RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

Prayer and Evangelism: Personal Prayer
Welcome to day two of revival and evangelism.
Today I want to speak to you about the role of prayer in revival and the role of prayer in evangelism.  We saw yesterday that revival and evangelism are closely tied together and that revival is the work that God does in our heart and evangelism is the work that God does through our lives. So as we are revived, we begin to share our hearts after the heart of God. Now there’s a reason for that and there’s a reason that prayer is so closely connected and tied to revival and evangelism.  Let me give you some definitions  that maybe will help.
First of all, prayer is intimacy with God. It is the communion of two hearts.  It’s the heart of God and the heart of man.  Now out of those two hearts which do you think we ought to give most attention to? The heart of man which is this little bitty sinful deceitful wicked heart or the great big wonderful heart of God.
Of course – it’s the heart of God and so prayer brings us into the presence of God to where we see his heart and we begin to long for what He longs for!  Now when that happens that’s when revival begins to take place in our lives, when we have a heart that’s after what’s on His heart. And so we saw yesterday how that heart is a heart of love and how God loves people.
But it’s very interesting that if you study the history of the church and you study the history of revivals, you will discover that the greatest times of harvest .. of people coming to Christ .. have always come during the times of great spiritual revival and great spiritual revivals have always  been preceded by great movements of prayer.
There’s always been some individual or some small group of people who began to pray; and as they began to pray and seek the face of God, then God moved and worked and people’s lives were changed and entire communities and sometimes even nations were reached for Christ.
In fact, in America we have a wonderful, rich history of great awakenings that have taken place. We have .. in other places we’ve seen God move and work. In my own life, I saw God transforming .. literally – change a nation. I saw Romania changed.
It all began in the 1970s when there was a pastor, Pastor Oliviu.  Christians were persecuted .. they suffered greatly for their faith .. it was a very dark and difficult time.  But Pastor Oliviu said, and he told the people, I challenge you to pray.  And he told them to pray in an unusual way.  He said pray that one day we will stand in the great stadiums of this country and preach the gospel .. pray that one day on radio and television newspapers will preach the gospel.
People said, pastor that’s impossible .. that can never happen. Why .. we have people being persecuted .. we lose our jobs .. we go to prison .. some people had even been killed for their faith. So pastor, “How could this take place?”
He said, “with men it may be impossible but with God all things are possible!  you pray! “
The people prayed, God moved and God worked in a mighty way.  I’ll share the rest of the story with you later on, in one of these sessions but I want to just say to you, an entire nation was changed and freedom came to an entire nation because one man prayed and he taught his people to pray.  By the way, that church today is now the largest Baptist church and one of the largest evangelical churches on the continent of Europe.
They prayed .. God sent a revival .. they experienced a great harvest  and people came to Christ. Prayer always precedes revival and revival is the time when a great harvest comes.
So I want to encourage you to begin to pray for God to move and to work in your life, in your family, in your community and in your church.  God bless you as you pray .. He will do great and mighty things.