Turn with me tonight to the Old Testament
prophet, the book of Habakkuk, chapter 3.
References already been made to these verses, but
I want to read them.
This is not the text, it's a text,
because we're going to be looking at several
passages, probably quoting them more than looking at
them in depth.
But I do want to read this as
a foundation, and then have prayer, and see
if we can balance this subject out.
Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2.
A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, upon Shegaionot.
O Lord, I have heard thy speech and
was afraid.
O Lord, revive thy work in the midst
of the years.
In the midst of the years make known.
In wrath remember mercy.
Let's pray.
Our Father, we acknowledge again that we are
only instruments.
We have no power to preach.
We have no power to teach, except you
would grant us.
We could even stand and put together ideas
and thoughts, but all is vain, unless the
Spirit of God speaks.
And so we pray tonight for that holy
unction from upon high, that only you can
grant, to a poor helpless worm as he
stands in the pulpit, to proclaim your word.
We pray not only unction for the speaker,
but understanding for the hearers.
For we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Tuesday night, we set before you something of
the person and the work of the Holy
Spirit.
We said the Holy Spirit is a person.
We declared from the scripture that he is
a divine person.
We spoke of some of his work.
He convicts of sin.
He indwells the believer.
He seals the believer.
He fills the believer.
We talked about the fact that he is
God's agent of sanctification.
As part of his work of sanctification, he
is also God's agent in the church, and
in the individual life of the Christian, for
revival, for reformation, and for renewal.
We stress also that the Holy Spirit is
sovereign in everything that he does.
Now perhaps when I finished the other night,
some of you thought that preacher has painted
himself into a corner.
He has told us that the Holy Spirit
is sovereign in everything he does.
The Holy Spirit is sovereign in revival.
If that be so, then we don't need
to pray.
And on the other hand, if that preacher
would admit that we need to pray, then
the Holy Spirit must not be sovereign in
revival.
We're wrestling again, I think you see, with
the relation of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
And may I warn you that human reason
always butchers the relationship of these two areas.
So I don't want us to depend upon
human reason.
I want us to look tonight at three
areas.
First of all, I want to set before
you some false ideas of prayer.
Generally false ideas of prayer, but we'll also
relate them as we go to revival.
Second, I want to set before you some
biblical concepts of prayer.
And third, I want to set before you
those biblical concepts applied in a very practical
way.
First of all, let me mention some false
ideas of prayer that are floating around in
our world today.
Some people have the idea that God can
do nothing unless men pray.
To put it another way, God's hands are
tied until somebody down here on this earth
prays.
This viewpoint would have to admit that God
in his sovereignty has given up some of
his sovereignty because he has ordained that nothing
can be done without prayer.
Therefore, I would declare that God is not
really sovereign because his sovereign decision to give
up his sovereignty and ordain that he can
do nothing without prayer has reduced God to
less than a sovereign God.
Another false idea of prayer that's rather prevalent
that goes along with this idea that God
can't do anything unless men pray is the
idea that man can change God's will when
he prays.
Have you ever heard that one?
Some things will happen only if men pray.
And if we don't pray, then these things
will never happen.
Which is to say that we can somehow
change God's will if we pray.
Or if we don't pray, we change God's
will.
Therefore, God's will is kind of open-ended.
It's not set from eternity past, but God's
will is set every day, day by day,
depending on whether or not the human creatures
upon this earth pray.
If men pray, then some things happen.
God orders his will accordingly.
If men don't pray for something, then God
orders his will accordingly on the basis of
the fact they haven't prayed.
Which is to say the determination of God's
will is bound to man's prayer.
Well, let me tell you this evening that
both of these ideas are scripturally incorrect.
The idea that God can do nothing unless
we pray, or the idea that we can
change God's will when we pray, are both
scripturally incorrect.
Ephesians 111, and these verses are known to
all of you, but I call them to
your attention on the last.
He is the God who works all things
after the counsel of his own will.
I don't read anything there about his will
being predicated upon man's prayer.
We read in 1 Samuel 2, verses 6
-8, that the Lord kills and the Lord
makes alive.
He brings down to the grave and he
brings up.
The Lord makes poor and the Lord makes
rich.
He brings low and he lifts up.
He raises up the poor out of the
dust and lifts up the beggar from the
dunghill to set them among the princes and
to make them inherit the throne of glory.
Now I don't read there that God is
dependent upon man's prayer to do that.
The thrust of the passage seems to be
that the Lord is the one who does
it.
The Lord kills, the Lord makes alive, and
is not predicated on the fact of whether
or not we pray.
Daniel 4, verse 35, says he does according
to his will in the army of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth.
And none can stay his hand, and none
can say, God what are you doing?
He does according to his will.
His will!
And there's nothing said about predicating it upon
prayer.
In fact, I think I can find some
things in the Bible that God did without
anybody praying.
Where was there someone praying when God created
the world?
There wasn't anybody even created yet to be
able to pray for God to create the
world.
Where was Adam and Eve?
And where was their prayer when God came
after they had sinned in Genesis 3, verse
15, and gave them a promise of the
Messiah?
Were Adam and Eve on their knees praying
that God would send us a Messiah?
God gave the promise of Messiah.
Nobody praying.
And let me ask you, what Jew ever
prayed that God would use Assyria to judge
his people, according to Isaiah 10?
Now, maybe you can find it in Scripture.
If you do, I'd be glad to hear
it.
But I don't recall any Jew ever praying,
Lord, you just come in here and bust
up our land with that Assyrian war machine
because we've been so sinful.
And what Jew ever prayed that God would
destroy the temple?
The fact of the matter is that Jews
said to Jeremiah, God can't destroy this temple.
This is his house.
And what Jew ever prayed that God would
destroy the city of Jerusalem?
And what Jew ever prayed that God would
destroy the wall?
And what Jew or Gentile ever prayed that
the Messiah would die on the cross?
I've set those before you just hopefully to
illustrate that God's hands are not tied by
our prayerlessness.
And that we cannot change God's will by
our prayer.
Our God is sovereign.
And God can do anything he wants, anytime
he wants, anywhere he wants, through anybody he
wants, and without men if he so wants.
Is it not this low view of God
that man can somehow change God's will and
God's hands are tied because we don't pray?
Is it not this low theology that has
led our age into a utilitarian concept of
God?
I can control God and his will.
God then must exist for me.
And I can use God to accomplish my
end.
God must exist to do my bidding if
I can control him and he can't do
anything unless I pray.
And so when I need something, I'll seek
him.
And when I feel we need revival, I'll
seek him.
When I want my church to grow, I'll
pray for revival.
God will send it.
I'll pray for revival so I can save
my face and my people will pat me
on the back and say, you're doing a
good job, preacher.
God exists to serve me.
I pray to God earnestly and in depth
for a little time during the year.
Isn't that the average revival?
How do we pray for revival in our
Southern Baptist churches?
Oh, we schedule an evangelist.
He's going to be coming in.
Oh, maybe six or seven months ahead we
schedule the evangelist.
And then a week before the revival meeting
starts, quote-unquote, question mark, whatever else you
want to put there, we have cottage prayer
meetings.
Nobody does much praying until the cottage prayer
meeting.
And then everybody begins to pray.
And for a week we pray.
And then during the revival meeting, maybe a
few people pray.
And when the revival meeting's over, nobody prays
anymore.
And even the preacher and sometimes evangelist, when
the revival is over, or the revivalist, when
the meeting's over, they go back to their
normal routine of prayerlessness.
So I pray to God.
He exists up there to help me.
So it's proper, it's right for me to
pray to Him a little time out of
the year so He can wait on me,
so He can do my bidding, so He
can maybe save my face in front of
my congregation.
A utilitarian God.
He's up there to serve me.
I can control Him.
Is this not also what has led to
a manipulative view of prayer and God?
I can manipulate God.
God's my little puppet.
I make Him dance on my strings.
Is this not what has created in some
men's mind a mechanical concept of prayer?
God's kind of like a machine.
You put in a nickel's worth of prayer,
you get a nickel's worth of blessing.
You put in a thousand dollars' worth of
prayer, you get a thousand dollars' worth of
blessing.
Take your pick.
Pray for an hour, hour's worth of blessing.
Pray all night, a whole night's worth of
blessing.
God's a mechanical individual.
He's a machine.
We just punch the prayer in, and we
can manipulate God and change God's will.
And God has to do our bidding.
Is this not what has brought in some
men's mind a bargain concept of prayer?
I can bargain with God.
Or a gimmick concept of prayer.
We can treat prayer like a gimmick.
Everybody wants to study prayer.
If we can just learn when to pray,
how to pray, what to pray, where to
pray, how to hold our hands when we
pray, how to position the body while we
pray, what to pray for and what not
to pray for.
If we just attend all the seminars on
prayer, then we can manipulate God.
I'll have him in my hand, and when
I pray, God said, Revival, Revival.
The gimmick concept of God and prayer.
But I say again, that's not the God
of the Bible.
God's hands are not tied by our prayerlessness.
And we cannot change God's will by our
prayer.
God can do anything he wants, anytime he
wants, anywhere he wants, through anyone he wants,
or even without men if he wants.
He works when we pray, he works when
we don't pray.
He works when men work, he works when
men don't work.
He works through human resources, and he can
work without.
He's God.
Somebody says, Preacher, I thought you were going
to get us out of that painted corner.
You've put the paint even tighter by what
you've said in this first point.
Well, let me start with the paint remover
as we move into point number two, some
biblical concepts of prayer.
Let me give you some biblical concepts of
prayer.
It is thoroughly biblical that God has ordained
the human responsibility of prayer as one of
his means of grace.
Very clearly the Bible declares that man has
a responsibility to pray and to seek God's
face.
That's declared in the Bible again and again
and again.
We have a responsibility to pray and seek
God's face.
Matthew 6.44, pray for those who persecute
you.
Matthew 7.7, ask and it shall be
given you, seek and you shall find, knock
and it shall be opened.
Matthew 21.13, my house shall be called
a house of prayer.
Matthew 26.41, watch and pray that you
enter not into temptation.
1 Thessalonians 5.17, pray without ceasing.
1 Thessalonians 5.25, Paul cries out, Brethren,
pray for us.
Luke 18.1, men ought to always pray.
Luke 21.36, watch ye therefore and pray
always that you may be counted worthy to
escape all these things.
Ephesians 6.18, pray always with all prayer.
I like that.
Colossians 4.2, continue in prayer and watch
in the same with thanksgiving.
1 Timothy 2.2, Paul says, I exhort
therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions,
and giving of thanks be made for all
men, for kings and for all that are
in authority, that we may lead a quiet
and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty.
1 Timothy 2.8, men are to pray
everywhere.
James 5.13, is any man afflicted, let
him pray.
James 5.16, pray for one another.
Philippians 4.6, in everything by prayer.
Isaiah 55.6, seek ye the Lord while
he may be found, call upon him while
he is near.
May you add to that all the biblical
examples of the great men of God in
the Bible who prayed.
And I can say with firm conviction, a
Christian has a responsibility that even comes to
revise, to pray.
But let me stress, second, that God has
ordained prayer as a means to bless man.
God not only says that we are to
pray, but the Bible reveals that this is
one of the means, not the only means,
but one of the means whereby God blesses
us.
James 5.16, the effectual, fervent prayer of
a righteous man avails much.
The effectual, fervent prayer.
I believe the Greek word there speaks of
a runner, stretching to touch the cape.
This kind of prayer that James talks about
is not just a little quiet prayer, but
it's a fervent prayer of the spirit and
perhaps even of the voice.
Stretching out to touch God as we call
upon him.
Paul asks the Romans to pray that he
may have a prosperous journey by the will
of God to come to them.
Ephesians 1.17-19, Paul says he prays
that God may give to these Ephesians a
spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge
of him, the eyes of their understanding being
enlightened, and you know the rest of it.
That they might know the exceeding greatness of
God's power towards those who believe according to
the working of his mighty power.
That's Paul's prayer for these Ephesians.
Now why does he pray for them?
Because he knows that our God is a
God who hears and answers prayer, and that
prayer is his responsibility, and it is a
means whereby God not only blesses his life,
but God blesses the lives of others as
he prays.
Matthew 18.19, any two of you on
earth shall agree as touching anything, they shall
ask and it shall be done for them,
and my Father is in heaven.
Mark 9.29, Jesus said to his disciples,
this kind can come forth by nothing but
by fasting and prayer.
Man has a responsibility to seek God's face.
Man has a responsibility to pray.
God has ordained prayer as a means to
bless man.
Let me put it another way.
God is not dependent on human responsibility, but
God commands man to be responsible, and God
honors human responsibility in his sovereignty over all
things in accordance with his will and power.
Let me say that again, not to bore
you.
Our God is not dependent upon human responsibility,
but he commands us to be responsible, and
he honors our responsibility in these areas, because
in his sovereignty over all things, he has
ordained that we should seek his face and
receive his blessing through prayer, in accordance with
his purpose and will.
Now third, let me be very practical.
I don't believe I can get any more
practical than I'm going to be right now.
Should I pray in light of God's sovereignty,
in light of the Holy Spirit's sovereignty in
giving revival?
Should I pray?
Absolutely yes!
Because God commands it, and because God has
ordained it as a means to accomplish his
will.
Perhaps the more important question is, how should
I pray?
How should I pray?
That's perhaps the place we fail.
I'm not to pray in a utilitarian spirit,
thinking that I can control God, that I
can press God to do my will.
I'm not to pray with a manipulative motive.
I'm not to pray in some mechanical way
that God, you've got to bless me, because
here's five hours worth of prayer, I want
five hours of blessing.
We're not to pray in some negotiating manner
with God.
But we're to pray, and let me mention
three accompaniments of prayer.
We must pray with a clear concept and
a craving for the glory of God to
be accomplished alone.
Let me say that again.
We must pray with a clear concept of
the glory of God, and a craving for
the glory of God, and the glory of
God alone.
In fact, you do not pray if the
glory of God is not your motive.
You're just saying words.
There is no such thing as prayer if
your motive is yourself.
But true prayer is based upon a clear
concept of the glory of God.
But second, I must pray with a confession
of sin, with a clear concept of my
sin, that I'm not coming into God's presence
because of anything good within me, but I'm
coming into God's presence dependent upon the blood
of Jesus and the work of Jesus Christ
at Calvary's cross for me.
And only prayer that is based upon an
understanding and a confession of sin can be
in Jesus' name, that is, depending upon Jesus
Christ.
Because otherwise, if I don't have confession of
sin, my dependency is upon me when I
come into God's presence to pray.
And third, I must pray with a commitment
to the word of God, to its authority,
and to be obedient to that word.
You're wasting your time when you pray without
a commitment to the word of God and
its authority over your life.
You're wasting your time.
So how should I pray?
Not with a utilitarian spirit that I'm going
to manipulate God or negotiate with him.
But I must pray with a craving and
understanding of the glory of God.
I must pray understanding my sinfulness and yet
Christ's righteousness.
I must pray with a commitment to the
authority of God's word and with a heart
that is responsive to obey as God so
directs.
How am I to pray for revival?
The same way.
Not in some utilitarian spirit whereby I think
that once a year we can maybe manipulate
God to come down into our midst in
a service and bless us.
We just have enough people out to the
cottage prayer meetings.
If we just spend enough time that week
before the preacher gets there, then we can
somehow see revival in the church and we
can see people saved.
No, no.
I must pray for revival for God's glory
alone.
I must pray for revival confessing my sin.
I must pray for revival with a commitment
to God and his word and a spirit
and an attitude of obedience.
How often our prayers for revival lack this
motive of God's glory.
You remember Moses back in chapter 32 of
Exodus.
Boy, they needed revival.
The people had just set up the golden
calf and danced around and played and pulled
their clothes off in idolatrous practice.
And you remember God came to Moses and
said, Moses, I'm going to destroy those people.
They're going to die right here.
That's it.
My wrath burns against them.
But Moses, I'm going to raise you up
to be a new nation.
Now can you imagine, use your imagination for
a moment, can you imagine the modern preacher,
I might even say the modern Southern Baptist
preacher, had he been in Moses' place.
Would he say something like this?
Oh Lord, you can't destroy these people.
I went to school a long time to
be a preacher and a pastor.
And I've spent a lot of money and
time to get this position.
And I have a position of importance in
the community.
Oh God, if you destroy these people, my
ministry is going to just fall apart right
before my eyes.
Oh, if you do that, God, my reputation
is going to be shot before the lost
world.
And before the brethren.
And before the religious world.
Everybody down at denominational headquarters is going to
say he couldn't even get those people back
to Sinai.
Nobody will ever recommend me to a bigger
church.
I'll be ruined for life in the ministry.
And I've got a wife and a family.
Oh, what will I do?
What will I do if you carry out
that statement?
Everybody will see me as a failure.
Oh God, revive these people so I can
keep my job.
Revive these people so I can be considered
a great preacher.
Oh, revive these people so I won't suffer
humiliation.
Oh, revive these people so I can build
my reputation.
Oh, revive these people so I can be
successful.
Is that what Moses prayed?
Moses' prayer was not self-centered.
Moses said, Lord, why does your wrath burn
against your people?
The ones that you brought out of Egypt.
Oh God, your glory is at stake here.
The Egyptians are going to rise up and
say, God, you brought them out here to
Sinai to kill them.
Oh God, remember your covenant with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob.
You swore yourself to them, God.
Your glory is at stake here because your
word is at stake.
Now Moses wasn't concerned about what was going
to happen to Moses.
But Moses was concerned about the glory of
God.
He planned for revival of these people and
for God's wrath to be turned away on
the basis of God's glory.
Moses didn't say, wait a minute, Lord, what
was that last statement?
You're going to destroy them.
What was that you said you'd do with
me?
You're going to raise me up to be
a great nation?
Well, Lord, let me change my prayer here,
Lord.
I'm being a little facetious.
Let me change my prayer, Lord.
Well, those people, they've sinned.
They've busted them in the mouth.
Break their teeth.
You're going to raise me up and be
a great nation?
Well, that's different, Lord.
How many times when we pray, and even
thinking about revival, is our motive really self
and not the glory of God?
We want revival so that the other churches
of the association will pat us on the
back and say, oh boy, what a great
preacher.
God's blessing his church.
Maybe you might even want revival so that
you can speak at the conventions and the
associations and at the Southern Baptist Founders Conference.
We just have great revival.
How often our prayer for revival lacks the
motive of God.
Well, you remember Daniel, let me give you
a second example.
Daniel down in Babylon in Daniel 9.
How often our prayers for revival lack confession
of sin.
Imagine again the modern preacher in Daniel's place.
Lord, it's so uncomfortable here in Babylon.
No air conditioning.
And my wife's complaining.
And the kids cry all the time.
And things are so hard for me and
for your people.
And Lord, this isn't really what I had
in mind when I surrendered to preach.
And they didn't tell me it was going
to be this way back at seminary.
Lord, you've punished your people long enough.
And surely, Lord, I deserve something better.
Oh, woe is me.
Pity me, Lord.
Send revival, Lord, so we can go home.
Back to the land of Judah.
Out of this miserable place called Babylon.
No, Daniel didn't pray that way.
Daniel recognized God.
Throughout this passage, there is a clear recognition
of God.
But there's also confession of sin.
The recognition of God's glory.
Actually, this passage just puts both of these
ideas together.
The recognition of God's glory.
But there's also the confession of sin.
We have sinned, Lord.
We've broken your laws.
Oh, God.
The confession of sin.
And so when we pray for revival, there
must be constantly and always, in fact, continually
when we pray there, there should be the
confession.
Because without the confession of sin, remember, our
dependence is upon ourselves.
But it's when we confess our sin and
acknowledge our helplessness and our worthlessness that we
then cast ourselves upon the Lord and his
power in light of our sin.
Let me give you one more.
Remember when Josiah repaired the temple in 2
Chronicles 34?
And then they planned a revival service.
How often our prayer for revival lacks a
commitment to the Word of
God.
And then where they're going to make a
new covenant with God in their hearts to
obey him.
A modern preacher would have said, now, wait
a minute, Josiah.
We've got to make this a great service.
We've got to plan everything carefully.
Let's get Miss Judah of 625 BC to
come and sing and give her testimony.
Somebody said the other day that surely Miss
Judah will help stir our revival.
And you're just going to use the Word
of God?
That won't work.
Let's get some entertaining speaker.
I know a fellow, he tells the best
jokes in the book.
He's got the most sparkling personality.
Everybody likes him.
I've never heard anybody say anything bad about
him.
And he never mentions sin.
And he'll be such an encouragement to everybody.
In fact, he won't even make people mad
by preaching the Bible.
He'll preach.
Would they have seen revival in Josiah's day?
No, they found the Word of God, called
the people together, read the Word of God.
The people's hearts were broken by the Word.
And God sent revival.
Because in Josiah's day, they centered on the
Word of God.
And I say to you, if you're praying
for revival with a heart that's not committed
to the Word of God and to obey
it, you are wasting your time.
What a contrast to today's, these Bible men.
In Bible revivals, the glory of God was
supreme.
They prayed with the glory of God for
the motive.
The confession of sin was present.
They prayed, confessing their sin.
And the Word of God was central.
They even prayed for revival with hearts that
were open and willing to obey the authority
of God's Word.
Compare that with revivals today.
Man is so dominant in our revivals today.
Man's plans.
How can we get people out?
Nobody mentions real prayer.
Pack a few, these other programs.
And sometimes, maybe you preachers, have you ever
gone into a church and thought, how can
I get these people to like me?
If I can just get them to like
me on Sunday morning when we start the
meeting, they'll come back the rest of the
week.
Man's personality.
And so men stand in the pulpit and
tell jokes.
I heard, I read somewhere the other day,
they were advertising a clown and a puppet
conference, a church clown and puppet conference.
And the advertising said, this may be the
most important church conference you will attend this
year.
And you know what I thought?
I replied in my heart with one of
my favorite movie actors lines.
John Wayne, in one of his movies, said
all the way through, that'll be the day.
That'll be the day when the most important
church conference that you'll attend this year is
a puppet and a clown conference.
Men's methods.
Now, I don't mean to be critical, but
in the simultaneous meetings, we gathered together as
preachers of the area.
I preached a couple of them.
And we spent a whole hour talking about
how to draw the net.
As if to say, if we don't draw
the net just right, when it gets down
to the invitation time, some poor soul is
going to slip through God's hands.
If we just don't draw the net with
the greatest of care.
Men's methods.
How to draw the net properly.
To catch the fish.
Men's stories.
Boy, this story will move them.
I remember when I was a young preacher,
I used to hear a good story and
I thought, boy, if I can just find
a book.
But that's what you got.
To move people for the very purpose of
stirring emotions.
Man's prayer.
To get men to pray.
Without any mention of what real prayer is,
we can manipulate God.
How far short we fall of biblical revival.
One of my favorite men of history is
David Brainerd.
Brainerd was born in Haddam, Connecticut, on April
20.
He wasn't saved until he was 21 years
of age, on July 12, 1739.
Brainerd spent years trying to be saved by
his own good works, his own good feelings,
his own good intentions.
But on July 12, 1739, the sovereign grace
of God came to David Brainerd and opened
his heart and granted him understanding that salvation
is in the righteousness of Christ, and not
in himself.
That following September, after his salvation, he went
away to college, Yale College.
But David Brainerd in 1742, about three years
later, when he would have graduated as a
valedictorian of his class, the largest graduating class
of Yale, David Brainerd was kicked out of
school.
I don't have time to tell you the
details.
John Edwards said that David Brainerd was a
Christian in the whole episode, and no fault
is to be laid at his feet.
But as David Brainerd was kicked out of
school, he must have wondered, what in the
world can I ever do for God now?
But without schooling, he had time for much
prayer and study of the Word.
And his diary reflects, it always reflected, but
especially from these moments on, it began to
reflect a real quest for the glory of
God alone, a confession of sin.
Oh, if you've ever read Brainerd's diary, he
didn't just visit Romans 7.
He didn't just spend a few days there.
David Brainerd lived in Romans 7.
And David Brainerd was the mayor of the
city of Romans 7.
I don't know a man in all history
who had a concept of sin, indwelling sin
in the believer like David Brainerd.
And he was constantly crying out to God
for mercy for his soul.
He was so wretched and so vile.
But his diary also reflects not only a
quest for the glory of God and confession
of sin, but a burden for a lost
world.
And it's no surprise that on July of
1742, Brainerd was licensed for the ministry.
And then he was approved for missionary service
at the age of 24 in that November.
He went out to an Indian village in
the wilderness called Konamik.
If you think you've got a rough field,
you ought to understand where Brainerd was.
No matter how hard he tried, no matter
how hard he preached, there was no success.
The Indians were spiritually dead, lost in the
darkest night of sin.
Some of them laughed, some of them mocked,
but most of them just didn't care about
the gospel or a missionary.
Besides the indifference of the Indians, he was
very lonely, no friends, no family.
He didn't have any comforts of life.
He had to build his own house.
His food was mostly boiled corn.
He slept on the floor on a pad
of straw.
The bread that he ate, he had to
travel 15 miles to get, and usually when
he ate it, it was moldy or sour.
Then there was the peril of traveling in
the wilderness.
Many times David Brainerd was lost in the
wilderness, traveling even in the cold of winter.
At times he would even fall into the
river.
There was no warm house to dry himself
or to warm his body.
Brainerd wasn't a well man.
He was sick, very sick.
But he pressed on.
He pressed on preaching the word of God.
He pressed on praying for God's glory to
be manifested to these Indians.
He pressed on living in Romans 7, the
reality of his own sin and helplessness.
And then the mission board in 1744, May
of 1744, reassigned him to another area called
Cross Weeks Inn.
Oh, his heart was heavy as he went
to this new place.
And humanly speaking, there was no possibility that
these Indians could ever be reached with the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
And he was sick.
But he continued to pray with the glory
of God as his motive.
And he continued to pray, constantly confessing his
sin.
And he continued to pray with a heart
that was open to obey the word of
God.
His whole hope was God.
But he worked and labored and preached.
And then on June of 1744, God answered
David Brainerd's prayer.
He says, the Indians began to gather.
Ten first, and then fifteen, and then thirty,
and then sixty, and then ninety, and then
about a hundred.
And he said, finally, in one service, the
spirit of God fell upon those Indians like
a mighty rush.
And the Indians began to cry out to
God for mercy.
What a day it was as these Indians
who, just a few days prior to this
day, had been crying out in their paganist
and idolatrous teeth.
What a day it was when drunkards were
cleansed and saved.
The power of God fell in answer to
Brainerd's prayer.
Prayer that was motivated by the glory of
God.
Prayer that rose from a heart that lived
in Romans 7 and confessed sin constantly.
And prayer that knew what it was to
be obedient to the word of God.
Brainerd died on October 9th of 1747 at
the age of 29.
But he died as he had lived his
life.
His life focused upon the glory of God.
A lifestyle of worship and a heart that
was open to obey the Lord.
Where is your mind focused tonight?
If you pray for revival, why are you
praying?
Is it God's glory that you seek?
If you pray for revival, is yours a
lifestyle of worship and prayer, or is yours
just some prayers once a year, twice a
year, when it's expected of you because we've
got an evangelist?
Does your heart so quest for the glory
of God that you are found on your
knees constantly in a lifestyle and confession of
sin and a heart that is open to
obey?
I want to challenge you this evening.
When you leave tomorrow, go home seeking revival
with one craving on your heart.
The glory of God.
I want to challenge you when you leave
tomorrow.
Go home with one confession upon your soul.
Romans 7.
I am full of sin.
My schemes and my plans and my works
cannot do it.
God, if revival is to come, you must
send it.
Go home seeking revival with one commitment in
your preaching.
The word of God.
Go home with one cry ringing in your
prayers.
The cry of a Bacchic of old.
O God, wilt thou not revive us again?
O God, revive thy work in the midst
of the ears.
In wrath.
O God, remember me.
That's the kind of prayer.
And through that kind of prayer, God will
bring you under the spout where the glory
comes out.
To your nation of old through Amos.
How you gave them cleanness of teeth.
How you sent drought.
How you killed their young men with a
sword.
To warn them.
To call them back.
But no one heard.
So the message came, prepare to meet thy
end.
We would not claim in America that we
hold any special place like Israel of old.
But truly we do see that you've blessed
us as a nation.
And we thank you.
Somehow we just can't help but understand that
you're seeking to warn America.
So much has happened.
O God.
Even our young men have been slain with
a sword.
And perhaps even the heat wave this summer.
And the droughts in the South.
And the fires in the West and in
North Carolina.
And perhaps even the shuttle tragedy.
As our God of science and technology exploded
right before our eyes.
Perhaps, O God, you were saying, seek my
face.
Seek revival.
I'm calling.
O God, may we hear.
Give us hearts that will pray for revival.
Hearts that will seek revival for your nation.
Hearts that will seek revival, realizing, O God,
I pray for all who are present.
Some of them need the breath of God
to fall, even as the breath of God
teaches to pray.
Teaches to pray with faith.
And we pray with confession.
And we pray with hearts obedient to the
word of God.
Then that we, by the spirit of God,
can know.
Set our hearts.
Set our hearts to pray.
Even in the manner that we've discussed.
And O God, send us that breath.
Thank you
very much.
It's always interesting to observe and to know
how the Lord has brought us, each in
our individual ways, to where we are.
I have a very Reformed tradition in my
family.
I'm the descendant of pioneers on almost every
side.
My people in this nation before the Revolutionary
War, staunch, most of them Scotch-Irish, Presbyterian
Calvinism.
Whether they were really believers or not, I
don't know.
But it's interesting to read some of those
old wills.
Whether they were believers or not, it's unobservable,
but whoever wrote those wills knew something of
the grace of God.
Later on, as people became cut off in
the mountains, primitive Baptistism became their faith.
Whether they were believers or not, it's difficult
to tell.
In the mountains, there used to be a
phrase that they used about most of the
people who were under the influence of Calvinism.
They called them leaners.
They just leaned that way.
My great-grandparents were certainly leaners.
Some of them, I'm told, were godly men
and women who professed to know and love
the Lord.
My parents were the first in my family
to be associated with Southern Baptist churches.
My grandparents on at least one side later
became involved in Southern Baptist churches.
But Virginia is a very old state.
While we've known a great deal about the
grace of God through the years, much of
it is gone today.
The church in which I grew up, the
church in which my parents were members before
my birth, enrolling me in the cradle roll
before I was born, was a church that
was basically just a program church.
When I was about seven or eight years
old, all the children were making public professions
of faith and joining the church.
So I did what everybody else did, feeling
prompted by some type of spirit.
The pastor didn't ask me anything, didn't even
deal with me as you should deal with
a child.
And I remember him presenting me to the
church, and my father was a deacon in
the church, and saying, now, we all know
Ivan Young.
He's a deacon here, and here is his
son.
What is your pleasure?
I remember when we had the baptismal service,
how ill-informed I was.
There were some kind of granules on the
floor.
In my childlike mind, I assumed that was
the people's sins that had been washed off.
So you see, I was a real candidate
for the church, wasn't I?
Well, years passed by, and in 1951, there
was a gigantic citywide campaign in the city
of Roanoke, and a Texan came to conduct
that meeting, the preaching grocerman, Howard Butt.
And in that meeting, God began to work
in my heart.
I remember that I was a teenager about
seventeen years old, and working for the state,
and had an opportunity to be in Richmond
about the second or third night, and I
felt so much better.
I just wasn't going to have to hear
that preaching.
But you know, it was worse in Richmond
than it had been in the First Baptist
Church the previous nights.
The following night, I was back and on
the back row, and I remember responding that
night with a broken heart.
God did something in my heart, but it
was a long time before I fully realized
what had really happened.
You see, nobody realized I was converted.
They thought I just had a rededication.
And in the church that I was involved
in, that soon faded away without any instruction.
I remember trying to read the Word.
I didn't know where it began, so I
began in genealogies, and you can imagine how
far I got.
And so about a year, a year and
a half later, I got in a church
in another town.
And the church had a fighting fundamentalist pastor,
an independent pastor.
And you can imagine the influence I fell
under.
There were many great things that took place
in that relationship, things that I'm sad about,
too, also, in that experience.
But it was back in the primitive Baptist
country.
God began to deal with me about the
ministry in a very positive way.
And so soon I was enrolled in an
independent Bible college.
But you know, the Lord had his purpose
in that, for my theology professor was a
man who hated John Calvin.
I mean, nobody could hate John Calvin, I
don't believe, any more than that man did.
I think the very first class of any
type, I think it was a biblical introduction
class, he began to blast John Calvin.
I didn't know who John Calvin was, but
the fellow was a Yankee, and that sort
of rose my suffering blood a little bit,
you know.
I wanted to know who John Calvin was,
and I began to examine the theology of
John Calvin.
And I decided John Calvin must be a
pretty good fellow if that theology professor hated
him.
And, you know, I found a lot of
students had the same experience.
That man made more Calvin than anybody else.
But another wonderful thing took place there, and
Lloyd and others who went there can remember
it, I'm sure, was the fact of the
theological discussions we had.
The interesting times, debating everything.
And I suppose, really, the intellectual experience that
I came to in relation to the doctrines
of grace came as much as dealing with
students as it did with any pastor.
I was a five-pointer intellectually.
I wished to argue all the five points,
but you see, I knew very little.
And that's about all I knew was the
five points.
And not only that, in that Arminian dispensational
background, I was scared to death to preach
them, because they said, oh, that'll wreck your
churches, that'll ruin you.
Well, you know, there was another problem we
had there.
We had some pretty strong Calvinists around there,
and a certain fairly well-known evangelist was
there occasionally.
But the man was a bit radical.
And lots of times he'd do things that
hurt.
Just the other day, I mentioned him in
the pulpit preaching a message of grace to
a man who's just recently been coming to
my church, happened to know something about that
fellow.
And he picked up immediately what I was
saying.
And I may have lost him completely, because
he said, you know, that man wrecked a
church in Tennessee.
You know, if you preach the doctrines in
the wrong way, they can do that, can't
they?
They can do that.
So I left college and went to pastor
churches, preaching Arminianism, but if you've got me
alone, arguing for Calvinism.
Now, isn't that an odd situation?
Indeed, some of the Calvinism moved upon me.
However, I believe that a man had to
be lost before he could be found.
And I believe with all my heart that
if a man came to Christ, it had
to be the work of God's Spirit within
his heart.
But all of my methodology and everything I
did was Arminian in its approach.
Indeed, I began pastoring the church that I'm
now pastoring.
It will soon be there twenty years.
And we had to go through a building
program.
And after the building program, we began all
the methodology.
In one year, the church grew over a
hundred percent.
I thought, boy, I'm arriving now.
I'm getting it made.
But you know, within a year, it all
blew up in my face, because it was
built out of the wrong thing.
I began to search for new methods.
And somebody offered to pay my way to
a seminar for Campus Crusade.
Well, you know, that week, the pump and
that thing, I thought that was great.
I remember we went out to the city
of Asheville, and one afternoon, we were supposed
to have had fifteen hundred people converted.
I was really carried away.
I came home, and I got my people
together, and I trained them in all the
things they trained me in, you know, in
that canned approach.
We went out, just that little church, one
night, and we had sixteen professions of faith.
But the next night, I knew something was
wrong.
We couldn't get back in a single home,
not a single door.
You see, they'd been tricked.
Oh, I was a bit depressed.
I didn't know what to do.
The month moved along, and maybe a couple
or three months.
In February, a friend of mine invited me
to go down to the state of North
Carolina for their evangelism conference in Greensboro.
So I decided I'd go along.
Maybe I'd pick up some new ideas.
Carl Bates was the president of the convention
that year.
I don't remember what else Carl Bates said.
Sometimes Bates could really have something, and other
times he had nothing.
But God had something that day for my
heart.
As he brought his message to a conclusion,
God got a hold of my heart in
an unusual way.
I felt strangely burdened, uneasy, disturbed.
Went by a local bookstore, and I picked
up one of the books, God's Purpose in
Prayer by Iain Bounds.
I went home, greatly burdened.
I began to read that book.
I had other books by Bounds I'd never
opened.
I read them all.
The burden became greater.
God gave me a spirit of prayer.
I've never had a spirit of prayer like
that before or since.
I wish he'd give me another.
I prayed night after night, spent most of
my time in the study.
God was working in my heart.
I had a thirst to know the holiness
of God.
Now, I wasn't a wildfella.
My life wasn't unclean by men's standards and
by the areas in which I moved, but
it was unclean before God.
There was something missing.
I had a great thirst, as I've said,
about the holiness of God and about personal
sanctification.
You have to understand that if you've ever
been a part of dispensationalism and its almost
antinomian approaches.
One day I went in a Pentecostal bookstore,
and a book caught my eye.
And I picked it up with fear and
trembling.
The name of it was God's Way of
Holiness.
When I picked it up, I found out,
though I didn't know who Horatius Bonar was,
but I thought it safe because it was
printed by Moody.
I said, this isn't Pentecostal, and I know
that it won't be Arminian in its approach.
Well, as I began to read that book,
God did a greater work in my heart.
As he began to talk about God's law,
you see, as a dispensationalist and as a
fundamentalist, I had grown to hate the law
of God.
And the only place where the law of
God, as I understood it, was in bringing
a man to Christ.
But a believer had no relationship to it
whatsoever.
I had no understanding of the law as
a covenant of works before you are converted,
but when you're in grace as a rule
of life.
I didn't understand that at all.
So I went to my pulpit in just
a few Sundays after that, and a deep
fog during that period.
And for the first time and only time
thus far in my ministry, I had apologized
to my people and retracted things that I
had preached and things that I had said.
God cured me once and for all of
my antinomianism there.
That's the thing that bothers me when we
see some of our brethren who claim to
believe grace departing from the law of God
and saying that it's an enemy and that
we have no part of it.
Oh, dear friends, you know, sin, the word
of God tells us, is a transgression of
the law.
And if sin is a transgression of the
law, then personal holiness must have some relationship
to the law of God.
Well, I was on my way.
I had a young man who was a
student in a local Bible college in the
church, and he'd been telling me about his
brother-in-law who was reading the Puritans.
And one day I asked him just before
this, I said, what in the world does
he want to read them for?
I couldn't understand that.
But after I read Bonar's book, there was
a thirst open that could not be stopped.
Soon I had acquired J.C. Ryle's book
on holiness.
I devoured it.
Soon I began to read the Puritans, John
Owen on the Holy Spirit, and then the
works of Thomas Watson, and well, on and
on and on we go.
You know, I needed some kind of vehicle
to work through and to understand this thirst
that God had given me for personal holiness
and consecration.
I couldn't go the Pentecostal way.
One of the things that bothered me about
Ian Bounds, he believed you could pray to
change the mind of God.
I was too much of an intellectual Calvinist
before to believe that.
But during this experience, I became a real
Calvinist, an experimental Calvinist.
The doctrines weren't just philosophies running around in
my head and ideas to argue with somebody
else.
They were real truths that brought me into
a deep and personal relationship with the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Well, that's been fourteen years ago.
And most success stories, you know, tell how
everything went great after that.
I thought, man, this is the most wonderful
thing.
Man, I'm going to turn the world upside
down.
I'm going to turn this little church around.
But that didn't happen.
In fact, things got steadily worse for a
number of years.
I've never kept a diary, but finally the
Lord began to show me something.
I began to look at every difficulty.
Every time I lost somebody because of what
I was preaching or something else, I found
that during those dark hours I got closer
to the Lord and I grew more than
any other time.
And I began to learn something that I
never understood.
Thank God for the hard times.
For those are the times that draw us
closer and closer and closer to the Lord.
Well, I'm beginning to worry a little bit.
I haven't had any hard times lately.
I'm coasting too much.
I wonder if things could be this easy.
But I've learned some things along the way
that I'd like to share with you in
relation to the doctrines of grace.
You know, when you first come to grace,
you think, man, I've got to get out
and preach the five points.
You've got to preach the five points.
But sometimes that's the worst thing in the
world you can do.
For in reality, the five points of Calvinism
were set in a negative statement.
They were set at the center of the
door to oppose the propositions of the Arminians.
And sometimes there's a better way to preach
it.
I have a dear friend.
For a long time I was the only
Southern Baptist up in our part of the
country that I knew of.
I felt like maybe I was the only
one anywhere that got ahold of the doctrines
of grace.
I'd been reading all of our old history
books about the Virginia Baptist ministers and found
they were all Calvinist to the man almost.
But the Lord brought another dear brother in
our city to the doctrines of grace.
And about the second Sunday afterwards, you know,
you're just so full of fire, he got
up and told his folks, and I want
to tell you, God doesn't love everybody.
Man, what a time he had.
One woman came down the bar.
I said, you said God didn't love everybody.
And I wanted to love everybody.
Well, he had a hard time.
You know, sometimes the way in which we
say what we say is the important thing,
isn't it?
A few years ago I got ahold of
a book by James Buchanan on the doctrines
of justification.
I began to learn something, I think, at
least for me.
I don't think I need to be preaching
so much about limited atonement in that phrase
as I need to be preaching about the
stewardship of Jesus Christ.
That he died to do something.
Those who oppose us preach a death of
Christ that makes men savable.
We have a gospel that Christ died to
save.
And that's a positive way, I think, to
preach particular redemption.
I'll tell you, one of the great doctrines
we have to preach is irresistible grace.
But let's preach it in the order of
the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, the Baptist
faith and message.
Man must be born again, and then he
can repent and believe.
They can get ahold of that, but they
can't get a handle on what you're saying
sometimes.
And then there is that great doctrine of
the imputed righteousness of Christ.
Oh, what a neglected doctrine in our day.
You know, there are a lot of people
who are fairly straight on the death of
Christ, but they're not straight on what is
our righteousness.
Justification means to be declared righteous.
We're declared righteous in the righteousness of Christ
imputed to our account.
Not our good works.
Really, I think that's the problem with the
pure Arminian who loses his salvation.
He thinks his own works of righteousness, his
own works, his own good works are his
righteousness, and he loses that, not the death
of Christ.
And then so many Baptists have been influenced
by the school of some of our friends,
and the neo-Arminianism, declaring that our faith
is our righteousness rather than the imputed righteousness
of Christ.
Oh, my friends, this is the message we
must proclaim.
We must proclaim to men, let's not get
nerved sometimes into the negative, as I said.
Let's keep it positive on where the real
issues are.
The issues are heaven and hell, and the
grace of God that can bring on that
lost sinner to know the Lord.
May we pray together.
Our Father, we thank you for your grace.
We thank you, our Father, that you could
reach down wherever we were.
Each of us here today have this testimony.
Wherever we were, whatever circumstances, Lord, you've brought
us to your truth.
Lord, we bow at your throne, and we
give you all the glory.
For, Lord, it all belongs to thee and
none to us.
Now, Lord, we come with this service on
our hearts tonight.
What a subject our brother has, the Holy
Spirit and revival.
We pray, even as one of our speakers
exhorted today, that he might have the unction
of the Spirit tonight, and that he might
teach our hearts.
And, oh, our God, that we might receive
something that would fire our hearts to go
back, and to be better witnesses for thee
in those places where you have assigned us
to serve.
We make our prayer in the name of
Christ, and for his sake.
Amen.