The Prayer That Prepares the Way — Wesley Duewel

I want to encourage you to make yourself free to examine the books. I mentioned again my six books that are there. I don't get one dollar from the sale of them. I just want the messages to go out. May God help us to know how to prevail in prayer until his mighty revival sweeps over our countries and across the world.

Isaiah 40 and the Prayer That Prepares the Way

I believe it is the will of God. The prayer that prepares the way of the Lord for revival. Revival, the will of God, was our first message. The passion for revival last night. Now the prayer that prevails and prepares the way of the Lord for revival.

Let me begin with Isaiah chapter 40 with the first verse. I shall read the first five verses. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed.

That her sin has been paid for. That she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling. In the desert, prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up. Every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level. And the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed. And all mankind together will see it.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. This is the word of the Lord to Isaiah. It is the word of the Lord for his people. Many of Isaiah's words were so much in the will of God, so anointed, so inspired by God, that we go back to them again and again.

And this is one of those portions. In the desert, we're in desert lands today. Spiritually, many things are desert or wilderness situations. In the desert, prepare the way of the Lord. He begins by saying, comfort.

Revival as Comfort for God's People and the Church

Comfort my people. Do you realize how comforting it is to God's people when revival comes? Do you realize what it does to the Church of Jesus Christ when revival comes? Do you realize what it does for a community when revival comes?

This is good news. This is gospel news. God grant that revival news will begin to spread again and again, continue to spread through the ministries of Canadian Revival Fellowship and all others who have this burden of revival upon their heart.

But God speed the day when revival currents will flow together into a mighty torrent of blessing, when revival prayers will join together in covering our nations with that kind of a holy saturation that prepares the way of the Lord for revival.

This is my heart's desire, and this is what I pray for. Every valley is going to be lifted up. Every rough spot is going to be leveled. The high places are going to be brought down. Sways are going to be straightened out.

For the King of kings and the Lord of lords is going to come. God comes in revival. It is the holy presence of the sovereign God. I'm told that in the synagogues in the ancient days, maybe yet today, I'm not sure, that at that point in the service where the appointed person goes to the cabinet and takes the scroll of scripture out and comes up to read it, as he steps forward with the scroll, the whole congregation rises because that symbolizes that God has entered the session.

Oh, that we have that kind of a reference for God. Oh, that we realize that God is in our midst in this service. We're just not sitting here casually. We are in the presence of God. And God is speaking in this passage.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. God enters, and God gives this instruction. This is what God wants to done, wants done. There's a highway that needs to be built for God. In the ancient empires, before the king or the emperor was going to travel to a particular place, herald went ahead of time, maybe a year ahead of time, to prepare the way of the king.

When Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth was coming to India, it was decided that she would spend her Sunday that week in Varanasi, which was just about 90 miles from where we lived. And the Coles who are here tonight, and our family, and one or two others, were privileged to be there for that occasion.

But the church where she was to worship, they sent someone from Buckingham Palace a year ahead of time to look over the church. They said, your carpet down the center aisle here is too worn and frayed and faded.

You have to put a new carpet in when the queen comes in on this carpet. Why they said, your yard out here looks so barren. You need to consider putting in some nice shrubs and things to get the outside of the church to look more acceptable.

Why? Because the queen is coming. And then on the streets in Benares, they marked out the exact route that she would take. And just before she came, the houses all had to whitewash the front of their buildings.

That faced on the street. They didn't have to do the back side. They had to do the front side. They were getting ready for the queen. We don't understand that so much in our civilization. This is a picture here.

The king is coming. And I want you to realize that he's coming in revival. And when revival comes, his majesty, the king of kings and lord of lords, enters the picture. And if we want to welcome him, if we want him to grace our service, if we want him to come with power and blessing, we must prepare the way of the lord.

We must prepare ourselves. And we must do what we can to prepare the way of the lord. Prepare the way for him to come in his triumph. For him to come with his glory. For that's all mentioned in this passage.

Prayer as the Preparation for Revival

So, the way of the lord is to be prepared. Who will do this? Who here tonight will dedicate themselves to prepare the way of the lord for revival? We can't bring revival. We can't schedule revival. We can't predict where, how, when, through whom revival will come.

But we know that the king is coming. He wants to come. He is available to come. And he has bid us to prepare the way. Who will help prepare the way of the lord? And I want to challenge you tonight is that there are various ways in which we can help prepare the way of the lord.

But I am emphasizing tonight the role of prayer. The holy preparation for Christ's triumph. For welcoming him who is the holy one of Israel. So the way needs to be made straight. There are many devious things that need to be taken care of.

There are many crooked paths that need to be straightened out. Even the people of God may have some devious things. They may have some things that the lord needs straightened out. And how do you straighten them out?

Well, if you tackle them with your arguments, you may have a bigger mess on your hand than when you started. You've got to prepare the way of the lord by prayer. The road has to be prepared, the highway has to be prepared by prayer.

In the desert, prepare the way. You cannot do some things, I cannot do some things, but we can all prepare the way of the lord through prayer. And the more unitedly we prepare the way of the lord through prayer, the more rapidly, most probably, the king will come.

The more rapidly will come his divine intervention. The more rapidly will come the work that he is longing and waiting to do. Because we try to establish the first night that it is always the will of God to bless his people with revival.

God is always longing to come in our midst. God is always longing to be gracious to his people. God is always longing to pour out the spirit of grace and supplication upon his people. God is always longing to do those spiritual things which are most essential for his glory, for the advance of his kingdom.

And remove the obstacles. What obstacles are there to be removed? Ah, that may take some acts of obedience, and I may say something about that tomorrow. But many obstacles can only be removed through much prayer.

Just as many crooked ways can only be straightened out through much prayer. And as I go about the world, the Christian world, I am distressed to see in how many places there is work of this kind that is waiting to be done.

God's work is being held up, revival is being held up by situations among believers. By situations in Christian churches. There are obstacles, there are misunderstandings. There are things that need to be taken care of if we want to prepare the way of the Lord.

And that is begun by prayer. Only after much prayer can many of those things take place. But then, praise God, the glory of the Lord will be revealed. What happens in revival? The glory of the Lord is revealed.

Revival's Transforming Power and Restitution

What's happened in revival? It's a visitation of God Almighty. There are some who will tremble before Him. Others may rejoice to welcome Him. But He will make a difference in life, in the church, in the community, when He arrives.

Oh, that that time would come soon. I know of no work that brings greater glory to God than revival. I know of no work that makes a greater renovation in the community than Holy Spirit revival. When revival comes, people begin to make restitution for wrongs which they have committed.

Oh, you would be amazed if you knew how many wrongs have not been righted in our communities. When W .P. Nicholson went to Northern Ireland and had revival in the Belfast area some years ago, they showed me the building which was erected by the shipyards.

Because when the revival came, God moved parts of Belfast. From the shipyards, the workers at closing time marched in a body down the street, singing Christian songs to the place where the services were to convene.

As the Holy Spirit worked in their lives through the straight preaching of W .P. Nicholson, it wasn't a crusade campaign, yes, but it turned out into a revival. People began making restitution. Shipyard workers had taken tools and slipped them home.

Do you know so many people were arriving with tools at the shipyard, decided to build a separate building just to put these return tools in? Do you know that so many tools were brought back that the shipyards announced, will you please abstain from bringing back any more stolen tools?

We have no place to keep them. That's revival. That word gets out across the city. That word gets out across... revival has come. People have never darkened the door of the church, but they hear. Do you know what's happening over by the shipyards?

God is changing those people so they're bringing things back and restitution. Revival, it glorifies God, the peace that comes. When people begin to go and ask forgiveness from those that they have offended, for those with whom they didn't want anything to do, the word gets around.

There's something happening over at that church or over at that tabernacle or over in that park where the meetings are being held. People are being changed. People know that something different has taken place.

It's not the normal Sunday worship. It's not the normal church goers that we've known all our lives. The glory of the Lord is revealed. People get a new idea of what God's standards are, of what it means to be a Christian.

Ah, they may not be willing right away to pay the price themselves, take up their cross and follow Jesus, but they've learned what it means to be a Christian, and they know what to expect of people who claim to be Christians because revival brings glory to God.

Every valley shall be raised up. Every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level. The rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed. That glory is an invisible glory.

That's a glory that brings a deep inner impression upon people. It may grip them with awe. Sometimes that glory becomes visible. That's not necessary for revival. But sometimes God gives a special divine autograph, and the glory becomes visible.

And perhaps you have seen on occasion people whose lives were so transformed by the grace of God that you saw a new beauty in their face, a new Christliness, a new something which glorified God. God sent a local church revival, which other churches participate in, to an Illinois town where my father was a pastor.

Before long, there were four denominations of pastors meeting together at a dear woman of God's home for a weekly Bible study. A few other people came also. She loved the Lord. I've heard my mother tell what precious times they had studying the Word of God together.

The Baptists and the Presbyterians and two kinds of Methodists. They were all Spirit-filled people, different denominations, but they had the same victory in their hearts. And I heard my mother tell how one night, one afternoon, they were studying heaven, about heaven in their Bible study.

Mother said, Wesley, the atmosphere in the room changed. The light changed. There was a different kind of a light. It was the presence of God came in that room. A couple of days later, she was in the grocery store and the wife of another pastor said to my mother, Sister Dool, did you notice anything about the light during the Bible study at Sister Heizer's?

I said, oh yes, Mother said, I saw it too. Sometimes God even deigns to give one of His surprising autographs and let us know that He is on hand. I've seen on the faces of new believers, there are accounts of revival in different parts of the world that tell about the glory on the faces of some of the people, sometimes while they're praying, sometimes while they're singing.

You just feel a touch of heaven there. It's beautiful. It's not cosmetic beauty. It's not the beauty of the flesh. There's just a special spiritual beauty that you sense on people that have newly touched by God, praised God, during the ministry.

Visible Manifestations of God's Glory in Revival

My dear brother Duncan Campbell, this happened on various occasions. He was at one of the conventions and he was in his own room and the convention chairman was sitting in the place where they gathered before the service when suddenly, he said, the room just filled with the presence of God.

Oh, he said, God is here. He said, the room just seemed so filled with the presence of God. He thought, I'm not worthy to be here. I'm not worthy to be in this room. And he turned to go out. He felt he had to go outside because God had occupied the room.

And as he went outside, here was brother Duncan Campbell coming in, his face just radiant. That's nothing that you work up. Probably brother Duncan Campbell didn't know anything about it. Unconscious.

But when revival comes, the glory of the Lord is revealed in various ways. Praise God. Some of his students told about classes in the Bible College. Faith Bible College, Faith Missionary Bible College in Edinburgh.

There were times when they sat in Duncan Campbell's classes that they were so conscious of the presence of God that they looked down as Duncan taught them. They said, we couldn't look in his face. There was so much of God in his face.

He didn't know that. He was just teaching class. But the glory of the Lord does something special. And I'll tell you when a community is moved by revival in your church or mine, or our churches together, that's better still.

When a revival comes moving through a community, the community sees the glory of the Lord. The community knows a hush that they didn't know before. They know God is doing something in their area. They may not talk about it publicly, but in their mind they know there's something going on in China.

When some of the revivals came and people began making confessions, one of the go-forth revivals in China, out among the pagan Chinese people, the work went around. The Christian's God has come to town.

The Christian's God has come. Yes! God in his holy majesty comes among his people. He comes to dwell among his people in revival. He comes to show his divine glory. He comes to put an influence on people that doesn't happen from our ordinary living, in our ordinary worshipping, in our ordinary services.

You can't pay for it in a human way, but you can prepare the way of the Lord. And if God be pleased, he may deign to reveal his glory in special ways. But certainly in ways that are not technically describable, but are recognizable all the less, the people in the community knows that revival came.

Those people are having some special events going on. God is in our town in a new way. And when God comes in holy revival and reveals his glory, when the mountains are leveled and the valleys are exalted and their crooked places made straight, God does in days what wouldn't happen in months and years of ordinary church activities and preaching.

Do you know when revival comes, people that have been prayed for for 15, 20 years by godly parents or relatives, brothers and sisters, people that have remained unmoved by ordinary pleas, people that are aware that they're being prayed for, but shuck it off and go on their undisturbed way.

But when revival comes, those people become gripped by the spirit of God. That's another one of the divine autographs. The Holy Spirit grips people. When he grips people, they are sometimes immobilized.

Sometimes they don't feel free to move. At times their mouth is hushed. They don't feel free to be quite as critical. Or sometimes they dare to blaspheme God all the more. And if they do, sometimes there is judgment.

This has happened again and again in revival. That someone who tried to throw it all off and prove his total independence of God, that God's judgment has sometimes appeared. And then a hush comes upon people.

I have known of such things in my boyhood years among people when so-called revivals were in their churches. And some scoffed and mocked. And God stepped in. No one asked for that. But God is observant when he works among his people.

He does his awesome work. Isaiah 63, beginning with verse 11. Then his people recalled the days of old. The days of Moses and his people. When he, Jehovah, who brought them through the sea with the shepherd of his flock, where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them?

Who sent his glorious arm of power to be at Moses' right hand? Who divided the waters before them to gain for himself everlasting renown? Who led them through the depths like a horse in open country? They did not stumble.

They did like cattle that go down to the plain. They were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord. That is how you guide your people to make for yourself a glorious name. Ah, that is what God does in revival.

Elijah, Elisha, and the Double Portion of the Spirit

And Isaiah as he echoed the prayer of the people and challenged them. Where is the one who has shown himself like that in our past days? Praise God he is still available to us today. It is after having said that, I always think of Elisha.

Do you see him the day that Elijah was called up to heaven? Do you remember Elijah and Elisha were together at one of the three schools of the prophets? Those days, the Bible schools of those days. And Elijah turned to Elisha and he said, You stay here with the Bible school boys.

The Lord has sent me to Bethel. They were at Gilgal. Elisha straightens up and he says, As Jehovah lives before whom you stand, I will not leave you. So the two went on. And when they got near to Bethel, the sons of the prophets, the Bible school boys came around and said, Elisha, Elisha, did you know the Lord is going to take your master to heaven today?

Be quiet. Be quiet. Hold your peace. Depends on which translation you use. I guess Elijah probably gave his final admonition to the sons of the prophets. A farewell talk. And then he turns to Elisha. He says, Elisha, you stay here with the Bible school boys at Bethel.

The Lord has sent me down to Jericho. That was the third place. Elisha straightens up and repeats the same words again. As Jehovah lives and as your soul lives, I'll not leave you. So the two went together.

They got to Jericho. Somehow the Holy Spirit revealed it to the sons of the prophets there. Because when they got there, they came up and took Elisha and said, Elisha, did you know the Lord's about to take your master to heaven today?

He said, I know. Keep quiet. I suppose Elijah gave his farewell admonition, exhortation to the Bible school boys at Jericho. And then he turns. He says, Elisha, stay here at Jericho. This is the third Bible school now.

You stay here. He probably said, lead these people on. The Lord sent me down to Jordan. Elisha straightens up the third time and he says, as Jehovah lives, as your soul lives, I'll not leave you. So the two start down toward the Jordan.

Elijah turns to Elisha. He says, Elisha, what do you want? Oh, Elisha wants something. Elisha says, I want a double portion of the Spirit that's on you. If I'm to lead this backsliding people, if I'm to lead these three Bible schools, if I'm to take the spiritual responsibility for the people of God, for the Israel of God, I can't do it.

I've seen the Spirit of God on you. But I'm just comparatively young. Who am I? I need a double portion of the Spirit that's on you. Oh, says Elijah, you've asked a very difficult thing. But if you see me and I'm taken, it'll be yours.

And they walk down there to the Jordan. And you remember what takes place. That's where Joshua had led the Israelites across the Jordan at God's command. Elijah takes that old scarf off his shoulder and takes it and gives a swat on the Jordan and the Jordan parts.

Up on the hillside, the Bible school boys are watching. And the two men walk through. I don't know what the last words as they talked. Would have been wonderful to hear. I don't know what the last exhortation Elijah gave to Elisha.

And suddenly Elisha sees up in the sky the glory of the Lord. My father, my father, the chariot from the horsemen of Israel. The chariot stops. Elijah steps on board. Elijah is left standing there. Oh, he's so alone.

The chariot starts up and I don't know just how, what sequence, how this all happened, but I'll give you one scenario. You could tell me yours. And Elijah's looking up. He's gone. He's going. And suddenly, what is this?

It's that old shawl of Elijah. And I can imagine that Elisha looked around him. He's gone. I'm alone. I've got that old scarf. He turns around and he starts back to the Jordan. And he gets there and he takes that old scarf and he gives it a swat.

And what happens? Nothing. Because the Hebrew says, when he swat it again, the Jordan parted. You see, I often tell people in prayer conferences when I tell this story, I say, my guess is if the Jordan hadn't opened the second blow, he would have hit it the third time.

He was out to get God's answer. Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah, he says. That's where he was. Now for just one lone semi-new, newly installed prophet, the Jordan opens. And up on the hillside the boys are watching.

They see the spirit of Elijah. It's resting on Elisha. Ah, God's autograph. He saw it was needed and they submitted to the leadership of Elisha, the Bible tells us. They accepted him. Praise God. Yes.

So, the glory of the Lord in various ways is demonstrated. And what a difference it makes for the people of God to see the glory of God upon the leaders of his people. To see the presence of God. To sense that the pastor, the evangelist, has the word of the Lord.

What a difference it means when you sense he's got a message given by God. Oh, we sit up and take notice. We thank God we could be present to hear. We're custodians of his glory. For little bits of time sometimes when he puts his hand upon us.

The Christian's God. Elijah's God has come. And no doubt Isaiah was thinking about this. He says, where is he? Just like Elijah called out, where is he? The God of Elijah. So, Isaiah called out, where is he?

That used Moses, that led him through. Where is he? That's what we need in our day. And you and I need to call, where is the Lord that did all those gracious things in times past? Where is the Lord that gave those tremendous movements of the spirit in the times of Jonathan Edwards?

Where is the Lord that worked in Korea in 1907? Where is the Lord that we've heard about in all those glorious deeds? Ah. So, in just a few verses next, then Elijah, Isaiah comes to the passage that I read last night.

Isaiah 64 and the Cry for God to Come Down

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down. He's just been saying, where is he? And then he calls out, oh, the beginning of chapter 64, that you would rend the heavens and come down. That the mountains would tremble before you.

Oh, for a mighty demonstration of your divine power. Oh, for another autograph of God. Oh, for a new revelation of God in our midst. Oh, for a new word from the Lord. Oh, for something that will shake us and make us tremble before God.

Oh, for a word of the Lord that will be just what His people need. Are you crying out and calling out to God for that? This is the prayer that prepares the way of the Lord for revival. This is the prayer that makes its way through the desert.

This is the prayer that starts to move the obstacles to one side or another. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, as when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil. Come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you.

Praise God. Praise God. And then at the end of that chapter he says, after all this oh Lord, He's been talking here. No one's calling on your name. We need revival so bad. The situation is getting worse.

After all this, oh Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure? Will you not have mercy? Can you not come and visit us once more? Yes, praise God, He can and He will.

David Brainerd's Prevailing Prayer for Revival

I think especially of the difficult job that David Brainerd had. We love to tell the story of Brainerd's revival among the Indians. The most unauspicious place to go to serve the Lord. It was a place where God sent him.

He knew he was frail in body. He knew he already had tuberculosis. He was in love with the daughter of Jonathan Edwards. He knew what the power of God was because he knew the ministry of Jonathan Edwards.

But David Brainerd turned his back in a sense temporarily on the young lady that he loved. And she loved him and she was praying for him. And he went out to be with those lone Indians. And they didn't want him and they didn't welcome him.

And he would go out there and pray and pray. What revival team did he have? There was no Canadian revival fellowship in those days. Who else had a burden for the Indians? David Brainerd all alone. They wouldn't welcome him at first into their villages and so he would go and get as near to them as he could.

He would lie out in the open. It wasn't so bad in the summertime but then as winter came on often when he'd get up in the morning his blanket would be covered with icicles. He was cold in the night. His body was trembling at times from the cold.

But he wanted to be near the Indians he loved. And he would preach to them and he would talk to them and he would pray for them. And he prayed and he prayed. When you read his diary you know something about the prayer life of David Brainerd.

Let me give you just a few quotes. June 26, 1744. In my prayer my soul was enlarged. I was unable to cry to God for my poor Indians. Though the work of their conversion seemed impossible with man, yet with God I saw all things were possible.

I was enabled to be instant in prayer for them and hope that God would bow the heavens and come down for their salvation. Ah, he was quoting Isaiah 64, 1 where we just looked at. He says, and I hope to see that God would bow the heavens and come down for their salvation.

A few days later he says, he prayed with much prayer burden and anguish so much that when he arose from his knees he could scarcely walk straight and the sweat poured down his face and body. That wasn't, dear Lord, bless the poor Indians.

Oh, here was a man who was wrestling with God for the salvation of these unresponsive pagan Indians. And Jonathan Edwards was with no one with him. No doubt David Brainerd, no doubt Jonathan Edwards remembered him often, maybe daily in prayer.

No doubt his daughter was praying much for her friend that she would long to marry. But David Brainerd's out there all alone, pleading with God, praying, wrestling with God until his whole body in the wintertime, in the summertime, is covered with wet perspiration.

And the perspiration runs down his body and he can practically wring out his clothes. What is that? That's wrestling in prayer. That's what I call level number six in my book on Mighty Prevailing Prayer.

The very next day his diary says that he awoke with a prayer burden before he even got out of bed he cried out to God out loud for God to come, come to his Indians, come and help them. He dressed, went out into the woods, and poured out his soul before God.

He said, I had a strong hope that God would bend the heavens and come down. Ah, he's holding on to Isaiah 64, that great prayer for revival. And David Brainerd is out there wrestling before God. The next year in his diary we read how as he was preaching, many Indians would begin to weep, tears would run down their faces, they would begin to cry out in their language for God to have mercy on them.

A little encouragement, praise God. Some were so moved, some were so gripped by God that they couldn't move, they couldn't take a step, they couldn't sit down. They were gripped by God, the God of Elijah, the God of Elisha, the God of Jonathan Edwards, the God of David Brainerd had gripped them.

They couldn't move. And there they stood. Read his biography. Sometimes they would stand and hold the bridle of his horse and look in his face and just stand there, staring in his face, gripped by God.

This foreigner, the power of God is on him. He's prevailing in prayer for their salvation. They're not yielding yet, but they're gripped by God. David Brainerd wrestles on in prayer and then he tells us in another place after that, the power of God seemed to come on them as a rushing mighty wind.

It had the irresistible force of a mighty torrent. Almost all ages, old men and old women, drunkards and little children, a murderer and a conjurer, all who dealt with evil spirits, all cried out for mercy.

Who was there to pray with them? Just David Brainerd. He's all alone. He's been praying for those pagans. Don't think that that kind of conversion comes easily. I know from the difficulty of North India, there are some places where are more responsive.

I know the places where it's been unresponsive. I knew a godly Anglican missionary society, the Keswick people in India were in a hospital just outside the city of Benares, the heartbed of Hinduism. I know how they prayed and worked and fasted and ministered to the sick.

They had a hospital there. They prayed with every patient that came. This went on for nearly 50 years and not one convert. Oh, what a heart-searching thing when you're serving the Lord, when you're pouring out your soul, you go home unfurled, you come back, it's the same thing.

Hardness, irresisting situation. I knew another group that went for 60 years before they began to have village converts. They were 60 years without an Indian preacher co-worker. I know how I wept, how I fasted.

Lord, what can we do to see breakthrough? My colleagues fasted. My former students, graduates who are now in event, they fasted. So little response. I saw one of my former students came into my office one day with his head down.

I could see something was working on him. Tears began to run down his face. He says, dual side, I don't know that I should accept an allowance anymore from the OMS. If God can't use me more than this, why should his people support me?

And she kneels down beside our bed and she asks God to give us souls. But where are the souls? I go out early in the morning and I work till night. But where are the souls? I'm witnessing. I'm distributing scriptures and texts.

I knew all that he was doing. Where are the souls? There are places like that. People talk about reaching the unreached peoples. That's a great idea that God helped them to do it. I'm no longer out there on the front line.

But, I'll tell you, some of those places are mighty, mighty resistant places. And that was the kind of place where David Grayson was. And he was holding on. What was he doing? Praying. Praying. Praying.

Praying. Week after week. Month after month. Just a couple of times he went back to Jonathan Edwards' place and stayed for a week or two. Renewed his body. Said goodbye again to the one that he could not promise to marry because his heart was out with the Indians.

He couldn't dare take her into that situation. He had no home to offer her. He had no comfort to offer her. He had no fruit to show her. That's David Waynard. And yet, do you know the day came? When suddenly Indians came running from all directions.

And they ran up and surrounded the house. Some of them came in the rooms and stood beside him in the rooms. They filled the house. They stood outside looking in the windows. And they were all practically immobilized.

Just standing there. Gripped by God. The power of God. And then, they began to get saved. Until he had the joy of having 70 believers among them. He said, I've got to go out to another tribe. Not being reached out here.

He said, I want you to pray for me. He told him that in the afternoon. They prayed all that night. And the next day it wasn't too long. And David Waynard realized that death was near. He now had several hundred believers.