It's good to be back with you again
today on Eagle Swings.
I think it'd be a good day just
to sit back and maybe have a little
visit about some things.
I've been thinking lately about revival.
What it is, what it does, how it
comes.
Been doing some studying on some of the
symptoms of revival.
As a matter of fact, last night I
sat down and started to study out this
area and just really had in mind sharing
some things with you about the symptoms of
revival.
And as I got about halfway through what
I was doing, I realized that the Spirit
of God was leading me to just talk
about Jesus.
You know, I talk about many different things,
and there's so many things to talk about.
And when we're only on the air once
a week, then we have to be selective
and very specific.
There's so many things I'd like to share.
I have enough material.
I've even thought about the possibility of having
a radio Bible school where we could even
have notes sent out to you or whatever.
But we have to be selective.
And as God has raised this program up
and He's geared this program towards revival, I've
been thinking recently about what is revival?
Do we really understand what it is?
And we want to be an encouragement to
you.
We want to be encouragement to the pastor.
And my wife and I and my children,
we try to be a ministry to people.
There's so many programs around, and I've found
many times that programs can actually just bury
you out of sight.
And you can be so busy with your
programs that you forget even the Lord.
You can even forget why you're doing them.
But what's revival?
What is revival?
You know what revival is?
It's Jesus again.
And I've been thinking about this because we're
going into our spring session.
And you know what happens in most churches
in the spring?
Well, we have revival meetings.
And actually, they're not revival meetings.
They're just evangelistic meetings.
And so for once or twice a year,
we try to pump things up in the
church, get an evangelist in to come in
and try to get a few people saved
to do what we should have been doing
all year long, outreaching people.
And it's just sort of like blowing a
balloon up.
And then after he's gone, boy, we've had
some great meetings and God's done some things.
There's no doubt about that.
Some folks have got saved.
No doubt about that.
But is that really what God wants of
us?
And is that really what revival is?
Well, in the next few weeks, if God
continues to lead me in what he's been
doing, I just want to take some time
to share with you about revival.
One of the things that I've found in
revival is that God meets those who are
desperate.
I was talking with a pastor yesterday up
in Sedalia, and we were sharing things about
revival.
I'd wrote him a while back.
He had wrote me, and I'd wrote him
back sharing some things about what God had
done in my life and in my church
and how he's continued.
And I was sharing with him yesterday morning
on the phone about some things, how personal
Jesus Christ becomes.
You know, the cleaner that we will get,
the closer that we'll be able to walk
with the Lord.
And God actually wants to be the main
thing in your church, believe it or not.
Jesus wants to be the main activity.
He wants to be the main attraction.
He wants to be the sinner.
And let me share something with you.
It's a secret, so don't let it out,
but he wants to be glorified.
And I think so many times when we
come into our churches, we go off to
meetings or whatever, we've seen men glorified.
We've seen some old so-and-so get
up and strut his sermonic peacock feathers, and
that's so many times it's just the glory
of God is not there.
The glory of man is there.
So what is revival?
I want to share some things with you
about what God's taught me about revival.
And I don't claim to be a professional.
I don't know much about this area, but
I do know a little bit.
I've experienced a little bit of revival in
my own personal life.
And I know it's been such a devastating
thing to where it's changed my life dramatically.
It's changed my ministry.
It's changed my outlook on life.
And I've come to see that so much
of my past ministry was done in the
flesh and not in the power of the
Spirit of God.
And we can just have a quiet time
talking this morning.
I don't have to holler.
I don't have to yell.
But yet the Spirit of God can be
amongst us.
He can be ministering through me to you.
And He can open up your ears to
hear.
You know, the Bible says, He that has
ears to hear, let him hear what the
Spirit says to the churches.
There's one main ingredient in revival.
And remember, revival is Jesus again.
You have to have Jesus first.
Before you can get to this main ingredient
to have revival, you have to have this
one thing, Jesus.
You have to have Him as your Savior.
Now, the one main ingredient is that God
meets those who are desperate.
Now, you may be desperate for God, and
you've never met Him yet.
You've never known Him.
You don't know what it's like.
You've gone to church, or maybe you've had
some experiences.
But somewhere along, you've just missed out on
Jesus.
And there's something missing in your life, in
your heart, and you can sense it.
And I know what that's like.
I was there myself.
Many years ago, I was raised in church,
went to church all my life.
But there was a vacuum there.
And it was actually Jesus Himself.
And I don't think I was saved till
I was almost 20 years old.
And I'd had an experience when I was
10.
And I was told that I'd been saved.
And I had professed to receive Christ.
And I went forward for baptism and all
like that.
But there was something missing.
And I actually think I'd missed Jesus.
I don't remember praying to receive Jesus at
10.
I was told that's when I got saved.
I remember going to the preacher.
I remember being in his office.
But I don't remember actually praying and receiving
Christ.
And I don't remember any change that came
into my life.
And it wasn't until almost 10 years later,
when I was off in the university, that
God met me in a special way.
And He brought that meeting about by making
me desperate.
Destitution.
I became dissatisfied with life, dissatisfied with what
I was doing, with school.
I just began to ask, what's the purpose
of life?
And through three weeks of struggle, I remember
three weeks of intense struggle, I'd come back
to my room after class and just cry.
I'd go off down to—I was down in
Natchitoches, Louisiana.
I'd go down to the River Lake.
They call it Cane River.
And just spend time there alone, searching.
And finally, I hid a scripture in the
Bible.
I was going through the Bible, and it
was Matthew 6, 33, where it says, But
seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things will be
added unto you.
And I don't know what happened or what
the time sequence in there was, but I
know that one hot summer night in July,
I just totally gave myself to God and
told Him He could take me.
He could do whatever He wanted to with
me.
I was His.
And at that time, at that night, I
think Jesus Christ came into my life.
I had changed my mind about myself.
I was repentant about my life.
I was desperate.
And God met me and saved me.
And I've discovered something since then.
At that night, I didn't know much.
I didn't know much about the Bible.
I hadn't been able to understand it because
I don't think I'd been born again up
to that point.
But at that point, I was changed.
And I've discovered that any time that I
move away from the cross, it's always downhill.
You know, many years ago, I lived over
in what we call the Holy Land.
I lived in Turkey, and one time I
went down to Israel.
And God gave me the privilege of going
up on top of Golgotha, where Christ was
crucified.
It's a hill.
Any time you move away from the spot
where the cross was, you go downhill.
After you get off the top of the
hill, you've got to go down.
And that's the way it is with us
in life.
Any time we move away from the cross,
it's always down.
You know, I was thinking about some things
I've been reading from a book called Man,
the Dwelling Place of God by A.W.
Tozer.
And we'll just sort of let God lead
us alone this morning the way He wants
us to go in our time together.
I have so many things to share with
you, but as I'm talking with you, I'm
trusting the Lord to lead us alone.
And I was thinking about these things that
A.W. Tozer shared.
He said, one thing is certain.
The call of Christ is always a promotion.
Where Christ to call a king from his
throne to preach the gospel to some tribe
of Aborigines, that king would be elevated above
everything he had known before.
Any movement toward Christ is a ascent, and
any direction away from him is down.
Could I ask you a question, just you
and I this morning?
Which direction are you headed?
Are you going up?
Are you going down?
Are you filled with the spirit or filled
with self and the flesh?
You know, Tozer said, yea, though we recognize
the honor bestowed upon us, there is no
place for pride.
For the follower of Christ must shoulder his
cross, and a cross is an object of
shame and a symbol of rejection.
You know, we come into the Christian life
so many times we don't know much at
all.
And because we don't know much at all,
the devil is sometimes he's able to easily
deceive us and to lead us aside and
to get us distracted, get us discouraged, get
us away from the simplicity of just knowing
and walking with Jesus and loving him and
letting him lead and provide.
You know, walking with Jesus is a very
practical thing.
Living with him and walking with him, you
just ask him what to do through the
day, and the Holy Spirit gives you direction
and guidance in your spirit.
You have to be sensitive to him.
Sin can cut it off.
But the other day, I was leaving and
we needed some eggs, and the wife mentioned
picking some eggs up.
There's a farmer north of town where we
get some eggs, and we just agreed, let's
just ask God for eggs, and let's just
let him provide.
You know, so many times we don't give
God a chance.
You've been trying to solve your own problems.
Maybe you've been going to a psychologist or
even a medical doctor, but you've never given
God a chance to heal you physically, spiritually,
or emotionally.
We're always looking to man.
And so that afternoon, I was over at
the youth leader's house, the youth leader here
in this town where we're at, and there's
a couple other young men in there, and
I was fixing to go out and get
the eggs, and I was reminded by the
Holy Spirit, better check in with home base.
Better call back and see what happened back
at home before I go buy eggs.
And so I did.
I called up and asked her, well, did
God bring by some eggs today?
And she was all excited and said, yes,
the Lord brought by four dozen eggs and
even gave us a gallon of milk.
Well, I said, praise the Lord.
I think God might even have did that
to just show those young fellows in there
that he's a God that is interested in
details in our life.
I just brought up last week in church
to pray for a tire on our car.
We needed a tire.
I'm wanting to go down to Kansas City
to a pastor seminar on Tuesday, and the
one I'm on there is very bad.
And we really hadn't been able to afford
a tire.
And so I had the church pray for
us in this area and some other areas
too.
And would you know that I went in
and took that thing in yesterday and was
able to buy a brand new tire, about
an $80 tire for $22.94. I don't
know how he did it.
He gave me a discount because he had
a sale going on.
Then he gave me, he readied that tire
out because of the tread left on it.
And by the time he was all done,
he said the tire was $22.94. And
it cost me about $30 by the time
they balanced it and got the tax on
there and the tire fee and everything.
But I was praising the Lord.
We can handle that.
He brought in the money.
God wants to be in your life like
that.
Walk with him.
And one of the most exciting things about
every day is to get up and let
him lead you through the day and let
him bring into your life those that are
desperate for God.
And you talk to him about Jesus.
He just gives you those opportunities.
Man is the dwelling place of God.
You know, something else Tozer had said.
He said, before God and the angels, before
God and the angels, it is a great
honor to know and follow Christ.
But before men, it is not so.
The Christ the world pretends now to honor
was once rejected and crucified by that same
world.
My friend, don't get thrown off by those
that say they're Christians, by just everybody that
goes to church.
You follow Jesus.
Don't follow the crowd.
The crowd is wrong.
Most of the time, it seems like.
And it's the one going upstream, fighting the
current, going against the tide and the ways
of man and the traditions, even of the
church.
We've adopted a lot of ungodly traditions today.
And we need to be careful.
And everybody says, well, look at that fool.
He's going against the tide.
He's going upstream.
That's the way Jesus was.
He was going against the tide, the ways
of man.
We've been so deceived in so many of
our areas that we really don't even know
what's going on so many times.
We need to get to God and know
him and not pretend.
It's very easy to pretend.
Very easy for me to pretend.
It's very easy to pretend that you're spiritual.
But the Bible says, by their fruits, you
shall know them.
Is there the fruit in your life of
godliness, love, joy and peace?
Is it there?
Sure, we know you can put on your
Pepsodent grin when you go to church.
But what's it like the next morning when
you've got to go out to that old
dirty factory or go to that job you
just can't stand?
Or you've got to stay home and do
something that's very tough?
Is the joy of the Lord there?
Are you pretending?
My friend, I think we're coming to days
when the pretenders are going to peel off,
just like the early church.
When they received Christ, there wasn't any pretenders
around.
You wouldn't pretend to be a Christian if
you knew that, for being lined up to
be a Christian, you might get thrown to
the lions.
But we've been so deceived into thinking it's
all right to pretend.
And we've got churches that are just pretending
places, where you go and you pretend to
worship, you pretend to enjoy the Lord, you
pretend to sing joyfully, you pretend to get
something out of the message, and maybe the
preacher's even pretending to preach spiritual.
And what's it profit you?
Just like Jesus said, what shall it profit
a man if he gains the whole world
and loses his own soul?
What's it going to get you to be
in a show business?
God wants reality.
So the great saint is honored only after
he is dead, Tozer says.
You've been looking for honor?
You know, a lot of our Christianity that
we have today is people wanting to be
honored.
But really, most great saints are only honored
after they're dead.
Are you desperate?
Are you desperate for God?
Tozer said, not many are selfless enough to
endure honor without injury to their souls.
We're so proud.
I received a letter from somebody down south
of town a couple weeks ago, saying that
they had to continually battle with the area
of pride.
That's an encouragement, because at least that person
recognizes that there's a battle going on.
So many of us don't even recognize that
there's a battle going on.
We think everything's all right.
We're at war.
We really are.
And we need to watch it.
In those early Galilean days, Christ's followers heard
his call.
They forsook the old life.
They attached themselves to him, to Jesus.
And they began to obey his teachings and
join themselves to his band of disciples.
And this total commitment was their confirmation of
faith.
Nothing less would do.
We've got different stuff today going on.
We're not attached to Jesus.
We're attached to denominations.
We're attached to trends.
We're attached to styles.
We're attached to music.
We're attached to experiences.
But who's attached just to Jesus?
Whoever is just attached to Jesus today is
going to be the weird one.
Are you willing to be weird for Jesus?
You'll be the one that has the power
of God on your life.
You'll be the one that has the spirit
of God working in your life.
You'll be the one that has the joy
of the Lord in your life.
And when you go home and you go
to bed at night, you'll go to bed
with a clean conscience because you can't walk
with Jesus through the day without dealing with
sin.
And if you haven't been confessing things and
dealing with them, you've been picking up trash
along the way.
And many times what revival is is just
a major overhaul of going to the dump
and getting things out of our heart.
But if we learn to live in continuous
revival, day by day, dealing with things as
they come, then we experience what Jesus talked
about as the abundant life.
The abundant life is Jesus living his life
through us.
Man, where are you at?
Woman, where are you at?
Boy, girl, where are you at?
Are you with Jesus at this moment?
Jesus calls us to leave the old life
and to begin the new.
Are you tired of the old life?
You know, that's one of the things that
brought me to Christ.
I was tired of the old life.
I was tired of that which wasn't real.
And I began to seek him.
I began to get desperate.
And he began to work in my life.
So he calls us to leave the old
life and to begin the new.
There must never be any vacuum, never any
place of neutrality where the world cannot identify
us.
Peter warming himself at the world's fire and
trying to seem unconcerned is an example of
the kind of halfway discipleship too many of
us are satisfied with.
I'm reading from Tozer again.
Are you with Peter at the fires of
the world trying to look unconcerned, trying to
look uncommitted to Jesus?
But yet at the same time, when you
get around Christians, you try to look committed.
It all depends on where you're at.
If you're with Christians, you put on your
Christian clothes.
If you're with unbelievers, you put on your
unbelievers' clothes.
Where are you at?
Are you following Jesus?
Are you going up the hill to Calvary?
Are you going down away from Calvary?
The martyr leaping up in the arena, demanding
to be thrown to the lions alone with
his suffering brethren is an example of the
only kind of dedication that God approves of.
Jesus said, you're either for me or against
me.
He said, you're either with me or you're
against me.
You're going with me or you're going back.
Which way are you going?
You know, God meets those who are desperate.
I was reading in Daniel.
If I might take you back over there,
I don't think I even really hardly get
into the message today.
But I was reading in Daniel, Daniel chapter
9.
If you want to get your Bible and
turn over there with me, excuse the rustling
of leaves.
But Daniel chapter 9.
Daniel had discovered in reading of what had
gone wrong, that they had departed from God,
disobeyed his word.
He understood by the books.
The number of the years, Daniel chapter 9
verse 2.
He understood about the captivity.
All of a sudden God opened up to
him to show them what was happening and
how that they had been pre-programmed by
God for 70 years of being off out
in the desert.
Stuck over there in Babylon as prisoners.
And so in verse 3, Daniel, and probably
it was his desperation for God that drove
him to seek God just like in 1985
when I was pastor in a church.
And I was just desperate for reality.
I'd had an up and down experience.
I'm just opening my heart up to you.
This is what the way I was before
revival.
There are some days of victory and some
days of defeat.
If the crowds were big, then I was
encouraged.
If the crowds were down, then I was
discouraged.
And I was beginning to get desperate before
God for reality.
And I was wanting that in my church
also.
So I began to pray for revival.
And I didn't even know what revival was.
I didn't know there would be revival just
ripping the bottom out of my life.
And God just beginning to come in and
cleanse me and show me self.
Show me the self-life.
And taking me to the cross, Romans chapter
6.
Showing me that the old man was crucified.
That I had to quit living in those
patterns of the past.
That I was dead to those things.
And showing me all kinds of things.
Showed me my bitterness.
And God worked in my heart.
And he worked in our church.
And it went for over three months in
our area.
Where God just came in in an unusual
way.
And he used an evangelist, John Musser.
And I'd like to encourage you to get
him in.
Plan on at least two weeks.
You know, in our meetings today, we don't
want to give God too much time.
Four days is about standard.
And if we're really spiritual, we'll have a
week of meetings.
But it really takes the first week just
to begin to break the old ice and
the hard shell off of our lives.
Before God can move in on the scene
and really do something.
But God moved in and he began to
stomp the daylights out of me.
And he's continued to do that and show
me things.
In the last year, he has hit really
hard on pride.
And I've shared this with you before.
But anyway, he meets those who are desperate.
And I think God was meeting Daniel at
this point.
He was desperate.
And so Daniel said, I set my face
in verse 393 unto the Lord God to
seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and
sackcloth and ashes.
And I've got a lot of things I
wanted to share with you, but I don't
have that much time today left.
But start off by setting your face unto
the Lord God.
I suggest you just start getting off along
with God.
My pastor friend and myself, we used to
get together in prayer and our wives would
get together and pray and seek God.
We did it for months.
And then so when God visited, we'd been
praying as Daniel.
We set our face unto the Lord God
to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting
and sackcloth and ashes.
And he said, I prayed unto the Lord
my God and made my confession and said,
Oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, keep
in the covenant and mercy to them that
love him and to them that keep his
commandments.
In verse five, he says, we have sinned.
That's where we start.
And have committed iniquity and have done wickedly
and have rebelled even by departing from thy
precepts and from thy judgments.
Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants, the
prophets, which spake in thy name to our
kings and princes, our princes and our fathers
and to the people of the land.
And he just goes on down through here
talking about it.
Verse eight, he said, we have sinned against
thee.
Verse nine, we have rebelled against him.
In verse 10, neither have we obeyed the
voice of the Lord, our God, to walk
in his laws, which he set before us
by his servants, the prophets.
And 11, yea, all Israel has transgressed.
And he said, we have sinned.
We have sinned.
In verse 13, he says, we made not
our prayer before the Lord, our God, that
we might turn from our iniquities and understand
thy truth.
In verse 14, we obeyed not his voice.
15, again, we have sinned.
We have done wickedly.
And then 16, because for our sins and
for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and
thy people are become a reproach to all
that are about us.
Really, I believe our country today is in
the trouble that we're in, not because of
our presidents or not because of Congress, as
bad a shape and as full of scoundrels
as it is, but because of us, the
Church.
We have been the ones that have left
God.
We've left his word.
You know, I've been studying on the translations
and I've shared with you last week and
the week before how God has really got
onto me because he showed me how we've
been deceived on the translations.
I've been doing some more studying on the
NIV.
That thing is so corrupted.
You have the word of God with the
King James Version, but these other translations, most
of them are trouble.
And God showed me how we've been deceived.
And we have gone our own way.
We've turned to our own way.
And we've just gone our own way.
We've turned away from the word of God.
And next week, I'm going to share with
you about some deception and how we've been
deceived.
I'll start off with Jeremiah, and then I'm
going to go into more on revival and
being like Jesus.
You know, God wants us pure.
He wants us fellowshipping with him.
He wants the Church pure.
The early Church had power when it was
pure.
And if your Church is powerless, then you
look at your purity.
They go together.
Your life is the same way.
There's power.
It's the power of the Spirit of God
living through you when you're pure.
He wants a clean, empty vessel.
How are you doing?
There's things I want to share with you
on vision.
You know, we've been believing God to do
things.
We believe God to do big things.
I mean, we're believing God for where we're
at right now for a half-million-dollar
building.
And we don't have any kind of money
like that.
But we're believing God for that.
And it's really separated the men from the
boys when it comes down to really believing
God for that.
And there's been some that just can't even
follow it.
But my God's big.
I believe he can give us a half
-million-dollar building for just a little bit
that we have.
He's big.
You know, I have a vision that I've
had for probably about 25 years.
No, about 20 years.
God gave me a vision for a camping
ministry.
So many times it's when God takes us
through the death and burial of our own
vision that later on he'll bring a resurrection.
And I don't know what he's going to
do with it.
But about 20 years ago, God just gave
me a burden for camping ministry.
And in the last few weeks, he's been
clarifying that vision of 20 years ago.
How if I had a camp, a place
where pastors and missionaries and Christian workers, those
that are destitute and desperate and tired could
come and be ministered to, and we could
share the truths with them.
And I've got preacher buddies scattered around the
country that I know that I can bring
in.
And they will really minister to a pastor
or a missionary.
And in a matter of a day or
less or a few days, they can minister
in a way to where that discouraged brother
can be totally revived to have a new
life.
And God's been showing me how my vision
of having a camping ministry many years ago
could be so much more powerful if we
had a place where folks could come and
be ministered to, a place where they could
rest and relax and there could be sharing.
I don't know what God would do about
that.
It's up to him.
But we need to be ministering to people.
We need to be talking to people and
meeting them where they're at and seeing how
we can help them.
My friend, Jesus Christ, is all you need.
I share that week after week.
And then I always close up with, He's
all you need, but is He all you
want?
And I'm going to close up again today
with that.
Our time's about gone.
Let me challenge you to turn to Jesus.
Many years ago, someone said to me, If
you can get a man to Jesus, he'll
be all right.
And that's the truth.
Well, until next time, may God richly bless
you, my friend.