A Last Prayer

Del Fehnsenfeld, Jr. loved Jesus. He gave His life to pointing others to Him and calling the church back to a right relationship with Him. He preached hard messages to penetrate hard hearts. Consequently many did not care for him. He upset the status quo. He carried a different measuring stick than church attendance and big budgets. He measured success by the word of God.

At the age of 42 Del got diagnosed with a brain tumor. He only lived another seven months. He gave his all in preaching up to the point where he was physically unable to do so. Not long before he died he slipped in and out of sleep. He did not speak for some time because it was so difficult. About one day before he died, he awakened with one last prayer on his lips. This is what he prayed.

"Lord, please bring back Your glory to Your church. Send the fire. Turn the hearts of Your people. May they know that You alone are God."

I find that prayer interesting on two different levels. First, it is eerily similar to the prayer Elijah prayed on Mount Carmel. Some phrases nearly word for word.

1 Kings 18:36-37 (ESV)
³⁶  And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.
³⁷  Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

The glory of God is missing from the church. To put that another way, the weighty presence, the honor and majesty of God are missing from the church. Like Elijah, Del asked God to send it again. To fill houses of worship with His presence soaking and saturating the hearts and minds of people.

He also prayed for God let people know He is God. This is certainly needed today. Elijah also pleaded for God to send fire and to turn the heart of the people.

I don't know if Del intentionally asked God for the same things Elijah did by quoting part of his prayer from the above passage, or if those things were so engrained in him, he had the same heart as  Elijah.

The second part I find interesting is I have prayed these same prayers for the church today. I did model my prayer after Elijah's. That prayer has moved me since 1995. It is the same heart I have for God's people and the world today.

This day many ignore God. They reject Him. They push the boundaries further and further from Him. I plead with God to turn the hearts of people back to Him. This is a spiritual battle and can only be fought with spiritual weapons. The turning hearts back to God would be revival. At this point in history, we have no other hope.

Elijah saw it for his day. Del saw for his day before he went home to Jesus back in 1989. It's the same prayer I cry today in 2020. May God answer that one last prayer in mighty fashion to further His glory.