In these dark days, the greatest need the world has is for revival. Yet without the work of the Holy Spirit, all our efforts to bring it about will be in vain. True revival only occurs when the Sprit moves mightily on a people as the Gospel is proclaimed.

 In this podcast Scott Brown and Jason Dohm interview pastor Jeffrey Johnson, whose heart was gripped by this reality while ministering in Kenya several months ago. Compelled to action, Johnson contacted fellow pastors about the need for the church to actively pray for revival across the world. These discussions led to the establishment of October 3-4 of this year as a Global Day of Prayer for Revival. Such men as Paul Washer, Joel Beeke, and Tom Ascol have joined with Johnson in calling on local churches worldwide to devote this time to humble contrition and earnest fasting and prayer—appealing to God that His Spirit might move in an extraordinary way and revive souls across the nations.

To learn more about this day of prayer and join the effort, visit https://globalprayerforrevival.com/.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life Podcast, and today we have Jeff Johnson with us to tell us about a global prayer for revival and a sleepless night that fomented a heart for such a thing, and a website that popped out of it called globalprayerforrevival.com. Hope you enjoy the story. Jason, I got a phone call from this guy, I think it was about two months ago, and it was kind of at a weird time. So I thought, I better take this phone call. And it was Jeff Johnson.

And he said that he couldn't hardly sleep. He was in Kenya. So the time zones are, you know, all whacked out. And he couldn't sleep. And he couldn't sleep because something was really burning in his heart.

So Jeff, why don't you tell us about that? Yeah, it was like it was yesterday, I was laying and trying to sleep because the night before I didn't sleep at all and very tired. But I was just moved by the church in Kenya. I was moved by the young men that were there on a trip to train pastors. And I was just moved by these pastors and this country away from America and that the great need of God to work in Kenya and then thinking not just about Kenya, but all of Africa.

And it got me thinking of just how God has a church around the world. And the greatest need of our time and the greatest need of any time. It's not just our day. And the greatest need that we have is the work of God's Spirit through His Word. And the importance of the Spirit working effectually is such a need that's beyond just having gifted preachers or trained pastors, though those things are important.

It's a work that can't be done unless the Spirit Himself chooses to blow as the Spirit blows wherever the Spirit chooses to blow. And without the blowing of the Spirit or the moving of the Spirit, everything's vain. All of our labors are in vain. And it just got me to thinking that we don't I don't spend ample enough time praying for the spirit. And the thought of the spirit is a revival or some form of unusual work where the spirit blesses the ordinary means of grace in an extraordinary way.

And it's like, we need that, America needs that. That's the thing that we need most in our day. And then the thought as I was laying there was I've been so burdening our own church to have corporate prayer meetings, which we do. We have a corporate prayer meeting every week. And I try to encourage our church to think of the corporate prayer meeting as more valuable, or at least equally as valuable, as personal individual prayers.

We tend to think, you know, I have my prayer closet, I read my Bible in the prayer closet, I don't need a church, I don't need corporate prayer meetings. But I want people to see the value of corporate prayer as a collection of God's people having the same request, going to God, saying, Would you hear us on this matter? And it seems to me, from my Arkansan understanding of things, that if two people or three people are asking for the same thing, it's more effectual than a single person. I know if someone comes to my house and says, hey, can I have 100 bucks? I may or may not want to answer that, but if five people out there are saying, hey, can you do this for us?

It's going to be harder. And if there's a whole church out there, say 50 to 100 people or more out there saying, hey, we really need this, how do I turn that down? How do I not hear that? And it seems like that's what God's called us to break together in a single voice over a single request. And that led me to think, if a corporate prayer meeting potentially has more efficacy and appealing to God.

How much more if we could have the whole church globally? I know that sounded so ambitious, the whole church globally. But if we can't get the whole church globally, if we could just get churches, a lot of churches around the world praying for revival, you know, what could that do? I mean, how could God not, if he would, in a sovereignty, of course, He's sovereign. How could He not listen to so many voices of His, so many of His children around the world in unity on a single request, Lord, send us your spirit.

Please work in our day. Safe souls, revive us, sanctify us. That thought just was burning in my mind. And sometimes what happens with me, when I have something like in my mind I can't rest until I share it with someone and so Scott you were the unfortunate recipient of a probably untimely phone call. You know you said something during that phone conversation that really struck me.

And I won't be able to replicate exactly what you said, but you referred to these, you know, brushfire controversies that are raging through conservative evangelicalism, and you mentioned a couple of them, and you said, you said, but Our greatest need is not even resolving those brushfire controversies. It's for revival. And I thought, you know, that's a sort of a holy reductionism that takes us back to the most important thing, and that is the saving of souls and also the refreshing and the reviving of local churches. That's what's the most important thing. Right, there's a raging controversy.

There's always some type of controversy that could divide like-minded churches from one another. Good men that happen to disagree on particular issues, and it's not like the issues are not important and don't need to be worked through and talked about and discussed and debated. There's a place for all that. And so I don't want to minimize the importance of rightly dividing more the truth in all areas and all issues that could potentially divide the church. But the church is so small as it is.

We're not a big group. And especially the conservative, Reformed churches of the world, we're just too small to be having a lot of in-house fighting. And my thought was that particularly if there's a different view of how the church and state, and this is one of the controversies going on today, what role does the church and state play together? And that's an important question. Let's talk about that.

But there's a division, if you would, within the, you know, in the reform world about this very topic. I said, but both sides, both sides will agree that revival is needed, that both sides agree with that. And that's something we can unify ourselves around, is the gospel and the need of this work of the Spirit to come in our day to revive us. We know if there's going to be any restraining grace on our culture and in our state, it's going to have to come through the preaching of the gospel through revival, not through legislation. And if there's going to be a revival in our churches, I mean, if there's going to be a reformation in our churches where we all become more serious minded, less carnally minded, it's going to come through the work of the spirit.

And both of those things are needed in our day. We need restraining grace in our culture. And we need reviving in our churches and we need conversions. We need a work of God to take place. And I feel like I feel my eyes and ears and senses by just observing the culture around us and even the church at this state.

We're in a pretty low position. You know, Jason, one of the things that he also mentioned, he talked about these controversies, but he also talked about the darkness of the times. We've seen such an acceleration of darkness, particularly in the last decade, and maybe even particularly emphatically since 2015, when the Obergefell decision was passed down to legalize sodomite marriage. It seems like, almost like the demons were unleashed on our culture and the strong delusions just have fallen upon our land. But Jeff, that was one thing you talked about.

You talked about it being a dark time as well. Kind of these two things, you know, the prioritization of the Church for revival and then set also alongside these dark times. So Scott and Jeff, this is the verse you've heard a thousand times on the subject, and it was actually given by God to Solomon to address what should the people of God do in dark times. It's 2 Chronicles 7.14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.

So that's the promise of God. Then if you go to 2 Kings 22, this is a long time later. Josiah has become king, and the book of the law has been lost, but it's found in the temple and it's brought to the king. When he hears the words, he recognizes how far the people have fallen from what pleases God. And he tears his – he rends his robes and cries out to God.

And In response to that, God delays the judgment past Josiah's lifetime, and he actually gives him a very remarkable revival. So in 2 Chronicles 7, we hear the promise of God, if you'll humble yourself, if you'll pray, if you'll repent, I'll come, I'll heal your land. And we see one of the fulfillments of that promise in 2 Kings 22, where you get this remarkable revival from a people who have lost all contact with the Word of God. It has to be found in the temple, sort of stumbled on in the temple, brought to the king. But when he hears the words and sees, oh, we're not serving God in this, in any semblance of this way, he rends his clothes and cries out to God, and God really answers those prayers.

Hey, I wanna just make a pause here, because I want us to keep talking about revival and prayer for revival and concerts of prayer, like Jonathan Edwards and other patterns of this. But Jeff, what you did is you called some of your other friends and said, do you think we could do this? Should we do this? And so many of our friends said, yes, let's do this. And so you created a website called globalprayerforrevival.com.

And so this is a call for revival in the first Tuesday and Wednesday in October to gather churches together. And so there's this place to sign up. I want to talk more about that later on. Maybe you could talk to us about it, but let's keep talking about sort of this need for prayer. That's what you were saying, this pattern for prayer that we find that when people do cry out to God and they ask for good things, God is a kind Father, you know, and He gives it to them.

And I think that was part of what you were saying. Like if all your children showed up and said, Father, please, we desire this good thing. You know, what father is going to say, no, and send them away. And I, but I was so taken by that idea And I thought about our whole church. Like tonight is our prayer meeting, our weekly prayer meeting at our church.

And I've been thinking about this all day. And I think I want to say that in our prayer meeting. You know, what if all of God's children in a local church said, God, please do this. What do you think God might do? That's so inspiring.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, I searched the scriptures after I talked to you and thinking through this, I began searching the scriptures. And Jason, you mentioned some of these Old Testament promises and it's like, what are the New Testament promises? What do we have, you know, from the New Testament that would give us encouragement to pray for revival? And of course, we could look at the word revival, and I did research on that, and script A is a biblical terminology.

There's a case for that. You can look at the Psalms, revive us. We can see that this is not a man-made concept, And there are times of revival and refreshing in the Old Testament. But the New Testament verse that I anchored my thoughts on and my hopes on is I need a promise. I need something that says, OK, this is a good thing to pray for.

It's in the revealed will of God that this is something God tells us to want. So we're not asking a mist in the sense that we're asking for physical prosperity or we're asking for selfish things to come our way. But what is it that God would want us to want? And this is within that general will of God. But where are the promises?

And one of the promises that's so important to me is what Jesus said, if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more? How much more? Or your Heavenly Father? Now, He's going to tell us what He's going to give us.

The Spirit will give you the Spirit if you ask. Now that is so loaded. One, it tells us that asking for the Spirit is good. Two, we do know we already have the Spirit, so I'm not going into the second blessing concept, and we already have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So what's this?

You get the Spirit, but you don't get it if you don't ask. If you ask, you get the Spirit. And it's implying we should ask. And God is going to give us this request. Like, I love the Bible verse in James, if you lack wisdom, let him ask God.

And he gives generously, you know, like, oh, okay, I lack wisdom. That's one thing I know I can ask and I can have faith to know that God's going to give me that that request. That's something he's already told me. So I can ask for wisdom every day. And that is something I believe he will give me.

And he's told me, he's promised me to. Well, he's promised to give us the Spirit. And so what is the Spirit? I was like, well, this is nothing more than revival. This is, the work of the revival is the Holy Spirit using the ordinary means in a extraordinary way, as like where the Spirit quickens and illuminates and convicts and encourages.

And so that's the work of the Spirit is so vital to the work of revival. So what is revival? It's just the work of the Spirit through the ordinary man. So let's, here's a verse that tells us that God is going to grant us that. So if we have this promise that we should ask for the Spirit and God's going to give us the Spirit, Well, I have the right to pray for revival.

I have the charge to pray for the Spirit. And how much more if the whole church is praying for that, much more if churches globally are unified in that. And it's to me, right now we have 16 countries, churches in 16 countries, the last I checked, that are signed up for this. And over 30 churches agreed at this point. And it's just got, to me, that's a victory in itself to see God's people praying.

And let's say that spans between now and then, it expands to hundreds of churches. That is kind of a such a revival in and of itself. Yeah, if getting local churches to pray for revival, what a wonderful thing to think about that happening, you know, all over the world. Also on this website, you have lots of resources and videos to help churches to know how to even have a corporate prayer meeting, how to engage that, and then like even a schedule, you posted a schedule, what you would do on Tuesday, and then how the day Wednesday, a day of fasting and prayer on Wednesday and then gathering together on Wednesday night for a corporate prayer meeting and breaking the fast sometime, you know, on that day. Any thoughts about this kind of at least proposed schedule that we've got out there?

Yeah, yeah. I remember you and I talked about this and we at our church have two times a year a special prayer meeting for the unconverted in our church family. And so we call a fast twice a year. And the fast begins around seven or eight, the night before. And we call for our families to use that time and family worship that night to come together and pray for the unconverted.

The unconverted in our families are probably the number one burden of Christians. As a pastor for 23 years, what is your number one desire, you know, outside of your own sanctification, is that the Lord has saved your children. I mean, that's what mothers and fathers, that's what breaks their heart. And I've never seen more passionate, fervent prayers in my life than when you get mothers and fathers, grandparents praying for the unconverted, or they have an unconverted brother or uncle or sister. I mean, this is something very passionate, very important to people.

And so we do that twice a year and then we fast and pray. And it's just a time that we have some form of faith that God's going to hear us. And it's encouraging to our church. And I believe God has blessed those seasons of prayer. And as this time of revival has kind of modeled off that, that why not typically churches do their prayer meetings on Wednesday nights.

So why not start Tuesday the day before, somewhere around seven or eight, six or seven or eight that evening, begin fasting, use that time for family worship to pray for revival The next full day on Wednesday, go to work if you need to go to work. But as your hunger pains remind you that you're hungry, use that as a clock to tell you, okay, that reminds me to pray. So just pray all day, come in small little groups if you can to pray for revival. And all that comes together in the corporate local church gatherings around the country to pray for revival that evening. And then after the prayer meeting, of course, the fastest finished.

And thinking of the thought that this will take place in the East, you know, they're ahead of us, and they'll be praying. And as the sun moves around for 24 hours, that prayer just keeps moving around the globe. To me, that's going to be something encouraging to think, okay, our church is praying, but it's not just ours. It's churches around this country and around this world are joining us and we're joining them. That's going to be something I think it's going to be encouraging.

And then I think more than it's just going to be encouraging to the Saints, I think God himself will take heed to the prayers of his people, especially if this is not a gimmick. We're not trying to make it into some show or anything. And it's just true, sincere, a heart of contrition, a heart of faith, looking to our Master, looking to our God to work in such a desperate, such desperate times that we live in. So go to globalprayerforrevival.com. That's where you can find the resources, the schedule, the various suggestions, you know, hear, you know, some short clips of men that bring some kinds of instruction and encouragement for the prayers.

And so the first Tuesday and Wednesday of October of this year is when we're just encouraging people to do that. But Jeff, I'm just so thankful for the phone call that I got at an untimely hour, but I'll always answer the phone for you, okay, just so you know. But I appreciated, I actually very much appreciated a brother who would say, let's pray, let's encourage our other brethren to pray, to, and I just, to me, how could we not do that, you know, when a friend asks you to do that? So there you go, I pray God really uses it, and all around the world, churches, local churches, maybe would even be internally revived. People might be saved.

You know, in some of the awakenings in history, the prayer meetings were the places where people were being saved in some of the Scottish revivals. Yeah, I talked to Joe Beeken about this and he was telling me, he's like all the, he studied revival for over two years. They did this documentary on revival and he did a deep dive on it. He says the revivals throughout history always begun historically with a prayer meeting. And so there was a call from the Spirit to pray.

I mean, I believe that even the prayer meeting is somewhat of a work of the Holy Spirit. There's nothing that we can do in the flesh. It's of any value. So If there's a burden to pray, that burden comes not from within, it comes from the Spirit. And so may the Lord put a burden on us to pray.

And even that is a testimony that God's at work. I mean, worst thing we could do is to be unconcerned, to be satisfied with the status quo of the church and of the culture and say, Lord, this is okay. No, this should grieve us. If it grieved a lot, how much more should we be grieved? We live in Sodom and Gomorrah around the world.

And so we should be grieved, we should be burdened, and then we should take that burden to the Lord. And the thing I'm struggling with personally as a believer, as a Christian, is these promises that God gives us in scriptures that say, when you pray, believe, and you have received it. Believe that you have received it. That sounds charismatic to some of us. Believe that you've received it, and it'll be done unto you.

It's like, without faith, it's impossible to please God. So let's pray with some faith that God's going to hear us, that God's going to work. And so I'm convinced if it's just us three praying and no one else shows up. Just Jason Scott and Jeff Johnson. We three say, hey, we will be there to pray.

I don't know. And we haven't been given a divine word or special word in the ear from the Holy Spirit, this is what God's going to do. We don't know. But I am convinced that there's no ineffectual, sincere prayer. God's going to hear us.

What that looks like, it's in his hands, his sovereign. He can do as he pleases. That's fine. We'll leave the results into his hands. We don't have to have some pre-programmed idea of what success looks like here.

But I'm convinced that if I'm praying for something God wants me to pray for, And he's pleased for me to ask. And that he's going to hear me. And he's going to hear us three. He's going to hear the churches. And he's going to use that to extend his kingdom.

Because we know he's still at work. And if he wasn't still at work, he would come back. He would return. He would end in the process that I'm done. But as long as he's not physically returned yet, our job is to still work and our work is to pray and to preach and to carry on the work of the ministry.

And a big part of that is our prayer life. So I'm convinced in my mind that this effort, this effort, so feeble as it may be, is gonna have eternal fruit of some kind. So I'm thankful to partner with you guys and appreciate, you know, the any desire we can to kind of get this out with the technology that we have today, get it out as far as possible to call God's people everywhere to join us. Amen. A whole bunch of guys are joined in on this.

Paul Washer, Hansworth Jonas, Josh Byst, Jill Beakey, Paolo Jr., Jorge Rodriguez, Tom Askel, and you know, at least these brothers will be gathering, you know, their churches together, and there'll be a lot more. So go to globalprayerforrevival.com, and check it out, Sign up, sign up your church, sign up as an individual, and let's just gather together in prayer. I wanna do another podcast maybe next time on just the mechanics of a prayer meeting and things like that, I'd like to do that. At least Jason and I can do it. Jeff, I'm gonna invite you and see if you can, and join us on that, we'll see if your schedule works.

And if it doesn't, I'm gonna call you in the middle of the night and beg you. I'll do it. Pay you back for your call from Kenya. I owe you. Yeah, I owe you.

We love you, Jeff. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for taking my phone call. I'm really glad I did.

And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast and we really hope to see you next time. Church and Family Life is proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture by helping build strong families and strong churches. If you found this resource helpful, we encourage you to check out churchandfamilylife.com