Panics, crisis and prayer

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress;

My God, in Him I will trust.” — Psalm 91:1-2

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America needed prayer! The country is in spiritual, political and economic decline. Many are disillusioned with spiritual things. The country is so divided it seems like we are going to split apart. Political parties in turmoil and a new party beginning. Then there is financial panic. Banks fail, major industries going bankrupt, factories have closed and unemployment increasing. America in 2020? No, this is America in the late 1840s.

The “cares of the world” captured the minds and hearts of Americans choking out their interest in God and His kingdom. Drunkenness was rampant and the nation was divided by slavery. America is in crisis.

In 1857 there was a 46-year-old man named Jeremiah Lanphier who lived in New York City. Jeremiah was a merchant who had been saved recently and loved the Lord tremendously, but he didn’t feel that he could do much for the Lord until he began to feel a burden for the lost and accepted an invitation from his church to be an inner city missionary. So in July of 1857 he started walking up and down the streets of New York passing out tracts and talking to people about Jesus, but he wasn’t having any success. Then God put it on his heart to try prayer. So he printed up a bunch of tracts, and he passed them out to anyone and everyone met. He invited anyone who wanted to come to the third floor of the Old North Dutch Reform Church on Fulton Street in New York City from 12 to 1 on Wednesday to pray. He passed out hundreds and hundreds of flyers and put up posters everywhere he could.

Wednesday came and at noon nobody showed up. So Jeremiah got on his knees and started praying. For 30 minutes he prayed by himself when finally five other people walked in. The next week 20 people came. The next week between 30 and 40 people came. They then decided to meet every day from 12 to 1 to pray for the city.

On Sept. 3, a hurricane sinks the ship SS Central America off the eastern coast of the United States. 30,000 pounds of gold are lost coming from California along with 425 of the 578 passengers. This gold worth $500 million today was a financial disaster. On Oct. 10, the stock market crashed. Suddenly people were flocking to the prayer meetings. In New York City alone 30,000 people lost their jobs. Added to the financial crisis the nation was gripped by the tensions over slavery. In three years the nation would be at war, the future of the nation was bleak indeed.

Within six months 10,000 people were gathering daily for prayer in New York City alone (out of a population of 80,000). Other cities experienced a renewed interest in prayer, too. In Chicago, the Metropolitan Theater was filled every day with 2,000 praying people. In Louisville, several thousand came to the Masonic Temple for prayer each morning. 2,000 assembled for daily prayer in Cleveland, and St. Louis churches were filled for months at a time. In many places tents were set up for prayer. The newly formed YMCA also played an important role in holding prayer meetings and spreading the revival throughout the country.

In February 1858, Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald gave extensive coverage to the prayer revival. Not to be outdone, the New York Tribune devoted an entire issue in April 1858 to news of the revival. News of the revival traveled west by telegraph. This was the first revival which the media played an important role in spreading.

Lay people, not church leaders, led. Prayer, rather than preaching, was the main focus. The meetings themselves were informal — any person might pray, speak, lead in a song, or give a word of testimony, with a five-minute limit placed on each speaker. In spite of loose organization, the prayer meetings avoided the emotionalism displayed in earlier revivals. Thus the small prayer meeting of Jeremy Lanphier on this day led to the Third Great Awakening. This was the first revival beginning in America with a worldwide impact. The revival spread to Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Europe, South Africa, India, Australia, and the Pacific islands.

The Fulton Street prayer meeting may well be the model for effective prayer meetings today. How was the early meeting conducted? Why did it have so much power? Fortunately, an eyewitness account, published in 1858, has come down to us. You feel that you too are there as you read:

“We take our seat in the middle room, ten minutes before 12 o’clock noon. A few ladies are seated in one corner, and a few businessmen are scattered here and there through the room. Five minutes to 12 the room begins to fill up rapidly. Two minutes to 12, the leader passes in, and takes his seat in the desk or pulpit. At 12 noon, punctual to the moment, at the first stroke of the clock the leader arises and commences the meeting by reading two or three verses of the hymn, each person finds a hymnbook in his seat; all sing with heart and voice. The leader offers a prayer — short, point, to the purpose. Then reads a brief portion of Scripture. Ten minutes are now gone. Meantime, requests in sealed envelopes have been going up to the desk for prayer.

A deep, solemn silence settles down upon our meeting. It is holy ground. The leader stands with slips of paper in his hand. He says: “This meeting is now open for prayer. Brethren from a distance are specially invited to take part. All will observe the rules.” All is now breathless attention. A tender solicitude spreads over all those upturned faces.”

For nearly an hour there are prayer requests and prayers offered up interspersed with hymns. There is no preaching and the rules strictly observed. The revival continued across the country. Three things stand out about this revival. It was a layman’s movement — almost entirely. It was nonsectarian, denominational differences were forgotten in a concern for people’s souls. It was a revival of prayer. Never since that time, have Americans bowed before the Lord so unitedly. When the revival was at its peak, 50,000 people were covered every week. Within a year nearly one million people were converted.

What lesson does this revival during a crisis teach our generation and circumstances? Certainly it demonstrates again how God can use one dedicated life to work out His purposes. Jeremiah Lanphier is an inspiration to all unsung, seemingly unappreciated church workers everywhere. Lanphier’s dedication to the work came only after a struggle and total surrender to God. He also committed to time of serious prayer. The story of these revivals — in many respects just as significant in the history of our nation as the nationwide revivals — must be told through the lives of the faithful men of God who labored through the centuries.

We are witnessing of everything being canceled in our culture, but God has not canceled His promises! Do not interpret the presence of problems as the absence of God! As we look at God’s provision to our nation let us pray, “Do it again.”

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

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Bob’s religion columns appear Saturdays in The Press. Email Bob: bjshill@mac.com