I keep almost preaching a certain sermon, and
it's just a good teaching sermon, and I
keep getting up to the Lord's Day, and
then it's as if I'm supposed to talk
about something different.
And that's kind of what happened again today.
So I will get to this other mystery
sermon eventually, and you will see what it
is.
But today I just felt like I wanted
to talk a little bit.
Well, turn to Psalm 85.
I want to talk a little bit about
the Welsh Revival.
I've been reading a little bit about it
this past week, and it's really touched my
heart what God did there.
I think there's things we can learn from
what happened in that move of God.
Psalm 85.
There it is.
Let me just read Psalm 85 just as
a foundation for things that we're going to
look at.
Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land.
Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.
Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people.
Thou hast covered all their sin.
Thou hast taken away all thy wrath.
Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of
thine anger.
Turn us, O God, of our salvation, and
cause thine anger toward us to cease.
Wilt thou be angry with us forever?
Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all
generations?
Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy
people may rejoice in thee?
Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant
us thy salvation.
I will hear what God the Lord will
speak, for he will speak peace unto this
people and to his saints, but let them
not turn again to folly.
Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear
him, that glory may dwell in our land.
Mercy and truth are met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and
righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yea, the Lord shall give that which is
good, and our land shall yield her increase.
Righteousness shall go before him, and shall set
us in the way of his steps.
Mercy and truth are met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and
righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy
people may rejoice in thee?
The Welsh Revival.
God does revive his people from time to
time.
Just as judgment begins in the house of
God, revival must begin in the house of
God and does begin in the house of
God.
God's people need to turn toward him in
this day and this age, as they've had
to in every day and age, and we
need to seek that he would revive us
again.
In Wales in 1904, there was a great
revival.
I simply took some testimonies here, and I
want to read some of this.
First, I want to read from an article,
a newspaper of the day, a famous journalist,
W.T. Stead, Daily Chronicle, November 13, 1904.
I'm just going to read excerpts from this
eyewitness account of what God was doing.
As springtime precedes summer and seed time harvests,
so every great onward step in the social
and political progress of Great Britain has ever
been preceded by a national revival of religion.
The sequence is as unmistakable as it is
invariable.
This is what we've been looking at in
recent weeks, that we think the civil government
somehow will be reformed without a revival.
It will not.
We think that the civil government will respect
the Ten Commandments when the church does not.
It will not.
We think that our government will rule according
to the law of God and be righteous
and break off ungodly alliances and activity when
the church will not.
We believe, it seems many do, that our
civil government will respect the Constitution when the
church doesn't respect the Bible.
There'll be no revival or no reformation, I
should say, in the government until there's a
revival in the church, until we're faithful in
the church.
We believe that many do, I hope you're
not among them, that the government, the civil
government will rule righteously and the people will
obey it when much of the church government
doesn't rule righteously.
And when they do, people don't obey it.
There's no respect for church government anymore.
There's no respect.
There's no understanding of what the body of
Christ is to be.
I love Christ ahead, but I have no
interest in building up the body of Christ.
Is this possible?
Apparently people think it is.
We have a problem.
The root of the problem is pride and
arrogance, recklessness, the I don't care attitude.
We have to get back to the basics,
to the foundation and begin to obey God
in these things.
We're in a dangerous time, a very dangerous
time.
But this journalist goes on to say after
attending three prolonged services at Mardy, a village
of 5,000 inhabitants, he says it was
near what was in Wales, lying on the
other side of Ponte Pride.
He talks about what he saw.
He said there were no advertisements, no brass
bands, no posters, no huge tents, all the
paraphernalia of the God up job are conspicuous
by their absence.
No God up job here.
You know, not like a Billy Graham crusade,
not like some of the things we've seen,
not like the purpose driven church nonsense.
None of that.
These so-called revivals we have where everybody
plays out their part.
When the pastor finally says, now you can
come forward, then they come forward.
They're going to accept Christ now.
After they sat quietly in their seats with
their hands folded through all the preaching, then
they come forward.
Is that a move of the spirit of
God?
That's not what we see in revivals of
the past.
We see people weeping in their seats, kneeling
where they are, coming forward without being even
asked.
He says, neither is there any organization nor
is there a director, at least none that
is visible to the human eye.
In the crowded chapels, they even dispense with
the instrumental music.
Now, he wasn't saying this was right, but
this is what happened in this particular revival.
He wasn't saying that's what everyone should do.
He says, on Sunday night, no note issued
from the organ pipes.
They had them, it's just that they weren't
used.
There was no need, he says, of instrument,
for in and around and above and beneath
surged the all-pervading thrill and throb of
a multitude praying and singing as they prayed.
The vast congregations were as soberly sane, as
orderly, and at least as reverent as any
congregation I ever saw.
This was no Brownsville revival.
This was no laughing, barking revival.
None of this.
This was no Benny Hinn appearance, that devil.
Going on, it says, tear above tear, from
the crowded aisle to the loftiest gallery, sat
or stood as necessity dictated, eager hundreds of
serious men and thoughtful women, their eyes riveted
upon the platform or upon whatever other part
of the building was the storm center of
the meeting.
The Spirit of God was stirring up hearts
and minds as a tornado stirs up a
natural creation.
There was absolutely nothing wild, violent, hysterical, unless
it be hysterical for the laboring breast to
heave with sobbing that cannot be repressed, and
the throat to choke with emotion as a
sense of the awful horror and shame of
a wasted life suddenly bursts upon the soul.
Praise God.
It's so much better to know you're wasting
your life than to know you've wasted your
life.
It's so much better to admit that you've
wasted part of your life than to know
you've wasted all of your life.
It's so much better to throw your pride
overboard and just accept that you've done wrong,
that you lived wrong, and let God heal
you, let God build you up, let God
forgive you.
This is what was happening with these people.
On all sides there was a solemn gladness
of men and women, first the shame, then
the gladness.
Unless you have the shame, you'll never have
the gladness.
Upon whose eyes has dawned the splendor of
a new day, the foretaste of whose glories
they are enjoying in the quickened sense of
human fellowship and a keen glad zest added
to their lives.
I'll be
honest,
I'm about to give up on a lot
of older men.
I know that's not right, but I'm almost
ready to start looking to the younger men,
the ones that aren't so stubborn, aren't so
set in their ways, aren't so unwilling to
simply humble themselves before God and be taught
by Him and led by Him.
But we don't see many young men like
that.
We don't see many young men around that
really want to serve God.
I don't know.
I guess I haven't heard anyone say since
I've been a Christian, I don't know if
I've heard any young man say, I want
to be a pastor.
I want to be a preacher.
I want to serve God with everything I
have.
I feel called.
I'm going to follow that leading.
I'm going to be an instrument, God willing,
of revival in this country.
I don't know.
Now this is from the Reverend G.
Campbell Morgan, who was, I'm told, I don't
know much about him, but a famous Christian
pastor, churchman, leader in those days.
And he went and witnessed this.
He came from London where there was no
revival.
And he witnessed this revival.
I think what he has to say is
worth looking at.
I won't read the whole thing.
It's quite long, but I want to read
excerpts.
And I'll tell you up front why I
want to read excerpts, because this man has
said things that I feel in my own
heart.
And some of what he said is he
doesn't know what to say.
And I just feel the exact same, especially
toward the end of this.
I just feel totally in harmony with what
he's saying and what he's saying he's not
able to say and what he's waiting on.
Starts out, I'm going to read quite a
bit of this, but just excerpts.
He says, starts out reading from Joel.
He says, for these are not drunken as
ye suppose.
This is at Pentecost where the Spirit of
God was poured out on those obedient men
who did exactly what God told them.
They waited there in Jerusalem until the Spirit
of the Lord poured out upon them and
then they went preaching, fearlessly preaching the Kingdom
of God and setting up a church and
setting up leadership and government and letting no
one stop them and not putting their hope
in anything except the Word of God, the
Spirit of God.
And the people of God, in the sense
that God has ordained there be a church
in this world and that church will carry
forward the light of the gospel, that church
will birth preachers and evangelists and holy men
and women.
And we'll have an authority in this earth
that God does back up, even if people
don't recognize it.
And even if in this day and age,
everyone wants to do their own thing and
do what seems right to them and ignore
this, that God has set up the church,
the body of Christ, that's to be so
powerful in the earth.
He says, for these are not drunken as
ye suppose, seeing as but the third hour
of the day.
But this is that which hath been spoken
by the prophet Joel.
And it shall be in the last days,
saith God, I will pour forth of my
Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy and your young men
shall see visions and your old men shall
dream dreams.
Yea, and on my bond servants and on
my bond maidens in those days will I
pour forth of my Spirit and they shall
prophesy.
He says he'll pour forth his Spirit on
who?
Who's he going to pour forth his Spirit
on?
Those who crack open their Bible and say,
yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess I'll see what
God has to say about this or the
other thing.
Or they open up their Bible and say,
I'm against so and so or such and
such.
So I'm going to look for a good
verse so I can go out against them.
He says, I'm going to pour out my
Spirit on my bond servants and my bond
maidens.
That's who he'll pour out his Spirit on.
Those who follow close against Christ.
Those who desire to wear his yoke.
Those who want to live for him always,
all the time.
Those who seek to obey him and please
him and be like him.
That's who he pours his Spirit out on.
This pastor, Reverend G.
Campbell Morgan says, I have not read these
words as a text, but as an introduction
to what I desire to say.
In other words, he wasn't going to preach
just on that.
He just wanted an introduction.
As God shall help me concerning the most
recent manifestation of the Pentecostal power.
I refer to the great work of God
that is going on in Wales at this
time.
And I trust that something more than curiosity
makes you desire to hear of this work.
For I'm not speaking with any intention to
satisfy curiosity.
I want now in the simplest way to
speak to you first, very briefly, and as
far as it is possible, of what my
own eyes have seen, my own ears heard,
and my own heart felt.
I do this in order that we may
ask finally, what are the lessons God would
teach us in this day of his visitation?
What were the lessons?
Well, it's long.
I'm going to read excerpts.
He first talks about a meeting he went
to.
He says, It was a wonderful night, utterly
without order, characterized from first to last by
the orderliness of the Spirit of God.
Should I read that again?
It wasn't a typo.
He wasn't confused.
He said, It was a wonderful night, utterly
without order, characterized from first to last by
the orderliness of the Spirit of God.
What he was saying is, this was no
formal sort of situation where, sort of a
contrived thing.
He does this, he does that.
No, he says, The Spirit of God moved
through the congregation.
He said it was a great mass of
people.
We made our way through the open door
and just managed to get inside and found
the chapel crowded from floor to ceiling with
a great mass of people.
He said it was his holy privilege to
come into the center of this wonderful work
and movement.
And then he describes what he means by
no order, without order.
But it was orderly because of the Spirit
of God.
He described how a speaker would go out
and speak for a few minutes.
And then suddenly, by God's hand, he would
stop as if he knew he should stop.
And a man would stand up and testify
that he had found Christ or that he
had just led someone to Christ.
And then someone else would stand up and
pray on the other side of the room.
No prompting, no directing.
And then everyone would burst into a hymn.
And then someone else would fall on their
knees and get saved, profess Christ.
And then someone else would testify.
And then the speaker would speak.
And then they'd sing again.
This was the Spirit of God.
He said, That which most impressed me, I'm
sorry, that which impressed me most, was the
congregation.
I looked along the gallery of the chapel
on my right, and there were three women,
and the rest were men, packed solidly in.
If you could but for once have seen
the men, says there were evidently those who
work in the coal mines, with the blue
seam that told of their work on their
faces, clean and beautiful.
He says, Beautiful, did I say?
Many of them lit with heaven's own light,
radiant with the light that never was on
sea and land, great, rough, magnificent, poetic men
by nature.
But the nature had slumbered long.
Today it was awakened, and I looked on
many a face, and I knew that men
did not see me, did not see Evan
Roberts, who was one of the preachers, but
they saw the face of God and the
eternities.
This is what we need to see.
We need to look into eternity.
We need to stop living for today.
We need to ask God to help us
to see this new Jerusalem that we're headed
for.
Maybe we wouldn't live so much for ourselves.
Maybe we would abandon ourselves more to God
and trust in Him.
Maybe we would see this time on earth
that we have as our only chance now,
when no one forces us, but someone leads
us to serve Him against all odds.
And in the face of hardship, in the
face of mocking, in the face of our
own flesh, overcome it by the Spirit.
This is what we need to see.
He said there were men, great, rough, magnificent,
poetic men.
They had the light of God on their
face.
Now this Evan Roberts was one of the
preachers, or
so bad that he would not miss a
prayer meeting.
He would not miss a prayer meeting.
He would not miss a church service.
He would not miss a meeting of God's
people.
Because he said, what if the Spirit of
God moves today?
God used that man for revival.
Look in your own heart today.
What does church mean to you?
What does prayer meeting mean to you?
What does the meeting of the people of
God mean to you?
What does it mean?
Is it a burden?
Or do you want to be there because
God might move today?
There might be revival today.
Evan Roberts would not miss a prayer meeting.
He would not miss a church meeting.
No doubt he was involved in ministry as
well, wanting to tell others about his Savior.
He prayed for 11 years and he was
there when revival came.
The pastor says, G.
Campbell Morgan says, I nearly wept tonight over
the singing of our last hymn.
Mr. Stead was asked if he thought the
revival would spread to London.
And he said, it depends on whether or
not you can sing.
This is a newspaper reporter now.
This isn't a pastor.
But the pastor says he was not so
wide of the mark.
When these Welshman sing, they sing the words
like men who believe them.
They sing like they believe these words.
Have you heard the words of the hymns
we sing?
Do you believe them?
Then sing them like you believe them.
I often think when I'm somewhere and people
are singing these great hymns of sacrifice and
of faithfulness and of anticipation of the glories
of God, and I hear people drag through
them doing their duty.
And I wonder, do they believe these hymns?
Because if they believe these hymns, they would
sound like they believe them.
He said, he goes on, they abandon themselves
to their singing.
We sing, talking about his London congregation to
whom he's preaching, as though we thought it
would not be respectable to be heard by
the man next to us.
No choir, did I say?
Because they had no choir.
It was all choir and hymns.
I stood and listened in wonder and amazement
as that congregation on that night sang hymn
after hymn, long hymns, sung through without hymn
books.
Oh, don't you see it?
The Sunday school is having its harvest now.
The family altar is having its harvest now.
The teaching of hymns in the Bible among
these Welsh hills and valleys is having its
harvest now.
The harvest comes, doesn't it?
If we sow with weeping, we harvest with
joy.
And he says the harvest was coming in.
Hymns.
Now they weren't singing these little praise songs,
these little choruses, song, mindless song after song,
chorus after chorus.
They were singing the great hymns of faith
with theology in them.
This is what they were singing.
You know, a lot of these praise songs
are just to praise men.
They sing them because they're fun.
If you sing some of these things because
they're fun in this contemporary Christian music, you're
just singing it to praise yourself.
I don't care what you're saying.
They're saying, isn't this fun?
Praise me.
And so they were singing the great hymns.
I wish we could sing like they sing.
Isaiah 28, 10 says, for precept must be
upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line,
line upon line, here a little and there
a little.
They had taught, there had been faithful pastors
teaching and teaching and teaching.
We must never give up.
Elders, pastors must continue to preach faithfully, not
look for gimmicks, gadgets or craftiness, but preach
the Word of God.
It's not the Word of God that isn't
powerful, it's the hearts of men that are
hard.
We must not abandon the preaching of the
Word of God just the way it's written.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power
of God unto salvation to all who believe.
And we must want to worship God.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, into His
courts with praise.
Be thankful unto Him and bless His name.
Get your eyes off yourself.
And I need to get my eyes off
myself.
Put your eyes on Christ.
Some of you have problem upon problem upon
problem.
It's because we're not putting our eyes on
Christ, because we're feeling sorry for ourselves, because
we're wallowing around in our own problems, instead
of looking to God for the answers.
Faithfulness, faithfulness, faithfulness.
Be faithful unto death and I will give
you the crown of life.
The pastor goes on to say, you tell
me that the revival originates with Roberts.
This is this Evan Roberts, who was the
preacher.
He says, I tell you that Roberts is
a product of the revival.
You tell me that it began in an
endeavor meeting where a dear girl bore testimony.
I tell you that that was the result
of a revival breaking out everywhere.
He said, if you and I could stand
above Wales looking at it, you would see
fire breaking out here and there and yonder
and somewhere else without any collusion or prearrangement.
It is a divine visitation in which God,
let me say this reverently, in which God
is saying to us, see what I can
do without the things you are depending on.
See what I can do in answer to
a praying people.
See what I can do through the simplest
who are ready to fall in line and
depend wholly and absolutely upon me.
This is what God was saying, see what
I can do, he said.
And this is how revival broke out in
Wales.
He said, you could see a little fire
here and a little fire there and a
little fire there and the fire eventually as
fires do came together into one holy conflagration.
This is what we need to see in
our day.
This is what we need to see.
We need to want to see a little
fire break out in our hearts and in
the hearts of our family and in the
hearts of our churches.
This is what we need to see.
Stubbornness, pride, self-centeredness, preoccupation with our own
problems, materialism, hedonism, selfishness, all these things get
in the way and unwillingness to see what
the church is supposed to be and say,
God, this is a great privilege to build
up your body.
As we follow the head, we build up
the body.
We are not cold toward this work that
God wants to do through his people, the
church of Jesus Christ.
What is the character of this revival, Campbell
says?
It is a church revival.
I do not mean by that merely a
revival among church members.
It is that.
But it is held in church buildings.
Now, you may look astonished, but I have
been saying for a long time that revival,
which is to be permanent in the life
of a nation, must be associated with the
life of the churches.
What I am looking for is that there
shall come a revival breaking out in all
our regular church life.
The meetings are held in the chapels all
up and down the valleys.
And it began among church members.
And when it touches the outside man, it
makes him into a church member at once.
I am tremendously suspicious of any mission, a
revival movement that treats with contempt the church
of Christ and affects to despise the churches.
And I say to him, Amen.
I say to this man, Amen.
Everything he is saying, I believe.
We are to love Christ and we are
to build up his body.
We do not just love the head and
ignore the body.
We are not to be cold and callous
and indifferent and reckless toward the body of
Christ.
The unity of the spirit, a love one
for another.
And the leaders, the elders, are to be
committed to the church God has brought you
to, committed, talking to us elders, to build
it up, a priority.
To be faithful.
He that is faithful in that which is
least is faithful also in much.
If we cannot be faithful, no matter the
size of our congregations here, we are not
going to be faithful in anything else.
And the people, obey them that have rule
over you.
And submit yourselves, for they watch for your
souls, as they must give account that they
may do it with joy and not with
grief, for that is unprofitable for you.
I will not stand before God and say,
I did not discipline, I did not disciple,
I did not follow out the commands of
your scriptures because someone would take it wrong,
because someone would use it against me, because
someone, somewhere, might say, oh, he is too
harsh, he is too this, he is too
that.
I will fulfill the obligation as God gives
me the strength of what I am to
do as a minister of the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
And I call upon our elder to do
the same.
And those who serve as deacons, have a
heart for the church, serve the church, be
proactive, look for what needs to be done,
all of us together, the church, build it
up.
And you there in the congregation, submit yourselves.
So long as you think the pastor and
the elders are in obedience to God, submit
yourselves.
This is a holy authority he has given
them.
If you do not believe they are in
obedience to God, go, leave, go away.
A little leaven leavens a whole lump.
Now, he goes on to say, what effect,
because I want to see revival.
I want to see revival, I want to
see revival, in my own heart, in your
heart, in the church, in the nation, I
want to see revival.
We have to set aside our own wants,
likes, dislikes, feelings, hurts, whatever it might be,
ambitions, and lay it all at the feet
of Christ, and follow heart against him, and
pray, and work.
Now, what effect is this work producing upon
men?
This is again, this Reverend Campbell.
First of all, it is turning Christians everywhere
into evangelists.
Christians want to evangelize.
This is a sign of revival.
They want to tell others.
They want to tell others about Christ.
Truly born again people want to tell others
about Christ, their Savior.
They have been saved.
A truly born again person knows they have
been saved.
From sin, from death, from hell, from everything
they have ever done, though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow.
They know they are saved.
They know they are headed for heaven.
The power of God works powerfully in their
life.
They trust in the power of the gospel.
That is the answer for men.
That is the answer for the country.
The gospel of Jesus Christ.
They are not ashamed.
They want to share it.
He said, this is an interesting story.
This is an encouraging story.
He said, there is nothing more remarkable about
it than that.
I think, he says.
People you never expected to see doing this
kind of thing are becoming definite personal workers.
Let me give you an illustration.
A friend of mine went to one of
the meetings and he walked down to the
meeting with an old friend of his, a
deacon of the congregational church.
A man whose piety no one doubted.
A man who for long years had worked
in the life of the church and some
of its departments.
But a man who never would think of
speaking to men about their souls.
Although he would not have objected to see
someone else doing it.
Isn't that where we are today?
I mean, how many say, yeah, I don't
object.
I mean, that's good.
Go on out.
Do some ministry.
That's great.
I'm not called to do that.
And of course, we are all called to
do more of one thing, less of another.
And there are different ways we do things.
But we need to have a concern for
souls and want to see the gospel spread.
It needs to be a priority.
He says, as my friend walked down with
the deacon, the deacon said to him, I
have 18 young men in the athletic class
of which I am president.
I hope some of them will be at
the meeting tonight.
This is how he started out.
Well, I hope they'll be here.
He was there.
He was hoping these young men would hear
the preacher no doubt share the gospel.
Oh, they heard the gospel.
He said there was a new manifestation.
God was moving by a spirit among them.
Within 15 minutes, this man who never shared
the gospel, who didn't even like to see
the gospel, I mean, I'm sorry, he did
like to see the gospel shared.
This man liked to see the gospel shared,
but he never shared it himself.
He hoped someone else would share it.
Within 15 minutes, he left his seat and
was seen talking to a young man down
in front of him.
Presently, the deacon rose and said, Thank God
for so-and-so giving his full name.
He has given his heart to Christ right
here.
Then in a moment or two, he left
him and was with another man.
And before that meeting closed, that deacon had
led every one of those 18 young men
to Jesus Christ who never thought of speaking
to men about their souls.
Now what if he had never tried?
What if he had said, Well, I hope
someone shares the gospel.
It's not my thing.
I don't do it.
So you see, this is how it works.
The Spirit of God moves on men's hearts.
It's the gospel that has the power, but
men must be willing to be used in
the sharing of it because God has ordained
that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by
the Word of God.
And so this man, as the Spirit of
God worked on his heart, because he was
at the meeting, he was there, he knew
God was doing something, he wanted to see
God do more.
God worked on his heart and he shared
the gospel.
He didn't share the gospel before.
It shows that he was wanting to follow
hard after Christ.
It showed that he was wanting to see
people saved.
Now, the effect produced upon the converts, I'm
skipping way ahead.
If any of you want this article, I'll
make it available for you.
This pastor says that, he says, in two
words, I think, cover the whole thing.
Vision and virtue.
This was the effect of the revival.
Vision and virtue.
What does it say in here?
Young men shall see visions.
I hope some young men that hear this
sermon have some visions.
They want to see revival in their day.
They want to see God do great things
in their day.
They decide, I want to serve God.
Maybe I want to be a pastor.
I want to be a missionary.
And young women too, I hope they likewise
have some vision.
I know I'm not old, but I'm old
compared to some.
I guess I'm dreaming dreams, aren't I?
Well, dreams can come true.
It is intensely cheap and easy, he says,
it is intensely cheap and easy for cold
-blooded men at a distance who know nothing
of Celtic fire or spiritual fire to smile
at this whole thing, this seeing of visions.
But while you smile, these men are seeing
visions.
Now, he wasn't talking about anything weird.
He says, they will tell you crudely of
them perhaps, but it is one of those
strange things that no man can ever tell
of a vision when he sees it, really.
They are seeing God.
Well, but you say, that will pass.
It is passing.
The vision is passing out into virtue.
And men are paying their debts and abandoning
the public house and treating their horses well.
Oh, my masters, did you say the next
revival would be ethical?
It is that, because it is spiritual.
And you will never get an ethical revival
except in this way.
Listen up, those who think that the government
is going to reform, if you think abortion
is going to stop, if you think any
evil in this country will be purged out
without a spiritual revival, that begins in the
church.
Can you continue to stand against those evils,
but understand the reality that we must have
a spiritual revival here, now, in our day,
in the church, to see these evils purged
from our land.
And he said, vision is merging into virtue.
And theatrical companies are packing up and going
back because there are no houses in which
for them to play.
Nobody would let them perform.
And on every hand, there is a sweeping
down those Welsh valleys, a great clean river.
It is a river of God, and men
are being cleansed in it, in personal and
civic relationships.
We are quite willing to appeal to the
coming years about this work, but the evidences
are already present on every hand.
Tradesmen are being startled by men paying debts,
even though the statute of limitation has run
out.
And on it goes.
He goes on to talk about the values
of the movement.
He says, what shall we do?
He is talking, again, to his congregation in
London about a revival that had not yet
come to London.
He said, what shall we do if we
cannot imitate?
But you cannot imitate.
You can't make up a revival.
You can't manufacture a revival.
He says, if we cannot imitate, we can
discover the principles.
What are they?
Let us listen for the Spirit.
Confess Christ.
Be absolutely at His disposal.
Oh, but you say to me, are not
we all that?
Well, I do not know.
I do not know.
I agree with him.
Are you all of that?
I don't know.
Only you know.
And I'll tell you right now, you need
to ask God.
Are you all of that?
Are you listening for the Spirit?
Are you confessing Christ?
Are you at His disposal?
The only way you're going to know is
you go before God with a humble heart
and throw yourself at His feet and ask
Him.
Ask Him.
And while you're at it, ask Him why
He would save a wretch like you or
me.
Did He save us to serve ourselves or
to serve Him?
Oh, but you say to me, are not
we all that?
Well, I do not know.
God, help us to find out for ourselves.
I think we are in terrible danger of
listening to the Spirit and when His voice
speaks to us, quenching Him.
You say something moved me to speak to
that man about his soul, but I do
not like to.
That is how revival is stopped.
Speak to him.
Listening to the Spirit, confessing Christ openly, absolutely
at His disposal.
Now he goes on to say, and I'm
taking excerpts, begin to try and teach along
that line instead of...
He's talking to the leaders, the pastors, the
elders, the evangelists.
Begin to try and teach along that line
instead of treating our congregation as congregations to
be instructed ever in holy things.
Treat them as men and women that are
to be persuaded to holy things and consecration
in Jesus Christ.
And in order to the doing of all
this, what we supremely need is that we
ourselves should be at the end of ourselves.
That we should dare to abandon ourselves with
some amount of passion to our work.
What can I say but amen to what
he's saying?
I've spent hours praying and the very same
words, the very same words come to me
over and over.
We have to be at the end of
ourselves.
We have to be humble at God's feet.
We have to understand where we've been, where
we could be, what we are, that there's
no good in the flesh, that it's the
nature of man to constantly worry about his
flesh, to constantly feed his flesh, because if
you're in the flesh, you have to feed
the flesh.
Now, that might be various ways.
It might be avoiding any kind of hardship
for Christ.
It might be avoiding getting things right in
your life that you know are wrong.
It might be materialism.
It might be entertainment.
It might be pretending to be something you're
not.
It might be all sorts of things.
The flesh dies.
It's the spirit that quickens.
We have to be at the end of
ourselves.
There may be people here today who say,
I've been at the end of myself.
Well, maybe you haven't.
You haven't been at the end of yourself
if you're not following hard after Christ.
You haven't been to the end of yourself
yet.
You haven't really.
Oh, we have been too icily regular, faultily
faultless, splendidly null, he says.
What we need is the abandonment of ourselves
to the great truths we know so well,
to the great forces that indwell.
Let us strengthen the things that remain.
This is what we need.
We know the truth and it's the truth
that sets us free.
We need to abandon ourselves to the truth.
We need to have a total trust in
God.
We need to start thinking about people other
than ourselves.
We need to start thinking about the Lord
forever and always.
Now, I wanted to turn over to Luke
18.
I know I wanted to do that.
I was going to do it earlier and
I forgot.
Sometimes when I preach, many times when I
preach lately, I just don't know what it
is completely that God wants me to share.
I feel inept at letting God use me
to try to share what the Spirit can
do in your life and in my life
if we would really come to the end
of ourselves and trust God and follow after
him.
In Luke 18, I'll tell you one of
the things that will stop us from truly
getting to the end of ourselves and truly
following after Christ and winning whatever battles we
need to win in our own lives against
our own flesh.
This passage speaks of something that can get
in our way.
We often read 1 through 7 as a
great encouragement.
The widow that goes to the judge, avenge
me, my adversary.
He keeps going and going and going.
He says, hear what the unjust judge saith.
In verse 6, the Lord says this, And
shall not God avenge his own elect, which
cry day and night unto him, though he
bear long with them?
Praise be to God, that's very encouraging.
We continue to go to God.
We ask for protection against our enemies, and
we have many.
We ask for justice in the courts, in
the legislatures of our land.
We continue to go, we continue to go,
we continue to go.
And God will execute judgment and justice in
his day.
Truth and righteousness will meet and kiss in
his timing.
But this is interesting because he says, I
tell you in 8 that he will avenge
them speedily.
Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall
he find faith on the earth?
And then he says, and he spake this
parable, Unto certain which trusted in themselves that
they were righteous and despised others.
Do you see the connection?
You see, he says, but will he find
faith on the earth?
And then he spoke a parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others.
Is there any of that in us?
It's been in me at times.
Two men went up into the temple to
pray.
The one a Pharisee and the other a
publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,
God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are, extortioners, unjust adulterers, and
even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week and give
tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, now listen.
Here's the Pharisee.
The thing about these parables is you can
apply them in many different instances.
And this Pharisee, yes, he trusts in his
own righteousness.
This is about works righteousness.
I understand that.
But you also see the arrogance.
I'm not like those people.
And you may be trusting in your own
works more than you realize.
Because you're not like those people.
You don't run a porn shop.
You're not an abortionist.
You don't get abortions.
You're not pro-homosexual.
You're not a statist.
You don't have your children in the government
schools.
You're not like those people.
You go to church on Sunday.
But have you come to the end of
yourself?
Are you following hard after Christ?
Are you seeking His Spirit to manifest itself
in your life?
The power of it, I should say.
And you're looking forward to a new Jerusalem.
And you're saying, God help me in this
brief hour I have on earth to serve
you.
To love you.
Now, you may be trusting in your works
to stay right with God more than you
realize.
You need to do these works.
But these works don't make you righteous.
And you may not be near as righteous
as you think you are.
And God has spoken this to me many
times.
I look at what I should have been.
And what I should be.
And I look at Jesus Christ and His
Word.
And then I feel like the publican.
Suddenly I'm not looking at all these other
people.
Even though I have to deal with these
issues and stand against this wickedness.
I'm not looking at them.
I'm looking at what I should be.
And what I could be even.
And what God is willing to make me.
Though I'll never be perfect this side of
heaven.
I feel like this publican.
Standing afar off, would not lift up so
much as his eyes unto heaven.
But smote upon his breast saying, God be
merciful to me a sinner.
God has not dealt with us as our
sins require.
In the sense that He has given us
a way to be forgiven of our sins.
I tell you this man went down to
his house justified rather than the other.
For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased.
And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
We need to humble ourselves.
Would we see revival in our land, then
we need to humble ourselves.
Or we'll simply be abased.
God be merciful to me a sinner.
Now, this man goes on, this preacher.
He says the church of God needs three
things.
It needs first to set itself to get
things out of the way for God.
I like that.
Get some things out of the way for
God.
He said to his congregation, I appreciate the
almost puzzled look upon some of your faces.
What things?
And then he said, I do not know.
He said all the things that are in
his way.
Your habit that you know is unholy.
Your method of business that will not bear
the light of day.
Your unforgiving heart towards a Christian member.
We can only deal with our own sin
in that sense.
This man, this brother, as I read this
I thought, you're speaking exactly what I'm feeling.
We need to get some things out of
the way.
You need to get some things out of
the way in your lives.
You ask me what?
I say, I don't know.
But you do.
You do.
And God does.
And I'm not saying they're so-called horrible,
huge sins.
I don't know.
But don't grade yourself on a curve.
Our standard is the righteousness of Christ.
And understand that pride and a misplaced loyalty,
stubbornness, all these things stand between you and
having God manifest His Spirit, the power of
His Spirit in your life.
He says, I don't know.
Your habit that you know is unholy.
Your method of business that will not bear
the light of day.
Your unforgiving heart towards a church member.
Oh God, forgive me that I mention anything.
You know, you know.
They're in God's way, these things.
They must be cleared out.
That is the first thing.
There may be other things in God's way.
And he said, any organization in church life
does not make for the salvation of men
as a fungus growth.
And the sooner we drop it off, the
better.
Amen.
We must never compromise the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
We must never enter into ungodly alliances that
compromise the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We must include the gospel of Jesus Christ
in all that we do.
Anything else is a fungus growth.
Drop it off.
Scrape it off.
Get rid of it.
He says, are we ready to put things
out of the way for God?
And then he goes further on and says,
oh, if there's anything, we must be prepared
to sweep everything out for God to have
highway.
That is the attitude the church must be
prepared to take.
Remember John the Baptist?
John the Baptist said, prepare ye the way
of the Lord.
Make his paths straight.
Now, the last paragraph in this message from
this pastor, G.
Campbell Morgan.
He says this.
And this is where he really touched a
chord with me, especially the last part.
But let me read the first part.
There is nothing so important as the saving
of men.
And when the church says that and is
ready, God will come.
There is nothing so important as the saving
of men.
And when the church says that and is
ready, God will come.
This is the most important thing.
Nothing else compares to the saving of souls.
This is the most important thing.
And when we believe that and we're ready,
he says, God will come.
We need then to wait upon him in
earnest, constant prayer.
Oh, brothers and sisters, pray, pray alone, pray
in secret, pray together and pray out of
a sense of London, sin and sorrow.
He's talking to his congregation in London.
It is so easy to be familiar with
these things until they have lost their power
to touch us.
Oh, the sin and sorrow of London.
May God lay it upon our hearts as
a burden.
And out of that agony, let us begin
to pray and go forward.
The moment he opens the door and indicates
the way.
The Bible says much about sorrowing over sin.
We see so many abuses of the gospel
today.
We hear so many attacks upon the deity
of Christ coming from Christians.
So much denial of the power and the
holiness of God.
You know, we're going to take shortcuts.
We're not going to rely on the word
of God and doing it the right way.
We're going to take our own shortcuts.
We're going to put together our own organizations.
We're going to put together our own alliances
rather than sorrowing over that very thing because
it's sin.
Ezekiel had a vision, a vision of God
destroying many in Jerusalem.
And before the destroyers went out, the Lord
said, the Lord sent out a man to
put a mark upon the foreheads of men
that sigh and that cry for all the
abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
So yes, we need to sigh and cry
for all the filth, the immorality, the death,
the rebellion around us.
But we also need to understand that God
stands ready, stands willing to manifest his power
among men.
Zephaniah 1.12 And it shall come to
pass at that time that I will search
Jerusalem with candles and punish the men that
are settled on their leaves.
They're not doing anything.
You know why they're not doing anything?
They say in their heart, the Lord will
not do good, neither will he do evil.
The Lord will not bless, the Lord will
not curse, the Lord will not do anything.
We can just live out our life any
old way.
We can just continue down the path we're
going on.
We can just secure our own salvation.
We think we're the captains of our soul,
I guess.
We'll just go to church, might show up
at a prayer meeting occasionally, might do a
little ministry, read the Bible when we feel
like it, pray when we're in trouble and
say, I'm glad I'm not like that man
over there because look what I do.
And look what he's done.
God be merciful unto us.
We're sinners.
We need to be brought to the end
of ourselves.
Now, he goes on to say, and this
is where he really touched my heart.
And as a pastor, I don't know if
I can explain this to you.
I know I can't.
And for months now, I've had things in
my heart that I can't even explain.
Things that I know that God is willing
to do, maybe on the brink of doing,
but what is he waiting on?
He's waiting on us to come to the
end of ourselves, that's what.
He's waiting for us to get some things
squared away.
He's waiting on us to turn all our
loyalty and love to him.
He says, I do not expect, and especially
the young Christians who I say this, I
do not expect just the same kind of
manifestation God always manifests himself through the natural
temperament.
When he's talking about, he says it may
not happen the same way in London that
it happens in Wales.
I find this kind of humorous.
He says, if you've been over there and
seen the different kinds of people, he says
God always manifests himself through the natural temperament,
and you can never have the poetic fire
and fervor of a Celtic revival in London,
but you can have a stern, hard, magnificent
consecration and results that characterize your own nationality.
So it might be a little different here,
but it'll still be revival.
It'll still be a pouring out of God's
spirit.
He says, are we ready for God?
Now here's where, when I read this, I
said, you're speaking what I'm thinking.
You're feeling what I felt.
You're unable to do what I'm unable to
do.
This man said, I have talked out of
my heart.
I have tried to talk of a fire
that cannot be described.
There's a fire that cannot be described.
You have to see it.
You have to be there.
You have to experience it.
We haven't seen it.
We haven't been there.
Not this kind of a fire, but we
want to be there.
We want to see it.
He said, I have tried to talk out
of the tremendous sense that God is abroad,
and I talk out of the desire that
I cannot express, that somehow, somewhen, somewhere, He
may put out His hand and shake this
city for the salvation of men.
And this is exactly what more and more
I feel in my heart.
I can't explain it.
I can't describe it.
I barely can preach it.
But we need revival.
We need God to move with power in
our hearts.
But God has to do something to us.
We have to do something ourselves.
And there's no gimmicks involved.
There's no 40-day plan that's going to
make any difference.
There's no special music.
What it is, is we have to understand
that we've been polluted, perverted, diverted.
By a worldly Christianity.
And then we've been confused and convoluted by
a Christianity that says it's not worldly, because
it stands against certain things, and yet it's
too much like the Pharisees saying, I'm not
like that man over there.
We need to seek God.
We need to seek Christ.
We need to come to an end of
ourselves.
We need to look at our own lives.
And I'm not just talking about, well, make
sure you're not looking at this or saying
this.
I'm talking about your communion with God.
See, there's nothing more important than your communion
with God.
You and God.
You coming before God, because of Christ, by
the blood of Jesus, and expressing to Him
your thanksgiving to Him.
But also your helplessness.
And telling Him that before you die, you
want to serve Him with power.
You want to experience the power of His
Holy Spirit working in your lives.
You want Him to purge you of all
your selfishness, of all your sin, of all
your failure, of all your weakness, of all
your pride, and make you clean, and make
you holy, and fill you with joy, and
fill you with the power of His Spirit,
and then use you until the day you
die.
For thus saith the High and Lofty One,
and inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.
I dwell in the high and holy place
with Him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of
the humble, and to revive the heart of
the contrite ones.
God will revive the spirit of the humble.
He will revive the heart of the contrite
ones.
He will bring down the pride.
He will destroy the pride.
The prideful ones.
It's your choice.
It's my choice.
Jesus said this, The stone which the builder
rejected, the same has become the head of
the corner.
He said, Whosoever shall fall upon that stone
shall be broken.
You know, you repent and you believe.
But there's a little more to it than
that.
Shall be broken.
There's maybe some pride in us that needs
to be broken.
There's maybe some love of material things.
There's maybe some lack of trust.
There's so many things.
And we never really understand it until we
go to God and He shows us.
Your natural mind, even though you're a Christian,
you're still in the flesh.
The flesh gets in the way and you
don't understand some of the things that you
need to deal with and get rid of.
You don't understand that in some cases you're
dealing with things you're doing and it bothers
you.
But there's some root problems that you need
to deal with, like pride.
Like not being willing.
You just want to be free from something,
but you don't want to be a bondservant
of Christ.
Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be
broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it
will grind him to powder.
Now your choice is, fall on the rock
and be broken in pieces, or be ground
to powder.
That's your choice.
There is no in-between.
There's nothing in-between.
And if Christians will fall on the stone
and be broken, then maybe we'll see revival.
Then we can say at the end of
our life, I fought the good fight.
I finished my course.
I've kept my faith.
Do you ever feel like when you're walking
with God, when you fought the good fight,
you almost say, I wish I could die
right now.
Then they could put that on my tombstone.
That could be my epitaph.
I already did it.
It's done.
It's not the way it works.
Some of us have miles to go before
we sleep.
And we have many promises to keep.
I fought the good fight.
I finished my course.
I've kept the faith.
Psalm 85 6 Wilt thou not revive us
again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?