“The seed of gospel must be watered by the tears of intercessory prayers,” stated the chairman of the National Day of Prayer committee at the annual conference of a Chinese church. God will bring about the greatest gospel revival in history in China, he added, but this can only be fulfilled if a prayer movement begins in China.
Rev. Dick Eastman, CEO of Every Home for Christ, spoke on the topic of “Prayer and the Power of Co-working with God” at the North America Bread of Life Conference held late last month. He has been responsible in the coordination of the NDOP held each May in United States and has been invited to meet with the U.S. president at the White House.
As one of the earliest pioneers of the 24/7 prayer movement, he has traveled around the world speaking on the topic of prayers, which has inspired countless number of people to pray for world missions and to devote in evangelism. His ministry has handed out 260 million gospel tracts in 198 countries and received 65 million decision cards in return.
In his many years of service in missions, Eastman saw God’s amazing work in bringing different ethnic people groups to believe in Jesus, which he believes are directly related to the countless prayers of the prayer warriors.
Prior to the establishment of Every Home for Christ, he heard God telling him that “his ministry will lead millions of souls to Christ”. At first, he didn’t quite understand. He thought that is God saying that he will become a great evangelist like Billy Graham, since his wife served in Billy Graham Evangelistic Association – it is impossible.
After several decades have passed, he looked back and then realized that God’s promise has been fulfilled in his life – God has initiated many gospel evangelistic works all around the world through the prayer movement that he started.
Meanwhile, God is leading China, among the many Asian countries, through a spiritual revival. Eastman said that he has a deep burden for the gospel ministries of China and he deeply believes that God will greatly raises up the Chinese, using them to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth. He urged that in order to fulfill such a great spiritual revival, then a great prayer movement must begin in China.
Referring to Isaiah 62:6-7, Eastman said that God has called us to do a prayer movement relevant to spreading the gospel and that every person should become a watchman. Whether you are a pastor, teacher, or hold other professions, “everyone can pray, we should never say that others can pray for us.”
He reminded everyone that in the aspects of prayers numerous churches and leaders are asleep, and they do not see the power of prayers in propagating evangelism and missions; prayer is a part of the battle, and battle and keeping watch is inseparable.
Illustrating his point, he spoke of the lessons that he learned from his spiritual senior George Muller from Britain in the aspects of prayer. Muller clearly knew that during his lifelong service there are 50,000 prayer topics that were answered; according to this figure, then Muller must have at least received 12 answered prayers.
“Unless you pray a lot each day, then it is impossible to receive 12 answered prayers,” he said.
When Muller was old in age, someone asked, “Was there any prayer request that has not been answered?”
“Never.” He replied, “But I have prayed for this person’s child for 52 years, still that person hasn’t believe, yet I believe he will believe in the Lord in the future.” Just before Muller passed away, this person placed his faith in Christ.
Eastman said that Muller wrote in his journal that the key to prayers is the Bible, praying according to the promise of the Bible, “I didn’t pray for anything else, other than the prayers sought upon God’s word as the foundation.” When we pray with this kind of heart, then God will never let down our prayers.
He urged for more people to join the 24/7 prayer movement, especially for the initiation of many of such kind of prayer centers in China, praying for China’s spiritual revival and the revelation of God’s amazing works.
[Editor's note: reporter Luke Leung translated this article.]
