Fulton Street Revival: The Man Who Prayed Alone

Noon on a Wednesday in 1857, in a third-floor room above an old church in lower Manhattan, a forty-eight-year-old man sat down by himself to pray. For thirty minutes, nobody came. Then footsteps on the stairs. Then five more men. Within a year, ten thousand New Yorkers were praying every day, and close to a million Americans came to faith in eighteen months.

This is the story of Jeremiah Lanphier and the Fulton Street Prayer Revival. A failed businessman, no platform, no following, just a faithful half hour in an empty room. A five-minute reminder that heaven is not waiting on the crowd, heaven is waiting on the one who will show up at twelve-twenty-nine when nothing seems to be happening.

"For who has despised the day of small things?", Zechariah 4:10

Do not despise your small beginning today. Heaven was waiting on him. Heaven may be waiting on you.

And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.

- Pastor Rodney Coe

Transcript

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Noon. September twenty third, eighteen fifty seven, a forty eight-year-old man climbs the creaking stairs to a third floor room in an old church in Lower Manhattan. For three months he had printed handbills and walked into every shop and boarding house in the district, inviting working men to come and pray for one hour. He set out the chairs, he sat down, and he waited. Twelve oh five, nobody. Twelve ten nobody. Twelve twenty, and the room was still empty. So Jeremiah Lanfear bowed his head and began to pray by himself. For thirty minutes he prayed into the silence of an empty room. Hang with me. This one's going somewhere you won't expect. Welcome to Lift Up Your Day, a daily five-minute devotional, short stories with a biblical heartbeat. I'm Rodney Coe, and today one discouraged man, one empty room, and the half hour that helped change a nation. Jeremia Lanfear was not a preacher. He was a businessman whose business had failed, hired by the North Dutch Reformed Church to be a missionary to the immigrants and laborers in a hard part of New York City. In 1857, America was a discouraged place. Banks were shaky and the newspapers were full of talk of war over slavery. The churches downtown were emptying out. Lanfear tried everything he knew to reach people and nothing seemed to work. So he settled on the one thing he had left prayer. He announced a noon prayer meeting, come for five minutes or the whole hour, the handbill said. As your time allows, on that first Wednesday he climbed the stairs and found the empty room. He could have locked a door and called the whole idea foolish. Instead, he knelt and prayed. Then at half past twelve footsteps. One man came in and knelt down beside him. Before the hour was over, four more had joined them. Six men in an upstairs room of what have looked like nothing at all. The next Wednesday twenty came. Then the next week forty. They decided to meet every single day. Then in October the banks crashed. The panic of eighteen fifty seven swept the country, and frightened men who had trusted in money went looking for God. The little prayer meeting could not hold them. A second room opened, then a third. Soon a theater, the seated three thousand, was packed at noon, and ten thousand men were praying daily across the city. And it did not stay in New York. The fire ran up and down the country. In town after town, shops closed at midday so workers could pray. Reports came back of whole communities swept in, of places where almost no one was left who had not turned to Christ. In about eighteen months, by the best estimates, close to a million Americans came to know Jesus. From one man in an empty room, a man who waited 30 minutes before he might have given up. Here's what I want you to hear today. Heaven was not waiting on a crowd. Heaven was waiting on a man who would show up and pray when nobody clapped, nobody noticed, and nothing seemed to be happening. The prophet Zechariah asks a question for every discouraged servant of God, for who has despised the day of small things? Do not despise your small beginning, the empty room, the class of three, the prayer that nobody hears but God. You cannot see what the Lord is about to do with your faithful half hour. Jeremiah Lamfear could not see it either, so do not quit at twelve twenty-nine. The first man may be walking up the stairs right now. And that, friends, is how God lives up your day.