G-LtE™: Revive Us Again
Drunkenness was immediately cut in half, and many taverns went bankrupt.
Crime was so diminished that judges were presented with white gloves signifying that there were no cases of murder, assault, rape or robbery or the like to consider. The police became unemployed in many districts.
Stoppages occurred in coal mines, not due to unpleasantness between management and workers, but because so many foul-mouthed miners became converted and stopped using foul language that the horses which hauled the coal trucks in the mines could no longer understand what was being said to them. (J. Edwin Orr, The Flaming Tongue: Evangelical Awakenings, 1900 [Chicago: Moody, 1975], pp. 192-93)
1905 - Ministers gathered in various conventions to prepare for the coming awakening. In Philadelphia, Methodists soon reported 6,101 new converts in trial membership. The pastors of Atlantic City churches claimed there were only fifty unconverted adults left in that city. On a single Sunday in New York City, 364 were received into membership and 286 were converted to Christ. The revival also swept through the South. First Baptist Church in Paducah, Kentucky, added a thousand people within a couple of months. Across the Southern Baptist Convention, baptisms increased by 25% in a single year. In the Midwest, Methodists reported “the greatest revivals in their history.” Every store and factory in Burlington, Iowa, closed to allow employees to attend prayer meetings. When the mayor of Denver declared a day of prayer in that city, churches were filled by ten o’clock. At 11:30, virtually every place of business in the city closed as 12,000 gathered for prayer meetings in downtown theaters and halls.
Every school in town, and even the Colorado State Legislature, closed for the day. In the West, interdenominational meetings attracted up to 180,000 attendants. One evening in Los Angeles, the Grand Opera House was filled by midnight with drunks and prostitutes seeking salvation. In Portland, Oregon, the entire city virtually shut down between 11:00 AM and 2:30 PM for noon hour prayer meetings. (Towns, Elmer and Porter, Douglas, The Ten Greatest Revivals Ever: From Pentecost to Present, Servant Publications, Ann Arbor, 2000)
There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer. (A.T. Pierson)
Whenever God intends great mercy for his people, he first sets them praying. (Matthew Henry)
Now is the time to pray for revival. May all people being united begin praying for a revival in our county, country and world. Let us experience a great revival in our land once again!
~~ Deana J. Burke ~~
