Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author, Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

Karen: In our last podcast, my husband, David Mains, began to read the first part of the latest chapter in his new manuscript, tentatively titled, Prayer Vigilantes. Let’s listen together as he continues to read the final portion of this chapter.

David: It’s foolish to try to fit God into a box. He can do what he wants in whatever way most pleases him. Anyone who studies revival history knows this to be true. Even so, a careful look at past revivals makes it possible to see a sequence of events that often unfolds. A discernible pattern can prove helpful for us today as long as we don’t try to set it in religious concrete. What begins with a deep dissatisfaction regarding the way things are needs to move toward a concerted prayer effort. This longing for something better has to become a sustained hope. Otherwise, the frustration of delay has a tendency to lead to bitterness. Again, it would be difficult to pinpoint a time during which God has poured out his spirit apart from believers somewhere paying the price in prayer. This commitment is not a casual effort. It involves long sessions of intercession. Prayer is the power source for revival.

Armin Gesswein writes these words in his book With One Accord In One Place, “Most churches are said to fail because they do not generate their own power. This is also true of the individual Christian. Prayer is the generator.”

The great London preacher Charles Spurgeon once took some people down to his metropolitan tabernacle basement to show them his full power plant. There on their knees were about 300 people praying for the service. This is a good illustration because considered prayer efforts usually require partnerships or group prayer. It’s because the burden is too heavy, the calling too difficult, and the enemy too strong for any one individual to stand in the gap alone. A core group of believers seriously committed to prayer is needed if a vision for revival is to come alive.

How many fellow prayer vigilantes do you meet with regularly? The phrase “core group” doesn’t necessarily imply that a large number of people is required. Initially it may just be a handful in a church, on a campus, or scattered throughout a denomination, but they’re determined people willing to be involved in a protracted ministry. In other words, they won’t be easily discouraged, but will continue to pray until God answers. Using the words of Scripture can be a powerful way to plead for revival.

Bible verses may be prayed back to God in this way. “Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you?” That’s Psalm 85 verses 4 through 6.

Teams devoted to prayer should remind themselves of how the Lord has worked in the past. For example, they may recall how He rescued the Jews when Queen Esther called for three days of intense prayer and fasting. In teams today, as they do this, the conviction grows in their hearts that someday soon the Lord will also honor the earnest prayers of His people in this generation.

For too many years, a lack of prayer has been one of the greatest weaknesses in the church. Christians acted as though they were resourceful enough to move the cause of Jesus Christ forward without much help from the Lord, but hopefully that day is changing. One of the great signs of the times would be a rapidly growing prayer movement. Nothing could be more positive a harbinger of better days ahead. Building a strong prayer base and anticipating that it will result in revival is a lesson we can learn from history. It doesn’t force God into a box, but it certainly puts the church in an advantageous position.

Do you remember the television series Touched by an Angel with actress Delarise? Proved to be a winning combination. People are interested in these mysterious beings who come along to help individuals in times of need. In the Bible, however, angels are often portrayed as far more powerful and frightening than their Hollywood counterparts. For example, in Judges 2, the angel of the Lord accuses the Israelites that disobey in God. When the tribes occupied the Promised Land, they didn’t destroy the pagan altars as they had been instructed. “Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them off before you. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.” When the angel of the Lord had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud. They knew they had heard a message directly from God, and his words were like a great weight on them.

This is similar to what happened in Acts 2:37. The people who heard Peter preach were cut to the heart. This inexplicable and instantaneous conviction is almost commonplace when the Spirit of the Lord is poured out. And it happens because a foundation of prayer has been laid. Praying people expect extraordinary results when God enlivens the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This renewal and enlivening of people’s gifts given by the Holy Spirit is the third step in the process of revival.

It has been repeated time and time again. God so anoints people with the gifts of the Holy Spirit such as preaching, music, evangelism, whatever, that it becomes obvious that more than just human skills are now at work, and the tears begin flowing once again in the church. Time has to be scheduled in services to allow people to confess their sins. The fact that non-Christian family members and friends are lost and without Christ becomes a matter of intense concern and heartbreak.

Whose special gifts of the Holy Spirit are you asking the Lord to anoint? An old volume with the long titled New England Revivals as they existed at the close of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries includes this report from the pastor in Canton, Connecticut. “There was a certain man in the place 50 years of age who had neglected public worship and had always been opposed to the things of the gospel and who for some time was at all the meetings. I made a visit with a view to converse with him on the state of his mind when he gave me the following account. ‘Sometime in the fall I thought in my sleep that my daughter, who is dead, came into the room. I knew that she was dead and said to her, ‘What are you here for?’ She replied, ‘Father, I am come to tell you not to be damned.’ Little after this these particular words, prepare to me thy God, O Israel, sounded daily in my ears. But last night my mind was so impressed that I couldn’t sleep and when the day approached I arose and taking my garments to put on it appeared to me that they were gods and I trembled to think how I had used God’s property. All that I turned my eyes on looked like God’s things. After I returned into the house I directly had a view of the preciousness of Jesus. After a short pause the man added, ‘I wish you would pray for me that I may be converted.’”

This profound awareness of God’s presence is what the church has needed for so long and this process of revival will move forward as God’s people join with it. First again there is this deep-seated longing for something better, which leads to a core group of determined believers committing themselves to an extended ministry of prayer. And it’s in such a context that the Lord begins to anoint the gifts of the Spirit with the result that God’s servants minister almost as though they were angels from on high. It was the third person with the same story in two days. What was going on? Like the woman who had come in the day before this man confessed to shoplifting and wanted to pay for what he had taken. His envelope contained several hundred dollars. When he said it on the desk, the store manager jumped from his chair and asked, “What’s happening anyway? I don’t get it.” Is the church, was the reply, the Lord is there. He’s made me aware that I need to make some things right and until I do, I can’t really feel comfortable in his house.

A revival story like this one only comes to completion when the manager visits the church to observe things first hand and becomes converted. So, as God responds to the prayers of his people and powerfully anoints them with the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, there will be a deep conviction and tears of sorrow over sin. The first major breakthrough, however, is with believers, not unbelievers. With confession there comes a wonderful feeling of release and freedom. Persistent strangleholds of sin are broken. In time these changed individuals emanate a spirit of victory because there’s no way they want to be ensnared by Satan again.

This doesn’t mean the enemy stops tempting people, but for all practical purposes the power of a particular sin is broken and the restored believer gains an incredible sense of confidence in Jesus Christ and his power. This kind of reaction is consistent with Paul’s counsel to believers to behave in such a way that, “You may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.” That’s Philippians 2:15-16.

Onlookers, including non-Christians, see this as an attractive quality and as Christians know forgiveness of sins and begin to live victoriously, the way is paved for the conversion of huge numbers of unbelievers. Why? Partly because these victorious Christians have a hard time keeping quiet about what’s happening in their lives. They talk about their faith quite naturally and enthusiastically. It’s not because their pastor said they should or tried to show them how. Their words just tumble out because they can’t hold them in. This is when the boom and conversions come. All kinds of people want to meet the Lord. They are from many walks of life.

Surprisingly, a significant number of the new converts are regular church attendees who spiritual eyes are now open. Picture this as a great ending to the extraordinary scenario in Revelation 3:14-22, in which Jesus has been standing outside the church knocking on the door. When full-blown revival comes, that door is open wide and the marvelous fellowship with Christ is enjoyed by all. Has your church opened its doors to this special individual knocking at it?

Many people have the mistaken impression that all wild fires can be controlled. Firefighting experts insist that this is not true. Some fires cannot be stopped until they burn themselves out. Others can’t even be controlled. For example, in 1967, the Tasmanian fires in Australia came on the heels of a considerable drought. More than 110 known fires were burning on the morning of February 7, more than 110, consuming over 650,000 acres in approximately five hours.

Preachers in earlier generations knew what revival could do, but they struggled to come up with a word picture that could adequately convey its phenomenal power. When they turned to quite often was a sweeping wildfire blown by the winds of the Spirit and burning everything in its path. It sparks from an area that’s ablaze or carried by the wind to ignite somewhere else, so it is with revival. The stories of what’s happening in one church are told elsewhere and the conflagration spreads. The revivals that touch numerous Christian colleges and seminaries followed this pattern. As students from one school testified on other campuses about the convicting work of the Spirit, the divine flame touched down again and again.

We have come now to the most exciting time in the revival sequence, the time in which the special sense of the presence of the Lord begins to spread very rapidly. Many of God’s leaders are calling for a revival that will, for the first time in history, sweep across the world. The force would be so overwhelming it would be almost impossible to control, at least in part because so many fires would be burning all at the same time. A 110 in the Chicago area, another 110 in Tokyo, 110 around Nairobi, Kenya in Africa, who the reports like that coming from flash points across the continents.

For that kind of wildfire to begin and spread, today’s church needs to be convinced that the exponential power of revival is our nation’s only hope. Is your congregation confident that God is more than able to do something amazing and blazing in our day? If God could bring Pagan Nineveh to her knees under the preaching of one reluctant prophet, what might happen today with many willing servants eager to minister on the Lord’s behalf?

The church also needs to understand that apart from another great time of revival like this, this country and others face terrible judgment. Since the beginning of the world, no nation has been allowed to sin with impunity. In other words, her citizens can’t act as though they’ll never have to pay for their evil. Even Israel, God’s chosen people, couldn’t get away with that. Amos’ ancient warning is appropriate in our day as well. “Seek the Lord and live or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire. It will devour and Bethel will have no one to quench it.”

Many companies use flow charts to analyze how they’re doing. If their profits double in the course of a year, the line will have an impressive incline. Every so often, a product will take off like crazy. The graph will show an exponential curve. The line almost appears to be shooting straight up.

The church needs to think and pray with this kind of vision and energy, not just a little jump, Lord. We want something dramatic, something truly remarkable, something that makes people say, “Wow, the church is a force to be reckoned with after all. Isn’t this the kind of church community we want when the Lord returns?” It’s the exponential power of revival that will make it possible. Lucky you, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is performing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. A friend offers you tickets to this concert under the stars and it will include real cannons, chiming bells, and spectacular fireworks. But you’re nervous about the evening. The last time you went to the symphony, you started to applaud when the music stopped. Unfortunately, no one else did. And that was the night you learned that the end of a movement and a piece of music is not the same as the end of the composition.

So, there’s a sixth and final step in the normal process of revival. People not in the know need to be cautioned about applauding too soon. The church can’t rejoice that revival has come in full until society has been influenced for the better. The presence of Jesus Christ in the world makes it better in so many ways. Is it possible to conceive of his being anywhere for any period of time without reaching out to those in need? Wasn’t he the one who taught that when the nations are gathered before him, he will separate the sheep from the goats? And the sheep are those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take in strangers. But the goats are the ones who don’t have time for these activities. If revival is marked by an overwhelming sense of the presence of Jesus, shouldn’t social concern be one of its noteworthy features?

Indeed, history bears this out. In a letter to the Bishop of London, Data June 11, 1747, John Wesley defended his revival efforts. Quote, “The habitual drunkard that was is now temperate in all things. The hornmonger now flees for an occasion. He that stole steals no more, but works with his hands. He that cursed or swore, perhaps in every sentence, has now learned to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice unto him with reverence. Those formerly enslaved, the various habits of sin are now brought to uniform habits of holiness.” Back certain secular historians have actually credited the social impact of the Wesleyan revivals with sparing England from the bloody revolution that France experienced.

The following is one account of how God completes the work of revival, it’s cited by Wesley Dewell in Revival Fire. The setting is Ireland 1859. Among the wonderful changes resulting from the revival were decreases in drunkenness, crime, prostitution, profanity, quarreling, bites, cock fighting, feuds, fraud, dishonesty, and family bickering. There arose a great new interest in education, sacred music, the Bible, personal cleanliness, and even in eliminating poverty. People seem more courteous and considerate in one district the year before revival, there were 26 paupers, but when revival came there were only four. The same kind of strong social concern cited in this account has marked God’s legitimate prophets ever since Old Testament times. And minister, true justice, preached Zechariah, “Show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor, but the spiritually stubborn people of Judah stopped up their ears and turned their backs on God’s servant because their hearts were as hard as flint.”

When God’s people receive the spirit in revival, the response is totally different. They are receptive to his desires and joyfully obedient to his will. Their lives bring great good to all. It’s as though the public is being treated to the full orchestra plain under the direction of the most esteemed of conductors. The concert is under the stars for all to see and hear, and rumor has it that there will even be bells, cannons, and fireworks.

Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast and if you would like to write to us please send us an email at the following address: hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please remember to rate, review and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2021 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.