Matt Beaney
- Feb 10, 2023
- 6 min read

#748. REVIVAL REQUIRES URGENCY IN PRAYER (10/2/23)

‘But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.’ (Jonah 3:8-10)

Summary: God responds to urgent and persistent prayer.

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It's easy to be misled into believing that being a child of God and having access to His presence through grace eliminates the need for urgency, persistence, and passion in prayer. However, a closer examination of the many examples of prayer in the Bible reveals a pattern of fervent and persistent prayer, rather than relaxed informality.

For example, to take one of Paul’s prayer at random, just look at the way that he prays for the Ephesians:

‘For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that…’ (Ephesians 1:15-18)

Paul, who understood grace more than any of us, has ‘not stopped giving thanks’. He ‘keeps asking… the glorious Father’ and it goes on. Do you feel the urgency and persistence? An accurate, biblical understanding of grace and our relation to Him will cause us to persist and to pray big things.

Intensity in prayer goes hand in hand with a move of God; Revival - the outpouring of God’s Spirit - is instigated and is sustained by prayer. Arthur Wallis wrote:

‘A movement of God will only last as long as the Spirit of prayer that inspired it’ (Arthur Wallis)

The Ninevites set us an example of urgency in prayer. In Nineveh, we see fasting, repentance and urgency in their response to Jonah’s message. Let’s now compare our own spiritual fervour with the Ninevites’: having come to know God, does fasting, repentance and urgency mark our lives and prayer meetings? Does the spirit of what we read in Isaiah burn in our lives:

‘I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.’ (Isaiah 62:6-7)

I’m convinced that the Church’s lack of impact in our nation is not because of scientific arguments or because people are more wicked than they used to be… Rather, our lack of urgency in prayer both marks and is the cause of our lack of spiritual power. Leonard Ravenhill expresses it in these stirring terms:

‘Poverty-stricken as the Church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. We have many organisers, but few agonisers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere. The two prerequisites to successful Christian living are vision and passion, both of which are born in and maintained by prayer. The ministry of preaching is open to few; the ministry of prayer—the highest ministry of all human offices—is open to all. Spiritual adolescents say, ‘‘I’ll not go tonight, it’s only the prayer meeting.’’ It may be that Satan has little cause to fear most preaching. Yet past experiences sting him to rally all his infernal army to fight against God’s people praying. (Ravenhill, Leonard. Why Revival Tarries)

RESPONSE - ASK, SEEK, KNOCK

Jesus taught us to pray with persistence and urgency:

‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.’ (Matthew 7:7-8)

I cannot explain why simply asking is not enough, why we sometimes have to add seeking, or why we sometimes have to add knocking. All I can say is that Jesus teaches us that fervent and persistent prayer leads to doors being opened.

COMMUNITY GROUP NOTES AND STUDY

1. NOTICES

It might be good to begin with notices. Please share from this week’s Church News.

Please try to use the COME TO JESUS DAILY DEVOTIONALS (blog). This will help us to get deep into this book together. There is also a video option if that helps (Ensure that everyone knows how to access this)
Please get signed up for Funky Monkeys and invite your friends: https://www.communitychurchputney.com/funkymonkeys

2. ICEBREAKER

What has God been speaking to you about from His Word this week?

3. RECAP OF SUNDAY’S MESSAGE - PLEASE SHARE IN YOUR GROUP

WHEN GOD SAW

Please read Jonah 3:4-10

MAIN IDEA: URGENT PRAYER MOVES GOD

1. JONAH BEGAN

Jonah began and so must we. For anything to happen, it must be begun. The first step is essential for any progress in anything. If we want to get things done - become more effective in evangelism, for example, we must make a practical first step and begin. It’s easy to talk about doing hard things, but it’s the doing that’s really important. God does a great thing through Jonah’s simple step of obedience - the city and even the king believe and repent.

2. URGENT PRAYER MOVES GOD

The king and the Ninevites sets us an example of urgency in prayer. In Nineveh we see fasting, repentance and urgency in their response to Jonah’s message. Let’s compare our own spiritual fervour with the Ninevites’: having come to know God, does fasting, repentance and urgency mark our lives and prayer meetings? They knew that God’s judgement was coming and they were led to urgent prayer. We know that judgement is coming, God wants our compassion to lead to urgency in prayer.

What we see in Nineveh can be compared to what we see in a move of God in revival. Revival starts in the church and spills over into bringing many into the Kingdom of God. Revival always starts with prayer. Here is an example from the 1859 ‘Prayer Meeting Revival:

‘Have you ever heard of the great 1858 American revival? An obscure man laid it up in his heart to pray that God would bless his country. That man was Jeremiah Lanphier…burdened by the need around him, he decided to invite others to join him in a noonday prayer meeting every Wednesday in Fulton Street…for one hour. The first meeting six attended, the next week twenty, third week forty. They decided to hold a mid-day prayer meeting daily. Then came a financial crash and ensuing panic as banks failed. The atmosphere was ripe for God to move. The prayer meeting grew to a hundred, the others began to start prayer meetings; at last there was scarcely a street in New Your that was with a prayer meeting…6,000 were attending daily prayer meetings in New York. This spread to other cities… by May it was reliably estimated that there were 50,000 conversions in New York, the population of which was around 80,000…There were several New England towns in which not a single person can be found unconverted’…The revival become known as the ‘prayer meeting revival’. Edwin Orr, after long and careful research, endorsed the estimate ‘that fully one-million were converted out of a population of less than thirty million, in the revival in the two-year period of 1858-59. The churches actually increased their membership by this figure…solid, lasting converts.’ (Great Revivals, Colin Whittaker)

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because I’m God’s child and am saved by grace that urgency, persistence or passion in prayer is irrelevant. However, Intensity in prayer goes hand in hand with a move of God; Revival - the outpouring of God’s Spirit - is instigated and is sustained by prayer. Jesus taught us to pray with persistence and urgency: