I stumbled across one story that hit me…. Jumped out at me, if you will.

When revival hit the nation, a lot of things changed. Churches filled up, and bars and strip clubs emptied out. Citizens and workers were getting saved and changed.

A big industry in the nation was coal mining (Robert’s father was a coal miner as well). One way that the coal miners would transport the mined coal was on carts pulled by ponies, and the miners would yell commands at the ponies to get them to start and stop. The words of choice? Foul language and cuss words. They would get the ponies to act by yelling foul words at them.

But then…

Revival changed things. The hearts of the coal miners turned towards God – no longer did they want to yell cuss words. In fact, they refused to.

Picture this – You have ponies that have been trained to haul coal, and the only words they know to respond to are cuss words. Then you have coal miners who won’t yell cuss words! Therefore…they were left with ponies who couldn’t work!

The only action they could take was to get rid of the old ponies!

247-prayer.com says it like this:

Once the revival started at Moriah Chapel, coal miners were being converted and could frequently be heard singing hymns and praising God in the mine. As a result of the miners’ salvation experiences, the pit ponies (ponies that carried coal out of the mine in carts) no longer understood the commands of the miners because they were only used to obeying curse word commands. Since the coal miners no longer used bad language, the pit ponies were no longer responding to their commands! The coal mine owner was forced to buy new pit ponies so they could be trained to respond properly to the coal miners’ new language.

Wow – how cool is that!!

So my question, my challenge is this: What is in my life right now, that if God swept in, would be rendered useless?

Do I need to buy new ponies?

Luke.

How Revival Started in the Marketplace?By J. Edwin Orr, Oliver Price
reprinted from www.HisChurchatWork.org

Is there a Jeremiah Lanphier among you?

This is a record of something God did 130 years ago in New York City. It illustrates how God has started every harvest time in history, through the concerted prayer of his people. Toward the middle of the last century the glow of earlier religious awakenings had faded. America was prosperous and felt little need to call on God. But in the 1850s …

Secular and religious conditions combined to bring about a crash. The third great panic in American history swept the giddy structure of speculative wealth away. Thousands of merchants were forced to the wall as banks failed, and railroads went into bankruptcy. Factories were shut down and vast numbers thrown out of employment. New York City alone having 30,000 idle men. In October 1857, the hearts of people were thoroughly weaned from speculation and uncertain gain, while hunger and despair stared them in the face.

On 1^st July, 1857, a quiet and zealous business man named Jeremiah Lanphier took up an appointment as a City Missionary in down-town New York. Lanphier was appointed by the North Church of the Dutch Reformed denomination. This church was suffering from depletion of membership due to the removal of the population from the down-town to the better residential quarters, and the new City Missionary was engaged to make diligent visitation in the immediate neighbourhood with a view to enlisting church attendance among the floating population of the lower city. The Dutch Consistory felt that it had appointed an ideal layman for the task in hand, and so it was.

Burdened so by the need, Jeremiah Lanphier decided to invite others to join him in a noonday prayer-meeting, to be held on Wednesdays once a week. He therefore distributed a handbill:

HOW OFTEN SHALL I PRAY?

As often as the language of prayer is in my heart; as often as I see my need of help; as often as I feel the power of temptation; as often as I am made sensible of any spiritual declension or feel the aggression of a worldly spirit.

In prayer we leave the business of time for that of eternity, and intercourse with men for intercourse with God.

A day Prayer Meeting is held every Wednesday, from 12 to 1 o’clock, in the Consistory building in the rear of the North Dutch Church, corner of Fulton and William Streets (entrance from Fulton and Ann Streets).

This meeting is intended to give merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers, and business men generally an opportunity to stop and call upon God amid the perplexities incident to their respective avocations. It will continue for one hour; but it is also designed for those who may find it inconvenient to remain more than five or ten minutes, as well as for those who can spare the whole hour.

Accordingly at twelve noon, 23rd September, 1857 the door was opened and the faithful Lanphier took his seat to await the response to his invitation …. Five minutes went by. No one appeared. The missionary paced the room in a conflict of fear and faith. Ten minutes elapsed. Still no one came. Fifteen minutes passed. Lanphier was yet alone. Twenty minutes; twenty-five; thirty; and then at 12.30 p.m., a step was heard on the stairs, and the first person appeared, then another, and another, and another, until six people were present and the prayer meeting began. On the following Wednesday, October 7th, there were forty intercessors.

Thus in the first week of October 1857, it was decided to hold a meeting daily instead of weekly ….

Within six months, ten thousand business men were gathering daily for prayer in New York, and within two years, a million converts were added to the American churches ….

Undoubtedly the greatest revival in New York’s colourful history was sweeping the city, and it was of such an order to make the whole nation curious. There was no fanaticism, no hysteria, simply an incredible movement of the people to pray.

(From J. Edwin Orr, The Light of the Nations pp. 103-105)

Don’t tell me revival is only coming to churches, through ministers…We’re doing church “better” than we ever have! Better screens, better chairs, better preachers…but we’re missing something.

Jeremiah Lanphier got it. He got it.

Let’s get it.