By T.M. Anderson
A few weeks after I had made the covenant of prayer with the Savior, I learned that several students in Asbury College were praying for a revival.
Some of these earnest souls prayed all night; and others joined them in prayer after midnight. On February the twenty-third, 1950, during the morning service in the chapel, the great revival began. It continued with great power day and night more than a week. The news of it spread all over the Nation, and into some foreign countries. People came hundreds of miles to attend some of the services. It is a conservative estimate to say that at least five thousand persons were directly influenced in spiritual living by this wonderful visitation from God.
The morning that the revival started my soul was aflame with a desire to see a manifestation of God's saving power. It was impossible to contain the surging passion of my heart any longer. With the permission of the Dean, I exhorted the students to seek the Lord; for I believed it was God's time to answer the prayers of His people, and give us a great revival. At that moment the Holy Ghost moved upon the entire student body with deep conviction. In all the years of my ministry in the field of evangelism, I have never witnessed any revival to compare with this marvelous visitation from the Savior. It was a revival born in the hours of agonizing prayer when a faithful few sacrificed sleep to be alone with God.
The small part that I may have contributed to this spontaneous revival was a direct result of intercessory prayer. In a morning in late January, preceding the gracious manifestation of God, I was praying and worshipping before the Lord. My soul was in great agony of intercession. It seemed that my body was being crushed under the burden of prayer for the salvation of the lost. My pain of spirit was exceeding severe, and my heart was broken with sorrow for the unsaved, and my tears streamed down my face. I began to confess the sins of the world to the Savior like they were my own sins.
My travail of soul continued for about thirty minutes; and I knew that in some peculiar way I had entered into the sufferings of Jesus, and was sharing His supplication with strong crying and tears. I obtained the assurance that He had heard my petition.
From that hour it has been my sincere belief that a revival will come to this benighted world if the people of God will deny themselves of food and sleep, and will agonize in prayer with the Savior. Is it possible that we are too indolent and indifferent to feel the deep concern over the lost that our Lord felt when He saw the multitudes going astray like lost sheep? Can it be true that we are too sleepy to watch with Him a few hours in the Gethsemane of prevailing prayer?
