Thoughts for Life: #87 Other Examples of Revivals

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel: At the beginning of this century there was a member of Congress from New England who had been reared in a godly family but who later became an infidel and lectured against God and the Bible.

His wife was a nominal christian but was let to make a full surrender of her life to Christ. God then gave her a great desire for the salvation of her husband. The Brownsville Revival, Google image)

She and other Christians made an agreement to intercede each day for her husband until he became a Christian. One night as she knelt beside her bed praying for her husband's salvation, God asked her,

"Are you willing for the results that will come if your
husband is converted?"

Three times this question came. She told God she was ready to pay the price if only her husband would come to Him.

That very night her husband was sitting in Congress. It was during a presidential election, and excited and heated speeches were being made in Congress.

Suddenly he got the feeling that the God he had been trying to disprove was just above him, looking down on him, and displeased with him. He thought to himself,

"This is ridiculous; I guess I have been working too hard. I'll
go get a good meal and take a long walk, and shake myself
and see if that will take this feeling away."

He did, but when he resumed his seat in Congress, he felt that God was right above him, looking down on him with displeasure. This feeling continued for some days, and day after day he took walks trying to shake it off.

He went back to meet his constituency because he had ambitions to be the next governor of his state and seemed to be in line for the position as candidate of the dominant party.

He had hardly entered his home when his wife announced to him that she and a group of ladies had made a covenant of prayer that he would become a Christian. He casually asked,

"When did this thing begin, this praying of yours?

She told him the date, and he knew it was the very day when he began to feel God was looking down upon him. He was tremendously shaken.

That night he went to a little Methodist church where special meetings were in progress. The second night he went back and was converted. God called him to preach, and he gave up politics and entered the ministry.

~ An Anglican church in Britain many years ago had a prayer meeting each Sunday morning before the eight o'clock Communion service. As the people arose from their knees one Sunday, a man asked the pastor,

"I wish you would pray for my boy. He is twenty-two years
old now and has not been been to church for years."

The pastor proposed that they stop immediately and pray for five minutes. They earnestly united together in prayer. Nothing was said to the young man, but that night he came to the church, was deeply convicted by the message, stayed behind brokenhearted, and received Christ as his Savior.

The next morning one of the church staff said to the pastor,

"That conversion last night is a challenge to prayer—a
challenge from God. Shall we accept it?" What do you
mean? asked the pastor.

"Well," he said, "Shall we single out the worst man in the
parish and pray for him?"

After discussion, they all decided on a Mr. K. as the most sinful person they knew. They all agreed together in prayer for his conversion and began to hold on in prayer each day.

At the end of the week, during a Saturday night prayer meeting, while someone was actually praying by name for this man, the door swung open, and in he staggered in a very intoxicated condition.

He had never been inside the building before. Without removing his cap, he sat on a chair and buried his face in his hands. Before the prayer meeting was over, God had sobered the man and saved him, and he later became a christian worker.

Is there someone you hunger to see come to Christ who is now rejecting God? Do you hunger deeply enough to pray a costly spiritual price, if need be, to see God's answer?

Do you have one or two or perhaps more people so united in spirit with you, so sharing your burden, that you can agree together in prayer? Be sure there is nothing in your life or any matter of obedience that is blocking you.

Be sure that your motive is for God's glory and not to be known that you prayed the prayer that was answered. Then prove God's promise. It is there waiting for you to claim.

Used by permission of the author and Duewel Literature Trust, Inc., Greenwood, Indiana ( Creative reading style by Jean).

Mighty Prevailing Prayer
#87 Other Examples of Revivals
by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel
(pp. 146 -148) Zondervan

Let's pray-

Teach us to pray

Father, may we envision the salvation and

sanctification of our loved ones, as we

read of these stories of others.

Impress on our hearts that You are working,

even though it may not seem a reality.

We know You do hear our prayers,

and when they are in keeping with Your Word,

we can be assured that what takes place

may very well give us new challenges.

We submit to Your will for us, and

we acknowledge our dependency on You.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Today's Bible verses-

"That they may see, and know, and consider, and
understand together, that the hand of the LORD
hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath
created it. (21) Produce your cause, Saith the LORD;
bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of
Jacob." Is. 42:20, 21 (KJV)

"Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new
things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you
of them" (Is. 42:9 KJV).

Today's quotes-

~ Jim Cymbala- "I knew I had heard from God, even though I had not experienced some strange vision, nothing sensational or peculiar. God was simply focusing on the only answer to our situation—or anybody else's, for that matter.

His word to me was grounded in countless promises repeated in the Scriptures; it was the very thing that had produced every revival of the Holy Spirit throughout history. It was the truth that had made Charles G. Finney, Dwight L. Moody, A. B. Simpson, and other men and women mightily used of God.

It was what I already knew, but God was now drawing me out, pulling me toward an actual experience of himself and his power. He was telling me that my hunger for him and his transforming power would be satisfied as I led my tiny congregation to call out to him in prayer." (pp. 25, 26 in his book, FRESH WIND, FRESH FIRE).

~ David McCasland- "It is our faith in Christ and His power that enables us to look ahead, move forward, and rebuild."

"We cannot change the past, but

God is changing us for the future"

(Taken from Our Daily Bread®, © 1/30/2017 by Our Daily Bread Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. www.odb.org)

Today's popular post-

Google image

Travail, A Spiritual Happening: Prayer Note #47 Dutch Sheets tells us, “When choosing the term, [travail], the Holy Spirit uses a physical phenomenon—childbirth—to describe a spiritual happening or truth.
In doing so, His emphasis is not on the physical realm but the spiritual. And the comparison is not meant to be literal or exact..."

Upcoming posts-

#88 The Dynamic of Perseverance

Feb. 2nd- Thursday's post by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel

Old Yet New [Kentucky Sinkhole]

4th- Saturday's post by Dave Branon

#89 Give God Time to Answer- Part 1

7th- Tuesday's post by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel

#90 Give God Time to Answer- Part 2

9th- Thursday's post by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel