Father, we thank you for that challenge in
song.
We thank you for this report from India,
Middle East.
We thank you for what you've done in
so many lives.
We see a lot of problems in the
world.
We see a lot of suffering.
It's always there.
We see a lot of great things that
you're doing, and we thank you and we
praise you.
Lord, show us where we go from here,
that we may do your will in a
more wholehearted way in the months to come,
the years to come.
In Jesus' name, amen.
I want to share with you, I've changed
the title from this tape sheet, though the
tape message here is very general, the challenge
today.
The challenge today is personal revival.
I want to speak to you about the
privilege of personal revival.
And my text is Ephesians, and it's Ephesians
chapter 2.
One verse.
And you hath he made alive who were
dead in trespasses and sins.
You hath made alive.
You know, as young people, you can make
many mistakes in life, and let me not
try to discourage you, but life can be
very cruel, and mistakes can cost.
I'd love to speak to you on the
pursuit of excellency, the need to aim high
in your life, the need for discipline in
the practical areas, in your driving, in your
accounting for money, in your keeping records for
people's addresses, in your remembering basic things about
safety.
I'd love to talk to you about safety.
People are surprised, they didn't know him.
We have courses on driver safety.
From the earliest years we had that, and
we emphasize the amalgamation of the practical with
the spiritual.
We don't believe in separating.
We don't believe in that kind of dichotomy
that puts management, organization, administration over here, and
preaching and prayer and that over here.
That has led to the destruction of many
churches and many institutions, because we believe that
this must be amalgamated right on the grassroots
level.
And you as a leader need to get
into practical things.
That's why I've offered to send you, as
a gift, the leadership manual, where we talk
about driver safety, where we talk about things
on one page, the real goals and aims
of OM.
Because by God's grace, we know where we're
going, we know why we're going there, and
by God's grace, we're going to get there.
We've seen that in India, we've seen it
in a number of other countries, in the
midst often of many setbacks and much failure.
On the other hand, you'll turn the pages
in that manual, and you'll read how to
give out literature, how to organize a team,
how to bounce back when you fail, how
to get along with different kinds of people,
how to organize a weekend of evangelism.
And I hope more of you will write
me for that manual.
I stayed up late last night just praying
through your feedback.
Maybe a hundred or more of you made
a very clear commitment yesterday, last night, to
start moving to the ends of the earth.
Or in other cases, it was to come
back to Jesus and to be filled with
His Spirit.
And I tell you, my heart went out
for you as I read your feedback, and
I wish I could visit every one of
your homes and share with you, because I
know the road ahead won't be easy when
you've made the kind of commitment you've made.
Others I know are holding their feedback.
If you want to do feedback section two,
that's all right.
I count it a privilege to be able
to read and pray for you.
At least once, and then you'll get the
things that you requested.
You know, my Bible says it's more blessed
to give than receive.
You know, the major criticism we get in
OM, all the time, I get it now
more than ever, why don't we take offerings?
Why don't we take offerings?
Oh, we've proven at this conference, we do
take offerings for other people.
But God showed us in the early days
of this work, Philippians 2, esteem others better
than yourself.
We've never attacked those who take sane, good
offerings.
And of course, the local church that's responsible
for this part of God's work, to a
large degree.
But we felt because we were young in
the missionary community, that we should go low
profile, not have a lot of publicity, not
be pushing the offering basket under people's noses
for our cause.
And that if God wanted OM to become
anything, this is in those early days, that
we would put water on the fire, as
Elijah did, and the fire would still come.
And we thank God the fire has come
and it's never left.
You can't out give God.
And I don't give books away because we
have lots of money.
That's another criticism we get because we have
two ships.
People think we're loaded for money.
They obviously haven't seen these, these ships, because
they are two of the oldest ships in
the whole world.
And the miracle, I tell you, not those
bits of steel, the miracle of the ship
project, people, engineers, hard working, committed, born again
believers, willing to work without salary, trusting the
Lord for their own expenses.
That's the miracle of the ship project.
I'd love to talk to you a long
time about that.
I hope you'll get that ship filmed and
show it in your church, made by Dutch
television.
You know, we got so many audio visuals
available on OM and a lot of them
sit on the shelf because so often we
have so little initiative.
Do you know, before I was saved, I
was showing films for a missionary organization and
raising money on their behalf.
That's before I got saved.
And I just can't understand how people can
be saved and have so little vision, so
little initiative, so little spiritual oomph, so little
spiritual get up and go.
It must be a disease, a spiritual cancer,
a spiritual anemia, and it just must break
the heart of God if that's possible.
My heart, as you can guess, is full.
I was sharing how before I was a
natural backslider, and maybe this is why I'm
preaching to you and sharing with you on
the subject of personal revival.
Here we read, you hath he made alive,
made alive.
According to God's word, if you are a
believer, if you have been born again, you
are alive in Jesus Christ.
Now I've studied revival.
It's very interesting.
I've listened to lectures by Edwin Orr, the
great revival leader.
I've heard Mr. Val Grieve, a lawyer from
Manchester, the chairman of a board of EBE,
the British company that owns the ship Lagos,
speak on revival.
I'll never forget his message on revival.
I've trudged the villages of Wales to some
of those old churches where the 1904 revival
broke out, and I believe God can do
that again.
I've visited the Hebrides where they had a
revival through the human instrumentation of a dear
brother, Duncan Campbell, some years ago.
And I think many of us, when we
read these books and we hear what God
has done in the past, we get into
a mentality of thinking this is something we
sort of hope for and long for, but
there's really not much we can do about
it.
Now this kind of revival, the 1904 revival,
the revival that came through men like Whitfield,
as so many things in the church, it's
a controversial subject.
Finney believed there was a lot you could
do about it.
Others disagreed with Finney.
I'm still longing to see revival in Britain.
Maybe Mission England will lead to that.
Evangelism is not necessarily revival.
Church growth is not necessarily revival.
Revival begins among God's people with deep conviction
of sin and people getting right with the
Lord, and then it spreads.
It spreads different ways in different times.
I remember when there was a revival at
Asbury College and Seminary.
Dr. David Seamans, the author of that book,
that brilliant book, Healing for Damaged Emotions, one
of the most significant books of our decade.
His life and the life of his wife
was completely turned around in the Asbury revival.
And I want you to pray.
I want you to pray not only for
pastors, because they had such a difficult past,
and you need to be loyal and to
love your pastor and pastors and try to
understand the job they have.
But you know, we need to pray more
for the pastors' wives, because I think it's
one of the toughest jobs in the world
to be the wife of a Christian leader
or especially of a pastor.
People expect so much from Christian leaders.
They've read so many books.
Reading too many books without getting out and
putting it into practice yourself develops a sort
of Disneyland form of Christianity.
It's not real.
It's interesting, it's exciting, you can enjoy it,
and there's a lot to watch, but it's
not real.
And that's why when you read a book,
then you need to go out and put
it into practice.
And you read another book, then you go
out and put that into practice.
The revival I want to talk to you
about is less controversial.
And it's a revival that you can have
today.
Today.
And never, never lose.
Now, if that isn't exciting, then I don't
know what is exciting.
Personal revival is the privilege of every believer
by inheritance.
You don't have to stay up in a
night of prayer to get this.
In some people's case, that might be necessary.
You don't have to wait.
You don't have to read 16 books on
sanctification.
By the way, some people with their particular
mentality, the more books they read on sanctification,
the more weird and confused they get.
And I thank God that he just helped
me as I was going into extremes on
sanctification theories.
And he used women.
He used Eugenia Price, her little book, No
Easy Answers.
And he used Tim LaHaye's book on temperaments
and some other books.
And he used my wife.
He used my family.
He used some of my friends.
And I just think it's so important to
realize that your inheritance in Jesus Christ is
personal revival.
And let's try to keep it a little
simple.
Hudson Taylor had that great motto of keeping
things simple.
And in many ways, the Christian life is
simple.
I shared with you last night about the
growth in the Nepali church.
I'd love to talk to you about Nepal,
if any of you are interested in that
country.
Write to me personally, because I have two
jobs in OEM.
One is the area coordinator for the subcontinent.
That's five, six nations with a billion souls.
My other job is working together with Peter
Maiden as the international leader of OEM.
I have a more important job than that.
It's to be a father and husband.
But, you know, many of those Nepali believers
can't even read.
And they come to those churches late at
night, coming down through the mountains with those
little torches and burning rags.
And sometimes after the meeting, the trails are
so bad, the mountains are so steep, they
can't go home.
They just huddle on the floor of the
church, which is usually just a home.
Simple people.
There are very few books in Nepali, though
we've just published another one.
Actually, True Discipleship just published in Nepali.
But many of them can't read.
But they know Jesus, and they're growing, and
they're becoming mature.
Of course, there's a need for teaching.
There are many needs in the Nepali church.
Revival, personal revival, is your privilege through inheritance.
You know, many people are trying to get
in a second blessing, that which they already
had in the first.
That's right.
Now, I'm not against a second blessing.
In OEM, we work with people who believe
different things about the great controversial doctrine of
the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
And we've discovered, and praise God for that
powerful little piece of dynamite, that book Love
Covers, that so deals with this subject.
We believe that people who emphasize a second
blessing, and those who maybe emphasize more of
a sanctification process, the fullness of the Holy
Spirit, we believe these people can work together.
I've just given a message on that subject
down in our Leaders Conference.
I'd be happy to send a copy to
you.
Actually, I think it was in Dubai I
gave this message.
As I add, half the people there were
one side, Pentecostal people, and half were Brethren
and Baptists and other types.
And God just gave this word about how
we can love one another.
There will be different churches.
God's unity comes in the midst of diversity.
We're not all going to join one church.
Different people are happier in different types of
worship.
But we can love one another.
We can work together to a degree.
We can pray for one another.
We can respect one another.
I believe that's so important.
In dealing with this whole difficult subject of
the Holy Spirit, I'm often reminded of those
words of Billy Graham.
He says, I don't care how you get
it, just get it.
Get what?
One experience that dries up a month later?
No.
Lifestyle.
Reality.
Ongoing growth.
Ongoing fullness of the Holy Spirit.
One of my favorite messages, I preach it
often.
Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
That's a command.
I believe we can unite on that command.
Let's realize this, that it is possible to
be filled with the Spirit at the date,
at the moment of your conversion.
Now, it's a mystery.
Some people seem, at their conversion, just to
be so filled, obviously, with God's Spirit.
It's an overwhelming, radical experience, and they are
Spirit-filled from that moment on.
That doesn't mean they're always the same.
That doesn't mean they don't need to grow.
Of course they do.
There's a sense, because of the greatness of
God, the Holy Spirit is the third person
of the Trinity, that no matter how filled
we are, we can be more filled.
No matter how Christ-like we are, we're
always a thousand miles from Christ, and we
can be more Christ-like.
Don't try to put these things in little
compartments.
You'll only get a theological headache.
But other people, often because of their background,
because of damaged emotions, because of psychological blockage
and other difficulties, at their conversion, there is
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, because we
have not the Spirit of Christ, we don't
have Christ, but somehow there is not much
of the fullness, because there's just too much
yet in the way, in terms of sin,
in terms of difficulty, damaged emotions, a lot
of other things.
Call it what you want.
And so later on, the Lord touches them,
and they have a second experience of grace.
And for some people, that seems to be
greater than almost when they were converted.
Don't be frightened by that.
God works in different ways in different people.
I've had people tell me that their experience
of the O.N. Summer Campaign, which is
a training program, and almost all of you,
I'm sure, are eligible, if you want to
have on-the-field training in cross-cultural
evangelism, the life of prayer, developing your ability
to relate to different people, and the discipline
life.
Believe me, there's lots of openings yet for
this summer.
But I've had people write to me and
say that their experience of evangelism and team
life on O.M. changed their life more
than their conversion.
Now, that sounds really bizarre, doesn't it?
But you know all that was happening?
It's simple.
What God put in at conversion came out
when they got out on the front lines
of spiritual battle.
It's not that O.M. had more.
It's not that we had some special blessing
package.
It's that the situation, the circumstance, being thrown
out in a situation where you had to
trust God, it enabled that which was already
in to come out.
And one of the great mistakes, I was
about to tell you this in the beginning,
and I got sidetracked, but one of the
great mistakes people make when they come on
O.M. is to think that coming on
O.M. they will become spiritual.
I want to tell you, Christ is the
source of spiritual life, not O.M. Others
come on O.M., they get disappointed with
their leader.
They thought they were going to have a
leader who was going to somehow be a
combination of Hudson Taylor, C.T. Studd, Amy
Carmichael, and E.T. And they found their
leader was human, he was a failure, and
they were disappointed.
They were so looking forward to really being
discipled by the spiritual heavyweight.
I want to tell you, the source of
discipleship is Jesus Christ.
The source of spiritual life is Jesus Christ.
And you can be as backslidden and as
defeated on O.M. as a bunny going
downhill on a pair of greasy skis.
Now that was ridiculous, wasn't it?
I think sometimes I've said so many ridiculous
things in trying to make new comparisons because
the last thing I want in my messages
is for people to be bored because I
live with three children who are always telling
me they're bored.
So I get into extremes.
But the source of spiritual life is the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And as you study the Word of God,
Christ is center.
And if we're going to live out this
spiritual revolution, then there has to be a
fresh revelation of Jesus.
The answer is not on O.M. Don't
come on O.M. if you think we're
the some kind of great answer.
We're a fellowship of needy people learning how
to obey God in discipleship.
And it's your privilege from the date of
your conversion, whether anybody ever disciples you or
not, whether you ever get into some sophisticated
training program or not, whether you ever read
all these great books or not, your privilege,
your inheritance in Jesus Christ is life!
Life!
Abundant life, John.
Chapter 10, verse 10 says, in those words
where Jesus speaks and says, I have come
that you may have life and that you
may have it more abundantly.
And the enemy is trying to rob you
of your inheritance.
He's trying to get you to think it's
some future event.
He's trying to get you discouraged with yourself
so that you're always praying for some special
blessing or for some revival or for some
new experience or for some total cure-all
discipleship program or for the perfect church or
for the New Testament principles.
And we get, as it says in Ephesians,
blown about by every wind of doctrine, every
new speaker who comes into town with spiritual
pet pills and a new chorus.
We're blown this way and we read another
book and we're blown that way.
And we fail to realize the simple truth
of all that we have in Jesus Christ.
You say, well, man, what you're speaking with,
that's a fair degree of authority.
I mean, don't you feel, I mean, this
is a bit much.
I mean, we're just all weak people.
I have more people tell me now when
they get excited, I'm not George Frerich.
I say, oh, thank God, one is enough.
If you're trying to listen to your own
cassette tapes, playing backward at half speed, you
might be able to handle it.
We're all original.
But let me share my testimony because I
believe if I can live this way, then
you can live this way because I don't
have any more than you.
If you're a believer, you have the Holy
Spirit.
You have Jesus Christ living in you.
Now, you can relax.
He's not going to turn you into me.
It's always pathetic to see some little, quiet,
shy British girl trying to be some noisy,
loud-mouthed extrovert American male.
Or trying to be a combination, again, of,
you know, Deal Moody, Billy Graham, Billy Sunday,
and whoever else.
Women, just accept that femininity.
It's beautiful.
God made you equal.
He made you special.
He loves you as much as He loves
any man.
And if you want real women's liberation, then
let Jesus Christ set you free because when
you're free in Christ, you're free indeed.
And there's a need for women today in
God's work.
And the teams that have impressed me the
most in the past three years in OM
are the women's teams out in Pakistan.
We have in Jesus Christ, male or female,
at the moment of our new birth, life.
You know where I learned some of this
from?
Though it was happening in my life, I
couldn't put a verbal handlebar on it until
I came across this old southern preacher, Vance
Havner.
You ever heard him preach?
The most blessed experience.
You know, one thing we need to learn
in the church is not to tear and
compare preachers.
There may be someone here that actually gets
a bit turned off by my approach and
the way I speak.
Don't worry about it.
We're all different.
Some other preacher, if you stay in tune
with the church and with God, He'll get
through to your heart.
We have a wide range of speakers in
OM.
We have at least 50 men now who
feel their number one main ministry is the
proclamation of the Word of God in evangelism
and to believers.
They're all different and their approach is different.
I hope you invite some of them to
your churches.
When Jerry Davey first stepped in as leader
of STL, we didn't think his main ministry
was preaching.
I'm sure he still doesn't think that.
But when I was on the subcontinent recently
and I heard a report of a dynamic
preacher in Bombay, I thought, well, you know,
is this Ray Eicher?
Is this Alfie Franks?
Who's been down hitting them in Bombay?
And somebody said, it was Jerry Davey.
Now they want him to fly to the
Middle East?
Not to give expert advice on literature, though
we can do that.
They want him to preach.
See, so, you know, sometimes God surprises you.
I'd love Jerry to give his testimony because
God saved him out of a very introvert
life as an engineer, master's degree in aeronautics
engineering.
He joined OM for a year to handle
a greasy little dirty bookshop in a converted
pub in Bolton and ended up marrying one
of the first American women ever to come
into the work.
One of those international marriages.
They're in OM like babies.
We get a baby every four days, twins,
and we're waiting for quads and whatever else.
It's a fruitful movement.
It's also a controversial subject.
Vance Habner said, we wouldn't have to talk
so much about revival if we knew, here's
a new word, write it down, we like
to give you new words at OM, revival.
Let me see if I can say that
with a southern accent.
Revival.
If you had revival, you would need re
-vival.
And you know, that simple message went through
my heart like a bullet.
And I saw it and I said, God,
that's it.
That's it.
I'm alive in you.
I don't have to keep waiting, keep hoping.
Sure, the Lord will still give you special
experiences.
The Lord will still give you moments of
ecstasy in praise and worship.
But that's water above the glass.
The glass will be filled by Jesus himself.
We are alive in Jesus Christ.
We have revival.
Lord Jones emphasized this.
I believe the greatest Christian book in the
English language, and I'm not offering it free,
is Spiritual Depression, Its Cause and Cure.
You go down to your bookshop and get
that book.
It is the greatest Christian book in the
English language in the past 100 years.
I've been saying that for many years.
And I just can't express how much that
book means to me.
And in a sense, this message tonight, in
different vocabulary, is similar to what he puts
in that book.
You see, the Word of God says we
have the mind of Christ.
Have you read that verse?
We have the mind of Christ.
Now, there are many roads in life.
And a lot of the battle of a
Christian life is the battle of the mind.
It's the battle of the mind.
Freud says we don't really have much choice.
We're programmed to a large degree.
You loved your mother, you hated your father,
all that business.
A lot of that has been even disproven
by psychologists who will later be disproven by
other psychologists.
And someday they'll start reading the Bible.
Because the psychology of Jesus, it's a beautiful
book, The Psychology of Jesus and Mental Health,
I think will show you that the Sermon
on the Mount has more basic, biblical, beautiful
psychology than almost anything you could ever read.
Read the Sermon on the Mount.
Lloyd-Jones emphasized the need to discipline our
bodies, to discipline our mind.
I put it this way, it helps me.
There are many roads.
I'm tempted.
Do you get many temptations?
I'm a person of tremendous temptation.
How many of you have temptations more or
less every, say every day, some kind of
temptation?
Raise your hand.
Oh my Lord.
This is a heavy majority group here.
Now there's various temptations.
I've had the greatest victories over lust in
the last two and a half months I've
had in a long time.
I mean, Pakistan is fantastic for guys like
me.
Really.
They got this system there, they put their
women in these black covers, little holes in
the front.
And I will tell you, if you can
get into any difficulty in the area of
lust, seeing one of those walk down the
street after you, you do need a psychiatrist.
And I was afraid.
It's two and a half months out in
that part of the world, very conservative in
this area, Nepal a little bit different.
Coming back here, where the pornography is often
just left on the seat, on the train,
you go to wash your hands, and there
it is left in the loo on the
train.
And you hardly have a second to think.
Your body, if you're a strong male, something
happens.
And you're hit.
Now if you go in certain places, you
know what's going to happen.
I decided years ago, there's certain streets in
London, I'm just not going to go down.
I know what's down those streets.
I've been down.
I'm just not going to go down that
street.
Now that spiritual principle, you'll transfer that to
the spiritual, and you'll get a very important
principle that could save you from spiritual catastrophe.
What are some of the other roads you're
tempted to go down?
Discouragement Alley.
Have you ever been down there?
You start down there, and there's something that
discourages you.
As you think about it, you get more
discouraged.
You go further down, and there's something that
really discourages you.
And you look at that, and you go
down and down, and in the end, depression
ditch.
Have you ever been down that street?
You have, haven't you?
And you know what's down there.
So why don't you determine now, by God's
grace, you're not going down that street anymore.
When you feel it coming, you know it's
coming, that temptation to be negative, to be
discouraged, stop!
Right there, by God's grace.
Standing on God's promises.
Lloyd-Jones even used to speak to himself.
He would speak to himself.
As he felt his body, you know, his
emotions, pulling in one direction, he would speak
to himself, out loud, from the word of
God, and stop himself.
Some call it discipline.
We read about it in Hebrews 12, 1
and 2.
We read about it in 1 Corinthians chapter
9.
Buffeting our body.
Fighting not as one that beateth the air.
You can live this way!
Paul wrote to the Philippians, and he said,
I can do all things through Jesus Christ,
who strengthens me.
In that same book, we're challenged and exhorted
to think on that which is pure, that
which is lovely.
Some of you, if you're honest, the biggest
problem in your life is you're a negative
person.
I don't think people realize how deadly being
negative is.
I know that in my life, though I'm
basically, even before I was saved, was optimistic
person with a negative streak, but basically optimistic.
I know that if I hadn't learned to
deal with negativism, which involves criticism, judgmentalism, reactionism.
If I hadn't learned to deal with that,
I would be disqualified from God's Word today.
And I read some tremendous books on being
positive.
I read John Haggai's book on how to
win over worry.
What a book.
I read Dr. MacMillan's book on none of
these diseases.
Mount Everest of medical writing.
And I knew that I had to stop
walking down negative street.
Now, I wonder how many of you have
been down negative street this week, this month.
Maybe about your parents.
So easy to be negative about your parents.
Do you think God gave you the wrong
parents?
We expect so much from our parents.
I thank God for the day that I
accepted my parents as they were.
Partly the result of that, both of them
came to know Jesus Christ.
And I will tell you, we are living
in a day in which parents are under
tremendous pressure.
Many of them are running to psychiatrists, psychologists.
And I believe today, your parents need you
and your love and your acceptance of them
more than you'll ever know.
More than you'll ever know.
But how easy it is to go down
negative street about our family, about the problems
in the home, about the times you were
hurt.
And as we walk down negative street, there
are the little fire hydrants of hurtness.
And then when we turn them, turn the
water on and let it squirt out, but
instead of water, it's acid.
And I would beg of you in the
name of Jesus, if you've been down that
street, you see how depressing, you see how
wrong it is, don't go down anymore.
Don't go down it anymore.
Determined by the mind of Jesus Christ, by
the control of the Holy Spirit in your
life, because there is such a thing as
a spirit-controlled life, you're not going down
negative street anymore.
You're not going down cynics alley anymore.
You're not going down judgmental square anymore.
By God's grace, you're going to stay on
the highway of holiness.
By God's grace, you're going to stay on
that avenue of spiritual revolution, 1 Corinthians 13,
where there's blessing, where there's daily revival, where
there's forgiveness, where there's grace and mercy abounding
to the chief of sinners.
That's what the Christian faith is all about.
And you make the decision, not me, not
your church, not your leader, you make the
decision what you do with your mind and
how you live your life because Christ is
in you, according to the word of God,
the hope of glory.
There's no training program that can match that.
There's no experience that can match that.
There's no worship session that can match that.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And it's yours to the degree.
And you simply stand upon it, claim it,
and live in the light of it.
What about old temper street?
Every year, when you get down temper street,
you know, people that don't have trouble with
temper, your problem is something else.
I don't know if you can realize the
horribleness of temper.
I know, because I'm a man that's fought
temper all my life.
Anger, explosiveness.
I almost completely overthrew the Christian faith because
I couldn't get victory over temper.
And long after I wasn't getting upset so
much with people, I get upset with myself.
Especially if I lost something.
Do you like to lose things?
Do you like to lose your wallet?
Your money?
That's a nice experience.
You lose all your money.
And then you claim, in the name of
Jesus, it's going to return.
You heard the testimony of that guy who
prayed, he'd lost it, and he found it.
And you prayed, you even had the laying
on of hands in the name of Jesus.
That was 20 years ago, I still haven't
found it.
Temper is a terrible thing.
I never forget reading Billy Graham's book, Seven
Deadly Sins.
One of the most powerful books I've ever
read.
At least in the top 50.
I'm just re-reading it again the other
day.
Seven Deadly Sins.
And he speaks about the sin of anger.
I'm not only indebted to Billy Graham for
my conversion.
Billy Graham was the major teacher in my
life.
He's not just an evangelist.
Have you read his books?
He's a teacher.
He's a, you know, how do you explain
Billy Graham?
He teaches line on line in his own
unique way.
And his message is on dealing with anger.
When I read it, I repented and I
recommitted my life to Jesus Christ.
And God has given more and more and
more victory.
Many, many months pass often without any burst
of temper on my part.
Irritability is still a struggle.
But you see, I know temper street.
I know what's down it.
I know the people I can hurt down
that street.
I know I can hurt my own children.
I can hurt my own life.
And by God's grace, I'm not going down
that street anymore.
And maybe you think I'm a little extreme.
But if you don't get extreme in hatred
of sin and in hatred of the things
you do that hurt people and destroy people,
then I don't think you'll know the holiness
of God in a long-term life.
It was because at 19 and 18, I
hated immorality and I hated evil and I
hated injustice that my whole life was changed
by God's power.
And the Bible says that in the Book
of Romans.
Hate that which is evil and cling to
that which is good.
You don't have to do it as emotionally
as me.
You can be phlegmatic.
You can be cool and calm.
You can even mix in there a little
bit of sanguine.
I don't care how you do it.
Just do it.
I love the quiet types.
I worship at the altar of the quiet
types.
That's why one of my main goals in
OM is to get as many quiet, disciplined,
long-term church planting among the Muslim phlegmatics
as I possibly can.
And I'll give myself to recruiting and blowing
my trumpet and sticking and stirring people until
they decide they're going to do something.
Even if it's just to get me off
their back.
That's very poor motivation, by the way, for
world missions.
You know what the streets are in your
life that lead you to sin, lead you
to depression, lead you to discouragement, lead you
to unbelief.
To just walk into a bookshop and pick
up a book by a leading agnostic, a
leading humanist, and read it before you know
the Word of God, before you know Christian
apologetics, you're asking for trouble.
To go into university and study psychology under
some warped, semi-demented atheist, without knowing the
Word of God, without knowing the reasons for
your Christian faith, is a very foolish thing
to do, because there is a real devil,
and there's no purpose in walking right into
his oven and pouring, pulling the door closed
on you.
I don't know if you've ever had the
oven experience, but the devil knows how to
do it.
The Bible says, Satan has a roaring lion,
seeketh whom he may devour.
Do you believe that?
It says that we should hold high the
shield of faith, wherewith we can stop the
fiery darts of the devil.
Young person, if you and I go down
that road, another dangerous road, of just playing
church, of just listening to messages and never
putting them into action into our lives, of
just listening to the words of Jesus, who
said, If any man come after me, let
him deny himself, take up the cross and
follow me.
If we just continue to listen and we
don't act, we will dig a ditch deeper
than we can ever measure.
Young person, revival is your privilege.
And I share this carefully, perhaps it's to
bring other things into balance.
As far as I can remember, every day
since my conversion, I have known this revival.
Now that needs a lot of explaining, and
I'm running short on time, and I'm trying
to lure you into some of these cassettes.
Because I believe that cassette Bible ministry can
be a great opportunity, especially for some of
you that may not be able to get
what I had as a privilege two years
in Bible college.
Many of you will get that, I'm sure,
as well.
But I believe, I need to say it
even though it's risky, because it's true.
Every day since my conversion, I've known revival.
Not sinlessness.
Oh, my.
I've sinned.
My tongue, my eyes, my thoughts.
But you see, revival is not lived in
the absence of sin.
Revival is lived in dealing with sin and
repenting with sin.
It's 1 John 2, verse 1, first part
of the verse, sin not.
Second part of the verse, if you sin,
you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous.
If you don't write anything down, write 1
John 2, verse 1.
Because it's the anchor of continuous revival.
And the book I was going to offer
you is called Personal Revival.
We have it in magazine form.
It won't cost us much.
If you feel bad about that, you can
send the postage.
But read that little book, Personal Revival, by
Stanley Vogt.
Read Roy Hessian's powerful little spiritual dynamite, Calvary
Road, now in 35 languages.
I've watched this man's life ever since I
came to Britain and met him.
And I believe Roy Hessian is another example
that you can live in continuous revival.
You're not always at the same level.
The joy isn't always the same.
The worship capacity is not always the same.
Your feelings go up and down.
I've had days in which I've been down.
But even when I've been down, I've been
worshiping, I've been thanking Jesus.
I've been battling through unbelief.
I've been pulling myself back from the tangents
of evil.
And I've gone to bed knowing I'm forgiven.
He's in my heart.
He's alive, even though I may feel dead.
Revival doesn't liquidate the human factor in your
life.
This is a great mistake.
We think if we become spiritual, we get
a different voice.
We'll never feel discouraged again.
We'll never really be tempted in the same
way.
We won't do some of those terrible things
around the house.
But you see, as spirit-filled believers, we're
still human.
We still easily fail.
We're vulnerable.
And sometimes the soldiers in the battle, now
under pressure, winning men for Christ, we're more
vulnerable.
Some of you who have recommitted your life
in these days, you will go from here
more vulnerable.
And so if you have a big failure
in the next couple of weeks, that's not
the end of the road.
That's probably a green light that you're on
the right road and the devil's after you.
Rebound.
One sport that never came to England much,
though it's come more lately, is basketball.
Have any of you ever seen a basketball
game at all?
Raise your hand.
This was my favorite sport.
This is encouraging.
But the key in basketball is you shoot
for the basket.
If you miss, you try to get the
rebound.
And you ever see these tall fellas?
I always wanted to be tall.
I actually got thrown off the team for
fooling around.
It was before I was safe.
You know, I don't fool around now that
I'm safe.
And anyway, you shoot the basket.
If it misses, one of these tall fellows
leaps in the air and taps it.
Have you ever seen that?
And it goes in.
That's called a rebound.
And in our Christian life, we've got to
learn how to rebound.
You try something in your Christian life, you
fail.
Try again.
Don't give up.
You're in God's training program.
It's a long-term program.
And I sense that some of you have
given up in some area of struggle in
your life.
Don't do it.
It's deadly.
Claim His grace right now as we bring
this to a close.
Ask Him for fresh mercy.
Believe with the depth of your being you
are cleansed.
You are as white, as beautiful, as snow
that's touched the tops of the Himalayas because
of Christ.
Personal revival, daily joy, daily reality, in witness,
in prayer, in relationship, in the midst of
struggle and failure.
And the human factor is the privilege of
every believer.
Some of us need a little Holy Ghost
stubbornness to stand on this verse and a
hundred similar verses and say, Lord, by Your
grace, every day from now on, here I
stand.
Come what may, pain or pleasure, wind or
the calm, here I stand.
1 Corinthians 15, 58, be steadfast, unmovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing
your labor is never in vain in the
Lord.
That's God's Word.
Let us pray.
I wonder how many of you in these
past weeks, again and again, you've been going
down the side roads, roads of lust, the
streets of anger, depression, jealousy, and you're discouraged,
you're defeated.
You're not living in the promised land, milk
and honey, fruit of the Holy Spirit, and
God somehow this afternoon has touched your heart
and there's a cry, there's a sob in
your heart, and you want to say, Oh
God, by Your grace, from this day on,
I will live on the basis of my
inheritance.
Will you do that?
Will you take that stand that by His
grace from now on, it's going to be
promised land living, it's going to be personal
revival as your privilege, through His indwelling Holy
Spirit.
If you want to make a recommitment to
Jesus and to live daily on the basis
of this personal revival that's yours in Christ,
if you mean it with all your heart
and you want to come back to the
cross and be filled afresh with the Holy
Spirit this afternoon, to be His soldier, to
be His disciple, to go where He wants
you to go, to do what He wants
you to do, then I want you quietly
in this great church, just quietly to stand
to your feet and say, Lord, touch me,
revive me.
And as you pray that, you'll make your
commitment that you'll live in the light of
that by His mercy and grace every day
of your life.
I believe some of you need to get
on this road of personal revival by simply
believing God's Word and taking a stand that
this is where you will live.
God's highway.
No more side roads.
No more streets that you've already been down,
you know what's there.
By the mind of Jesus, an act of
the will, you will turn and put your
focus upon Christ and you'll never turn back.
Title of that little book.
If you'll make that decision, some of you
made a similar decision last night, but many
were not there.
Others have been thinking about it.
Then I want you right now, we're not
gonna take long, to just stand where you
are and ask God to make this real,
more real than ever before.
Realizing a large part of the work is
on your part.
God bless you.
Praise the Lord.
Any of us.
This is only a step.
The message is made clear.
And we're not giving out an experience that's
gonna make it easy.
But you're taking a step of faith, an
act of the will, to move in personal
revival.
Really, standing up is an acknowledgement that there's
faith in your heart.
There's a ring of reality in what you've
heard and you say, Lord, yes, it's me
you're speaking to.
Not just this great crowd.
It's me.
You want me to live in the promised
land.
You want me to live in victory, in
power, and spiritual growth.
Praise God.
God bless you.
Any others.
Young couples.
Do you have revival in the home?
That's God's will.
Revival in the home.
It's not perfection, but it's reality.
The joy in many of the meetings I've
had lately.
I had 110 meetings in the last two
and a half months.
What a joy.
What a privilege to see young couples standing,
getting their marriages right by putting the marriage
on the solid rock.
Inheritance in Jesus Christ.
Forgiveness.
Forgiving your partner of anything she's ever done
against you.
Just as Christ has forgiven you.
Totally.
That's what we need.
We're gonna have revival in the home.
And of course, much more.
God bless you.
I'm gonna pray a prayer of commitment.
But if there's anyone else, standing up will
help you remember this day.
It'll be an affirmation of faith.
It's saying yes to what the Spirit of
God is convicting you about.
Anyone else?
Yes, God bless you.
Praise the Lord.
Many people are praying for this conference.
This is not a, sort of an instant
thing we're doing right now.
Many, many are praying.
You've thought about this.
And a bell has rung in your heart.
And you're saying yes.
Yes.
From this, the Lord may lead you to
the mission field or He may lead you
to stay right here in England.
His will be done.
First things first.
Not geography.
Reality.
I'd rather know reality and be in my
home country than be a misfit missionary in
the ends of the earth and not have
the reality and the revival bells ringing in
my heart.
Just one last moment.
Anybody else who may be wrestling with this.
Just stand to your feet.
Right now.
God bless you.
In the back.
On the side.
Yes.
Young couple.
Praise the Lord.
Yes.
Father, you see each one of us standing
before you.
We're all different.
And you're not trying to run us through
some kind of stereotyped program.
You love us.
We know that spiritual reality and reality is
found in you.
Not in man.
Not in movements.
In you.
You will use men.
You will use the church.
You will use books.
You will use movements.
But Lord, we acknowledge you as the source
of all life and the source of revival.
And more than that, of vivo.
And by faith, Lord, we take this scripture
and we believe we're alive.
We're alive.
We're alive in you.
And we will now live that way.
We will now live in the light of
that.
And we'll not be sidetracked.
Into the dead-end street of lust.
Into the alley of depression.
Into the back lane of anger or fear.
But by your grace, we will stay on
this highway of holiness.
This royal road of spiritual revolution.
Reality and love grant it, God.
And by your grace, every day, we will
do our part.
For we pray in the powerful name of
Him who lives in our hearts.
Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Let us all stand and just sing that
chorus.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
He is the source of that power.
Claim it.
He wants to bless you.
He wants to fill you with His Holy
Spirit.
So as we sing turn your eyes upon
Jesus and bring the meeting to a close
with that.
Let's believe it with all of our hearts.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Praise His name.
His name is wonderful.
Worship Him.
Let Him fill you with His power.
His name is wonderful.
Let us stand on these
mountains of love.
Let's be seated for a moment of silent
prayer.
Those of you who stood and made this
step of faith, I would like you to
give me a little piece of paper for
my own use and my little team, people
that work with me, to pray for you
at least once, to send you literature you
want.
But if you stood, since I'm getting a
lot of different feedback, just say, I'm believing
God.
Personal revival.
Use that word, personal revival, and I'll know
you stood at this meeting, and I'll send
you automatically that book by Stanley Volk on
personal revival.
He doesn't express it the same way I
do.
That's beautiful.
I haven't come to give you vocabulary.
Don't copy my vocabulary.
Just let Jesus live out through you.
In a sense, it means being yourself, accepting
yourself, the human factor, and just obeying, growing,
repenting, growing, repenting, and you'll discover over a
period of years, God has done the things
in your life you never dreamed, never dreamed
possible.
God bless you.
Now on to him who is able to
make these truths a reality in our hearts
on a seven-day-a-week basis.
To our great God and our great Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.