Call to Agonizing Prayer — Andrew Strom

John the Baptist and the American Church

I have a question for you, and the question that I put at the top of my sermon today is simply this. If John the Baptist was in our neighborhood, do you think we in America today would go out and hear him?

John the Baptist was in our neighborhood, was in our region. Would we go out to hear him in America today, in the American church today? Because it says in several of the Gospels, it says that all of Judea, all of Jerusalem went out to John to be baptized off him, confessing their sins, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

He was an incredibly heavy preacher. Would we in America today go out and hear John the Baptist? He had no miracles. He had no entertainment. He didn't even have When the Saints Go Marching In. He had nothing.

Would we go out and hear him? I put it to you, I don't think that most of America today would. I think we'd ignore him. I think the preachers would succeed where the Pharisees failed. I think they would succeed in shutting him down.

I think that he would be completely ignored and he'd do what David Kirkwood does and he'd jump on a jet plane and go preach in Africa. Glory to God. That's what I'm doing in February. I'm going to Nigeria to preach.

Praise God. I have great concerns about America. I've been here for three years. America breaks my heart because America is the only, and I've preached on this topic before, and if you've heard any of my sermons, you've heard this before, but I want to stress it today.

America’s Need for Another Awakening

America is the last land of revivals that we have left in the Western world. We don't have any others. The only countries around the world that are having revivals are third world nations. Why is that?

It's because they're hungry. They're hungry for God. We ain't hungry for God and they have revivals and we don't. Now, America is the last one of all the Western nations that has a high church attendance and has a whole history of revivals going back 250 years.

There is no other nation like that in the Western world. None. And I just want to ask you whether you think we're going to maintain that because if we lose the next revival, this nation has had it. Why did I come over here three years ago?

Sometimes I ask myself that question. Why did I come to America? I love Americans. That's a good reason to come. That wasn't the reason. I love many of the Americans I've met since I got here. Do I think we're desperate enough for revival?

No, I don't. Do I think that we've become fat? Yes, I do. I think we've become incredibly, incredibly fat. Spiritually, we are in the worst shape. I speak for America since I've been here all of three years.

Let me say we. We are in the worst shape that we've ever been in, I believe, prior to any awakening in history. You've got to bear in mind that the awakenings in America started in 1741 and we've never missed one.

We have never missed an awakening yet for 250 years. That's why this country is a great nation. It's not because we elected the right guys. That is the wrong answer. I sent out an email earlier last week saying to everybody, repent of your political idolatry because you're a fool if you think president anybody can get you a revival.

This nation has had it if we rely on politics. Now, this country, for some reason, the devil has fooled us to such a degree now that we prayed enormously hard in 2004 when it looked like Bush was about to lose the election and Florida votes were up for grabs and nobody knew who was going to win.

We prayed our guts out for President Bush to win the election and we've never, ever prayed that hard for a revival. Never, never. We prayed for mercy from God when in 2001 we watched those towers go crashing to the ground.

The judgment of God. Believe it. Not Muslims. The judgment of God. How do I know it was the judgment of God? Because everybody suddenly fell on their knees and cried out, God have mercy on us. God have mercy on our country.

And for a brief moment it looked like America's heart might be open to Jesus again for just a time. But no, we turned back to our selfishness and in the last five years there has been an orgy of selfish, debt-laden buying in this country unmatched probably by any country in the history of the world.

And for the first time we are selling our children's future by taking all the money out of our homes. There's been an orgy of this in the last five years. Taking all the money out of our homes, selling our children's future and their legacy.

We take all the money out and spend it on ourselves and this is the only thing keeping the American economy going for five years. I want to say to you that bubble burst in July 2005 and we are about to pay the price for that.

And most people have more borrowed on their house now than the house is worth. And their loans are about to jump up. One trillion dollars in the next year is about to jump up to a higher interest rate and most of those people cannot pay those bills and will go bankrupt.

We are starting to pay back the very selfishnesses that we have extracted from every angle. We're looking to make money and to buy toys and to get a better car. We come from New Zealand and we're a relatively rich country.

Don't get me wrong about that. We're a relatively rich country. We're not a third world country by any means. But when I came here, we drive a 1996 Ford Winstar. It goes fine. There's nothing wrong with it.

But when I'm hanging around Americans, especially slightly worldlier ones, most of them Christians, they're all saying to me, oh man, when are you going to update your car? Why? Because we're idiots. That's why.

It doesn't have to break down. It's fine. But we're on it, people, as though having a 10-year-old car is some major calamity. Oh, you're not a successful enough preacher unless you've got a brand new one.

Is that what they're trying to tell me? I can't be bothered with cars. I bought the thing off eBay for $1 ,500.

I was glorifying God.

It's the first car I've ever owned with electric windows. When I got here, when I got here, my children were like,.

Wow, look at the car Dad got.

Opulence and wealth. First automatic car I've ever owned, believe it or not. Some strange reason New Zealanders are addicted to changing gears manually. Praise God to have got to live with that. Here we are in America.

Revival History and the Call to Desperate Prayer

I want to tell you briefly the history of this nation as far as revivals goes because it's important. If we lose track of it, we've had it. Listen to me carefully. Wales was more of a land of revivals than America ever has been.

Up until 1904, Wales had revivals spaced out. The huge ones were roughly every 50 years and in between masses of semi-large and regional revivals all the time. Wales was known as the land of revivals.

1904 was the last revival they ever had. I don't believe they will ever enter into another one. Why is that? It's because the revival ended badly. I don't believe they had enough desperate prayer. We're talking about desperation last night.

They didn't have enough desperate prayer to get their next one. And I don't think we've got enough desperate prayer to get the next one here. Who had the next revival in England? We're talking about Wales, which is part of England basically.

The only place that they managed to come into the next move of God was this tiny little group of islands called the Hebrides. And the Hebrides revival is famous to this day. 1949, the Hebrides, this tiny little group, they had prayers on that island.

One old blind lady and another lady, her sister, and a couple of preachers or something, and elders, they started praying and praying and praying. They said they prayed for over 10 years for revival before it hit.

And man, we're talking real prayer. Not this, dear Jesus, we love you, please send revival. If you're not crying out from your guts for revival, forget it! If we can't cry for this nation. Last night, a bunch of people were offended.

Praise God, I don't care. I just took the opportunity to come down here and desperately cry out for God to send revival on America. Because if somebody calls me up the front and says, do we have any desperate people here?

Yeah, I'm desperate. I'm desperate. What am I looking for? I'm not looking for anything but hunger. That's it. I don't want anything else. I want one thing, hunger. Show me hunger, Americans. I do not believe we can, in our lukewarm, complacent way, meander our way into the next move of God.

Why do I believe that? Because it's never, ever happened. Any country that thinks they can meander their way, which I believe Wales did. What happens when you have endless revivals and your church attendance is sky high?

You just go, well, God must love us so much, he's just going to hand us the next revival on a platter. And I believe that there was something of that complacency in Wales. I cannot explain to this day.

I've got numerous books on the Welsh revival. I can't explain to this day why it was that the next window opened. See, they come in waves. Revivals come in huge waves. On my first visit coming to America, this is three years ago, my very first visit, probably about a month, maybe less, before I was due to leave.

I think maybe two weeks before I was due to leave. I woke up in the morning and God had literally given me my message for America. I had, up until that time, I was just going to preach the kind of stuff I always preached.

I used to preach on street revival and stuff like that. I was just planning on coming to America and just preach what I ordinarily preach. God woke me up. No, I woke up with the message literally burning on my heart.

What was it? It was this. America has been having revivals at 50-year intervals for the last 250 years. You must warn them, Andrew, lest they miss their next revival. You must warn them. When I preached that around America, I literally crisscrossed the country.

I did two visits that year to America. I preached that everywhere I went. I said, you guys can turn into another Wales and if you're complacent, you will. Please be aware that we have got to pray and cry and get desperate.

Otherwise, we will see no revival in this land. Now, the weirdest thing about that was I was a student of revival. I've been studying revivals for years and I had, up until literally God spoke it to me in my sleep, I had never seen the pattern.

I had never seen the 50-year pattern. I never knew there was any such thing. I rang my dad, who's also literally a writer on revivals. He's written many articles on revival. I said to him, I think there's a pattern of the American revivals.

Check this out. And I said, think about the first great awakening, second great awakening, great prayer revival where two million are saved. Next one is Azusa Street. Next one is the healing revival. They're all at 50-year intervals and that leaves us here, now, 50 years later.

I said, check that out. Does that make sense to you? He goes, my goodness, that's true. You go back to 1741 to 43, over 250 years ago and roughly 50 years, ever since every 50 years, there's a massive awakening in America and the next one is due now.

In fact, three years ago, I was preaching then. The next one is due now. Do you know how accurate this is? Can anybody tell me when we celebrated the Azusa Street revival? What year did we celebrate the anniversary?

The 100-year anniversary was celebrated when? This year, actually. Yep. Wales was 1904. Azusa Street, 1906. 100 years ago, this year, was the Azusa Street revival. 50 years ago, this year, was the end of the great healing revival.

That is how accurate it is. You go back 50 years prior to Azusa Street, 1857, you see the beginning of the massive prayer revival that swept the world, 1857 to 1859. Two million saved in two years. That is how accurate it is.

It's like clockwork. We're already overdue. We're overdue now. The window's open now. I don't see the repentance preachers in America that can preach revival to save their lives. I see a bunch of compromising guys who are making bucketloads of money, bucketloads of money, by preaching 90 or 80 of the truth and padding out the rest with warm homilies and preaching lies to a nation that desperately needs to repent.

That's what we've got. I see a bunch of half-hearted praying people, even the people on my list. My list is called the revival list. I regularly publish articles on the kind of prayer that is required to get a revival.

Do I think that half the people on my list or even a quarter or even a tiny fraction are praying that way for revival in America? No, I don't. I'm not going to kid myself. We're not agonizing. We're not crying out.

Why? Because we're fat. We are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. That's where we're at. And I think we're going to lose the next awakening. I have a horrible suspicion. I didn't come here to say that.

We left everything. My whole family, I have six children. We arrived in America with a suitcase and a box each. You think we do that half-heartedly? Don't we leave all our relatives behind? All our relations, apart from one brother.

I've got one brother here. All our relations are in New Zealand. One of my daughters was heartbroken leaving her friends. My oldest son went back to New Zealand. He didn't want to live over here. He's there now, my oldest son.

Hopefully he'll get married there. He's got a wonderful Christian girlfriend, so praise God, I hope he does. Let me not get tangled up here. I really believe in my heart of hearts that God desperately wants to, more than we know, bring revival to this nation.

But it's a tough ask. Why? Because unprecedented in history there has been a massive, massive move of money on the one hand and selfishness on the other in this nation. I do not believe you can find a place in history where we have gone to more extreme selfishness, more extreme materialism, more extreme laziness and complacency amongst the Christians than we have today.

You will look back in history in vain to find it. Yes, our ancestors worked hard. They slaved their guts out. Many of them could remember revivals. They were, in many cases, godly people. We have, in the past 50 years, become addicted to spiritual junk food and physical junk food.

And now we are just simply fat and lazy. Fat and lazy. And fat and lazy Christians do not pray desperately for revival. If you want to hear desperate praying, today you've got to go to Africa and Asia.

Man, those people know how to pray. They cry out to God with one voice, boy, I'm telling you. Those people get down on their faces and they cry and they get desperate before God. We don't know how to do it.

And the tiny handful that do know how to do it, you know, the isles of the Hebrides, getting back to that briefly. Are a tiny island group. And it took a massive outpouring of prayer to get revival there.

A decade of massive prayer. You know, I was reading an email by one of the prayer movements in America recently, one of the youth movements called The Cause, which I had had some time for up until this email.

And the email basically was saying, here's the desperate things we need to pray for. All good things, all things needed. You know, the pushing back of the homosexual tide that's coming to America, the abortion issue, we need that overturned, blah, blah, blah.

All these social issues, and I thought, so the desperate need for an awakening in America which will fix all of that. The desperate need for an awakening in America is pushed to the very back of one of the few prayer movements that's doing any good in the country.

And we have prophets literally traveling around. I call them prophets from Disneyland. We have America's Disneyland prophets who arrive in town and only have a positive word to say about everybody including every pastor in the audience that's in adultery and is discovered two weeks later.

But praise God, we're going to prophesy good things over this brother. The usual circus. That's our level of prophet. We're going to go out and see John the Baptist? No, we ain't. He can't tickle our ears like those guys.

Man, those guys are flashy, I tell you. They've got it together. Boy, I tell you. Their worship team, oh man, unmatched. Praise God. I'm tired of it. I'm sick of it. I've had a guts full of it. Would we go out like Judea and Jerusalem?

Not as if they were really an extremely righteous people in that period. When Jesus came along, it wasn't like a lot of them really listened to him. But they went out to hear John the Baptist. They went in their droves.

They went in their thousands to hear him rebuke them. They went in their thousands to receive a rebuke from the prophet of God. And I want to say to you, I do not believe America would do that. I think it's all gone.

Are we going to see localized revivals? Yes, if we pray. We can see a revival in a certain part of Los Angeles. I know there's a bunch of praying young people here. I would have high hopes for your guys' area.

High hopes. If you pray like you've been praying lately, like I've heard you guys praying. Praise God. We're going to see small localized revivals. Do I think we're going to get an awakening? I think it's gone.

I think the window's going to close. I think these windows are basically seven-year windows. That's my opinion. Based on history, I believe they're a seven-year window and I think it's going to close and I think we're going to lose it.

And do you know what the history of Wales is as soon as they lost their revival? Today they have 7 church attendance, one of the lowest spiritual interests in the entire area of Europe. You have to go to some pretty extraordinarily sick, humanistic, dead countries to find spiritual interest that low.

I was in France earlier this year. The only churches you see everywhere is like old Catholic churches. French people are notoriously dead to Christianity and have been for centuries. And I want to say Wales is approaching that level of disaster.

What has kept American church attendance high? It's this one thing which we miss again and again. Every 50 years, for 250 years, God has sent an awakening to this land and all the time He has found a generation of intercessors to pray it in and He's found a generation of preachers to preach it and He's always managed to find them.

And I think the opportunity is passing us by because we do not have those guys anymore. And all of our preachers that looked promising and used to preach repentance, we pay them a million bucks, we stick them on TBN and we say, preach prosperity because that's what will make your ministry a success and they're stupid and they believe us.

And so we ruin all our young preachers. We ruin every prophet we get our hands on. There's a young man called Todd Bentley. Powerful young man in God. I believe his ministry is utterly ruined by the idiots that he hangs around with.

The prophetic movement. A movement I delightedly left and said, I am leaving this movement. Here's why. Can we find more lukewarm prophets in the earth than the so-called prophets of America? We're in Disney World.

We're dreaming. We have no idea what we're doing. We're selling our children down the river. We don't know what we're up to. I tell you what, our laziness is going to kill us in this land. Fatter and more well-fed than we've ever been in the history of the earth.

Do you know that? There is no nation like America that ever has been in history wealthier by far than the princes of the earth. Solomon would have had to come and visit us. Do you realize that? That's how wealthy we are.

Can you imagine Solomon saying, you mean the entire middle class of your nation, you mean the middle class has hot and cold running water, they have air conditioning, their cars are like only three years old.

Can we find a place in the earth that has ever been as wealthy for millions, hundreds of millions of people in this country? The middle classes, this is what makes a nation special. There's never been a nation in history where the middle classes are rich.

This is the first one. And we're poisoning the whole earth. Do you know what we do with our TBN satellites now? We beam our prosperity preachers into the middle of Africa and all their leaders watch it and they start fleecing their sheep like we do.

Glory to God, isn't that wonderful? Don't you just want to go and kiss those satellites? Well, I'd like to kiss them with a laser beam myself. If I could fire a nuke up there and just hit the TBN satellites, I'd do it.

Glory to God. I would, man. In Asia now, riddled with the teaching that comes out of America. In fact, the prophecies of California being destroyed by God and literally thrown into the ocean, I can quite believe.

Do you know why? California, sorry guys, but California is home to the biggest pornography industry the world has ever seen. Ever seen. Why have we got pornography across the internet? Because California started that industry and promoted it into the internet and made a huge killing out of it.

We have Hollywood sitting in California. Right round the earth, the youth of the whole world go and see America on the big screen and the America they see is a sick, sick parody. Violence and sex and, you know, and every year it gets worse.

I won't let my children watch any television in this country. Why? Because the adverts are so bad. They're so sick. At 3 o 'clock in the afternoon or 7 o 'clock in the evening, they're showing the ads for the latest shows and they're just full of just, you know, what can we feed to the world to destroy them?

I know desperate housewives and Spin City and let's just pour it all out. Let's make it worse every year. Let's compete. Let's have a race to the bottom. That's what it is. It's a race to the bottom. How fast can we get lower and lower and lower and destroy the nations of the earth who all look up to America.

They say America is rich. America has used their freedom to become wealthy. America is full of success. That's what they say about America. America is poisoning the whole world. New Zealanders, I remember a story of some New Zealand kids watched a movie about American gangs and they decided to copy what they saw on the screen.

They're beating up this guy and they actually carved initials in the guy because they'd seen it on a movie. I remember when American kids about 10 years ago started wearing baseball caps backwards on their heads.

All the New Zealand kids went out and bought baseball caps of teams they'd never heard of and weren't interested in just to look like American kids and wear the cool baseball hats. That's the influence that America has for good, for bad, and for trivial all over the world.

And do you know what? God's going to hold you to account. Nothing is surer than that. Why does it say, Be not many teachers, for leaders will be held to a stricter account. America is the leader of the earth.

American preachers, when they go overseas, can always gather a crowd. You go to America, go to Africa, anywhere in Africa, if you're an American, you can gather a crowd. You can be the worst preacher on earth.

You gather a crowd. Why? Because America has been, for better or worse, it used to be for better, used to be for better, has been the leader of nations for many, many years. Are we going to find our way into the next awakening?

How on earth can we do it? I was disappointed last night. I was disappointed that we just didn't all start crying our eyes out. I was disappointed that we didn't all get down on our face. I don't care if people were offended by the bluntness of the invitation.

It doesn't bother me a bit. I like blunt invitations. It must be just me. If someone's calling us to get desperate, and we don't think we need to get desperate, we're out of our minds, out of our minds in this country.

Of all people on earth today, nothing is more desperate than the situation here. I've been invited overseas since I got here. I've been on one overseas trip since I got to America. I could have gone on overseas trips almost from the time I arrived, and I said, and David knows this, and I've said it to him repeatedly, I said to him, America is more desperate than all the places you go.

You go to all the third world countries where they're hungry for God, and America is the most desperate place. The saddest thing of all is that we know it not. We have no clue how bad things are, and we are about to become another Wales.

I ain't going to be here. I'll repeat it a different way. You are about to become another Wales unless something happens, because I ain't going to be here. I'll either be preaching in revival countries where there's some hunger, or I'll be back in New Zealand trying to see a revival there.

I'm not going to hang around for the heart-breaking business of watching America sell its future down the toilet. I ain't going to be here for that. Turn with me please to Luke 6. This is the premium down there in verse 20.

This is the premium that Jesus places upon hungering, upon being poor. Not just poor in spirit, but even poor. Physically and materially poor. Listen to this. And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples and said, Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

We like to always put poor in spirit there. We always love to do that. Why? Because it absolves us of our guilt of being rich dudes. Well, being rich dudes is selling us down the toilet. It's not hard for me to give you evidence throughout Scripture and throughout the world around us that when you become rich materially, you become poor.

Well, you think you're rich spiritually. And you're basically believing a lie. It makes you comfortable. It makes you complacent. It makes you apathetic. Why? Because when you get sick, you can afford to pay for a doctor.

When your car breaks down, you can afford to fix it or even buy a new one. You can go out and get credit cards. You'll get sent actually. As soon as you get a credit rating, they'll send you a hundred in the mail in America.

Why? Because they want you to get indebted up to your eyeballs and spend all that money on consumer goods that you don't need. What does this culture do? It breeds complacency and apathy and comfort. It makes us sit in front of entertainment modules that we bring into our home and we spend all our time doing that instead of praying.

We don't any longer want to hear hard words. Why? Because all of our culture now, including especially the advertising agencies and many of the popular preachers, are preaching soft words, words of success.

Have you ever noticed this fact? If you can get the American dream, which is be successful at all costs, if you can get the American dream and just put some scriptures with it and turn it around into a sermon, you can build a megachurch.

Have you ever noticed that? Watch Joel Osteen preaching every week. He's preaching success principles with scripture on them. Success principles straight out of Dale Carnegie, straight out of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Straight out. It's just straight out of it. It's just all you do is you put some scriptures on it. Basically, you're preaching back to the Americans the American dream. Be successful. God wants you to be a success.

God wants you to have things. Of course, we don't idolize these. No, no, we don't idolize. We just have them and more of them and we live in abundance. Yeah, those are the prophets we love to hear. He's a prophet to the nation.

What is he preaching? He's preaching the American dream back to the Americans. That's why it sounds so good. That's why we nod our heads. Yes, this sounds right because we've been raised all our life in a place which preaches the same stuff to us.

Get a career. Get married to the beautiful girl because you've got the career, you've got a house, you've got a car. Isn't that what we preach to our children? Aren't we sickos? Aren't we morons? Don't we deserve God to just pour down fire on the land?

We preach to all of our children, here's the success of life. I wonder if you could become a doctor or a lawyer. They make a killing, man. This is what we preach to our children. We deserve to be, I don't know, I can't even describe in words for preaching that.

That's beyond sick. The American dream is the opposite of the gospel. The American dream is the opposite of the gospel. But I can build a mega church by preaching the American dream with biblical terminology.

Yeah. Glory to God. Welcome to the America that's about to miss its next awakening. Welcome to the reason why. Luke chapter 6. Okay, so we've seen, Blessed be ye poor. Please do not put anything extra in there.

Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh. We don't hunger. Most of us don't weep.

Verse 22. Blessed are you when men shall hate you, when they shall separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day.

It says there, For in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. Look at that. That's how real prophets are treated. They're hated. Now listen to verse 24. Woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Do you guys call it a consolation prize when you come second and you get a consolation? Do you guys call it that? In New Zealand and England and that, we call it, if you come second and say they give you a little tiny little trophy or whatever, that's called like a consolation prize.

That's your consolation. That's to kind of keep you from beating yourself in the head for losing. Kind of thing. So you didn't come first but you came second so you get a consolation prize. You get a little reward.

Listen to this again. This is what it's saying. This is written in King James English. The word consolation is still used. Where are we? Verse 24. Woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation.

I think we've sold out. I think we've been given the little trinket, the consolation prize. Instead of revival, we've got a choice. We can either opt for the great awakening or we can opt for the American dream and for the American church and for success and for numbers.

We can opt for the wealthy lifestyle. We can opt for success. We can have the three-year-old car or the one-year-old car or a brand new one. We can opt for all those things. What are we opting for?

Woe unto you that are rich, you have received your consolation. You have received already your reward. You ain't getting anything in heaven. You've already received what you are going to get. I hope you're happy with it because the awakening is the best thing and the good is the enemy of the best.

The good is the enemy of the best. We have to choose what we're going to aim for. We have to go for the only prize worth having. We have to leave everything, every single thing and go after it with all our lives.

We have to or our children's generation will come to know. They will come to know one day. Do you know what? Our parents missed that window of revival and look what happened to our country after that.

Do you remember what it was like when people used to go to church? When people used to believe in God? Do you remember what it was like when the revival meetings overflowed and people were actually interested in hearing about Jesus?

We can't remember those days because they're gone. Generations grow up without prayer and we miss revival window after revival window and the once great nation that was built entirely on God's grace flushes itself down the toilet with its selfishness and a gospel of greed and that is what is happening.

Right in front of our eyeballs, nothing less than that. So maybe God in His mercy we have to hope that Arnold Schwarzenegger and our friends here are out of the state at that moment but it won't take just that.

Let me refer back to history again. That great prayer revival I was talking about, 1857, how did it start? It started with a tiny prayer meeting that remained tiny until one significant thing occurred.

It was in New York. It was run by a guy called Jeremiah Lanphier. He was a totally unknown guy, not a preacher of any real note. The one good thing he did was run a prayer meeting every lunchtime. The prayer meeting was tiny until one thing happened.

What was that thing? A financial crash hit America and when that financial crash hit America the businessmen threw their hope and money away and they came down to that prayer meeting and started to pray.

The prayer meeting grew and the news of it grew and other businessmen started spending their whole lunchtimes praying. It spread to other cities. Before you knew it, nobody could get into the prayer meetings.

They were so big. They were having thousands, 2 ,000, 3 ,000 at a prayer meeting. Charles Finney writes of that movement. He says, A rider came to me. 2 ,000 miles in extent he had ridden through the American countryside.

He said he found a prayer meeting all the way, all the way. There was no town and no village that he rode through that was not praying. 1857, 1858. I call it the Third Great Awakening. It should generally be called the Third Great Awakening.