I have no confidence at all in polished speech or brilliant literary effort to bring about a revival, but I have all the confidence in the world in the poor saint who would weep [their] eyes out because people are living in sin. — Charles Spurgeon

Below are a few thoughts taken from a tape called Authority Prayer by Michael Pearl. I wish I could share more of the scriptures discussed, but you can find the tape at nogreaterjoy.org.

...In Luke 10:2 Jesus is speaking. He says, “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.” Doesn’t that seem strange to you? Jesus is Lord of the harvest. He sees the need, He knows the field is “white already to harvest” (John 4:35). Why doesn’t He just send forth laborers? Must He wait till the few laborers He has, ask for help? Would the fruit actually rot in the field if the laborers didn’t request assistance? It looks as if He has said, “That field is yours, I’m putting you in charge of it—if you need help ask and I’ll send it.”

...Most books you read on prayer begin and end with the concept that prayer is intended to change the one praying. This smacks of oriental meditation. If I am the answer to my own prayers, then I can’t encourage myself to pray. If my prayers are going to be answered because I’m going to change, then I don’t have time for prayer. Unless I am talking to a real God, who is alive and active, and who responds when I pray, and my prayers are going to produce a response that will make things change and happen and be different today than they would’ve been—then I’m not going to pray. If you don’t believe that your prayers move God, that God acts in response to your prayers, then I know you don’t pray. Or else your prayers are just some kind of formal response.

...2 Peter 3:9 says God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” I ask you, will some perish? Yes, many already have, have they not? Why isn’t God’s will being done? Is God limited? If a sovereign God has a will, and that will does not get done, then we can only conclude, that He has sovereignly designed a program wherein He has limited Himself. The only way a completely sovereign God can have a will, and that will not be done, is if He has placed His will in the hands of another and they have failed.

...Many Christian’s believe that God is a puppet maker, that Christians are puppets, that God pulls the strings and therefore bears all the responsibility. They believe that if they don’t go and take the gospel, someone else will, and if no one else goes then those lost souls weren’t ordained to life and it will all work out in the end. They believe that in the long run, their actions, their obedience, and their prayers don’t really make a difference—Calvinist or not that’s what most believe, but wont admit it.