When revival and true conversion happens, it is not because of some person taking clever initiative and having a new idea, but it is because God came in power. We need to be people who pray in faith and humble ourselves before God and lay a hold of Him.
The devil doesn’t fear us by ourselves. He fears God. Those who pray that he fears are those who are able to go to the Lord and bring down the power of God. That is who is feared. Who is gonna be feared in New England? It is those Christians who can lay hold upon the Lord, and they can cry out, and God answers them. You see, when God comes, that is what shakes the foundations of the kingdom of darkness. You need God to come. That has always been it.
Wherever revival has come; wherever conversions come; wherever churches spring up; what is it? It is not some guy that suddenly got some initiative and got some idea, it’s God comes. God comes. We’ve got to have God come. But these prayers are not ineffectual because we see in Scripture that our prayers can call God down. He is pleased to do that. He is pleased in His sovereignty to delegate to us Christians prayer by which we may lay hold on His arm, and say, “God, help us. God, our feet are right here. Crush his head under them. God, help us. Empower us.” The weapons of our warfare get energized by Him. Mighty through God. God-powerful is what we need them to be.
We need God to empower us. We need God to empower us when we are in the pulpit. We need God to empower us when we go out on the streets. You need God to empower you when you go into your workplace; or you go into your school. Brethren, if we don’t have God, we are dead in the water. And if He has told us there are things I am pleased to give you but you do not have because you do not pray, put your hyper-Calvinism away. And I’ll tell you this, your reformed faith is not going to win the day.
Sometimes we get that idea, “Yeah, we hold to the perseverance of the saints. We dropped that Arminianism. We are this. We are that.” And therefore we think we are guaranteed of success. Brethren, that is not true. There are lots of cold dead hyper-Calvinists that will no more win New England than the Hindus that are here have a new place of worship closeby here. Brethren, dead in the water. Calvinism doesn’t call God down. But brethren, I’ll tell you, humble dependence on Him does.
Excerpt from the full sermon “Dangerous Prayer” by Tim Conway
