Well, we only made it through four of a nine point sermon on prayer this past Sunday. By way of review, here are the first four points.

1. We must be devoted to prayer. It was both the practice of the early church (Acts 2:42) and the exhortation of the apostles (Colossians 4:2) that the church devote herself to prayer.
2. We must seek agreement-being of one purpose in our asking. This agreement is what Jonathan Edwards was inciting in his work: A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of all God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, pursuant to Scripture Promises and Prophecies in the Last Days. If you’re curious, and I hope you are, you can read it here.
3. We, that is the church, must repent first: confess and forsake sin. It has been said that revival among the masses always begins with awakening among believers. The Welsh Revival of 1904 began with Evan Roberts’ message to the youth of a small Welsh congregation. You recall, his message was simply this: You must confess any known sin to God and put any wrong done to others right. Second, you must put away any doubtful habit. Third, you must obey the Spirit promptly. Finally, you must confess your faith in Christ publicly. Great revivals begin with simple messages.
4. We must ground ourselves in the foundational theology of the cross. Before the revival of the First Great Awakening, the church was mired in apostasy which, at least in the Church of Scotland, tended towards a binding legalism which denied the free-offer of the gospel to sinners. This legalism was exposed in the Marrow Controversy of 1722. You can read the book which caused all the debate here.

Revival above everything else, is a glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God…I want to emphasize particularly his atonement, his death upon the cross, his broken body and his shed blood. Again I am quoting to you pure fact which you can check for yourselves. You will find that in every period of revival, without exception, there has been a tremendous emphasis upon the blood of Christ.

Martin Lloyd-Jones, Revival

We’ll conclude this Sunday on prayer. Until then? Well, be devoted.