Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
- Hebrews 4:16
“[Jeremiah] Lanphier developed and distributed a leaflet to announce· these noontime prayer meetings, which were to commence on Wednesday, September 23, 1857. The purpose, wrote Lanphier, was ‘to give merchants, mechanics, clerks, strangers, and businessmen generally, an opportunity … to lift up their hearts and voices to the throne of grace.’
“The phrase ‘the throne of grace’ comes from Hebrews 4:16. The writer of Hebrews was discussing the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven following His death and resurrection. Having finished His work on earth, Jesus had ascended back to the throne of God where He now serves as our great high priest. He was tempted in every way, but He never sinned, so by His righteous life and conquering resurrection, He is able to advocate for us on the throne. We should think of prayer, then, as the act of confidently approaching the ‘throne of grace’ where we can find mercy and grace to help us in our times of need.
“This was exactly what the business community of New York needed, but when the day came for the first prayer meeting, no one showed up. At least, not at first. For a half hour Lanphier prayed alone. But at 12:30 p.m. he heard footsteps. Eventually six people gathered. The next week twenty showed up and the week after that he had forty.
“After that the floodgates broke. Soon churches were overflowing with daily prayer meetings across the city. Fire departments and police stations opened their facilities for prayer, and local businesses set aside rooms for their employees to pray. Thousands came to Christ, with newspapers reporting hundreds of incidents from the revival. The New York Tribune devoted entire editions to the revival, and the headline in the New York Press was: ‘Revival Sweeps the Country.’
“And it did! The movement swept the Eastern Seaboard and pushed westward into the frontier. One man reported, ‘I am from Omaha, Nebraska. On my journey east I have found a continuous prayer meeting all the way. It was a prayer meeting two thousand miles long.’”
- Robert J. Morgan, 100 Bible Verses That Made America
In my recent trip to visit the grandchildren, the oldest of them went with me to Nashville, to sell used books and games. One of the books that I purchased in return was 100 Bible Verses That Made America by Robert J. Morgan. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the birth of the USA, I thought I would do a condensed mini-series on some of these verses, four posts per week for a few weeks – maybe not all 100 verses.
Jeremiah Lanphier (1809-1898) was a tailor and cloth merchant. He moved to Manhattan. He became a Christian and he joined the choir.
Someone suggested that he become an evangelist. He quit his job and became a lay missionary. He was unmarried with no children. He had no training in being an evangelist. He just loved the Lord. So, he made ends meet. His ministry started near where the 9/11 Memorial is located, but he roamed the south side of Manhattan, talking to anyone willing to listen.
But his heart went out to those who were too busy, who could not spend the time to talk to him: the shop owners, the clerks, the delivery men.
He got the idea of a prayer meeting, starting at the Fulton Street entrance to the church where he attended. The concept was simple. Come by the meeting room at noon.
But at noon, hardly anyone was there. Did Lanphier decide that if no one showed up, there would still be a prayer meeting, just him and God? We might never know.
We might also never know our impact in the world.
Have you ever asked people to come to a party and no one showed up? No booze, but you offered all the pizza they could eat? I did that once and about 60 people showed up when the usual crowds for such things was twice that much.
But think of Abraham and the Lord negotiating the saving of Sodom and Gomorrah. It finally got down to the fact that if ten were righteous in the city, God would not destroy it.
Add to this, that God destroyed the world in Noah’s flood, but He saved the eight.
Lanphier had no takers at all, but he kept praying. Maybe that is what we are missing. Maybe we need to not worry about the numbers. Why bother with the number of likes? Lanphier was the same whether treated with indifference or hailed as the spark that lit the Revival of 1857-1859.
And did Lanphier even know that as the business area prayer meetings grew across the country, a young 21-year-old man in Chicago became a Christian and decided to go into evangelism. His name was D. L. Moody.
We need to not bother with the press clippings, the likes, and such. The comments give us time to have one-in-one communication, but are they necessary? Did the prophets who were persecuted get solace from the thumbs up in the crowd or from the smile of God’s face because they obeyed, knowing this would not end well on this earth for them?
What we do, is never based on the numbers, but if numbers are necessary, we need to pray even more.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
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