Revive Our Hearts

Bob Bakke: Talking to God accomplishes a lot. We delight the heart of God when we pray. We're also the partners with God in the unfolding of His purposes in history. And that includes the history of your child, of your grandchildren, your marriage, your church, our country as we have been praying.

Dannah Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of "A Place of Quiet Rest," for April 10th, 2026. I'm Dannah Gresh. Today Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Bob Bakke will touch on the concepts of spiritual warfare, prayer, and revival. You'll be encouraged and challenged to start. Here's Nancy talking about the role of angels in fighting spiritual battles.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The Scripture teaches that angels assist us in spiritual warfare against the forces of Satan and evil. We know from the book of Ephesians chapter 6 that we are in a battle. And that the battle is not against people. The enemy is not your husband or your children or your parents or your neighbor. We're in a battle that's a spiritual battle, and we're dealing with spiritual forces of wickedness, the power of Satan and evil in this world.

But the Scripture says that we don't need to be afraid. As strong as those forces of evil may be, they are no match for God and His heavenly host. We're surrounded and we're helped by a powerful army of angels, angels who assist us in that warfare against the forces of Satan and evil.

There are a number of illustrations of this in the Scripture. One that comes to mind is in the book of Genesis chapter 19. You remember how a mob of violent men surrounded Lot's house in Sodom. They were wanting to accomplish wicked things with Lot and his family, but God sent two angels to assist Lot. In the midst of that attack, the angels struck the attackers with blindness so that they could not find the door. Had it not been for the presence of those angels at that moment, Lot would have been helpless. Angels were sent to assist him in the spiritual warfare against the force of Satan that was motivating that mob and against the evil.

Now, sometimes we're conscious that we are coming up head-to-head against the forces of evil and the powers of darkness. But I think many times we're not even aware that that's what we're dealing with. The important thing is that God knows. He knows and He sees what is going on in the heavens, and He's in control over it all. Even those fallen angels cannot do more than God allows them to do. They are under His control and under His power, and God often sends angels to assist in that spiritual warfare against the forces of Satan and evil.

Now, there's another way that angels minister to our lives. The Scripture teaches that angels minister to us or serve us, and they provide strength and sustenance for us when we are weak. Again, we go to the Scripture and find a number of illustrations of this kind of ministry on the part of angels.

You remember back in the book of 1 Kings when the prophet Elijah had won this great victory on God's behalf. It was God who had won the victory, but Elijah was God's servant and he went to Mount Carmel and he stood up for God against those 850 false prophets. This one lone prophet was hopelessly outnumbered, but Elijah believed in the power of God who was the God of fire, and he knew that the false gods that these false prophets served had no power at all. So he took on a challenge, confronted the powers of evil and darkness, and God won a great victory and vindicated His name and His power.

Now we go to the next chapter, 1 Kings chapter 19, and we find the prophet Elijah. The victorious prophet Elijah is now exhausted. He's depleted. He's discouraged after this showdown, and he's running for his life from wicked Queen Jezebel, who has threatened to kill him before the day's over. She's angry at what has happened. And so he's discouraged and he sits down under a tree and he begs God to take his life, to let him die. Then he lays down under that tree and he falls asleep. He's exhausted. You can perhaps relate to those moments when you're just worn out. For you it may not be this great encounter at Mount Carmel; it may just be an encounter with three toddlers that you've had all day long, and you're depleted. At those times we can get discouraged and all we want to do is sleep, and maybe even die.

The Scripture says all at once an angel touched Elijah and said to him, "Get up and eat." Now, isn't that practical? He looked around and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water. How did it get there? I don't think there was any kitchen out in this desert. God supernaturally intervened and provided exactly what was needed at that moment.

The Scripture says Elijah ate and drank and then lay down again. He was still tired. Once again, the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." God sent his angel, a messenger, to strengthen his servant in his time of need.

When we come to the Gospel of Mark, we find Jesus in the midst of the desert. The Scripture says in that time of temptation that Jesus was with the wild animals and angels attended him. What I love about that verse is not just that the angels attended to Jesus, but as you go further in the New Testament you find out that those very same angels attend to us.

The book of Hebrews tells us in chapter 1, Hebrews chapter 1, verse 14, that all angels are ministering spirits sent to—it's the same word there—to attend, to serve, to wait on. To wait on not just Jesus, but on those who will inherit salvation. On the children of God. In the same way that angels ministered to Him in the midst of that desert, surrounded by wild animals, so God at key moments in our lives, maybe even unannounced to us, sends his angels to strengthen us, to encourage us, to minister to us and meet our needs.

There's another crucial moment in Jesus' life when an angel ministered to him. It's at the end of his life here on earth. You find in Luke chapter 22, we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to his Heavenly Father just before he goes to the cross, where he's going to bear all the weight of our sin upon himself. Jesus prays in his humanness, "Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, I surrender. Not my will, but your will be done."

The Scripture tells us at that moment, an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. Strengthened him. The word there in the original language means to make strong inwardly. Inwardly made him strong, strengthened him in the middle of this great spiritual battle. What's intriguing to me is that at this moment of Jesus' life when he was all alone, his disciples were sleeping and he needed inner strength to do the will of God at that crucial moment, the angel strengthened him, but the very next verse tells us that it wasn't the end of the battle.

It goes on to say, being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. You see, if the angel strengthened him, wouldn't that deliver him from the battle? You know what it did? On the contrary, it gave him strength to go on in the battle. If you have those three toddlers we were just talking about, you don't just need deliverance from the battle; you need the strength to keep going in the battle. You need to be strengthened inwardly so that you can face the next day and the next and the next. It was the ministry of angels that gave Jesus the inner fortitude and strength to press on and to pray more earnestly. He was strengthened by the angels to do the will of God.

And so as we look to God, God is the one who strengthens us. But many times, I believe that he sends his angels as instruments of his mercy and his grace. We may not be aware that it's the angels reaching out to us at that point, and they come from God, so I don't believe we ought to pray to the angels to come and strengthen us. We ought to pray to God.

Dannah Gresh: Angels and prayer both play an important role in the book of Daniel too. Nancy commented on that at the Revive Conference where this message was shared. At this point in the conference, we'd already spent a couple of hours in prayer, asking God to move in us and our country through revival. Here's Nancy, and she'll introduce Bob Bakke.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I was thinking about Daniel chapter 10. We didn't read that earlier, but there was another occasion. Daniel lived through the reigns of several kings and empires, and he realized that heaven rules. Doesn't really matter who the king is. Doesn't matter what nation thinks they're in charge. God's in charge. And he was just this faithful man who served wherever he was.

In fact, he had some of these amazing visions and they were just overwhelming, and he'd have these encounters with God and with angels. Then I came across this one verse last week I'd never noticed before. After this big, amazing encounter with the angel, it says, "Then Daniel went back to the palace and kept on working."

So he has this amazing prayer time, and then he goes back to his job in a pagan king's palace. And he keeps doing what God has put him to do in the place where God has given him to do it. And he's not stressing about which king it is and which king's coming next. He got visions that all this was going to happen, but he's just being faithful where God's put him.

There was one occasion in Daniel chapter 10 where he prayed for 21 days. Fasting, burdened. You know what drove his prayers? He read in the prophecy of Jeremiah the promises of God. He had very little of the Scripture compared to what we have, but he read those promises and he said, "I've got to pray. I've got to call upon God to fulfill what he said he would do."

So for 21 days he prayed, he fasted in a modified fast. He was just focused and disciplined in seeking the Lord and it didn't seem that anything was happening. Some of you have been praying for a prodigal, or for your church, or for this country, or your country, wherever you may be from. And it feels like nothing is happening.

But Daniel kept praying and on the 21st day, an angel came to him to tell him, "Your prayers have been heard." Then he said, "On the very first day you started to pray, God sent me to give you an answer, but I was opposed in the heavens." Then there's this very mysterious passage. We don't fully understand it, but we know that there is in the heavens as we are praying here on earth, there is opposition going on. There are princes of the power of this world who are trying to stop the work of God. And they're fighting each other. We can't see them, but we know from the Scripture that it's happening.

And I often have wondered, what if Daniel had stopped praying on the 20th day before the answer made its way to earth? You say, "Well, I've been praying 21 years for that particular burden on my heart." Some of you longer. Don't stop praying. God's going to send the answer. The answer is on the way, and it will get here and it will get to you in God's way and in God's time.

I want to encourage you throughout the rest of this weekend to continue praying with each other in small groups, do it in an elevator, do it in your room. We had a woman at one of these events, a bunch of women came together in the morning before the session started, and a woman said—there were like 10 women gathered in this room, I don't think they all slept in there, but they were all gathered there for some reason that morning—and this woman said, "I need to get saved. I need Jesus." And they led her to Jesus right there in that hotel room. One of the women who'd come to the conference.

So, be sensitive, pray for each other, and let's believe that God has heard. He is sending the answer. It's on its way. It may be a while before it gets here, but it will come in God's time.

I want to ask my friend Bob Bakke if he'd come and join me on the platform. Bob is a pastor in the Minneapolis area and he has been involved for many years in calling people around the world to pray for revival and spiritual awakening. He's a student of the history of revival. Bob, you've been here, you got in—you were in California preaching yesterday—you took a late night flight, you got in really late last night, you've been listening and watching and observing. I'd just love for you to share for a moment from your heart, as you look around the world and as you look back at history, what happens when people pray?

Bob Bakke: One of the first things which is so exciting and I've been thinking about this all morning as we've been praying, we are actually practicing for heaven because this is what we're going to do for the next million years. And so we better get used to it. Now there'll be no intercessions, of course, and no crying out; there'll be no wailing women in heaven, but we will pray and we will sing our prayers, we will recite the glories of the Lord, and we will do this forever.

But a couple of things that we should think about when we think about prayer. Think about Jesus' baptism. Luke chapter 3, 21 tells us that when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, as he was praying, heaven opened, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and a voice came from heaven declaring the identity of the Father's Son.

And I would suggest to you that that is exactly what has been happening for the last two hours. That as we have been praying, heaven has been opened and the Holy Spirit has descended and in our prayers, the Father has been identifying the glory of his Son. So that should give you great hope. Whether you feel it or not, God is responding by the outpouring of his Spirit upon you and in answer to your prayers.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I know when you read about some of the revivals of the past, you see these records of extraordinary prayer. What does that look like? What does that mean? Are we all supposed to be involved in that?

Bob Bakke: At times we are. Extraordinary prayer—well, think of it this way. Each of us prayed for a loved one just a few moments ago. But I have a young man, a young boy, an infant nine months old, who this morning, son of a young couple in their 30s, is undergoing a brain tumor operation that's wrapped around his brain stem.

It's one thing in the morning to rise and thank God for your children. It's another thing in a moment, in a situation where you know your son is upon an operating table, his head is open, and surgeons are operating on this tumor to save his life. One is ordinary praying, and not everything ordinary is common—special nonetheless—but extraordinary prayer has to do with the situation you're facing. And that is if your child is in danger, if your marriage is in danger, if our nation is in danger.

It requires something else. It requires 21 days of fasting and prayer as Daniel did. So it is in this season of time that we pray in an extraordinary way. And that's when we not only devote ourselves to fasting or to times of prayer, but also pulling in partners to say, "Come alongside of me and agree with me and hold up my arms. I'm weary. I can't do this by myself and we must do this together. We must go after God together." The power of united prayer in these extraordinary circumstances.

Whenever you see a nation or a church or a household in crisis, you'll see extraordinary prayer. I was just in Los Angeles meeting with a group of prayer leaders—actually just movement leaders—throughout the country. Do you know that there are 35 national initiative stadium events scheduled? On and on, these remarkable movements of united prayer that are being stirred up because of the extraordinary period of time that we live in. And so we should join that. We should join those times because it's in those moments that God also answers our prayers with regard to nations and the great work of God that he does across the earth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I think sometimes we can hear about these extraordinary prayer movements and we can feel like, "Well, somebody like Bob Bakke or somebody else leads those kinds of things. What's my role going to be in that?" But I'm thinking here about over a thousand groups that are gathered right now in local churches, in homes. All the churches represented in this place. You're a pastor. Can you just imagine for us what might happen if everyone who's been participating in this event and in this weekend, if all the churches represented were to have one or two or three or five or six prayers who go back into that church with a burden to pray for revival in that church? To lift up that pastor. Whatever is going on in that church, whatever kind of condition it's in. That would be hundreds, at least, of churches.

Bob Bakke: About 120 people went into a room just before Pentecost and changed the course of their city. Just changed the life of their city because when they prayed, heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and God identified his Son as the true Messiah. There is enough power in this room through the partnership between us and heaven to change the course of American history. And that is not only American history, but Latin American history and European history as well.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Amen. I think sometimes we look around and it's discouraging because we feel like things are so bad, so hard. And it's easy to feel like it's never been this bad before. What can encourage us when we start to feel hopeless about the circumstances in our country, in our world, wherever we may be from?

Bob Bakke: God is on his throne. And when he speaks, all it takes is a word and everything changes. He will speak one day and the heavens will split and his Son will come with a shout and all of history, a new heaven and a new earth will come. Our hope is in that ultimate moment when Jesus arrives. But there are moments that prepare us for that day. They are called revivals, they're called spiritual awakenings, but they are approximations of the consummation.

The consummation of God always reminds us in our day that there is never anything too big for him, and that includes the chaos that we're seeing politically today or in our homes or in our schools. By the way, if you would just simply, even if just you would pray for the school boards of your different places where you live, your towns or villages, etc., that alone could change the course of American history. So God is never too small for this. His arm is not too short and he is powerful to save.

And we have been in these situations before. Even from the founding of our country, the 1790s were an absolute political chaos. We had slavery, we had famine in our land, we had political chaos, we had the nastiest election in American history in 1800. Nastiest election in American history. But it was in the midst of this very, very difficult time, we didn't have any confidence the American Republic could survive. And yet people started praying and praying, and it turned into the greatest awakening that America has ever faced and it spun out for nearly 50 years, changing the course of American history and ultimately leading to the freedom of an entire race. So God is not too small. His arm is not too short. Be confident in him. He will do it again.

Dannah Gresh: That's Bob Bakke along with our host Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. They've been encouraging us to keep praying, to persist in prayer, asking the Lord to revive us again. Our emphasis all throughout the month of April is on personal revival. We're asking God to revive us, to help us experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

And we've been so encouraged to see the Lord doing this not only in the US where Revive Our Hearts is based, but all across the globe. We received this message from one of our Spanish listeners. She wrote, "God has used Revive Our Hearts to quicken my heart in such a beautiful way. I've gone through a lot throughout my life, from having a violent, abusive father to trying to end my life when I was 12, and then going through the pain of miscarriages."

But then this listener goes on to say, "In your ministry, I always find a word, a resource that God uses to revive my heart, to bring comfort, peace, and love and to help me encourage other women. I pray for Revive Our Hearts that you may continue changing lives as you have changed mine." Praise God for the personal revival he's worked in this listener's life. It's amazing to watch the Lord revive the hearts of women all over the world.

If you'd like to learn more about Revive Our Hearts' global outreaches, visit reviveourhearts.com/global. This kind of global ministry is made possible because listeners like you give to make it happen. When you join the mission of Revive Our Hearts through financial support, you help us spread the message of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ across the oceans. If you believe in that message and you'd like to make a donation today, you can visit reviveourhearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

When you donate, we'd love to send you the Refresh 30 days of personal revival journaling set to help you experience personal revival in your own heart. Just be sure to request that resource when you give. When you're reading the Bible, are you ever tempted to skip the book of Isaiah? Some of the book might sound like it's all doom and gloom, but the challenges in Isaiah's day are similar to those of our broken world today. Next week, we're going to unpack Isaiah chapters 63 and 64. This section of Scripture can show us how to pray to the Lord to rend the heavens in revival. I hope you'll be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.