One man dared extend an invitation to pray at noon each day. Three weeks later the Panic/Crash of 1857 happened. And Americans RAN to prayer….
For the last few years, Dutch Sheets has led our nation in the Give Him 15 prayer movement with a fifteen-minute inspirational devotion followed by a corporate prayer and decree to see America saved and hearts turned back to Him. Approximately 200,000 people join this corporate daily devotion & prayer.
I want to challenge us to go a step further.
We know God hears our prayers. The Remnant is praying and growing—and yet our nation still desperately needs revival. Our schools have become cesspools of liberalism, our young people’s hearts turned far from Him, our churches have become irrelevant to many and our government corrupt. Our nation cannot transform unless hearts are transformed.
We need revival.
America in 1857 was not so different than America now.
At that time, the United States was in spiritual, political, and economic decline. Recession was looming and racial tension was high after the passing of the infamous Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court that same year which denied freedom and citizenship to those of African American descent. Civil war seemed imminent.
Additionally, people had become disillusioned with the Church after prophets and pastors had predicted the end of the world by the 1840’s. Hopelessness and lack of trust had set in.
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Forty-eight year old Jeremiah Lanphier, like many, had grown disillusioned. He had been hired by the church to meet with members who had left to regrow their attendance. Despite his best efforts, Lanphier was unsuccessful and unable to encourage people to return to church.
Discouragement began to set in. In order to keep going, Lanphier set aside an hour each day at noon to pray and encourage himself in the Lord before heading out for the 2nd part of his day.
He learned one thing in that challenging season.
It was his noon-time prayer that sustained him and gave him the strength to keep going.
Lanphier recognized if prayer had the ability to strengthen him that way, perhaps others would benefit as well. He decided to step out in faith and rent a room. He then had 20,000 flyers printed and invited others to join him for prayer. On September 23, 1857 in Manhattan, New York, Lanphier showed up for the advertised noon-time prayer—but found himself alone.
Undaunted he knelt to pray. By 12:30 p.m. he had been joined by another man–and then another. By 1:00 p.m. a total of six men had come to that first noon-time prayer meeting to pray for America and cry out to God for mercy.
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Word spread. The prayer meeting grew to sixteen after the first week, then forty and then one hundred.
The timing of the prayer meeting was providential as approximately three weeks later the Panic of 1857 hit and the recession that had already begun turned into full collapse. Banks failed, businesses closed and bankruptcies skyrocketed.
Overnight the noon-time prayer that had begun in Manhattan spread across the nation with prayer meetings popping up in Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland and numerous other cities. Even the YMCA opened its doors for prayer in its branches across the U.S.
The crisis brought America to her knees.
Where before Lanphier couldn’t get church members to return to church, now people all across the nation flocked to churches that began to open their doors not only for noon-day prayer but evening prayer meetings as well.
The result was labeled America’s Third Great Awakening. Hearts were transformed as people began to inquire how they might be saved.
It is said that as many as a million people were converted or renewed in the revival that followed.
Churches that had been dying filled anew with worshipers. The revival spread around the world, primarily in regions occupied or influenced by the British Empire but also on the European continent.
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Could we see prayer launch such a revival again?
Now 165 years later, we find our nation in a very similar situation. America is already in a recession facing ongoing economic decline and potential famine from the disastrous policies and actions of our present government.
Trust in our leadership is at an all-time low and many have never returned to church after the COVID shutdowns. Do you wonder, as I do, what will it take to once again bring us to our knees to cry out to God for mercy—for revival?
If revival prayer stirred and sustained our nation back then, can it do so again?
Will you join me and set your alarm for noon each day? Can you give Him 15?
Perhaps 30 minutes or an hour of each day at noon to pray? This is the prayer challenge—that I hope you will accept.
America is in crisis. The world is in crisis. And there is only One who can truly save us from this spiritual, political and economic decline. Let’s give Him 15.
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Father, You said, “If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from Heaven and heal their land.” Lord our land, America and its people desperately need You. We need to be healed. Our land needs to be healed. It is groaning with the sin and corruption of that has been allowed and the blood of the innocents cries up from the ground as did Abel’s. We cannot go on as we have.
And so we humble ourselves before You and call upon You now in our time of desperation and need. This is not only about the election—although we continue to ask you to intervene against the corruption that we have already seen, which they continue to deny and which has not been eradicated.
We need you to show up not only in our election, but for an outpouring of Your Spirit to transform hearts and transform our nation. We repent for the moral depravity, corruption and passivity that we have allowed into our hearts, churches, government and nation. We kneel before You and repent. Cleanse our hearts and cleanse our land.
We know that You are a God of justice and that even Sodom and Gomorrah could point their finger at our nation for the sin that has been not only allowed, but legalized and promoted. We know without a miracle America will not survive and yet Your Remnant continues to cry out to you to save our land. We cry REVIVAL!
Do not leave us or forsake us Lord. Draw us back to You and pour out Your Spirit upon this nation and the world for we are in desperate need of You. Save us as we cry out to You.
Our Decree:
Father, we decree that You are Lord over America. We were founded on godly principles but have strayed so far from our foundations. We declare revival is coming and hearts and voices are returning to You. We humble ourselves before You. We decree that as we have prayed, You are healing our land, our government, our schools, our churches. We declare we will see revival once again sweep our nation and that America will be saved.
Will you join us for this prayer challenge?
I encourage you to set an alarm for noon each day to pray. For some it may be for 15 minutes. For others, you can pray an hour. My friend, Kim Potter, felt led to pray three times a day, evening, morning and noon. Why at that time in that order? Click here to read what the Lord spoke to her. Can we see revival as they did in 1857? I know we can.
2 Chron 7:14, Romans 8:22, Gen 4:10, Ez 36:25, Luke 18:7
