When a “spirit of prayer” comes upon
a person, congregation or nation, they desire to pray more than anything else. Their hearts are overwhelmed with a yearning towards God and nothing but prayer will suffice and satisfy. This kind of prayer is a work of the Holy Spirit and is mentioned in Romans 8:26.
This is what happened in the Great Prayer Revival of 1857-58. As if drawn by an invisible force, multitudes throughout the nation crowded into churches, fire stations, lodges and halls to pour out their hearts to God in prayer.
This is what happened in the Great Prayer Revival of 1857-58. As if drawn by an invisible force, multitudes throughout the nation crowded into churches, fire stations, lodges and halls to pour out their hearts to God in prayer.
The did not want preaching or
singing. They did not want to be entertained. They wanted to pray. Charles G. Finney said the general impression
seemed to be, “We have had instruction until we are hardened; it is time for us
to pray.”
This prayer revival began with a simple
layman named Jeremiah Lanphier experiencing a deep concern for the unconverted
and spiritually indifferent. Out of this concern, he obtained a third story room
in the Old Dutch Church on Fulton Street in downtown Manhattan and invited
local businessmen to come and spend their noon hour in prayer.
Although simple in format and absent
of hype, the meeting grew until every day it was standing room only. Men, women
and the unconverted were drawn as if by a magnet into the prayer meeting. Marvelous
answers to prayer were multiplied and many remarkable conversions occurred.
Many pastors began attending the daily
prayer meeting, and seeing the passion for prayer, began opening their churches
for prayer meetings. They were amazed to see multitudes fill their sanctuaries
to pray both day and night.
A spirit of prayer seemed to be
unleashed from the Fulton Street meeting to the nation. Prayer meetings began
springing up in Philadelphia, Boston, Washington D.C., Pittsburg, Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, Chicago and in a multitude of smaller cities and rural areas.
Characterized by a Solemn Sense of God’s Presence
The prayer meetings were
characterized by a solemn sense of God’s presence and much convicting power.
Sinners seemed helpless in God’s presence as the arrows of the Almighty pierced
their hearts.
For example, in a noon prayer meeting
at a church in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan, the sanctuary was crowded with a
standing-room-only crowd when a prayer request was read from a wife asking prayer
for her unsaved husband.
Immediately, a man stood to his feet
and with tears exclaimed, “I am that man. My wife is a good Christian woman and
she must have sent that request. Please pray for me.” He sat down and
immediately a man in another part of the house stood to his feet weeping, and
as if he had not heard the first man, declared, “That was my wife who sent that
request. She is a good Christian woman and I have treated her badly. Please
pray for me!” He sat down and another man stood, also convinced that it was his
wife who sent the prayer request and after him a fourth and a fifth with
similar confessions.
One writer described a “zone of
heavenly influence” that pervaded the eastern seaboard, extending out into the
Atlantic and impacting the passengers and crews of approaching ships. He wrote,
Revival began aboard one ship before
it reached the coast. People on board began to feel the presence of God and the
sense of their own sinfulness. The Holy Spirit convicted them and they began to
pray. As the ship neared the harbor, the captain signaled, “Send a minister.”
Another small commercial ship arrived in port with the captain, and every
member of the crew converted in the last 150 miles. Ship after ship arrived
with the same story: both passengers and crew were suddenly convicted of sin
and turned to Christ before they reached the American coast (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 24-25).
Finney told of a prayer meeting in
Boston in which a man stood and declared that he had just travelled almost two thousand
miles from Omaha, Nebraska and had found “a continuous prayer meeting all the
way” (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening,
22).
The Nation is Awakened
A young D. L. Moody attended daily
prayer meetings in Chicago and wrote to his mother, “Oh, how I do enjoy it! It
seems as if God were here Himself.” In Washington D.C., Presidents Pierce
(1853-57) and Buchannan (1857-61) attended prayer meetings that were organized
in that city.
In Charleston, South Carolina, the
black pastor of the Anson Street Presbyterian Church, John Giardeau,
established a prayer meeting in 1858 and exhorted his people to “wait for the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.”
The prayer service grew until the
auditorium was overflowing with more than two-thousand people. As on the Day of
Pentecost, the Holy Spirit suddenly fell upon those at the Anson Street Church,
a congregation made up mostly of slaves.
They began to
sob, softly, like the falling of rain; then, with deeper emotion, to weep
bitterly, or to rejoice loudly, according to their circumstances. It was
midnight before he could dismiss the congregation. The meeting went on night
and day for weeks. Large numbers of both black and white were converted and
joined churches in the city (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening,
26).
Finney described 1857-58 as a time
when “a divine influence seemed to pervade the whole land” (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 26). He
estimated that at the height of the revival fifty-thousand were being converted
in a single week—and that without the aid of modern communication and
technology.
Conservative estimates place the
total number of conversions at around one million, but some have suggested that
as many as two million may have been converted. The March 1858 issue of a
religious journal reported,
The large cities and towns from Maine
to California are sharing in this great and glorious work. There is hardly a
village or town to be found where ‘a special divine power’ does not appear
displayed (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening,
26).
The
Third Great Awakening
This was America’s “Third Great Awakening.” For any
revival to be called a “Great Awakening” it should have the following three
characteristics.
1. It
is an obvious sovereign work God in that it has arisen apart from any
identifiable human plan, strategy or design.
2. It is
non-sectarian and touches people of all sects and denominations. No one group,
or church can “own” the revival.
3. It is not
localized or regional but has an obvious national impact on the nation and its
culture.
The Great Prayer Awakening of 1857-58 possessed these
characteristics, which is why I have chosen to call it America’s “Third Great
Awakening.”
The Reason for the Great Prayer Awakening
Some have suggested that the Prayer
Revival of 1857-58 was an outpouring of God’s mercy preceding national judgment
for the institutional sin of slavery—that it was God giving the nation an
opportunity to deal with this sin and thereby avoid the coming judgment.
Others would emphasize that the
revival was God’s way of strengthening and preparing the nation for the
terrible time of suffering it would endure through the Civil War. In their
excellent book, FIREFALL: How God Has
Shaped History Through Revivals, McDow and Reid write,
The Prayer Revival laid the
foundation to give spiritual resources that would help the nation survive this
conflict. Roy Fish notes that one of the major functions of the great awakening
of 1858 had to do with its preparation of the country for its fratricidal war
which clouded the horizon” (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 34-35).
Giardeau, the black pastor from South
Carolina, believed the revival was sent to prepare the hearts of so many who
would soon lose their lives in the Civil War. He described the revival as “the
Lord’s mercy in gathering His elect for the great war that was soon to sweep so
many of them into eternity.”
The Greatest Tragedy in American History
There was, indeed, great loss on all
fronts, but none so great as the loss of human life. Estimates of the loss of
life range from 625,000 to over 700,000 soldiers and an unknown number of
civilians. The magnitude of the loss is amplified by the fact that the United
States population at the time was only 31 million.
By way of comparison, in WWII 50,000
American soldiers lost their lives. In the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
less than 10,000 Americans have died. More lives were lost in the Civil War
than in all wars combined from the American Revolution through the Korean
Conflict.
It was truly a devastating time.
Weeping could be heard in homes throughout America. In many homes both father
and sons were missing. Hardly a family could be found that had not lost
multiple family members.
The nation was devastated only a few
years after the Great Prayer Revival. However, there is evidence that the
spirit of prayer continued during the war and, no doubt, preserved the populace
and the nation from utter ruin.
Prayer Continues During the War
Although this great Prayer Revival is
often identified with the years 1857-58, it did not suddenly cease after those
dates. Those dates merely identify the revival at its height and period of its
greatest impact. There are reports of prayer meetings being prominent in both
the Northern and Southern armies—a carry-over from the Prayer Revival.
When, for example, things were not
going well for the Union army in the early days of the war, President Lincoln
expressed concern that the “rebel soldiers” were praying more fervently than
those of the North. The noted historian, Mark A. Noll, says, “Revivals were
common in both camps of the Blue and the Gray” (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 35).
A National Day of Prayer Changes the Course of the War
With the North suffering one defeat
after another and things looking grim for the state of the Union, the U.S.
Senate passed a resolution asking the president to proclaim a national day of
fasting and prayer.
President
Lincoln then designated April 30, 1863 as a national day of humiliation, prayer
and the confession of national sins, which would include the sin of slavery. In
this proclamation, he said,
It is the
duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling
power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet
with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to
recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all
history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is Lord.
Lincoln’s
Prayer of Faith
Because
the influence of the Great Prayer Awakening was still fresh in the minds of the
people, they responded en masse to
Lincoln’s call to prayer. And after this national day of repentance and prayer,
there was an almost immediate turn of the war in favor of the North--but not
before a severe test of faith.
The following June, a confident
General Robert E. Lee led 76,000 Confederate troops north into Union territory,
i.e., into Pennsylvania. The populace
was terrified and there was much panic. Lincoln, however, having been impacted
by the Prayer Revival, found solace in prayer. He said,
When
everyone seemed panic-stricken, I went to my room and got down on my knees
before Almighty God and prayed. Soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that
God Almighty had taken the whole business into His own hands (Hyatt, The Great Prayer Awakening, 38).
The Confederate forces were defeated
at Gettysburg on July 3 and that battle proved to be the turning point for the
war. Some would say the victory at Gettysburg was coincidental, but the change
came on heels of the national day of repentance, prayer and fasting. One writer
surmised that the North did not win the Civil War, but that prayer won the war.
The War Ends • The Healing Continues
For all practical purposes, the war
ended in the spring of 1865, when Robert E. Lee
and the last major Confederate army surrendered at the Appomattox Courthouse in
Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9. Over the next few months smaller units
throughout the South laid down their arms and the bloodiest four years in
American history came to an end.
It
was from this era and out of this environment of both prayer and the sufferings
of war that the Negro spiritual came forth that included the repeated phrase, “Ain’t
gonna study war no more.” It captured the deepest feelings of many who longed
for peace and a sense of God’s blessing once again on the nation.
Gonna
lay down my burdens,
Down
by the riverside,
Down
by the riverside, down by the riverside.
Gonna
lay down my burdens,
Down
by the riverside.
Ain’t
gonna study war no more.
Gonna
sit down with Jesus,
Down
by the riverside,
Down
by the riverside, down by the riverside.
Gonna
sit down with Jesus,
Down
by the riverside.
Ain’t
gonna study war no more.
If
My People Will Humble Themselves and Pray
America is once again deeply divided and there is no
answer to be found in politics, education or formal religion. There is,
however, an answer and the Great Prayer Awakening of 1857-58 points us to that
answer. The answer is a serious meeting with God in prayer.
A national healing will occur when God’s people meet,
not in Washington D.C, but in II Chronicles 7:14. This is a promise of national
healing with certain conditions attached—conditions related to prayer.
We can be encouraged that Vice President Mike Pence
often quoted this passage during the 2016 presidential campaign as a basis for
national healing. When he took the oath of office, he purposely placed his hand
on a Bible opened to this passage. It reads,
If
My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek
My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will
forgive their sin and heal their land.
No comments:
Post a Comment