1. A Church Without Tears
There was a time when prayer shook nations.
There was a time when men wept between the porch and the altar, when altars were stained with tears, and the heavens were open over kneeling saints.
But something dreadful has happened to us.
Prayer — the sacred breath of the Church — has become a schedule, a performance, a “segment” before announcements. What was once our power has become our program.
We talk about prayer, we read books on prayer, we hold seminars on prayer — but who still prays until the burden lifts, until the heavens move, until souls are born?
2. When Fire Became Formality
Once the saints prayed as though eternity depended on it — because it did.
Now we pray to begin a meeting, not to move the mountain.
The early Church prayed and shook the place where they stood (Acts 4:31). We pray and check the time. They prayed until chains fell off and prison doors opened; we pray until the service ends.
Our lips move, but our hearts are still. The devil fears our programs, but he trembles at our prayers.
3. The Difference Between Noise and Groaning
There is a kind of prayer heaven ignores — the shallow recital, the polished tone, the prayer uttered without heart or hunger. God listens not to words, but to weight.
As the Puritan Thomas Watson wrote, “Prayer is the soul’s breath; if it ceases, we die.”
But today, we breathe scarcely at all. We are alive in activity, but dead in agony.
When true prayer dies, revival dies with it. When prayer becomes polite, power departs.
4. The Price of Power
God has never entrusted His power to those who do not pray. The upper room was not a stage but a furnace. Before Pentecost came prayer.
Before the fire came the waiting. Before the harvest came the travail.
We have replaced the travail of the Spirit with the tempo of a schedule. We organize better than we agonize. We fill our calendars but empty our closets.
Leonard Ravenhill once said,
“No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying.”
5. The Need for a Broken Altar
If prayer has become a program, then the altar must be rebuilt.
We must return to secret places, to long nights, to broken hearts that cry, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
The Church does not need new methods — it needs old knees.
The revival we seek will not come through conferences, but through confession.
We will not see fire on the platform until there is fire in the prayer room.
The Holy Ghost does not fall on dignified flesh; He falls on desperate souls.
6. When Heaven Bows to Earth
There is still hope — when men begin to pray again.
When prayer ceases to be a program and becomes a passion, heaven bends low.
When saints pray as though souls depended on it, the Spirit returns in power.
When we pray until tears replace talk, when we pray until heaven answers — then we will know once more what it means to be the house of prayer.
7. A Prayer for the Returning Fire
O Lord, forgive us for praying without heart.
Break our pride, burn our apathy, and teach us to weep again.
Make Your Church a furnace of intercession and a place of power.
Let the fire of prayer consume every idol of formality.
Restore the cry of the early saints — until the world knows again that You are God. Amen.
