Prayer and Revival

Dannah Gresh: Talking to God accomplishes a lot. Pastor and author Bob Bakke shares some wonderful effects of interceding.

Bob Bakke: We delight the heart of God when we pray. We’re also partners with God in the unfolding of His purposes in history. And that includes the history of your child, your grandchildren, your marriage, your church, our country as we have been praying.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts’ podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Heaven Rules, for April 21, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, Nancy showed us from Ephesians chapter 6 that we have access to the vast strength of the Lord. We need that strength because we’re in a spiritual war.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You see that methods of human ideas, philosophies, policies, none of these, apart from the gospel and the Word of God, are effective at combating evil. The sword of the Spirit with which evil is confronted and defeated is the Word of God.

Dannah: And then the last couple of days, we heard all about an amazing move of God in the United States and around the world in the Prayer Revival of 1857 and 1858.

Kevin Adams: People were praying in New York. And as they traveled to different places, they took the idea with them.

Jonathan Brownson: There were people hearing about this all over the country.

Man: This was new . . . northward to Boston, southward to Philadelphia . . .

Man 2: We’d never seen anything quite like this. 

Man: Westward to Cleveland and across the United States.

Dannah: Now remember, you can always review those programs at ReviveOurHearts.com or through the Revive Our Hearts app.

Today Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Bob Bakke will touch on the concepts of spiritual warfare, prayer, and revival. You’ll be encouraged and challenged. To start, here’s Nancy talking about the role of angels in fighting spiritual battles.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The Scripture teaches that angels assist us in spiritual warfare against the forces of Satan and evil. We know from the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, that we are in a battle, and that the battle is not against people. The enemy is not your husband or your children or your parents or your neighbor.

We are in a battle that’s a spiritual battle. We’re dealing with spiritual forces of the wicked, the power of Satan, and evil in this world.

But the Scripture says that we don’t need to be afraid. As strong as those forces of evil may be, they are no match for God and His heavenly hosts. We’re surrounded, and we’re helped by a powerful army of angels—angels who assist us in that warfare against the forces of Satan and evil. There are a number of illustrations of this in Scripture.

One that comes to mind is in the book of Genesis, chapter 19. You remember how a mob of violent men surrounded Lot’s house in Sodom. They were wanting to accomplish wicked things with Lot and his family, but God sent two angels to assist Lot. And in the midst of that attack, the angels struck the attackers with blindness so that they could not find the door.

Had it not been for the presence of those angels at that moment, Lot would have been helpless. Angels were sent to assist him in the spiritual warfare against the force of Satan that was motivating that mob and against the evil.

Now, sometimes we’re conscious that we are coming up head to head against the forces of evil and the powers of darkness. But I think many times we are not even aware that that’s what we’re dealing with.

The important thing is that God knows. He knows, and He sees what is going on in the heavenlies, and He’s in control over it all. Even those fallen angels cannot do more than God allows them to do. They are under His control and under His power, and God often sends angels to assist in that spiritual warfare against the forces of Satan and evil.

Now, there’s another way that angels minister to our lives. The Scripture teaches that angels minister to us or serve us, and they provide strength and sustenance for us when we are weak. Again, we go to the Scripture and find a number of illustrations of this kind of ministry on the part of angels.

You remember, back in the book of 1 Kings when the prophet Elijah had won this great victory on God’s behalf, it was God who won the victory, but Elijah was God’s servant. He went to Mount Carmel, and he stood up for God against those 850 false prophets.

This one lone prophet, hopelessly outnumbered. But Elijah believed in the power of God who was the God of fire, and he knew that the false gods that these false prophets served had no power at all. So he took on and challenged, confronted the powers of evil and darkness, and God won a great victory and vindicated His name and His power.

Now we go to the next chapter, 1 Kings chapter 19, and we find the prophet Elijah, the victorious prophet Elijah, is now exhausted. He’s depleted. He’s discouraged after this showdown, and he’s running for his life from wicked Queen Jezebel who has threatened to kill him before the day is over. She’s angry at what has happened.

And so he’s discouraged, and he sits down under a tree and he begs God to take his life, to let him die. Then he lays down under that tree, and he falls asleep. He’s exhausted.

You can perhaps relate to those moments when you’re just worn out. It may not be this great encounter at Mount Carmel. It may just be an encounter with three toddlers that you’ve had all day long, and you’re depleted. Well, at those times we can get discouraged, and all we want to do is sleep and maybe even die.

And the Scripture says that all at once an angel touched Elijah and said to him, “Get up and eat.”

Now, isn’t that practical? He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water.

How did they get there? I don’t think there was any kitchen out in this desert. God supernaturally intervened and provided exactly what was needed at that moment. And the Scripture says Elijah ate and drank and then laid down again. He was still tired.

And once again the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat for the journey is too much for you” (see v. 7).

God sent His angel, a messenger to strengthen His servant in his time of need.

When we come to the Gospel of Mark, we find Jesus in the midst of the desert. And the Scripture says in that time of temptation, that Jesus was with the wild animals, and angels attended Him (see 1:13).

Now, what I love about that verse is not just that the angels attended to Jesus, but as you go further in the New Testament, you find out that those very same angels attend to us. For the book of Hebrews tells us in chapter 1, verse 14, that all angels are ministering spirits sent to—it’s the same word there—to attend, to serve, to wait on—to wait on, not just Jesus, but on those who will inherit salvation, on the children of God.

In the same way that angels ministered to Him in the midst of that desert, surrounded by wild animals, so God, at key moments in our lives, maybe even unbeknownst to us, sends His angels to strengthen us, to encourage us, to minister to us and meet our needs.

There’s another crucial moment in Jesus’ life when an angel ministered to Him. It’s at the end of His life here on earth. And you find in Luke chapter 22, we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to His heavenly Father just before He goes to the cross, where He’s going to bear all the weight of our sin upon Himself.

Jesus prays in His humanness, “Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, I surrender. Not My will, but Your will be done” (see v. 42).

The Scripture tells us that at that moment, an angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. Strengthened Him. The word there in the original language means “to make strong inwardly.” Inwardly, he made Him strong; strengthened Him in the middle of this great spiritual battle.

What’s intriguing to me is that at this moment of Jesus’ life, when He was all alone, His disciples were sleeping, and He needed inner strength to do the will of God; at that crucial moment, the angel strengthened Him. But the very next verse tells us that it wasn’t the end of the battle.

It goes on to say, “Being in anguish, He prayed more [earnestly], and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (v. 44)

You say, “If the angel strengthened Him, wouldn’t that deliver Him from the battle?”

You know what it did? To the contrary, it gave Him strength to go on in the battle.

If you have those three toddlers we were just talking about, you don’t just need deliverance from the battle. You need deliverance to keep going in the battle. You need to be strengthened inwardly so that you can face the next day, and the next, and the next.

It was the ministry of angels that gave Jesus the inner fortitude and strength to press on and to pray more earnestly. He was strengthened by the angels to do the will of God.

And so, as we look to God, God is the one who strengthens us. But many times I believe that He sends His angels as instruments of His mercy and His grace. We may not be aware that it’s the angels reaching out to us at that point, and they come from God, so I don’t believe we ought to pray to the angels to come and strengthen us. We ought to pray to God.

Dannah: Angels and prayer play an important role in the book of Daniel, too. Nancy commented on that at a recent Revive conference.

At this point in the conference, we’d already spent a couple of hours in prayer, asking God to move in us and in our country in revival. Here’s Nancy, and she’ll introduce Bob Bakke as well.

Nancy: I was thinking about Daniel chapter 10. We didn’t read that earlier, but there was another occasion . . . Daniel lived through the reigns of several kings and empires. And he realized that heaven rules. It didn’t really matter who the king is. It didn’t matter what nation thinks they’re in charge. God’s in charge. He was just this faithful man who served wherever he was. In fact, he had some of these amazing visions, and they were just overwhelming. He’d have these encounters with God and with angels.

And then I came across this one verse last week (I’d never noticed it before). After this big amazing encounter with the angel, it says, “Then Daniel went back to the palace and kept on working.” (laughter.)

So he has this amazing prayer time, and then he goes back to his job in a pagan king’s palace, and he keeps doing what God has put him to do in a place where God has given him to do it. He’s not stressing about which king it is and which king is coming next. He got visions that all of this is going to happen, but he’s just being faithful where God has put him.

There was one occasion in Daniel chapter 10, where he prayed for twenty-one days—fasting, burdened. You know what drove his prayers? He read in the prophecy of Jeremiah, the promises of God. He had very little of the Scriptures compared to what we have. But he read those promises, and he said, “I’ve got to pray. I’ve got to call upon God to fulfill what He said He would do.”

So, for twenty-one days he prayed. He fasted in a kind of a modified fast. He was just focused and disciplined in seeking the Lord. And it didn’t seem that anything was happening.

Some of you have been praying for a prodigal or for your church or for this country or your country, wherever you may be from, and it feels like nothing is happening.

But Daniel kept praying. And on the twenty-first day, an angel came to him to tell him, “Your prayers have been heard.” And then he said, “On the very first day you started to pray, God sent me to give you an answer, but I was opposed in the heavenlies” (see 10:11–14).

And then there’s this very mysterious passage. We don’t fully understand it, but we know that in the heavenlies, as we’re praying here on earth, there is opposition going on. There are princes of the power of this world who are trying to stop the work of God, and they’re fighting each other. We can’t see them, but we know from the Scriptures that it’s happening. I often have wondered, What if Daniel had stopped praying on the twentieth day before the answer made its way to earth?

You say, “Well, I’ve been praying twenty-one years for that particular burden on my heart”—some of you longer. Don’t stop praying! God’s going to send the answer. The answer is on the way, and it will get here, and it will get to you in God’s way and in God’s time.

I want to encourage you throughout the rest of this weekend to continue praying with each other, in small groups—do it in an elevator, do it in your room. We had a woman at one of these events, a bunch of women came together in the morning before the session started, and a woman said . . . 

There were, like, ten women gathered in this room. I don’t think they all slept in there, but they were all gathered there for some reason that morning, and this woman said, “I need to get saved. I need Jesus.” And they led her to Jesus right there in that hotel room. It was one of the women who had come to the conference. So be sensitive; pray for each other. And let’s believe that God has heard. He is sending the answer. It’s on its way. It may be a wait, a time before it gets here, but it will come in God’s time.

Now, I want to ask my friend Bob Bakke if he’d come and join me on the platform. Bob is a pastor in the Minneapolis area. He has been involved for many years in calling people around the world to pray for revival and spiritual awakening. He’s studied; he’s a student of the history of revival.

Bob, you were in California preaching yesterday. You took a late-night flight. You got in really late last night. You’ve been listening and watching and observing. I’d just love for you to share for a moment from your heart. As you look around the world, and as you look back in history, what happens when people pray?

Bob: One of the first things, which is so exciting, and I’ve been thinking about this all morning as we’ve been praying . . . We are actually practicing for heaven because this is what we’re going to do for the next million years, and so we better get used to it.

Now, there will be no intercessions, of course, and no crying out. There will be no wailing women in heaven. But we will pray, and we will sing our prayers. We will recite the glories of the Lord, and we will do this forever.

But a couple of things that we should think about when we think about prayer:

Think about Jesus’ baptism. Luke 3:21 tells us that when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, as he was praying, heaven opened. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and a voice came from heaven declaring the identity of the Father’s Son.

I would suggest to you that that is exactly what has been happening for the last two hours. As we have been praying, heaven has been opened, and the Holy Spirit has descended. And in our prayers, the Father has been identifying the glory of His Son.

So that should give you great hope. Whether you feel it or not, God is responding by the outpouring of His Spirit upon you and in answer to your prayers.

Another thing we should think, too, is that as we pray, we are delighting the heart of God because He has commanded us to pray. He’s commanded us to pray not only because He loves us, but because this is the way He has sovereignly designed history to work—our history—our individual histories to work as well.

He has sovereignly designed that it is between the partnership of heaven and earth that His purposes will be accomplished on earth. So, without God, we can’t. But without us He won’t. So He designs a partnership, in His sovereign will, that requires us to seek Him. Jesus said, “Pray, and never give up.”

So we delight the heart of God when we pray. We’re also the partners with God in the unfolding of His purposes in history. And that includes the history of your child, your grandchildren, your marriage, your church, our country, as we have been praying.

Nancy: I know when you read about some of the revivals of the past, you see these records of extraordinary praying.

Bob: Right.

Nancy: What does that look like? What does that mean? Are we all supposed to be involved in that?

Bob: At times we are.

Extraordinary prayer—well, think of it this way: each of us prayed for a loved one just a few moments ago. I have a young man, a young boy, an infant nine months old, a son of a young couple in their thirties, who this morning was undergoing a brain tumor operation. It’s wrapped around his brain stem. It’s one thing in the morning to rise and thank God for your children. It’s another thing where you know your son is upon an operating table, his head is open, and surgeons are operating on this tumor to save his life.

One is ordinary praying—just common. But extraordinary prayer has to do with the situation you’re facing. That is, if your child is in danger, if your marriage is in danger, if our nation is in danger, it requires something else. It requires twenty-one days of fasting and prayer as Daniel did.

So it is in this season of time that we pray in an extraordinary way. And that’s when we not only devote ourselves to fasting or to times of prayer, but also pulling in partners to say, “Come alongside of me and agree with me and hold up my arms. I’m weary; I can’t do this by myself. We must do this together. We must go after God together.”

It’s the power of united prayer in these extraordinary circumstances. That’s extraordinary prayer. Whenever you see a nation or a church or a household in crisis, if it’s including godly characters, you’ll see extraordinary prayer.

I was just in Los Angeles, meeting with a group of prayer leaders, movement leaders from throughout the country, over the last couple of days. Do you know that there are—I think the last count is thirty-five—national initiatives next year: stadium events, Texas A&M, Dallas, the Cowboys’ stadium, and 100,000 high school students out on a farm.

On and on and on these remarkable movements of united prayer that’s being stirred up because of the extraordinary period of time that we live in. And so, we should join that. We should join those times because it’s in those moments that God also answers our prayers with regard to nations and the great work of God that He does across the earth.

Nancy: I think sometimes we can hear about these extraordinary prayer moments, and we can feel like, “Well, somebody like Bob Bakke or somebody else leads those kinds of things. What’s my role going to be in that?”

I’m thinking about over 1,000 groups that are gathered right now in local churches, in homes, all the churches represented in this place. You’re a pastor. Can you just imagine for us what might happen if everyone who’s been participating in this event, and in this weekend, if all the churches represented were to have one or two or three or five or six pray-ers who go back into that church with a burden to pray for revival in that church, to lift up that pastor and whatever’s going on in the church, whatever kind of condition it’s in. I mean, that would be hundreds of churches . . .

Bob: About 120 people went into a room just before Pentecost and changed the course of their city. They just changed the life of their city because when they prayed, heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and God identified His Son as the true Messiah.

There is enough power in this room, through the partnership between us and heaven, to change the course of American history. And that is not only American history, but Latin American history, and European history as well. (applause.)

Nancy: Yes. Amen.

I think sometimes we look around, and it’s discouraging because we feel like things are so bad, so hard. It’s easy to feel like it’s never been this bad before. What can encourage us when we start to feel helpless about the circumstances in our country and in our world?

Bob: Well, God is on His throne. When He speaks, all it takes is a word, and everything changes. He will speak one day, and the heavens will split, and His Son will come with a shout, and a new heaven and a new earth will come. (applause)

Our hope is in that ultimate moment when Jesus arrives, but there are moments that prepare us for that day. They are called “revivals.” They’re called “spiritual awakenings.” But they are approximations of the consummation. The consummation of God always reminds us in our day that there is never anything too big for Him—and that includes the chaos that we’re seeing politically today or in our homes or in our schools.

By the way, even if it’s just you, would pray for the school boards of your different places where you live, your towns or villages, etc. That alone could change the course of American history.

Nancy: Yes.

Bob: So, God is never too small for this. His arm is not too short, and He is powerful to save.

We have been in these situations before, even from the founding of our country. The 1790s were in absolute political chaos. We had slavery. We had famine in our land. We had political chaos. We had the nastiest election in American history in 1800, the nastiest election in American history.

But it was in the midst of this very difficult time . . . We didn’t have any confidence the American Republic would survive. And yet, people started praying and praying. It turned into the greatest awakening America has ever faced. It spun out for nearly fifty years, changing the course of American history, and ultimately leading to the freedom of an entire race.

So, God is not too small. His arm is not too short. Be confident in Him. He will do it again. 

Nancy: Amen.

Dannah: That’s Bob Bakke along with our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. They’ve been encouraging us to keep praying, to persist in prayer, asking the Lord to revive us again.

Here at Revive Our Hearts our emphasis in the month of April is on prayer. You know, at its best, pausing to pray should be as easy as a conversation between two friends. But let’s be honest. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say to, well, the God of the universe.

If you find yourself stuck in your conversation with the King, the best advice I can give you is this: look no further than the pages of Scripture. Those pages will give a voice to your deepest longings.

That’s why Revive Our Hearts wrote a book called, Finding the Words to Pray: Fifty Scriptures to Guide Your Prayers. In it you’ll find fifty prayers taken from Scripture as well as a space to write out your response to God’s Word.

We’d love to send you a copy of this beautiful new book, and we’ll do that when you make a donation of any amount today. It’s our way of just saying “thank you.”

To give, go to ReviveOurHearts.com, and when you make a donation, you’ll be able to indicate that you’d like to receive this book. Or, you can always call us at 1-800-569-5959 and ask about Finding the Words to Pray.

There’s an important kind of prayer we sometimes don’t talk about very much. It’s the prayer of lament, bringing our complaints and our fears and frustrations to God. Next week we’ll hear from Pastor Mark Vroegop about his personal journey with lament. I hope you’ll join us for that on Monday, right here on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth calling you to pray for freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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