This post is in commemoration of St. Patrick's Day just past and David Livingstone's 199th birthday today. (Please note: I originally posted this my other blog here (with a minor edit today re: Livingstone's birthday).)

As you may know, I've come to appreciate reading about past revivals and Christian biography. I've included an excerpt from R.A. Torrey, which gives us a brief summary of the role of prayer in the history of revivals in Ireland, as well as an excerpt from Rob Mackenzie's biography of Livingstone. As we look back to the past, may we examine ourselves rightly and remind ourselves that our God is the God brought revival to Ireland, and our God is the God empowered David Livingstone to persevere in running the race set before Him, despite myriad griefs, physical and emotional sufferings, setbacks and disappointments. Our God desires to work in and through us today in similar ways. However, we have become much too much like the Church at Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22). We have become too full of ourselves: of our fleshly and worldly notions, wisdom, plans and schemes – as a result, we leave no room to be filled with the Spirit of God! However, thanks be to God – we have a God who is longsuffering and as soon as we begin to repent of our wretched self-sufficiency and self-reliance and confess our own poverty and neediness. He who has an ear, let him hear!

II Chronicles 16:9  For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. (KJV)

Isaiah 45:11  Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. (KJV)

Psalm 45:16  Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. 17  But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God. (KJV)

Prayer & Revival in Ireland (R.A. Torrey) & Livingstone in Africa: Are we in our closets?

The following is an excerpt from R.A. Torrey's book "How to Pray," Chapter XII - The Place of Prayer before and during Revivals, which was published in 1900 (boldface mine):

“Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?” They were stricken into a swoon by the power of His Word. A dozen in one day were carried out of doors as dead. These were not women, but some of the boldest spirits of the neighborhood; “some who had formerly feared not with their swords to put a whole market town into a fray.” Concerning one of them, then a mighty strong man, now a mighty Christian, say that his end in coming into church was to consult with his companions how to work some mischief.”

This work spread throughout the whole country. By the year 1626 a monthly concert of prayer was held in Antrim. The work spread beyond the bounds of Down and Antrim to the churches of the neighboring counties. So great became the religious interest that Christians would come thirty or forty miles to the communions, and continue from the time they came until they returned without wearying or making use of sleep. Many of them neither ate nor drank, and yet some of them professed that they “went away most fresh and vigorous, their souls so filled with the sense of God.”

This revival changed the whole character of northern Ireland.

Another great awakening in Ireland in 1859 had a somewhat similar origin. By many who did not know, it was thought that this marvelous work came without warning and preparation, but Rev. William Gibson, the moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1860, in his very interesting and valuable history of the work tells how there had been preparation for two years. There had been constant discussion in the General Assembly of the low estate of religion, and of the need of a revival. There had been special sessions for prayer. Finally four young men, who became leaders in the origin of the great work, began to meet together in an old schoolhouse in the neighborhood of Kells. About the spring of 1858 a work of power began to manifest itself. It spread from town to town, and from county to county. The congregations became too large for the buildings, and the meetings were held in the open air, oftentimes attended by many thousands of people. Many hundreds of persons were frequently convicted of sin in a single meeting. In some places the criminal courts and jails were closed for lack of occupation. There were manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s power of a most remarkable character, clearly proving that the Holy Spirit is as ready to work to-day as in apostolic days, when ministers and Christians really believe in Him and begin to prepare the way by prayer.

Mr. Moody’s wonderful work in England and Scotland and Ireland that afterwards spread to America had its origin on the manward side in prayer. Mr. Moody made little impression until men and women began to cry to God. Indeed his going to England at all was in answer to the importunate cries to God of a bed-ridden saint. While the spirit of prayer continued the revival abode in strength, but in the course of time less and less was made of prayer and the work fell off very perceptibly in power. Doubtless one of the great secrets of the unsatisfactoriness and superficiality and unreality of many of our modern so-called revivals, is that more dependence is put upon man’s machinery than upon God’s power, sought and obtained by earnest, persistent, believing prayer. We live in a day characterized by the multiplication of man’s machinery and the diminution of God’s power. The great cry of our day is work, work, work, new organizations, new methods, new machinery; the great need of our day is prayer. It was a master stroke of the devil when he got the church so generally to lay aside this mighty weapon of prayer. The devil is perfectly willing that the church should multiply its organizations, and deftly contrive machinery for the conquest of the world for Christ if it will only give up praying. He laughs as he looks at the church to-day and says to himself:

“You can have your Sunday-schools and your Young People’s Societies, your Young Men’s Christian Associations and your Women’s Christian Temperance Unions, your Institutional Churches and your Industrial Schools, and your Boy’s Brigades, your grand choirs and your fine organs, your brilliant preachers and your revival efforts too, if you don’t bring the power of Almighty God into them by earnest, persistent, believing, mighty prayer.”

Prayer could work as marvelous results today as it ever could, if the church would only betake itself to it.

There seem to be increasing signs that the church is awakening to this fact. Here and there God is laying upon individual ministers and churches a burden of prayer that they have never known before. Less dependence is being put upon machinery and more dependence upon God. Ministers are crying to God day and night for power. Churches and portions of churches are meeting together in the early morning hours and the late night hours crying to God for the latter rain. There is every indication of the coming of a mighty and widespread revival. There is every reason why, if a revival should come in any country at this time, it should be more widespread in its extent than any revival of history. There is the closest and swiftest communication by travel, by letter, and by cable between all parts of the world. A true fire of God kindled in America would soon spread to the uttermost parts of the earth. The only thing needed to bring this fire is prayer.

It is not necessary that the whole church get to praying to begin with. Great revivals always begin first in the hearts of a few men and women whom God arouses by His Spirit to believe in Him as a living God, as a God who answers prayer, and upon whose heart He lays a burden from which no rest can be found except in importunate crying unto God.

May God use this book to arouse many others to pray that the greatly-needed revival may come, and come speedily.

* * *

Zechariah 4:1 And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, 2  And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof: 3  And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. 4  So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord? 5  Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. 6  Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. 7  Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. 8  Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 9  The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. 10  For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth. (KJV)

Reference:  ¹Rob Mackenzie, "David Livingstone: The Truth Behind the Legend" (Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 1993), 365-366. Mackenzie used the account of Livingstone's death as recorded in "The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa 1865-1873," by Horace Waller & John Murray (London: 1880), 308). For more on Livingstone, please see the Biography of David Livingstone at the Gospel Fellowship Association.

Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:David_Livingstone.jpg  / CC BY-SA 3.0/ {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}

In my last post, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" ... , I asked: "How are we to follow Jesus?" I was emphasizing that apart from our following and walking in Christ's example of full reliance on the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing at all, much less desire to do anything at all for the cause of Christ.

I read John Baillie's "Memoir of the Rev. W.H. Hewitson, Late Minister of the Free Church of Scotland, at Direlton [1852]"  last year and have been continuing to dabble in it on and off. Along with reading of Scripture, I cannot commend to you enough the reading of good Christian biography so we might begin to see the "glorious possibilities" of the Christian life, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it. (Please see my other posts on Hewitson here, here, here, here, and here.) Reading Christian history and Christian biography is one of God's blessed means to put into our hearts a desire to see His church reformed and revived ~ though not equivalent to Scripture, we must agree this great cloud of witnesses is indeed set forth as warnings and examples to us for our instruction and strengthening and encouragement to run the race set before us.

I recently came across this excerpt in Chapter VII (pp. 105-106) in Hewitson's Memoir. In it we find testimony to the vital necessity of the power of the Holy Ghost.

Though not all Christians are called by God to the pastoral office, we are all new creations who are all called to be ministers of reconciliation and ambassadors for Christ (II Corinthians 5). The Church in the book of Acts "went about every where preaching the word" (Acts 8:4, KJV). Let us pray our Lord might open our eyes to see that it is NOT by might, NOR by power, by but His Spirit – for it is only then that we will seek in earnest to be baptized afresh (or for the first time) with the Holy Spirit of God and ordained by the Spirit of Christ, so we might not trifle with our own souls and the souls of hundreds.

O, Lord God, forgive us our sinfulness as we have turned away from You, we have taken our eyes off You, we have dispensed of Your blessed Holy Spirit and have turned our eyes on self and have tried to rely on ourselves, and now we are in a sad state, as we are reaping what we have sown!

Show us the depth of our poverty, open our eyes to see our vital need of Your blessed Holy Spirit, this indispensable element which we have so tragically dispensed of! Our lands are dry. Our churches are a ruin and a reproach. Our people are lukewarm. Have mercy upon us. Hear our cries. Give us a thirst for You alone, and pour our Your Spirit upon Your seed once again, ordain us by the Holy Spirit of Christ, so we might be zealous once again for You and Your Kingdom and be sent out to preach Your glorious Gospel and bless the nations to Your glory.

Last month I posted Why should You be like a stranger? May our hearts burn with us! – a prayer based on Jeremiah 14:7-9. My reading of M'Cheyne's sermon "Why Is God a Stranger in the Land" had prompted that post.

In rereading The Memoir of William Hepburn Hewitson (1812-1850) by John Baillie I once again came across a reference to that same Jeremiah passage.

Given the widespread and prevailing state of lethargy and lukewarmness in much of the Church today, given we are in time of trouble, here is the question we must continue to ask, the question and request which we must take with boldness and importunity to the throne of God day and night:

O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? – Jeremiah 14:8, KJV

From the Memoir:

Mr Hewitson had himself learned not to "limit the Holy One of Israel." In a letter of this period, addressed to Mr Dickson, how vividly he stands out before us the man of prayer and of expecting faith ! He writes:—