“One hundred fifty years ago Jeremiah Lanphier was a city missionary supported by the local churches of New York City. His calling was to evangelize the sinners of the city. He became so burdened for his mission field and so concerned over their lack of response that he invited the businessmen of the city to meet weekly for prayer. They met to pray for the lost and for revival to be sent from God. Only half a dozen men came to the first meeting.
Very soon the numbers grew until they needed more than one church to pray in. The prayer meetings soon spread to other cities in the USA and overseas. Some have suggested that the revivals which followed the 1859 Welsh Revival Moody’s preaching were the outgrowth of those prayer meetings in New York City.
In the recent Global Financial Crisis there were businessmen praying again in New York City. The pain in their pocketbooks brought it on. I wonder which god they prayed to? And what did they pray about? Did they pray to the Eternal God whose Son poured out His blood upon the cross to ransom lost men from an eternal Hell? Did they pray that precious souls would turn from their idols to Christ? Or did they pray to Mammon to restore the fortunes they gambled and lost? Were the prayer meetings led by broken and contrite sinners who sought Eternal Life from the Life Giver? Or were they led by bankrupt Midases who grieved over treasures laid up on earth, treasures stolen by thieves in high places, treasures so quickly moth-eaten and cankered?
Israel’s worship became so polluted with idolatry that they prayed to Baal in the name of Jehovah. Today men all over the world pray to Mammon in the name of Jesus. If they were to pray to the god they really worship they would cry, ‘Oh Mammon, hear us!!!’
No wonder the heavens are silent.
Now again, in 2011, we see the world teetering on the brink of financial disaster. It will come as no surprise if the worshippers of Mammon call out again to their priests on Wall Street to intercede for them lest they lose all the idols they bought on credit.
“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).
Kent Treadwell
A Texan in Australia
A Texan in Australia
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