David Yonggi Cho PRAYER THAT BRINGS REVIVAL by David Yonggi Cho with R. Whitney Manzano Published by Creation House Strang Communications Company 600 Rinehart Road Lake Mary, FL 32746 Web site: http://www.creationhouse.com This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980,1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., publishers. Used by permission. Copyright © 1998 by David [Paul] Yonggi Cho All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cho, David Yonggi, 1936- Prayer that brings revival / David Yonggi Cho. p. cm. Rev. ed. of: Prayer, key to revival. ISBN: 0-88419-580-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Prayer—Christianity. 2. Church renewal. I. Cho, Yonggi 1936- Prayer, key to revival. U. Title. BV215.C54 1998 248.3'2—dc21 98-44139 CIP This book was previously published as Prayer: Key to Revival, Copyright © 1984, by Word, Inc., ISBN 0-8499-0453-6 9012345 BBG 8765432 Printed in the United States of America IF MY PEOPLE, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. ·································· —2 CHRONICLES 7:14 CONTENTS Introduction...................................................................... ix Preface: The Life of Prayer............................................ xix PART I: MOTIVATING CHRISTIANS TO PRAY 1 What Prayer Accomplishes.............................................. 31 2 Prayer and the Holy Spirit................................................ 51 3 Your Personal Response to Prayer................................... 63 PART II: THE THREE TYPES OF PRAYER 4 Prayer is Petition.............................................................. 73 5 Prayer Is Devotion........................................................... 83 6 Prayer Is Intercession....................................................... 89 PART III: THE FORMS OF PRAYER 7 Your Personal Devotional Life...................................... 105 8 Your Family Devotions.................................................. 109 9 Prayer in the Church Service.......................................... 113 10 Prayer in the Cell Meeting............................................. 115 11 Prayer at Prayer Mountain............................................. 121 12 All-Night Prayer Meetings............................................. 125 13 Fasting and Prayer......................................................... 127 14 Waiting on the Lord....................................................... 141 PART IV: METHODS OF PRAYING 15 Developing Persistence in Prayer................................... 149 16 Praying in the Holy Spirit.............................................. 155 17 The Prayer of Faith........................................................ 161 18 Listening to God's Voice................................................ 169 19 The Importance of Group Prayer................................... 177 PART V: POWERFUL PRAYER IS BASED ON THE BLOOD COVENANT IN CHRIST JESUS 20 Powerful Prayer............................................................. 185 Conclusion: Get Ready to Be Used................................ 193 Notes.............................................................................. 197 INTRODUCTION OIDO FULL GOSPEL Church, the church I pastor in YSeoul, Korea, with its 750,000 members, is the world's largest church. Every month as many as seven hundred new converts are being saved from Buddhism, secularism, and nominal Christian backgrounds. How could a church grow this large? Is it possible for other countries to have this kind of revival? I am convinced that renewal is possible anywhere people dedicate themselves to prayer. It is because I believe in revival and renewal that I have written this book. It has been historically true that prayer has been the key to every revival in the history of Christianity. Before the church was born on the Day of Pentecost, Luke wrote, "And [the disciples] were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God" (Luke 24:53). In the Book of Acts, Luke further amplifies what the disciples were doing: "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication" (Acts 1:14). The church was born when the Holy Spirit descended during a time of concentrated prayer. Before the missionary era of the church began, the Holy Spirit revealed to the leaders gathered in Antioch that they should send Barnabas and Saul. Yet, the Holy Spirit only spoke after they had fasted and prayed. ix PRAYER THAT BRINGS REVIVAL Throughout every move of the Spirit upon the church since its birth, revival has been preceded by prayer. The Reformation was born after Martin Luther locked himself in a room within the tower of the Black Monastery at Wittenberg for a season of prayer and intense study of the Word. John and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield spent hours in prayer and fasting and, as a result, the worldwide Methodist revival was born. As the twentieth century rolled in, God responded to the prayers of many men and women of God who were committed to prayer and fasting for revival, and the Holy Spirit fell as in the second chapter of the Book of Acts—and Pentecost-alism was born. Now, we are at the dawning of a new century. A new outpouring of the Holy Spirit is desperately needed. At no time in the history of the modern world has there been such an outpouring of satanic influence as there is today. The bottom of the pit of hell is belching out its filth in murder, rape, pornography, lawlessness, and violence. Just as the preaching of the Wesleys kept Britain from following France in revolution in the eighteenth century, so too a new outbreak of revival can bring about the social and political changes necessary to keep us from international destruction and calamity. What will bring about the revival that can lead the world away from the brink of total destruction and annihilation? The answer is a new call to prayer! In 1991, after a season of intense prayer and fasting, a prophetic vision began to unfold before my eyes. God began to speak to me about a sweeping revival that would finally come to the United States, a nation that seemed to have been bypassed as God's Spirit flowed throughout other parts of the world. At the Holy Spirit's prompting, I pulled out a map of x INTRODUCTION America and allowed the Spirit to guide my hand to the area where this revival would break out. My finger rested on Pensacola, a Florida panhandle city hardly associated with spiritual fervor. In fact, the city was known to the homosexual community as the "gay Riviera." A seven- mile stretch of beach on the Gulf of Mexico just east of the city attracted thousands of homosexuals and lesbians over the Memorial Day weekend every year, and the homosexual population reached as high as fifty thousand. Pensacola was definitely one place to be if you were gay. It was also the place to be if you wanted an abortion. At one time, the city was home to three abortion clinics. Three clinic bombings on Christmas Eve of 1984 had put Pensacola on the map; within three years of my vision, the murders of three clinic workers had drawn worldwide attention to the city of fifty-eight thousand people. On that night in 1991, I believed I had heard the voice of the Lord loud and clear: "I am going to send revival to the seaside city of Pensacola, and it will spread like a fire until all of America has been consumed by it." Word spread across the country about the coming revival. In no time, it reached the ears of John Kilpatrick, pastor of Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola. Here is the account of what happened next.1 Years earlier, Pastor Kilpatrick had spent an extended time in prayer about the direction the church's Sunday night services should take. During that time, the Lord prompted him to turn to Matthew 21:13, which reads, "My house shall be called a house of prayer" (NKJV). In 1988 Pastor Kilpatrick shifted the focus of his life to prayer. That began a special and intimate journey with God, as the Lord taught John Kilpatrick deeper and deeper lessons about the nature of prayer. He began to incorporate fasting into his prayer routine as well, further xi PRAYER THAT BRINGS REVIVAL deepening the well of wisdom God was forming in his spirit. All through the early nineties, Kilpatrick led his church in a growing awakening into the power of prayer. By 1993 regular, systematic prayer was firmly entrenched in the congregation's worship routine. Once word of my prophecy reached Kilpatrick, he and the leadership of Brownsville Assembly set aside Sunday nights exclusively for prayer for revival. For nearly three years they prayed. They prayed for the lost, for political leaders, church leaders, denominational leaders, and school officials. Brownsville's road to revival was under construction. Also "under construction" were the church's prayer banners—another evidence of this congregation's knack for bringing abstract concepts to life. As a continual reminder of the prayer needs of the church and the community, church members created a dozen different