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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

The Holy Spirit

David Shin

Filled by the Spirit

Transformed By the Spirit

Praying For the Spirit

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this opportunity that we have this afternoon to reflect on the Holy Spirit and prayer and revival.

We pray that you would bless us as we look at your leadings in the past, and we thank you that we have nothing to fear for the future, except we shall forget how you have worked in the past.

So bless us, we pray, in the precious name of Jesus.

On the screen, I have a drawing of 1 of the reformers.

This is John Wesley, and I have a quotation from Ravi Zacharias on John Wesley.

He preached 40, 000 sermons during his lifetime.

He traveled 250, 000 miles on horseback preaching.

And at the age of 83, he was angry with his doctor because he wouldn't let him preach more than 14 times a week.

At the age of 86, written in his journal are these words, laziness is slowly creeping in.

There's an increasing desire or tendency to stay in bed after 5.30 in the morning.

John Wesley was a driven individual and the Lord used him in a powerful and profound way to transform England and turn it back to God.

It's entitled England Before and After Wesley.

It's out of print and the thesis of the book is in the title.

It shows England before Wesley and then England after Wesley.

England had collapsed to a degree that had never been before known to any Christian nation.

And John Wesley and a group of his friends gathered together and prayed for England, prayed for the Holy Spirit, prayed for revival.

And it began a series of events that transformed England on every level.

Christian ethics were reinserted into society.

It seems that there wasn't a segment of society that was not touched by the influence of John Wesley.

And this afternoon I'd like to talk about the relationship between prayer and revival.

And when you look throughout history, you will note that with every significant spiritual awakening There is always someone that has a radical prayer life.

And you look at Jesus in Mark 1, verse 35, the Bible says, now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place, and there he prayed." You can see that Jesus is spending significant time in private prayer, and in Luke 5, verse 16, the Bible says, But Jesus would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

There are several instances in Scripture where Jesus would spend the entire night in prayer as well.

And the impact of Jesus was documented by the historian H.G.

He says, in his five-volume work on history, historian and religious skeptic H.G.

Wells found himself devoting the most space to Jesus Christ.

He wrote, a historian like myself cannot portray the progress of humanity honestly without giving Jesus of Nazareth the foremost place.

Jesus was an individual that spent significant time in prayer.

And I want to go very quickly to different revivals in history.

Every spiritual revival can be traced to a person of prayer.

We just celebrated last year the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

Incidentally, there was a fascinating article in the Catholic Herald where Pope Francis indicated that the Reformation was essentially over.

And it's quite ironic that in a time of celebration for the 500th anniversary that the Counter-Reformation has been overall largely successful in bringing Protestantism back.

The book Great Controversy, page 210, says, from the secret place of prayer came the power that shook the world in the Great Reformation.

Luther did not fail to devote 3 hours each day to prayer, and these were taken from that portion of day most favorable to study." Here he is, an obscure monk in Wittenberg, and he prays for the Holy Spirit and revival, and the greatest revolution in the modern era took place, the Protestant Reformation, and it came from a praying individual.

You have Elijah on Mount Carmel, and then James 5, verse 17 says, Elijah was a human being even as we are, and he prayed earnestly for the revival that took place in Israel.

You have the upper room experience where they were gathered in a prayer meeting.

The whole book of Acts in the Christian church started in a prayer meeting.

Bound says this, "'God shapes the world by prayer.

"'Prayer is God's singular condition "'to move ahead in his son's kingdom.

Therefore, the believer who is the most highly skilled in prayer will do the most for God, and the secret of success in Christ's kingdom is the ability to pray.

I've often wondered this, why should I pray if God already knows?

Isn't God a God of love and all power, which means not only does he have the ability, but he has the desire.

And in my reflection of scripture, I've come to the conclusion that there is a certain limit in which he will intervene in the life of an individual.

And when we pray for revival, specifically in terms of intercessory prayer, it gives God permission to intervene above and beyond what He would normally be able.

Remember in that story of that man that was paralyzed and his 4 friends brought him to Jesus.

It's interesting because in Mark's account, the Bible says when Jesus saw their faith, in other words, it was the collective faith of the people that were bringing their friend to Jesus that was a part of the process that brought about his healing.

And so intercessory prayer gives God authorization and permission to move above and beyond what he would normally be able, and when we pray for the Holy Spirit and revival, God has permission to move in the lives of individuals.

This is from Review and Herald, page 23, 1889.

By your fervent prayers of faith, you can move the arm that moves the world.

Steps of Christ, page 94, prayer is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven's storehouse.

And I read a book last year on Hudson Taylor.

My son is named Hudson, and I was so moved by the missionary spirit of Hudson Taylor that we're so honored to name our son after him.

And this is an account of Hudson Taylor at a prayer meeting.

Taylor opened the meeting by leading out in a hymn.

He was slightly built and spoke in a quiet voice, but when he said, let us pray and proceeded to lead the meeting in prayer, my ideas underwent a change.

There was a simplicity, a tenderness, a boldness, a power that hushed and subdued me, and made it clear that God had admitted him to the inner circle of his friendship.

Such praying was evident the outcome of long tarrying in the secret place and was as the due from the Lord.

Taylor plead for China was to know something of what it is meant by the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man.

The meeting lasted from 4 to 6 o'clock, but it seemed 1 of the shortest prayer meetings I had ever attended.

And Hudson Taylor began an organization to reach China and made a commitment not to ask or solicit anyone for funding.

By the end of his tenure with this missionary organization, hundreds of individuals had signed up for missionary service to China, and millions of dollars were raised.

I had the privilege and opportunity of ministering in Los Angeles as a Bible worker in South Central LA and we pitched a tent on Florence and Figueroa and it's known as Prostitution Lane and we were staying in Compton and ministering in Watts as well, and I was going door to door with a big 6 foot 3, I praise God for this partner, black guy, and I was praising God.

I was walking through Watts, and I remember 1 night I heard firecrackers outside on July 1st, And I said, why do they celebrate July 4th on July 1st in Compton?

And my friend said, David, that's not fireworks, that's gunshots.

And I said, oh, that's, it was quite experienced, but We went door to door for about 11 weeks and it was a very simple process.

We would go to the door and say, we are in the neighborhood and we'd like to pray for you.

And people were just telling us what they wanted to pray for.

And so we'd write down their prayer requests and go back to our rooms.

And every other night for 11 weeks, we prayed all night.

I remember 1 time I fell asleep and everyone left me in that room and I woke up to this terror.

And anyways, we would pray through every single name and asking for God's intervention.

We had a list, I think, just of my partner and myself of like 200 individuals, and we would pray name by name, and we saw miracles.

No mail out, just door to door, and there were 800 to 1, 000 people every single night coming to that tent to hear the gospel being preached.

And there were about 300 baptisms as a result.

I saw people from the door to the meetings to baptism.

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Series

The Holy Spirit

Praying For the Spirit

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Running

42m

The Fruit of Revival

43m

Experiencing Righteousness Through Faith in Christ

5. The Mind of Christ and the Impending Conflict

59m

Climate Change and Laodicea

42m

How to Prepare Yourself for the Latter Rain

46m

The Power to Finish the Work

53m

Anticipation

Pt 2-The Holy Spirit and the Cross

1h 13m

One Sheep

47m

Finishing the Work

38m

The Afterlife

The Afterlife- Part 2

28m

Workshop: Biblical Examples of Conflict Resolution

The Wise

42m

Repair Broken Altars

48m

Sound Doctrine