Revival is a divine invasion.
Or, if you like to put it the
other way, it's God interfering in the affairs
of men.
Malachi, obviously, is the last of the prophets.
They've always been classified as the major prophets
and the minor prophets, but it seems to
me that many of the minor prophets say
major truths.
You've only have to read Hosea, and there's
a very wonderful study, maybe someday we might
do a study on that, I don't know.
But they're desperately interesting.
Now, remember, this man Malachi, again, is at
the end of the line.
Good, somebody did a good job for me
here.
Let's say here, this is what we call
yesterday the monolith of all the systems that
God has given to Israel.
They have the prophets, and they have Urim
and Thummim, and they have the tabernacle, and
they had all the sacrifices, and they had
all the feasts, and they've this, let's call
it an elaborate system, and then God suddenly
shut the whole thing down, and then you've
got a gap here of 400 years.
And the next character is a little character
that comes here by the name of J
.B. John Baptist.
Now, here, the last prophet here is Malachi.
I tried to, you know, you can't get
any insight on this, at least I can't
from any direction, but I tried to think
about this man with the revelation that he
had and the anointing of God, saying, well,
look, Jeremiah failed, and they didn't take any
notice of Isaiah, and with the colossal figure
of Moses, and we've had a thousand mercies,
and we've had a thousand blessings, and we've
been delivered from Pharaoh, and we've been delivered
from the Babylonians, and we've characters like Daniel,
and here I am at the end of
the line.
And there's no knowing, as I thought of
the surges that must have gone through the
mind and spirit of this man, maybe surges
of sorrow or surges of anticipation that God
was going to do something in a different
way.
But Malachi is the last voice.
And then you have the, as I say,
you have 400 years of stillness without any
prophetic voice.
You have 400 years of darkness without any
prophetic light.
And again, God calls a man.
He takes a man.
Now, Malachi here, he says, behold, I will
send my messenger, this is Malachi 3.1,
and he shall prepare the way before me.
And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly
come to his temple.
Now again, he's saying this, I'm convinced he's
saying this in a sense of sadness and
heaviness.
You see, again, the people have gone after
strange gods.
They have broken God's commandments.
Look at verse 10.
Have we not all one Father?
Hath not one God created us?
Why do we deal treacherously, every man against
his brother, by profaning the covenant of our
fathers?
They knew that covenant was there, and yet
they profaned that covenant.
Now the next verse says, Judah hath dealt
treacherously an abomination as committed in Israel and
in Jerusalem, for Judah hath profaned the holiness
of the Lord, which he loved and hath
married the daughter of a strange god.
You remember there it says in Jeremiah 2
.3, it speaks about holiness unto the Lord,
and they knew that God wanted a holy
people.
And holiness isn't something that you just do
in a sanctuary.
It's not being, it's not being, what shall
I say, just married to truth, but it's
obeying the truth.
It's the spirit of God who is the
spirit of holiness working in us and working
through us.
Now what have they done?
Verse 14 says, Yet ye say wherefore because
the Lord hath been witness between thee and
the wife of thy youth against whom thou
hast dealt treacherously.
Now what they were doing according to history
is this, that as these men got older
and the wives, you know, began to not
look so attractive and lost their charm, they
were disposing of their Jewish wives and they
were taking young, charming, attractive young ladies from
people outside of their own religion and outside
of their own ways.
And this is what God hates because in
verse 16 He says He hates divorce.
Verse 16, For the Lord, the God of
Israel, saith that He hateth the putting away,
for one covereth violence with his garments.
In other words, that putting away means that
He hates, He hates divorce.
Now, here is this man with this mass
of history behind him.
There's every reason that God should send judgment
and again, the dam that we build up,
if that dam doesn't break with mercy, the
only alternative is it breaks with judgment.
I feel we're very near that situation right
now.
If we don't have revival, we're going to
have revolution.
If God doesn't send an act of mercy
upon us, we're going to have an act
of judgment.
We just can't get away with the way
we're living.
There's no way we can do it.
We're destroying the nation.
I say again to you, remind you again,
we've more broken homes, more broken lives, more
broken minds through drink, more broken bodies through
lust, more broken minds again through drugs, we've
more kids with broken hearts, daddy's over there,
mother's over there, 14 million somebody estimated, children
that drift between divorced parents.
The nation's broken, except the church hasn't a
broken heart over it.
We're living as though we're on the edge
of the millennium rather than being on the
edge of judgment.
Now the prophet always comes with a stern
warning.
He always is the most unacceptable man around,
if you like.
And Malachi is a prophet and prophets are
God's emergency men for crisis hours.
I've said before the trouble with the nation,
this is a blanket statement and it's not
true of everybody, but most of our pulpits
have puppets in them instead of prophets.
And we need God in mercy to send
us a generation of prophets in this critical
hour in which we're living.
Now the prophet isn't somebody who foretells nearly
a certain thing's going to happen next year
or 1983.
The prophet is a man whose message is
adjusted and it bears down on the iniquity,
on the situation as God sees it.
He's bringing God's mind to a people who
are deaf and blind and don't want to
hear.
What are his wages?
I remember going in Dr. Toth's office one
day and he said, Len, you know, I'm
beginning to think I'm a prophet.
Well, the last thing that Dr. Toth did
was boast.
I said, you think you're a prophet?
What do you mean?
He said, I'm getting stoned.
Almost every letter I get, somebody's hurling a
rock at me, I don't like this and
you said that and something else.
Well, isn't that what Jesus said?
Which of the prophets of your father is
not stoned?
And so this man has an awesome task
upon him.
But what are we going to hold on
to?
I spoke about our defense this morning.
We have the omnipresence of God.
We have the blood of Jesus Christ.
We have these exceeding great and precious promises
with 2,000 years of church history to
show us how God has worked.
But how do we come to assurance in
this critical hour when the flood tide has
come?
God has said when the enemy comes in
like a flood, the Spirit of God will
lift up a standard against him.
Well, you remember the scripture that says what?
Romans 8 and verse 34.
Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea, rather, is
risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us.
Now, do you remember in 1 Kings 1
and verse 50, it mentions there the fact
that the altar that was there in the
old temple of old, it was about seven
and a half feet by seven and a
half, it was a cube, but at each
corner there was a horn.
And if a man was in trouble, he
would flee into that sanctuary and he'd grab
hold of the horn of the altar and
when he was there, he was secure, you
couldn't touch him.
Well, there are four horns of the altar
in that verse, aren't they?
Number one is, it is Christ that died.
That's horn number one, Christ has died.
But if Jesus only died for us, then
we'd be forgiven that we'd have no power
to live.
He's not only died, but he's risen again.
That's horn number two.
Horn number three is, he's at the right
hand of God.
Well, that gives us a little more assurance.
He died, he rose again, he's at the
right hand of God.
But best of all, that he is living
there to make intercession for us.
So what?
You look at the world, the flesh, the
devil, your own fears, all the black stuff
in the newspaper, and you just defy it
and say, I refuse to be intimidated.
Because all those things belong to the perishing
things of the world.
They belong to a satanic kingdom, which God
has already, it's foredoomed in the scripture.
But Jesus is the same forever and ever.
He died, he rose again, he ascended, he's
at the right hand of the Father.
So I'm not just a sinner who is
forgiven.
I'm not just one who is represented before
the Father.
But also, power is given unto us.
So why should we be afraid?
There's no reason to be intimidated.
But the thing I like about this text
is this.
Verse one again of chapter three.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he
shall prepare the way before me.
And that unquestionably means that this little fellow
that's at the other side of this 400
years of darkness.
Do you remember a period in the history
of Israel when it says that there was
darkness in the camp of the Egyptians, but
there was light in Israel?
I don't care which way you look this
morning, economically, socially, politically, morally.
It's dark.
It's never been darker.
The world has never been in greater chaos.
Sure, there have been distress of nations before,
but there's another little thing tagged on to
the day in which we live.
Jesus says at the end time, there will
be distress of nations with perplexities.
We were going to get rid of the
Shah yesterday.
Last night, Mexico dropped a bomb.
They won't accept him.
This morning, two other embassies in other countries
were raided.
Why?
Nobody's given away more millions of dollars than
we have.
Russia isn't being attacked.
Russia didn't have a Marshall Plan.
Russia doesn't rush to the age of everybody
in distress, like this nation does.
And yet, we're the most hated, opposed nation
in the world today.
It's a strange thing.
And so I say the outlook is dark.
It's dark economically.
Looks as though Chrysler may crash.
United Steel closed, what, four different branches yesterday.
We were told by a big shot, you
know, six months ago, yes, well, Iran may
cut off oil, but don't worry.
Gas, by Christmas, gas will have gone up
ten cents.
Now, I'm absolutely sure the man that said
that knew he was lying.
The Scripture says truth lies fallen in the
streets.
I think it lies fallen in the pulpits,
too.
But it lies fallen in the streets.
They knew very well that gas couldn't stay
with a near rise of ten cents in
the year.
It's up fifty cents.
It's predicted it will be two dollars a
gallon by next year at this time.
It may be more.
My son pays that in West Africa.
Two dollars to two fifty.
Near two dollars, I believe there's going to
be something on 60 Minutes this week about
inflation, where Paul is.
It's the most outrageous inflation in the world.
If we send Paul a thousand dollars, he's
about maybe four hundred dollars to spend out
of it.
He went for a used car, 1974, little
Ford.
Almost reach around it with your hands.
1974 Ford, thirteen thousand six hundred dollars.
Can you imagine that?
You could buy six 1934 Cadillacs for that
price.
But it's outrageous.
Milk for the baby, eight dollars a gallon.
Everything's as crazy as it can be.
And wherever you look in the world, it's
chaos.
People say the politicians never keep their word.
They do.
They told us we'd have double digit inflation
and we've got it.
So don't say they never tell the truth.
We got double digit inflation in twelve months.
We're going to have triple digit inflation before
long.
Everything's out of hand.
So whichever way you look, morally, politically, economically,
socially, the outlook is exceedingly dark, but the
outlook is exceedingly glorious.
There is no star in the sky of
the economists and the moralists.
The only star in the sky is the
bright morning star, Jesus Christ, the Son of
God.
That's the only star that we can be
guided by.
But again, the word I want to seize
hold of here in this final section here
is the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly
come to his temple.
I like that.
It gives me a kind of...
I don't like the word excitement.
It's too worldly.
It gives me an inspiration.
The Lord whom ye seek.
Suddenly.
You can hardly explain it.
You know, it wasn't there a minute ago.
Suddenly here it is.
Look at the scriptures for a minute.
On suddenly.
What does it say in Luke chapter 2
and verse 13?
Excuse me.
Luke 2 and verse 13.
What does it say there?
And suddenly there was with the angel, verse
9.
Lord, the angel of the Lord came upon
them, and the glory of the Lord shone
round about them, and they were sore afraid.
The angel said unto them, Fear not, for
behold, I bring you good tidings of great
joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in
the city of David a Saviour, which is
Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you.
Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling
clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly.
Suddenly.
Here's an invasion immediately.
There was with the angel a multitude of
the heavenly host, praising God and singing.
Doesn't say that.
It says saying.
I can't find in the New Testament where
angels ever sing.
There's nothing to sing about.
There's an old hymn that says angels never
felt the joy that our salvation brings.
It's left to us to do the singing.
We're going to sing in eternity the song
of Moses and the lamp.
But you see, one minute, the poor fellows
are there.
They're all shaken up.
They've had a visitation from an angel.
Well, I guess if you had a visitation,
you know, woke up in the morning, there's
an angel at the side of the bed,
you might be a bit disturbed too.
But suddenly, while the angel's speaking, suddenly there
was a sound of a heavenly host.
The world has never been the same since.
Can you imagine those heavenly beings all with
their perfect pitch of voice suddenly bellowing over
the skies there?
I don't know if anybody else heard it.
But suddenly there's a voice of a heavenly
host.
And what were they saying?
Praising God and saying glory to God in
the highest on earth, peace and goodwill toward
men.
Look at Acts chapter 2 and verse 2.
Verse 1.
When the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one
place.
And suddenly, my, that must have been a
relief.
What have they been doing for ten days?
Well, I figured they'd been praying, maybe fasting.
I don't think they were picking faults in
each other.
Do you think they were?
Do you think Peter was saying, you know,
Thomas, it's your fault, you're still doubting.
Do you think Thomas was saying, Peter, you're
holding the thing up again as usual, you
know, with your unbelief and, no, I think
it's Matthew.
No, I don't think they were pointing fingers.
They were waiting, waiting.
One day, two days, three days, four days,
five days.
Do you think they went and said, you
know, hmm, I wonder if it'll happen today.
I wonder what kind of manifestation we'll have.
And maybe they were a little bit drowsy.
They were pretty good, those guys, at sleeping,
you know.
They slept on the Mount of Transfiguration.
They slept in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Maybe they were half asleep.
Suddenly, a sound of a rushing mighty wind.
And all history turned around on that.
All that had been prophesied.
Joel had said, in the last days God
will pour out of His Spirit.
And that was the beginning of the last
days, because you remember it says in the
first chapter of Hebrews there, that God who
at sundry times and in divers manners spake
unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in
these last days, and that was written two
thousand years ago, the last days were there.
And when you read the book of Revelation,
what does it say?
About all the mystery and majesty of Revelation,
these things will shortly come to pass.
Well, where in the world do you think
we are today?
Don't you think we need a blast from
heaven?
Don't we need a rushing mighty wind to
blow the cobwebs of doubt and fear and
worldliness out of us?
Don't we need to experience what we mentioned
yesterday in what, two chronicles, what, six was
it?
Where we talked about the, when Solomon made
an end of praying and suddenly what happened?
The fire fell and the glory fell.
Well, when were you last in a meeting
like that?
We think meetings are great if there's noise
and shout.
But they were so awestruck, they were so
dumb.
God's fire fell on them.
And they saw the fire on the altar.
And then the glory of God that you
can't define came.
So what did they do?
They all fell on their faces and they
were willing to praise and they were willing
to sacrifice and they were willing to do
all the extravagant things they did.
Why?
Because when they were wrapped up in God's
glory, they saw how valueless the world outside
is.
I get angry when I read that young
Jews are going by the hundreds, intellectual young
Jews, some of the most best brains in
America, are joining Hare Krishna.
Or they're joining the Mooniites because Christianity doesn't
offer anything.
Doesn't offer anything?
Is it true what a New York book
critic says, that the trouble with modern preachers
is that we've forgotten the awesome beauty and
thrilling majesty of the gospel?
The gospel isn't an alternative, it's an imperative.
Christianity is not a comparative religion, it's a
superlative religion.
It's this or nothing.
If we had the zeal that those guys
have had, they'd be marching, what, 25 days.
And they'd keep up that fever.
Today, the flagellants or flagellants beating themselves with
chains, about 20 chains on a thing, and
they beat themselves to kind of enjoy the
suffering of a man who was martyred years
ago.
We don't do that.
If we did it, everybody would say, there
you are, want me to be a Christian
and do that?
Those guys aren't embarrassed that the whole world
sees them going to a valueless ritual.
What kind of bodies are they going to
have tomorrow?
Swollen and sore and maybe not able to
sleep.
But they say, listen, if you want our
lives, how many of you just say the
word and we'll march to death?
Isn't it amazing?
They're ready to die for their gospel and
most of our people are not ready to
live for it even.
Never mind, die for it.
There's a bunch of men all terrified, intimidated
by the world.
You can't go down the street, but what
some great big Roman soldier comes up and
says, drop your parcel and carry my bag.
And Jesus says, if he does, say, yes
sir, I'll do it happily.
And when you've got to the legal mile,
you say, sir, do you mind if I
carry it again?
If what?
The last one of your bunch I asked,
I said, would you carry me?
And he said, yes, you're doing it because
I'm a Jew, but one day we're going
to get liberated.
We've got a king that's coming, I don't
know when or where, but he's coming and
you'll be in trouble when he comes.
And then he cursed me.
And you say, can you take it a
second mile?
You give the most radical thing the world's
ever had, the Sermon on the Mount.
I'm convinced with all my heart that if
every professing believer in America lived Christianity for
one day, we'd turn this nation upside down.
That's all we have to do.
For God knows, we've preached it every conceivable
way.
We've shouted it from the housetop.
We've put millions of tracts out.
I find young people say, you know, I've
just passed the 300 marking cassettes.
We never had more scriptural knowledge.
I know a guy that's got 3,000
cassettes and tapes.
He's got a library.
I go in homes and they say, yes,
oh yes, I see you're looking at our
books.
You want to see our cassette library?
They open the door and whoo, here they
are.
They must have thousands of dollars.
And yet with all the cassette libraries and
more books than we've ever had in history,
the church is at the lowest point ever
in the world.
Because we've just settled down to believe truth
rather than behave it.
And the answer is not just in believing
it, it's in behaving it.
Now these men were hunched up there, maybe
thinking over their failure, thinking over their disappointment,
thinking again that Jesus had gone and left
them behind, that there's not much sign of
the kingdom.
And then suddenly like that there's a divine
invasion.
They were all filled.
The room was filled.
They were filled.
And God made them adequate that those same
men who'd run away in Jerusalem were going
in a few days to point the finger
and say, you crucified the Lord of glory.
The word is Acts 1.8, ye shall
receive power, ye shall be witnesses unto me.
That's a pretty bad translation.
It does not mean what people say.
You know, you need the power of the
Holy Ghost to witness.
Listen, I know some people that don't believe
in any baptism of the Holy Ghost are
the most successful witnesses I've ever seen.
I know men who've made vows, I'll never
go to bed at night without I've witnessed
to somebody.
I stayed in a home one night and
this man said, oh, oh, excuse me, I've
got to go out.
I said, 10 o'clock at night?
Yeah, I have something to do, I promise
to do, I haven't done it.
And he came back in and out after,
he said, well, praise the Lord.
Oh, I feel great now.
I said, what happened?
You didn't run out for a drink somewhere?
No, I almost broke my covenant.
I said, I'd never go to bed at
night without witnessing to somebody.
And I suddenly realized I hadn't done it
today.
And I said, Lord, guide me.
And I went down the road.
It's a dark area of Sheffield.
And he said, I saw a man coming
up and said, Sir, you know, how are
you so forth?
It's a dark night, you know, do you
have the light?
Light?
Yeah, the light of the world, Jesus.
He always, he had a mind like that,
he could always pick something in.
And he came back saying, well, praise the
Lord, I've, you know, I've kept my commandment,
my covenant with God.
These men were waiting there.
Ah, but the word doesn't mean witness that
way.
The actual Greek word is, ye shall be
martyrs unto me.
And what does martyrdom mean?
It means death.
Again, if you saw a man going out
of Jerusalem carrying a cross, there was one
thing for sure you knew about it, he
wasn't coming back.
I know this lady's wearing a cross, and
I always say, it's easier to wear a
cross than bear a cross.
But once that man got a cross, and
you saw him going out of a certain
gate, you know he was going there to
be crucified, he wasn't coming back.
And the trouble with so many people is,
they want to cross for a little while,
but then they want to get down from
the cross and save themselves.
But just as they're at a crisis moment,
suddenly there was a sound of a heavenly
host.
Suddenly there was a rushing mighty wind.
Look in Acts chapter 3, in the same
book.
Pardon me, Acts chapter 9 and verse 3.
As he neared Damascus, there came, near Damascus,
suddenly there shone round about him a light
from heaven.
Take it in the 22nd chapter, it's better,
in verse 6.
Here he is, he's, I'm
sorry, it's not 22nd, it's 26th chapter.
Well, I think in 22, let me look
again, 22.
Is it 22, verse 6?
Yeah.
It came to pass that as I made
my journey, to come nigh to Damascus about
noon, suddenly there shone round about me a
light from heaven.
Suddenly.
But it's better in the 26th of Acts.
Look at it in Acts 26.
Verse 13.
Now, remember, he's standing before a gripper.
Boy, he was smart.
You know, the apostle Paul was never embarrassed
where he was.
If he's in a lousy prison, he's comfortable.
He knows how to abound.
He knows how to be obeyed.
He's before a gripper who was the last
of the Jewish kings.
Who was the first of the Jewish kings?
Saul, the king of Israel.
This man is the last.
So how does he approach him?
He doesn't approach him like he approaches Felix,
Hephaestus.
He comes at a different angle.
He says in verse 2, I think myself
happy King Agrippa, because I shall answer myself
this day before thee, touching all things whereof
I am accused of the Jews, especially because
I know thee to be expert in all
the customs.
He doesn't even know them.
He's an expert in all the customs.
So boy, he's going to hit him where
he feels it.
You see.
In other words, he's saying, Listen, you're a
Jew and I'm a Jew.
Now listen to this little Jew.
Now, do you want to know the miracle
in my life?
He was going down the Damascus road.
And what was he doing?
Breathing out threatenings.
He carried inside of his toga, the Roman
garment that wrapped over like this, and it
had a pocket in it, and he carried
in it the death sentence of the church.
It was stamped and sealed and settled, and
if he found anybody testifying for Jesus Christ,
he had authority to put them to death.
Isn't it amazing that the greatest persecutor of
the church became the greatest preacher in the
church?
He's completely revolutionized.
But he said it happened going down the
road, and I was breathing out threatening.
I always want to fail down and feel
I want to say, Lord, I adore you,
I magnify you, that the man whose fire
coming out of his nostrils, that hates God
and Christ more than Kemeny hates America, anybody
else, he's full of hatred and animosity and
bitterness, that you're going to wreck the whole
Jewish system with its laws and its commandments
and its new moons and its altars and
its sacrifices, and you tell me that that
little man that used to repair the wheelbarrow
for my little boy is the son of
God and all this is without, it's totally
invalid?
And that same man who was breathing out
threatenings on that Damascus road gave us the
greatest hymn of love that was ever written,
1 Corinthians 13.
If that isn't a revolution, what is?
That God has emptied that heart, purged it,
and God himself inhabits him because God is
love.
And he says, I'll show you how much
I love him.
You go two miles, I'll go four miles.
I'll out-preach you, I'll out-suffer you,
I'll out-sacrifice you, I'll out-pray you.
You look at those four missionary journeys and
remember that he didn't have an automobile to
do it in and he didn't have a
jet plane.
How in the world did he do it?
And it doesn't matter whether he's up or
down, it makes no odds to him.
He's not disturbed by emotions, he's not disturbed
by social standing.
He says, I'm in weariness and in fastings
and in painfulness, in tribulation, in distress, in
famine, in peril, in nakedness and so on,
in perils of the deep, in perils of
mine own country.
My God, that would kill a congregation these
days.
And with that mass of all that tribulation,
personal tribulation, he says, do you know what
he says?
He spits in the eye of the devil
as far as I'm concerned and he says,
our life's affliction, which is but for a
moment.
I think the devil took a week off
after that, he was so sick.
He'd been trying to break Paul and embarrass
him and destroy him.
And he sums it all up and says,
well, what's tribulation, distress, famine, peril, nakedness, sorrow,
perils of the deep, perils of mine own
country, in weariness, in fasting, tribulation and distress.
Do you know what?
In the light of eternity, they don't even,
you could put them all on the end
of a pen and still have a bit
of room left, compared with eternity.
Our life's affliction, which is but for a
moment.
How did it all happen?
Because he says, I was going down that
Damascus road and there shone, and suddenly, ah
yes, suddenly, there was a light from heaven,
above the brightness of the sun.
And when we were all fallen to the
earth, here's the whole secret of it, I
heard a voice.
I don't believe anybody else heard it.
They all saw the light.
And you know what my comfort is?
When I preach or talk to a bunch
like you, or I talk to a church
with two or three thousand, I say to
my little self, before I stand up, Leonard
the boy, maybe God's only going to speak
to one man in this congregation tonight.
The others may get light and say, you
know I never saw that text like that,
I never saw that truth like that.
There was a company with him going down
that Damascus road, everybody saw the light, he
heard the voice.
Daniel says exactly the same thing.
There's a company of people, but I heard
the voice, he said.
So listen, if you can say, Andrew Bonner
wrote that hymn, I heard the voice of
Jesus say.
Because after all, there's nothing more thrilling this
side of eternity.
What was the first call of Jesus?
The first call of Jesus was what?
Come unto me.
The second call was follow me.
The third call was abide in me.
The next call is, you wait until I
come and I dwell in totality inside of
you.
And so here they are.
One moment the soul of Tarsus breathing out,
the next is on the floor with repentance
and sorrow.
Then there's another scripture we could look at
there.
In the 16th of Acts and verse, what,
26 somewhere there.
Okay, take verse 25.
At midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang
praises unto God and the prisoners heard them.
And suddenly there was a great earthquake.
Do you think they ever forgot that?
You know, somewhere there's always a breaking point.
The shepherds were watching flocks and they'd done
this many times and suddenly there's a sound
of a heavenly host.
Saul is going down the Damascus road breathing
out threatenings and suddenly the light shines on
him.
The disciples waited in the upper room and
suddenly there's a rushing mighty wind.
These men were weary in prison and suddenly
there was an earthquake.
Do you think, then Adjuan another one said,
did you feel something round here?
Do you think a mouse run over your
toes while you were sleeping?
Did somebody rattle the gate?
Suddenly there was an earthquake.
And they're free.
But again, to use the figure of the
dam, you know, there's a moment when that
dam is holding.
Here's the dam again.
Here is a thick wall.
Let's say the walls are thick as this
and it goes out the other way as
I said like that.
And it's filled up to here with water
and it holds and then suddenly there's a
break and this water rushes through.
It comes with a tremendous torrent.
Now again, God has promised He'll pour out
His Spirit on all flesh.
But in every revival there's been a hold
up.
Faith that is going to be trusted is
going to be tested.
Prayer accumulated for years.
The best example of that maybe is in
the Moravian Revival.
It was a Wednesday morning on the...
Wednesday morning, the 13th of August, 1727.
At Hound Hut there.
A lot of people gathered together.
Oh, they prayed for long enough.
But at this time they'd got down together
and they got their hearts kind of welded
together.
They were determined that they would, well, obey
God.
Well, they went to prayer as usual that
morning.
There were not more than, I think, about
50 people there.
And the clock moved up.
The figure was moving relentlessly right up to
11 o'clock and as soon as it
got to 11, the glory of God came
down.
In other words, the dam broke at 11
o'clock on that 13th of August, 1727.
And what happened?
Well, it meant that that flood of water
that came out from there, it came right
across the Atlantic here to some islands down
here that now we call the Caribbean, St.
Thomas and St. Croix.
That very, very simple thing with a bunch
of Moravians birthed the modern missionary movement.
As a result of that, John Wesley came
into grace because when he was a missionary
coming over here and going back with, I
think it was Pangenberg and a few other
guys, when they were in a terrible storm
they were as relaxed as though they were
sitting in a rocking chair.
And John Wesley said, I don't understand it.
I'm terrified.
Oh no, we're not disturbed at all.
We're in the hands of the living God.
And they talked about assurance and John Wesley
went over to see them in their country.
And he heard them talking about the joy
of sins forgiven.
He heard them talking about blessed assurance, Jesus
is mine.
It's common language to us.
It wasn't to Wesley because he was tied
up in the doctrines of the Church of
England.
And then he says, on the 24th of
May, about a quarter to nine, on the
24th of May, 1738, suddenly, the heavens opened
and I said, Jesus died for my sins.
I believe him.
Brilliant scholar that he was.
No, he has no crime record, no drug
record, all the sins that we have to...
But he realized again that it's not a
question of being bad, it's a question of
being dead.
He was dead in trespasses and in sin.
And in that moment he came to life.
Now that missionary movement meant this, that invasion
of God on that wonderful morning, that Wednesday
morning in 1737 meant this.
Again, the clock at eleven o'clock and
for one hundred years that room was never
empty, morning or night.
Do you know they said little boys and
girls, ten and twelve years of age, travailed
in birth for lost people, just like people
at sixty and seventy years of age.
See, our kids don't know anything about that,
bless you, our teenagers don't, never mind kids.
If you talk about angels to kids, they
think you mean Charlie's Angels or Hell's Angels,
they don't know much about God's angels.
You tell them an angel came and opened
the door for Peter and for Paul and
Silas and they look at you with wide
open eyes.
You tell them he's on a ship that's
going to sink and he says an angel
came and stood by me last night and
said, well, everything's going to be alright.
You got on this boat as a prisoner,
you're going to end as a pilot.
That's going to happen in our day.
That ship he was on, what happened?
It got in a storm, an unprecedented storm.
Euroclidon, it tossed the ship, the waves were
boiling and the winds were blowing and the
ship was tossing and the waves, and the
sails were ripping and the spars were breaking
and the people were screaming and they were
fasting and they were weeping and they'd had
14 days, no sun, no moon, it was
as black as hell and all hope had
gone.
That's what it says, all hope had gone.
And then Paul says, you just tell the
boss up there I need to see him.
They'd thrown out the cargo, maybe worth a
million dollars, it was a grain ship.
They'd thrown out the passenger's luggage.
They'd cut the lifeboats off.
There's only one thing to do, kill everybody
and then the rest of the crew swim
to shore if you can.
And Paul says, listen you don't do a
thing, listen to me.
And they did.
Now he didn't save the ship.
He didn't save the cargo.
He didn't save their baggage.
He said, God said, not a soul shall
be lost.
So they lost the ship and they lost
their baggage and they lost everything they had
but they were safe.
You know I think we're going to run
into a storm like that where before long,
like it says in, I forget, I didn't
check it, 32nd maybe of Isaiah, a man
shall be as a hiding place.
That's what Paul was on that boat.
There was nowhere to go.
They didn't go down and play cards.
They didn't say, let's have another shot of
whiskey.
They didn't say, well the captain's been round
here, he's been in storms.
No three.
They had no confidence in the ship, in
the captain, in anybody.
Everything was breaking up and Paul took over
and said you'll all be saved and everybody
was saved.
That was a revival.
Everything else was lost.
That Moravian revival meant again that that tide
of blessing came over the Atlantic, came down
to St. Thomas.
Men used to stand on the block there.
They sold the slaves.
Then you see a handsome, blonde young man
go up there and say, sell me.
What did you say?
I said, sell me.
For what?
A slave.
Why?
The only way I can get on that
plantation is to be a slave.
Oh yes, it meant they broke up a
bit of affairs with the girlfriends.
We may not come back.
So they checked their teeth, you know, and
sounded their tummies and the guy on me
had a loincloth on and he stands in
the sun with his golden hair, these blonde
guys from Germany and out there and he
was sold.
And then he said, take this handful of
gold.
They put, give it to Mr. Spandenberg, my
pastor, and he'll send it over to Germany
to pay the expenses of somebody else to
come and stand on the slave block.
And the only way they got into the
missionaries was to become slaves.
And they put a chain, they put a,
pardon me, an iron collar around their necks
and they chained them to each other.
And it was an unwritten law that when
you get into that slave camp, remember, the
white man always gets in between two colored
men there and two there because if you
get to this end you can't testify and
shout over there.
So the only thing you've got to get
in the middle.
You know that iron collar through all the
hole in their necks?
Their backs were all blistered with the sun,
they weren't used to being naked to that
degree.
And yet they went there and they established
mission stations.
The slaves had nothing else to do.
The only comfort they had was the gospel.
Isn't it easy to think love's so amazing,
so divine, she'll have my soul, my life,
my all.
And then as soon as a little twinge
of discomfort comes, or inconvenience, we've got an
excuse, we've got an alibi.
Why?
Because we've lost sight of eternity, that's why.
The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come
to his temple.
Well he came alright and they witnessed it.
But you know, the Lord whom we seek
is suddenly coming too.
He's not going to send you 36 hours
notice.
Gabriel isn't going to slip something in your
locker or by your bed or under your
door saying, here's a hot wire from heaven.
36 hours from now Jesus is coming in
majesty and in glory.
Oh no, no he's not.
And I think it says one man says
facetiously, today we're living in a day which
is eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow
we'll be raptured.
That's how most Christians are living.
Eat, drink and be merry.
Don't get too worried, we're going to be
raptured.
Let the world go to hell.
What do you care who gets your house
once you've gone up in the sky?
Forget it.
That's not the way to live.
There's only one way to live and that
is to live with eternity's values in view.
To let people see that we're not earthbound.
To let people see this is not just
a theory but it's a life that we're
living.
And it's not a life by sheer intellectual
determination, it's a life that is governed by
his life coming in on this life of
ours and controlling this life and controlling our
minds and controlling our hearts, controlling our desires.
Duncan Campbell told me more than once about
meetings in which when it seemed the heavens
were like brass somebody would pray I would
pray and suddenly the heavens would open like
that.
And revival came.
Revival that closed taverns.
Revival that closed down stores.
Again, Coles' definition is correct that revival changes
the moral climate of a community.
Then you know you've had revival.
Our revivals don't get under the threshold of
the door.
Our revivals what do we do?
We take a busload from the first Baptist
the first Methodist the first something else.
And what do we take people who've heard
the gospel for 40 years?
Why don't we go to a tavern?
Why don't we say look, are you a
church member yet?
You can't get on this bus.
We're going to a so and so's meeting.
But it's not for you you've heard it
enough.
And when we've been to this hell hole
we're going down there to the place of
prostitution.
And then we're going down here to a
dance hall then we're going to a place
of gambling.
And then we're going down this section because
this section is just full of homosexuals and
we say the only reason you can come
on this bus is you've never made the
profession of Christ or you've made one of
your baptism.
No, we take ready-made stuff.
We take busloads of people that are already
conditioned.
That's why half of them don't hear.
But Jesus said go to the loft seat
of the house of Israel.
And to revival isn't a little stirring in
our own little nest.
Revival is a shaking of the kingdom of
darkness outside.
It's again of the pressure of being building
up and suddenly it bursts out.
And this gives me so much joy when
I think of the folk I've met in
the last few months that God has given
to them the spirit of intercession.
They don't want publicity.
They don't want to be seen.
In other words they're married to the will
of God and the will of God for
them is to hide in secret.
And one day God who sees in secret
is going to reward them openly.
The Lord whom ye seek.
But tell me this is the last couple
of minutes.
Are we really seeking the Lord or are
we seeking blessing?
Are we really seeking the Lord or are
we seeking miracles?
What are we seeking?
Because it says seek and ye shall find.
And if blessing is all you want you
can go to meetings and say what a
lovely time today it was blessing and the
world outside is as hell bound as it
was when we began.
The Lord whom ye seek.
Now I urge you to seek him for
yourself.
Everybody else may get light say Lord I
want to hear the voice.
Everybody may be staggering round say Lord I
want you to put holy purpose in my
life.
I want to know now why I know
why I'm saved.
I'm saved through your blood.
I want to know what Lord what will
thou have me to do?
Not the church not agape what will thou
have me to do?