Dear Prayer Warriors, please plan to join us tomorrow
for an important time of intercession. We will cover the prayer points
as directed by Nita followed by a time of intercession on behalf of
Nita. She is in serious need of our prayers and knowing your love and
care for her, this is a wonderful opportunity for us to come together
and intercede for her health.
Following is the first instalment in "Pray to Prepare the Way" by Nita Johnson.
Pray to Prepare the Way
Part A
By
Nita Johnson
New Orleans Revival Services
Malachi 3:1 Amp. Behold, I send My
messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me. And the Lord [the
Messiah], Whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; the Messenger
or Angel of the covenant Whom you desire, behold, He shall come, says
the Lord of hosts.
Wherever you see the Lord come, someone
has been preparing the way for Him to come. He never comes by accident.
He always uses people to prepare. In the new covenant, we see Anna and
Simeon. They waited in the temple, praying and preparing. Eighty-four
year old Anna waited in the temple for over sixty years, praying for the
coming Messiah. The Bible does not tell us much about Simeon. We know
that he was there, ready for the Messiah. He prayed so much that he
recognized Him when he saw Him. I am sure there were others just like
them that the Bible did not speak about. In the Gospels, we see that
wherever Jesus went, He sent His disciples out two by two to prepare the
cities for His coming. It is not like they went and found a hotel room
for Him. That is not what they were called to do. They went into the
cities, proclaiming, praying, and beseeching God on behalf of the
Messenger who was about to come. They drew the people
into a passion and a desire to see the Messenger.
Whenever the Lord comes, it seems like a
suddenly, but there really are no suddenlies in the Kingdom. Someone has
been preparing the way for God. Someone has been weeping, praying,
groaning, travailing, and passionately desiring the coming of the
messenger. Someone has been paying a price. Maybe it was two, maybe
twenty, or maybe it was many more praying. Down in Colombia, when there
was a great move of God, the entire Church got involved. The Church
throughout the city groaned, wept, and agonized for the call, the cry,
and the glory of God, as well as for the coming of the messenger. It was
a martyr who suddenly released that glorious move of God. Drug runners
killed a pastor. His martyr's blood opened the gate of the city, and
revival fell. Sometimes God will come in response to the prayers and
agonies of two or three, but that is very rare. Usually He comes because
there is a community of people who have paid a
price.
Let's look for a moment at what took place
in the early 1900's. Evan Roberts, a mere lad at the age of thirteen,
began to pray, weep, and cry out for revival. He would go into the coal
mine at work and cry out for revival as he worked. Even as a youth, he
would awaken in the middle of the night and cry out to God for a great
spiritual awakening. By the time he was twenty-six, his soul was well
prepared for the coming of the glory of God. I am feeling the Holy
Spirit witness so strongly to that right now. He was well prepared for
the glory.
In 1904, twenty-six year old Evan went to a
convention. He and many other pastors were gathered together there to
pray again for revival. Pastors of every age were there, and he was such
a young man. But because of the heart of this man, and because of his
fruits and labors, he was invited up to speak. When he opened his mouth,
he could not help himself. Rather than preaching, he cried out, “Bend
us, Lord! Bend us! Bend us, and break us for Your glory!” He cried it
out over and over again.
Suddenly, God came. But many, many years
had gone by where people of prayer had paved the way by seeking the
Lord. Because they were searching, their hearts were outstretched and
their necks craned, if you will, in the direction of the Lord. They
sought passionately, hungry for the glory of the Lord to come.
If the only thing that you are wanting out
of revival is signs and wonders, you are praying amiss, with a wrong
heart. That is one of the reasons He may not be responding. But when you
pray because your heart is craving Christ, hungry for the knowledge of
God, longing for the glory of God, and wanting Him to reveal Himself to
you—now you are seeking Him. To that cry, He cannot help but come.
It is such an amazing thing to me that
when the revival broke out in the Hebrides in 1949, God used one man,
but the two who prayed the revival in were two sisters. At the time of
the revival, they were eighty-four and eighty-two years old. They gave
themselves to prayer, praying on their knees for five to six hours at a
time for revival. Month after month, these two sisters came together in
their home and prayed, sought, cried, wept, travailed, and groaned for
revival for the Hebrides.
Then Duncan Campbell was invited to come
and speak in the Hebrides. He was a young man, but it was heard of him
that the glory of God rested upon his life. He came and gave a very nice
message. Don't you hate those? I have a very difficult time with very
nice messages. I want messages that are so anointed that they stir every
part of my being. You do not need the anointing for a nice message. But
Duncan came and gave a very nice message. The people were so
discouraged. Hundreds had come to listen to him speak.
After he spoke, and God did not come, one
young man who was known to be an intercessor in God suddenly stood up.
He cried out with a loud voice, “You promised! You promised us You would
come!” He wept, and wept, and suddenly the Spirit of God fell. At that
moment, everything changed in the Hebrides.
I can remember one story where the sisters
sent for Duncan because God had given the blind sister a vision. I just
love that. I have a friend who is a prophet, and he hears the word of
God audibly in his deaf ear. So the Lord gave this blind sister a
vision. She told Duncan that he needed to go to a certain place in the
islands, and there he would find seven men who were the most notorious
characters in the community. God wanted to save every one of them. She
said, “So go. Go and do it.” Duncan said, “Wait a minute. God cannot
talk to me?” The blind sister said, “If you were living as near to God
as you ought to be, He would reveal His secrets to you.” She also told
Duncan that if he would go to the village, God would provide a
congregation. He agreed to go, and when he arrived, there were four
hundred people waiting for him at the meeting place. The people could
not tell what it was that had brought them; it
was the Spirit of God. Duncan spoke for a few minutes about the Lord.
The glory of God came down. One of the ministers stopped Duncan and
said, “Come see this.” At one end of the meeting house, the seven men
were on their faces, crying out to God. Every one of them were saved.
Revival spread its lofty fingers into that village that day.
God is coming to a people who are seeking
Him. The messenger will come suddenly, but not suddenly to an unprepared
people. His glory is weighty. He is majesty. Yes, He is love, but He is
also holy, and He is majesty. We think about revival and how great it
is going to be when the Lord comes because there are going to be so many
miracles and healings. We have excitement for the unexpected. But you
do not hear people talk very often about what happens to the soul when a
deep and true revival comes. God is more interested in this point of
time in what is going to happen to the soul of His Church.
To be continued next week...
In His Love,
Nita |
