Book of Galatians and we're going to start
chapter 5 verse 13.
For brethren ye have been called unto liberty
only use not liberty for an occasion to
the flesh but by love serve one another
for all the law is fulfilled in one
word even in this thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself but if ye bite and
devour one another take heed that ye be
not consumed one of another this I say
then walk in the spirit and ye shall
not fulfill the loss of the flesh for
the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the
spirit against the flesh and these are contrary
the one to another so that ye cannot
do the things that ye would if he
be led by the spirit you're not under
the law now the works of the flesh
are manifest which are these adultery fornication uncleanness
lasciviousness idolatry sorcery hatred strife jealousy wrath factions
additions heresies endings murders drunkenness revelings and the
like of which I tell you before as
I have told you in the time past
they who do such things shall not inherit
the kingdom of God but the fruit of
the spirit is love joy peace long-suffering
gentleness goodness faith meekness self-control against such
there is no law they that are Christ's
have crucified the flesh with the affections and
loss if we live in the spirit let
us also walk in the spirit let us
not be desirous of vainglory provoking one another
envying one another you may wonder why do
we have in the middle of our missions
conference a message on personal revival there is
a book by the way back there on
the table called personal revival it's in magazine
form and it's the best possible follow-up
on this morning's message again whether you can
leave a donation or not since it's a
magazine book that costs us a few pence
to print just take it and even if
you leave a postage stamp you'll cover the
cost of that book it's a miracle that
we are able to publish these books in
magazine form a hundred thousand at a time
it's an answer to many years of praying
because you see there four and a half
thousand million people out there and if we
just publish little editions of five thousand books
ten thousand books it's going to be a
long road and so we're producing these in
a printing press that's about as long as
this building Christian printer does this a hundred
thousand at a time so you take one
personal revival the Ministry of OM from the
very beginning has been revival first and mission
second and so it is fitting that on
this missions weekend we consider the subject of
personal revival we've already read those verses in
Galatians 5 now maybe I could just read
three of them again starting at verse 22
but the fruit of the Spirit is love
joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faithfulness meekness
self-control against such there is no law
and they that are Christ's have crucified the
flesh with the affections and let me read
it also in this living paraphrase just to
amplify the thoughts to some degree through different
wording but when the Holy Spirit controls our
lives he will produce this kind of fruit
in us love joy peace patience kindness goodness
faithfulness gentleness and self-control and here there
is no conflict conflict with Jewish laws those
who belong to Christ have nailed their natural
evil desires to his cross and crucified them
their personal revival is the privilege of every
believer and I would beg of you to
consider carefully this subject from the Word of
God with me this morning because I believe
that if you grasp all that you have
in Jesus Christ that you will be able
to experience from now on personal revival in
your life I really believe that as a
result of my first book one that you
can pick up free this morning I've had
about 14,000 letters and I've seen through
those letters and of course through constant contact
with people how easy it is for Christians
to get discouraged discouraged in their prayer life
discouraged in their witness continually feeling guilty never
good enough never praying never going to church
never doing this and this is not the
plan and the purpose of God that a
Christian just live in discouragement and in guilt
we read that the joy of the Lord
is our strength and here this morning we've
read about the fruit of the Holy Spirit
we have a spirit we are commanded in
Acts and in Ephesians to be filled with
a spirit therefore it is clear that God
wants us to be living in personal revival
not in discouragement not in the endless syndrome
of guilt and failure but in the joy
of the Lord sometimes because we often listen
to testimonies of people who get away from
the Lord and come back to the Lord
we get the idea that this really is
the normal Christian life isn't it you come
to the Lord and you're excited for a
while and then you sort of drift away
and you get lukewarm or you get blown
away by some problem or some misunderstanding and
then somehow maybe at Philly or Keswick or
at some summer Bible camp you come back
to the Lord again and in September you're
allowed to give your testimony in church of
how you wandered away from the Lord but
you're back again and everybody's happy now I'm
thrilled when I hear the testimony of somebody
who's come back to the Lord of course
that's good that's wonderful but I know something
better don't ever get away from him in
the first place you say oh then I
won't be asked to give my testimony it's
interesting how sometimes we we gravitate toward wanting
testimonies of people who have gone through some
special difficulties and there's nothing wrong with that
but sometimes spiritually speaking a wonderful testimony can
be almost boring of course I guess it
depends how you how you share it I'm
convinced that it's the purpose and plan of
God that when we come to the Lord
Jesus Christ we never go away from him
anymore we don't go into sort of the
back the back garden of spiritual defeat but
we stay out in the battlefront living day
by day in the Holy Spirit as we
see here verse 16 walk in the Spirit
and you shall not fulfill the loss of
the flesh now revival is a term that
sometimes people don't understand and for a while
I hardly use the term because it was
so misused and people often think of revival
only as that which happened like over in
Wales in 1904 the Welsh revival when there
was this special movement on this of the
Spirit almost as if the Holy Spirit was
forcing people we hear stories of you know
a drunkard walking down the street and suddenly
zap the Lord hits him and he falls
on the ground throws his bottle into the
woods and gets converted it's easy to become
infatuated with a spectacular after all as Christians
we're interested in the spectacular but I believe
that there are different kinds of revival and
that the Scriptures put a greater priority on
personal revival than on large group or corporate
revival we're not against anything that the Holy
Spirit is doing and to see that which
happened in 1904 and that which happened in
other parts of Britain at different periods of
history praise the Lord we can pray for
that we can work for that probably as
Christians will never fully agree about it it
was interesting to read as I was doing
a little homework in preparation for speaking at
Keswick to read about when the Welsh went
up there during the Welsh revival to the
Keswick convention and and they sort of attempted
to somehow get Keswick going into the revival
and they had nights of prayer and they
had different things happen but it didn't break
out in the same way that it broke
out in Swansea and other parts of Wales
you can't force it you can't crank it
up like an old car you know the
old cars used to have to go around
the front and get it going you're not
going to get revival going that way there's
an element of mystery in revival there's an
element of God's timing then there's an elements
of Providence I've seen people going through sort
of a revival purgatory praying year after year
that God would send a revival and sort
of castigating themselves that blaming themselves or blaming
their church it's always easy to blame the
church for anything that's a good scapegoat the
church for why we don't have revival I
believe there's another side to this coin it's
our inheritance in Jesus Christ that as individual
believers we don't have to sit back and
wait for a warm special wind to blow
through the church or a dove to break
through the window in Christ we have all
that we need to live a life of
joy and revival and spiritual power day by
day not just for a couple of years
because let's face it that revival in Wales
and in other parts of the world for
many of the people involved it was one
or two years and it was over many
of them backslid many of them even left
the Christian faith afterward the spiritual warfare continued
even Evan Roberts the human leader of the
Welsh revival went through deep times and struggle
and extremism came in and out of that
Jesse Penn Lewis wrote war on the Saints
a book that I don't really recommend to
too many people which got many people discouraged
confused and depressed and that spread into the
writings of watchman knee watchman knee one-third
of his writing is rehashed Jesse Penn Lewis
and a few other things thrown in we
think it comes from China but you know
it can be a dead-end street as
believers we have the Holy Spirit and as
believers it is our privilege to live day
by day in the fullness and the power
of the Holy Spirit now a lot of
people don't understand this because they're looking for
something spectacular they think when the Holy Spirit
comes upon them something really weird is going
to happen their eyes are going to change
color or their hair is going to stand
straight up or they're going to get a
new voice have you ever been in a
prayer meeting when a brother with a real
gruffy huffy voice comes in and but when
he prays suddenly there's a different voice you
know God's not going to change your voice
I wanted to get mine changed I can't
stand listening to my the filling of the
Holy Spirit is not only for the pulpit
it's for the kitchen not only for the
door-to-door visitation it's for the driving
it's not only for the work in the
church but to work in the factory the
filling and the living in the power and
the energy of the Holy Spirit is not
firstly a spectacular experience it is a whole
new way of life which is very down
-to-earth and which will not just function
one or two years but it will function
the rest of your life and the filling
of the Holy Spirit in personal revival and
reality will not destroy your humanity I was
helped in this particular area because so many
of the people that I've met and as
you can imagine I've been in thousands of
churches some of the ones who claim to
be and others felt were spirit-filled I
found a bit strange myself some of the
real hyper spiritual types they really to me
something something plastic something unreal about them and
yet I realized that that was just their
human factor they were a little eccentric they
were a little different we're all different aren't
we but some of them are and my
wife says about me but I realized that
this treasure this is what the Bible says
this treasure is in an earthen vessel and
as you're filled with the Holy Spirit as
you learn to live in revival that doesn't
destroy your humanity and it's dangerous to repress
ourselves or to try to be somebody else
in our effort to be more spiritual to
try to be Andrew Murray or F.B.
Myers or to try to be George Duncan
or Alan Redpath two very different men their
their method of preaching if you've listened to
them is completely different George Duncan quiet short
beautiful Redpath like a storm you know one
hour long you're shaking the whole time God
uses different people in different ways God doesn't
as you're filled with the Holy Spirit and
learn to live in revival destroy your humanity
liquidate your personality obliterate your temperament if you're
the shy kind of quiet person soft-spoken
as you're filled with the Holy Spirit you're
not going to become like me relax you'll
probably be still relatively quiet and shy but
you will experience God's grace to open your
mouth at the right time and the fruit
of the Holy Spirit will become more and
more a reality in your life there's nothing
that represents revival more than the fruit of
the Holy Spirit in the life of the
believer that's why again and again I've meditated
on those words I went to a home
sometime ago I was a little hungry and
I saw some fruit and I should have
asked but I sort of reached for it
as I was asking whether I could have
some and as it got near my I
discovered it was wax have you ever seen
these fruit displays they have plastic ones as
well the wax is a little more digestible
than the plastic and so oftentimes as Christians
the fruit it isn't real you know how
we can tell when the fruit is plastic
or wax rather than the fruit of the
Holy Spirit under pressure that's what really counts
isn't it it's not what we're like when
we're sitting in church on Sunday morning though
that's important everything is important with God but
what are we like when we're under pressure
on the m1 sitting in the same place
for two hours listening to the radio that
tells you that a large lorry has just
overturned with 1,000 apples rolling down the
m1 and that will be several hours before
you're cleared and there's no exit anywhere in
range how do you handle that yes it's
pressure that brings to the surface what we're
really made of it's pressure that determines whether
that blessing we got three weeks ago in
church is still a blessing today and I
want to just share from my own experience
that ever since my conversion I have known
personal revival every day that's 29 years you
say wow what what cheek this preachers got
tell us he's been living in revival for
29 years you see it's a normal Christian
life I don't believe that's any great boast
I don't believe that's any special statement that's
God's provision that's not me I can't maintain
revival even 20 minutes but when I was
converted to Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit came
to live in me Jesus by his spirit
came to live in me I'm the earthen
vessel he's the treasure and it is now
the normal experience that every day he lives
in me he doesn't die for several days
and then come back to life again now
we can grieve the Holy Spirit we can
quench the Holy Spirit and I have to
be honest I've had moments I've had hours
I've even had half days to be quite
honest in some cases almost whole days in
which I was not living in revival but
somehow I learned as a baby Christian that
there was cleansing in the blood of Christ
there was forgiveness when one sinned and so
as far as I can remember each day
even when there's been difficulty or sin or
failure or discouragement throughout maybe part of the
day somehow through the word and prayer I
got my my cord back plugged in to
the right source of power it's very clear
in 1st John chapter 2 the first part
of the verse says sin not that's my
goal each day and as I spend some
time early in the day in the word
and in prayer my goal as I launch
out in that day is to live a
life of love holiness fruit may be seen
in my life but the second part of
the verse is the reason I'm still here
if you sin that's me if you sin
you have an advocate with the Father Jesus
Christ the righteous you see we sort of
have this idea that Christians who live in
revival they they they they don't sin well
we don't say that but we expect that
it's sort of the way some churches treat
their pastors theologically they don't believe the pastor
is perfect I mean that would be bad
theology but through insinuation and implication they expect
the pastor more or less to be perfect
I mean we don't want I mean he's
allowed little things and the pastor's wife oh
thank you Lord that I'm not the pastor's
wife of course that would be difficult but
in so many places I go the pastor's
wife seems to be really put on the
spot if the pastor's a dynamic sort of
extrovert evangelistic preacher teacher and has an out
ministry sort of the people expect the wife
you know she's gonna be a teacher she's
gonna be an exhorter she's gonna be at
every meeting she's gonna be encouraging the elderly
taking care of the young ones teaching in
the Sunday school and of course taking care
of the pastor and a lot of pastors
have big families for some reason I've never
been able to explain change these days more
balance in the theology and of course no
wonder many a pastor's wife has landed up
with a nervous breakdown people have the idea
that missionaries these are the real super saints
really and they can get away with more
because the local churches don't see them they
just come sailing in on a weekend give
their spiritual messages people who a man of
God he gets out of town before the
dust falls or maybe they never see the
dust he's back in the Congo the same
loudmouth carnal missionary upsetting all the Africans and
back home they're thinking he's a great man
of God and the Holy Spirit is so
wonderful using him perhaps out there in that
town where he lives half the town can't
stand him and are praying that he'd return
to England missionaries are human incredibly human we
have enormous problems on the mission field there's
moral problems there's divisions there's carnality there's plastic
fruit there are all kinds of things this
is why when a missionary prayer meeting is
called the Lord's people need to mobilize because
I tell you it's total war maybe the
church needs a new remembrance service once a
year to remember the missionaries who have fallen
in action or have been wiped out on
the battlefronts in the spiritual warfare because just
as in the Falklands there were casualties though
it was kept to a minimum so in
the work of God on the front lines
of spiritual action there are casualties there are
mental and emotional breakdowns there are often physical
and health breakdowns and there are spiritual breakdowns
and when we see this happen out on
the mission field we need to realize that
sometimes it's linked with a weakness in our
heavy artillery program back in the home country
what do I mean by that the heavy
artillery one great Whitcliffe Bible translator said was
the intercessory prayer I was reading this morning
in 1st Timothy chapter 2 how first of
all prayer and supplication and intercession with Thanksgiving
should be made unto all men how is
your heavy artillery ministry is your home an
arsenal for spiritual warfare in which the big
guns of intercessory prayer are aimed out to
the unreached parts of the world where the
strongholds of the enemy are still holding back
the missionary forces as we'll be talking more
about perhaps this evening or tomorrow yes being
filled with the Holy Spirit living in personal
revival doesn't destroy your humanity you know about
20 years ago when I was first living
here in Britain many people were coming into
new experiences with the Holy Spirit the Holy
Spirit of course works in different ways in
different people some of the people that I've
seen live in revival for long periods of
time have never had any great one spectacular
mind-bending foot tingling experience with the Holy
Spirit but they've had the ongoing work of
grace in their hearts by the Holy Spirit
in all fairness others in our work have
had very shattering experiences with the Lord it
may be in have been in the context
of the working of the Holy Spirit it
may have been in the context of what
we've read here in Galatians the crucified life
many have come into a new dimension in
their spiritual walk when they realized the reality
of the crucified life and they begun to
understood understand that it wasn't only Jesus who
was crucified but they as believers are to
reckon themselves as being dead unto the world
and as being crucified spiritually speaking with Jesus
Christ that's how this revival is maintaining an
ongoing work of the cross day by day
that's why Jesus said if any man come
after me let him deny self take up
the cross and follow that's Jesus speaking of
me therefore it is the privilege it's the
plan of God that every Christian knows continuous
revival in his life the human factor will
still be there failure will still be there
tears will still be there you know as
I thought of those who gave their lives
in the war and listened to a remembrance
song this morning there in the back of
my old coach I just wept now maybe
I weep easy my wife's father was killed
in that war some of you have loved
ones and friends who were killed in that
war nothing wrong with weeping I see it
as a greater problem that many Christians no
longer weep we've been emotionally brainwashed by overexposure
to violence and bloodshed on television and in
the media so that we become hardened and
no longer do we have the softness of
heart and the tenderness of heart that we
can weep with those who weep and yes
rejoice with those the fullness of the Holy
Spirit does not destroy the human factor it
will not turn you into me or me
into you that's why it's so foolish to
spend too much time judging other people or
running around measuring everybody spiritually to see who
is the spiritual or the most spiritual of
all we're all God's children if we are
born again we all have a blank page
in the book of heaven it's not a
matter of Billy Graham being ten times more
important than you or Hudson Taylor having 50
pages in the book and you have only
a small inch in the index God has
created every one of us God has a
plan for all of our lives God has
a totally different way of measuring things than
the Daily Mirror or the Gospel Gazette and
he looks at the faithfulness of your heart
he looks at the fruit on your spiritual
tree and his burden is firstly quality not
quantity it's not how many nations you can
take for Christ or how many souls you
can win though those things have importance in
the context of Christian and world evangelism but
are you abiding in Jesus are you living
in personal revival and I know that if
a weak struggling often confused person like myself
can experience this grace and power to varying
degrees every day for 29 years then there's
nobody that cannot know this way of life
I've seen this also in my own wife
my own wife who was greatly affected by
her father's death so she spent part of
her life in sort of a sort of
an orphanage and then there was some other
difficulties in the home don't want to go
into detail I talk a little bit about
this in my book and after she was
converted to Christ she still had a lot
of difficulties as a result of these these
sort of damaged emotions is a book on
the table there called healing for damaged emotions
and you know in a day when it's
more and more possible to have good physical
health through medicine and other things there are
more and more people with damaged emotions who
need spiritual healing that's a beautiful book and
long before that book was written my wife
in the quietness of her own room had
an experience with the Lord Jesus that brought
beautiful healing to her emotions and in her
case also the healing of three physical diseases
which were linked with emotional damage I'll never
forget that day and if God hadn't moved
in her life and brought her into that
healing though it's an ongoing process and she
would be the first one to say that
it's just got to keep going on because
old memories come up old hurts come up
the old humanity whatever you want to call
still there but I've lived with her for
23 years and I've seen reality in her
life as a very very homespun ordinary shy
quiet woman who often feels inferior to almost
everybody God works in different ways in different
people don't try to be somebody else don't
read too many biographies at once spend more
time perhaps in the word and understanding from
the scriptures God's purpose and God's plan for
your own life as a beautiful original creation
of a glorious omnipotent God yes it's the
purpose of the Lord for all of us
to be rejoicing in his grace for all
of us to be abounding in his work
for all of us to have the fruit
of the spirit in our lives and a
vision for others and a lost and dying
world this is not the exception for a
few people who go to missionary conferences but
this is the privilege of all believers who
have a Bible and can read it and
appropriate this way of life for me it's
been a lot of repentance oh quickly I
grieve the Lord so quickly my eyes wander
to places they should not go so quickly
my heart gets cold so there's no interest
in the souls of men I'm a natural
backslider what about you maybe some of you
just automatically go uphill spiritually I I'm always
looking for those kind just spiritual life for
you is just automatic you just going up
from victory to victory the bounding day after
day automatically more and more spiritual many of
you are in that category I'd love to
really see you after the meeting and and
get your autograph here and in my Bible
I've got a special section I write here
in the top of the page for hypocrites
the fact of the matter is for all
of us it is an ongoing spiritual warfare
if we're going to go forward if we're
going to go forward and it will remain
at times that we sin we fail and
it's at that moment we need more than
at any other time to know God's love
he does not abandon us at that moment
of sin or failure for we are his
children we are bought with a price and
therefore we have no excuse but to bounce
back to drink afresh from the fountain of
never-ending water and to claim in his
power and grace revival daily revival personal revival
from now till we meet him at the
end of the road let us pray let's
just take a few moments to just again
have silent prayer this time in remembrance of
what Christ has done for us and our
inheritance in Christ let us have confession if
we have failed to claim that inheritance that
Holy Spirit daily reality let us confess our
unbelief let us confess that sometimes we have
been deceived into discouragement into a way of
life that's plastic and not real let's turn
let's turn fresh to the fountain of living
water let's return to the cross and spiritually
allow those nails again to go into our
own hands so that we can say we're
crucified will you say that with all your
heart if you will by faith day by
day and you will know personal revival tis
your privilege tis your inheritance in Christ just
pray father we do remember the death of
your son the Lord Jesus on the cross
for our sin we thank you for forgiveness
we thank you for cleansing we thank you
for the privilege of living in revival and
in victory and in the power of your
Holy Spirit we realize the fresh that this
doesn't destroy the human factor it doesn't liquidate
our humanity but it brings us into balance
and into crucified living thank you Lord we
believe that world missions will grow from a
heart that's revived by your Holy Spirit and
from a church that's experiencing revival and grace
by your Holy Spirit may we be that
kind of people may this be that kind
of church for your glory for your honor
through Jesus Christ our Lord