David Eddy explains in this video that by and large, many churches have neglected prayer. Because God is the one who gives repentance, we must cry out to God and He will bless those seek Him. In history, we see that when God's people pray, change happens. It's always been an act of God that changes things.

It seems like the prelude to Reformation is always an emphasis on prayer. And I believe that the church by and large has lost their ability to pray. And I think that that's something that happened through the Middle Ages, where they were just reciting in Latin, things that had been written hundreds and hundreds of years before, and they're just going through the road. And so they've got little monasteries where those people pray while we live our life. I mean, how messed up is that for the church?

And yet when people come to the Lord in prayer, because God is the one who gives repentance, because God is the one who gives repentance, He's the one we need to ask. So often we say, what do we need to do different? Well, we don't do anything different. And you look at the times of great reformation and probably as we look in our own life to the times of great repentance, it's always just been an act of God, a free grace act of God Almighty who changes things. Well, if we want to prepare that, there's no conference that we can do, there's no 12-point process that we can come up with, there's no Bible study book that we can write.

We have to pray, and God will bless when his people pray. And in history what you see so often is when God's people pray, change happens. I love one of the things that Spurgeon said, and he's one of my favorites, that when people ask about, you know, how can you believe in a completely sovereign God and also pray? He said, prayer is, why wouldn't we expect God's people to be part of the process when God does things? And how he saw prayer, and he saw this in his own life greatly.

He was a person that was moved to make a huge difference in England and in all English-speaking countries and many other countries as a result of his ministry. But he said to prayer to him was as natural as when a big wave comes in first the tide goes out to a further point and then the big wave comes in. And in his experience, you can't control it. And you try to get people to pray and you have your prayer meeting and the prayer meetings are three old ladies and the pastor, and maybe a couple that just got married and they're really, their hearts on fire for the Lord, but you got this little tiny group and you look at the whole church and you go, why is no one else wanting to pray? But then suddenly everybody shows up and this was Spurgeon's, his own experience and I would love to see us in the American church today experience that same thing where we're like, what's going on?

Everybody is praying. It's just like suddenly God's people have the heart to pray. You know, kind of like when you're out in the lightning storm, the hair stands up on end. You know, it's like get on the ground because the particles are right for a lightning strike.