The truth is, to some, it is nothing
more than professional mass evangelism.
To others, it is considered a phenomenon of
bygone days, the good of which has dissipated
and the return of which is impossible.
You've known a lot of people like that
who really believe it's impossible for God to
do that kind of thing again.
And the past has already dissipated, so what
good is it?
To some, revival is merely an historical, prophetical
kind of thing that you talk about, not
local, not personal, not immediate.
Then there are many of us that revival
is, if I can say it this way,
a necessary evil.
In other words, it's a necessary evil that
happens between June 7 and 14 every year.
One pastor said to another, where were you
last week?
He said, oh, we had our revival and
I'm certainly glad that's over with.
And the other pastor turned to him and
said, well, we still have to have ours.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
There are many places and churches and pastors
who feel that revival is a necessary evil.
It's something that's on the calendar, that is
planned, and many pastors have the idea that
when it's finished, there's a lot of clean
up to do, that they're going to have
to clean up after the evangelist is gone,
all the problems that were created as a
result of it.
In other words, and by the way, I
can really relate to some of that.
I really can.
I believe that in the light of what
God has taught us and what we see
in sense, that's true.
When you see how humanistic many of us
in the ministry have become, how manipulative we
have become, no wonder so many pastors and
people get fed up with even the talk
of revival.
I can tell you of a Bible college
student who now took his church, he was
the third member of the pastoral staff, a
Christian education man, who when we got to
the church for ministry, he would not get
anywhere near.
In fact, he had just come to the
church three weeks before we were there for
the crusade.
And when he heard that we were going
to be coming for a revival ministry, he
seriously questioned whether or not he wanted to
go to that church as a minister of
education.
He almost said, no I'm not coming, because
he heard we were coming for a crusade.
So when we got there, he sat way
in the back, and I didn't even recognize
him as being a part of the staff.
And the pastor said, by the way, there's
the minister of Christian education, here three weeks,
a young fellow just starting in the ministry.
And I saw that he was so aloof,
so far removed.
And of course that was a challenge to
me.
And so I made an appointment, I said,
let's go out and have lunch, I'd like
to get to know you.
And Reno Suna sat down at the table,
and he said, you probably have noticed that
I have been somewhat removed from what's going
on.
I said, that's probably the understatement of the
year.
I said, now tell me why.
Do you want to share with me why?
He said, yes.
He said, you know, I really don't have
much time for anything about revival.
I said, why?
He said, because I've been in Bible college,
where we've seen everybody and his brother come
and go, as visiting speakers, all kinds of
them who came to talk about revival.
We need revival.
And I've seen how humanistic it was, and
how manipulative it was to try to produce
something.
And we had fellows on our campus who
would try to twist people's arms into praying
for revival, and on and on we'd go.
And in fact, he said, you know, I
just graduated, and of all the graduates in
our class, he said, I don't know of
one of the fellows that entered the ministry
from our class that could have anything good
to say about revival.
Now how's that for a crop of pastors
starting out?
I said to him, I said, would you
just keep your heart open and be open
enough during these three weeks we're together?
He said, alright.
He said, I'll try.
And I'm here to tell you that by
the time we got into the third week,
by the way, that's the blessing of a
longer crusade.
It's not a crash program.
That man and his wife were sitting on
the front row for the last several nights.
And when we got finished on the last
night, he came up to me and he
gave me a great big bear hug, he
was a big fellow, and thanked me.
And he said, Ralph, he said, I want
you to know that I have learned more
about a philosophy of ministry and revival in
these few weeks together than I had in
all of my training put together.
He said, I'm going to write to all
of the fellows who graduated my class and
say, fellows, you know, we all had the
wrong idea about revival.
He said, if you can ever get a
chance to get into a ministry like this,
please do it, please do it.
Now please don't misunderstand me, anyone here.
I'm not suggesting that the educators in the
Christian schools are all mixed up.
I'm not saying that at all.
I'm not playing down that at all.
I am merely saying that for some reason
there have been so many humanistic, manipulative attempts
to try to produce something in the flesh
that have caused many men in the ministry
to lose sight of the real thing.
That God really can do something that's of
reality.
Actually, you know, he said to me, he
said, Ralph, he said, you know, we had
all kinds of people who came through and
spoke to our ministry of class, but said,
we never got anything what you're giving us.
I said, I wonder why?
I have no answer for that except to
say, who is it to say to people
in educational institutions and places of learning that
maybe there's something that God might be saying
in another way that you've not seen clearly?
Who is it to say that?
And I've had men in the ministry for
20 and 25 years who have gone through
crusades and have understood some of these basic
principles that we're beginning to learn here.
And I said, you know, if I would
have only learned that 25 years ago when
I started, what a difference it would have
made my ministry.
Please don't misunderstand me.
I'm not suggesting that we have the only
thing to offer the world.
I'm not suggesting we're the only people that
are right about something.
Please don't misunderstand me.
I'm merely expressing to you that there is
in the heart of many men in the
ministry a sense of despair about revival.
There's an emptiness, or can I say, there's
also a sense of abuse.
There are those of us in the ministry
who have seen extremism.
We've seen that kind of professional kind of
manipulating, manipulating.
We've seen emotionalism.
We've seen people being dragged down aisles and
out of aisles to make responses to God.
And we've seen all of that.
Others, when you say revival, it merely means,
well, we had a little blessing.
Of course, I said revival, the one said
it was June 7 to 14.
No, they were mixed up.
The dates for revival are not June 7
to 14.
The dates for revival are 2 Chronicles 7
-14.
Those are the dates for revival.
Say, well, where did you find that out?
On one of our associate pastor's desks.
He had a sign that said revival dates
2 Chronicles 7-14.
That's a lot different from revival, all the
signs in the south especially.
We're having our revival this week.
I don't know what we're talking about.
Austin Phelps made this statement.
No more memorable exhibition of God can be
found than that which is presented by a
revival of religion.
Frederick Frenson, a man who traveled around the
world looking at all the tremendous wonders of
the world, was asked by a newspaper reporter
when he came to the end of his
worldwide trip, he said, he was asked, what
was the most outstanding, the most exciting thing
you've ever seen, you saw on your trip?
Was it the Taj Mahal in India?
Was it the Swiss Alps?
Was it the Western Canadian Rockies?
What was the most exciting thing you saw
on your trip?
And without a moment's hesitancy, he turned to
the reporter and said, the most exciting thing
I saw on the whole trip was a
heaven-sent revival from God.
In the midst of his travels, he ran
into a revival.
And he saw God at work at such
a deep level.
That's exciting.
Alan Redpath makes the statement, I don't think
this generation has seen a revival except in
localized areas.
Tremendous blessing has come through evangelism, but in
terms of repentance and brokenness of heart before
God, among Christian people, we have not seen
revival.
I have in my hands a letter from
a missionary church pastor who is now in
Ontario.
He was then, but he's now moved to
another place.
And he wrote a letter after being involved
directly with his church, and then the growing
process after it, that I think will intrigue
us.
Let me just share a part of it.
He said, God continues to kindle and feed
the revival fires here.
The spirit is stirring.
Saints are surrendering and sinners are being saved.
This morning at our men's breakfast, God conveniently
swept aside our program and carried out his.
Fourteen out of fifteen men had their tongues
unleashed and proceeded to, one by one, transparently
honest about what God is doing in their
lives.
It was a truly sweet and precious time
as God opened their hearts to share what
God was doing in their lives.
I would like to say that I have
arrived to a place of total conformity to
Christ in my life, but I have not.
However, like Paul, I can say I press
on toward the goal and so on.
I thank God for the deep surgery he
is performing in the deepest regions of my
heart.
Each time he has struck an unyielding obstacle
amidst the pain of correction and rebuke, he
has abundantly provided grace to enable me to
say yes to his operations of removal.
For I know that there can be no
true sanctification where there is not total surrender.
Now listen, as I have sought to understand
revival truth, God has given to me some
precious insights I'd like to share with you.
One, revival is God's work amidst a people
who professing commitment to God, in actuality, are
conformed to the world.
Think of it.
Committed to God, but conformed to the world.
What hypocrisy.
Two, one of the things that is unique
about revival ministry is the noticeable absence of
human prestige and pomp.
Human manipulation and mannerisms are minimized completely in
the light of God's presence and power, which
are at a maximum.
If there is any flaunting to be done,
it is done by God, who flaunts his
holiness and his divine power before the need
and beggary of men.
Grace replenishes as godly repentance resides.
In a day when often more is made
of the man of God than the God
of man, it is refreshing to experience a
ministry where God does the manipulating and occupies
the place of prestige and honor.
Isn't that beautiful?
Thirdly, revival, listen to this, is the means
by which God imparts his costly grace and
does away with the cheap grace that professing
Christians have invented in order to rationalize away
their sin and selfishness.
That is a profound statement.
The cross of Christ becomes not only a
place where Jesus died, but also a place
where I died.
Self-denial becomes a norm, not an exception.
When a person experiences true revival, he becomes
an enthusiast who seeks the end, conformity to
Jesus through the means, rather than being an
enthusiast seeking the end without the means.
That is profound.
Fourthly, he says, revival is not striving after
faith, but the new victory in joy that
comes to the one who rests in the
faithful one.
Fifthly, I personally believe that in a day
and age where the love of many Christians
has waxed cold, God is seeking out worn
out believers and recharging them with a hot
dose of Mount Carmel fire.
It is thrilling to be a part of
this fire consumed altar.
As the heat is applied, it is exciting
to see non-Christians saying, see how they
love one another?
And then sixthly, as a pastor, I am
fully committed to the proclamation of the revival
message.
I pray that God will continue to burn
his all-consuming fire upon the altar of
my heart, that Jesus would be all in
all, in all, for me and of me.
Do you think I should take that letter
and open it up?
That is a classic.
A classic of a man who came to
grips with the genuine reality of the definition
of personal revival.
Now, what is the difference between revival and
evangelism?
What is the difference between revival and evangelism?
Let me just put a visual up so
you can get a little overview of this,
which is very simple, but it will kind
of help us.
Revival is primarily a ministry of cleansing to
the inner life of the local church.
It is bringing believers back into adjustment with
God.
You see, revival is the word vive is
life and revive is to live again or
bring back to life again.
So you cannot bring back to life something
that has never had life.
So then revival is not a ministry to
the unsaved.
It is a ministry primarily to the church,
to believers, to make a right adjustment, to
be in a right adjustment with God.
Then, what is a spiritual awakening?
A spiritual awakening, I like to suggest, is
a time where God supernaturally works in response
or he works on unconverted people without using
any human means.
Where God comes on the scene and he
supernaturally brings conviction to the lost without any
human means.
Now, let me, if you'll notice that distinction
between letter B and the note underneath letter
C, they should be tied together.
Look at an evangelistic crusade.
An evangelistic crusade is when men by human
means and modern methods organize themselves to proclaim
the gospel of Christ in a community.
Do you notice that difference?
An evangelistic crusade is where a church or
a group of churches get together and say,
we want to call an evangelist to preach
the gospel to the unconverted.
Rent a hall or largest church or promote
it on the radio, on television, in the
newspaper, handbills under every door.
Come and hear this man preach the gospel
of Christ.
That's an evangelistic crusade.
Anything wrong with that?
No.
But that is altogether different from revival and
is altogether different from a spiritual awakening.
A spiritual awakening, as was up above that,
was when God supernaturally comes on the scene
and there is conviction that comes in the
people's lives when they don't even know where
it came from.
That's what happened in Wales.
We hear about the Welsh revival.
You see, the use of words often gives
us a problem.
But really, I believe it would be more
accurate to say the Welsh spiritual awakening.
It's when unconverted people were struck under conviction
of God on the backs of trucks, on
their way to work, on the streets, everywhere
people were literally caught by the conviction of
God.
And there was nobody saying, come hear a
certain evangelist primarily.
Nobody advertised we're going to have a special
crusade at a certain date.
A supernatural working of God where men without
any human means were struck under the conviction
of God.
An evangelistic crusade is when men organize because
they have a concern to preach the gospel
to their community.
They're altogether different.
Now, let me just go on to say
that an evangelistic crusade can turn into a
revival.
And an evangelistic crusade could turn into a
spiritual awakening.
You see, I want to have enough sense
not to limit God.
God can do anything He wants to do.
So you see, even though we understand some
basic principles, please remember that God is sovereign
and He can break up what I'm saying
any time He wants.
Isn't that amazing?
He can do it any way He wants.
But for our understanding, we need to see
the distinction, the difference between evangelism and revival.
Well, and what then is revival?
What then is revival?
Well, there are a lot of definitions that
we could give for revival.
You can turn that off for now.
Let me just give you a few, some
basic definitions.
Here's one.
Opening up myself to God.
It's the opening up of myself to God.
As a believer, I'm opening up myself to
God.
Or can I say it this way?
Transparent honesty.
You know why I said transparent honesty?
Because a transparency is something you see right
through, isn't it?
You hold the transparency up, you can see
right through it.
And when I say transparent honesty, I'm saying
we get to the place where we say,
God, we want you to see right through
us.
God, we want you to deal with every
area of our life, we don't want to
try to hide anything, we don't want to
try to cover anything.
Transparent.
I want to be transparent before God.
Then, secondly, I'd call it giving up my
rights.
Revival is giving up my rights, personal revival,
giving up my rights, and letting God have
his.
I like that.
Give up my rights, and let God have
his.
In my life.
Thirdly, it is conformity of my heart.
Conformity of my heart to the will of
God.
It's a conforming of my heart to the
will of God and obedience in my conduct.
I don't only conform in my heart, but
I'm obedient in my conduct to the will
of God.
Whatever God's saying.
In other words, I like to say it
this way.
Yes, Lord, what's the question?
I love that.
Yes, Lord, is an expression of my obedience.
What's the question is an expression that whatever
it is, God, it doesn't make a big
difference, I'm ready.
Yes, Lord, there's the obedience, whatever it is.
Yes, Lord, the answer is yes, whatever you're
after.
The difference is that when we walk in
the flesh, we say, God, tell me what
you're after, and then I'll decide yes or
no.
Here's the difference.
That's where most of us live.
That's where most of our people live, in
churches.
God, tell me what you're after, and then
give me some, give me, we'll arbitrate this
way.
But when we walk in personal revival, walking
in the Spirit, it's yes, Lord, without even
knowing the question.
It doesn't make a big difference what the
question is.
The captain is in control.
We have surrendered our will and our rights
to his.
And we gladly say yes to his will.
Here's another definition.
I like this one.
God is my goal.
God, God is my goal.
And if you want to expand that, not
merely seeking the solution to my problems.
In other words, there are a lot of
people who want a revival because they've got
a lot of problems.
Church problems, personal problems, family problems, marriage problems,
so on.
So they say, I want to be revived
in my spirit so those problems will be
solved.
That's the wrong motivation for revival.
The motivation for revival is that God must
become large in my life.
My God is too small.
I bring him down to such a human
level.
And God must become large.
He must become the one supreme, the consuming
passion of my life, God himself.
Now, when God becomes my goal, do you
know what then happens?
Watch the solution to the problems.
You see?
The solution to the problems is the result.
But the motivation is that I must have
God.
I cannot live without God.
Let me give you a perfect example of
that.
If you were to ask me to bring
to you two or, say, maybe the five
most tragic situations you've had to deal with
in personal problems and have seen God resolve
them, what would be some of them?
Well, I'd probably say here would be number
one I'd bring in front of you.
And here's the story of a couple that
were so mixed up in their marriage situation
that one wife was having an immoral affair
with another man in the same church.
And now this wife is pregnant.
And the husband does not know whether or
not that child that was to be born
was going to be his child or could
possibly be the child of that other man
in the church, in an evangelical church.
And that husband got so bitter in that
situation that he actually was very close to
paying five hundred dollars to a man in
the underworld to come and have that other
man shot to death.
He almost paid five hundred dollars for a
man to shoot the other man in the
church.
You talk about bitterness?
All there.
And in that crusade, we saw God absolutely
touch both of those couples, both of those
marriages, straighten the whole situation out to the
place where the husband said that God, even
if that child is not my child, that
child will be loved as my child.
And before we were finished, there was a
bowling tournament five hours away, ten hours both
ways, as it were.
And those two husbands drove together to the
bowling tournament that they were committed to attend
in the same car and rejoiced together in
the Lord.
And the husband came back and he said
to think, just a few weeks earlier, I
almost paid five hundred dollars to have him
killed.
And we spent ten hours together in the
same car rejoicing in the Lord.
Now, I could tell you a lot about
that whole story, except to say that if
that couple were here giving their testimonies, and
you're not knowing what I just told you,
they stand and say, you know, I've heard
them say this.
God touched our marriage, and it's wonderful.
They don't give any details.
God touched our marriage, and we're rejoicing in
the Lord, and it's wonderful to have a
whole new love together in the Lord, and
it's thrilling.
And this was in the 1970s, and it's
thrilling to see the growth of this family
through these years.
Wonderful.
But to hear them say this, but what
God did for our marriage is merely incidental
to what God did for us as individuals.
What really happened was, God became our focal
point for living.
We're obsessed with God himself.
And I'm sitting there, and I almost dropped
listening to that.
You know what I mean?
I know the story.
What God did for our marriage was merely
incidental to the real thing that happened.
Our whole focal point for living has changed.
That's the essence of it.
No wonder that couple has lived these years
since 1972, 1970, in such a way that
their lives bring honor and glory to the
Lord, and they're faithful and active in the
church, and their family's growing in the Lord.
No wonder God has become their goal in
the midst of it all.
Here's another definition of revival.
The value systems, value systems transform.
That's an easy way to say it.
Value systems transform.
Can I put it this way?
The value systems of believers transformed into the
value system of eternity.
That's genuine revival.
When the value systems of believers are transformed
into the value systems of eternity, where Matthew
6.24, seeking the Lord, and 6.33,
seek first the kingdom of God becomes a
reality.
No man can serve two masters becomes a
reality.
Set your affection on things above, not on
things that becomes a reality.
You know what happens in some crusades?
A lot of outboard motors and boats and
cabins on the lake go up for sale,
in some areas.
Where people who have been obsessed by pleasure
and things and gadgets, now all at once
their value systems have changed.
Now please don't misunderstand me.
Be nice if somebody would offer your cottage
on the lake for me to have for
a week.
I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't have that.
But there are certain believers who recognize that
all those things had become their gods and
their idols and they lost the place of
worship and how many people backslide in the
summer because they're out on the lake every
weekend.
And now all at once the value systems
have changed.
When God has become their goal.
By the way, that's one of the blessings
of a longer crusade in a revival ministry.
You see, if you have a one-week
crusade, most people can give up their love
of life and search for tomorrow and secret
storm and general hospital for one week.
Or the dating game or the newlyweds or
the battered couples or something like that.
They can, you know, everybody gives up something
for Lent.
And some people say, well, I'll just give
it up for a few days.
When you have your mini kind of revival
ministries on, they can make a few sacrifices.
They almost figure that they're getting a few
brownie points in heaven by doing that.
But you know, the blessing of a longer
crusade, when you stay on the second week
and they miss their programs the second week
and you stay on the third week and
they miss their programs the third week.
And then God expands the meanings and they
go on the fourth week and sometimes the
fifth week until eight and a half weeks.
We've been eight and a half weeks in
one crusade, seven and a half weeks in
another one.
By that time, a lot of those people,
they haven't had any time for television.
By that time, they've forgotten who the characters
are.
They've forgotten what the plot's all about.
You see?
And God has torn their schedules apart.
They're falling in love with a whole new
something.
You know, it's amazing.
It's amazing.
As you go on in revival ministry, it's
amazing.
I've had people say, and pastors say, you
know, we couldn't get our children to want
to come to one meeting a week a
year.
They can hardly wait to come to a
revival meeting.
They want to come driving miles every night.
They can hardly wait.
They're pushing us to go.
What happens?
God's on the scene and there's a whole
new something happening now.
The value systems, even in children, I'll never
forget.
One six-year-old child turned to his
father and said, Dad, you know, I would
think it would help if we would just
bring our beds and stay in church, sleep
in church.
Another child, I said, honey, what's going on
in your home?
What's going on?
And the child said, you know, things are
so different in our home.
I said, what's the trouble?
He said, Mommy and Daddy just sit around
hugging each other.
I've never seen that before.
Talk about value systems change.
A true sense.
I'll never, somebody sent us a cartoon, Dennis
the Menace.
He's still alive, isn't he?
Cartoon of Dennis's parents sitting at the love
seat and there the fireplace is going and
there they are hugging each other and Dennis
is looking on, watching his parents as they're
sitting at the love seat and he's just
disgusted watching that.
They are hugging each other and he turns
and he says, there you are mushing while
we could be roasting wieners and toasting marshmallows.
And the man who sent it to us
put a little caption above it and he
said these words.
He said, Dennis's parents have just been to
the Soterra revival meeting.
I love that.
That's what happens.
You see, our value systems of life and
eternity are changed.
And the relationships begin to change when God
becomes our goal at such a different level.
Then maybe here's a beautiful definition of revival.
Getting back to the cross with a sob
in my heart.
It's getting back to the cross with a
sob in my heart as I submit to
his lordship.
It's getting back to the cross with a
sob in my heart as I submit to
his lordship.
You see, revival is not going down the
front street of town beating a big drum,
but it's getting back to the cross with
a sob in our heart.
Submitting to his lordship at the cross.
You see, I've given you a few basic
definitions.
We could go on forever.
Everybody has definitions about revival.
But here's some basic ones.
Could I candidly say this?
That there are many people, and even pastors,
that are interested in revival that are not
prepared to be revived themselves.
Interested in it, but are not prepared to
get back to the cross with a sob
in our heart.
Andrew Murray makes this statement.
God wants us all to himself that he
may give himself all to us.
That's beautiful.
Now I don't want to take a lot
of time on this part of the subject
because I think it was clear last night.
Why do we need revival?
Why do we need it?
Let me just give you some basic words
that you can put down.
Here's just basically four reasons.
One is because of the disunity of the
body of Christ.
There's disunity in the body.
Disunity.
Do you know what one superintendent in western
Canada said two years after the move of
God in 1971-72?
He said, Ralph, I'm superintendent of 71 churches
in this district.
He said, I want you to know that
for two and a half years since God
worked on this area, I as a superintendent
have not been called out on one troubleshooting
assignment in two and a half years in
any of my churches.
I said, what?
He said, that's right.
I haven't been called out on one troubleshooting
assignment in 71 churches in this district.
I said, you mean to tell me that
none of your churches have had problems, any
problems for two and a half years?
He said, no.
He said, that's not what I said.
He said, I have not been called out
on any as a superintendent.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, the revival taught church leaders in
this district how to find the solution to
their problems on their knees instead of with
boxing gloves on.
It taught men how to find the solution
on their knees.
How to minister to each other and deal
with the areas of disunity and problems.
Warren Wiersbe talks about a city in Michigan
where he saw the name of a church
on a sign.
It said Harmony Baptist Church.
He said he went to the other end
of town on the way out of town
and he saw another church and it had
the name of a church on it.
The new Harmony Baptist Church.
He said he went into another city and
he saw the name of a church and
it was this.
The original church of God number two.
Do you get what I mean?
Just think of the church split hangovers that
the world around sees.
Of one church coming out of another and
out of another.
We multiply by division.
We seem to specialize in that.
I know there are certain times where that's
absolutely necessary and biblical.
But I'm talking about when it happens because
of personality problems and situations that we do
not believe God for and believe for revival.
Disunity.
Second reason why we need it is because
of the deadness in the church.
The deadness in the average evangelical church.
Deadness.
I'll give you a perfect example.
1985 in a church in Iowa they reported
in their annual report 150 people, 151 people
who attended on their Sunday morning service.
Average attendance.
151 Sunday morning.
Sunday evenings, 58 people.
151 in the morning, 58 at night.
They had a family night where they did
all kinds of things in the middle of
the week.
121 family night is average.
And then there was prayer meeting.
Average for the year.
Now, I want you to give me an
idea how many were there.
Average.
151 in the morning, Sunday, 58 at night,
121 on a family night where they did
all kinds of things.
How many do you think were there on
an average for prayer meeting?
What's that?
8, 6, 15, 20, 10, 5, 4, 3,
2.
You don't have much faith in mankind, do
you?
Well, you're pretty close to it.
12.
And that was not the anointed 12.
Oh, excuse me, that was the anointed 12.
But just think of it.
12.
Well, you say that doesn't sound too far
from it.
Talk about deadness.
A bishop said, isn't it refreshing to hear
new converts?
One almost hates to see them get established.
The truth is that you do not put
a newborn baby in a refrigerator.
That's where you put dead chickens.
And evangelism in your congregation without genuine revival
and a revival spirit in the church.
And by the way, that's what's so exciting
when I hear Brother Henson talk about what's
happening in his church.
And I see it and love flowing knee
deep.
I tell you what a difference it makes.
Here's this.
Evangelism without revival, without a revival spirit, is
like putting a newborn babe to the breast
of a corpse.
That's what it is.
It frees them out.
I would be right when I say to
you that most of our new believers would
first have to backslide in order to feel
at home with most of the rest of
the people in our church.
That's why we need revival.
Because of the tremendous deadness in the church.
In London, England, one of the leading churches
had such a tremendous insurge of believers, of
new converts.
And the pastor recognized that because there were
so many new converts, he better call a
revivalist in quick to minister to the Christians
or else they would freeze out those new
converts.
I can tell you that we have been
in contact in the past with people from
the church growth movements in the United States
and in Canada.
And they have expressed to us that the
problem they have is that though they have
all the technique, they do not have people
in the average church motivated spiritually to do
those things that they want as far as
church growth is concerned.
And they believe that they need to link
church growth with revival.
And they are concerned about following where there
has been a revival with church growth resources
because now the people are prepared for it.
Defeat.
Not only deadness but defeat in so many
of our churches.
Defeat.
Here is a perfect example of it.
He said, I need to reach out in
love to my estranged wife and my estranged
daughter, a man said.
But I can't.
I can't.
If there are bitternesses in my heart against
some of you in the church.
He said, I am defeated in the church.
How do you expect me to reach out
to my estranged wife and my estranged daughter
if I have bitterness in my heart towards
some of you in the church?
Will you please forgive me?
And you see, there are all kinds of
answers to prayer and solutions to problems that
would be a reality if the defeat in
our lives and in our churches could be
dealt with.
He recognized, he had enough sense to recognize
that God was not going to minister through
him to his wife and to his daughter
if there were bitternesses that he was still
harboring.
And we say, why doesn't God answer prayer?
In many cases we have our own answer.
We know why.
Fourth reason why we need revival is devastation.
Devastation.
And when I say that, let me just
put it this way.
I believe the tragedy of the average church
is that the minds of Christians have been
affected by the world.
The minds, the thinking patterns of Christians have
been affected by the world.
Affected by the world.
In three ways.
One is, most of our people and many
of us, there is a loss of God
consciousness in our lives.
A loss of God consciousness.
It is devastating.