. It is not my design to preach so as to have you able to say at the

close: “We understand all about revivals now,” while you do nothing.

Will you follow the instructions I shall give you from the Word of God,

and then put them in practice in your own lives? Will you bring them to

bear upon your families, your acquaintance, neighbors, and through the

city? Or will you spend the time in learning about revivals, and do nothing

for them? I want you as fast as you learn anything on the subject of

revivals, to put it in practice, and go to work and see if you cannot

promote a revival among sinners here. If you will not do this, I wish you

to let me know at the beginning, so that I need not waste my strength. You

ought to decide now whether you will do this or not. You know that we

call sinners to decide on the spot whether they will obey the Gospel. And

we have no more authority to let you take time to deliberate whether you

will obey God, than we have to let sinners do so. We call on you to unite

now in a solemn pledge to God, that you will do your duty as fast as you

learn what it is, and to pray that He will pour out His Spirit upon this

Church and upon all the city.

LECTURE II

WHEN A REVIVAL IS TO BE EXPECTED

Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?

• Psalm 85:6.

The Psalmist felt that God had been very favorable to the people, and

while contemplating the goodness of the Lord in bringing them back from

the land whither they had been carried away captive, and while looking at

the prospects before them, he breaks out into a prayer for a revival of

religion: “Wilt Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in

Thee?” Since God in His providence had re-established the ordinances of

His house among them, he prays that there may be a revival of religion to

crown the work.

In my first Lecture I attempted to show what a revival of religion is not,

what a revival is, and the agencies to be employed in promoting it. The

topics to which I now wish to call attention are:

I. When a revival of religion is needed.

II. The importance of a revival when it is needed.

III. When a revival of religion may be expected.

I. WHEN A REVIVAL OF RELIGION IS NEEDED.

1. When there is a want of brotherly love and Christian confidence among

professors of religion, then a revival is needed. Then there is a loud call for

God to revive His work. When Christians have sunk down into a low and

backslidden state, they neither have, nor can have, the same love and

confidence toward each other, as when they are all alive, and active, and

living holy lives. God loves all men with the love of benevolence, but He

does not feel the love of complacency toward any but those who live holy.

Christians love each other with the love of complacency, only in

proportion to their holiness. If Christian love is the love of the image of

Christ in His people, then it can be exercised only where that image really

or apparently exists. A person must reflect the image of Christ, and show

the spirit of Christ before other Christians can love him with the love of

complacency. It is in vain to call on Christians to love one another with

the love of complacency, as Christians, when they are sunk down in

stupidity. They see nothing in each other to produce this love. It is next to

impossible that they should feel otherwise toward each other than they do

toward sinners. Merely knowing that they belong to the Church, or seeing

them occasionally at the Communion table, will not produce Christian

love, unless they see the image of Christ.

2. When there are dissensions, and jealousies, and evil speakings among

professors of religion, then there is a great need of a revival. These things

show that Christians have got far from God, and it is time to think

earnestly of a revival. Religion cannot prosper with such things in the

Church, and nothing can put an end to them like a revival.

3. When there is a worldly spirit in the Church. It is manifest that the

Church has sunk down into a low and backslidden state, when you see

Christians conform to the world in dress, equipage, and “parties,” in

seeking worldly amusements, and reading novels, and other books such as

the world reads. It shows that they are far from God, and that there is

great need of a revival of religion.

4. When the Church finds its members falling into gross and scandalous

sins, then it is time to awake and cry to God for a revival of religion. When

such things are taking place as give the enemies of religion an occasion for

reproach, it is time to ask of God: “What will become of Thy great

Name?”

5. When there is a spirit of controversy in the Church or in the land, a

revival is needful. The spirit of religion is not the spirit of controversy.

There can be no prosperity in religion where the spirit of controversy

prevails.

6. When the wicked triumph over the Churches, and revile them, it is time

to seek for a revival of religion.

7. When sinners are careless and stupid, it is time Christians should bestir

themselves. It is as much their duty to awake as it is for the firemen to do

so when a fire breaks out in the night in a great city. The Church ought to

put out the fires of hell which are laying hold of the wicked. Sleep! Should

the firemen sleep and let the whole city burn down, what would be

thought of such firemen? And yet their guilt would not compare with the

guilt of Christians who sleep while sinners around them are sinking

stupidly into the fires of hell.

II. THE IMPORTANCE OF A REVIVAL IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES.

1. A revival of religion is the only possible thing that can wipe away the

reproach which covers the Church, and restore religion to the place it

ought to have in the estimation of the public. Without a revival, this

reproach will cover the Church more and more, until it is overwhelmed

with universal contempt. You may do anything else you please, and you

may change the aspects of society in some respects, but you will do no

real good; you only make it worse without a revival of religion. You may

go and build a splendid new house of worship, and line your seats with

damask, put up a costly pulpit, and get a magnificent organ, and

everything of that kind, to make a show and dash, and in that way you

may procure a sort of respect for religion among the wicked, but it does no

good in reality. It rather does hurt. It misleads them as to the real nature of

religion; and so far from converting them, it carries them farther away from

salvation. Look wherever they have surrounded the altar of Christianity

with splendor, and you will find that the impression produced is contrary

to the true nature of religion. There must be a waking up of energy on the

part of Christians, and an outpouring of God’s Spirit, or the world will

laugh at the Church.

2. Nothing else will restore Christian love and confidence among Church

members. Nothing but a revival can restore it, and nothing else ought to

restore it. There is no other way to wake up that love of Christians for one

another which is sometimes felt, when they have such love as they cannot

express. You cannot have such love without confidence; and you cannot

restore confidence without such evidence of piety as is seen in a revival. If

a minister find he has lost in any degree the confidence of his people, he

ought to labor for a revival as the only means of regaining their confidence.

I do not mean that his motive in laboring for a revival should be merely to

regain the confidence of his people, but that a revival through his

instrumentality(and ordinarily nothing else) will restore to him the

confidence of the praying part of his people. So if an elder or private

member of the Church finds his brethren cold towards him, there is but

one way to restore it. It is by being revived himself, and pouring out from

his eyes and from his life the splendor of the Image of Christ. This spirit

will catch and spread in the Church; confidence will be renewed, and

brotherly love prevail again.

3. At such a time a revival of religion is indispensable to avert the

judgments of God from the Church. I his would be a strange preaching if

revivals were only miracles. and if the Church has no more agency in

producing them than it has in producing a thunderstorm. We could not

then say to the Church: “Unless there is a revival you may expect

judgments.” The fact is, Christians are more to blame for not being revived,

than sinners are for not being converted. And if they are not awakened,

they may know assuredly that God will visit them with His judgments.

How often God visited the Jewish Church with judgments because they

would not repent and be revived at the call of His prophets! How often

have we seen Churches, and even whole denominations, cursed with a

curse, because they would not wake up and seek the Lord, and pray: “Wilt

Thou not revive us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?”

4. Nothing but a revival of religion can preserve such a Church from

annihilation. A Church declining in this way cannot continue to exist

without a revival. If it receives new members, they will, for the most part,

be made up of ungodly persons. Without revivals there will not ordinarily

be as many persons converted as will die off in a year. There have been

Churches in this country where the members have died off, and, since

there were no revivals to convert others in their place, the Church has “run

out,” and the organization has been dissolved.

A minister told me he once labored as a missionary in Virginia, on the

ground where such a man as Samuel Davies once shone like a flaming

torch; and that Davies’ Church was so reduced as to have but one male

member, and he, if I remember right, was a colored man. The Church had

got proud, and was “run out.” I have heard of a Church in Pennsylvania,

that was formerly flourishing, but neglected revivals, and it became so

reduced that the pastor had to send to a neighboring Church for a ruling

elder when he administered the Communion.(Why not, in such a case, let

any member of the Church, male or female, distribute the elements? Is it

indispensable to have an elder?)

5. Nothing but a revival of religion can prevent the means of grace from

doing a great injury to the ungodly. Without a revival they will grow

harder and harder under preaching, and will experience a more horrible

damnation than they would if they had never heard the Gospel. Your

children and your friends will go down to a much more horrible fate in hell,

in consequence of the means of grace, if there are no revivals to convert

them to God. Better were it for them if there were no means of grace, no

sanctuary, no Bible, no preaching, than to live and die where there is no

revival. The Gospel is the savor of death unto death, if it is not made a

savor of life unto life.

6. There is no other way in which a Church can be sanctified, grow in

grace, and be fitted for heaven. What is “growing in grace”? Is it hearing

sermons and getting some new notions about religion? No; no such thing.

The Christian who does this, and nothing more, is getting worse and

worse, more and more hardened, and every week it is more difficult to

rouse him up to duty.

III. WHEN A REVIVAL MAY BE EXPECTED.

1. When the providence of God indicates that a revival is at hand. The

indications of God’s providence are sometimes so plain as to amount to a

revelation of His will. There is a conspiring of events to open the way, a

preparation of circumstances to favor a revival, so that those who are

looking out can see that a revival is at hand, just as plainly as if it had

been revealed from heaven. Cases have occurred in this country where the

providential manifestations were so plain that those who were careful

observers felt no hesitation in saying that God was coming to pour out His

Spirit and grant a revival. There are various ways for God so to indicate

His will to a people; sometimes by giving them peculiar means, sometimes

by peculiar and alarming events, sometimes by remarkably favoring the

employment of means, or by the state of the public health.

2. When the wickedness of the wicked grieves and humbles and distresses

Christians. Sometimes Christians do not seem to mind anything about the

wickedness around them. Or, if they do talk about it, it is in a cold, and

callous, and unfeeling way, as if they despaired of a reformation: they are

disposed to scold sinners – not to feel the compassion of the Son of God

for them. But sometimes the conduct of the wicked drives Christians to

prayer, breaks them down, and makes them sorrowful and tender-hearted,

so that they can weep day and night, and instead of scolding the wicked

they pray earnestly for them. Then you may expect a revival. Indeed, it is

begun already.

Sometimes the wicked will get up an opposition to religion. And when this

drives Christians to their knees in prayer to God, with strong crying and

tears, you may be certain there is going to be a revival. The prevalence of

wickedness is no evidence at all that there is not going to be a revival. That

is often God’s time to work. When the enemy cometh in like a flood, the

Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him. Often the first indication

of a revival is that the devil gets up something new in opposition. This

will invariably have one of two effects. It will either drive Christians to

God, or it will drive them farther away from God, to some carnal policy or

other that will only make things worse. Frequently the most outrageous

wickedness of the ungodly is followed by a revival. If Christians are made

to feel that they have no hope but in God, and if they have sufficient

feeling left to care for the honor of God and the salvation of the souls of

the impenitent, there will certainly be a revival. Let hell boil over if it

will, and spew out as many devils as there are stones in the pavement, if it

only drives Christians to God in prayer – it cannot hinder a revival. Let

Satan “get up a row,” and sound his horn as loud as he pleases; if Christians

will only be humbled and pray, they shall soon see God’s naked arm in a

revival of religion. I have known instances where a revival has broken in

upon the ranks of the enemy, almost as suddenly as a clap of thunder, and

scattered them, taken the ringleaders as trophies, and broken up their

party in an instant.

3. A revival may be expected when Christians have a spirit of prayer for a

revival. That is, when they pray as if their hearts were set upon it.

Sometimes Christians are not engaged in definite prayer for a revival, not

even when they are warm in prayer. Their minds are upon something else;

they are praying for something else – the salvation of the heathen and the

like – and not for a revival among themselves. But when they feel the

want of a revival, they pray for it; they feel for their own families and

neighborhoods; they pray for them as if they could not be denied. What

constitutes a spirit of prayer? Is it many prayers and warm words? No.

Prayer is the state of the heart. The spirit of prayer is a state of continual

desire and anxiety of mind for the salvation of sinners. It is something that

weighs them down. It is the same, so far as the philosophy of mind is

concerned, as when a man is anxious for some worldly interest. A

Christian who has this spirit of prayer feels anxious for souls. It is the

subject of his thoughts all the time, and makes him look and act as if he

had a load on his mind. He thinks of it by day, and dreams of it by night.

This is properly “praying without ceasing.” His prayers seem to flow

from his heart liquid as water: “O Lord, revive Thy work.” Sometimes this

feeling is very deep; persons have been bowed down so that they could

neither stand nor sit. I can name men in this State, of firm nerves, who

stand high in character, who have been absolutely crushed with grief for

the state of sinners. The feeling is not always so great as this, but such

things are much more common than is supposed. In the great revivals in

1826, they were common.

This is by no means enthusiasm. It is just what Paul felt when he said:

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth.” This travail of soul is that

deep agony which persons feel when they lay hold on God for such a

blessing, and will not let Him go till they receive it. I do not mean to be

understood that it is essential to a spirit of prayer that the distress should

be so great as this. But this deep, continual, earnest desire for the salvation

of sinners is what constitutes the spirit of prayer for a revival.

When this feeling exists in a Church, unless the Spirit is grieved away by

sin, there will infallibly be a revival of Christians generally, and it will

involve the conversion of sinners to God. A clergyman once told me of a

revival among his people, which commenced with a zealous and devoted

woman in the Church. She became anxious about sinners, and gave herself

to praying for them; she prayed, and her distress increased; and she finally

came to her minister and talked with him asking him to appoint an anxious

inquirers’ meeting, for she felt that one was needed. The minister put her

off, for he felt nothing of any such need. The next week she came again,

and besought him again to appoint such a meeting. She knew there would

be somebody to come, for she felt as if God was going to pour out His

Spirit. The minister once more put her off. And finally she said to him: “If

you do not appoint the meeting I shall die, for there is certainly going to be

a revival.” The next Sabbath he appointed a meeting, and said that if there

were any who wished to converse with him about the salvation of their

souls, he would meet them on such an evening. He did not know of one,

but when he went to the place, to his astonishment he found a large

number of anxious inquirers. Now, do not you think that woman

knew there was going to be a revival? Call it what you please, a new

revelation or an old revelation, or anything else. I say it was the Spirit of

God that taught that praying woman there was going to be a revival. “The

secret of the Lord” was with her, and she knew it. She knew God had been

in her heart, and filled it so full that she could contain no longer.

Sometimes ministers have had this distress about their congregations, so

that they felt as if they could not live unless they saw a revival.

Sometimes elders and deacons, or private members of the Church, men or

women, have the spirit of prayer for a revival of religion, so that they will

hold on and prevail with God, till He pours out His Spirit. The first ray of

light that broke in upon the midnight which rested on the Churches in

Oneida County, in the fall of 1825, 8 was from a woman in feeble health,

who, I believe, had never been in a powerful revival. Her soul was

exercised about sinners. She was in an agony for the land. She did not

know what ailed her, but she kept praying more and more, till it seemed as

if her agony would destroy her body. At length she became full of joy, and

exclaimed. “God has come! God has come! There is no mistake about it,

the work is begun, and is going all over the region.” And sure enough the

work began, and her family were all converted, and the work spread all

over that part of the country. Now, do you think that woman was

deceived? I tell you, no. She knew she had prevailed with God in prayer.

Generally there are but few professors of religion who know anything

about this spirit of prayer which prevails with God. I have been amazed to

see such accounts as are often published about revivals, as if the revival

had come without any cause – nobody knew why or wherefore. 9 I have

sometimes inquired into such cases; when it had been given out that

nobody knew anything about it until one Sabbath they saw by the faces of

the congregation that God was there, or they saw it in their

conference-room, or prayer-meeting, and were astonished at the

mysterious Sovereignty of God in bringing in a revival without any

apparent connection with means.

Now mark me. Go and inquire among the obscure members of the Church

and you will always find that somebody had been praying for a revival,

and was expecting it – some man or woman had been agonizing in prayer

for the salvation of sinners, until the blessing was gained. It may have

found the minister and the body of the Church fast asleep, and they would

wake up all of a sudden, like a man just rubbing his eyes open, running

round the room, pushing things over, and wondering where all the

excitement comes from. But though few knew it, you may be sure there

had been somebody on the watch-tower, constant in prayer till the

blessing came. Generally, a revival is more or less extensive, as there are

more or less persons who have the spirit of prayer.

4. Another sign that a revival may be expected is when the attention of

ministers is especially directed to this particular object, and when their

preaching and other efforts are aimed particularly at the conversion of

sinners. Most of the time the labors of ministers are, it would seem,

directed to other objects. They seem to preach and labor with no particular

design to effect the immediate conversion of sinners, and then it need not

be expected that there will be a revival under their preaching. There never

will be a revival till somebody makes particular efforts for this end. But

when the attention of a minister is directed to the state of the families in

his congregation, and when his heart is full of feeling of the necessity of a

revival, and he puts forth the proper efforts for this end, then you may be

prepared to expect a revival. As I have explained, the connection between

the right use of means for a revival, and a revival, is as philosophically sure

as between the right use of means to raise grain, and a crop of wheat. I

believe, in fact, it is more certain, and that there are fewer instances of

failure. The effect is more certain to follow. Probably the law connecting

cause and effect is more undeviating in spiritual than in natural things, and

so there are fewer exceptions. The paramount importance of spiritual

things makes it reasonable that it should be so.

Take the Bible, the nature of the case, and the history of the Church all

together, and you will find fewer failures in the use of means for a revival

than in farming or any other worldly business. In worldly affairs there are

sometimes cases where counteracting causes annihilate all a man can do. In

raising grain, for instance, there are cases which are beyond the control of

man, such as drought, hard winter, worms, and so on. So in laboring to

promote a revival, there may things occur to counteract it, something or

another suddenly diverting the public attention from religion, which may

baffle every effort. But I believe there are fewer such cases in the moral

than in the natural world. I have seldom seen an individual fail when he

used the means for promoting a revival in earnest, in the manner pointed

out in the Word of God. I believe a man may enter on the work of

promoting a revival with as reasonable an expectation of success as he can

enter on any other work with an expectation of success – with the same

expectation as the farmer has of a crop when he sows his grain. I have

sometimes seen this tried and succeed under circumstances the most

forbidding that can be conceived.

The great revival at Rochester 10 began under the most disadvantageous

circumstances that could well be imagined. It seemed as though Satan had

interposed every possible obstacle to a revival. The three Churches were

at variance. One had no minister: one was divided and was about to

dismiss its minister. An elder of the third Presbyterian Church had brought

a charge against the pastor of the first Church. After the work began, one

of the first things was, the great stone Church gave way and created a

panic. 11 Then one of the Churches went on and dismissed their minister

right in the midst of it. Many other things occurred, so that it seemed as if

the devil were determined to divert public attention from the subject of

religion. But there were a few remarkable cases of the spirit of prayer,

which assured us that God was there, and we went on; and the more Satan

opposed, the Spirit of the Lord lifted up the standard higher and higher, till

finally a wave of salvation rolled over the place.

5. A revival of religion may be expected when Christians begin to confess

their sins to one another. At other times they confess in a general manner,

as if they are only half in earnest. They may do it in eloquent language, but

it does not mean anything. But when there is an ingenuous breaking down,

and a pouring out of the heart in confession of sin, the flood-gates will

soon burst open, and salvation will flow over the place.

A revival may be expected whenever Christians are found willing to make

the sacrifices necessary to carry it on. They must be willing to sacrifice

their feelings, their business, their time, to help forward the work.

Ministers must be willing to lay out their strength, and to jeopardize their

health and life. They must be willing to offend the impenitent by plain and

faithful dealing, and perhaps offend many members of the Church who

will not come up to the work. They must take a decided stand with the

revival, be the consequences what they may. They must be prepared to go

on with the work even though they should lose the affections of all the

impenitent, and of all the cold part of the Church. The minister must be

prepared, if it be the will of God, to be driven away from the place. He

must be determined to go straight forward, and leave the entire event with

God.

I knew a minister who had a young man laboring with him in a revival. The

young man preached pretty plain truth and the wicked did not like him.

They said: “We like our minister and we wish to have him preach.” They

finally said so much that the minister told the young man: “Such and such

a person, who gives so much towards my support, says so-and-so; Mr. A.

also says so, and Mr. B. likewise. They think it will break up the society

if you continue to preach, and I think you had better not preach any

more.” The young man went away, but the Spirit of God immediately

withdrew from the place and the revival stopped short. The minister, by

yielding to the wicked desires of the ungodly, drove Him away, being

afraid that the devil would drive him away from his people. So by

undertaking to satisfy the devil he offended God. And God so ordered

events that in a short time the minister had to leave his people after all. He

undertook to go between the devil and God, and God dismissed him.

So the people, also, must be willing to have a revival, let the sacrifice be

what it may. It will not do for them to say: “We are willing to attend so

many meetings, but we cannot attend any more.” Or: “We are willing to

have a revival if it will not disturb our arrangements about our business, or

prevent our making money.” I tell you, such people will never have a

revival till they are willing to do anything, and sacrifice anything, that God

indicates to be their duty. Christian merchants must feel willing to lock up

their stores for six months, if it is necessary to carry on a revival. I do not

mean that any such thing is called for, or that it is their duty to do so. But

if there should be such a state of feeling as to call for it, then it would be

their duty and they ought to be willing to do it. They ought to be willing

to do it at the call of God, for He can easily burn down their stores if they

do not. In fact, I should not be sorry to see such a revival in New York, as

would make every merchant in the city lock up his store till spring, and

say that he had sold goods enough and would now give up his whole time

to leading sinners to Christ.

7. A revival may be expected when ministers and professors are willing to

have God promote it by whatsoever instruments He pleases. Sometimes

ministers are not willing to have a revival unless they can have the

management of it, or unless their agency can be conspicuous in promoting

it. They wish to prescribe to God what He shall direct and bless, and what

men He shall put forward. They will have no new measures. they cannot

have any of this “new-light” 12 preaching, or of these evangelists that go

about the country preaching! They have a good deal to say about God

being a Sovereign, and that He will have revivals come in His own way and

time. But then He must choose to have it just in their way or they will

have nothing to do with it. Such men will sleep on until they are awakened

by the judgment trumpet, without a revival, unless they are willing that

God should come in His own way – unless they are willing to have

anything or anybody employed that will do the most good.

8. Strictly I should say that when the foregoing things occur, a revival, to

some extent, already exists. In truth a revival should be expected whenever

it is needed. If we need to be revived it is our duty to be revived. If it is

duty it is possible, and we should set about being revived ourselves, and,

relying on the promise of Christ to be with us in making disciples always

and everywhere, we ought to labor to revive Christians and convert

sinners, with a confident expectation of success. Therefore, whenever the

Church needs reviving, it ought and may expect to be revived, and to see

sinners converted to Christ. When those things are seen which are named

under the foregoing heads, let Christians and ministers be encouraged and

know that a good work is already begun. Follow it up.

REMARKS.

1. Brethren, you can tell from our subject, whether you need a revival or

not, in your Church or in your city, and whether you are going to have one

or not. Elders of the Church, men, women, any of you, and all of you –

what do you say? Do you need a revival? Do you expect to have one?

Have you any reason to expect one? You need not be in any mist about it,

for you know, or can know if you will, whether you have any reason to

look for a revival.

2. You see why you have not a revival. It is only because you do not want

one. Because you are neither praying for it, nor feeling anxious for it, nor

putting forth efforts for it. I appeal to your own consciences: Are you

making these efforts now, to promote a revival? You know, brethren, what

the truth is about it. Will you stand up and say that you have made efforts

for a revival and have been disappointed – that you have cried to God:

“Wilt Thou not revive us?” and that God would not do it?

3 Do you wish a revival? Will you have one? if God should ask you this

moment, by an audible voice from heaven, “Do you want a revival?”

would you dare to say: “Yes”? If He were to ask: “Are you willing to

make the sacrifices?” would you answer: “Yes”? And if He said: “When

shall it begin?” would you answer: “Let it begin tonight – let it begin here

• let it begin in my heart NOW”? Would you dare to say so to God, if

you should hear His voice tonight?

LECTURE III

HOW TO PROMOTE A REVIVAL

Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and

rain righteousness upon you. – Hosea 10:12.

The Jews were a nation of farmers, and it is therefore a common thing in

the Scriptures to refer for illustrations to their occupation, and to the

scenes with which farmers and shepherds are familiar. The prophet Hosea

addresses them as a nation of backsliders; he reproves them for their

idolatry, and threatens them with the judgments of God. I have shown in

my first Lecture what a revival is not, what it is, and what are the agencies

to be employed in promoting it; and in my second, when it is needed, its

importance, and when it may be expected. My design in this Lecture is to

show how a revival is to be promoted.

A revival consists of two parts: as it respects the Church, and as it

respects the ungodly. I shall speak on this occasion of a revival in the

Church. Fallow ground is ground which has once been tilled, but which

now lies waste, and needs to be broken up and mellowed, before it is

suited to receive grain. I shall show, as it respects a revival in the Church:

I. What it is to break up the fallow ground, in the sense of the text.

II. How it is to be performed.

I. WHAT IS IT TO BREAK UP THE FALLOW GROUND?

To break up the fallow ground is to break up your hearts, to prepare your

minds to bring forth fruit unto God. The mind of man is often compared in

the Bible to ground, and the Word of God to seed sown therein, the fruit

representing the actions and affections of those who receive it. To break

up the fallow ground, therefore, is to bring the mind into such a state that

it is fitted to receive the Word of God. Sometimes your hearts get matted

down, hard and dry, till there is no such thing as getting fruit from them till

they are broken up, and mellowed down, and fitted to receive the Word. It

is this softening of the heart, so as to make it feel the truth, which the

prophet calls breaking up your fallow ground.

II. HOW IS THE FALLOW GROUND TO BE BROKEN UP?

It is not by any direct efforts to feel. People fall into a mistake on this

subject, from not making the laws of mind the object of thought. There are

great errors on the subject of the laws which govern the mind. People talk

about religious feeling as if they could, by direct effort, call forth religious

affection. But this is not the way the mind acts. No man can make himself

feel in this way, merely by trying to feel. The feelings of the mind are not

directly under our control. We cannot by willing, or by direct volition, call

forth religious feelings. We might as well think to “call spirits from the

vastly deep.” They are purely involuntary states of mind. They naturally

and necessarily exist in the mind under certain circumstances calculated to

excite them. But they can be controlled indirectly. Otherwise there would

be no moral character in our feelings, if there were not a way to control

them. One cannot say: “Now I will feel so-and-so towards such an

object.” But we can command our attention to it, and look at it intently,

till the proper feeling arises. Let a man who is away from his family bring

them up before his mind, and will he not feel? But it is not by saying to

himself: “Now I will feel deeply for my family.” A man can direct his

attention to any object, about which he ought to feel and wishes to feel,

and in that way he will call into existence the proper emotions. Let a man

call up his enemy before his mind, and his feelings of enmity will rise. So if

a man thinks of God, and fastens his mind on any parts of God’s

character, he will feel – emotions will come up by the very laws of mind.

If he is a friend of God, let him contemplate God as a gracious and holy

Being, and he will have emotions of friendship kindled in his mind. If he is

an enemy of God, only let him get the true character of God before his

mind, and look at it, and fasten his attention on it, and then his bitter

enmity will rise against God, or he will break down and give his heart to

God.

If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, and make your

minds feel on the subject of religion, you must go to work just as you

would to feel on any other subject. Instead of keeping your thoughts on

everything else, and then imagining that by going to a few meetings you

will get your feelings enlisted, go the common-sense way to work, as you

would on any other subject. It is just as easy to make your minds feel on

the subject of religion as it is on any other. God has put these states of

mind under your control. If people were as unphilosophical about moving

their limbs as they are about regulating their emotions, you would never

have reached this meeting.

If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, you must begin

by looking at your hearts: examine and note the state of your minds, and

see where you are. Many never seem to think about this. They pay no

attention to their own hearts, and never know whether they are doing well

in religion or not; whether they are gaining ground or going back; whether

they are fruitful, or lying waste. Now you must draw off your attention

from other things, and look into this. Make a business of it. Do not be in a

hurry. Examine thoroughly the state of your hearts, and see where you are:

whether you are walking with God every day, or with the devil; whether

you are serving God or serving the devil most; whether you are under the

dominion of the prince of darkness, or of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To do all this, you must set yourself to work to consider your sins. You

must examine yourselves. And by this I do not mean that you must stop

and look directly within to see what is the present state of your feelings.

That is the very way to put a stop to all feeling. That is just as absurd as

it would be for a man to shut his eyes on the lamp, and try to turn his

eyes inward to find whether there was any image painted on the retina.

The man complains that he does not see anything! And why? Because he

has turned his eyes away from the objects of sight. The truth is, our moral

feelings are as much an object of consciousness as our senses. And the

way to find them out is to go on acting, and employing our minds. Then

we can tell our moral feelings by consciousness, just as I could tell my

natural feelings by consciousness if I should put my hand in the fire.

Self-examination consists in looking at your lives, in considering your

actions, in calling up the past, and learning its true character. Look back

over your past history. Take up your individual sins one by one, and look

at them. I do not mean that you should just cast a glance at your past life,

and see that it has been full of sins, and then go to God and make a sort of

general confession, and ask for pardon. That is not the way. You must

take them up one by one. It will be a good thing to take a pen and paper,

as you go over them, and write them down as they occur to you. Go over

them as carefully as a merchant goes over his books; and as often as a sin

comes before your memory, add it to the list. General confessions of sin

will never do. Your sins were committed one by one; and as far as you can

come at them, they ought to be reviewed and repented of one by one. Now

begin, and take up first what are commonly, but improperly, called Sins of

Omission.

1. Ingratitude. Take this sin, for instance, and write down under that head

all the instances you can remember wherein you have received favors from

God for which you have never exercised gratitude. How many cases can

you remember? Some remarkable providence, some wonderful turn of

events, that saved you from ruin. Set down the instances of God’s

goodness to you when you were in sin, before your conversion, for which

you have never been half thankful enough; and the numerous mercies you

have received since. How long the catalogue of instances, where your

ingratitude has been so black that you are forced to hide your face in

confusion! Go on your knees and confess them one by one to God, and

ask forgiveness. The very act of confession, by the laws of suggestion, will

bring up others to your memory. Put down these. Go over them three or

four times in this way, and see what an astonishing number of mercies

there are for which you have never thanked God.

2. Want of love to God. Think how grieved and alarmed you would be if

you discovered any flagging of affection for you in your wife, husband, or

children; if you saw another engrossing their hearts, and thoughts, and

time. Perhaps in such a case you would well-nigh die with a just and

virtuous jealousy. Now, God calls Himself a jealous God; and have you

not given your heart to other loves and infinitely offended Him?

3. Neglect of the Bible. Put down the cases when for perhaps weeks, or

longer, God’s Word was not a pleasure. Some people, indeed, read over

whole chapters in such a way that they could not tell what they had been

reading. If so, no wonder that your life is spent at random, and that your

religion is such a miserable failure.

4. Unbelief. Recall the instances in which you have virtually charged the

God of truth with lying, by your unbelief of His express promises and

declarations. God has promised to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask

Him. Now, have you believed this? Have you expected Him to answer?

Have you not virtually said in your hearts, when you prayed for the Holy

Spirit: “I do not believe that I shall receive?” If you have not believed nor

expected to receive the blessing which God has expressly promised, you

have charged Him with lying.

5. Neglect of prayer. Think of the times when you have neglected secret

prayer, family prayer, and prayer meetings; or have prayed in such a way

as more grievously to offend God than to have omitted it altogether.

6. Neglect of the means of grace. When you have suffered trifling excuses

to prevent your attending meetings, have neglected and poured contempt

upon the means of salvation, merely from disrelish of spiritual duties.

7. The manner in which you have performed those duties. That is, with

want of feeling and want of faith, in a worldly frame of mind, so that your

words were nothing but the mere chattering of a wretch who did not

deserve that God should feel the least care for him. When you have fallen

down upon your knees and “said your prayers” in such an unfeeling and

careless manner that if you had been put under oath five minutes after you

could not have said for what you had been praying.

8. Want of love for the souls of your fellow-men.. look round upon your

friends and relatives, and remember how little compassion you have felt

for them. You have stood by and seen them going right to hell, and it

seems as though you did not care if they did go. How many days have

there been, in which you did not make their condition the subject of a

single fervent prayer, or evince an ardent desire for their salvation?

9. Want of care for the heathen. Perhaps you have not cared enough for

them to attempt to learn their condition; perhaps not even to take a

missionary magazine. Look at this, and see how much you really care for

the heathen, and set down honestly the real amount of your feelings for

them, and your desire for their salvation. Measure your desire for their

salvation by the self-denial you practice, in giving of your substance to

send them the Gospel. Do you deny yourself even the hurtful

superfluities of life, such as tea, coffee, and tobacco? Do you retrench

your style of living, and scruple not to subject yourself to any

inconvenience to save them? Do you daily pray for them in private? Are

you laying by something to put into the treasury of the Lord when you go

up to pray? If you are not doing these things, and if your soul is not

agonized for the poor benighted heathen, why are you such a hypocrite as

to pretend to be a Christian? Why, your profession is an insult to Jesus

Christ!

10. Neglect of family duties. Think how you have lived before your

family, how you have prayed, what an example you have set before them.

What direct efforts do you habitually make for their spiritual good? What

duty have you not neglected?

11. Neglect of social duties.

12. Neglect of watchfulness over your own life. In how many instances

you have hurried over your private duties, and have neither taken yourself

to task, nor honestly made up your accounts with God; how often have

you entirely neglected to watch your conduct, and, having been off your

guard, have sinned before the world, and before the Church, and before

God!

13. Neglect for watch over your brethren. How often have you broken

your covenant that you would watch over them in the Lord! How little do

you know or care about the state of their souls! And yet you are under a

solemn oath to watch over them. What have you done to make yourself

acquainted with them? In how many of them have you interested yourself,

to know their spiritual state? Go over the list, and wherever you find there

has been a neglect, write it down. How many times have you seen your

brethren growing cold in religion, and have not spoken to them about it?

You have seen them beginning to neglect one duty after another, and you

did not reprove them, in a brotherly way. You have seen them falling into

sin, and you let them go on. And yet you pretend to love them. What a

hypocrite! Would you see your wife or child going into disgrace, or into

the fire, and hold your peace? No, you would not. What do you think of

yourself, then, to pretend to love Christians, and to love Christ, while you

can see them going into disgrace, and say nothing to them?

14. Neglect of self -denial. There are many professors who are willing to

do almost anything in religion, that does not require self-denial. But when

they are required to do anything that requires them to deny themselves –

oh, that is too much! They think they are doing a great deal for God, and

doing about as much as He ought in reason to ask, if they are only doing

what they can do just as well as not; but they are not willing to deny

themselves any comfort or convenience whatever for the sake of serving

the Lord. They will not willingly suffer reproach for the name of Christ.

Nor will they deny themselves the luxuries of life, to save a world from

hell. So far are they from remembering that self-denial is a condition of

discipleship that they do not know what self-denial is. They never have

really denied themselves a riband or a pin for Christ and the Gospel. Oh,

how soon such professors will be in hell! Some are giving of their

abundance, and are giving much, and are ready to complain that others do

not give more; when, in truth, they do not themselves give anything that

they need, anything that they could enjoy if they kept it. They only give

of their surplus wealth; and perhaps that poor woman who puts in her

mite, has exercised more self-denial than they have in giving thousands.

From these we now turn to Sins of Commission.

1. Worldly mindedness. What has been the state of your heart in regard to

your worldly possessions? Have you looked at them as really yours – as

if you had a right to dispose of them as your own, according to your own

will? If you have, write that down. If you have loved property, and sought

after it for its own sake, or to gratify lust or ambition, or a worldly spirit,

or to lay it up for your families, you have sinned, and must repent.

2. Pride. Recollect all the instances you can, in which you have detected

yourself in the exercise of pride. Vanity is a particular form of pride. How

many times have you detected yourself in consulting vanity about your

dress and appearance? How many times have you thought more, and taken

more pains, and spent more time about decorating your body to go to

Church, than you have about preparing your mind for the worship of

God? You have gone caring more as to how you appeared outwardly in the

sight of mortal man, than how your soul appeared in the sight of the

heart-searching God. You have, in fact, set up yourself to be worshiped

by them, rather than prepared to worship God yourself. You sought to

divide the worship of God’s house, to draw off the attention of God’s

people to look at your pretty appearance. It is in vain to pretend now,

that you do not care anything about having people look at you. Be honest

about it. Would you take all this pains about your looks if every person

were blind?

3. Envy. Look at the cases in which you were envious of those whom you

thought were above you in any respect. Or perhaps you have envied those

who have been more talented or more useful than yourself. Have you not

so envied some, that you have been pained to hear them praised? It has

been more agreeable to you to dwell upon their faults than upon their

virtues, upon their failures than upon their success. Be honest with

yourself; and if you have harbored this spirit of hell, repent deeply before

God, or He will never forgive you.

4. Censoriousness. Instances in which you have had a bitter spirit, and

spoken of Christians in a manner devoid of charity and love; of charity,

which requires you always to hope the best the case will admit, and to put

the best construction upon any ambiguous conduct.

5. Slander. The times you have spoken behind people’s backs of the

faults, real or supposed, of members of the Church or others,

unnecessarily, or without good reason. This is slander. You need not lie to

be guilty of slander: to tell the truth with the design to injure is to slander.

6. Levity. How often have you trifled before God as you would not have

dared to trifle in the presence of an earthly sovereign? You have either

been an atheist, and forgotten that there was a God, or have had less

respect for Him, and His presence, than you would have had for an earthly

judge.

7. Lying. Understand now what lying is. Any species of designed

deception. If the deception be not designed, it is not lying. But if you

design to make an impression contrary to the naked truth, you lie. Put

down all those cases you can recollect. Do not call them by any soft name.

God calls them LIES, and charges you with LYING, and you had better

charge yourself correctly. How innumerable are the falsehoods perpetrated

every day in business, and in social intercourse, by words, and looks, and

actions, designed to make an impression on others, for selfish reasons that

is contrary to the truth!

8. Cheating. Set down all the cases in which you have dealt with an

individual, and done to him that which you would not like to have done to

you. That is cheating. God has laid down a rule in the case: “All things

whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”

That is the rule. And if you have not done so you are a cheat. Mind, the

rule is not that you should do “what you might reasonably expect them to

do to you”: for that is a rule which would admit of every degree of

wickedness. But it is: “As ye WOULD they should do to you.”

9. Hypocrisy. For instance, in your prayers and confessions to God. Set

down the instances in which you have prayed for things you did not really

want. And the evidence is, that when you have done praying, you could

not tell for what you had prayed. How many times have you confessed

sins that you did not mean to break off, and when you had no solemn

purpose not to repeat them? Yes, have confessed sins when you knew

you as much expected to go and repeat them, as you expected to live.

10. Robbing God. Think of the instances in which you have misspent your

time, squandering the hours which God gave you to serve Him and save

souls, in vain amusements or foolish conversation, in reading novels or

doing nothing; cases where you have misapplied your talents and powers

of mind; where you have squandered money on your lusts, or spent it for

things which you did not need, and which did not contribute to your

health, comfort, or usefulness. Perhaps some of you have laid out God’s

money for tobacco. I will not speak of intoxicating drink, for I presume

there is no professor of religion here that would drink it, and I hope there

is not one that uses that filthy poison, tobacco. Think of a professor of

religion using God’s money to poison himself with tobacco!

11. Bad temper. Perhaps you have abused your wife, or your children, or

your family, or servants, or neighbors. Write it all down.

12. Hindering others from being useful. Perhaps you have weakened their

influence by insinuations against them. You have not only robbed God of

your own talents, but tied the hands of somebody else. What a wicked

servant is he who not only loiters himself but hinders the rest! This is

done sometimes by taking their time needlessly; sometimes by destroying

Christian confidence in them. Thus you have played into the hands of

Satan, and not only showed yourself an idle vagabond, but prevented

others from working.

If you find you have committed a fault against an individual and that

individual is within your reach, go and confess it immediately, and get that

out of the way. If the individual you have injured is too far off for you to

go and see him, sit down and write him a letter and confess the injury. If

you have defrauded anybody, send the money, the full amount and the

interest.

Go thoroughly to work in all this. Go now. Do not put it off; that will

only make the matter worse. Confess to God those sins that have been

committed against God, and to man those sins that have been committed

against man. Do not think of getting off by going round the

stumbling-blocks. Take them up out of the way. In breaking up your

fallow ground, you must remove every obstruction. Things may be left

that you think little things, and you may wonder why you do not feel as

you wish to feel in religion, when the reason is that your proud and carnal

mind has covered up something which God required you to confess and

remove. Break up all the ground and turn it over. Do not “balk” it, as the

farmers say; do not turn aside for little difficulties; drive the plow right

through them, beam deep, and turn the ground up, so that it may all be

mellow and soft, and fit to receive the seed and bear fruit “an

hundredfold.”

When you have gone over your whole history in this way, thoroughly, if

you will then go over the ground the second time, and give your solemn

and fixed attention to it, you will find that the things you have put down

will suggest other things of which you have been guilty, connected with

them, or near them. Then go over it a third time, and you will recollect

other things connected with these. And you will find in the end that you

can remember can amount of history, and particular actions, even in this

life, which you did not think you would remember in eternity. Unless you

take up your sins in this way, and consider them in detail, one by one, you

can form no idea of the amount of them. You should go over the list as

thoroughly, and as carefully, and as solemnly, as you would if you were

just preparing yourself for the Judgment.

As you go over the catalogue of your sins, be sure to resolve upon present

and entire reformation. Wherever you find anything wrong, resolve at

once, in the strength of God, to sin no more in that way. It will be of no

benefit to examine yourself, unless you determine to amend in every

particular that which you find wrong in heart, temper, or conduct.

If you find, as you go on with this duty, that your mind is still all dark,

cast about you, and you will find there is some reason for the Spirit of

God to depart from you. You have not been faithful and thorough. In the

progress of such a work you have got to do violence to yourself and bring

yourself as a rational being up to this work, with the Bible before you, and

try your heart till you do feel. You need not expect that God will work a

miracle for you to break up your fallow ground. It is to be done by means.

Fasten your attention to the subject of your sins. You cannot look at your

sins long and thoroughly and see how bad they are, without feeling, and

feeling deeply. Experience fully proves the benefit of going over our

history in this way. Set yourself to the work now; resolve that you never

will stop till you find you can pray. You never will have the Spirit of God

dwelling in you till you have unraveled this whole mystery of iniquity,

and spread out your sins before God. Let there be this deep work of

repentance and full confession, this breaking down before God, and you

will have as much of the spirit of prayer as your body can bear up under.

The reason why so few Christians know anything about the spirit of

prayer is because they never would take the pains to examine themselves

properly, and so never knew what it was to have their hearts all broken up

in this way.

You see I have only begun to lay open this subject. I want to lay it out

before you, in the course of these lectures, so that if you will begin and go

on to do as I say, the results will be just as certain as they are when a

farmer breaks up a fallow field, and mellows it, and sows his grain. It will

be so, if you will only begin in this way and hold it on till all your

hardened and callous hearts break up.

REMARKS.

1. It will do no good to preach to you while your hearts are in this

hardened, and waste, and fallow state. The farmer might just as well sow

his grain on the rock. It will bring forth no fruit. This is the reason why

there are so many fruitless professors in the Church, and why there is so

much outside machinery and so little deep-toned feeling. Look at the

Sabbath-school, for instance, and see how much machinery there is and

how little of the power of godliness. If you go on in this way the Word of

God will continue to harden you, and you will grow worse and worse, just

as the rain and snow on an old fallow field make the turf thicker and the

clods stronger.

2. See why so much preaching is wasted, and worse than wasted. It is

because the Church will not break up their fallow ground. A preacher may

wear out his life, and do very little good, while there are so many

“stony-ground” hearers, who have never had their fallow ground broken

up. They are only half converted, and their religion is rather a change of

opinion than a change of the feeling of their hearts. There is mechanical

religion enough but very little that looks like deep heart-work.

3. Professors of religion should never satisfy themselves, or expect a

revival, just by starting out of their slumbers, and blustering about, and

talking to sinners. They must get their fallow ground broken up. It is

utterly unphilosophical to think of getting engaged in religion in this way.

If your fallow ground is broken up, then the way to get more feeling is to

go out and see sinners on the road to hell, and talk to them, and guide

inquiring souls, and you will get more feeling. You may get into an

excitement without this breaking up; you may show a kind of zeal, but it

will not last long, and it will not take hold of sinners, unless your hearts

are broken up. The reason is, that you go about it mechanically, and have

not broken up your fallow ground.

4. And now, finally, will you break up your fallow ground? Will you enter

upon the course now pointed out and persevere till you are thoroughly

awake? If you fail here, if you do not do this, and get prepared, you can go

no farther with me. I have gone with you as far as it is of any use to go

until your fallow ground is broken up. Now, you must make thorough

work upon this point, or all I have further to say will do you little good.

Nay, it will only harden, and make you worse. If, when next Lecture-night

arrives it finds you with unbroken hearts, you need not expect to be

benefitted by what I shall say. If you do not set about this work

immediately I shall take it for granted that you do not mean to be revived,

that you have forsaken your minister, and mean to let him go up to battle

alone. If you do not do this, I charge you with having forsaken Christ,

with refusing to repent and do your first works. But if you will be

prepared to enter upon the work, I propose, God willing, in the next

Lecture, to lead you into the work of saving sinners.

LECTURE IV

PREVAILING PRAYER

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

• James 5:16.

There are two kinds of means requisite to promote a revival: the one to

influence man, the other to influence God. The truth is employed to

influence men, and prayer to move God. When I speak of moving God, I

do not mean that God’s mind is changed by prayer, or that His disposition

or character is changed. But prayer produces such a change in us as renders

it consistent for God to do as it would not be consistent for Him to do

otherwise. When a sinner repents, that state of feeling makes it proper for

God to forgive him. God has always been ready to forgive him on that

condition, so that when the sinner changes his feelings and repents, it

requires no change of feeling in God to pardon him. It is the sinners

repentance that renders His forgiveness proper, and is the occasion of

God’s acting as he does. So when Christians offer effectual prayer, their

state of feeling renders it proper for God to answer them. He was never

unwilling to bestow the blessing – on the condition that they felt aright,

and offered the right kind of prayer.

Prayer is an essential link in the chain of causes that lead to a revival, as

much so as truth is. Some have zealously used truth to convert men, and

laid very little stress on prayer. They have preached, and talked, and

distributed tracts with great zeal, and then wondered that they had so little

success. And the reason was, that they forgot to use the other branch of

the means, effectual prayer. They overlooked the fact that truth, by itself,

will never produce the effect, without the Spirit of God, and that the Spirit

is given in answer to prayer.

Sometimes it happens that those who are the most engaged in employing

truth are not the most engaged in prayer. This is always unhappy. For

unless they have the spirit of prayer (or unless some one else has), the

truth, by itself will do nothing but harden men in impenitence. Probably in

the Day of Judgment it will be found that nothing is ever done by the

truth, used ever so zealously, unless there is a spirit of prayer somewhere

in connection with the presentation of truth.

Others err in the reverse direction. Not that they lay too much stress on

prayer. But they overlook the fact that prayer might be offered for ever,

by itself, and nothing would be done. Because sinners are not converted by

direct contact of the Holy Ghost, but by the truth, employed as a means.

To expect the conversion of sinners by prayer alone, without the

employment of truth, is to tempt God.

Our subject being Prevailing Prayer, I propose: –

I. To show what is effectual or prevailing prayer.

II. To state some of the most essential attributes of prevailing prayer.

III. To give some reasons why God requires this kind of prayer.

IV. To show that such prayer will avail much.

I. WHAT PREVAILING PRAYER IS.

Effectual, prevailing prayer, does not consist in benevolent desires alone.

Benevolent desires are doubtless pleasing to God. Such desires pervade

heaven and are found in all holy beings. But they are not prayer. Men may

have these desires as the angels and glorified spirits have them. But this is

not the effectual, prevailing prayer spoken of in the text. Prevailing prayer

is something more than this.

2. Prevailing, or effectual prayer, is that prayer which attains the blessing

that it seeks. It is that prayer which effectually moves God. The very idea

of effectual prayer is that it effects its object.

II. ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES OF PREVAILING PRAYER.

I cannot detail in full all the things that go to make up prevailing prayer.

But I will mention some things that are essential to it; some things which a

person must do in order to prevail in prayer.

1. He must pray for a definite object. He need not expect to offer such

prayer if he prays at random, without any distinct or definite object. He

must have an object distinctly before his mind. I speak now of secret

prayer. Many people go away into their rooms alone “to pray,” simply

because “they must say their prayers.” The time has come when they are

in the habit of going by themselves for prayer – in the morning, or at

noon, or at whatever time of day it may be. But instead of having anything

to say, any definite object before their mind, they fall down on their knees

and pray for just what comes into their minds – for everything that floats

in the imagination at the time, and when they have done they can hardly

tell a word of what they have been praying for. This is not effectual

prayer. What should we think of anybody who should try to move a

Legislature so, and should say: “Now it is winter, and the Legislature is in

session, and it is time to send up petitions,” and should go up to the

Legislature and petition at random, without any definite object? Do you

think such petitions would move the Legislature?

A man must have some definite object before his mind. He cannot pray

effectually for a variety of objects at once. The mind is so constituted that

it cannot fasten its desires intensely upon many things at the same time.

All the instances of effectual prayer recorded in the Bible are of this kind.

Wherever you see that the blessing sought for in prayer was attained, you

will find that the prayer which was offered was prayer for that definite

object.

2. Prayer, to be effectual, must be in accordance with the revealed will of

God. To pray for things contrary to the revealed will of God, is to tempt

God. There are three ways in which God’s will is revealed to men for their

guidance in prayer.

(a) By express promises or predictions in the Bible, that He will give or do

certain things; promises in regard to particular things, or in general terms,

so that we may apply them to particular things. For instance, there is this

promise: “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye

receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

(b) Sometimes God reveals His will by His Providence. When He makes it

clear that such and such events are about to take place, it is as much a

revelation as if He had written it in His Word. It would be impossible to

reveal everything in the Bible. But God often makes it clear to those who

have spiritual discernment that it is His will to grant such and such

blessings.

(c) By His Spirit. When God’s people are at a loss what to pray for,

agreeable to His will, His Spirit often instructs them. Where there is no

particular revelation, and Providence leaves it dark, and we know not what

to pray for as we ought, we are expressly told that “the Spirit also helpeth

our infirmities,” and “the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with

groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). A great deal has been

said on the subject of praying in faith for things not revealed. It is objected

that this doctrine implies a new revelation. I answer that, new or old, it is

the very revelation that Jehovah says He makes. It is just as plain here as

if it were now revealed by a voice from heaven, that the Spirit of God

helps the people of God to pray according to the will of God, when they

themselves know not what they ought to pray for. “And He that

searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He

maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans

8:27); and He leads Christians to pray for just those things, “with

groanings which cannot be uttered.” When neither the Word nor

Providence enables them to decide, let them be “filled with the Spirit,” as

God commands them to be. He says: “Be filled with the Spirit”

(Ephesians 5:18). And He will lead their minds to such things as God is

willing to grant.

3. To pray effectually you must pray with submission to the will of God.

Do not confound submission with indifference. No two things are more

unlike. I once knew an individual come where there was a revival. He

himself was cold, and did not enter into the spirit of it, and had no spirit of

prayer; and when he heard the brethren pray as if they could not be

denied, he was shocked at their boldness, and kept all the time insisting on

the importance of praying with submission; when it was as plain as

anything could be that he confounded submission with indifference.

Again, do not confound submission in prayer with a general confidence

that God will do what is right. It is proper to have this confidence that

God will do right in all things. But this is a different thing from

submission. What I mean by submission in prayer is, acquiescence in the

revealed will of God. To submit to any command of God is to obey it.

Submission to some supposable or possible, but secret, decree of God is

not submission. To submit to any dispensation of Providence is

impossible till it comes. For we never can know what the event is to be,

till it takes place.

Take a case: David, when his child was sick, was distressed, and agonized

in prayer, and refused to be comforted. He took it so much to heart that

when the child died his servants were afraid to tell him. But as soon as he

heard that the child was dead, he laid aside his grief, and arose, and asked

for food, and ate and drank as usual. While the child was yet alive he did

not know what was the will of God, and so he fasted and prayed, and said:

“Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that my child may

live”? He did not know but that his prayer, his agony, was the very thing

on which it turned, whether the child was to live or not. He thought that if

he humbled himself and entreated God, perhaps God would spare him this

blow. But as soon as God’s will appeared, and the child was dead, he

bowed like a saint. He seemed not only to acquiesce, but actually to take a

satisfaction in it. “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me”(2

Samuel 12:15-23). This was true submission. He reasoned correctly in the

case. While he had no revelation of the will of God he did not know but

that the child’s recovery depended on his prayer. But when he had a

revelation of the will of God he submitted. While the will of God is not

known, to submit, without prayer, is tempting God. Perhaps, and for

aught you know, the fact of your offering the right kind of prayer may be

the thing on which the event turns. In the case of an impenitent friend, the

very condition on which he is to be saved from hell may be the fervency

and importunity of your prayer for that individual.

4. Effectual prayer for an object implies a desire for that object

commensurate with its importance. If a person truly desires any blessing,

his desires will bear some proportion to the greatness of the blessing. The

desires of the Lord Jesus Christ for the blessing He prayed for were

amazingly strong, amounting even to agony. If the desire for an object is

strong, and is a benevolent desire, and the thing is not contrary to the will

and providence of God, the presumption is that it will be granted. There

are two reasons for this presumption:

(a) From the general benevolence of God. If it is a desirable object; if, so

far as we can see, it would be an act of benevolence in God to grant it, His

general benevolence is presumptive evidence that He will grant it.

(b) If you find yourself exercised with benevolent desires for any object,

there is a strong presumption that the Spirit of God is exciting these very

desires, and stirring you up to pray for that object, so that it may be

granted in answer to prayer. In such a case no degree of desire or

importunity in prayer is improper. A Christian may come up, as it were,

and take hold of the hand of God. See the case of Jacob, when he

exclaimed, in an agony of desire: “I will not let Thee go except Thou bless

me” (Genesis 32:26) Was God displeased with his boldness and

importunity? Not at all; but He granted him the very thing he prayed for.

So in the case of Moses. God said to him: “Let Me alone, that My wrath

may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make

of thee a great nation” (Exodus 32:10). What did Moses do? Did he stand

aside and let God do as He said? No; his mind runs back to the Egyptians,

and he thinks how they will triumph. “Wherefore should the Egyptians

say, For mischief did He bring them out?” It seemed as if he took hold of

the uplifted hand of God, to avert the blow. Did God rebuke him and tell

him he had no business to interfere? No; it seemed as if He was unable to

deny anything to such importunity, and so Moses stood in the gap, and

prevailed with God.

Prevailing prayer is often offered in the present day, when Christians have

been wrought up to such a pitch of importunity and such a holy boldness

afterwards when they looked back upon it, they were frightened and

amazed at themselves, to think they should have dared to exercise such

importunity with God. And yet these prayers have prevailed, and

obtained the blessing. And many of these persons, with whom I am

acquainted, are among the holiest persons I know in the world

5. Prayer, to be effectual, must be offered from right motives. Prayer

should not be selfish, but should be dictated by a supreme regard for the

glory of God. 13 A great deal is offered from pure selfishness. Women

sometimes pray for their husbands, that they may be converted, because,

they say: “It would be so much more pleasant to have my husband go to

Church with me,” and all that. And they seem never to lift up their

thoughts above self at all. They do not seem to think how their husbands

are dishonoring God by their sins, nor how God would be glorified in their

conversion. So it is very often with parents. They cannot bear to think

that their children should be lost. They pray for them very earnestly

indeed. But if you talk with them upon the subject they are very tender

about it and tell you how good their children are – how they respect

religion, and how they are, indeed, “almost Christians now”; and so they

talk as if they were afraid you would hurt their children by simply telling

them the truth. They do not think how such amiable and lovely children

are dishonoring God by their sins; they are only thinking what a dreadful

thing it will be for them to go to hell. Unless their thoughts rise higher than

this, their prayers will never prevail with a holy God.

The temptation to selfish motives is so strong that there is reason to fear a

great many parental prayers never rise above the yearnings of parental

tenderness. And that is the reason why so many prayers are not answered

and why so many pious, praying parents have ungodly children. Much of

the prayer for the heathen world seems to be based on no higher principle

than sympathy. Missionary agents and others are dwelling almost

exclusively upon the six hundred millions of heathens going to hell, while

little is said of their dishonoring God. This is a great evil, and until the

Church learns to have higher motives for prayer and missionary effort than

sympathy for the heathen, her prayers and efforts will never amount to

much.

6. Prayer, to be effectual, must be by the intercession of the Spirit. You

never can expect to offer prayer according to the will of God without the

Spirit. In the first two cases, it is not because Christians are unable to offer

such prayer, where the will of God is revealed in His Word or indicated by

His providence. They are able to do it, just as they are able to be holy. But

the fact is, that they are so wicked that they never do offer such prayer,

unless they are influenced by the Spirit of God. There must be a faith,

such as is produced by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost.

7. It must be persevering prayer. As a general thing, Christians who have

backslidden and lost the spirit of prayer, will not get at once into the habit

of persevering prayer. Their minds are not in a right state, and they cannot

fix their thoughts so as to hold on till the blessing comes. If their minds

were in that state in which they would persevere till the answer came,

effectual prayer might be offered at once, as well as after praying ever so

many times for an object. But they have to pray again and again, because

their thoughts are so apt to wander away and are so easily diverted from

the object.

Most Christians come up to prevailing prayer by a protracted process.

Their minds gradually become filled with anxiety about an object, so that

they will even go about their business sighing out their desires to God.

Just as the mother whose child is sick goes round her house sighing as if

her heart would break. And if she is a praying mother, her sighs are

breathed out to God all the day long. If she goes out of the room where her

child is, her mind is still on it; and if she is asleep, still her thoughts

are on it, and she starts in her dreams, thinking that perhaps it may be

dying. Her whole mind is absorbed in that sick child. This is the state of

mind in which Christians offer prevailing prayer.

For what reason did Jacob wrestle all night in prayer with God? He knew

that he had done his brother Esau a great injury, in getting away the

birthright, a long time before. And now he was informed that his injured

brother was coming to meet him with an armed force, altogether too

powerful to contend with. And there was great reason to suppose that

Esau was coming with a purpose of revenge. There were two reasons then

why Jacob should be distressed. The first was that he had done this great

injury and had never made any reparation. The other was that Esau was

coming with a force sufficient to crush him. Now what does he do? He

first arranges everything in the best manner he can to placate and meet his

brother: sending his present first, then his property, then his family,

putting those he loved most farthest behind. And by this time his mind

was so exercised that he could not contain himself. He goes away alone

over the brook and pours out his very soul in an agony of prayer all night.

And just as the day was breaking, the Angel of the Covenant said: “Let me

go”; and Jacob’s whole being was, as it were, agonized at the thought of

giving up, and he cried out: “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.”

His soul was wrought up into an agony, and he obtained the blessing, but

he always bore the marks of it, and showed that his body had been greatly

affected by this mental struggle. This is prevailing prayer.

Now, do not deceive yourselves with thinking that you offer effectual

prayer, unless you have this intense desire for the blessing. I do not

believe in it. Prayer is not effectual unless it is offered up with an agony of

desire. The apostle Paul speaks of it as a travail of the soul. Jesus Christ,

when he was praying in the garden, was in such an agony that “His sweat

was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke

22:44). I have never known a person sweat blood; but I have known a

person pray till the blood started from his nose. And I have known

persons pray till they were all wet with perspiration, in the coldest

weather in winter. I have known persons pray for hours, till their strength

was all exhausted with the agony of their minds. Such prayers prevailed

with God.

This agony in prayer was prevalent in President Edwards’ day, in the

revivals which then took place. 14 It was one of the great stumbling blocks

in those days to persons who were opposed to the revival, that people

used to pray till their body was overpowered with their feelings. I will

give a paragraph of what President Edwards says on the subject, to let you

see that this is not a new thing in the Church, but has always prevailed

wherever revivals prevailed with power. It is from his “Thoughts on

Revivals”:

“We cannot determine that God shall never give any person so much of a

discovery of Himself, not only as to weaken their bodies, but to take away

their lives. It is supposed by very learned and judicious divines, that

Moses’ life was taken away after this manner, and this has also been

supposed to be the case with some other saints.

“If God gives a great increase of discoveries of Himself and of love to Him,

the benefit is infinitely greater than the calamity, though the life should

presently after be taken away….

“There is one particular kind of exercise and concern of mind that many

have been empowered by, that has been especially stumbling to some; and

that is, the deep concern and distress that they have been in for the souls

of others. I am sorry that any put us to the trouble of doing that which

seems so needless, as defending such a thing as this. It seems like mere

trifling in so plain a case, to enter into a formal and particular debate, in

order to determine whether there be anything in the greatness and

importance of the case that will answer and bear a proportion to the

greatness of the concern that some have manifested. Men may be allowed,

from no higher a principle than common ingenuousness and humanity, to

be very deeply concerned, and greatly exercised in mind, at seeing others in

great danger of no greater a calamity than drowning or being burned up in a

house on fire. And if so, then doubtless it will be allowed to be equally

reasonable, if they saw them in danger of a calamity ten times greater, to

be still much more concerned: and so much more still, if the calamity were

still vastly greater. And why, then, should it be thought unreasonable and

looked upon with a very suspicious eye, as if it must come from some bad

cause, when persons are extremely concerned at seeing others in very great

danger of suffering the wrath of Almighty God to all eternity? And

besides, it will doubtless be allowed that those that have very great degrees

of the Spirit of God, that is, a spirit of love, may well be supposed to have

vastly more of love and compassion to their fellow creatures than those

that are influenced only by common humanity.

“Why should it be thought strange that those that are full of the Spirit of

Christ should be proportionally in their love to souls, like Christ? – who

had so strong a love for them, and concern for them, as to be willing to

drink the dregs of the cup of God’s fury for them; and at the same time

that He offered up His blood for souls, offered up also, as their High

Priest, strong crying and tears, with an extreme agony, wherein the soul of

Christ was, as it were, in travail for the souls of the elect; and, therefore in

saving them He is said to ‘see of the travail of His soul.’ As such a spirit

of love to, and concern for, souls was the spirit of Christ, so it is the spirit

of the Church; and therefore the Church, in desiring and seeking that Christ

might be brought forth in the world, and in the souls of men, is represented

(Revelation 12:1, 2) as ‘a woman crying, travailing in birth, and pained to

be delivered.’ The spirit of those that have been in distress for the souls of

others, so far as I can discern, seems not to be different from that of the

apostle, who travailed for souls, and was ready to wish himself accursed

from Christ for others (Romans 9:3). 16 Nor from that of the Psalmist

(Psalm 119:53): ‘Horror hath taken hold upon me, because of the wicked

that forsake Thy law.’ And (ver. 136): ‘Rivers of waters run down mine

eyes, because they keep not Thy law.’ Nor from that of the prophet

Jeremiah (4:19): ‘My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart;

my heart maketh a noise in me: I cannot hold my peace, because Thou hast

heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.’ And so

chapter 9:1, and 13:17, and Isaiah 22:4. We read of Mordecai, when he

saw his people in danger of being destroyed with a temporal destruction

(Esther 4:1), that he ‘rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and

went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry.’

And why then should persons be thought to be distracted when they

cannot forbear crying out at the consideration of the misery of those that

are going to eternal destruction?

I have quoted this to show that this thing was common in the great

revivals of those days. It has always been so in all great revivals, and has

been more or less common in proportion to the greatness, and extent, and

depth of the work. It was so in the great revivals in Scotland, and 17

multitudes used to be overpowered, and some almost died, by the depth of

their agony.

So also, prayer prevailed at Cambuslang, 1741-2, in the revival under

William McCulloch and Whitefield. When Whitefield reached Cambuslang

he immediately preached, on the braeside, to a vast congregation (on a

Tuesday at noon). At six o’clock he preached again, and a third time at

nine. Then McCulloch took up the parable and preached till one in the

morning, and still the people were unwilling to leave. So many were

convicted, crying to God for mercy, that Whitefield described the scene as

“a very field of battle.” On the ensuing Communion Sunday, Whitefield

preached to twenty thousand people; and again on the Monday, when, he

said: “you might have seen thousands bathed in tears, some at the same

time wringing their hands, others almost swooning, and others crying out

and mourning over a pierced Savior. It was like the Passover in Josiah’s

time.” On the voyage from London to Scotland, prior to this campaign,

Whitefield had “spent most of his time on board ship in secret prayer.”

(See Gledstone’s “George Whitefield, M.A., Field Preacher.”)

8. If you mean to pray effectually, you must pray a great deal. It was said

of the Apostle James that after he was dead it was found that his knees

were callous, like a camel’s knees, by praying so much. Ah, here was the

secret of the success of those primitive ministers! They had callous knees!

9. If you intend prayer to be effectual, you must offer it in the name of

Christ. You cannot come to God in your own name. You cannot plead

your own merits. But you can come in a name that is always acceptable.

You all know what it is to use the name of a man. If you should go to the

bank with a draft or note, endorsed by John Jacob Astor, 18 that would be

giving you his name, and you know you could get the money from the

bank just as well as he could himself. Now, Jesus Christ gives you the use

of His name. And when you pray in the name of Christ the meaning of it

is, that you can prevail just as well as He could Himself, and receive just

as much as God’s well beloved Son would if He were to pray Himself for

the same things. But you must pray in faith.

10. You cannot prevail in prayer without renouncing all your sins. You

must not only recall them to mind, and repent of them, but you must

actually renounce them, and leave them off, and in the purpose of your

heart renounce them all for ever.

11. You must pray in faith. You must expect to obtain the things for

which you ask. You need not look for an answer to prayer, if you pray

without any expectation of obtaining it. You are not to form such

expectations without any reason for them. In the cases I have supposed,

there is a reason for the expectation. In case the thing is revealed in God’s

Word, if you pray without an expectation of receiving the blessings, you

just make God a liar. If the will of God is indicated by His providence,

you ought to depend on it, according to the clearness of the indication, so

far as to expect the blessing if you pray for it. And if you are led by His

Spirit to pray for certain things, you have as much reason to expect those

things to be done as if God had revealed it in His Word.

But some say: “Will not this view of the leadings of the Spirit of God lead

people into fanaticism?” I answer that I know not but many may deceive

themselves in respect to this matter. Multitudes have deceived themselves

in regard to all the other points of religion. And if some people should

think they are led by the Spirit of God, when it is nothing but their own

imagination, is that any reason why those who know that they are led by

the Spirit should not follow the Spirit? Many people suppose themselves

to be converted when they are not. Is that any reason why we should not

cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ? Suppose some people are deceived in

thinking they love God, is that any reason why the pious saint who

knows he has the love of God shed abroad in his heart should not give vent

to his feelings in songs of praise? Some may deceive themselves in thinking

they are led by the Spirit of God. But there is no need of being deceived. If

people follow impulses, it is their own fault. I do not want you to follow

impulses. I want you to be sober minded, and follow the sober, rational

leadings of the Spirit of God. There are those who understand what I

mean, and who know very well what it is to give themselves up to the

Spirit of God in prayer.

III. WHY GOD REQUIRES SUCH PRAYER.

I will state some of the reasons why these things are essential to effectual

prayer. Why does God require such prayer, such strong desires, such

agonizing supplications?

1. These strong desires strongly illustrate the strength of God’s feelings.

They are like the real feelings of God for impenitent sinners. When I have

seen, as I sometimes have, the amazing strength of love for souls that has

been felt by Christians, I have been wonderfully impressed with the

amazing love of God, and His desires for their salvation. The case of a

certain woman, of whom I read, in a revival, made the greatest impression

on my mind. She had such an unutterable compassion and love for souls,

that she actually panted for breath. What must be the strength of the

desire which God feels, when His Spirit produces in Christians such

amazing agony, such throes of soul, such travail – God has chosen the

best word to express it: it is travail – travail of the soul.

I have seen a man of as much strength of intellect and muscle as any man

in the community fall down prostrate, absolutely overpowered by his

unutterable desires for sinners. I know this is a stumbling block to many;

and it always will be as long as there remain in the Church so many blind

and stupid professors of religion. But I cannot doubt that these things are

the work of the Spirit of God. Oh, that the whole Church could be so filled

with the Spirit as to travail in prayer, till a nation should be born in a day!

It is said in the Word of God that “as soon as Zion travailed, she brought

forth” (Isaiah 66:8). What does that mean? I asked a professor of religion

this question once. He was taking exception to our ideas of effectual

prayer, and I asked what he supposed was meant by Zion’s travailing.

“Oh,” said he, “it means that as soon as the Church shall walk together in

the fellowship of the Gospel, then it will be said that Zion travels! This

walking together is called traveling.” Not the same term, you see.

2. These strong desires that I have described are the natural results of great

benevolence and clear views regarding the danger of sinners. It is perfectly

reasonable that it should be so. If the women who are present should look

up yonder and see a family burning to death in a fire and hear their shrieks,

and behold their agony, they would feel distressed, and it is very likely

that many of them would faint away with agony. And nobody would

wonder at it, or say they were fools or crazy to feel so much distressed at

such an awful sight. It would be thought strange if there were not some

expressions of powerful feeling. Why is it any wonder, then, if Christians

should feel as I have described when they have clear views of the state of

sinners, and the awful danger they are in? The fact is, that those

individuals who never have felt so have never felt much real benevolence,

and their piety must be of a very superficial character. I do not mean to

judge harshly, or to speak unkindly, but I state it as a simple matter of

fact; and people may talk about it as they please, but I know such piety is

superficial. This is not censoriousness, but plain truth.

People sometimes “wonder at Christians having such feelings.” Wonder at

what? Why, at the natural, and philosophical, and necessary results of

deep piety towards God, and deep benevolence towards man, in view of

the great danger they see sinners to be in.

3. The soul of a Christian, when it is thus burdened, must have relief. God

rolls this weight upon the soul of a Christian, for the purpose of bringing

him nearer to Himself. Christians are often so unbelieving that they will

not exercise proper faith in God till He rolls this burden upon them so

heavily that they cannot live under it, but must go to Him for relief. It is

like the case of many a convicted sinner. God is willing to receive him at

once, if he will come right to Him, with faith in Jesus Christ. But the

sinner will not come. He hangs back, and struggles, and groans under the

burden of his sins, and will not throw himself upon God, till his burden of

conviction becomes so great that he can live no longer; and when he is

driven to desperation, as it were, and feels as if he were ready to sink into

hell, he makes a mighty plunge, and throws himself upon God’s mercy as

his only hope. It was his duty to come before. God had no delight in his

distress, for its own sake.

So, when professors of religion get loaded down with the weight of souls,

they often pray again and again, and yet the burden is not gone, nor their

distress abated, because they have never thrown it all upon God in faith.

But they cannot get rid of the burden. So long as their benevolence

continues, it will remain and increase; and unless they resist and quench

the Holy Ghost, they can get no relief, until, at length, when they are

driven to extremity, they make a desperate effort, roll the burden upon the

Lord Jesus Christ, and exercise a child-like confidence in Him. Then they

feel relieved; then they feel as if the soul they were praying for would be

saved. The burden is gone, and God seems in kindness to soothe the mind

with a sweet assurance that the blessing will be granted. Often, after a

Christian has had this struggle, this agony in prayer, and has obtained

relief in this way, you will find the sweetest and most heavenly affections

flow out – the soul rests sweetly and gloriously in God, and rejoices

“with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

Do any of you think that there are no such things now in the experience of

believers? If I had time, I could show you, from President Edwards and

other approved writers, cases and descriptions just like this. 19 Do you ask

why we never have such things here? I tell you it is not at all because you

are so much wiser than Christians are in rural districts, or because you

have so much more intelligence or more enlarged views of the nature of

religion, or a more stable and well regulated piety. I tell you, no; instead of

priding yourselves in being free from such extravagances, you ought to

hide your heads, because Christians in the city are so worldly, and have so

much starch, and pride, and fashion, that they cannot come down to such

spirituality as this. I wish it could be so. Oh, that there might be such a

spirit in this city and in this Church! I know it would make a noise if we

had such things done here. But I would not care for that. Let them say, if

they please, that the folks in Chatham Chapel 20 are getting deranged. We

need not be afraid of that, if we live near enough to God to enjoy His

Spirit in the manner I have described.

4. These effects of the spirit of prayer upon the body are themselves no

part of religion. It is only that the body is often so weak that the feelings

of the soul overpower it. These bodily effects are not at all essential to

prevailing prayer; but are only a natural or physical result of highly excited

emotions of the mind. It is not at all unusual for the body to be weakened,

and even overcome, by any powerful emotion of the mind, on other

subjects besides religion. The doorkeeper of Congress, in the time of the

Revolution, fell down dead on the reception of some highly cheering

intelligence. I knew a woman in Rochester who was in a great agony of

prayer for the conversion of her son-in-law. One morning he was at an

anxious meeting, and she remained at home praying for him. At the close

of the meeting he came home a convert, and she was so rejoiced that she

fell down and died on the spot. It is no more strange that these effects

should be produced by religion than by strong feeling on any other subject.

It is not essential to prayer, but is the natural result of great efforts

of the mind.

5. Doubtless one great reason why God requires the exercise of this

agonizing prayer is, that it forms such a bond of union between Christ and

the Church. It creates such a sympathy between them. It is as if Christ

came and poured the overflowings of His own benevolent heart into His

people, and led them to sympathize and to cooperate with Him as they

never do in any other way. They feel just as Christ feels – so full of

compassion for sinners that they cannot contain themselves. Thus it is

often with those ministers who are distinguished for their success in

preaching to sinners; they often have such compassion, such overflowing

desires for their salvation, that these are shown in their speaking, and their

preaching, just as though Jesus Christ spoke through them. The words

come from their lips fresh and warm, as if from the very heart of Christ. I

do not mean that He dictates their words; but He excites the feelings that

give utterance to them. Then you see a movement in the hearers, as if

Christ Himself spoke through lips of clay.

6. This travailing in birth for souls creates also a remarkable bond of union

between warm-hearted Christians and the young converts. Those who are

converted appear very dear to the hearts that have had this spirit of prayer

for them. The feeling is like that of a mother for her first-born. Paul

expresses it beautifully when he says: “My little children!” His heart was

warm and tender to them. “My little children, of whom I travail in birth

again” – they had backslidden, and he has all the agonies of a parent over

a wandering child – “I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you”

(Galatians 4:19); “Christ, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). In a

revival, I have often noticed how those who had the spirit of prayer, loved

the young converts. I know this is all so much algebra to those who have

never felt it. But to those who have experienced the agony of wrestling,

prevailing prayer, for the conversion of a soul, you may depend upon it,

that soul, after it is converted, appears as dear as a child is to the

mother. He has agonized for it, received it in answer to prayer, and can

present it before the Lord Jesus Christ, saying: “Behold, I and the children

whom the Lord hath given me” (Isaiah 8:18. See also Hebrews 2:13).

7. Another reason why God requires this sort of prayer is, that it is the

only way in which the Church can be properly prepared to receive great

blessings without being injured by them. When the Church is thus

prostrated in the dust before God, and is in the depth of agony in prayer,

the blessing does them good. While at the same time, if they had received

the blessing without this deep prostration of soul, it would have puffed

them up with pride. But as it is, it increases their holiness, their love,

their humility.

IV. SUCH PRAYER WILL AVAIL MUCH.

The prophet Elijah mourned over the declensions of the house of Israel,

and when he saw that no other means were likely to be effectual, to

prevent a perpetual going away into idolatry, he prayed that the

judgments of God might come upon the guilty nation. He prayed that it

might not rain, and God shut up the heavens for three years and six

months, till the people were driven to the last extremity. And when he

sees that it is time to relent what does he do? See him go up to the

mountain and bow down in prayer. He wished to be alone; and he told his

servant to go seven times, while he was agonizing in prayer. The last time,

the servant told him that a little cloud had appeared, like a man’s hand, and

he instantly arose from his knees – the blessing was obtained. The time

had come for the calamity to be turned back. “Ah, but,” you say, “Elijah

was a prophet.” Now, do not make this objection. They made it in the

apostle’s days, and what does the apostle say? Why he brought forward

this very instance, and the fact that Elijah was a man of like passions with

ourselves, as a case of prevailing prayer, and insisted that they should

pray so too ( 1 Kings 17:1; 18:41-5; James 5:17).

John Knox was a man famous for his power in prayer, so that Queen

Mary of England used to say that she feared his prayers more than all the

armies of Europe. And events showed that she had reason to do it. He

used to be in such an agony for the deliverance of his country, that he

could not sleep. He had a place in his garden where he used to go to pray.

One night he and several friends were praying together, and as they

prayed, Knox spoke and said that deliverance had come. 21 He could not

tell what had happened, but he felt that something had taken place, for

God had heard their prayers. What was it? Why, the next news they had

was, that Mary was dead!

Take a fact which was related in my hearing by a minister. He said that in

a certain town there had been no revival for many years; the Church was

nearly extinct, the youth were all unconverted, and desolation reigned

unbroken. There lived in a retired part of the town, an aged man, a

blacksmith by trade, and of so stammering a tongue that it was painful to

hear him speak. On one Friday, as he was at work in his shop, alone, his

mind became greatly exercised about the state of the Church and of the

impenitent. His agony became so great that he was induced to lay by his

work, lock the shop door, and spend the afternoon in prayer.

He prevailed, and on the Sabbath called on the minister and desired him to

appoint a “conference meeting.” After some hesitation, the minister

consented; observing however, that he feared but few would attend. He

appointed it the same evening at a large private house. When evening came,

more assembled than could be accommodated in the house. All were silent

for a time, until one sinner broke out in tears, and said, if any one could

pray, would he pray for him? Another followed, and another, and still

another, until it was found that persons from every quarter of the town

were under deep conviction. And what was remarkable was, that they all

dated their conviction at the hour that the old man was praying in his

shop. A powerful revival followed. Thus this old stammering man

prevailed, and as a prince had power with God.

REMARKS.

1. A great deal of prayer is lost, and many people never prevail in prayer,

because, when they have desires for particular blessings, they do not

follow them up. They may have desires, benevolent and pure, which are

excited by the Spirit of God; and when they have them, they should

persevere in prayer, for if they turn off their attention, they will quench

the Spirit. When you find these holy desires in your minds:

(a) Do not quench the Spirit;

(b) Do not be diverted to other objects. Follow the leadings of the Spirit

till you have offered that “effectual fervent prayer” that “availeth

much” (James 5:16).

2. Without the spirit of prayer, ministers will do but little good. A

minister need not expect much success unless he prays for it. Sometimes

others may have the spirit of prayer and obtain a blessing on his labors.

Generally, however, those preachers are the most successful who have

most of the spirit of prayer themselves.

3. Not only must ministers have the spirit of prayer, but it is necessary

that the Church should unite in offering that effectual fervent prayer which

can prevail with God. “I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of

Israel, to do it” (Ezekiel 36:37).

Now I have only to ask you, in regard to what I have set forth: “Will you

do it?” Have you done what I said to you at the last Lecture? Have you

gone over your sins, and confessed them, and got them all out of the way?

Can you pray now? And will you join and offer prevailing prayer that the

Spirit of God may come down here?

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