The Third Great Awakening

By the late 1850s, it was clear that our nation was heading into a Civil War. One writer had this to say about the time period “Stripped of their self-dependence, and in despair, men again found time to think on their need of God.” It was during the year of 1857 that one man in particular was moved to take action. Jeremiah Lanphier, a missionary from New York City, began inviting families to join him in prayer for revival. He widely advertised the prayer meetings for noon at the Fulton Street North Dutch Church. At the scheduled time, he was the only one there. He began to pray and soon several other people joined him. They agreed to have a prayer meeting each week. By the third week they had over forty people at the prayer meeting. At that point they agreed to meet daily at noon for prayer. Within four months the Church was overflowing with those desiring to pray for their need of revival. By the Spring of 1858, over twenty other Churches were conducting prayer meetings all over the New York City area. The Prayer meetings spread to Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, and many other cities throughout the Northeastern United States. The major feature of all of these prayer meetings was prayer, although usually one of the layman read a passage of Scripture. Some historians have estimated that as many as half a million people were saved as a result of the Prayer meeting revivals. The story does not end there. In several countries in Europe, most notably Wales, they had been praying for years for revival. When news of the Prayer meeting revival reached Europe, it encouraged the Spiritual leaders to pray even more earnestly. The Welsh revival was one of the most powerful displays of Holy Spirit revival in Church history. Think about it, all of this was brought on by one man with a burden to pray for God’s Holy Spirit to bring men and woman back to Himself.
The Southern states also experienced revival, but it came in a completely different way. Most of the Southern revival was led by two of their greatest military leaders, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. Under the leadership of these two men, many Confederate soldiers were brought to Christ As soldiers saw the reality of Christ in their leadership, it caused many of them to turn to Christ during the Civil war. Southern historians estimate that as many as 100,000 Confederate soldiers were converted during the course of the war. The Southern revival combined with the prayer meeting revivals in the North, are often referred to as the third Great Awakening. God knew that America needed to be Spiritually strong in order to survive the horrors of a Civil War. Praise God for Godly leaders that saw the need for prayer and Spiritual power during these dark days of our nation’s history.