Our Greatest Need Today: United, Fervent Prayer

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TIM HANLEY

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May 5, 2022 – National Day of Prayer
“This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” –Mark 9:29
We live in a wicked and perverse generation under the righteous judgement of God (Rom :18-32). The signs are everywhere. We go out weekly to the UofSC-Columbia campus to preach the Gospel, and we are surrounded each week by Antifa-Trans opposition. Over almost 50 years we have legally murdered over 60 million pre-born image bearers.  A tyrannical and corrupt government seeks to control our lives. Crime, murder, sex-trafficking, porn, suicide, divorce, national and personal debt, and drug addiction deaths are all at astronomical highs. Our national motto should be: “there is no fear before their eyes” (Rom 3:18).
In the Gospel of Mark, the Only Begotten Son of God is confronted by a man whose only begotten son is demon-possessed. The demon has sought to kill the son since the son was a little boy. The dad is distraught because the disciples are unable to heal the boy. In Mark 6:7-13 our Lord gives them authority and power over demons and to heal the sick. Yet, their efforts yield nothing. The disciples ask the Lord the reason they could not cast out the demon. The Lord Jesus tells them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” He is talking about fervent and persevering prayer. This is fervent prayer where the real you meets the real God!
We are a nation in far worse shape than this son who was demon-possessed. Spiritually and morally, we are not ON the cliff, but have already gone OVER the cliff under the wrath of God. Our situation is past desperate. Why? We are in this place as a nation because the Church has not committed itself to fervent, united, persevering prayer seeking the face of God until we truly experience His forgiveness and Manifest Presence (2 Chr 7:14; Is 64:7). We must be fervently, corporately, and sacrificially seeking His face, not His hand of blessing or some feel good experience. He is saying to us as our Lord Jesus said to this man with the demonized son, “Bring him here to Me” (Mt 17:17). We must bring the Church and our nation before our Lord in brokenness and repentance and faith that He is able to bring revival even in this desperate time. As our Lord said to the Church at Ephesus, “you have lost your first love. Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first . . .” (Rev 2:4-5).
The circumstances in our nation in 1857 were equally desperate. Jeremiah Lanphier called the Church in New York City near Hell’s Kitchen to an hour of united, fervent prayer beginning on September 23, 1857. This was the beginning of the great Prayer Revival of 1857-1859, when from Charleston to Seattle, businesses across the nation closed daily for prayer from Noon until 1pm. J. Edwin Orr estimated over one million were truly converted in our nation during the Civil War due to this Prayer Revival. 
Will you join me in fasting, fervent, united prayer for revival in Christ’s Church in America on May 5, our National Day of Prayer? Then form a group and meet weekly for united, fervent revival prayer. Without revival in Christ’s Church in America we are doomed. Soli Deo Gloria!

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