...to some degree about personal revival, which comes
again, of course, in the first place, by
obedience to the Spirit.
Paul says in Acts, I forget, is it
26 there, he gives the Spirit to them
that obey him.
And again, this is the key, not only
to obtaining blessing, but to maintaining it.
There has to be continual obedience.
And again, there's a constant necessity, as Paul
said to Timothy, to stir up the gift
of God which is in you.
The Greek actually there means to stir into
a flame.
It's like a fire that's going out, and
you know you fan it, and gradually the
flame comes back, and you've got to keep...
It doesn't say God will stir you up,
and it doesn't say I will stir you
up, it says you stir yourself up.
You have that ability.
If you have the ability, which we all
have to be lethargic, we don't need any
training in those things, do we?
Some things you don't have to try for.
You don't have to practice failure, for instance.
That comes pretty automatic.
And laziness, you don't have to practice.
And apathy.
And there are some things which are...
The flesh, because we're in this house of
clay.
Old A.B. Simpson used to talk about
perishing things of clay.
We live in a house of clay.
And often it is true of us that
the Spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.
For many reasons.
You get overtired, you get nervous, you have
problems on your mind, and these all begin
to drain.
And then what we have to do again
is go to the Word, which as we
said is...
We didn't go through it, but seven times
is mentioned in the 119th Psalm.
Read the verses there.
Quicken me according to thy Word.
Quicken me according to thy judgments.
Quicken me according to thy loving kindness.
When I see those things, immediately I'm aroused
to think, Oh, the loving kindness of God.
He could have cut me off and dropped
me into hell before ever I was saved.
But in loving kindness He pursued me.
He followed me.
And so there is this constant need that
whatever provision God has made, I still have
to appropriate.
And this is again why some people mature
more quickly than others.
I remember a period in my own life
when I thought, Well, I've got that in
my mind.
I've got it down in the book and
that's all right.
And I soon discovered that the head knowledge
in itself is not enough.
God works it in, but you work out
your own salvation.
And this again is why we mature at
different rates.
I thought this afternoon we would think about...
We talked about revival in a personal way
this morning.
Pardon me.
We talked about revival on the local level.
And I don't think there is a better
example of this than in the case of
Charles Haddon Spurgeon himself.
I don't know he was the most prolific
writer, but he has the most recorded sermons,
I think, of anybody in history.
He had the Park Street Pulpit where he
was before he went to the...
some famous gardens in England.
And then after that place they built a
tabernacle and you get the tabernacle sermons.
And there's an awesome amount.
He's got oceans.
Literally oceans of words.
Whitfield went to hear a man one day
and somebody asked him, what do you think
about the preaching of the man?
He said, well, he had a river of
words with a spoonful of inspiration.
Now very often I think we can...
particularly in preaching, it's possible almost to drown
a text in human words.
I hear people say, well, you can't...
people can't concentrate more than 20 minutes.
Well, they do when they go to an
opera.
They listen to an opera for three hours
and if they can listen to that, they
should listen to the word because the word
is supposed to be living and vital and
vibrant.
And it isn't a reflection on the preacher,
it's a reflection on our capacity.
It's like saying that it's no good giving
a man a seven-course dinner.
I've been to some places.
I've lived all over the place.
I've lived in mud huts.
I've lived in castles.
I've lived with the rich and the poor.
And I've been to places where you...
you know, you have finger bowls.
An American got one.
He drank it.
But you have finger bowls you're supposed to
use immediately after you've, for instance, had fish
and somebody hands you a little towel, you
hand it back and you have these flunkies
around you and it's an awful job, you
know.
You sit down there, you know, and it's
going to take two or three hours but,
you know, it never gets boring.
If you have the appetite, you enjoy it.
It reminds me of, you know, in the...
in the days prior to the Chinese Revolution,
the Soong's, S-O-O-N-G.
The Soong's were the intellectual family of China.
I think Chiang Kai-shek was married to
a Soong, a woman who had, I think,
doctorate degrees, and the family was very brilliant.
And one of the Soong's was an ambassador.
He was the ambassador of China to England.
And he went to one of these snobbish
parties where dukes and lords and ladies were,
you know, and he arrived late.
He was supposed to offer the toast to
the queen and he...
well, the queen wasn't there, but she was
going to offer the toast to him.
But the toast was to the queen and
he got there late.
And so, as he came in, they'd already
served the soup and they passed him his
soup and he just bowed and nodded to
each person he drank the soup and the
snobbish Englishman next to him said to him,
You see, because Chinese usually say it that
way.
And he said, yes.
And at the end of the dinner, they
said, well, his excellency, Dr. Soong of China
was not here, so we're going to ask
him to give a toast to the queen
right now.
And he stood up and he gave a
marvellous speech in flawless English.
He sat down and looked at the colonel
who was looking, you know, so dignified at
him and as he sat down, he said,
You know, you can never presume.
Sometimes we kind of, as one famous Englishman
said, you can never overestimate the ignorance of
your congregation.
That is true, but very often you can't
overestimate the intellectual power of your audience.
And the only way you can have real
assurance in presenting a message is that you've
got a word from God.
And if you've got a word from God,
you don't care whether it's a kind of
a super-intellectual group or they're a bit
dumb.
Because I discover very often that the most
intellectual, and I've often spoken to university groups
and scholars far beyond me intellectually, but if
God has given me a word, I know
that that word is needed in that particular
group, whatever the social standing, whatever the intellectual
standing is, that I've got the word of
the Lord and those people have to receive
it as God's word and I have to
deliver it as God's word.
Not being nervous, not being mindful of those
people.
You know, Paul was at home everywhere and
I think one reason of this, he bowed
the knee, he said, I bowed the knee
to the Father and if you bow the
knee to the Father, you don't need to
bow it to anybody else.
If you bow the knee to the Father,
you can stand on your feet before I
don't care who's there in front of you.
You won't be intimidated by their social or
intellectual or even spiritual standing because you've got
the word of God.
All right, we talked about the revival in
America that's sometimes called the 59 revival that
it spilled over or at least there were
kind of waves that went into England but
Spurgeon said that even six years before the
revival touched England or his part of England,
he had had a measure of revival before
that.
Now, he's a phenomenon in many ways.
I understand that all the biographers say that
he was converted when he was 15.
He didn't make it to the church he
wanted to go to.
He slipped into a church and sat under
the gallery and he heard a very ordinary
man give a rather ordinary message and yet
it was God's word that was quick and
powerful.
It barbed into his heart.
Now, there he was 15 years of age.
At 19 years of age without any Bible
training, without any seminary training, at 19 years
of age, he's a very distinguished preacher.
Now, I've heard people say that immediately he
drew 6,000 people a day, 12,000
people a day.
No, he did not.
He had a period of, if you like
to say, God's training in a smaller building
and then he went to a place which
became very famous, New Park Street Chapel.
Now, he says that before the revival touched
London in any great way, he already had
had a touch of revival 6 years before
that in the New Park Street Chapel.
Now, he stayed in the New Park Street
Chapel and within a year of him being
there it was jammed out.
So they pulled all the side walls out,
all the side buildings out and made one
great auditorium seating some 1,000 and within
12 months that was too small.
This is showing again the power of revival
on the local level.
Now, he'd already enlarged his church once, he
enlarges it a second time and then it
wasn't possible for him to get the crowds
in.
They were turning 2,000 or 3,000
people away every Sunday.
So he went down to what was called
the Surrey Gardens, I think it was called
Surrey Gardens, Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall.
Now, it wasn't a music hall in the
sense that we think of a music hall.
It was a conservatory where they had classical
music once or twice a month and it
seated something like 10,000 people.
Now, you would imagine that this young fellow
going to a place like that, he was
still in his 20s, I guess, and you
would imagine that when they move out of
a place, say, that had 3,000, enlarge
it to 4,000 and that when you
take a place holding, well, some say 12
,000 people, he gave out tickets first to
his own people which were about 8,000
and then they discovered the first Sunday that
they were there that while it did hold
about 12,000, there were 10,000 people
outside trying to get in.
Now, it is true that there have been
preachers who have preached to a greater crowd.
Billy Graham's preached to 125,000.
He preached to a million in Korea.
Somebody said after that he had a problem.
The next meeting he went to he'd only
about 60,000 and he had a tremendous
reaction.
You know, it's a small crowd, 60,000
after a million.
You can't see the last man whether he's
got blue eyes or no eyes at all
on the edge of the crowd.
And the reaction was pretty bad.
But nobody has preached consistently as a pastor
to more people than Spurgeon did.
So now we find him with this auditorium
that seats 12,000 people.
Then they decided he visualized building the largest
church in the world.
And he started a fund to do that.
But you see, again, if God opens the
windows of heaven, the door opens, the devil
opens the doors of hell.
And you get caught between the two.
So he goes down to this building, this
Surrey Gardens, what was it called?
Surrey Gardens Music Conservatory.
And the crowd was milling outside.
When he got there he was nervous himself.
Why?
I thought we'd made accommodation.
Aren't the doors open?
Yes, they're open.
It's jammed out.
And 10,000 people outside.
So he goes in.
Here the place is loaded to the utmost
capacity.
And just as he was going to begin
the service, somebody, nobody knows to this day
who, somebody shouted, fire, fire.
And immediately there was a stampede.
And somebody else yelled, the galleries are collapsing,
the galleries are collapsing.
People began to jump from the galleries to
save their lives.
The result was that 28 people were injured,
7 people were killed.
There was panic.
And then he got up and somebody said,
well, preach, preach.
And he gave them a word, I think,
from Jeremiah about judgment shall come in the
house of the wicked.
But you see, immediately you start doing anything
which is going to damage the kingdom of
God.
All Lucifer is going to fight back anyhow.
Now that was not the worst.
It was not just a physical evidence.
The worst was they began to slander him.
They began to criticize him.
Some people even said it was fellows that
didn't believe in the doctrine that he preached
that shouted fire, thinking it would just scare
people.
Not dreaming, of course, that people would lose
their lives and all the other things that
we never think of when we do the
crazy things we do.
When we are just disobedient, when we are
just careless.
But, you know, that source stayed in his
mind that a number of years after he
went to a great conference.
I'm not sure if it was in Brighton,
England.
And when he got there there was a
crowd outside and it brought back memories.
And when he got inside the place was
jammed and they were standing everywhere.
And they said he had to lean on
a door post.
He blanched, he went white.
When, again, he visualized the stampede in that
Surrey Gardens music hall which caused disaster, caused
death.
You see, it had built that thing up
in his mind and there was still that
fear which you could understand.
But, again, if we're going to do the
will of God what's going to happen?
Well, as soon as we start making headway
for God what happens?
You get opposition.
In the 19th of Acts the 19th of
Acts there's a like thing.
Where is it now?
OK.
Let's say verse 24 of Acts 19.
saying that there be no gods which are
made with hands.
So not only this our craft is in
danger to be set at naught but also
that the temple of the great goddess Diana
or what do you say?
Diana?
should be despised and her magnificence should be
destroyed whom all Asia and the world worshipeth.
Wherefore, when they heard these sayings they were
full of wrath and they cried out saying
greatest Diana of the Ephesians and the whole
city was filled with confusion and caught Gaius
and Aristarchus men of Macedonia Paul's companions in
trouble and rushed with one according to the
theater.
And when Paul would have entered in unto
the people the disciples suffered him not.
Well, here again you get the same thing.
As soon as the heaven begins to move
all hell is stirred.
Now, I understand by I think pretty good
authentic history that what like we sing choruses
we sing hymns before preaching outside that horrible
building at least that's used for a horrible
purpose right now where those captives are in
in Islam there by Islam in Iran that
they're chanting this is a holy day they're
chanting not political slogans right now but religious
slogans chanting chanting chanting.
Well, that's exactly what they did.
I understand that in a before a great
celebration in the temple of Diana that the
congregation was ordered to chant certain praises to
Diana and they would chant them hundreds of
times they chanted for about two hundred times
why?
Because to stir people's emotions up.
Before Hitler made a speech in the grand
in the great sports parley in Berlin there
there were a hundred and twenty thousand men
they'd got steel helmets on they had their
military gear they were at attention and they
stood in the burning sun for two hours
before Hitler spoke with what?
With the best military bands in the country
and they would stand there and the bands
would strike up and then they would sing
some great national anthems and they would all
get stirred up emotionally and then Hitler would
come in because already they were emotionally stirred
up and it's very easy to impress people
when they're emotionally stirred.
A friend of mine used to quote the
fact that I don't know it was Hitler
said Goebbels said to Goering or Goering said
to Goering and Goebbels and I'll just get
mixed up in the two but one of
them said to the other when Hitler had
been talking for about fifty minutes oh he's
getting nowhere he's getting nowhere now they couldn't
say pray for him he says wait and
then suddenly that burst of oratory became and
oh my was he eloquent did he stir
them and Goebbels said to Goering or Goering
said to Goebbels he's alright now the Holy
Ghost is on him now that tells me
one of two things it tells me that
somewhere they'd been in meetings where they knew
something about the Holy Ghost and the other
thing that they knew if the Holy Ghost
came upon someone that they were very different
from when the Holy Spirit was not upon
them but you see there's also what the
Greeks called the athletics there's a place to
which the oratory gets and I always call
it like going down the runway and suddenly
you take off you don't know when it
is sometimes in a meeting you get off
in the first five minutes me sometimes it
takes me 25 to get off but the
fact is there is a point where you
realize that another power has overtaken I don't
read sports pages usually but I saw a
picture of this one of the footballer fellows
there in Dallas and they were interviewing him
and asking him some questions and I always
like to read interviews and he said well
when I'm talking to you I'm one person
he said when I'm playing but he said
once I get the ball I feel I'm
possessed by something else you see it's an
inner consciousness it's a sudden inspiration if you
like which can work humanly as well as
by a divine power well Paul had the
same experience or if you want to reverse
it Spurgeon had the same experience as the
apostle Paul immediately he began to move in
the power of God he got opposition he
got opposition from the world and the flesh
and the devil he got enemies of the
cross they were against him the people were
against him the devil was against him maybe
often his own fears and weakness were against
him it doesn't alter the fact that he
went on to preach to about eight thousand
people continually you think could God trust you
and me with a congregation like that he
never got swell headed to preach to eight
thousand people twice every Sunday for about twenty
years that's an awful awful lot of people
to minister to well you say then he
was an eloquent man yes he was an
eloquent man he was a good student yes
he was a good student he had great
authority yes he had great authority but then
why was he eloquent why was he such
a good student why did he have such
great authority when people asked him the question
they said now you've got the greatest church
in the world the tabernacle what's the secret
oh the secret goes back six years he
said he said we have had for six
years the dew has never ceased to fall
and then he changed the figure he said
the rain of blessing has never ceased to
fall for six years on the tabernacle on
the previous meeting house park street chapel and
he said the reason behind that was we
have the greatest bunch of praying people that
you could ever find in England now it
used to be that when people went to
tour that place it became a kind of
you know tourist anybody going to London the
spiritual didn't want to go to Westminster Abbey
necessarily they wanted to see the Spurgeons tabernacle
and they would always be taken to a
back room and say as soon as the
preacher stands upon his feet you've got a
bunch of maybe 50 people in the back
room holding up his arms like they held
up the arms of Aaron and Her you
see you find people saying over and over
again well you know Charles Finney had a
razor like mind he was I read somewhere
he was 7 feet 2 I don't know
whether he was if he was today they
would have drafted him to a basketball team
but anyhow I don't know whether he was
7 feet 2 but I know intellectually and
spiritually morally he was but you see everybody
says look what a great man Finney was
bloody had father Nash and father Cleary that
used to go in the basement and pray
for him each of them prayed 12 hours
a day well I think if I had
2 men like that I'd be prepared to
have a campaign in hell almost 12 hours
a day those 2 men they never surfaced
I think the greatest people in the world
today are unknown I think that that fellow
that's not too far from here and I
won't tell you the time unless you go
looking him up and he wouldn't like that
this young man of 32 was mature that
he can pray 10 hours a day to
me he's one of the great men of
our generation other people will deliver the baby
he conceives the thing he brings it to
birth somebody else gets the glory but one
day the sword and the reaper it all
rejoins together in the old testament it said
that those that stay at home will have
the same reward as those that go to
battle everybody wants exposure everybody wants a place
in the sun as they used to say
everybody wants their share of credit now what
was the name of that fellow that held
the rope that let Paul down the wall
in a basket I can't remember the name
what was the name don't scratch your head
nobody knows it isn't in the scripture but
I'll tell you what he did a great
job that day if he hadn't held on
the rope and somebody else let him fall
down what would have happened there might have
been no Paul to go on there are
so many people covered up their ministry there's
a scripture there in the book of the
revelation Antipas Antipas A N T I P
A S and all it says is Antipas
my faithful martyr where was he martyred why
was he martyred what period of church history
what country was it I don't know and
I don't care but I know this that
you see there are different crowns in eternity
and one is a martyr's crown and everybody
will have that Antipas will have it there's
no record in here to inspire my faith
no no no no but God just said
Antipas my faithful martyr you get a list
of people who did amazing things by faith
in Hebrews 11 it doesn't mention Joshua I
think he had faith boy I'd need faith
to go walking around the city without a
sword or a atom bomb in my pocket
and just say you know at the end
of the week the last time you go
around ooh 13 times that's unlucky we can't
do that but they went down and presto
the walls fell down but he doesn't get
any credit for it it just says by
faith the walls of Jericho fell down oh
put him on the honors list huh?
John doesn't recall that he was on the
mount of transfiguration other people one of the
greatest events in the life of Jesus I
want my name in there no he doesn't
say it was there you know you may
disagree and if you well you disagree with
me you'll know you're wrong but you may
not think this is right but you know
I kind of figure you can't have your
reward here and hereafter we say sometimes Jesus
paid for our sins and God doesn't ask
me to pay you can't pay a bill
twice well if you can't pay a bill
twice can you be rewarded twice for the
same thing you see the Pharisees they stood
at the street corners doing what?
stroking their beards why?
because they loved the praise of men and
Jesus says and verily they have their reward
their reward was to hear people say go
past and say you know that man was
there at eight o'clock this morning and
you know he was there when I was
a little boy twelve years of age and
that's fifteen years back and he's always there
and he always has his hands tight and
his eyes closed and he's always muttering prayers
he's one of the most praying men in
the world and the Pharisees boy he ate
that up mmmm he talked about peanut jelly
to a little boy and jam boy that's
nothing like what he got he got a
kick out of that I'm the holiest man
in town I'd love to hear them say
that and hear somebody else and Jesus says
that's his reward they have their reward and
you go to a meeting somebody says who'll
give a million dollars they had a meeting
in Dallas not long ago and they started
off who'll give a million dollars one guy
flashed ten he gave ten and then others
gave one one one they didn't even ask
poor people who only had half a million
you know or folk on welfare who only
had a quarter of a million no no
once he got to a million and it
stopped they shut the meeting up like that
yeah I give one oh there's brother John
over there oh there's brother Jack over there
over there what does the scripture say he
says don't let your left hand know what
your right hand is doing he says don't
display your charity before men well those are
scriptures we forget but I don't believe I
I believe a man gets his fill and
he gets satisfied in seeing his name at
the top of the list oh you know
everybody else they only gave a quarter of
a million and one or two gave half
he gave a million he gave the biggest
amount and there his name's flashed I think
that's his reward I don't believe he'll get
a reward in eternity for it he got
what he wanted he got the praise of
men he got to be highly esteemed in
the eyes of men it shouldn't worry us
whether we're esteemed or not if the spirit
is bearing witness with my spirit I'm doing
God's will well forget it if you live
on the esteem of men well I've got
one friend and he esteems me very highly
hey it'll be hard on you if he
gets hit with a truck this afternoon won't
it he'll have nobody to esteem you he'll
be flat on your face he'll be flat
on his back but you'll be flat on
your face what will you do because you're
living on the esteem of others no no
no Spurgeon had his enemies Spurgeon had people
who were constantly out to kind of assassinate
him if you like you know the same
thing happened in the Welsh revival that wonderful
young man by the name of Evan Roberts
God trusted him at 22 years of age
to lead a nation in revival and you
know after a year they tried to assassinate
him a group of men went from Wales
into Leicestershire where he was staying with the
home of Mrs. Jessie Penn Lewis and her
husband and they planned his death somebody tipped
off the police and they stopped what for
because they didn't like what he was preaching
why didn't these people like the apostle Paul
because he's damaging their income they make shrines
they make images of the goddess they're making
wealth out of religion this man says it's
all false it's no more value than the
dirt you tread on in the street and
those are not poor you see we live
in a strange world if you do wrong
they'll put you to jail and you know
what if you do good they'll put you
to jail too Paul never went to jail
for pinching stealing somebody's purse you know or
robbing widows of other tithes that was all
he had left of the TV boys no
sir he didn't do anything wrong but he
went to jail the Puritans went to jail
John Bunyan went to jail he spent what
15 years in jail and what happened well
he wrote the greatest book outside of the
bible the most circulated book if you haven't
read it you should read it Pilgrim's Progress
which has been circulated more than any book
in history except again the bible itself it
was a product of a period of darkness
we talked of this morning a period of
opposition now Spurgeon gives credit all the time
to the fact that behind him there was
a whole fellowship of prayer which continually made
intercession on his behalf it was said that
no man if you could open a man's
heart the queen of England used to say
the queen Victoria used to say if a
heart was open you'd find Calais written on
it that's Calais maybe you call it that's
a lovely town opposite Dover it's on the
French coast and she liked to go there
for a rest she liked to go there
and relax and she said you'd find Calais
I think imprinted on my heart but they
said of Spurgeon his love after Jesus Christ
his great love was for the city of
London itself he loved it he prayed over
it he wept over it he travailed for
it well there's a cost again not only
a cost in discipleship as Bonhoeffer says but
the cost again of this is that Spurgeon
would not be sidetracked into anything else it's
an amazing thing when you think of a
young boy that has no training in the
Bible he has no training in seminary he's
drawing the greatest crowds in the world and
then he opens a what he called a
pastor's college where hundreds of men were trained
for the ministry now people say the success
of this amazing preacher was this because he
held to Calvin's doctrine well I won't give
Calvin that credit I say it's because he
held to the word of God he stressed
so strongly the blood of Jesus Christ the
atonement which is not stressed too much in
our day we sing a hymn or two
about it but it is not stressed as
it should be stressed not only the atonement
because that's half of the coin the other
half of the coin is what well the
resurrection of Jesus and then he fought desperately
for again for the inerrancy of the word
of God now that really is a pattern
because you see at the same time that
Wesley was pardon me the same time that
Spurgeon was being stirred that 1859 revival was
not only wonderful here in America it actually
as I said it came after a period
of tremendous prosperity it came a time after
well atheism was rampant spiritism had been revived
there was a new wave of free love
there was everything diabolical and then God suddenly
began to do it but do you remember
how he did it I didn't tell you
yesterday there was a collapse in the military
system too some of the banks couldn't pay
out at least one railway one railway system
closed down then there came the outburst of
blessing in 1850 what 57 58 round there
anyhow now the same thing is this revival
broke out in London about 1859 but I
have a book in my office there it's
called this year of grace written by Gibson
if you ever see it by it's the
record of the year of grace 1859 when
the spirit of God came on men in
Northern Ireland there is a record of revival
in Scotland when in 1859 now in all
these cases without giving you laboring the point
of dates and personality names but in every
case I find a background of intense praying
a background of intense agonizing a time when
men committed themselves to intercession not just saying
prayers now I say soul winning again soul
winning should not be a profession it must
be a what a passion now let's get
this straight too that when you talk of
intercessory prayer and travel let me put it
in a nutshell for you travel travelling prayer
cannot be taught it can only be caught
and it can be caught two ways it
can be caught by the spirit doing something
directly in your own heart or giving you
to get in a fellowship where people really
know how to pray where they really know
how to intercede where they don't pray with
one eye on the clock that's fatal to
prayer the clock has to be forgotten friends
have to be forgotten food has to be
forgotten now when revival comes again as I
said the other day in giving you that
outline that you can't computerize it you can't
rationalize it and also so I said you
can't rationalize it you can't computerize it you
can't organize it you can't subsidize it you
can't denominationalize it you can't nationalize it the
only thing we can do is prepare the
way of the Lord and I reminded you
again I think that's one of the most
awesome tasks ever given to a single man
like you he didn't have twelve disciples like
Jesus God says to John the Baptist prepare
ye the way of the Lord and you
discover that behind every revival God has burdened
some people to prepare the way of the
Lord but when that revival comes it's not
going to be a blueprint of the last
revival I read a little while ago something
that was tremendously inspiring to me and disturbing
because I thought at times I'd been in
revival in a measure I have but not
to this degree one of the great revivalists
of America was Dr. Jonathan Goldforth now he
went over to China and had awesome meetings
but his wife said look I want to
tell you about the revival she said there
was nothing you could predict you can't say
you know tomorrow is going to be a
wonderful day we've had a marvelous day today
for instance he said the spirit would descend
and they'd be caught up and you wouldn't
hardly know if you were in the body
you couldn't feel anybody at the side of
you you were so caught up in the
spirit for eight and nine hours in pure
adoration non-stop not stopping for a cup
of coffee a cup of tea or running
just eight and nine hours just caught in
endless waves of ecstasy and majesty that you
didn't think were possible this side of eternity
the next day of course the meeting was
going on 24 hours a day but the
next day the phenomena would not be that
you were caught up and left speechless and
almost exhausted with the marvelous majesty of God
to interfere here I'm not sure if Mel
Tarry didn't say that in the revivals in
Indonesia there were times when stillness would come
and the angels would sing but I met
a man by the name I didn't meet
him but I listened to him when I
was a little boy he wrote a history
if ever you see it buy it it's
worth it's worth a lot I've just got
a copy I'm not selling it and a
friend of mine has put it in a
hard binding I saw the Welsh revival by
David Matthews David Matthews used to come and
preach at the church when I was a
boy and David was saying one day I
remember distinctly he startled me he said in
the Welsh revival a preacher was preaching and
suddenly he said ha and he put his
finger up like that and they heard the
angels singing the most amazing music you could
ever hear now you can't order that you
see if Billy Graham could order it boy
he'd have that angel cry everyday Oral Roberts
would buy the whole thing out but you
just can't do it God manifests himself as
he will so one day we're caught up
into awesome spellbinding praise and adoration the
feature the next day was stillness you sit
there nobody drop off to sleep nobody will
say what's happening around here there will be
a series maybe a time of praise not
as intense as yesterday or a time of
prayer and then suddenly God cut everything off
be still and know that I'm God and
she said the most awesome thing to me
was not the praise now she said there
were other days when you get seven and
eight hours of agonizing prayer you think people
were being torn apart they were groaning they
were wrestling against principalities and powers they were
seeing as Whitfield said I see people everyday
slipping over the edge of the abyss into
eternity I remember when I was a boy
we had in our church in our church
room where we prayed we had different pictures
and one was somebody had taken the Niagara
Falls and instead of water going over it
was little people all falling into the abyss
of hell I never forgotten it now George
Whitfield said when he preached he could see
people at the end of the room falling
into hell that's what fired him or he
said that when he was giving a message
they said for instance if he was going
to preach on hell you would think when
he came on the platform he'd been there
for a day you could almost smell the
brimstone he was so devastating he was so
full of anguish to arrest you people but
if he preached on heaven you would think
he'd been in heaven for a month he
brought the glory and majesty of God with
him now usually our preachers have to come
and tell one or two funny little stories
and you know it's kind of conditioning the
audience and everybody thinks what a nice guy
no no no no that's pure nonsense but
saying again you see that one day you've
got eight hours of majestic praise and maybe
you could only stand that once in your
lifetime I don't know the next time the
next day the next day the
day next day the
next the next the
next day the next the the
next day the next next day the
next the next the next
the day Little a brilliant Hebrew scholar.
Now you remember the prayer of John Knox,
give me children or I die.
Remember the prayer of, who was it, Rachel
in the 30th chapter I think of Genesis
there, where she flings herself down in front
of her husband, and she says, Jacob give
me children or I die, chapter 30 verse
1.
Rachel envied her sister, Jacob give me children
or else I die.
John Knox translated that to give me Scotland
or else I die.
This blessed young man, this brilliant young scholar
said, give me this city or I die.
As I said to a very famous preacher
not long ago, I'm glad you have a
TV that covers the nation, I'm glad you
have a missionary problem, but outside you've got
one of the greatest rivers of prostitution in
this country, and behind you've got a monstrous
old mansion filled with homosexuals from top to
bottom.
The scripture says begin at Jerusalem.
It's alright saying we have a TV program,
do you know how many letters we got
from California, do you know how many letters
we got from Georgia, do you know how
many letters we got from Denver.
Who doesn't get letters if you have a
TV program?
But who's touching all the lost people on
your doorstep?
Well this man says this city, I'm going
to take this city for God.
Now after when he had died it became
a place of curiosity, people went along and
they wanted to see the church and they
wanted to walk in his office, and the
old janitor there would say, when preachers came
and say could I see his office, yes.
There's his desk, sit behind the desk, put
your elbows on the desk, put your head
in your hands, now weep.
That's what he used to do.
They got the spiral staircase with its big
lovely cushions, and see this great auditorium, church
as they say in England, kirk as they
say in Scotland.
Put your elbows on the cushion, put your
head in your hands and weep.
That's what he used to do.
You see as we, in the next session,
in a few minutes I think I'm going
to talk about this, about intercession.
Again intercession cannot be taught, travail cannot be
taught, it is caught.
You can ask for it, you may not
necessarily get it until you've been through a
school of proving.
You see, again, you go to, people talk
about why did China collapse?
You know there was a period when no
missionaries did any teaching in China, all they
did was evangelize, and then they decided to
teach in schools and do other things, and
immediately they did.
The spirituality deteriorated because God sent them there
ostensibly to spread the gospel.
Oh well this is one way to get
favor, oh no you don't need anybody's favor
if you've got God's favor.
All hell can oppose you, and all the
government can oppose you, but if you've got
God's favor you'll get through.
You see anything, one of the times I
didn't talk, I talked a number of times
with Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in London, England,
and he said to me one day, Brother
Ray, I don't have any problems spending hours,
you know he's done marvelous expositions of Romans
and Ephesians, and he said I love it,
he said the hardest thing in my life
is prayer.
And I was the most brilliant preacher in
England, drawing the biggest crowd, and then he
says well it's the hardest thing in anybody's
life.
Again let me put it in your mind
in case you don't have it there, in
your life and mine as a Christian the
good is the enemy of the best.
Satan isn't going to try and get you
drunk tonight or become an adulterer or a
liar or something, he's going to get you
to spend an hour with those girls or
those boys, and there are times when you
need that, but there are times you don't
need it.
You see, the good becomes the enemy of
the best.
A fellowship with each other is no substitute
for fellowship with the Father.
Fellowship with each other is good.
Fellowship with the Father and the Son is
the best.
Teaching kids in another country is all right.
I think maybe before long it's the only
way we'll get into other countries anyhow.
We've so messed up the gospel.
For instance, who's going to be admired when
they come to America?
Didn't Mel Tarry say as soon as he
came in, in the airport he went to
the newspaper, Steinman?
Oh!
America!
Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Great Bibles, pornographic literature,
all that.
In my country, heathen country, we don't have
nude girls, we don't have all this stuff.
Go on the beaches, nudity, see gay people
marching through the city.
All the profanity.
Who wants our religion anyhow?
Why does it show up?
I can remember when Billy Graham used to
say he was glad he belonged to Christian
country.
Now he's come to the conclusion, he said
not long ago, there's no such thing as
a Christian country.
He should have known that at the beginning.
There isn't.
There are Christians in a country.
There are some countries better than others.
But man alive, a Christian country wouldn't have
a jail in it, would it?
Except for you folk that do over 55
an hour.
But apart from that, there'd be no people
in jail for crime, because Christians do not
commit crime.
Christians didn't used to get divorced.
I can remember in England, when in the
newspaper it said that the Lord and Lady
or Duke and Duchess of so and so
are being divorced.
And immediately you said, oh boy, filthy people.
If you're a divorcee, you are not allowed
in Buckingham Palace.
You are not allowed in the Royal Enclosure
at, say at Royal Ascot when the Queen
went to see her horses running.
You're a leper if you're a divorcee.
That doesn't, that doesn't obtain anywhere.
Doesn't obtain in the Church anymore.
You'll find people now in high places in
the Church.
Charismatics, Pentecostals, everybody's having problems.
I wrote a man recently, he's one of
the most staunch interpreters of Wesley's Second Blessing
Holiness.
I said, hey, everybody that I find now,
the churches I go in, they're plagued with
divorce.
Do you have any problem in the Holiness
folk?
And he said, yes, it's becoming a problem
with Holiness people.
Brother, how the barriers have gone down.
Everywhere.
And yet God wants to lift up a
standard against this.
Well, that ought to be something that burdens
our hearts anyhow.
But you see, this man sees, he sees
the sin of the city and he says,
well, and he had been a Mishri, he
had learned Hebrew and he had gone over
to Israel, Palestine as it was then, and
God said, return to your own city, so
he went back to Dundee.
And he sowed and he sowed and he
wept and he wept.
And he didn't see a breakthrough.
But while he was away, a man called
W.C. Burns went.
Burns one day went to do some shopping
down in Glasgow.
There weren't many automobiles, in fact, there were
none in those days.
There were a few horse and cart buggies
going around and horses with, you know, big
old flat carts taking freight around.
And he stood at the side of the
wall and his head was down and he
was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing on the street.
And a woman went past and she came
back and said, William.
And he looked and it was his mother.
His mother said, William.
And a woman went past and she came
back and said, William.
And he looked and it was his mother.
His mother said, William, why are you weeping
down here?
Oh, mother, he said, listen, listen, listen to
the thud of Christ's feet.
They're going to a lost eternity.
Now, here is a man warning himself then,
just like David Brainerd did.
I mean, W.
Robert Murray McShane, he had tuberculosis too.
But he spent hours and days in intercession.
He broke his heart.
He travailed for revival.
And while he was away, really partly on
a health cruise as well, they told him
this would restore his health.
And partly to be a missionary, do a
missionary job with the Jews there in Israel.
While he was there, revival broke out.
Well, isn't that too bad?
The man that did all the sweating and
all the praying and all the travailing?
No, when he came home he rejoiced.
Oh, how he rejoiced.
You see, that's why God could trust him
with, with an experience where he's going to
take all the burden and all the trouble
and somebody else comes and reaps the harvest.
That the good book says the sower and
the reaper will one day, what, rejoice together.
You know, I would rather be the least
in the kingdom of God than be the
greatest in the devil's kingdom, wouldn't you?
I'd rather be an unknown because one day
we're going to be pretty well known, you
know.
It's not going to take long before the
17th and 18th of Revelation becomes true, that
Exon and all these other boys are going
to be howling and screaming one day.
And you know there's no division between the
chapters in the, in the, in the Revelation.
And the next chapter says the saints are
shouting hallelujah.
They're groaning and traveling, they've lost their millions,
they've no hope.
All their crime has come up to them.
All the times they've, you know, done all
the dirty work they do in high places.
Intrigue and managing markets and all the other
things.
These cartels and these monopolies and all the
other things that have robbed and destroyed.
And they live like the kings of the
earth and it's going to go wow like
pricking a balloon one day.
And you know when they lose everything you
and I gain everything.
When their kingdom perishes our kingdom just comes
in.
When they've lost everything we gain everything.
And as that good old song says, I
don't think there are many great modern songs,
but one I like is, it will be
worth it all when we see Jesus.
These people we don't know.
These people who laid the foundations in prayer
and then died often without seeing what they'd
labored for.
One day God says that those that have
labored in secret he's going to reward them
openly.
Won't that be a day?
Man you talk about going to a homecoming.
Won't that be a homecoming?
With the apostles and the prophets and the
saints of old.
You know with all Elijah and Isaiah and
all these folk in there.
Oh boy it's not going to be great
to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and
all that redeeming.
That's going to be a day.
We'll all be wishing then we'd suffered a
bit more and prayed a bit more and
been zealous a bit more and labored a
bit more.
For while salvation's free there's going to be
no free reward.
There's going to be no buxy crowns you
know.
God, Gabriel isn't waiting till he get in
the door to tap a five decker crown
on your head full of diamonds.
Oh no no no.
We're saved by, we're saved by grace.
We're not rewarded by grace.
We're rewarded for works.
You won't get any more up there than
you're sent up there.
That's why it says lay up for yourselves
what?
In heaven?
I used to wonder you know how in
the world will it be the last shall
be first and the first shall be last.
But the more I get to know some
of these big shots I find that you
know somebody recently said that the average preacher
in America does not spend ten minutes a
day in prayer.
And you think of a little guy hidden
away in Texas that'll pray ten hours today.
Now I can understand why the last shall
be first and the first shall be last.
Why one day the nobodies will be somebodies
and the somebodies will be not quite nobodies
because there'll be no nobodies in heaven so
cheer up.
We'll all have some status there for sure
but oh my what a different thing it's
going to be.
Do you remember a phrase I've never heard
anybody preach on it.
I haven't preached on it myself where the
psalmist says store my tears in my bottle.
Every time somebody shed a tear in travel
you know it was plucked off their cheek
and Gabriel stored it in heaven.
And one day all those tears are going
to be poured out and it'll be like
spilling all the jewels and all the treasures
of earth.
So different.
They've crystallized into jewels.
It's going to be very different in that
day.
So let's believe God.
Let's maintain personal revival.
Let's believe God.
Get a bunch of folk together and really
pray and believe God for local revival.
Thank you.
We have a break I think.