We're living through a crisis like we've never seen before, and Nancy DeMas Walgamuth reminds us,

it's a time of great opportunity. I believe God is wanting to use the dramatic events of the last

few months to cause us to realize how desperately we need the Lord. Any faith we may have had in our

government or in political parties has long since disappeared.

And in this time of fear and uncertainty, I'm asking the Lord to use all of these events to draw

people's hearts to himself. This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Walgamoo,

author of Brokenness, The Heart God Revives.

For March 30, 2020, I'm Dana Gresh.

When our nation and our world faces a crisis, the people of God are given an amazing opportunity.

We can show the world the power of prayer.

We're going to explore that today by listening to the story of the 1857 prayer revival.

We brought you this story before on Revive Our Hearts, but as we watched the world get turned

upside down over the last few weeks, our team realized this story would take on a whole new resonance

and we wanted to play it for you again. I think it will inspire you to pray. It shows us that God

can use regular people in powerful ways when they cry out to the Lord. Let me set the

stage. In 1857, the economy was humming and people were making money, thinking the prosperity

would last a long time. Just like early 2020, the stock market was booming back in the early

part of 1857.

But all of us have just seen how our expectations for the future can be shattered in a matter of weeks.

In 1857, there was no coronavirus, but there was a severe economic downturn and a stock market crash.

There was a financial panic that began in the Philadelphia banks on September 25, 26.

This is historian Lyle Dorset.

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