The Return to Prayer in Our Day

This is an excerpt from John Piper's book "Let the Nations Be Glad" (pgs. 67-69), enjoy :)


"The Return to Prayer in Our Day"


       The return to prayer at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a remarkable work of God. It is full of hope for the awakening of the church and the finishing of the Great Commission. Looking back on the way God aroused and honored seasons of prayer in the past should enlarge our expectation that wonderful works of power are on the horizon. A hundred years ago, A.T. Pierson made this point exactly the way I would like to make it, namely, by highlighting the connection between prayer and the supremacy of God. He said:
  
  "Every new Pentecost has had it preparatory period of supplication. . . . God has    compelled his saints to seek Him at the throne of grace, so that every new advance might be so plainly due to His power that even the unbeliever might be constrained to confess: 'Surely this is the finger of God!'"-A.T. Pierson, "The New Acts of the Apostles"


       More recently, there were movements in the twentieth century that kindled expectation of significant breakthroughs in missions. Thousands of us have been stirred deeply by the missionary credo of Jim Elliot: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." But not as many of us know the atmosphere of prayer from which the missionary passions in the late 1940s and 1950s came. David Howard, the General Director of the World Evangelical Fellowship, was in that atmosphere and tells part of the story of what God was doing to magnify himself in the prayers of students in those days.
      
     "I still have a small, faded World Evangelism Decision Card dated 1946, with my signature. Unfortunately, I did not record the day, but it is quite possible that I signed this card at the close of the first student missionary convention at the University of Toronto.
       The card used to be green. I can tell by the small green circle where a thumb tack used to hold this card above my desk throughout the rest of my college days. It served as a daily reminder that I had committed myself to God overseas unless He were clearly to direct otherwise. The fact that I had 15 years of exciting service in Latin America is attributable in large measure to prayer---much of it stimulated by that little card.
       Upon returning to college after the Toronto convention students began to meet regularly to pray for missions. My closest friend in college was Jim Elliot. Jim was only to live for a few years beyond college, but in that short life he would leave a mark for eternity on my life and the lives of hundreds ofothers. Exactly 10 years to the week when the Toronto convention ended, Jim and his four companions were speared to death by the Huaorani Indians on the Curaray River in Ecuador. In his death he would speak to multiplied thousands, although we did not know that in our college days. Jim encouraged a small group of us to meet every day at 6:30 a.m. to pray for ourselves and our fellow students on behalf of missions. This became a regular part of my college life.                         Jim Elliot also organized a round-the-clock cycle, asking students to sign up for a 15 minute slot each day when he or she would promise to pray for missions and for mission recruitment on our campus. The entire 24 hours were filled in this way. Thus, every 15 minutes throughout the day and night at least one student was on his knees interceding for missions at Wheaton College.     Art Wiens was a war veteran who had served in Italy and planned to return as a missionary. He decided to pray systematically through the college directory, praying for 10 students by name every day. Art followed this faithfully through his college years.
       I did not see Art again until we met in 1974 at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Switzerland. As we renewed fellowship and reminisced about old times, he said, 'Dave, do you remember those prayer meetings we used to have at Wheaton?'
       'I certainly do,' I replied.
       Then Art  said, 'You know, Dave, I am still praying for 500 of our college comtemporaries
       who are now on the mission field.' 
      'How do you know that many are overseas?' I asked.
       'I kept in touch with the alumni office and found out who was going as a missionary,
       and I still pray for them.'
       Astounded, I asked Art if I could see his prayer list. The next day he brought it to me, a battered old notebook he had started in college days with the names of hundreds of our classmates and fellow students"-David Howard, "The Road to Urbana and Beyond"


      When I first read that account of prevailing prayer and the remarkable fruit that has come of it to the glory of Christ through the lives of radical, Spirit-empowered missionaries, I felt a surge of longing to set my hand to the plow and never take it off. I long to be like George Mueller in the tenacity of prayer and missions. Mueller wrote in his autobiography:
      
     "I am now, in 1864, waiting upon God for certain blessings, for which I have daily besought Him for 19 years and 6 months, without one day's intermission. Still the full answer is not yet given concerning the conversion of certain individuals about ten years, for others six or seven years, for others, four, three, and two years, for others about eighteen months; and still the answer is not yet granted, concerning these persons [whom I have prayed for nineteen years and six months]. . . . Yet I am daily continuing in prayer and expecting the answer. . . . Be encouraged, dear Christian reader, with fresh earnestness to give yourself to prayer, if you can only be sure that you ask for things which are for the glory of God."-George Mueller, "Autobiography"


        The Call of Jesus is for prevailing prayer: "Always. . . pray and [do] not lose heart" (Luke 18:1) . By this His Father will be glorified (John 14:13 ). The supremacy of God in the mission of the church is proved and prized in prevailing prayer. I believe Christ's word to His church at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a question: "Will not God give justice to His elect, who cry to Him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, He will give justice to them speedily" (Luke 18:7-8 ).
        Do you ever cry out to the Lord, "How long, O Lord? How long till You vindicate Your cause in the earth? How long till You rend the heavens and come down with power on Your church? How long till You bring forth victory among all the peoples of the world?"
        Is not His answer plain: "When My people cry to Me day and night, I will vindicate them, and My cause will prosper among the nations." The war will be won by God. He will win it through the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel will run and triumph through prevailing prayer---so that in everything God might be glorified through Jesus Christ.






Excerpt taken from John Piper's book "Let the Nations Be Glad: the Supremacy of God in Missions" 
John Piper has been Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis since 1980. He has written over twenty books that call readers to a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ, including the best seller "Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist ". He has been married to Noel for more than thrity-four years and has five children and two grandchildren. You can access his preaching and teaching ministry at: www.desiringGod.org where his books, sermons, videos, conference messages, and many others are available for free.