One of the ways we have seen and known that God is interested in the affairs of men in times like these is through revivals.

We love the stories of great revivals, but what’s even more fascinating is what happened before anyone ever heard about them.
Long before the miracles and crowds, there were watchmen who refused to be silent, who refused to sleep, who refused to stop praying. They prayed until something happened.

One of such is the Welsh Revival, which began with Evan Roberts, a young man who longed for God to visit the ailing church of Wales. For nearly a decade, he prayed, studied, and talked about revival. In 1905, after attending a revival meeting, he boldly spoke about believing in God for 100,000 souls in Wales. A few nights later, he had a vision of all Wales lifted up to heaven, and afterwards, got repeated confirmations. All these drove him into more prayer and intercession and ultimately into the Welsh Revival itself.

The Hebrides Revival began with two elderly sisters: Peggy and Christine Smith, who were greatly burdened because they’d been told no young person attended public worship at their church. They decided to pray twice a week at ten in the evening, and remained there until three or four in the morning.

This led to the local pastor and church leaders starting their own late-night prayer meetings. After months of persistent intercession, a dramatic awakening broke out—people were woken up from sleep, gatherings formed at midnight, and churches overflowed without publicity. Soon, the revival swept through communities across the Hebrides.

Can you imagine this? Remember, this is what we talked about yesterday, seeing your place as an intercessor, as a priest.

Throughout history, major revivals began with intercessors standing in the gap, aligning their prayers with God’s desire to see all people saved and come to the knowledge of truth.

Today, we will further look at our role as watchmen on the earth, standing in the gap to birth revival.

And to define revival, let’s look at what happened in Nineveh.

Jonah 3:4-5, 8
New King James Version
4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

When Jonah preached, the Bible says the people of the city believed God. From the greatest to the least, they proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth, and turned from their evil ways.

Men and women awakened, sinners deeply convicted, backsliders restored, whole cities turning from wickedness, and a nation aligning itself with the fear of the Lord.

Imagine that in the current state of the nation, there is a conviction in the hearts of wicked men. In the hearts of the very ones you complain about. That the hearts of men are turned towards God. They fear God, they reverence Him, they have regard for human life. 

Those who are perpetrators of evil still haven’t had life-changing encounters with God. Now, imagine that they did.

In fact, the scriptures show us that it is part of God’s grand plan.

I Timothy 2:3-4
New King James Version
3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

This is God’s will for the nations, that they are saved and none perish. He is waiting with arms wide open, longing for revival to break forth from His people into the nations. Salvation is God’s solution to the world’s singular cause of all its troubles – sin.

Now this is where we come in as watchmen. We have a part to play in the affairs of tendering the hearts of nations to God. 

Psalms 2:8
New King James Version
8 Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession.

This was a prophecy about the Messiah and His rule over the nations. And for us to see this fulfilled, we must pray. The nations have been promised; we are to ask, intercede, and persist in prayer until God’s promise comes to pass.

Why? Because strongholds have been built in the minds of people, strongholds that have kept them from receiving the gospel. But we have been equipped with weapons, one of which is prayer.

Here is what Apostle Paul said:

II Corinthians 10:4-5
New King James Version
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

Through prayer, we can dismantle lies, uproot false ideologies, and tear down the mental models that have taken root in people’s minds. We bring every thought into obedience to God’s Word.

Scriptures also reveal spiritual forces that operate over nations and regions.

Daniel 10:13
New King James Version
13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.

Persia was a physical region, and we see that the answer to Daniel’s prayers was delayed because of a spiritual being called the prince of Persia.
We live in a natural world that is deeply supernatural.
Although our environment is physical, there are spiritual entities at work behind the scenes.

Ephesians 6:12
New King James Version
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Our battle is not physical; it is spiritual, so we must pray. You may have heard stories of missionaries evangelizing in a region with little visible success, yet when they spent time in prayer over the land, people began flocking to hear the gospel.

The Apostles repeatedly urged believers to pray for themselves, for the spread of the gospel, and for doors to be opened for the Word (Colossians 4:3).

Prayer breaks strongholds, it is like a battering ram, an ancient weapon used to break through city gates. Soldiers would persistently strike the gates for long periods, never knowing exactly when the wall would fall. But they knew it would surely fall if they kept ramming.

If we want to change anything, we must pray with the right consistency, intensity, and pressure. We must partner with God to tear down walls that have kept people from believing in the gospel. Nations are waiting for intercessors to rise and pray.

Prayer point
We declare that we wake up to our responsibility as intercessors. Through us, revival breaks forth in cities, villages, and nations. Doors of nations are opened to the gospel. We make it happen, and we see it happen by the power of the Holy Ghost.