Availing Prayer

With a heart throbbing for lost souls and the upbuilding of God's great cause and kingdom here on earth, we have undertaken this work.

A world‑wide revival is needed. The church needs a revival. Local congregations need reviving. The one great need of the hour is that every individual member of Christ's body come to realize the necessity of revival till the whole soul and heart and mind and strength cry unto God, "And begin it in me."

For months the author has personally felt this crying need till his very soul longs intensely for more of God and more of God's power and nearness and blessings and presence. It is gratifying to feel the revival waves surging in one's very being and to know the fires are already kindled in many hearts, but to the end thousands may be stirred and revived and enlivened with holy zeal and enthusiasm and with a hope and a prayer many thousands of others may be swept to "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," we undertake this work.

Realizing that a revival cannot come but through prayer, and that prevailing prayer is hastened and fired by the Holy Spirit, and that true revival effort must be accompanied with and based on the blessed and inspired Word of God, we have attempted to give each of these particular phases a rightful place.

The writer is not claiming originality for all the various thoughts of this volume and desires humbly to acknowledge the great help of the book, "Prevailing Prayer" by Weigle, together with the writings gleaned here and there of various other authors during past years.

We send this book forth with no apologies but the blood of Christ shed on the cross of Calvary that none "should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (II Pet. 3:9); with a prayer on our lips that mighty, flaming revival fires may be kindled in every nation under heaven, in every cold, dead, informal church, in every indifferent local congregation, and in the hearts of thousands of individuals, to the extent the end may be "the gospel to every creature," to every town, to every city, "to every nation" in "all the world."

Yours in Christ,

—Fay C. Martin