I feel that in view of the tremendous
Bible teaching that God's giving us through these
men, that what we need to consider is
just something in this Christian workers' hour.
The great, pressing, awful, sore need is the
spirit of revival among the saints.
And that's the thing we need to encourage,
that the truth may be set on fire.
We have enough truth to sink the Navy,
but we need that truth set alive.
We need to become alive ourselves to the
truth.
And as those different revivalists are saying, and
the Prince George representatives, see how God has
dawned on them.
The awareness of God until all shame disappears,
and fearfulness, and timidity, and bashfulness, and all
that kind of thing has just disappeared in
the face of the august majesty of the
presence of the living Savior.
Now, that's what we're in need of.
I'm going to read again Joel 2, 12
-17.
Joel 2, 12-17.
How many were not here yesterday?
Uh-huh.
Well, that shows that about half of our
audience, maybe, wasn't here.
Joel 2, 12-17.
Joel 2, 12.
Therefore also now saith the Lord, Turn ye
even to me with all your heart, and
with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.
And lend your heart, and not your garments.
It's easy to put on the show of
penitence outwardly, isn't it?
You and I can put the quiver in
our voices.
Almost sounds spiritual.
Lend your heart, not your garments.
Don't be just gadflies and garment admirers, putting
on sackcloth and ashes outwardly.
Lend your heart, not your garments.
Turn unto the Lord your God, for he
is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and
of great kindness, and repenteth him of evil.
Who knoweth if he will return and repent
and leave a blessing behind him?
15.
Blow the trumpet in Zion.
This is our jubilee year.
May God proclaim liberty to the captives this
year.
Liberty to the captives, and the return of
every man to his inheritance.
That's the two chief marks of the year
of jubilee.
The emancipation of all the captives, setting free
of all the captives, and every man returning
to his original inheritance.
What a social system they had, if it
had only been observed.
It settled a lot of these problems.
Blow the trumpet in Zion.
Sanctify a fast.
Call a solemn assembly.
Gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation.
Assemble the elders.
Now notice, gather the children and those that
suck the breath.
Let the bridegroom go forth out of his
chamber and the bride out of her closet.
Everything is to give way, amongst all classes
and culture, the whole thing to give way
to the one thing seeking first, the kingdom
of God.
Let the priest, the minister of the Lord,
weep between the porch and the altar, and
let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord,
and give not thine heritage to reproach, that
the heathen should rule over them.
Wherefore should they say among the people, Where
is their God?
Now that's exactly what's going on today, and
the Church in the established sense of the
term is reproached.
Where is their God?
They've had 2,000 years to prove that
Christianity should heal the ills of the world,
and what has it done?
Down with your Christianity.
We're sick of it.
Away with it.
Kill it.
It's the curse of the world.
And you see, real Christianity is classified right
along with all the formalism and the deadness
of the Greek Church and the Roman Church,
and all those where deadness and formality have
been the curse of the people, and the
priests have ridden all over the people and
taken.
In Russia, often a priest would come to
a farmer and take the only cow that
he had as a means of support for
the family, and take it for the Church.
But you don't wonder that Communism took over
from the like of that.
But today, Christianity as a whole, even the
spiritual line of Christianity, the little flock to
whom the Lord said, Fear not, little flock,
it's your father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom.
Formality there may be, but the kingdom is
for the little flock.
But in the meantime, the little flock is
being cursed and crucified along with all the
formal and the false.
And we're caught in it.
Like it or not, we're caught in it.
And we're going to get cursed and killed
off with it.
All right, just as well.
Your sword, my neck, that's the way to
answer it.
That's the way the two get together.
You understand?
That's the way we're to meet it.
Now, the word revival.
I was saying to somebody last night, you've
heard it maybe before, but oh God, give
people a revival chance to be saved.
There are just thousands and thousands, I dare
say even millions of people who are not
going to be converted unless God gives the
church a revival.
Because it's only through a revival chance that
they'll ever get saved.
When God comes in and the heathen cease
to say where is their God, the heathen
begin to say, The Lord has done great
things for those people wherever they're glad.
And they begin to inquire the way to
Zion themselves.
A revival chance to be saved.
You ever think of it?
Maybe some of you were converted in a
revival.
If it hadn't been for a revival spirit
that struck your church or community, you wouldn't
be saved today.
But you take just the ordinary routine, go
to church, go to church, go to church,
Sunday by Sunday.
How many people are getting convicted and converted
in the neighborhood?
See?
No, and they're not turning aside to see
this great sight because there's no sight there
to see.
We need God on the scene in revival
power.
And you know the meaning of revival.
I don't need to go into that.
Let me quote you what Charles Inwood once
said, When God is going to do something
wonderful, he begins with a difficulty.
When he's going to do something very wonderful,
he begins with an impossibility.
All right.
That ought to be encouraging to you because
you're an impossible case and he'd begin with
you.
He begins with impossibility.
All right.
Times of refreshing from the presence of the
Lord.
I'm going to give you, once again, because
so many of you are not here, what
Joseph Kemp once said about revival.
Revival, strictly speaking, means the reanimating of that
which is already living but in a state
of decline.
Right?
It has to do principally with the church
as a whole and Christians as individuals.
Evangelism, in our usage of the word, as
well as in its derivative sense, refers primarily
to the proclamation of the gospel to the
unsaved.
To make evangelism a synonym of revivalism is
untrue to the teaching of the New Testament.
The church is responsible for evangelism and not
for revival.
I would modify that a little.
There's a human condition and a human element
in this where we are responsible.
But strictly speaking, revival, we are summoned to
evangelism.
For revival, we are cast upon the sovereign
grace of God.
Now, there's a sovereign side, the sovereignty of
God on one side.
There are human conditions on the other.
Both coalesce in bringing revival.
Spirit-inspired prayer indicates that heaven has something
good in store for us.
I know the thoughts I think toward you,
thoughts of peace and not of evil, to
give you an end and an expectation.
Oh, God wants to do something, but he
waits for the intercession of the saints.
Spirit-inspired prayer is the way I like
to put it.
I have given up all hope of just
putting a terrible burden and a weight and
get you people to get on your knees
and demand it of you.
Listen, the flesh profits nothing.
And demanding in the energy of the flesh
profits nothing.
Your resolution in the flesh to pray more
doesn't do anything.
What we need is spirit-indicted, spirit-inspired.
We know not what to pray for as
we ought, but the spirit himself make his
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered.
And he that searches the heart knows what's
the mind of the spirit.
For he, the spirit in the saints, make
an intercession for the saints according to the
will of God.
We don't know what to ask for, but
we, Lord, anything, but let us hear from
thee, by life or by death.
Now, you can see very often when you
have a spirit of revival and awakening, then
the saints begin to see, well, God's going
to do that.
Now, if God comes the next time, he's
bound to do it that way.
He's bound to do it by no preaching
at all.
I told you about the whales revival.
When I said to this man, it must
have been easy to preach.
Preach?
No, there wasn't any preaching.
They wanted to hide in a hole.
The presence of God was so tremendous.
On the other hand, you may have a
revival with plenty of preaching in it, and
without some real preaching in it, very often
you have no foundation.
For instance, over in Japan in the early
days of this, since the war, people were
praying for a revival.
Oh, God, give us a great revival in
Japan.
You know, I believe the thing was out
of order.
Revival of what?
Buddhism or Hinduism or what?
What do you mean, revival?
No, just give us a spirit of revival.
On the basis of what?
Buddhism?
A Buddhist shrine on every street corner?
No, they didn't need revival.
The Church needed consolidation, and then the Church
revived, not a countrywide revival on the basis
of nothing.
Now, that would turn out to be an
emotional fit, and wouldn't have any ground in
it, and would wash away the next time
a little persecution showed up.
So we need to pray that God will
give us to know that the Holy Ghost
alone knows, whether it's through preaching or confession
or no preaching or no order or no
church service or no program.
You don't know what.
But once we see it one way, it
has to be that way, evermore world without
end, amen.
Then we get to imitating what the Holy
Ghost did.
No good.
The Church is responsible for evangelism, but we
are dependent upon God for revival, and we
need to learn how to do that, depend
upon Him.
The thing was done suddenly for it was
of God in the days of Hezekiah, a
strange moving of God.
Now, the need for revival, as far as
Christendom is concerned, we are in desperate need
of revival.
It's either revival, as somebody said, it's either
revival in our hearts or revolution in our
streets.
And I haven't gotten over yet what our
brother said yesterday morning.
That astounding, unbelievable calling off of all the
classes in one of the leading universities of
America in order to listen to the lawyers
that defended the crooked seven in Chicago and
the Black Panthers and all of them together,
and they called off all the classes and
said, we're going to have blood.
If it's blood in our country, let it
be blood.
And even to the forceful removal of the
President of the United States by force and
a ten-minute ovation for each one of
those things, three thousand Princeton students going crazy,
and it was a standing ovation for each
of those things.
Blood flowed from one end of the country
to the other, ten-minute ovation.
Remove the President by force, a ten-minute
ovation again.
What for?
They don't know.
It's the madness of the devil, without a
doubt.
It hasn't got sense in it at all.
Down with the establishment.
And establish what?
Don't have anything.
It reminds me of that place that says,
where they cried out for two hours.
By the space of two hours they cried
out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians!
The same kind of madness.
The same kind of madness without rhyme or
reason.
With what would you replace the establishment?
They haven't got a thing to offer.
It shows how mad it all is.
Well, I just say, we need revival in
our hearts or revolution in our streets.
And, beloved, if you take three thousand out
of three thousand one hundred, three thousand students
out of three thousand one hundred attended that
and gave a standing ovation of ten minutes
to that kind of rubbish, where is the
country going?
Because those three thousand are typical of the
leadership of the next generation.
That's where they are.
And it just, naturally speaking, apart from God's
strange intervention, you can have just bloody revolution
right on this continent within the next ten
years, just like that.
Next ten or twenty, anyway.
Well, it's something to put us on our
knees about.
That's what it is.
Oh, high heaven intervene!
Never did, what Churchill said about Britain, never
did so great a nation fall from such
a height to such a depth in such
a short time.
But it's being duplicated more so on this
continent than it was in Britain.
Well, oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens
and come down.
Let the mountains flow down at thy presence.
Melting fire burns.
Now didst terrible things which we looked not
for.
Now camest down the mountains, flowed down at
thy presence.
Beloved, I trust that the feeling that's getting
abroad more and more among God's people will
drive us to our knees and to God
in intercession.
Intercession alone will do anything.
And I think one of the biggest deceptions
we're getting into is this.
Well, but revival will answer the thing.
God's on the throne and the Lord will
answer.
And he will not suffer America to become
outright red and communist because we are, listen,
listen, listen, you poor, soft, conceited piece of
humanity.
We're no better than the Chinese.
And look what they went under.
Look what they're under.
We're no better than any of these other
countries.
We've turned down more light than they ever
heard about.
And if the light that is in us
become darkness, how great is our darkness and
how great is our judgment.
Oh, I haven't a bit of confidence in
any sort of reasoning like that.
I would rather us to think in terms
of Habakkuk.
Let's turn and read Habakkuk.
Nehem, Habakkuk.
Zephaniah, you find Habakkuk between the two.
All right, Habakkuk 3, 3-2.
This makes a message all its own, this
book of Habakkuk.
3-2.
O Lord, I have heard Thy speech, Thy
report.
Lord, I have heard Thy report and was
appraised.
O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst
of years.
In the midst of years.
When it looks unpropitious, unlikely, but right down
in the heart of our declension, in the
midst of the years, make known.
Look, look.
In Ra, remember mercy.
Now, it doesn't say from Ra, deliver us.
We've had a teaching across the country, which
I believe in a sense.
I believe in, but I wouldn't overpress it
because equally consecrated men everywhere differ.
But personally, I think pre-tribulation rapture is
right.
But there are a lot of good post
-tribulation men just as devoted.
This is a mooted question.
Don't get too conceited about it.
You always want to say when it comes
to prophecy, we know in part.
Most fundamentalists know everything.
Ask them.
They know.
But I'd like to be like Uncle Josh.
I'd like to know less truth than to
know so many truths that ain't so.
So just be careful about how much you
know.
But I tell you what has happened among
pre-tribulation.
We have taught a great deal about, Oh,
God could not allow his dear bride to
undergo any such thing as tribulation.
What do you suppose those poor saints in
Siberia think?
What about those in the Middle Ages?
What about the thousands that the Catholic Church
slew?
Talk about tribulation.
You know there could not be greater tribulation
than some of the saints have gone through
and are going through.
So be careful.
Your argument isn't worth a tuppence.
It won't stand the test.
It won't stand investigation.
From wrath deliver us.
No, sir.
In wrath, in wrath remember mercy.
We may be in it.
We may go through it.
We may get into trouble.
We may get into trial.
We may get into worse trouble and trial
and tribulation than we've ever seen.
But in wrath remember mercy.
Not from wrath deliver us.
Now, I believe that there's a sense in
which pre-tribulation rapture.
But I would never use that as an
argument anymore since I've seen this.
That's no argument.
It's no good.
Because Habakkuk says in wrath remember mercy.
Not from wrath deliver thy people.
But in the midst of your outpoured indignation
against us as a back-striven people, in
the midst of all that, Lord, have mercy
upon us, even though you have to pour
wrath upon us.
Amen.
That's what we had yesterday, wasn't it?
In affliction.
And the Valley of Acre for a door
of hope.
Put her in trouble.
In trouble we'll seek thee.
Uh-huh.
That's it.
That's what we need.
Consider the days.
Consider the days of Wesley.
Here's the phrase I quoted yesterday.
Here's the condition in the days of John
Wesley and George Whitefield when they came on
the scene, God bless men.
Listen.
Death in the churches.
Rottenness in public morals.
Infidelity coming in like a flood.
That was the situation before the Wesley-Whitefield
revival saved England from bankruptcy, redeemed England economically,
saved England from the French Revolution.
Marvelous putting in of salt that kept back
the rottenness, stayed the corruption, and made Britain
the greatest nation in the world in her
days.
Right?
You can trace it right to the Wesleyan
revival movement.
I said to the CBC fellows the other
day, they asked me, what about the social
gospel?
Oh, I said, I don't worry about that.
Whenever God's people are right and they're right
with God, they'll take care of their neighbors.
You love God with all your heart, soul,
strength, and mind, you'll love your neighbor as
yourself.
I wouldn't worry about the social gospel.
I said, here's an instance.
Peter.
Peter was going down the street and they
brought the sick.
If perchance.
I gave them this the other day.
I don't know whether it'll go on the
air or not, but I gave it to
them anyway.
It's a TV program the CBC is putting
on.
They're going to put on a little of
it.
I don't know how much of it.
But at any rate, Peter was going down
the street and they brought forth the sick.
If perchance the shadow of Peter falling on
them, some of them might get well.
Such was the great confidence they had in
the apostolic authority and power and healing and
deliverance through the preaching of the gospel that
Peter preached.
But Peter did not go down the street,
gentlemen, to make shadows.
That's your social gospel.
Let the shadows fall where they will, but
you don't go down the street to make
shadows.
Peter went down the street preaching Christ, proclaiming
the Savior.
Repent and let the shadows fall where they
will.
Let the byproducts of the gospel come as
a result of your doing first, seeking first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
So I said, I'm not concerned about the
social gospel.
I'm going to preach Christ.
The results will take care of themselves.
The social gospel.
But when men turn to make social gospel
their gospel, it's because they've lost the gospel,
and they don't know what it is to
preach Christ, just Christ anymore.
Now here's what a missionary from India says.
Stephen Offord quotes this.
I am very often in a spirit of
mourning over the state of American churches.
This man had been a missionary in India,
and he had a church in Ohio at
this time.
I am very often in a spirit of
mourning over the state of American churches.
America has a leading part in the Christian
world and sends out many missionaries, but they
can never rise above the spiritual level of
their home church.
We in other lands are going to be
hit hard if you keep sending out missionaries
to us.
Your shallowness will reflect on us.
And so remember that the missionary world abroad
is getting the output from our churches and
schools here at home.
And the missionary societies, the missionary leaders will
tell you, we are sorry, but the tone
and the atmosphere, the stamina, the character of
a lot of our missionaries is declining, declining,
declining.
Well, of course it is.
It's reflected, it's the reflection of the declined
state of the church and the schools here
in this country.
That's the reason I'm so glad God seems
to be touching us with a little bit
of revival to reestablish the old line and
the old standards in order that we may
have an output that will not disappoint the
missionary leaders abroad.
Amen?
Oh, it's important what you would say about
a growing number of Bible schools on our
continent where they've stepped up, they're intellectually academic,
it's going higher and higher and higher and
higher and higher and higher and higher.
The missionary output is lower, lower, lower, lower,
lower, lower, lower.
Less missionary personnel forthcoming with the academic increase.
Now that is a sad state of affairs.
You'd think there'd be a greater output, wouldn't
you?
Now, a number of years ago, now here's
where we got to yesterday.
A number of years ago we had with
us Reverend Duncan Campbell of the Hebrides Revival
Movement off the shores of Scotland.
He tells us how the elders of a
certain church prayed recognizing the sovereignty of God
in revival, but knowing at the same time
that they had to do something about it
as well.
Their prayer is something like this, Lord, you
must do it, for we cannot, but we
want to tell you now that we are
here before you as empty vessels for you
to fill.
Such was their confidence and conviction as they
lingered in the presence of God month after
month, three nights in a week, meeting together
in a barn at 10 p.m. and
remaining there before God until 4 to 6
o'clock in the morning.
They waited.
Months passed.
Nothing happened until one morning about 2 o
'clock.
Then a young man arose from his knees
with his Bible closed before him, and he
cried, Brethren, it is so much humbug to
be waiting night after night if we ourselves
are not right with God.
I must ask myself, is my heart pure?
Are my hands clean?
Then God came in, and something happened.
God swept into the meeting, and seven men
were now lying prostrate before God.
Do not come to me at the end
of this meeting, says Dr. Campbell, and ask
me to explain the physical manifestation of this,
because I cannot explain, but these men moved
at that moment from the sphere of the
natural and found themselves lifted to the realms
of the supernatural.
These men knew that revival had come.
Sounds like you're going in the mulberry trees,
doesn't it?
Somebody has said like this, if the Holy
Ghost were taken out of the world, church
work would go on as usual for quite
a long time, and they'd never miss it.
Is that so?
Much of it, very much of it would
go on, and nobody would ever miss the
Holy Ghost.
In other words, we're on the plane of
the natural, in the energy of the natural,
in the spirit of the natural, explaining to
natural man the gospel, and the natural man
receives not the things of the Spirit of
God, they are foolishness unto him, neither can
he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.
But if we take the Holy Ghost out
of the world and go right on, the
old system would roll on, roll on, keep
up the good appearances, keep up the good
work, take the collection, meet the budget, pay
the preacher, and then get together to close
the meeting and say, my, didn't we have
a good meeting?
You never saw a failure, you never heard
of a failure in your life in a
place like that.
It's always positive, always good, nothing to be
improved upon.
My, oh God, get us convicted!
Get us convicted!
Thou art lukewarm, I will spew thee out
of my mouth.
I would you were cold, then I could
get at you.
I would you were cold, God said that
to me once when I told you it
was an awfully startling thing.
Not so I would that thou were cold.
What?
No, Lord, I tell you, I started right
back on that one.
You don't want me cold, no you don't.
I would you were cold.
What?
Then I began to hear something.
If you don't intend to be red hot,
I will see that you're cold, and if
you get cold, you'll get, I'll be able
to get at you and convict you.
But as long as you continue lukewarm, you're
unget out of it.
You kid yourself and others.
He didn't just tell me all that, but
that's the thing that came as a vision
to me.
I would you were cold.
Did God ever tell you that he wishes
you were cold?
If you don't intend to be really red
hot, if you don't intend to get out
of that lukewarm condition, God says I would
you were cold, because if you get cold,
you'll get convicted, and you'll repent, and come
back to your first love for Christ, and
then be red hot for him.
Amen?
Now that's scripture, brother.
I know it's hard medicine.
Now here's a few suggestions that Tozer made,
Dr. A.W. Tozer, things conducive to revival.
I think I'll just give you a few
of them.
He said first, get thoroughly dissatisfied with yourself.
Self-complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual
progress.
Self-complacency.
The falsely contented soul, a false contentment with
yourself is stagnation.
It's a dead sea experience, below level, way
down, scum on you.
You know, it's one thing to be godly.
Godliness with contentment is great gain.
That's true contentment.
That's the reason I emphasize false contentment.
Paul says, I press toward the mark for
the prize.
Number two, set your face like a flint
toward a sweeping transformation of your life.
How about it?
Are you quite contented to let the status
quo remain?
In other words, I'm about as good as
my neighbors.
The neighbors in the pew are not much
ahead of me.
And my reputation spiritually isn't too bad.
And the preacher doesn't think there's anything wrong
with me.
And if he doesn't, nobody else should.
I tell you, there's a lot of just
that kind of false contentment.
You know, most of us have decided.
Now, beloved, I say this, I say it
as a rebuke to myself as well, but
the most of us have pretty well decided
just about how far we're going on with
God.
I mean, in the secret of our souls,
we've just about decided about how far we
intend to go on with God and not
beyond that.
Lord, don't get meddling.
Don't meddle with me beyond that.
Almost, we've almost come to something like that.
Now, you don't say it.
Oh, my, you've come to the pyramid.
Oh, Lord, take us home with thyself.
And you kid yourself to death.
It's hard to be honest.
It's hard to be downright sincere.
Isn't it?
It truly is.
Set your face like a flint for transformation
of life.
And if you're a shrinking, timid Christian who
would not mind experimenting a bit on the
border of revival, then you are tagged for
failure before you start.
So I'll read that one again.
If you are a shrinking, timid Christian who
would not mind experimenting a bit on the
borderline of revival, wouldn't it be nice?
Yeah, we had a little, over the weekend,
we had a kind of a little touch
and it was interesting to hear those people
confess.
Why, that's good.
I'm glad to, I'm glad for the fringe
benefits.
The periphery of revival, I don't mind skirting
and scouting around there.
My atmosphere is good.
Let's get a little more of it.
Not bad.
But deliver me from getting in the, getting
sucked into it right in the heart.
I don't know what kind of an exposure
might come out.
That is secretly where many of us are.
Throw your whole soul into desire for God's
best.
The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the
violent take it by force.
Are you out for a forceful taking of
the kingdom?
Amen.
Number three, put yourself in the path of
blessing.
Put yourself in the path of blessing.
Don't expect help to come as a kind,
of a kind of a spiritual, a spiritual
windfall.
Wouldn't we like to be, wouldn't we like
to have a kind of a spiritual windfall
and I'd, I'd come in under the branches
of blessing?
Wouldn't that be nice?
Under the branches of blessing I would come
in.
Why, aren't we having, aren't we having wonderful,
fine fellowship?
No personal, real repentance and downright need.
I think I'll give you something.
I, I, I'm just going to intersperse this.
Turn to Revelation 3 will you please?
Revelation 3.
Revelation chapter 3.
Begin verse 18.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold
tried in the fire.
Amen.
Get, get really fired up that thou mayest
be rich and white raiment that thou mayest
be clothed and that the shame of thy
nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes
with high salve that thou mayest see as
many as I love, that's the emphasis, as
many as I love not the way you
love, as many as I love I rebuke
and chasten.
Be zealous therefore and what?
Repent.
Now this is this lukewarm church.
Behold I stand at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open
the door I will come in to him
and will sup with him and he with
me.
I think I'll give you the experience of
Oscar Lowry.
Oscar Lowry had and my friend my
friend met Oscar Lowry after Lowry had been
a teacher of evangelism at Moody Institute for
many a day.
Many months.
In fact for some years.
That's where he wrote the book Scripture Memorizing
for First Old Soul.
He was teacher of evangelism at Moody Bible
Institute.
After that he went down into Oklahoma and
got interested in oil shares and stocks and
he helped to build a great big pile
of brick and stone known as the Presbyterian
Church in Tulsa.
I believe it was.
One of those cities there.
And this friend of mine was being shown
around Lowry was showing him all around this
great church.
What a wonderful church they just built.
And Lowry was an elder in the church.
And finally he said as they walked out
to the front of the church out to
the door there was this lovely frontispiece Lowry
said my friend what are you doing in
this pile of brick and stone?
There's where God is out there in the
valley with all those oilers those little shacks.
There's where God's interested right out there.
And what are you doing in this pile
of brick and stone?
How was that for a rebuke?
And my friend was a younger man.
And then they turned around and looked at
the frontispiece on the front of the church
and he says yes sir sure enough and
you put the right verse up there in
marble in stone chisel out you put the
right verse there you said it yourself behold
I stand at the door and knock God
isn't in the place he's got him outside
and you said so and Lowry got out
for God and had his greatest revival right
here on the prairies brought by radio after
that hallelujah now what do I mean listen
what is the context of this behold I
stand at the door and knock he's crowded
out true enough but listen he'll give a
private revival to any man that hears his
voice you don't oh but I'd like to
have a revival in our church there'd be
a windfall under the branches and the blessing
would drip all over me and I'd be
caught up with all the rest of the
folks mark it'd be wonderful to have a
revival like that where it'd cost me nothing
and everybody'd get blessed and I'd get blessed
with them nobody'd lose face name or reputation
and God would forget all our sins and
oh wonderful the wonderful that's the kind of
revival you and I'd like to have we
wouldn't mind it at all if we could
have a revival here that'd just sweep everybody
in and omit my personal transgression and omit
my having to admit the Savior in a
new sense behold I stand at the door
and knock if any man individually privately in
that dead lukewarm church if he can hear
my voice he and I'll have a private
revival amen he and I will have a
private personal revival I will sup with him
and he with me so I've given up
all hope of getting climbing on the bandwagon
of a revival as the way to be
revived the way to be revived is to
listen to the voice of the Savior knocking
knocking yes Lord I will admit thee in
thy power and sovereignty and we'll share a
fellowship together in revival as many as I
love I rebuke and chasten Lord I rebuke
I chasten I listen what is it?
revival personal personal private whether your church is
lukewarm cold or dead or anything else you
can have a personal private revival when you
want it amen huh?
no amens on that?
hey put yourself in the place of blessing
amen and listen to the voice that's knocking
at the door amen do a thorough job
do a thorough job of repenting a thorough
job of repenting be zealous therefore in what?
repent do a thorough job of repenting says
Joseph do not hurry up do not hurry
up to get over with it wouldn't you
like you ever find yourself about to get
convicted then you come out with a little
too before confession of some kind you know
folks I haven't been all I ought to
be I hope you'll all forgive me what
have you done brother why don't you name
it well you know I've been a bit
negligent come on come on come on out
with it what is it well hurry it
up hurry it up hurry it over slur
it over evade avoid thyself hush hush don't
go too far and don't expose me like
that the Lord says judge not you shouldn't
judge me uh huh why you hide behind
that Matthew 7 1 don't you huh judge
not judge not is the greatest hideout for
saints you ever saw it is it's chief
hideout do a thorough job of repenting don't
hurry up drill deep drill deep if you
expect a real filling did you ever notice
the dentist if he's going to give you
a real filling he'll drill you clear down
to China won't he huh you you think
he's going to come out your jaw what's
he trying to do he's trying to get
you ready for a real filling amen may
be painful but nevertheless he's going to drill
deep to give you a real filling listen
let me give you this verse in the
in the song book that we use here
here's a verse that's omitted but I I
like it have I long in sin been
sleeping long been slighting grieving thee has the
world my heart been keeping oh forgive and
rescue me even me even me oh forgive
and rescue me isn't that isn't that a
good verse I I'd expected some song writer
would omit a verse like that he'd like
to sing but he didn't wouldn't know this
kind of repentance have I long in sin
been sleeping long been slighting grieving thee has
the world my heart been keeping oh forgive
and rescue me hasty hasty repentance means shallow
experience and a lack a lack of assurance
and certainty in the whole life hasty slurred
over evaded shallow repentance be zealous and repent
go at it hammer and tongs go clear
to the bottom let godly sorrow do her
healing work let the consciousness of sin wound
us deeply if the my beloved we're not
going to have much of a sense of
revival either before or after unless we come
to a new consciousness and a new sensitivity
to sin we've just got sin abounding today
and god's saints can play borderlines along these
lines and never bother them their right to
eat is the tree of knowledge of good
and evil without being contaminated that's the spirit
of the day i've got your right who
says i haven't a right to read i'm
grown up i can choose for myself away
with your censorship i've discerned between good and
evil i've been eating of the tree of
knowledge that's just right just the devil's trick
exactly as it was way back there to
begin with it's our wretched habit of tolerating
sin that keeps us in a half-dead
condition tolerating sin number five make restitution wherever
possible make restitution wherever possible and if you
owe a debt pay it or at least
have a frank understanding about it if you
can't pay it at the moment at least
come to an understanding with your creditor about
your intentions to pay and your honesty will
be above question now if you've quarreled with
anyone if you've quarreled with anyone go as
far as you can go as far as
you can in an effort to achieve reconciliation
as fully as possible make crooked things what?
straight and by the way when it comes
to making crooked things straight don't be measuring
yourself by a lot of the same you
ever notice you can have you can have
quite a pile of sticks and a stick
that's reasonably straight looks pretty good amidst all
the crooked sticks but measure it by a
real straight stick and you'll find how crooked
you are huh?
and a lot of people are spending their
time measuring themselves with the saints with other
saints I don't look so bad you know
they're oh I may not be all I
should be in fact I come short quite
often and there you go apologizing and apologetically
defending yourself listen brother measure yourself by the
plumb line and find how crooked you are
don't measure yourself by other saints that's one
of the wicked things measure yourself by the
scripture confess confess confess to the extent that
you've sinned how public should be my confession
as far as your sin has been public
that's the general rule private sins privately confess
to God sins against your neighbor confess to
your neighbor sins against your class confess to
the class sin against the church confess to
the church sin against the school again that
and so on as a rule that's it
I say as a rule because God may
drag you clear out and pull your face
off in front of everybody in order to
get you free from your sin it might
be necessary in some instances but that's it
that's the unusual ordinarily the safe thing is
between thee and him alone all right be
honest be honest that's number six be honest
let your self examination be made on your
own knees and then get up to obey
God this is the way walk ye in
it my old teacher was always wanting a
verse of scripture old daddy Steve his brother
was wanting a verse of scripture every morning
so this morning he was on his knees
and trying to get a verse of scripture
and he couldn't get one finally he looked
up and on the wall was this arise
and be doing and the Lord be with
thee so he says I got up and
went to work some of us would like
some kind of a little whoop there I
got it a verse to kind of give
you a shot in the side or a
shot in the arm or something like that
you can't use the bible as a kind
of a little pig in a poke to
get out of something and give you a
kind of a shock and a start for
the day you can't superstitiously use the bible
cut it out well I don't need to
say any more about that do I be
serious minded number seven be serious minded break
away not only from the playboy magazine but
from the funny boys and the fools if
there ever was a need to get serious
minded it's today have you ever noticed in
Paul talking to Titus and Timothy and they
are his ministerial successors sober sober sober sober
today it's giddy happy we'll happy by you
come with us we'll have clean fun lots
of fun Jesus wants us to have fun
come on let's join the funny boys we
have got a nice clean fun your fun
is naughty our fun is nice and somebody
has said this after you something like this
was said I defy Gabriel himself to ever
get you into a state of revival after
you fed on all the TV and the
funny jokes and the shady stuff I defy
Gabriel himself to ever give you a revival
well that was something wasn't it feed feed
feed with your head in the swill barrel
and then grow up to be healthy no
you can't do it holiness become a fine
house oh lord be serious the people of
the world you know the people of the
world used to go to the movies to
escape serious thinking but now movies right in
the front room and nobody knows we're doing
it and when I travel here and there
I'm glad we don't have anything don't have
it on the campus at all I don't
think it's been a mess just absent but
when you go here and there and see
the trash the rubbish the low down kind
of stuff that appears on the TV once
in a while there's something good like a
moon shot you like to see it I
don't object to that glad to look at
it but for the most part the devil
is the head of the thing now just
as he's got the head of our good
educational world compulsory education for everybody and the
devil is running it now and so we've
got a lot of good things the devil
is running them don't you see revival instead
of novels and newspapers let us love the
word of God oh I could give so
many more things in this connection but I
haven't time to do it but I was
thinking here though of the revival in Hearn
Hood when the spirit came the baptism of
the spirit got a hold of all those
people culminated on the blessed 13th of August
an imbuement with power back in 1727 I
believe it was or 37 that enabled those
men and women of Hearn Hood to serve
their generation so effectively in evangelizing throughout Christendom
and in Heathendom and in keeping faith aglow
during the decades of rather general indifference and
rationalism as well as in promoting an education
that sought to cultivate the heart as well
as to inform the intellect and to secure
the purity of morals I thought well hallelujah
that sounds like just exactly what we're existing
for and that's the way this mighty Hearn
Hood revival where they had a prayer meeting
that came out of it that lasted 100
years continuous prayer 100 years round the clock
for 100 years and no wonder missionaries went
off to the end of the age the
great Moravian revival of 1727 which reached its
climax on August 13th 1727 was preceded and
followed by most extraordinary praise the spirit of
grace and supplication manifested itself in the early
part of the year Count Zinzendorf Count Zinzendorf
a VIP as we would say but a
humble soul began to give spiritual instruction to
a class of nine girls between the ages
of 10 and 13 years of age the
Count so the historian says frequently complained to
his consort that though the children behaved with
great outward propriety he could not perceive any
traces of spiritual life among them and however
much might be said to them of the
Lord Jesus Christ yet it did not seem
to reach their heart in this distress of
mind he took his refuge to the Lord
in prayer most fervently and treating him to
grant to these children his grace and blessing
what a gifted wealthy young German nobleman on
his knees agonizing in prayer for the conversion
of some little schoolgirls later on we read
the Count poured forth his soul in a
heart affecting prayer accompanied with a flood of
tears and
tears and tears and tears and tears and
tears tears and tears and
tears tears and
tears and tears and tears and tears and
tears and tears and tears and