Praying for God's Power and Renewal in Our Churches, Towns and Cities

WE CAN PRAY WITH BOLDNESS. PRAYER MOVES MOUNTAINS. We obtain the power of God when we ask for it, and we deny ourselves when we do not pray for God's power. Every single revival has started with earnest prevailing prayer.

There is a tombstone in upstate New York which reads "Daniel Nash, labourer with Finney, mighty in prayer." Daniel Nash prayed in every town Charles Finney had a revival in. Over 100,000 people were brought to Christ in Rochester, New York. It's hard to minister without power. There's a whole other level of power here that we need.

 "Father Nash," as some called him, would quietly slip into a town three or four weeks before Finney's arrival, rent a room, find two or three other like-minded Christians to join him, and start pleading with God. In one town the best he could find was a dark, damp cellar; it became his center for intercession.

In another place, Finney relates, When I got to town to start a revival a lady contacted me who ran a boarding house. She said, "Brother Finney, do you know a Father Nash? He and two other men have been at my boarding house for the last three days, but they haven't eaten a bite of food. I opened the door and peeped in at them because I could hear them groaning, and I saw them down on their faces. They have been this way for three days, lying prostrate on the floor groaning. I thought something awful must have happened to them, I was afraid to go in and I didn't know what to do. Would you please see about them?"

"No, it isn't necessary," I replied. "They just have a spirit of travail in prayer."

Do you want to see the affect of Daniel Nash's intercessory prayer in just one city? 

 "A convert in Rochester, New York, left a description of Finney's revival ministry in that city in which more than a hundred thousand came to saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus within one year. He wrote: "The whole community was stirred. Religion was the topic of conversation, in the house, in the shop, in the office, and on the street…The only theater in the city was converted into a livery stable; the only circus into a soap and candle factory. Grog [beer] shops were closed; the Sabbath was honored; the sanctuaries were thronged with happy worshippers; a new impulse was given to every philanthropic enterprise; the fountains of benevolence were opened and men lived to do good."

The report continues: "It is worthy of special notice that a large number of leading men of the place were among the converts--the lawyers, the judges, physicians, merchants, bankers and master mechanics. These classes were more moved from the very first than any other. Tall oaks were bowed as by the blast of a hurricane. Skeptics and scoffers were brought in, and a large number of the most promising young men. It is said that no less than forty of them entered the ministry…

"It is not too much to say that the whole character of the city was changed by that revival," wrote this eyewitness. "Most of the leaders of society being converted, and exerting a controlling influence in social life, in business, and in civil affairs, religion was enthroned as it had been in few places….Even the courts and the prisons bore witness to its blessed effects. There was a wonderful falling off of crime. The courts had little to do, and the jail was nearly empty for years afterward." That's power--the power of prevailing prayer.